Shifters After Dark Box Set: (6-Book Bundle)

by SM Reine

  We sped into the moonlit clearing together. Sol trumpeted in surprise and fear, while Pel’s stallion hauled back hard, nearly sitting on his haunches. I would have been unseated had I not loosed the reins and let him free. Sol danced under me. When he reared in fear, I slid from his back, cursing that I had not grabbed up my sword in my haste to follow Pel.

  Brinn, unhampered by horses, had already closed in on the shadows that loomed in the center of the clearing. Rarely had I heard her bark, but now she was voicing her frenzy in sharp and rapid form. Pel, staggering, with only a sword to protect him, faced a great monster, the likes of which I’d never seen. As I ran toward them, I saw Brinn charge in, snapping at its underbelly, trying to divert its attention from Pel. I was still too far away when the creature bellowed, lowered its head like a bull and struck Pel with his far horn.

  My brother’s sword flashed in the moonlight, and the creature screamed as the blade bounced along its head and sliced off half its ear. It kicked out at Brinn, catching her just under the chin with the edge of its hoof or paw or whatever was at the end of its leg. She tumbled with the blow.

  “Hah!” I yelled at it, waving my arms, realizing like Brinn there was little I could do save serve as a distraction and hope Pel could break away. Instead, the creature shook its head, grunted, peered at me for all the world like a holy man passing judgment, and rollicked off into the woods.

  For a breathspace I hesitated over who to rush to. Then Brinn rolled to her feet just as I saw Pel fall. My decision made, I ran to my brother’s side. His hands clutched at his left thigh.

  “Did it mark you?” I cried. Of course it had. I spoke only so he knew I was there. “Let me see.” I pried his fingers open, saw the blood spurting and the hole the tip of the horn had gouged. The wound itself looked ugly but not mortal of itself—unless the blood could not be stopped.

  Brinn appeared at our side as I fumbled with the lacing on my boot.

  “Be easy,” she soothed. She laid her hand on my brother’s brow and his panted breathing slowed till he was gasping more deeply around teeth clenched against the pain.

  Yanking the lace loose at last, I gently stripped Pel’s leggings free while Brinn moved her hands to hold his between them while I worked. The wound was high. I had to move aside his cod and bollocks as I corded the thong around his thigh near where it joined his body. A handspan further in and I would have been binding root instead. I twisted the thong tight till he cried out, then twisted it once more. The stream of blood slowed to a trickle, but I knew the danger of contagion the corded flesh could bring. If we didn’t get the blood staunched within the wound itself, it would be a choice of whether he died quickly from blood loss or slowly from a flesh-eating sickness.

  “I’ll be back in a heartbeat,” Brinn said, whether to Pel or me I did not know. She disappeared, and I slid out of my tunic and used Pel’s sword to rend it into bandages. By the time I was done, Brinn had returned, fresh loam and moss from the riverbank cupped in her hands. She knelt beside us and leaned over the wound.

  I caught her wrist. “What are you doing? It needs water for the cleansing not dirt to bring contagion.”

  “Not dirt,” she assured me. “Look.” The bit of moonlight was little help to my human eyes, but I saw the handful of tiny-leaved plant matter she held. “It will help. I’ll place it in first, then pack the rest of the wound with mud. We’ll wind it with the cloth and tie the bandage in place with your thong. Tomorrow we’ll find honey for it as well. Trust me.”

  “Fae magic,” I accused. “How do you know it will work for Pel?”

  “Earth magic,” Brinn corrected. “Nothing more than what one of your learned chirurgeons would prescribe.”

  “But how—?”

  She cut me off with an exasperated frown. “Trust,” she repeated.

  Reluctantly I did as she bade. How could I not? It was Brinn who asked.

  Pel hissed in breath as Brinn and I packed the open wound. Knowing the pain our care caused, we moved quickly in our efforts. My hands shook as they tied the thong about the heavy bandaging, and at last we were done.

  As I draped a strip of unused cloth over him in modesty, he of a sudden clutched at me, panting. “Did you see it?”

  Between the ergot poisoning, the wound, and fever upon fever, I expected Pel to sleep, would not have been surprised if he slipped into that state both deeper and darker. Instead he struggled against the healing he so desperately needed. I almost shushed him, but the timber of his voice and the bright plea in his eyes that had naught to do with febrile ravings made me pause.

  “The Beast? Did you see it?” he asked again.

  No. Impossible. I was reading too much into his question. “That was not the thing from your nightmares,” I insisted.

  “Then you did see it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then what was it?”

  I was at a loss to name a thing I had never seen before. “A dragon mayhap?”

  “No wings or fire.”

  “Something out of Greek myth?”

  “Or something out of nightmare.”

  “Your dreams made flesh?” I could hardly give credence to that. And yet, what proof otherwise did I have? “Perhaps,” I conceded.

  Pel squeezed shut his eyes and tilted his head in a half-nod at the validation. The mix of relief and vindication in his expression was exquisitely, heartbreakingly pure. Only then did I realize the vital meaning and importance of this discovery, not just to Pel but to me as well. Brinn had said there was Old Magic in him, and if that creature were the thing he claimed, I had proof of the miracle within him.

  With a deep sigh, Pel relaxed at last.

  “Your heart knows the truth.” There was a curious sadness in Brinn’s voice as she sat beside me.

  “What does it mean?”

  The moon picked out the stain on her jaw that was a spreading bruise. Despite all that had transpired, my only thought in that moment was to kiss her pain away.

  “Guilt, sins—it feeds on the darkness of souls.”

  “But why show itself now?” I knew the answer, of course. I just did not wish to face it.

  And Brinn knew I knew and left the question dangling in the night. She meant it as a kindness; it was anything but. I looked quickly to my brother, but it seemed he’d had the only answer that mattered. His features smoothed into peace as he fell into a much-needed slumber.

  That left Brinn and me alone in the night. Like my question, my feelings hung unresolved between us.

  “I was wrong earlier,” I admitted. “Pel is my blood, my second half.” Of course he would desire this flame-haired beauty who walked in magic. Of course he would hunger after her the same as I. Of course he would sacrifice kin and self to have her. “It would be more unnatural for him not to have the same wants and passions as me. How could he not desire the same woman I find so beautiful, so delectable, so … forbidden. I can’t blame him for his passion, any more than I can blame my own. But you,” I reached a hand out to stroke the fine tendrils of hair that wisped across her bare shoulders, “who is it who holds your heart? Who is it you pursue, want pursuing you? Your actions—so confusing. Is fae desire so different? I want to forgive you. Truly I do. But to forgive, I must understand.”

  I turned my head till my lips were within a mere fingerspan of her delicate, high-boned cheek. She tilted her face my way and I felt her liquid gaze wash over me.

  “I’ll get the horses,” she said quietly.

  I nodded, and she was gone.

  32. Brinn

  Were mortal men all as thick-headed as Alain, I wondered as I shifted to follow the track the horses laid. Their smell was easy to trace, though the path they cut through the woods was nearly as clear to my eyes.

  Good-hearted though he was, logic seemed to escape the poor man. If it were natural for he and Pel to both desire the same woman, was it so hard to believe that same woman might desire them both? Certainly the soul bond between us fueled my passio
n, but beyond that even, how could I choose between the steadfastness that was Alain and the mercurialness that was Pel?

  More than that, why should I choose? I had no designs on their petty thrones or on their lives beyond today and how we might bring joy one to the other in this moment alone. I would have to convince Alain of the wisdom in accepting that a fae heart could beat for more than a single man, and that the spark between us would not diminish but would multiply until the conflagration that engulfed us each alone set us all aflame.

  For now, I needed simply to gain Alain’s trust again. That I still had his desire was evident in the way he stole glances at me as I cared for Pel’s savage wound. Enduring his sharp words made sharper by the heat of his confusion was made easy by the passion, banked for the nonce, that simmered just behind his gaze.

  I loped along, confident now the steeds were near. Once clear of Pel’s Beast, the horses’ panic died. Their mad gallop turned to quick canter then easy walk. It wasn’t long before I found them cropping tender shoots beside a copse of birch trees whose white trunks glowed like wraiths in the moonlight.

  Accustomed as they’d become to my shifting, they barely raised their heads as I approached them, the plume of my tail wagging my delight they’d been so quickly found. Then I melted form and clucked my tongue at them. Ears swiveling toward the sound, they paused in their grazing to see what need of them I had.

  I rarely rode when the princelings traveled, preferring instead to run free as a hound. But the horses knew me and Sol took my weight with ease. Alain’s Sol, the Roman sun, to Pel’s Lleuad, the Welsh moon. So fittingly named; so fittingly paired. I wondered what Alain would think when he saw us riding in, naked fae astride a mighty war steed trailing a second stallion behind. I laughed at the stricken look I imagined, and kneed Sol into a gentle trot.

  When I entered the clearing, though, Alain was sitting beside Pel, nodding in half-sleep, waking only as I swung my leg across Sol’s broad back.

  “No trouble?” he asked as I dropped to the ground.

  “None,” I assured him, and with that, completely secure in my ability to play the nightguard, he stretched out beside Pel and fell asleep.

  We had, I realized, come far in our relationship. And though we still had far to go—much farther than Alain, head pillowed beside his brother, could yet imagine—I basked in the trust Alain showed in me.

  Slipping into my hound form, I sat beside them and waited for the sun.

  33. Alain

  Come the morning, rather than risk moving Pel, I moved our camp to the meadow. Over the next few days Brinn brought moss and moldy earth and a nest of honey to minister Pel’s wound. She plied him with draughts of herb teas and covered his forehead with cool leaves to draw out the Holy Fire.

  Chirurgeons on the battlefields used similar medicants, I knew, but in what quantities or mixes I couldn’t say. So I kept a close watch on my brother, not doubting Brinn’s intents, merely her skill with men.

  As the first warm day dragged into two, then three, two things became clear: her ministrations were working and my jealousy was not abating. By morning of the third day, Pel’s fever had broken and the wound showed no sign of contagion, either within its depths or at its edges.

  The healing of it, though, was another matter.

  “It must close from the inside out,” Brinn said. I had no quarrel with that advice; it was, after all, the same we’d used to care for her arrow wound. And its closing, while slow to my impatient eyes, actually moved along well considering the extent of the damage The Beast’s horn had caused. More than the gaping hole to be knitted together, there was muscle and tendon that needed healing as well.

  When I helped Pel to stand on the third day, he could barely bend his leg where it joined to his body.

  He dismissed my concern with a wave of his hand before using it to catch the nearby flesh to relieve himself. “The pain is much lessened,” he assured me. “I’ll be walking again by tomorrow, I’m certain.”

  I nodded, only too happy to see him up again to express any doubts about his recovery. A recovery I wished much hastened now the fever had fled, leaving him in full command of his wits once more.

  That afternoon, when Brinn knelt beside my brother to change his bandaging, a dark cloud settled over my thoughts. They murmured together, discussing things I could not hear, Pel smiling even at something said. Then she bent her head to her work and from my distant vantage, I saw Pel’s face go very still.

  On pretext of only wanting to see the progress of the wound, I moved, perhaps a little too quickly for decorum, to their side.

  The pang in my heart shivered through me like a physical blow. Brinn’s slender fingers stroked the skin along my brother’s inner thigh. Feeling for swelling, the first sign of possible contagion. The bit of my mind that remained rational knew that. The demon that had overtaken the better part of me three nights ago saw only that Pel was far, far from indifferent to her touch.

  By necessity he lay exposed as her fingers circled tantalizingly near. I watched him lengthen and harden, and when she dribbled warm honey into him, his staff raised itself in silent worship of her skills. Eyes lidded, breath shallow, he exhibited not a stitch of shame in his display.

  Nor was Brinn indifferent, her gaze brought again and again to the rise of flesh her ministrations had won her. The appreciation in her eyes taunted the demon in my soul. She parted her lips and slowly ran her tongue around them.

  The bitch. She knew I watched. Knew the effect she had on Pel. On me. She leaned down close, tilted her head and blew warm breath across Pel’s risen staff. It quivered, and my own responded in kind, as if it had felt the seductive breeze as well. I shifted to better accommodate the swell, felt the blood rush to my face as she smiled at my predicament.

  Her eyes on me still, never leaving my face, she stretched out her tongue and lightly touched the tip of Pel’s desire. My brother’s eyes flew open, and my own shaft bounced within the confines of my leggings.

  “Leave off,” I gasped, half plea, half threat.

  Pel twisted to see me, but Brinn took his attention—and mine—again as she lowered her head and licked a line from stones to tip along the most sensitive part of him.

  I sprang from half-erect to full. Jealousy flamed within me, tore at my heart. But instead of anger I felt only sharp desire. The need for that magnificent fae overrode all else.

  When she captured him gently between her teeth, Pel threw back his head, his throat arching up. My breath rasped in my chest.

  And when her lips slipped away, she stared me full in the eye from over my brother’s hard body and said, “Join us.”

  Whether invitation or command, the words stunned me into stillness. Join them? In this? My body cried yes, but my demon revolted. It wasn’t the unnaturalness of it that the demon despised. It was a thing even more base than that. It wanted Brinn for its own. To possess her. To have dominion over her, and it alone. Even at the expense of the brother I loved. The brother I trusted with my life, my very self. Could I not trust him in this as well? I was prepared to sacrifice my soul to him. Why then did sacrificing a small part of Brinn seem so impossible?

  And if I said yes, what of Pel? Would he find the sacrifice too great? Would he be able to share all that was Brinn, especially with the jealous Beast still circling so near?

  It seemed my brother still knew me better than I knew myself. In answer to my unspoken question, he said, “You are my brother. Everything else important in my life—mother, father, home—I have shared with you and only been made richer because of it. I can share this too.”

  Deep down, I had always known Pel was the better of us. He had always been generous where I was petty, always been quick to forgive where I was scarred by the grudges I bore.

  “I am bound by blood to both of you,” Brinn reminded me. “Neither of you has claim over the other. I can’t choose. I won’t. It is this … or nothing at all.”

  Nothing at all. The words, echoing in m
y head, stabbed a hole through my soul as profound as the one in my brother’s thigh. Did I have the courage to trust my brother enough to follow through in this? Did I love him enough to share Brinn as easily as we had shared a room in our father’s keep?

  Did I have humility enough to accede to Brinn’s sensual invitation?

  With a deep and steadying breath, I slipped off my breeches. Brinn’s gaze lowered, staring without shame. Under her bold scrutiny I thought for a moment I might lose the bravado that, risen so covertly, was exposed now for her pleasure. It wavered for a moment before resolving itself as my own resolve deepened.

  Three strides brought me to Brinn’s side. Kneeling, her lithe body between me and Pel, I cupped the swell of her near breast, flicking my thumb over the budding peak. She sank against me, back to my front, stretching her arms overhead to clasp them behind my neck.

  I ran my left hand down the stretch of her ribs and her tight abdomen, resting it in her auburn curls. She clenched her rounded hips and arched against me. Easing down, I pulled her over me.

  Turning, she found Pel’s hand and pulled it to her other breast, even as I squirmed for position beneath and behind her. Still clutching Pel’s hand and the back of my neck, she rolled my brother’s way, right before her fingers slid down my spine with a spider’s touch. At spine’s end, the hand drifted over my hip till it found my rigid staff. Blindly, her gaze fixed on Pel, she guided me inside.

  Closing my eyes, I rocked against her, enjoying every velveteen slide. On my third slow thrust I remembered my forgotten hands and sent the one in her curls lower, teasing the tender folds.

  “Oh yes, my prince!”

  Her whispered encouragement added to the sheer ecstasy that engulfed me, and when I found the hardened nub at the core of her pleasure, I concentrated on delighting us even more.

  She sucked in breath and held it, grabbing at my wrist to urge me on. One last stroke inside and she shuddered against me, around me, through me. Her pent breath released in a little moan that sharpened my pledge within her.