by Cara Adams
“Sort of. I know where he was six months ago, and I know he wanted to see me then, so I’m just hoping…” She shrugged her thin shoulders and licked the last of the ketchup off her fingers. “You’ve been very kind. Thank you for the origami cat and the hot dog. I suppose I’d better get going.”
But Bianca didn’t want to let her go. There was some mystery, some secret about this woman, quite apart from the fact that she was alone and quite likely homeless. “Wait. Have you somewhere to stay tonight? Would you like to stay in my bungalow? It’s tiny and you’d have to sleep on a futon in the living room, but I’d love to spend more time with you.”
Bethany shook her head. “No, that’s too much of an imposition. But could you drive me to the nearest library. I want to use their computer to find the phone number to contact David and see if he’s still where he was before.”
Bianca pulled out her cell phone. “Use my phone. Google him now.”
Hesitantly, the woman took it and clicked through a few screens. It took her a little while to find what she wanted then she mouthed the number several times, obviously memorizing it, before she made the call.
Being a fox, Bianca’s hearing was excellent so she heard a woman’s voice answer, “Carnal Connections. Lucy speaking.”
“Oh, hi. Um, I’m Bethany Rees, David’s sister, and I wondered if he was still there and I could talk to him, please.”
“Bethany, he often speaks about you. What’s your number there? I’ll get him to call you back.”
“Actually I’m using a friend’s cell phone—”
Bianca smiled and nodded madly, indicating it was fine to give out her cell number. She chanted it to Bethany and the woman repeated it for Lucy, before hitting end call.
“He’s still at the same place, so that’s good news.”
“I haven’t had much contact with him. I’ve been moving around a lot. But I decided it was time to meet up with him again. David was always very good to me. I know the past can’t be revisited, but perhaps we can build a new relationship from where we are now.”
“That’s very wise of you. The past is gone but the future is right there ahead of us waiting for us to have the courage to step out into it,” said Bianca.
And as she said it she understood there was a lesson for herself there in what she’d just said. She was busy telling this stranger to have the courage to try something new. Yet Aragon and Kyan had been trying to get her to make a relationship with them, and she was shying away from it because she might end up getting hurt. Instead of being afraid of what might happen, she needed to take her own advice and step out into the future with courage. If a relationship between two wolves and a fox worked, well, the future was theirs for the grasping. If it failed, she was no worse off than she’d always been. But she’d still have many memories of the times they’d shared together. She needed to stop being so frightened and move forward herself.
Almost immediately her cell phone rang. Bethany was still holding it and stared at it in surprise. “Answer it,” Bianca encouraged her.
“But it’ll be for you.”
“Maybe not. Maybe it’s David for you.”
Bethany swiped her finger across the screen and pressed answer. “Yes?” she said softly and hesitantly.
She must have hit speaker as well, because Bianca could clearly hear various voices.
“Bethany? Bethany? Is that you? Are you okay? Where are you? Can we come visit you?”
“Is that his sister? Has he found his sister at last?”
“Hello, David.”
Bianca watched as a single fat tear trickled down Bethany’s cheek. Well, it looked as though Bethany’s life was well on the way to being sorted out again. Now she just needed to do the same thing in her own life. To tell Kyan and Aragon she was ready to commit to them and hope to hell a fox really could get along with two wolves.
* * * *
Even though Bianca had specifically said she needed to spend the time on her craft, Kyan just couldn’t stay away from her any longer. “They’ll be packing up the market for the night now. Let’s go and help. At the very least we can buy her a chili dog for her dinner even if she won’t spend the night with us,” said Kyan.
“I’m in,” Aragon jumped up and headed for the big barn where the vehicles were garaged.
“We’ll take one of the motorcycles. It’ll be way faster than having to open and close the boom gate and go by the road. We’ll cut through the wild land and enter the old schoolyard from the back.”
Aragon just nodded and climbed on the back of the nearest bike while Kyan collected the keys and signed the bike out.
Kyan couldn’t understand the sense of urgency inside him. Bianca had made it quite clear she needed to concentrate on her craft this weekend and Kyan respected that. She was a creative artist, and besides, it was a small business. If she hadn’t made anything then her sales would be zero, so she needed to put time and effort into her work as well as doing her new day job for the wolves. But he still had this deep need inside him to be with her now. To help her right now. It wasn’t a pain as if she was in danger, but it was a strong intuitive feeling pulling him toward her. He shrugged. Well he was on his way there now and likely all that would happen would be that she’d tell him to go away again, but he couldn’t help it. He had to be with her.
They wove their way around the trees, ducking under low-hanging branches, and wending their way between fallen logs and impenetrable patches of scrubby brush, coming out at the back of the old schoolhouse. And there was Bianca, looking more beautiful than ever with her long red hair in a neat braid down her back, sitting on a picnic bench talking to a woman. Kyan didn’t recognize the woman, not that he knew many of Bianca’s friends anyway.
His cock jerked inside his jeans and his heart lurched in a matching tug at his chest. He wanted her with everything he had. In fact, he would give up everything he had and ever would have, if she’d just say yes and commit to him. He knew he wasn’t the most romantic of men. Hell, likely he was in the bottom fifty percent when it came to romantic. But he loved her and he knew she loved him and Aragon as well. So why ever wouldn’t she commit to them? Sure, there’d been trouble between foxes and wolves in the past. Likely there would be trouble again in the future. But there was trouble inside species as well. Fighting wasn’t reserved for interspecies prejudice. Hell, men and women fought, old and young fought. It was all a matter of learning to get along together. To put the one he loved ahead of himself.
I can do that. I will do that.
He drove the motorcycle onto the schoolhouse property, and toward them, stopping far enough away that they could see him, but that they wouldn’t feel like he’d invaded their privacy or butted into their conversation.
“Do you recognize Bianca’s friend?” he asked Aragon softly.
“No, but I don’t know many women.”
“Yeah, me either.”
Bianca waved to them. “Come and meet Bethany.”
Kyan searched his brain but couldn’t recall a Bethany. He remembered Bianca talking about a few of the women at her old job, but nope, no Bethany. Oh well, he’d just have to hope they hadn’t been friends since kindergarten like Taige, Eve, and Ginnie, and that he’d forgotten being told that.
“Kyan,” he said, smiling at the skinny blonde. He supposed she was attractive, but she was nothing beside his wonderful Bianca.
“Aragon, nice to meet you.” Oops. At least Aragon had remembered his manners even though he hadn’t.
“Bethany’s waiting for her brother to come get her. He had about an hour to travel and that’s maybe twenty minutes ago, so we’re visiting while she waits,” said Bianca.
“You must be very interested in the craft to come so far. Are you an artist as well?” asked Kyan.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to learn, but I enjoy looking at it. See what Bianca made me.”
She held up one of the tiny origami pieces Bianca made while people watched. It was a dark
blue cat, complete to even tiny little ears and a long curved tail. Its back was arched the way a cat will act when it stretches. “It’s amazing. So complete,” he said.
Bianca started chatting, but Kyan was thinking. What kind of school had Bethany gone to that there was no craft taught there? It must have been a very academically focused one he supposed, although she didn’t look like some stuck-up academic sort of person. It was none of his business anyway. He rested his gaze on Bianca. So lovely, so completely perfect. Today. She had to agree to give their relationship a chance today. She had to say they could commit. She was his and Aragon’s. She couldn’t possibly imagine she could ever belong to anyone but them.
He tuned back in. Bianca was talking.
“The hardest part has been finding a venue for the party. There are so many different restrictions on what we want, and we need good security. The last thing we need is someone posting it on Facebook and ten thousand gate crashers arriving. I found a lovely place, some cabins on the edge of town, but they’re going to be closed the week we want to hold the party.”
“That’s a pity. Your date’s not at all flexible?” asked Bethany.
“It could be either the second or the third week of September. But they’re closing all September, or at least the first three weeks, for painting. The last week of August is too soon for us and the last week of September, even if they could get finished early, is really too late.”
“If they don’t have a booking for the last week of August, why can’t they start painting then? That means they’d be finished in time for you to book the third week of September,” suggested Bethany.
Kyan watched Bianca’s eyes open wide, her jaw drop and then she launched herself at the other woman and hugged her. “Dammit, Bethany, you’re a genius. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s the perfect solution. If the painters they’ve booked can’t start early they could begin the work themselves, or find another team to get it started.”
Kyan found himself grinning as Bianca scrabbled for her cell phone and clicked through her contacts. She walked away from the picnic table as the call was answered, and then she paced while she talked. Kyan was content to watch her. Even in the way she marched around the parking lot, there was grace and beauty in her every movement. Her strides were long and smooth, her limbs not jerky or ugly at all. Likely it was the fox in her, but she was poetry in motion and he could sit there watching her forever.
Bianca bounced back to the picnic table. “Sorted. They’ve already been talking with the painting contractor about hiring extra workers so it can be finished faster. Neither the painters nor the conference center has bookings for the last week of August, so they’ll start painting then, and we’re booked in for the third week of September. I’ve got to go handle the paperwork on Monday.”
She ran around the table and hugged Bethany again. “I’m so glad I met you today. That’s been hanging over my head for weeks driving me insane and you fixed it in a nanosecond. You’re wonderful.”
Just then tires crunched on the gravel of the old schoolyard as an estate car pulled into the parking lot. Very slowly it drove down toward them. The vehicle was being driven by a blond giant and had scarcely even come to a stop when the back door of the car opened and a man with the same dirty-blond hair and light blue eyes as Bethany almost fell out of the car and ran to the picnic table. “Bethany! Bethany! I can’t believe it’s you.”
Kyan had no trouble believing this man was her brother. But what was really interesting was that the blond giant wasn’t the only other person in the car. There was a strawberry-blonde female as well, a woman who appeared to be a little older than the two men. Not a lot, but maybe three or four years older. Suddenly Kyan became aware of the scents that had been niggling at his subconscious. Bethany was a shape-shifter and so was her brother. But they weren’t wolves, or foxes or dogs.
So were David, the giant, and the woman, mated into a triad relationship? Was she a shape-shifter, too? Or were his senses leading him astray. No. He was sure Bethany and David were shape-shifters, and almost certain the big man was, too.
Finally David put Bethany down. “Bethany, these are my mates—partners—Galen and Diane. Diane is the accountant at…where we all live, and Galen is a photographer.”
Without missing a beat, Bianca said, “Hi, I’m Bianca and these two men are my partners, Kyan and Aragon. I only met Bethany today but already she’s solved a problem for me that was causing me a lot of hassle. I think she may also have answered another question as well. I expect you’ve all heard of Dr. Oscar Thorne’s shape-shifter clinic, Thorne House Clinic.”
It was the woman, Diane, who answered in the deathly silence that followed Bianca’s comment. “One of our friends is a nurse at the local hospital so we usually send people who are injured there, but every one of our friends knows about Dr. Thorne’s clinic and the amazing work he does.”
David drew himself up to his full height. “We aren’t wolves. Bethany and I are not even pure-blood panthers. Galen is, though.”
“And I’m human. Quite boring really,” said Diane with a smile.
“Aragon and I are wolves. Bianca is a red fox. I’ve heard of people who are part shape-shifter and I’m glad you’ve found a pack that accepts you for who you are.”
“It’s more a community than a pack. There are half a dozen wolves, a larger group of panthers, and a BDSM human community. So quite the mixture, but we all blend together in harmony.”
“Are there any human women among you looking for a wolf or two to mate?” asked Bianca.
Kyan burst out laughing. After all the tension and drama and the risk of exposing themselves to horror, ridicule, or worse, there was Bianca, busy tracking down some women for the DADISP. Fuck, she was a treasure! The sooner he got her to agree to commit to him and Aragon the better.
Chapter Six
They sat and talked until the sun went down and the evening grew cold. They talked about the BDSM community where David, Galen, and Diane lived, “Carnal Connections,” a community that would welcome Bethany into its heart even though she was unskilled and only a part panther. They talked about the DADISP and Bianca and Diane exchanged e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers so Bianca could talk to any unmated human women living there who might consider mating a wolf. They talked about the werewolf pack and they talked about themselves. At the end of their time together Kyan felt he’d made a whole group of new friends, people he’d be perfectly happy to trust with his life, as he’d just shared some of his secrets.
They parted as it grew dark. The travelers had an hour’s trip ahead of them and many friends waiting to meet Bethany.
“Come home with us tonight, Bianca, please.” Kyan felt it was more and more urgent he get her to commit to him. He knew they weren’t supposed to be disturbing her during this craft weekend, but he wanted her so much it hurt.
“Can three of us fit on the motorcycle?”
“What?” Aragon’s voice came out almost as a squeak.
“I need all my things for tomorrow’s craft market. I can leave my car here as long as I warn Ginnie and the others that’s what I’m doing, and we have to put this table and benches away inside the foyer anyway. If we go on the motorcycle to your place I can come back here nice and early tomorrow and make a few things before the market opens.”
“Good plan. Aragon and I’ll put the picnic table in the schoolhouse foyer while you tell Ginnie.”
It didn’t take them long. Actually, it took longer to work out how to fit three of them on the motorcycle. They managed it with Bianca jammed between the two of them on the seat, his cock pressed hard and tight against the crack of her ass.
They rode slowly, not wanting to tip any of them off the overloaded motorcycle, and when they reached pack lands Bianca said, “Take us to that sandy bowl where we fucked the first time. The sand smells very special to me.”
Kyan remembered how it had aroused her last time, and just thinking about it had his dick hard enough to p
ound nails. It wanted out of his jeans and into her ass right now, but that couldn’t happen, although maybe she’d let them fuck her again in the sand.
As they approached the area, he sniffed deeply, but couldn’t make out any unusual scents. However, it certainly affected Bianca. She was almost ripping her clothing off as soon as they got there. Well, he had no problem with that program. It was all his dick had been thinking about for the past ten minutes.
Bianca dropped her clothing beside the bike and walked up the sandy hill, standing proud and naked on the top of it, looking all around. Fates, she was stunning. Her breasts were high, the nipples pointed. Her legs were long, and lean, and enticing. Her cunt was delicious and so wet he could smell her arousal ten feet away.
She threw herself down onto the sand and rolled, then lay on her back, spread her legs and said, “Fuck me.”
Kyan kneeled down and spat on his fingers, then began massaging her dark rear entry. “Suck Aragon’s cock. We don’t have any lube so make sure he’s very wet.”
She had plenty of cream, so he used that as well, massaging it into her walls, softening and stretching them as she licked and sucked on Aragon’s cock. But all three of them were intensely aroused, so he couldn’t be sure if she was truly as well prepared as she should have been. But there was no way any of them could wait any longer. He dropped down onto the sand and lifted her onto his dick. He almost came as she slid down over him. She was so very tight and wet he couldn’t help groaning. He held her delicious body firmly, pushing her hard little nipples into his chest as Aragon crawled behind her and fed his cock into her back door.
Faster than Kyan would have thought possible, they were both inside her and already her pussy was quivering around him. He held tight to her hips, trying to prevent her from coming too fast, as he and Aragon withdrew, then powered in. On their second stroke she shattered with a scream, her cunt milking his cock and almost sending him off the cliff. He heard Aragon hissing, but the other man also managed to avoid spilling his seed.
