He rolled after a moment, carrying her with him, carrying her beneath him, and surged into her. She broke from his lips, gasping in pleasure as she felt his slow possession, felt her body engulfing that part of him that seemed made especially for her. The pleasure that inundated her as he moved within her was far more than the physical. She felt the pleasure of soothing his wounds and the pleasure of feeling as if she was a part of him and he was a part of her.
And when she came, it was as if those pleasures all united as one, shook her to the core of her being, and transcended mere earthly pleasures. It seemed to sooth her own doubts and fears and lay them to rest. No dark thoughts intruded as she lay curled against him afterwards, enjoying the shelter of his big frame curled around hers and the almost idle stroke of his hands.
No sense of passing time or urge to retreat to her own bed caused ripples of unquiet.
It felt right and good to stay right where she was and make love with him until they were both thoroughly exhausted and slept at last.
Unfortunately, the first fingers of dawn had barely reached across the sky when the real world reasserted itself.
Chapter Eight
The jarring blow to Eli’s shoulder jerked Marlee from deep sleep when it jostled her, as well. Her eyelids popped open automatically, but the burn made focusing her vision impossible.
Her eyes instantly watered and blurred so that the dark form looming behind Eli was too wavering and indistinct to identify.
“Get up and get dressed, Eli. It’s your shift,” Gabriel growled.
Despite the repressed violence in Gabriel’s voice, Marlee merely groaned and rolled over when Eli bounded out of the bed and disappeared, convinced she’d grasped the reason for the rude awakening. For several moments after the door of the bathroom had slammed closed, she felt Gabriel’s gaze on her, but he finally turned and left as the sound of the shower filtered into the room.
Uneasiness prickled at her, but she discovered her mind was simply too sluggish to try to untangle the puzzle and drifted away again. She’d barely submerged when she felt a stinging pop on one buttock. Eli dove at her even as she reared up in surprise. Rolling her onto her back, he covered first one breast and then the other in a vigorous, open-mouthed salute that lasted just long enough to cause a stir in her belly and annoy the shit out of her, planted a hard, almost bruising peck on her lips, and then disappeared.
Uttering a mildly irritated huff, she snuggled down into the pillows again and sought sleep. She had just reached the threshold once more when all hell broke loose downstairs with a clatter of scraping, overturning furniture and the tinkling sound of shattering glass. The noise brought her up from the bed as if she was a puppet controlled by an unseen hand. Instinct, not thought, drove her from the room and toward the sound to identify the threat.
In the great room below her, she managed to identify all six of the Bear brothers. Three of them were merely standing in a wide legged stance of anger, their arms folded, watching. The other three, which included Eli, were trading blows among the wreckage of the great room.
Marlee gaped at the scene below her without comprehension, struggling to make sense of it when she didn’t see any sign of an intruder at all. The flying blond hair made it easy to identify the other two combatants—John and Gabriel—but she couldn’t produce any explanation for the fight.
Eli seemed to be the focus of everyone’s anger, however, and that aroused a surprisingly strong protective instinct in her. “Stop! What are you doing? What’s going on?”
It had a surprising, and someone unnerving, effect on all of them. All six froze and lifted their heads to stare at her. To a man, they seemed just as furious about her interference as they had been with Eli.
“Go!” Eli bellowed at her in a voice that made her jump all over.
She set her jaw mulishly, however. “Not until somebody tells me what the hell is going on!”
All six men bellowed at her in unison that time. “Go!”
Marlee retreated several steps before her anger overcame her sense. “Fine!” she yelled back at them. “Somebody tell me where the hell they put my car and find my damned keys! I’ll get my things!”
That wiped the anger off their faces. For a handful of moments they gaped up at her blank faced. Then the dark scowls descended again and Gabriel, John, Joshua, Luke, and Aaron all bent accusing glares on Eli.
“Fuck!” Eli burst out. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Like hell!” Gabriel snarled.
“I think you’ve ‘talked’ to her enough!” John snapped.
When Marlee saw the three of them converging on the stairs, she decided retreat was the better part of valor. Whirling, she raced toward the room Gabriel had lent her, darted inside, and slammed and locked the door. She was debating whether or not to build a barricade when she heard a short scuffle outside the door. There was a single, hard blow, to the door near the lock and the panel flew inward, hit the wall behind it hard enough to crack the plaster and leave an imprint of the entire door and then rebounded, slamming into Gabriel’s shoulder as he followed the kick that had wrecked the door.
Marlee didn’t see any sign of Eli or John, but the look on Gabriel’s face was enough to galvanize her flight instincts—not, unfortunately, enough to kick start any sort of higher brain function! Letting out a shriek, she came up off the floor a good foot, whirled mid-air, and hit the floor again peddling. She could hear Gabriel’s pounding footsteps behind her as she dashed mindlessly around the room in search of an avenue of escape in a zigzagging pattern that took her across the bed and helped her elude capture for a handful of moments but didn’t reveal the possibility of escape she was searching for. He finally managed to corral her in the corner of the room where two windows overlooked the back and side yards of the house.
She stopped struggling to get one of the windows open and shuttled back into the corner between the two when she discovered Gabriel was too close to allow for the possibility of getting the window open and climbing out of it. Clearly content to have boxed her in, Gabriel halted abruptly.
She stared at him distrustfully for a moment and then flicked a glance at the window she’d been trying to open. It was locked, not stuck as she’d been convinced it must be.
Gabriel released a disgusted huff. “Nobody meant for you to leave,” he said after a long moment.
Marlee stared at him, feeling the blind panic slowly give way to a modicum of rational thought. “Yes, well, thanks! But I think I will, just the same.”
His expression hardened for a moment. He seemed to wrestle with himself and finally managed to relax fractionally. “You can’t leave. You know that. They’re looking for you. This is the only place you have any hope of being safe.”
Marlee blinked at him, digesting that. “Obviously you and I have different interpretations of ‘safe’. Anyway, it’s my problem.”
His lips tightened. “It’s our problem.”
Marlee set her jaw stubbornly. “It’s my problem! I’m the one that’s pregnant! Anyway, it’s either John’s or Eli’s. They wouldn’t find anything to interest them even if they did catch me—not that I mean to let them.”
“One is mine ….” He stopped and wrestled with his temper again. Apparently, he decided to try a different tact. “We’re brothers. Sometimes—very rarely—we get into an argument and things get out of hand a little bit ….”
Marlee gaped at him in disbelief. “A little? You guys trashed the room!”
He ground his teeth. “We just didn’t want you to get into the middle of it and maybe get hurt.”
“Oh! Believe me, I don’t want to get in the middle of it! I don’t know what it was all about and I don’t want to know. Obviously, it’s some kind of family thing and you guys are used to settling arguments with your fists. But I’m not used to this kind of thing and I don’t want to be dodging flying pieces of furniture or bodies!”
“You won’t be. I swear it! It won’t happen again.”
Marlee searched his face, but she couldn’t see anything but grim determination in his eyes or his expression. “Look … aside from the fact that there’s no way you can make that kind of promise when you have five brothers who all have minds of their own—and really bad tempers—I’m the outsider here. I think I’m the stresser in this situation. Everybody will be much better off if I just leave.”
“That’s where you’re dead wrong,” he said grimly. “The babies … The baby’s a part of this family and that makes you a part of it.”
Marlee smiled thinly. “I appreciate the fact that Eli and John are willing to take responsibility … even though I have my doubts that they really are—even legally if they were high on something like Eli said. I mean, it could be argued that they weren’t in full possession of their facilities at the time. As far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly willing to relieve them of any responsibility on those grounds, anyway.
“I can’t hide out forever, though, for god’s sake! Eventually, they’re going to figure out where I am and I’m not really worried about it anymore. The baby’s either John’s or Eli’s—not the product of some alien or big foot or anything like that. As soon as they see they don’t have a weird hybrid—just an ordinary baby—they’ll lose interest and I can have my life back. No harm, no foul. They can even have visitation once we figure out who the father is. I don’t have a problem with that if that’s what’s worrying you guys.”
Despite the fact that Marlee felt like she’d presented a very reasonable argument, Gabriel looked like he wanted to chew nails by the time she finished. “Be reasonable, Marlee.”
“I am being reasonable,” she said somewhat testily.
“You think they’re just going to take your word for it that … two Native Americans hopped up on a hallucinogen dragged you off to a cave and impregnated you? They’ll haul you off to some top secret facility and run tests ….”
Marlee felt the first crack in her confidence—because she knew he was right—and she didn’t want to disappear into some creepy government facility even if they didn’t keep her very long. “And the tests will show that it’s just an ordinary baby,” she said stubbornly.
Gabriel looked like he wanted to pull out his hair. “So you’re willing to risk them killing it with their damned tests? Is that it? Maybe you’re hoping they will and then you won’t have to worry about whether to abort it or not?”
“That is completely unjust! The only reason I considered that at all was because they’d suggested it wasn’t human and I was afraid something would be terribly wrong with it! You sound like Eli, damn it! Like I’m some kind of cold blooded monster that would consider killing my baby just for my convenience! How the hell do you think I could protect a … hybrid, especially if it didn’t look human? It would be in danger its entire life! They’d never stop looking for it and if they caught it, it would be a lab rat for their experiments! I’m a monster because I couldn’t bear the thought of my baby having to endure that? Being hunted? Having no chance for any kind of normal life?
“Well! I don’t give a damn what you think of me! That is the only reason I thought about it—thought about it, didn’t do it!—whether you believe me or not!”
“Then you’ll stay here and let us protect it. It’s our seed,” Gabriel said grimly. “Once it’s born, you can have your life back and leave it to us.”
Marlee’s anger flared at that comment and she forgot caution. “It’s my egg and my nest, god damn it! Don’t you believe for one moment,” she snarled through gritted teeth, stabbing him in the chest with her forefinger, “that you’re going to separate me from my baby! Maybe you’re all harboring mother issues because your poor mother died and you see it as being abandoned. I don’t know, but I won’t be leaving my baby anywhere!”
The anger glittering in his eyes died abruptly. Amusement flickered to life and something else she didn’t entirely grasp. “You’re as fiercely protective as a dragoness,” he murmured.
The comment and the abrupt shift in his mood threw Marlee completely off kilter. She gaped at him, too stunned to put up even a token resistance as he caught her finger and guided her arm around himself, abruptly jerking her up against his length. “Stay with us, little dragoness. Whatever our own battles, we’ll protect our dragoness, our babies, and their nest,” he murmured huskily, sealing the bargain with a kiss that threw her into further disorder.
———
Marlee wasn’t actually in any frame of mind to effectively analyze anything she’d collected by way of impressions or even information for several days after she’d arrived at the cabin the brothers shared—not the Bear brothers as she’d originally thought. Every single one of them claimed a different last name, she discovered on her third night when she asked John if he used Standing Bear or just Bear as his last name.
He was intent on his task. “White Wolf,” he replied absently and then seemed to realize what he’d said and sent her a sharp look before he glanced at Eli.
Eli’s expression hardened, but he focused on the meat he was browning.
Marlee stared at him, frowning in confusion. “Eli said his father was Standing Bear and that was why he used that for his last name.”
John cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s a Blackfoot custom to choose your own name … according to your personal totem.”
Eli flicked a look at him, rolled his eyes, and then nodded. “Mine just happened to be the same as my father’s. I saw a standing bear in my first dream walk.”
There was something about his tone that suggested he was teasing her, but he kept his expression carefully neutral. “So what name do the others go by?”
“Gabe is Red Fox. Aaron’s Crow Flies, or Crow, Luke is Panther, and Joshua is ….”
“Tripping Rabbit,” Eli broke in, sending Joshua a provocative look as he entered the kitchen.
John uttered a snort of laughter. “Sometimes we just call him Knock’s Knee.”
Aware of the undercurrents and beginning to suspect what they were implying, Marlee flicked a searching look at Joshua to see how he was taking the teasing. His face was a little red and he looked torn between irritation and amusement, but he didn’t seem particularly insulted or perturbed. He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. “Fat Snake,” he countered, grinning at her.
Eli and John both laughed uproariously at that.
Marlee couldn’t prevent herself from glancing down. She hadn’t even realized she had until the men laughed harder. Feeling her face heat, she decided to leave the kitchen to the men.
“Fat worm, maybe,” John countered, lobbing a chunk of carrot at him.
Joshua neatly caught it and popped into his mouth. He hooked an arm around her waist and drew her against his length as Marlee tried to pass him. Laughter and desire both gleamed in his eyes as he stared down at her. “Gray Fox,” he murmured.
“Not that he drew any wisdom from it,” Eli said in a low growl that was suddenly completely lacking in humor. “Let her go.”
Joshua sent him a level look and then glanced down at her again. With obvious reluctance, he released her.
Marlee divided an uneasy look between the men, wondering if she retreated now if they would immediately come to blows or if it would diffuse the situation if she left.
Eli jerked his attention back to the pan he was supposed to be tending as the smell of burning meat wafted past his nostrils. “Fuck!” he growled, snatching the pan off with his bare hand and looking around for the fork he’d been using to turn the meat.
It immediately distracted Marlee. Sucking in a sharp breath, she surged toward him.
“Put it down!”
Eli glanced from Marlee to the pan in bemusement and abruptly dropped the pan on the counter.
“Did you burn yourself?” Marlee asked sharply, trying to grasp his hand and look at it.
“It’s fine,” Eli retorted shortly, clenching his fist.
“Just let me see!”
Eli sent a look over
her head instead.
“Why don’t you go get the … uh … burn ointment out of my bathroom?” John suggested.
“Good idea!” Marlee said, immediately abandoning the attempt to look at the burn and racing from the kitchen.
“There should be bandages, too!” John called after her.
“Shit!” Eli muttered under his breath. “What now?”
“Brilliant move,” Joshua said tightly.
“Just wrap it in something while she’s gone!” John snapped, then added with a warning growl, halting Eli with a hand in the middle of his chest when he surged toward Joshua. “Don’t do anything stupid!”
“Anything else stupid,” Joshua said pointedly.
“Like pinching your head off?” Eli growled. “It you had a fucking brain I’d worry about it!”
“His brain’s in the head of his dick … and too far from his head to get the signals back,” John said tightly. “You both know what Gabriel said, so cool it or take it the fuck out back!”
Eli was sorely tempted, but John’s reminder washed over him like a cold bucket of water.
If he and Joshua disappeared to work things out, Marlee wasn’t going to be fooled at all.
“Later,” he growled.
“Sure. By the falls?”
Eli nodded, but since he heard Marlee heading for the stairs on the upper landing, he glanced around a little frantically, grabbed a dishtowel and wound it around his palm, tucking the edge in.
“I couldn’t find anything!” Marlee gasped breathlessly. “How’s the hand?”
Eli felt his face heat. “Fine.”
Marlee sent him a look of disbelief, but she could see he was determined not to allow her to touch it. A mixture of hurt and understanding flickered through her. He wasn’t used to being coddled and he wasn’t about to let her start. “Ok. I’ll just get out of the way,” she said after a moment, trying to keep her voice neutral.
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