by Becca Van
Lucius groaned and adjusted his hard, aching cock, and then he began to strip off his clothes. Moments later he dove into the pool and surfaced beside Keeley. She laughed and splashed water into his face and moved away from him. It seemed their mate was in a playful mood. Who was he to deny her some fun?
Chapter Three
Keeley nearly burst out laughing when she saw the surprise flit across Lucius’s face. She had been dying to cool off ever since she had spotted that pool. She knew he had expected her to baulk at his suggestion and become all indignant, but she had called his bluff by stripping down to her underwear. It didn’t seem to matter to him, Liam, or Bradford that she was still partially covered. They had stared at her as if they wanted to eat her up, and she’d had to bite her tongue so she wouldn’t let on that she could see the heat in their eyes.
She couldn’t believe or understand how these three men could turn her on with a glance. She was still wary of them since she didn’t know them, but she also wanted to jump their bones. She remembered the heated kiss she had shared with Liam, and her pussy clenched and leaked more cream onto her panties. She was thankful she was in the water, which would at least stop the three men from sniffing the air again. She had seen them smelling her. Their nostrils had flared, and then they had all looked at her as if they wanted to devour her.
Keeley wondered why she was so accepting of the fact that they were shape-shifters. As soon as she asked herself the question, she realized that this didn’t feel real. The whole thing had a dreamlike quality. How else was she to explain being here when the last thing she remembered from her real life was going to meet Giselle at the club?
It’s not real. The thought thrilled her. If this was a dream, she could do what she wanted.
She was drawn to them and wanted them to touch, kiss, and love her. She had never felt anything like the way these men made her feel.
Lucius surfaced beside her. She smiled and splashed water into his face, laughed at his bewildered expression, and then swam away. She heard two more splashes and knew Liam and Bradford were in the pool, too. She screeched when a hand wrapped around her ankle and began to reel her in. She turned over onto her back, and the laughter she had been about to release died a sudden death. Her breathing escalated and then whooshed from her lungs as she bumped into Lucius’s hard chest.
Keeley looked up into his eyes and was consumed by sensation. He was staring at her with such fire that she couldn’t have looked away even if she had wanted to. He wrapped an arm about her waist and lightly gripped her hair with his free hand. He stared at her and then began to lower his head. She couldn’t seem to help herself. She melted at the first brush of his lips over hers. She sighed into his mouth when he tilted his head and deepened the kiss.
She felt her heart clench, and she wanted to crawl into Lucius’s arms and stay there. She couldn’t get close enough to him, even though she tried. She lifted her arms and clutched at his broad shoulders, mewling with delight as his tongue tangled with hers. Her breasts swelled, her nipples ached, and her clit throbbed. She rubbed the peaks of her breasts on his chest and wrapped her legs around his waist. She was so lost in her passion she even forgot where she was.
She moaned when another set of hands pulled her chest slightly away from Lucius and began to knead her breasts. Her moans grew to sobs that she released into Lucius’s mouth, then to outright cries as she arched her hips and her lace-covered pussy connected with hard male flesh. She pulled her mouth from Lucius’s and gulped in air. The male behind her moved up against her until his chest was touching her back. She opened her eyes and found herself looking into Liam’s hot stare. Her body softened even more. She rested her head back onto his chest and sighed.
She turned her head when she saw movement to her right and gazed into Bradford’s soulful brown eyes. He leaned in and kissed her. She sank into his kiss and savored his taste. She opened up to him and kissed him back with equal fervor. She was vaguely aware of her bra being removed and shivered as her nipples connected with Lucius’s broad, hard chest. She lost herself in the taste of Bradford’s spicy, carnal desire. She mewled in protest when he removed his mouth from hers, and she kept her eyes on his as he slid a hand down her belly beneath the waistband of her panties. She loosed her legs from Lucius’s waist and moved her hips back to give Bradford better access to her.
Keeley closed her eyes and gasped as his fingers slid through her hot folds and lightly touched her clit. She was so turned on that one touch was all it took. She screamed as her body erupted. Her pussy clenched and gushed, shaking as wave after wave of nirvana swept over her. By the time she came back to herself the three men had her out of the water on her back in the grass under a large tree.
She was about to remind them they were outside where anyone could come upon them. But the protest died in her throat when Lucius ripped her panties from her body and dove between her thighs. She cried out as he licked her from ass to clit. His tongue delivered powerful licks, and her passion-soaked mind attributed that to him being a lion-shifter. That was her last rational thought for quite a while.
Keeley keened when Lucius laved over her clit, and then she cried out when Bradford and Liam leaned over her to suckle on her nipples. She was mindless with need and wanted them to fuck her. She clutched at Bradford’s and Liam’s heads, holding them to her so they knew she wanted them to continue. She arched her hips up when she felt Lucius rim his finger around her cunt hole. She tried to wiggle her hips to get his digit inside her, but when she heard him chuckle, she knew he wouldn’t be directed. He obviously didn’t want her taking control of the situation.
He licked over her clit faster and faster, and she gasped with frustration. She was so close again, and she wanted his finger inside her. She couldn’t contain the animalistic growl emitting from her mouth when he slowly began to penetrate her. She bucked again and then sighed as he pushed more of that digit inside her.
She sobbed with frustration when Bradford lifted his head, and even though she tried to look at him, she couldn’t lift her passion-weighted eyelids. She sighed into his mouth when he began to kiss her. She kissed him back with a ferocity that scared her, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
She flinched when Lucius thrust his finger into her cunt and held her breath. The men touching her pulled away from and sat up to stare down at her. Keeley gasped when she saw they were all naked. How could she have missed that? Her gaze slid from one man to the other. Her eyes slid down to Bradford’s crotch, and she gasped. She had thought Liam and Lucius had big cocks, and they did, but Bradford’s was longer and wider. She tried to close her legs but was hampered because Lucius was still sitting between her splayed thighs.
“Keeley, have you never had a man before?” Lucius asked.
She felt her cheeks heat and lowered her eyelashes to conceal her vulnerability. She shook her head and kept her gaze down.
“Look at me, Keeley,” Lucius said gently.
She did and nibbled on her lower lip while she waited to see what he would say.
“You are our mate, baby. We are glad you have had no man between your thighs. We want to make love with you, Keeley, but we also want to claim you. Will you allow us to do this?” Lucius asked.
She stared at him. Something about this was wrong, she slowly realized. If this was a dream, it had been a very good one so far. But their expressions were so serious that she paused. “H–How do you claim me?”
“We will need to mark you to claim you, sweetness,” Liam explained.
“How do you mark me?”
“We have to bite you to claim you as our mate,” Bradford said.
“We need to join our bodies with you at the same time and mark you. It is what we must do to be connected with you in the way of our kind,” Lucius said.
“What? What do you mean at the same time? How is that possible?”
“Sweetness, for our claim to work we must join with you together. One of us will take your pretty little pussy, the other
will take your ass, and the other your mouth,” Liam explained.
“My ass? You have to be kidding, right?”
“No, Keeley. We would never joke about something so serious. We need to join with you together. We have been negligent in explaining things to you. If you are not mated with us by the joining of our bodies and by us biting you with the claiming mark, other species of shape-shifters could claim you as their mate. We want to join with you and take care of you, honey. We want you to be by our sides for all time. Keeley, will you let us join and claim you?” Liam asked again.
“I want to join my body with all of you, but I am not sure about this claiming. Does this mean we will be like, married?” Keeley asked.
“Married? You will be our woman to love and have cubs with if that is your wish. You will be our mate whom we will join our bodies with often. The only woman we will want to join with,” Lucius stated.
Keeley wanted to answer yes, but she hesitated. She didn’t know these men. Sure, they seemed to like her, and they definitely wanted her, but to let them claim her…She just wasn’t ready for that.
“That sounds like married to me. I’m not ready to be married yet. I’ve only just met you. I’m sorry but I can’t do this. I need more time,” Keeley explained.
She flinched when Lucius growled, rose to his feet, and began to pace. She wished she felt comfortable enough to tell them otherwise, but she was determined to stand her ground. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not the answer you want and I didn’t mean to lead you on. You three affect me like no one else I’ve ever met. Once you start kissing and touching me I can’t seem to think anymore. Is it possible for us to make love even though you can’t claim me?”
“If we make love with you, we will want to bite you and claim you. We can control ourselves, so if you don’t wish us to mark you as ours, we will not do so. But if you are willing, our lovemaking will be so much more pleasurable. The choice is yours to make, Keeley. We will not touch you if you do not wish it, and I promise you, we will not claim you if you say you don’t want to be claimed,” Bradford stated.
Keeley felt so torn. She wanted to make love to them, but she wanted to know them better before she did. She wanted to know what it meant to be claimed, too. She wasn’t ready to join her body with theirs just yet.
She cringed when Lucius spun around to give her a heated stare, and then he took off running. From one step to the next he changed from man to beast, and his roar of frustration echoed in her ears. Liam rose from her side and changed before her. She flinched as his muscles contorted, his bones cracking and popping. He gave her one last look with his now-golden, glowing irises and leapt away. She looked up into Bradford’s soulful brown gaze. He didn’t say a word to her, but she made herself meet his stare. He got to his feet and began to change before her eyes.
His body thickened even more, his muscles expanded, and dark-brown fur erupted over his skin. His body made the same cracking and popping sounds, and then he was a bear. His roar of frustration nearly deafened her, and then he began to walk away. He didn’t look back.
She wished could turn into an animal and run, too. She was just that frustrated. She stood up, ran to the pool, and jumped in, heedless of the fact she was still naked. She swam until she was so exhausted she could barely move. She got out of the water and struggled into her clothes. She sat down on the stone bench, her shoulders slumped with dejection, and wondered what the hell she was doing here. Where is “here” anyway? How am I going to get home?
She looked up when she heard a noise off to her side and gave a wan smile to the tall blonde-haired woman staring at her. She stopped smiling when she saw the fury in the woman’s eyes. She stood as the woman walked toward her.
“You are so stupid for a female. You have just rejected your mates, for which I am eternally thankful. Liam and Lucius are mine and now they will seek out my bed again. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t see what they see in you.”
Keeley was hurt by the woman’s words, and pain lanced her heart. She sucked in a breath and released it. She tried to wipe all emotion from her face but knew she hadn’t succeeded when the woman smirked at her.
“You are such an ugly bitch,” the woman continued. “They will never take to you like they do me. You are not even part of this world, you can’t change shape like we can, and your hair is so disgusting. Not like the golden manes our woman are graced with. Do you really think they will come back to you now that you have rejected them? You may as well leave now. Come, and I will show you the way.”
She cried with pain when the female moved toward her, grabbed her wrists, and dug her nails into her skin. She looked down to see claws protruding from the tips of the female’s fingers, claws which were embedded in her forearm. Keeley jerked her arm free those nails sliced her skin open. She bit her lip against the pain.
The she-bitch grabbed her again and pulled her through the garden to a gate standing open near the back. She shoved Keeley through and slammed the gate behind her. She heard the taunting laughter moving away from her. Even after the silence fell, Keeley didn’t want to go back inside. Why should she, when her men had left and the others seemed to hate her?
She began walking along the track, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, and not once did she look back.
Keeley had no idea where she was going and didn’t care. Her arm hurt and blood dripped from the ragged tears the bitch had given her. She was hot, tired, and depressed. She wanted to lie down, curl up into a ball, and sleep, but she didn’t give in to her despondency.
She jumped when she heard a loud roar and hoped she didn’t meet any other lions or bears. She began to laugh and couldn’t seem to stop.
Keeley stumbled and fell to her knees on the moist ground. She clutched her stomach and laughed until the laughter turned to great, wracking sobs. She was so exhausted once the turmoil passed that she curled up at the base of a tree trunk and fell asleep.
* * * *
“Our mate does not want us. How are we to survive knowing she is there but will not accept us?” Liam asked his brother.
Bradford wasn’t yet accustomed to sharing a telepathic link with the lions, but he was getting used to it. Even a day ago the idea of sharing a mate with a pair of lions would have made him balk. Now he only wished their mate would accept them.
He tried to focus on the feel of the earth beneath his paws, the breath sawing in and out of his lungs as he ran. Running cleared his head.
“That is not what she said, Liam,” Bradford told the lions. “Our Keeley was willing to join her body with our bodies, but without the mating mark. She didn’t refuse. She said she needed more time. We have to be patient and give her time to know us more. She has been here less than a full day and we are already asking her to mate with us. We all know it takes time to woo a mate, but it is different for Keeley. She is not of our species or even of our plane. She is in a strange place with people she does not know. Think of how she must feel. She is probably feeling alone, afraid, and very vulnerable. Give her time to get used to us and our ways and where she is.”
Bradford felt proud of this insight, but Liam shook his head wearily. “You know how hard it is to control our beasts when we are around females, Bradford,” he said. “I didn’t think it would be so damn hard around our mate. I nearly lost control, for Goddess’s sake. I felt and smelled her fear. She is not going to want us to be around her anymore.”
“Yes, you did scare her and so did I,” Bradford replied. “But she did not run as her instinct told her to. Deep down, Keeley trusts us and knows we won’t hurt her. She would never have let us touch her if she didn’t have feelings for us.”
“She did do that, didn’t she?” Liam replied.
Bradford slowed his pace. Liam and Lucius came to a halt midstride to each land gracefully on all four paws. A terrible feeling settled in Bradford’s heart, one which even the freedom of letting his bear run couldn’t dispel.
“We may have hurt our m
ate badly by the way we have acted,” he said. “We left her when she was afraid and hurt. I think we should go back and talk to Keeley. She could take it into her head to leave.”
The idea of Keeley leaving chilled him. Bradford hoped Keeley was still in Liam and Lucius’s bedchamber when they returned, but he didn’t want to wait another moment before he found out. He turned around and retraced his own tracks as fast as his bear would let him. He lost sight of the two lions and picked up his pace.
As soon as he returned, he was going to take Keeley into his arms and hold her. He needed to offer her comfort and in turn savor the feel of her in his arms.
Chapter Four
Keeley came awake with a start. She scrambled to her feet when she saw two strange men standing over her. She backed away from them but only managed two steps before her back hit the tree.
“Are you all right, little one?” one of them asked her.
She nodded her head and tensed when the taller of the two moved toward her.
“Don’t be afraid, we will not hurt you. You are wounded. We want to help you.”
She didn’t respond, just stood staring at the strange men. She didn’t know them and was too wary to speak.
“I am Cedric and this is my brother Hugh. We are of the panther clan. Our mate is Olivia, and if you will come with us, we will take you to our home and see that you are cared for.”
Keeley took a step toward Cedric and then another. She felt more secure now that she knew these men had a mate.
“How were you injured?” Hugh asked her.
She didn’t answer but shrugged her shoulders instead. What did it matter now? She didn’t care. She just wanted to find a way to get back home.
