by Cara Adams
The Cat Burglars 5
Three Mates for Judith
When Judith Lutterworth’s father, Lewis, tried to have her murdered, the three Meyer brothers, Naftali and identical twins Nelson and Nahum, determined to not just save her, but to choose her for their mate. Simply keeping her safe turned out to be a lot harder than they’d expected. First the pack hid Judi and her mom, Cherise, up on the pack lands for winter. But as soon as they came back to town Lewis and his gang were after the women and their possessions again.
Nahum, Nelson, and Naftali couldn’t romance Judi surrounded by security guards, or under her mother’s watchful gaze. And they dare not take her out alone because of the danger from her father. It takes effort and ingenuity, but kitchen gadgets can be turned into dungeon toys, and by sleeping in her bed they were certain she was safe. But would they ever have the freedom to romance and love her properly the way she deserved?
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/ Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 36,238 words
THREE MATES FOR JUDITH
The Cat Burglars 5
Cara Adams
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
THREE MATES FOR JUDITH
Copyright © 2015 by Cara Adams
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-370-2
First E-book Publication: May 2015
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Author
THREE MATES FOR JUDITH
The Cat Burglars 5
CARA ADAMS
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
No matter how hard she tried, Judith Lutterworth couldn’t relax. She wanted to loosen up and enjoy being with the half sister she’d never even known about until two days ago, but she couldn’t.
Judi found herself constantly twisting around watching out the rear window of the bright red minivan, searching for cars that might be tailing them. Or she sat hunched against the window, staring down every crossroad and behind every group of trees, looking for a car hiding behind them ready to attack them.
Her sister, Elsie Parker, patted her arm gently. “Zebulun’s friends will ensure you’re safe. You need to trust the pack to care for you.”
“My brain trusts these men to get us out of trouble should someone attack us. I know Brayden outdrove the men who captured me. My brain tells me the red paint on the van and the black wigs on our heads should make us invisible to anyone looking for a blonde in a white minivan. But I can’t stop worrying no matter how hard I try.”
“Do you play chess?” asked Elsie, picking up a cardboard box with what appeared to be a couple of children’s games in it.
“I was taught how at school, but that’s a long time ago now.”
“Play a game with me. Chess is excellent training in logic and clear thinking. It’ll help you get your life in order again.”
Judi just stared at her. She was pretty sure nothing would ever get her life in order again. It’d basically been shattered into a billion pieces by the events of the past few days. First, she’d thought her parents were reconciling and that her dad was planning a special treat for her mom. Then she found out her father had actually hired two criminals to murder her. It was just pure good luck that they weren’t willing to kill her and, instead, had just decided to kidnap her and hide her away.
But the real worry was finding out what her father had in mind to do to her mom. Was he going to kill her to claim her money? Because the money had belonged to Judith’s maternal grandfather. It had never belonged to her father, and her mother had never changed her will to make her husband her heir. He must think that he’d get it, though, if he got rid of both women.
It didn’t matter that the authorities knew all about her father’s plot. All that mattered was Judi’s need to be back with her mom and get them both somewhere safe. Not that she had the faintest idea where safe would be. Zebulun had promised her a home on his pack’s land and had told her of the tight security there. But it was fall, and the concept of being snowed in on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for months on end really didn’t appeal to her. She could ski, but she’d never been interested in snow sports, so six months of the white stuff was about five months too much in her opinion.
Right now she, her half sister, and her half sister’s three men, were on their way back to Ohio where she and her mom would have to decide what to do next and how to be safe from her father. If they weren’t attacked and killed before they even arrived.
Judi shook off her thoughts and concentrated on her game. Elsie let her go first and gave her a two-pawn advantage. Judi had a vague idea she should be insulted by that judgment on her ability as a player, but she shrugged it off. Beating her half-sister at chess was one way to pass
this long road trip.
An hour later she was surprised when the minivan pulled into a truck stop and Favian, who was driving, parked near the diner. “I’ll gas up the car while you all order food,” he said.
Judi looked back at the chessboard. “Lunch would be nice. I’m sure there are still moves I can make, but I can’t see them. I concede the game to you, Elsie.”
“When we get back to the car, we’ll swap pieces and see if you can stop me from beating you.”
“What? You’re saying I can win from this position?”
“I’m saying I think I could beat you from that position.”
Brayden laughed. “She’s a good player, Judith. Elsie, bring the board in with you. Maybe we can help Judith defeat you while we wait for our meals.”
Judi looked around the truck stop as she got out of the car. “Are you sure this is safe?”
“No one will attack you with the three of us here to look after you,” said Amory.
“Four,” contradicted Elsie, glaring at Amory.
Judi hid a giggle. Amory was the Alpha of the Yooper panther pack, and these three men, Amory Willard, and his brothers Favian and Brayden, were determined to mate her sister. Elsie was definitely strong enough to manage them all. No one would dream of walking all over Elsie. Judi wished she was as strong as her sister. Then she straightened her spine. I can learn to be strong. My father isn’t going to kill me or Mom. I won’t let him get away with it. I’ll take advice from the pack and organize a safe place for us all, although the idea of being snowed in for months on end really, really doesn’t appeal to me. But it’s better than him killing Mom.
* * * *
Nelson Meyer and his identical twin brother, Nahum, were in charge of security at the panther pack headquarters in Richmond, Ohio. Up until a week ago, it hadn’t been a very demanding job. The warehouse occupied an entire block and was surrounded by a high wire security fence. Each panther had a code to punch in whenever they entered or left the building, so whoever was on duty always knew who was inside the building and whether they were in a communal room or one of the apartments.
Someone famous had once said, “A week is a long time in politics.” Well, a week had proven to be a long time for their pack as well. Since then, someone had chased the van with their Alpha and his brothers in it. At first they’d been certain the criminals doing the chasing were after the woman the Alpha planned to mate or, even more likely, her younger brother.
But instead, some spook from a nameless government agency had found out from the two criminals the Alpha’s father had captured that Lewis Lutterworth, another criminal known among the gangs in town as The Fixer, had put a price on Amory’s head. Amory, their Alpha.
Lutterworth had known that the panthers would pay almost any price to ransom their Alpha back. What he was about to find out was that the panthers would much prefer to remove the danger than risk the capture of their Alpha. Lutterworth was dangerous, and the panthers were determined to capture him in such a way that he’d be in jail for the foreseeable future, possibly his entire life.
This plan was especially attractive to Nelson because Lutterworth had enticed his own daughter into danger, had her caught, and told two men who worked for him to kill her. Nelson couldn’t understand how any man could order a hit on his own daughter. He’d always assumed even criminals loved their families and were kind to their pets. He was sure there was a special pace in hell for men like Lutterworth who wished harm on their own family.
Right now, Judith Lutterworth was safely hidden, with her mom, who Lutterworth also planned to have murdered, up on the pack lands in the UP. But Cherise, the mom, wasn’t happy about being away from her friends, and Judith, the daughter, had made it clear she wanted to be back in town before the weather turned really cold.
Judith had only been back in town one day before Zebulun and Amory had convinced Cherise the only truly safe place for them was on the packlands. The pack had escorted them there, and it was up to Zebulun now to convince them to stay out of danger.
All of which had Nelson scratching his head. How the fuck were they supposed to organize all this? Keep the Alpha safe at all times. Keep the Lutterworth women safe at all times. And somehow catch The Fixer and hand him over to the authorities. Just trying to balance all these tasks was giving Nelson a headache.
Although the headache wasn’t the worst of it. His balls were aching as well. One look at Judith had him wanting her in the most carnal way imaginable. He and Nahum had been on guard duty at the time. She’d been standing beside LC, glaring at Amory, trying to convince the pack she could look after herself. He smiled now at the memory. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how much he wanted her, he wasn’t going to get her. He was no match for the daughter of a wealthy woman. Besides, panthers liked to share their women, and he had to consider both his brothers—Nahum, his twin, and Naftali, his older brother who was in charge of the office administration here at the panther headquarters.
“Can’t you sit still? I can just hear Miss Smorgan saying to you, “Have you got ants in your pants, young man?” Nahum had the crabby old witch’s tone perfect, even after all these years.
Poor Miss Smorgan had barely recovered from teaching the Reilly triplets in her first grade class when he and Nahum had been assigned to her grade. Although, in her defense, she’d been able to distinguish between them far faster than a lot of the other teachers they’d had over the years.
“That poor woman. No, I haven’t gotten any ants in my pants, but it bothers me that I don’t have a solution for how to protect the Alpha and the Lutterworth women either, other than to lock them all up on their pack lands way up north.”
“Yeah, well, it turns out neither Cherise nor Judith is all that fond of winter, so that’s not going to work. The only solution is to catch The Fixer and get him behind bars as soon as possible.”
“I know. I know. But saying it is a hell of a lot easier than doing it.”
“Come up to the roof and let’s go for a run. That might shake loose some ideas in our brains,” suggested Nahum.
Nelson liked that idea. Sometimes running as panthers did shake up his brain and help him think. He went and banged on Naftali’s bedroom door.
“What?”
“We’re going for a run. Come and join us.”
There was a grunt and then the slap of Naftali’s feet hitting the ground and their brother appeared. He left his door open, and Nelson could see the chessboard on his bed.
He laughed. Elsie, the woman who was going to mate their Alpha and his brothers, was a very good chess player, and the entire pack was busy honing their chess-playing skills in the hopes of beating her. Well, except for him. He’d never been much good at the game. But a lot of people were, and it appeared Naftali was one of them.
Their apartment was on the third floor, so they ran up the two flights of stairs to the roof, stripped out of their clothes at a bench right by the elevator meant for that very use, and then transformed and headed for the running track. It was an all-weather track, deliberately designed to make use of most of the available area of the rooftop. There were long straight stretches for the sides, twists and turns, chicanes and obstacles to jump. They ran around once as a warm up together, and then Nelson launched himself at full speed down one of the straights. Immediately, both his brothers raced after him.
Nelson ducked and weaved among the bushes, sprinted through a straight section of track, and then cut through an area of shrubbery to avoid the chicanes and run fast along the next straight pathway. But his brothers had run this track just as often as him and were well aware of all the tricks. Naftali shouldered him out of the way and zipped past him, but Nahum cut one of the corners off and took the lead.
Their third time around the track was at such a dizzying speed they were all skidding at the corners and almost fell in a domino effect at one place. By the fourth time around, they’d slowed down again and took it at a less dangerous speed. Without needing to talk, they lef
t the track and flopped onto a patch of grass, still in their panther forms.
Nelson relaxed. The exercise was good for them. Just walking around wasn’t enough exercise for a panther. He needed to run flat-out sometimes.
He shifted back into human form and pulled on his jeans. “The only solution is to set a trap for Lutterworth and catch him in something so bad he’ll be locked up permanently.”
‘I agree. But how can we do that?” asked Naftali.
“We need to bait the trap,” he said slowly.
“Not with one of the women. We can’t risk their lives,” said Naftali so fast that Nelson wondered if his brother liked Judith as much as he did. He and his brothers had always been close and good friends, but they didn’t always think alike at all. He must be imagining it. Naftali must just be concerned for their safety. As he was.
“But we can’t risk our Alpha either. Putting him in danger isn’t possible. Our duty is to protect him,” said Nahum.
“Yeah, I know.” They weren’t any closer to a solution than they’d been when they began.
“It’s like a chess match. We could appear to have someone in danger, but really they’re still protected. There’s a chess move—”
“Skip the chess talk, Naftali. Stick to panther talk,” said Nelson.
Nahum laughed at him. “Elsie says that chess teaches logic and clear thinking. If you played chess, maybe you’d have solved this problem already.”
“So tell me how,” Nelson challenged his brothers.
“We set up something where it looks like the Alpha is going to be wide open to danger, but really, we’re all there hiding ready to rescue him and catch Lutterworth,” Nahum said slowly.
