Rose, Charlotte - Bayou Famine [Shifters of Alligator Bend 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

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Rose, Charlotte - Bayou Famine [Shifters of Alligator Bend 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 5

by Charlotte Rose

Serafine nodded. “It was a true tragedy when the power of the curse overtook them. We don’t much like to talk about it.”

  “Well, maybe you should,” Armand snapped. “Maybe you shouldn’t keep so many secrets. It will keep people from getting hurt. Or worse.” He glanced at Nelson and started walking into the boat, with his friend close behind.

  “Where are you going?” Rosaline called out.

  “To make sure our mate doesn’t want to run away.”

  * * * *

  Nelson and Armand walked into the bedroom, both looking frustrated. Adele shot a knowing look at Narcisse and stood up.

  “I know this is a strange situation for you, but I’m really glad you’re here. I think you’ll fit in soon. We’ll catch up more tomorrow.” She gave Narcisse a hug and hurried out of the room.

  “Are the two of you okay?” Narcisse asked.

  “Fine,” Nelson said.

  “Your families were pretty mad at you, huh?”

  Armand shrugged. “It happens. Don’t worry about it. It ain’t your fault.”

  Narcisse suddenly felt nervous as the two men started stripping down. Although her body still desired them after all that had happened, her heart was reticent.

  “So, I’m sleeping here tonight then?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Armand said.

  “In this bed.”

  “Of course.”

  “And the two of you are…sleeping here with me?”

  The two men stopped what they were doing.

  “Look, if you’re uncomfortable with that, we’ll work something out,” Nelson said. “We just assumed…”

  “We just assumed that as our mate, you’d want to be with us.”

  “It’s not that I don’t,” Narcisse said, trying not to say anything hurtful. “And I like you both. It’s just—it feels weird to sleep beside somebody you don’t actually know. Not to mention two people. I mean, I never thought I’d be married—I mean mated to two guys at the same time, much less within minutes after meeting them.”

  “Well, look, Nelson can go sleep in his cabin, and I’ll crash on the floor, if it’ll make you feel better,” Armand said. “We can take it one day at a time.”

  But the sight of them both naked before her had been playing tricks on Narcisse’s mind. She wasn’t sure she wanted to spend the night with them, but she did know she wanted to do something else.

  “You know, I changed my mind. Let’s try this, but take things slowly. Both of you should sit down next to me.” She patted the empty spaces on either side of her.

  Armand and Nelson grinned at each other and settled on the mattress. Narcisse’s skin already felt hot just from their presence. Both men had strong, rough-looking hands, and her body was tingling at the memory of how they had fondled and manipulated her skin. She couldn’t deny that, despite this odd situation, she wanted more of them.

  Nor was she just attracted to their similarities. The contrast between Nelson’s dark, tanned features and Armand’s smooth, light ones was electrifying. She pictured herself tangled between them again, a mixture of bronze and white, black hair and blond.

  She leaned forward and gave Armand a deep kiss, then gave one to Nelson. She kept alternating between them, and after a few kisses, the men began running their hands up and down her body. Before she knew it, her tank top was gone, and then Armand was pulling her jeans down her legs, along with her panties. Nelson’s hands immediately began stroking her inner thighs, and his fingertips teased her pussy folds. She thrashed on the bed as Armand turned his attention to her breasts, nibbling and teasing at her flesh. The arousal she’d experienced that afternoon returned full-force. Nothing had ever felt so right to her before.

  “What would you like, beautiful?” Armand whispered in her ear.

  Narcisse found herself suddenly possessed by the desire to taste her men. “I want to go down on both of you,” she said.

  Nelson quickly straddled her chest, holding his stiff cock in his hand. “You ready for me, baby?”

  Narcisse responded by grabbing his cock and sliding it all the way into her mouth. Armand moved down the bed, and when his tongue touched her clit, she moaned.

  “Fuck, it feels so good when you groan like that,” Nelson said.

  She moaned again as Armand probed his tongue deeper into her folds and slid two fingers inside her, reaching for her G-spot. She pulled her mouth away from Nelson’s cock and eased the tip of her tongue around the head in slow circles.

  “Please don’t tease me, baby,” he begged.

  Narcisse responded, but she eased the tip of her tongue around a few more times before taking him in her mouth again. This time, she plunged all the way down but then inched her way back up at a snail’s pace.

  “You’re still teasing,” he gasped. “I can’t handle it.”

  Armand began moving his fingers harder and faster inside of her, and Narcisse took it as an opportunity to pick up the pace. She started sliding her mouth up and down Nelson’s cock as fast as she could, plunging her mouth down his rigid length over and over.

  When Armand slid a third finger inside of her, the pleasure overwhelmed her, and she began screaming with release around Armand’s cock. Nelson suddenly stiffened, and his cock gave one final throb inside her mouth, spilling his cum. She immediately began to swallow him down and lick him clean as he groaned out her name.

  As soon as Nelson regained control of his body, he slid off of her to make room for Armand, who was eager to take his friend’s place. Again, Narcisse began by slowly teasing the head of his cock, this time with her fingertip rather than her tongue. She gave Armand an impish grin and savored Nelson’s explorations of her pussy, the way he teased her folds and played with her clit before sliding his fingers deep inside her cunt. Armand groaned and begged just as Nelson had, but she just traced her finger up and down his shaft, savoring the velvety feel of his skin.

  The second Nelson began to massage her G-spot, Narcisse slid her mouth around Armand’s cock and began to taste him, enjoying his texture against her tongue. When Nelson started circling his tongue around her clit with more intensity, she increased her speed up and down Armand’s shaft, enjoying the sound of his moans and the pulses of his cock. Soon, Armand threw his head back and shouted Narcisse’s name as he emptied into her mouth.

  As she had with Nelson, Narcisse swallowed Armand down and licked him clean, though it was more difficult with another set of hands and tongue pleasuring her pussy. She had barely finished before her own pleasure reached its apex, and her body seized up with delight before release flooded through her muscles.

  Coming back down to earth, Narcisse realized that in her post-orgasmic haze, she didn’t want to sleep alone. Despite the unusual circumstances, she was beginning to feel comfort in their warm arms. If she went to sleep by herself, she’d lose the connection that she could feel forming in her heart. And although she didn’t know if she could really stay on the swamp forever, she didn’t want to just cut the ties that were starting to form without giving them a real chance.

  “Will both of you hold me?” she asked.

  “Of course, baby,” Nelson said. He and Armand circled her with their strong, well-muscled bodies.

  “Maybe I could get used to this,” she whispered.

  “I know I could,” Armand said.

  “So could I,” Nelson replied.

  Chapter Four

  Armand and Nelson were coming back from a disappointing morning of fishing when they saw Oscar and Xavier’s boat pulling up toward the congregation at a hurried clip. Armand glanced at his friend, and then eyed the two men as they came closer into view. Both Oscar and Xavier had worried expressions as they got out of the boat and hoisted their meager catch out for cleaning.

  “Looks like you caught more than us. Why the long faces?” Armand asked.

  “It ain’t the fish that are worrying us,” Oscar said.

  “Well, they are, but we got some clues as to why they’re all disappearin’.”
<
br />   “Yeah?” Armand asked, struggling to keep his voice level. The thought that things were going to finally get resolved had him thrilled. “So what’s the problem? And how long before we get it fixed and start gettin’ normal amounts of fish again? Think we’ll have it all worked out before we have raise our prices even further?”

  Oscar gave a weak chuckle. “I ain’t seen you this interested in somethin’ in a long time. But it don’t look good.”

  “Well? Don’t keep us in suspense. Details, man.”

  Xavier smiled. “We don’t wanna have to tell this story twenty times. Wait ’til we get inside and get us some food, and we’ll tell everybody everything.”

  “Does that mean it’s good or bad?” Nelson asked.

  “Lunch first,” Xavier said. “We had a long morning out there, and we need to refuel.”

  Armand gave Nelson another questioning glance, but his friend only shrugged. They followed Oscar and Xavier into the main boathouse, where people were convening after the morning’s work to get food. Narcisse walked in with Adele, the two of them laughing and joking, and for a moment, Armand was distracted from the issue at hand as his gaze fell on his mate. He was glad that she’d allowed them to spend the night with her. Waking up next to her that morning had been a wonderful experience, and he relished having the opportunity to experience that feeling every morning.

  “So, boys, I heard you had an interesting morning during your fishing trip,” Serafine said as everyone settled down with bowls of gumbo. “What did you find out there?”

  Oscar began the story. “Well, we started off just doing our regular thing. Doing our best to trap fish in the nets, getting discouraged because we were getting so little.”

  “Eventually, we figured out that our area was tapped out. We weren’t gonna be catching anything good,” Xavier continued. “But it was still a couple of hours before we had to get back to the congregation. We started just riding around the bayou, trying to scope out new sources for fish, speculatin’ about what was goin’ on. We know everyone’s been workin’ hard to figure this out, so we ran through all the possibilities.”

  “We figured it out,” Oscar said. “But we did it pretty much by accident. If we’d stayed in our regular area and tried to dredge up anything, we would’ve missed it. Same as if we gave up and came home early.”

  “Look, I know you wanna tell your story,” Nelson said, his voice laced with urgency, “but you’re kinda dragging things out. We need to know this stuff. What did you find?”

  Serafine laughed. “Be patient, now. Let ’em talk.”

  Xavier grinned and continued. “We happened upon a boat.”

  “A boat that was having better luck than you were?” Armand asked.

  “You could say that, yeah.”

  Oscar reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pulled up the camera setting and went to his stored images. A photo of a fishing boat with Pomet Aquatic Enterprises painted on the side came up on the LCD screen.

  “Okay, so you got a shot of Alberto Pomet’s company doing some fishing. That ain’t so surprising. They’re one of our competitors, but otherwise, they ain’t anything special,” Armand said. “It ain’t like they’re direct rivals or anything. Never been any bad blood between our two companies.”

  “Maybe not, but here.” Oscar flipped over to another picture. This one was of the back of the boat, which was loaded down with mountains of fish. Armand couldn’t help but gasp. There was easily more fish on that one boat than he and his entire congregation could catch in a week.

  “Looks like they’re overfishin’,” he said.

  “That’s an understatement,” Nelson said. “Is that just one day’s catch?”

  “Looks like it, yeah,” Xavier said. When we came across that, we snapped a few photos and got out of there before anybody noticed. We sailed around the rest of the area, though, and found a bunch of other Pomet boats, all with the same mountains of fish in their boats.”

  “Shit. How are they getting so many fish so fast, though?” Armand asked. “I mean, we have a pretty big operation. That’s insane for just one boat.”

  “Check it out,” Oscar said, and he flipped to another picture. This one was zoomed in on the front of the boat, from which a long, thin pole protruded. A large ring was attached to the end of the pole.

  “What exactly are we lookin’ at?” Armand asked.

  “That pole with the ring on the end? That’s an anode.”

  Narcisse’s head snapped up. “And the cathode?”

  Everyone in the room turned and looked at her.

  Xavier’s face was grave. “The entire boat is the cathode.”

  “Wait a second. Can the two of you please clarify what’s going on?” Armand asked, trying not to let his frustration show.

  “They’re using electricity to lure the fish in,” Narcisse said.

  Oscar nodded. “It generates a huge bolt of electricity, which stuns the fish. Then they swim toward the boat, and the workers haul them up in giant nets.

  Armand banged his head on the table. “That’s not even legal.”

  “What confuses me is why they’re doin’ somethin’ like that in plain sight,” Nelson said. “Boat ain’t even camouflaged. The company name is right there! What does Alberto Pomet think he’s doin’?”

  “I wish I knew,” Oscar said. “It’s gonna be pretty easy to turn him in for this.”

  Manuel jumped in. “Maybe he don’t know what’s goin’ on. Alberto’s a pretty busy guy, and he’s got a lot of people on his staff. Maybe it’s someone in the middle of the ranks, who came up with this half-brained idea. Someone either too stupid to know it was illegal, or too stupid to care. Alberto might just be lookin’ at profits going up, and nothing else.”

  “Think maybe we should arrange a meetin’ with him?” Armand asked. “Just to see what he knows? Maybe he’ll make his boats back off down. Once our population comes back, we can put this all behind us. In a year or so, we’ll have forgotten all about it.”

  “That’s a mighty admirable idea,” Oscar said as he flipped through the camera. “But I think you’re a little misguided in assuming Alberto is innocent in all this.” He held up the camera to show a photo of Alberto Pomet standing on the deck of the boat.

  Nelson sighed. “So we have to report him, then.”

  Xavier nodded. “I know we try to keep to ourselves and keep the government out of our business, but the bayou is dependin’ on us. Hell, our business is dependin’ on us. The swamp won’t survive if we don’t intervene, and if the swamp don’t survive, we don’t survive.”

  “Why don’t I take care of it?” Adele asked. “I’m still a scientist, after all. It would be completely plausible that I’d been out researching the declining fish population and come across the illegal activity. I’ll write a full report and send it up.”

  “Great idea,” Manuel said. “It’ll look more credible comin’ from a scientist anyway. Less like sour grapes from a rival company.”

  Adele checked her watch. “I can have it written by the end of the day, and I’ll send it when I go to campus tomorrow. Narcisse, would you like to help?”

  Narcisse shook her head. “I wish I could, but Serafine is giving me training in how to shift today.”

  Adele smiled. “Good luck. I promise it’s not as difficult as it seems. I think you’ll be a natural.”

  Armand couldn’t help but notice how nervous Narcisse looked as she and Serafine left the kitchen and went toward Serafine’s quarters. He wanted to grab her and hug her, assure her everything would be okay. But then Manuel called him out for daydreaming, and he got swept up into the business of the afternoon.

  * * * *

  “Shiftin’ ain’t that hard,” Serafine said. “All the gators here learn to control it pretty young. It takes them longer than it’ll take you, though. For natural-born shifters, you can’t really get control over your shift until puberty hits. Kids fluctuate between forms, and can’t even be
gin to figure out how to manage it until the body starts reachin’ adulthood. It’s pretty tough to learn how to control the shift while dealin’ with hormones. But you’re a grown woman. Your body ain’t changin’ in twenty different ways.”

  “Just the one,” Narcisse said, trying to smile.

  “Exactly. Okay, you haven’t shifted since that first unintentional one, did you?”

  “No, I haven’t. It hasn’t been accidental, and I certainly haven’t tried to do it on purpose.”

  “That’s good. Okay, first I’m gonna teach you how to change and then change back. After that, we’ll talk about ways to control your shift when you might be stressed out. Stress is one of those things that can cause spontaneous change.”

  Narcisse rolled her eyes. “Awesome. Just what I wanted to hear. I’m surprised I haven’t been shifting every five minutes.”

  Serafine chuckled. “I know, it’s difficult. But trust me, you’re doin’ much better than the last woman that got accidentally mated.”

  “The last woman? So I’m not the only one? Can I meet her? I think it would help me adjust if I got to talk to someone who has been through all this before.”

  “She—well, that was a long time ago. She ain’t around no more.”

  Narcisse couldn’t help but shiver at the somber tone that had developed in Serafine’s voice. She hurried to change the subject.

  “Oh, well, that’s okay. Let’s get on with the subject at hand. So how do I shift?”

  “Close your eyes, breathe deep, and just imagine givin’ yourself over to the animal within you. Picture yourself becomin’ a gator.”

  Narcisse closed her eyes and inhaled and let the image of a gator cross her mind. But nothing happened.

  She popped her eyes open. “What did I do wrong?”

  “You ain’t concentratin’.”

  “Yes I am! I’m thinking about an alligator right now! Or at least, I was.”

  “That’s the problem. You were thinkin’ of a gator. You weren’t thinkin’ of you becoming a gator. Hold a picture of yourself in your mind. See yourself transforming.”

 

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