“All seems much the same as the reports I was faxed by Dr. Smythe. Keep her in bed for the next twenty-four hours and wake her every two hours through the night to check on her mental state. If she develops any signs that the concussion is worsening, call me straight away. Absolute rest, okay?” Doc looked at them all and they knew exactly what he meant—no sex. Hunter would have thought he was insulting them, but Doc had just borne witness to him nearly jumping on Melanie.
“Of course, Doc.” Hunter ushered Doc out, with Melanie calling out her thanks for him coming. “We are all up for this, don’t you worry.”
“So I noticed,” Doc stated pointedly.
Hunter ignored the comment and, after thanking Doc, returned to their room. Finn had told Dane and him when they had returned that he was going to tell Melanie about them if Doc cleared her. He wouldn’t question Finn’s judgment on this, but he was nervous about how she would react. He just couldn’t stand to lose her, not ever.
* * * *
Finn waited for Hunter to return to the room before he began the explanation to their mate about the existence of shape-shifters. He could feel the mating bond strongly between them all and had more confidence after seeing her reaction to Hunter’s kiss that, even though this was going to be a huge shock, she would not reject them.
“Do you feel better after your bath, sweetness?” he asked Melanie. She was still snuggled in Cooper’s arms and Dane was sitting up on the bed stroking her leg.
“Much better, thank you, Finn.” Hunter sat up on the bed at Melanie’s feet and held onto them. Finn sat on the side and took hold of one of her hands. “Is something wrong? You suddenly all look very serious, and it’s scaring me a bit. I have to leave, don’t I? You changed you minds about me staying?”
“Shh, angel, that will never happen. We just have something to explain to you and we are really nervous.” Cooper kissed the top of Melanie’s head and she sighed and relaxed into his embrace again.
“We don’t want this to go any further until you have all the facts, little one. It just wouldn’t be fair on you,” Dane soothed.
Finn brought her hand to his cheek and held it there while he looked into her pale eyes. “We would like to explain to you why we all feel so drawn to you, Melanie, and why you also feel that way toward all of us. It must be confusing for you to feel the way you do, so quickly, toward comparative strangers.”
“It does, Finn. I have talked to Cooper about being honest, so I will extend that courtesy to all of you.”
“Thank you, sweetness. We will, in turn, be nothing but honest with you. Have you ever considered that many myths and legends may be based on truth?”
“I don’t think I have ever even considered myths and legends, really. Why?” Melanie asked, clearly even more confused with the direction the conversation was now taking.
“Our family is steeped in myths and legends. Our line has lived up here in Eminence for over two hundred years. Cooper and I have lived up here for the last eighty. Hunter and Dane were in the military for a few years, but they have been here for most of their sixty years.” Finn watched her brows furrow in confusion.
“Your grandparents for eighty years, surely.”
“No, sweetness, I told you the truth. Cooper and I are over eighty years old.” Melanie looked from Cooper to Hunter and Dane. Finn continued.
“Our kind is very long-lived, and we age extremely slow. Yes, our kind.” Finn answered the question that was in Melanie’s eyes. “We are not only human, we are ‘were.’”
“Were what?” Melanie spoke the question this time.
“We were born with the ability to transform into our alternate forms, which, in our family’s case, is a mountain lion. The most common in myths, of course, are werewolves, but they are not the only form of shape-shifters out there, as we are testament to.” Finn studied Melanie’s face awaiting a reaction. She seemed to be shutting down. She pulled away from Cooper and her face took on an expression of anger.
“I read books. I know what is said about the paranormal in fiction novels. But that is fiction,” Melanie explained to Finn, and shared the glare at all of the brothers.
“Obviously not all fiction, angel.” Cooper soothingly rubbed her back.
Hunter tried to stop Melanie as she wiggled away from them and got down off the bed.
“Please, just leave me, Hunter.” Melanie pulled away from him and he let her. She paced slowly toward the bathroom.
“You need to stay and hear this, Melanie. It will help you to understand your feelings toward us. You are our mate, the one and only person that fate has chosen to be with us, always.” Finn spoke demandingly at her as she closed the door, surprisingly, quietly behind her.
“Well, that went about as we expected,” said Dane angrily.
“I know,” Finn said, rubbing his hand over his face, “it was never going to be easy for her to believe, but we had to start somewhere. We will have to have one of us shift to show her. Otherwise she will just think we are full of shit.”
“I’ll do it. I hate her being upset like this. Are you sure she is ready for this?” Dane asked readily.
“It’s too late to even wonder at that now, Dane. The cat is already out of the proverbial bag, I am afraid.” Finn sat down on the bed looking at the door Melanie had just gone through.
“Let’s go downstairs and make some dinner. Give her some space. She will come to us when she is ready to ask her questions. She must have hundreds.” Hunter rose, went to the en suite door, and knocked quietly. “We are going to give you a few minutes to organize your thoughts, princess. We will be downstairs getting dinner if you need us. We’ll be back soon.”
“You sure we should leave her, Hunter? She looked pretty upset,” Dane said.
“I think he is right,” Finn stated.” Let’s give her some time to process what we have just told her. We have just turned her belief system on its head after all.”
They all filed out of the room. Finn wasn’t sure now what he had expected her to do, but he knew that this wasn’t it. Tears, yelling, throwing things maybe, but this silence and distance were killing him. He needed to touch her, hold her, and make her see the truth of what he had said. But he left her to think, and hoped that he could hold her soon.
Chapter 10
Melanie sat on the end of the tub, her head in her hands. What had she done? Oh. My. God. She felt like such a fool. After closing herself off to pain for the last four years, she had opened her heart to these men, thinking it would be safe. Good move. What an excellent judge of character she had become.
Then she started to become angry. She would have slept with them. She was going to finally let someone, four someones, touch her heart and her body. She would have given them her virginity for fuck’s sake. Well, just as well she found out first what they were. What was this game for? She couldn’t fathom it. Well, she had seen enough in her job to know that all men are assholes. She had just forgotten it, with all the feelings they had awoken in her.
“I remember now,” she said aloud to herself. “I won’t forget again. All men are assholes.” A mantra to live by. Now she just needed to get the fuck away from them. That was going to be tricky, and painful, but her simmering rage would get her out of here, she just knew it.
Melanie had heard them leave and Hunter’s pathetic words. She had fallen for him, for them all. Her chest hurt, not just her ribs either, at the thought of leaving them, but she was so pissed now, she could ignore the pain. She had to run, had to get away, as fast as she could.
She left the bathroom and walked to the corridor. All clear. She slowly limped down the corridor to the stairs she was carried up earlier. In Finn’s arms. No, she would not think of him. Going as slowly and quietly as she was able, she made it to the bottom of the stairs. She could hear their voices, in the kitchen she assumed, but not what they were saying. Laughing at her, probably, at what an easy lay she was going to be. Throw in a bit of paranormal talk, spice up the atmosphere, make t
hem seem sexy and dangerous, then she’d be putty in their hands. Is that what their game was? She wondered how many times it had worked for them in the past.
The sad thing was, Melanie had thought them sexy and dangerous before all the bullshit. She felt like such a fool.
That thought in mind, she headed away from the voices, down a dark passageway, hoping for a back door.
She found her goal at the other side of a huge laundry room. She quietly opened the door, went down a couple of steps off the back verandah, and she was in the yard. It was cold, and she was barefoot and wearing nothing but Finn’s huge T-shirt.
Shit, too late to go back now, plus she didn’t think she had the strength to climb the stairs. She steeled herself and kept walking as fast as she could, which she knew was slow, through the yard and into the trees. She didn’t want them to see her from the road if they even bothered to come after her, so she decided her best bet was going to be following the road from the cover of the forest.
Melanie thought this a great idea at first, but as she got into the forest she found she couldn’t climb over fallen trees, or big rocks, as she was too sore, so going around them was her only option. This meant she lost sight of the road, and when she headed back in the direction she thought the road was in, it wasn’t there.
Melanie sat down on a small rock after what seemed like an hour of slow walking. She was sweating despite her lack of clothing and the cold temperature. There was snow on the ground. What had she been thinking? It was hard work walking through this forest, and she was so sore now. Her leg was throbbing and her chest was on fire, making breathing very difficult. She was starting to feel that this was foolish, but she couldn’t be around the Frederick brothers. When she thought of them she just felt angry and humiliated. She would not go back. She would find the road or a town soon. She just needed a little rest. With that thought she slid off the rock and lay facedown in the leaf matter of the forest floor. Too sore to even turn over, she turned her face to the side and tried to breathe. Just a short rest, she decided. Then she’d be good to go. Then the darkness took her under.
* * * *
Finn was sitting at the table talking to Cooper about pride business, and Hunter and Dane were finishing the dinner. A stew was in the oven and they had a salad in the refrigerator. They were all about to go back and check on Melanie. It had been about an hour ago that they had left her. They decided that she had probably fallen asleep as she hadn’t sought them out and they had not heard her moving around upstairs.
“Should we all go up, or just Dane?” Hunter asked Finn.
“All of us, I think. She will be shocked when Dane shifts. All of us there will help soothe her.” Finn had just finished speaking when there was a knock at the kitchen door.
“Shana,” stated Cooper as he scented her on the way to open the door. They all stood in reverence of the elder and shaman of their pride.
“Alpha.” Shana bowed her head to Finn. “With deepest respect I must ask if you have brought a human onto our pride lands.”
“She is our mate, Shana, and she was hurt by Curtis. That is how Hunter found her. Please sit. We have some questions about the mating, and its healing properties for human mates. Would you care for some tea?”
Shana looked at Finn with amber filling her eyes. “What have you done to your mate, Finn Frederick?”
Finn was shocked to be spoken to like that, but out of reverence for her age, he did not shift and rip her throat out. He looked down at the grey-haired old woman, who was reputed to be over three hundred years old, and growled softly.
“I have done nothing to her, Shana. She is upstairs resting. We just have some questions for you. That is why you were asked here today.” Finn was hanging on to his temper by a thread. As Alpha, he was not accustomed to being spoken to like a cub.
“I can scent she has been in this house, but it is the same scent that I picked up in your yard, the one I followed to the forest’s edge before I came in here. So I ask again, boys, what have you done to your injured mate that has made her run?”
They all roared, deep and low, making the walls vibrate. Finn motioned his head to Cooper, who flew from the room to go upstairs and check if Melanie was there. Cooper was back in seconds.
“She’s gone. Scent leads down the hall and out the laundry room,” Cooper stated, looking at Finn for his command.
“We find her. Now. She is in no condition to be out there in this cold. Please, Shana, stay. We may need you when we bring her back.”
Shana nodded, and they all ran outside, stripped off their clothes, and let the shift take them.
Finn couldn’t believe she had gone. How did she get past them? Was she hurt? He was bigger and faster than his brothers, and he shot ahead of them, following Melanie’s distinctive scent, deep into the forest. His worry and anger drove him to run faster than he thought he had ever run before.
Her scent was easy to track and got stronger by the second. She may have been gone up to an hour, but being injured and so small, she seemed to have not gotten very far.
Finn found her lying facedown in the loamy earth after just three minutes. His heart stopped. She looked so pale and seemed to be hardly breathing. He shifted and squatted down next to her. He stroked down her pale, cool cheek with the back of his fingers. “Melanie, angel, can you open your eyes?”
Her eyes opened slowly, then she blinked up at him. “Finn, is that you? Are you naked?” She tried to sit up, but winced, and flopped back down.
“Can I help you, sweetness? Please.” Finn wanted to sweep her up in his arms, but didn’t want to hurt her.
She nodded weakly and he gave in and gently picked her up and sat down on the ground, cradling her in his lap. “We were frantic, Melanie. I am so happy to be holding you again.”
Just then three large mountain lions bounded into the clearing, running straight to Finn and Melanie. They each nudged her arms and legs. Finn felt Melanie go rigid in his arms. She stopped breathing. She just looked at the three sets of amber eyes staring at her.
Melanie turned her head up and looked at Finn. “That’s them isn’t it? That’s Hunter, Cooper, and Dane. I can feel it when they touch me. It’s the same as when you are all touching me as you, as people, I mean, like before.” She started to leak tears from the corners of her eyes. “You didn’t lie to me?”
“Yes, sweetness, it’s them. We told you we would never lie to you. We were so worried. Please can we take you home and get you warm? We can explain it all to you.”
“You did explain it all, Finn. I just didn’t listen, did I? I thought you just wanted to have sex with me.”
Hunter, Dane, and Cooper all growled and licked Melanie’s face. Finn stood, taking Melanie with him in his arms. “Oh, we want that, sweet Melanie, make no mistake. But you have to want it, too. We would never try to trick or seduce you into bed. We want you forever. There is no going back once we mate. It is not like a marriage. It is forever. We will discuss this all once we are back home. I know the others want to talk to you, too.” Hunter, Dane, and Cooper all growled.
“I’m so sorry. I just got so angry and thought you were all asshole men, trying to get me into bed.” Melanie snuggled into Finn’s naked chest. “You smell great, you know? Why are you naked, Finn?”
“Thank you, sweetness, you smell wonderful to us, too. I am naked as I shifted to get to you faster, and our clothes don’t shift with us, so if we don’t remove them first, they just rip. I am adding up the profanities, too, so please temper your language, or you will have a sore behind once you are well enough for me to punish you.” Finn smiled down at his little mate, very happy to have her back and to see her happy again. She just smiled up at him and relaxed into his chest as he walked up the steps to their home.
Chapter 11
Finn waited on the verandah with Melanie in his arms while the others shifted. She knew it had been them when they had rubbed against her in the forest but seeing them change made it impossible to deny. The
air shimmered around them, bones lengthened and popped, and in an instant there stood three deliciously naked men. Hers. She wanted them. She couldn’t and wouldn’t fight it anymore. She did want them. If she could trust what they had been telling her, they wanted her, too, and not just for the length of this protective custody, not just for a quick roll in the hay, but forever. Wow, was she ever one lucky girl. These men were glorious. She was used to naked people, she was a nurse, but she had never seen such fine examples of manhood before. They were all tall, and wide-shouldered, with slim hips and six-packs. As Hunter, Dane, and Cooper dressed, she got a look at their beautiful butts, too. She squirmed a little in Finn’s hold, feeling her belly begin to tingle and her nipples harden. Was she getting wet? She had never, in her life, felt like this.
“I think I should warn you, sweetness, that shifters have very good senses, even in our unshifted form. We can smell your arousal,” Finn whispered in her ear.
She looked up to see all of the others staring at her, with the amber color still glowing in their eyes. “Sorry, I was just looking at you all, and it just happened. I didn’t mean to. It has never happened to me before. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Cooper had finished dressing and he came and took Melanie from Finn, who then put on his own clothes. “Angel, we are not upset with you, why would you think that?”
“Your eyes, they’re all glowing. I’m sorry, Cooper, for everything. I should have talked to you instead of running.”
“Yes, angel, you should have, but we have you now. Our eyes glow with any heightened emotion. The emotion that has us heightened right now is not anger.” Melanie looked up at him, obviously still not understanding.
Cooper kissed her on the lips. She gasped in surprise as his tongue drove into her mouth. She had never been kissed before, but she knew that this must be a great one, as her belly fluttered, and the tingly feelings went straight to her core, causing more juices to leak onto her thighs. Oh my God, they all feel like this. That was why the glowing eye thing was happening. Her arousal grew even more.
Melanie [Eminence Shifters] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 5
