by R. E. Butler
She had no idea what to say to that, so she just took his offered hand and followed him to the couch. In one quick move he flung them both to the couch and landed on his back, propped up against the plush arm of the couch. She nestled perfectly in the V of his legs, her back against his chest.
“That was very smooth.” She tipped her head back to smile at him.
“Every now and then I can pull off something like that.”
She reached up and clasped her hand at the back of his neck. She pulled him down to meet her as she came up, and their mouths met. His arms were around her, holding her close against him, as their tongues slid together. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d enjoyed kissing so much, or even had been kissed so much, in all her life, but the three men in the den were experts. His hands roamed gently down her body. His heated touch through the thin cotton shirt felt like a brand on her skin.
He groaned softly as the kiss ended. “You have the fucking best mouth, Lys.”
She smiled at the compliment. Here was yet another first. She’d never been complimented so much in her life, either. And there wasn’t a fake word out of any of their mouths. The truth was very clear; it shone in their eyes when they spoke to her. She couldn’t believe it, but someone loved her. Not just one someone, but three of them. She felt like the luckiest girl in the world and a little part of her she’d thought was long dead began to beat again.
The thought of love puzzled her a little. She rested back against Cairo and drifted off in thought. They all said they loved her. They gave her incredible pleasure without asking for anything in return. And they hadn’t even tried to do anything more than what she was comfortable with. Although she’d been held closely while they slept, no wandering fingers tried to see how far they could push her, no pleas were whispered in the dark for sex or touch. It was all so foreign that she felt like she’d woken up in another world. But it was an incredible world, and one that she wanted to stay in for a long, long time.
She remembered then that she’d wanted to ask them about the girl who ended up down with the wolf pack, and talking about anything but Grady seemed like a good idea. She wiggled around until she was facing Cairo and rested her chin on her upturned palm. “What happened with the girl who worked there before me?”
“The receptionist?” He looked puzzled.
“No, the one who did the group fitness classes, the human.”
His face shadowed unhappily. “She was a mistake, Lys. Why do you want to know?”
“You guys have a lot of regrets about her, so I wondered what happened.”
Dante suddenly spoke from the end of the couch, and she had to shift to her side to look at him. “She was my fault. I thought that she would fit into our lives, but neither Cairo or Mason ever thought she was right for us. I pushed anyways; I was so damn tired of being alone.” He sat down on the wooden coffee table in front of the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. He looked incredibly sad and almost...guilty. “When the pack came around, she practically dove into one wolf’s arms. I always figured we were friends, but in the end it became clear that she didn’t see us as more than employers and acquaintances.”
“She liked Mase,” Cairo said quietly, stroking her back. “But she seemed to think we would hurt her or force her. She looked at us like we were...animals.” She cast her eyes up to his face and although he tried to settle the emotions coursing through him, the hurt radiated off him.
She knew one thing for sure: the three men in the den with her were not even close to animals. She felt badly for all of them. It was difficult enough to find a mate when you were just by yourself, but to have to also find someone willing to accept more into the relationship? She couldn’t imagine. But here, in their presence, she felt at peace. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt like she was home. Her wolf growled an agreement in her mind and she relaxed in the sweet knowledge that she’d found her mates.
She sat up and Dante moved next to her on the couch. Cairo sat up as well, and they both hugged her tightly between them. Her eyes stung with tears. She wanted to tell them that she loved them, but her old fears kept her mouth shut. She had the weekend to explore this new life they were offering her, and when the time was right, she would tell them exactly how she felt.
Mason broke the silence that had settled over them when he came into the front room with a laptop. “So I did a little digging,” he said as he sat down on the coffee table. He punched a few keys and then looked up when no one said anything. “What’s up?”
Dante kissed her temple and settled back against the couch, and she and Cairo joined him. “We were just hugging our girl.”
She smiled encouragingly at Mason. Mason’s eyes crinkled as he smiled back. She suddenly realized that Dante, Cairo and Mason were more than just mates for her, more than future husbands and lovers, they were fully intent on being her friends, too. They didn’t want her as just a wife or a mother for their children, they wanted her to be their equal, and it all began with this little weekend kidnapping/seduction. It would be hard, but she could get over her fears and embrace them. If they could overlook her past, then she was a fool to hold onto it.
“Okay, so on the surface Grady appears to be just your average scumbag. He boxed in the pro-circuits in his early twenties but got kicked out for steroid abuse. He decided to train others instead of fighting himself. He’s opened a few gyms over the last twenty years, mostly in the southwest. When the underground fights started including weres, he decided to get in on the action, not only finding weres to fight for him, but taking wagers as well.” He pressed a few buttons on the laptop and turned it around to face them. Several news articles were visible, mentioning suspicious deaths related to illegal boxing.
“He was suspected of being responsible for some deaths over the years, mostly fighters who died due to their injuries in his training centers. No one was ever able to prove anything. He settled in Dalton about five years ago, and there’s been no real trouble from him or his goons. If he’s been using violent means to make his boxers win, then no one has gone to the police about it. He’s got some ties to bigger bookies in the Northeast, but although he took a big hit when Cairo won the last fight, he seems to be okay financially.”
“His order to have Cai fight for him may just be about saving face more than making up the money that he lost,” Dante mused.
Alyssa asked, “What are we going to do?”
Cairo grunted and she turned to look at him. “Well, I’m sure as hell not going to box for him, now or ever.” His fierce gaze met hers. “We’ll keep you safe, sweetheart, no matter what. He’s just a pathetic human with an overinflated ego.”
Mason smiled at her reassuringly. “When Cai doesn’t show up on Friday to box, he’ll get the message.”
She wanted to ask them what they thought would happen when Grady ‘got the message’, but Dante trailed his fingers up her arm and kissed her cheek. “Trust us,” he whispered, and all thoughts about her safety, and theirs, fled.
Chapter 12
So much had changed over the last two days. Dante hated that she’d been injured in the gym and that those men had attacked her, but he was grateful that she was there with them now.
Cairo cracked his neck and stood up. “I’m going to take a walk out to the fire pit, check on things.”
Dante nodded at him and Alyssa said, “Can we all go?”
Dante tipped her chin up. “You don’t want to see that, baby.”
Shaking her head, she said, “No, I know that. I’d just like to go for a walk, all of us, if that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay. Anything you want, you just have to ask,” he promised. She still seemed in awe of their desire to see her happy. The look on her face spoke volumes. It would probably take a long time before she truly understood just how much they loved her and what that meant to them. From this point on, there was no one for them but her. Even if she walked away from them, there would never be another. He co
uld see so clearly now the difference between lust and love. Lust was mild and light, the stuff of torn clothes and quickies. Love was heavy and hot, a flame that never died.
Mason appeared with a pair of his sweat pants. He was the shortest of them, but only by an inch. If Dante had planned things better, he would have stopped by her apartment when he was getting the gym doors fixed and packed a bag for her, but the only thing he could think of when he was gone was getting back home to her.
The sweats had a drawstring, so when she stood up, Mason tied them as tightly as he could and rolled the bottoms until her feet poked out. Once she had socks on, and a pair of spare tennis shoes with more socks stuffed in the bottoms so her small feet would fit, they grabbed light jackets and headed out.
The late afternoon air was warm from the sun, but the fall chill was upon them. He could feel winter calling to him, urging him to take shelter and stay warm. Normally he hated winter; it was just a reminder that they were all alone. But now he welcomed the cold in the air, and it was Alyssa’s presence that changed things.
She walked between him and Mason, holding their hands. Conversation flowed easily as she asked them questions about their family and growing up with three fathers. He had never thought of it as odd, but it wasn’t normal for wolves. She said that some wolves shared a mate, and that she knew of a few packs that wanted to keep their lines pure, where two or three males would share one female as a mating group.
“Mostly, though,” she said thoughtfully, “wolves are jealous by nature and possessive. And I know in my old pack, they wouldn’t have approved of a group mating. Even though we’re different from humans, there are still those who are judgmental about how others live their lives.”
“To each his own,” Cairo said.
“It would be nice if the world worked that way, but it doesn’t always. What, um,” she tugged on their hands and stopped and they crowded around her. “What will your family think of me?”
Dante squeezed her hand. “They’ll love you, baby, because you’re our mate.”
Mason frowned. “What’s troubling you?”
Her lips pursed and then she said, “I’m not a hyena. Our kids may not be hyena. I’ve lived a long time on the outside looking in, I wouldn’t, I don’t, I mean....oh shit.” She pulled her hands away, pressed them to her eyes and took in a few deep breaths.
Dante growled in his throat and pulled her hands away. Her eyes were filled with tears, and it struck him dumb for a moment before he remembered what he was going to say. “Baby, hyena clans aren’t like wolf packs. The community where our parents’ clan lives is filled with clans that are part of our family. Aunts and uncles and cousins. Some of them have taken mates from other groups. The truth is that few female hyenas are born, so while there are some older clans that think we should stay pure, they don’t live with our parents. Their community is open and accepting. When we go see them in the spring, you’ll see. Hyenas are made to support each other. Another clan would never disparage a clan’s mate, or they’d be up to their eyeballs in a fight.”
Mason put his arms around Dante and Cairo and looked at his brothers. They put their arms around each other quickly, caging her in the middle. “Look, love,” Mason grinned. “You’re not on the outside anymore. You’re the very center of our world.”
“Universe,” Cairo amended.
The tears spilled over her cheeks but her smile told him they weren’t from worry but from happiness. Their arms unwound from each other as they pulled her into a tight group hug before kissing the tears from her cheeks and continuing their walk.
* * * * *
Cairo left Alyssa with his brothers on the periphery of the clearing and looked into the fire pit. Another few days and the bodies would be completely gone; already they were nothing but blackened bone and ash. Gathering wood, he laid it out in the pit, doused it with accelerant and watched it blaze to life. He stared into the depths of the flames and remembered exactly why they had killed those men. They hurt Alyssa. And now, they wouldn’t hurt anyone again, especially not his sweetheart.
He turned back and watched his brothers and Alyssa together. She fit so perfectly in their clan. He finally knew what his fathers had told him for so many years, that once they found their mate, they would know it. The women before, the ones that they’d hoped might be the right fit but never were — they all paled next to the rightness of Alyssa in their lives.
And his brothers were as happy as he’d ever seen them. He was, too, in fact. Now that she was with them, now that she knew what was going on between all of them, she was gradually accepting her importance to them. They had a ways to go, he thought, but in the whole scheme of their lives it didn’t matter how long it took for her to love them back.
“Cai?” Alyssa called his name and he snapped out of his reverie and grinned at her. He loped forward, caught her up in his arms and swung her around. She laughed, letting her head fall back and closing her eyes, looking carefree and youthful, just like she should. Her feet hung down, not touching the ground, as he held her tight to his chest and she looked into his eyes. “Penny for your thoughts.”
He let her slide down his body until her feet were firmly on the ground. Grasping her hands in his, he thought of the hundred things he could say right at that moment and went with the most truthful. “I’m really glad you’re in our lives, Lys.”
Her sweet smile lit up her face and she hugged him before turning to his brothers and hugging them, too. They resumed their leisurely walk around their property, and when they reached the house, they went back down into the den.
After dinner, they lounged on the couch to watch a movie, Alyssa sprawled across all three of their laps while the movie played on the flat screen. She fell asleep with her head on Mason’s lap, and they put her to bed and settled around her, he and Dante on either side of her sweet curves and Mason next to him.
“You heading out?” Dante whispered the next morning, waking up as Cairo stopped to slip on his tennis shoes.
“Yeah, I want to get in a little early and make sure everything is cool.”
“Later,” Dante yawned, turning back to Alyssa and easing her closer. Mason woke up just enough to take Cairo’s place at her back and was already breathing deeply in sleep.
He really, really didn’t want to go to work, but they had responsibilities and clients. Not that any of that seemed important now, when the center of his universe was still sleeping soundly between his brothers.
Dante had done a good job of cleaning up while the glass company repaired the front doors, so all Cairo needed to do was sweep up one last time and hang a plaque over the hole in the wall where Dante had knifed the guy’s hand.
By the time Alyssa came in with Dante, Cairo was going through some serious withdrawal. Spending two solid days with her had been like visiting heaven for a short while. He wanted an all-access pass, all the time.
“Hey beautiful.” He came up behind her in the break room as she tucked her purse into one of the staff lockers. He planted his hands on either side of her head as she turned around slowly and met his eyes.
Her hands slid around his shoulders to his neck and she pulled him down for a kiss, parting her lips immediately and stroking her tongue against his. She made a sound in her throat that was a cross between a purr and a growl, and every inch of his body tightened, his muscles gripping his bones as his cock strained against his workout shorts. As her hand moved down towards his cock, he caught it and pressed it against the locker and pulled away from her slightly.
“But I want to touch you, Cai.” She wiggled in his grasp as he caught her other hand and held her captive against the lockers.
Oh, hell. “I know, baby, and I want to touch you, too. But if you start touching me, then I’m going to have a hard time controlling myself. We told you, baby, that the first time that we make love, it will be all of us together. It’s the way of our people and important for our clanning.”
“Clanning?”
“W
hen we mark you as our bride and you accept us as your clanmates.”
She frowned and stopped moving. He hated to see her losing the fire in her eyes. “You don’t think I’m ready.”
“There’s no time frame; we’re not on a schedule. This is about all of us, and everything is still so new for you. So no, I don’t think you’re ready, but neither do my brothers.”
He watched her carefully as she stared at him in silence. Emotions flickered fast over her face — fear and rejection first, and then a spark of hope that bloomed and heated with affection.
“You’re so good to me. All of you.” Her smile lifted the corners of her perfect mouth and the hint of gleaming white teeth greeted him.
“You deserve it, baby.”
* * * * *
Thursday night, Mason traced invisible patterns across Alyssa’s bare stomach as she panted for breath after her fourth orgasm. Her eyes were bright and unfocused, her lips swollen from kissing him and his brothers, and her body twitched uncontrollably from time to time as pleasure washed over her again and again. It was as if her body had instant recall and was reminding her how good climaxes were by giving her a flashback.
