by Abby Weeks
At the head of the herd was a magnificent stag. He was leading the charge, and was the biggest and strongest male in the herd. No sooner had Aisha seen him than the brothers told her not to try and take him down. He was too strong, too powerful. They were sending the image of virtually any female to her, telepathically trying to warn her not to take down the stag. She wasn’t listening. She knew what she wanted.
*
Chapter 30
SHE CAUGHT UP TO THE STAG, and before she could rethink what she was doing, she was in the air. A moment later she was on the stag’s back, her arms around its neck in an embrace that more resembled a hug than an attack.
The brothers were all furiously sending images to her mind. They wanted her to let go of the stag. It was too big. But she wasn’t doing it. She was holding onto that stag like her life depended on it. It would be too humiliating to let go now.
As the stag ran on, Aisha began to get a feel for its rhythm. It was slowing down, tiring under the extra weight. It began to lose ground on the rest of the herd. She tightened her grip of its neck and tried to restrict its oxygen supply. It wasn’t easy, the stag’s neck was enormous and muscular, but she clamped it between her arms and continued to squeeze.
She felt as if instincts were beginning to kick in and tell her what she needed to do to bring down the stag. It easily weighed four of five times what she weighed. She’d been crazy to pounce on it. The brothers seemed to be too interested in how she’d manage to bring it down to intervene. She knew they could have helped her, but they weren’t. It was her first hunting trip, and they wanted her to succeed alone, even if she had bitten off more than she could chew.
She found, without even realizing she was doing it, that her nails were digging into the stag’s skin, clawing at it while continuing to tighten her grip on its neck. She was holding the stag like someone who was inelegantly riding a horse, and she began squeezing the stag’s neck in violent pulses. Her body just seemed to know what to do. At first the stag seemed to get stronger, breathing when she slackened her grip and flexing its neck when she tightened, but over time, the breaths grew shorter and weaker, and her pulsing choke grew tighter and tighter, wearing down the muscles in the stag’s throat.
It was working. The stag had slowed to a trot. The deer herd had left it far behind. The brothers were running along beside her, watching her work. When the stag dropped to its knees, the brothers howled in celebration.
Aisha looked up at them and saw them all shift into humans simultaneously. She had to look away again when she was suddenly presented with four penises, four naked brothers, all of them watching her wrestle with a full grown stag.
She maintained her grip on the stag’s throat. It struggled, but she was holding it tight enough that it couldn’t get back to its feet. It shook its head violently, and Aisha was pulled from its back and onto the ground. She kept a firm hold of its neck though. The brothers were watching intently. She could tell that they were genuinely impressed.
“Your eyes are yellow, Aisha,” Packer said. “Surrender to your shifter instinct. Let it tell you what to do.”
As the brothers watched, Aisha tried to think back to the emotions she’d felt at the inn when the men of the town had surrounded her. She cast her mind back to the strength of those emotions. She let the adrenaline of her shifter self run through her veins, overpower her human instincts. She was thinking like a wolf. Suddenly she knew exactly what to do. She climbed up onto the stag and sunk her teeth into its tender neck. The brothers howled as the first blood poured from the stag and drenched her mouth. Her teeth seemed sharper, her jaw felt stronger. She bit, and as the blood flowed, she opened her mouth even larger and bit even deeper. The stag let out a whine like a horse in pain, and Aisha heard it without the faintest sense of sympathy. It was more like a message to her. It meant the fight would be over soon. She kept her mouth on the stag till it completely surrendered to her, then she held it longer, waiting for its weakening pulse to come to a complete halt.
When the stag’s head fell, she knew it was dead.
She climbed to her feet and looked at the four brothers, blood dripping from her mouth.
The way they were looking at her she could tell they’d never been so sexually aroused in their entire lives. All four of them had rock hard penises that seemed to point at her like arrows. They were like weapons of pleasure intent on attacking her. She could sense every atom of sexual arousal in the air around her. With her yellow eyes, she could see the men more clearly. She could smell their sweat, the signals from their hormones, the pheromones that thickened the air and filled it with a heady musk.
They were impressed she’d managed to bring down the stag, but there was more to their arousal than just that. It had been the same way back in the village when her eyes had become yellow. There was something about her shifter instinct that seemed to make males, be they shifter or human, go insane with desire. They were looking at her like they wanted to pounce on her.
They were hungry for her.
And she realized at the same moment that she was hungry for them, and not just one of them, but all four. Her body wanted them. Her pussy was wet with desire. Her breasts were sensitive, her nipples firm.
She looked up at them with a fierceness that was entirely new to her. She’d never felt so sexually aggressive and assertive in her entire life.
And then the brothers shifted. All four of them, in an instant, transformed into wolves. Aisha heard the unmistakable howl of a wolf off in the distance, higher up in the valley. It was followed by another howl, and another. There were dozens of wolves in the forest above them. She received a single message from all four brothers—danger!
They ran past her toward the trees. Logan veered farther down the valley than the others.
Aisha took one final look at the magnificent stag she’d killed and then ran after them. Logan howled and Aisha almost fell back in shock from it. Even from the distance she was at, it was louder and more ferocious than anything she’d ever heard in her life.
The wolves in the distance howled, and Logan howled again, this time accompanied by Packer.
“What are they doing?” Aisha said to Hardy and Tucker.
Hardy shifted into his human form to speak to her. “The wolves are just testing us. Basically yelling out threats from across the street. Logan and Packer’s howls are enough to keep them at bay though. There isn’t a wolf alive who’d like to come face to face with them.”
“But what about numbers?” Aisha said. “You and your brothers are larger than any wolf, but there are a lot more of them than there are of us.”
Hardy nodded at her.
Logan and Packer came back, and Packer bent down before Aisha, letting her climb up onto his back. There was no time to hang around it seemed. Packer ran to the stag and lifted it in his immensely powerful jaw. Then they made their way back to the house.
*
Chapter 31
WHEN THEY GOT TO THE HOUSE, the brothers shifted into human form and covered themselves with clothing of fur. Aisha thought they looked very attractive wearing fur and deer skin.
Packer made a warm fire in the hearth and Tucker and Hardy got to work putting the stag Aisha had killed on a spit. Logan made some of the forest coffee. Within a few minutes, all five of them were sitting comfortably in front of the fire, watching the stag slowly cook on the spit. It smelled delicious. Aisha couldn’t wait to taste it. The fact that she’d been the one to bring down the stag thrilled her. She knew it would make the food all the more delicious.
“You were incredible out there,” Tucker said.
The other three brothers nodded.
“He’s right,” Logan said. “I never thought I’d see a female take down a stag like that. You’re strong.”
“You’re faster than you look too,” Hardy said.
Aisha blushed. She was pleased to be getting so much encouragement from them. It meant a lot to her to be accepted for who she was. And given the fact tha
t she was finding out that she was someone completely different to what she’d always thought, it meant even more. Being accepted as a handmaiden felt natural to her, it felt good. She felt as if her entire life she’d been trying to fit into a mold that hadn’t been made for her, and it had always been incredibly difficult for her to try and fit that mold. Now, everything seemed to be coming more naturally to her. This was where she was meant to be. This was where she belonged.
She looked down at her body. She’d always felt ashamed of it before. She hadn’t been able to conform to the ideas that everyone had had for the kind of body type they regarded as beautiful. She’d never been confident of her body. Now she was realizing that to the four brothers, her body was the most perfect thing nature had ever developed. They lusted after her so much they could hardly think straight, especially when her shifter instincts began to take over. They didn’t think she was too big or too curvy. To them, she was perfection itself, and they’d never seen anything like her. It was a new feeling for her, to finally be accepted for who and what she was.
She smiled at them.
“What did those wolves want back there?” she said.
Logan took his pipe from a pocket in his jacket and lit it with a twig from the fire.
“They’re testing us,” he said. “They’re constantly testing us. For centuries the shifters controlled this entire range, hundreds of miles in every direction. We allowed wolves to live here, but they had to live by our rules. They had to submit to our dominance. We told them where they could hunt, how much they could kill, how large their packs could grow. When the humans started killing us off, the wolves grew bolder and bolder. They killed without respect. They hunted herds of deer till they were wiped out. They grew their packs so large that they couldn’t even maintain control of themselves. Their betas killed their alphas. Their omegas bred with their females. Their species began to devolve. They grew weak and mean and vicious.”
“Only the alpha is supposed to mate, right?” Aisha said, looking at the four of them in turn, their yellow eyes sparkling in the firelight deliciously.
“Correct. The alpha is the strongest male in the pack. Sometimes there is more than one wolf worthy of being called an alpha. In that case he may kill the reigning alpha, submit to him and become his beta, or split off and form a new pack.”
“Can there ever be more than one alpha in a pack?” Aisha said.
“It’s happened, but it’s rare. It takes a very special kind of alpha to allow a second in his pack.”
“Does an alpha ever allow his beta to mate?”
“That happens too. It’s not unheard of, but I wouldn’t take it for granted. And it only ever happens with the alpha’s permission.”
“Do shifters have alphas?” she said.
“We’re not the same as the wolves,” Logan said. “We don’t believe there are males who deserve to mate and others who don’t. That’s why we leave it to the handmaidens to choose when and with whom bonds are formed.”
Aisha nodded. It was a lot of responsibility. She could tell all four of them were looking at her with a hunger in their eyes, hoping she’d choose them for the mating bond.
“Wolves have to be more disciplined,” Packer said. “They’re a lower species. Without proper discipline, they devolve into the mean beasts we’re dealing with around here now. The worst of their males have been mating. They’ve killed their best alphas. They’ve lost all their dignity as far as I can tell. And now they’re killing all the prey till there’s nothing left, and they’re even trying to kill off the humans. It’s just not right.”
Aisha nodded. Tucker got up and took the meat from the spit. He brought it into the kitchen and cut slices and put them on plates, and then brought the plates over to the others.
Aisha felt a strange sensation when she had the meat in front of her. She was ravenously hungry all of a sudden. Hungrier than she could ever remember being. Her mouth watered. Her sense of smell grew more acute, and she could taste the meat before she’d even put it in her mouth. The steak Tucker had served her was larger than anything she’d ever eaten before, but to her it didn’t seem like a lot at all. She felt like she could eat two or three of them.
She put the meat in her mouth and chewed and swallowed. It tasted so good, like life itself was nourishing her body.
“Why do I love this meat so much?” she said.
“It’s your shifter senses,” Packer said. “They’re coming back to you little by little. Like running today, and hunting, and communicating with us telepathically. All of those are strengths that you’ll find are getting stronger by the day.”
“Will I ever be able to shift into a wolf?” she said.
Tucker laughed. Logan looked at him sternly.
“No,” Packer said, “but you’ll find more and more strengths. Your senses will be stronger. You’ll hear the thoughts of us and of humans. Your sexual appetites and abilities will grow beyond what you’re probably used to.”
“What do you mean, my sexual abilities?”
Packer shrugged. “You’ll be so alluring to males. You’ve noticed it already. Back at the village, those men wouldn’t have been able to resist you. That’s what made it so dangerous for you back there.”
“And what about up here? Will you four be able to resist me?”
Hardy put his plate down and stood up. “Not for much longer,” he said and left the room. He pulled off his fur clothing and let it drop to the floor, walking toward the door of the house naked. He shifted as he left and ran off into the forest. They heard him howling from the mountains a few minutes later.
Aisha looked at the other three. They were looking at her so hungrily that she had to look away.
“I think I’ll go to bed,” she said awkwardly and left them, climbing up the ladder to her loft as a tide of emotion overcame her. She took off her clothes and wrapped her naked body in a sleeveless fur gown and got into bed. When she looked down into the den from up in her loft, she could see that the other brothers had all left too. It wasn’t long before she could hear all four of them in the mountains, howling at the moon so forlornly that it made her heart sad.
*
Chapter 32
THAT NIGHT AISHA HARDLY SLEPT a wink. She could hear the brothers howling and it was breaking her heart. How was she going to handle this? How could she possibly choose among them? How could she be the one who stepped forward and decided who mated and who didn’t? It was too much power, too much responsibility.
She got up from the bed and opened the window overlooking the front of the house. The icy air felt good against her skin. She had a fur blanket wrapped around her naked body for warmth. She looked out at the moonlit night and tried to make sense of the world that was before her. It was a very different world from the one she’d known all her life. It hardly felt real. But it was real. It was her new reality, and there was nothing she could do to hide from it. For her, there was no going back. And even if she could, she knew she didn’t want to. This was her home. This was where she wanted to be. And she wanted to make it work. She wanted things to be tolerable for the four brothers. She didn’t want to be a cause of competition and ill-feeling among them.
She climbed down the ladder to the den. The fire was burning faintly in the hearth, the dying embers giving the room a warm red glow. The brothers were out in the mountains, howling at the moon, running and leaping and working off the enormous sexual frustration they were feeling. And it was all because of her. She had to do something about it.
She stepped out onto the porch, the cold night rushing around her like icy water.
What was she going to do? She had no idea what the next step would be in her new life, but she knew the answer had to come from within her. She was the handmaiden. It was her responsibility to decide who mated with her. All the cards were in her hand. She knew she had to tap into her shifter mind to find the answer.
She stood on the porch and looked up at the moon. It was a full moon, and the night wa
s extraordinarily bright. She realized that the moon was contributing to the brothers’ frustration. She let the blanket around her shoulders drop to the floor. The blue moonlight on her naked skin seemed to wake the shifter instincts within her. She stretched her arms up into the air as if she was reaching for the moon. She arched back, letting the moonlight pour down on her bare breasts, her naked pussy. The moonlight fed her the way sunlight comforts a cat on a hot afternoon. It bathed her. She closed her eyes, cleared her mind, and let the blue light reflect on her bare, cold skin.
And then she felt it, the flicker of shifter instinct. Her eyes grew yellow, and suddenly she could see through the night better than she’d ever seen in daylight before. She could hear the forest around her, locate the little animals that were foraging for hundreds of yards in every direction. Her sense of smell gave her another dimension with which to scan the terrain around her. She knew there was no danger out there, nothing to fear, no predator, no enemy. The usual fear she would have of a forest at night disappeared. She was no longer an ordinary person who had something to fear from the forest. She was a handmaiden, a female shifter, the top predator of the chain.
The taste of the stag’s blood came back to her mouth and the memory of it thrilled her. She’d killed the largest beast of the herd. Singlehandedly she’d brought it down and sucked the life from it. She knew that with a single howl she’d be able to contact all four brothers and give them her location. From her tone, they’d know exactly what the howl meant. She was in human form, a naked girl in the moonlight, but she was different, a different species, a deadlier creature.
