by R. E. Butler
Eryx shoved everything into the envelope and stalked over to the fireplace. He opened the flue, lit the long barreled lighter to catch the quick-starter log underneath the wood they kept stacked in case she felt like a fire, and then bellowed, “Callie, get your ass down here, NOW!” The silence in the house after his roar was nearly as loud. Several minutes passed.
“Eryx, what are you doing?” He grabbed his arm when Eryx stormed past him towards the stairs.
“She can’t hold us hostage for our past, Ethan. We fucked up by not telling her before, but we can tell her now. She wants to know our demons, then we’ll flay our souls open right now.”
Eryx wrenched out of his grasp and stomped up the stairs, opening the bedroom door with such force that it cracked against the wall. He heard arguing, and was tempted to go up there, but then Eryx appeared with Callie slung over his shoulder. He gripped her legs tightly and although she didn’t kick or hit, she struggled and shrieked, “Let me fucking go, Eryx!” Eryx said nothing as he stomped down the stairs, his face dark and furious.
He dumped her onto the couch and she bounced once and tried to get to her feet. Eryx barked, “Sit!”
She pursed her lips tightly and glared at Eryx before she eased back down.
Eryx paced angrily in front of her, back and forth several times, and then he dropped to his knees, buried his face in her lap, and wept. It was the first time that Ethan had ever seen his brother really cry since they were children. The raw emotion that Eryx showed their mate made his own heart break further and he was on his knees next to him, hot tears streaming down his face, begging Callie to forgive them for their past.
She didn’t move for several minutes as they wet the material of her jeans with tears. He looked up at her with blurry eyes, “Callie, don’t leave us, please.”
Her face softened suddenly and real sorrow shown in her eyes and she stroked his face with her hand, “Oh, Ethan, I would never leave you. Either of you.” And then tears filled her eyes, and she said, “Why would they send those to me? You said we’d be safe here from them.”
She hugged her arms around both of them and they all cried together. She gathered them next to her on the couch and stroked their backs and kissed the tears from their cheeks until all three of them were quieted and comforted, at least as much as possible, considering. She kissed both of their temples as she rubbed their backs, “I was angry because of the secrets. If you’d prepared me, if you’d trusted me to be able to handle your past, no matter how ugly, then this wouldn’t have hit me like an out of control eighteen-wheeler. I don’t care what happened before, I care that you thought so little of me that you couldn’t be completely honest about your past.”
Eryx sighed deeply, “Ethan wanted to tell you, before we found out you were pregnant, but I was ashamed so I discouraged him, and then we just kept burying it. I’m sorry. Ethan, I’m sorry to you, too.”
“I was glad you didn’t want to at the time, Eryx. It was as much my responsibility as yours.”
Callie kissed both of their foreheads. “Tell me now, and then we’ll close this chapter forever.”
It pained him to have to tell her everything, but they had no choice now.
Sitting back from her side, holding one of her hands, and scrubbing at his wet cheeks with the back of his free hand, he started their story.
When they were teenagers and sniffing around the females, the females rebuffed them completely. Eventually, the females suggested that they would be willing to have sex with them if they were given gifts. They were disappointed that the females didn’t want to date. Even though their dad and uncles all told them it wouldn't happen, they had held hope that things would be different with their generation. It was how the humans in the movies they watched started out on the road to marriage, so why not mountain lions? Although they were cautioned time and again by their family that the females weren’t interested in marriage, the lionesses gave them false hope by accepting gifts in exchange for promises that were never fulfilled.
When the males started to ask for the promises of sex to be fulfilled, the females played a different game. They would bait them into situations with other males, and then declare if they didn’t do things with their friends, such as kiss, that the females would leave. And once the males did that small thing, the females asked for more things. Not just kissing, but undressing and touching, and they hadn’t known at the time that they were being filmed.
And then when they finally agreed to have sex with them, it wasn’t private but with the older females watching as a group. Afterwards, he remembered how devastated Eryx had been. The females hadn’t been kind at all as they watched and their comments were destructive to their already poor self-esteem. It was then that Eryx started to lose the softer side of himself and began to withdraw.
They believed it was how things went with the females. That it was that way even in human circles and the movies they’d seen that were romantic and full of love were just fiction. They believed that the females held all the cards and played them however they cared to, human or lion. They were too ashamed of their actions to ask anyone for the truth. And then the pictures started to show up at their dad’s home and he sat them down and told them they were being treated poorly. It wasn’t the first time that he chastised them at home and then publicly stood up for them. The pictures stopped. They thought they were given the originals to destroy, but clearly they weren’t.
Eryx said something surprising, “I know I told you I never wanted to be recorded having sex, Callie, and that’s true. I have to assume that they videotaped us having sex and that’s what is on the DVDs. I didn’t know. I knew about the pictures, but not the videos. I swear.”
“Oh baby, I believe you.” Callie pulled him into a tight hug. Ethan figured it for something they’d discussed privately. Callie turned to him, “I’m sorry for what they did to you. I’m sorry I lost it before and made you feel so bad and worried. My emotions are just so nuts right now I couldn’t get a handle on what I was feeling. There’s a part of me that wants to think that you didn’t really exist until we met, and I know that’s silly.”
Ethan shook his head and kissed her palm, “It’s not silly, it’s how it feels to me. I didn’t exist until you loved me.”
“Me, too, love. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I never want to see you so angry and disappointed ever again," Eryx promised.
That was the damn truth.
They stood together and went to the fireplace and slid the envelope onto the hot coals and watched the flames lick and destroy it slowly. Callie kissed each of them and pulled them back to the couch.
She settled them against her and stroked their hair and talked about everything except what they’d just shared. She had effectively opened up a painful chapter of their lives, wiped the slate clean, and shut the door, locked tight with her love for them. He’d never felt more loved and cherished in his life, and he thanked his lucky stars for the sweetheart that could see past all his faults and love him anyway.
**Eryx**
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get over manhandling her when she was pregnant. He’d gone up to the bedroom in a rage of disgust for himself and found her as livid as Ethan had described. He wanted her to go downstairs to talk but she refused, and she got in his face and yelled at him for hiding their past from her. He hadn’t intended to let his beast loose, but he slung her over his shoulder and carried her downstairs. He wanted to scream to the moon that she had it all wrong and punch his fists through the walls in frustration. He wanted to berate her for the rush to judgment and her unwillingness to talk, but in the end, he’d been broken by the stark reality of the situation. Callie saw firsthand what their sexual history was like. It was shoved down her throat without warning and they had no one to blame but themselves. And that was enough to make him insane with the thought that she might leave them for this alone, and he’d lost it. Fallen at her feet to beg for mercy.
He must have apologized a hun
dred times for his behavior, but Callie dismissed his worries later that night by promising that he hadn’t hurt her a bit and she was perfectly fine. She even soothed his worries further by having Ethan drive her to the station the next day with the portable fetal heart monitor. She closed the office door and stretched out on his desk carefully to avoid knocking over anything.
Ethan lifted her top and kissed the slight swell of her belly, and then used the monitor to find their twins. When the sound of the two heartbeats echoed around them, she grinned, “See, our sweet little cubs are strong. Next time you want to pull a caveman move like that, though, you better be heading towards the bed.”
He kissed her belly and then her mouth and they listened to the twins a little bit longer and then duty called and Ethan took her home. He worked later than usual that night with plans to take off Thursday as well as Friday. He needed to spend some quality time with Callie, and with Ethan taking a last on-call tomorrow, he would hopefully get that opportunity and he had just the activity in mind to make up for his treatment before.
The next morning, when Ethan left them with a last kiss goodbye and a look of longing to stay tucked around their mate, Callie made motions to get up. Eryx held her with an arm around her waist and refused to let her out of bed. Her wriggling against him in all her naked warmth budged a very nice part of his anatomy.
She groaned, “I just need to pee, Eryx. Come on!”
“You have to come right back.”
“Promise.”
He let her go and she disappeared for a few minutes and then stretched out on her back next to him and took his hand and placed it very gently on the very slight swell of her belly. He rubbed the taut skin, eager for the weeks to pass so that their cubs could grow and he could feel them move. “I was thinking about names, Eryx.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Wanna hear?” She shifted onto her side and tucked her arm under her head.
“Of course, love.” He pulled the blanket over her hip and laid his hand there to rest.
“I was thinking of Elliott and Evan.”
“Nice. They don’t have to start with the letter ‘e’ though.”
“I don’t know, I think it’s neat, to have traditions like that. And I thought that Elliott James would be cool, and then Evan Roman.”
“James for our dad, and who is Roman?”
“My mom’s dad. He used to take me scouting in the woods when I was little. He said that even though I had better senses than humans, it didn’t mean that there wouldn’t come a day when I maybe wouldn’t have all that extra hearing and scent and sight, and if I could walk the land in confidence in my human form, than I could be a wolf at ease.” Eryx liked that story about her past. He wished she’d had a nicer upbringing. At least he could do everything in his power to see that what went forward for them all was full of love.
“What if they’re girls?” They were going to be identical, so there were only the two options.
She made a face, “I hope they’re boys.”
“Sweetheart, even if they’re girls and completely lion, they’ll love you. They won’t be like the pride females.”
A fine tremble wove through her. “You don’t know that, Eryx. I just don’t think I could bear it. To have my children treat me like a stranger.”
He couldn’t bear it either. For himself or her. “What we believe is that the females create the discord themselves. The girls always start out the same, sweet and loving kids like the boys are, but then the females come around and everything changes. John said he wished that he’d taken Jilly away as soon as she was born and hidden her from the females. I remember when she was two and he’d managed to keep her away from them, and she would run to us and jump in our arms and ask for kisses with her little baby talk. And then she was a stranger suddenly and John was heartbroken. Whatever the females said to her, whatever they did, love, she was different after meeting them.”
“Well, if they’re lions I hope they’re boys and if they’re wolves, then I hope they’re girls, because wolf boys are really arrogant.” She smiled and chased the dark look from her eyes. She did it for him, he knew that, but he didn’t press her. It was out of their hands after all. But he did honestly believe that Callie was going to be the lynchpin in all of their children’s lives. No other lion children would be as loved and well cared for as theirs that much he was certain of. And no other lion husbands, either.
While they were alone together for much of the morning, they made love and cuddled and talked, took a bath together and went for a walk around the farm. When she was ready to take a nap, he rubbed her back until she was fast asleep, and he stretched out next to her to read.
That evening, he looked over the checklist with Ethan for the next week. They were standing in the family room while dinner was cooking and Callie had her head in the fridge and her adorable ass sticking out from the door. Lisa had done an amazing job of getting the wedding and reception together. Callie had been thrilled that her dress still fit and hadn’t needed an alteration. She looked very early pregnant, gorgeous and glowing, and he couldn’t have cared less if she walked down the aisle with jeans and a Nickelback t-shirt on. The most important thing happening on Saturday was that she was going to be theirs legally forever.
“Reservation’s solid, I called before I came home. I have our bags packed and ready to go. The only thing left to decide is who signs as husband and who signs as witness.” Ethan said.
Eryx looked up from the paper. It was one of those things that was both important and unimportant. She belonged to both of them. But the human standards for marriages didn’t take multiple were-animal matings into account when they wrote laws. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I wanted to toss this out to you. Because I’m full-time with the city, I have full benefits and you don’t. So if we don’t want to scrape together a few grand for medical costs between her and any future cubs, then it makes sense for me to be listed as husband. As an offset, I thought it would be cool if you signed as the twins’ father on the birth certificate.”
Ethan’s face brightened considerably. “Yeah?”
He returned the smile. “Of course. Besides, I’m not planning for these to be our only cubs, and you can sign as the witness on the marriage license so both our names will be on there. The placement won’t matter.” And Giselle was creating an unofficial marriage license for them to display in their home that would have them both listed as her spouse.
“That’s cool. Thank you for thinking it through. I didn’t know what to do about it and it seems like a stupid thing to think about, but I couldn’t stop.”
“I know, man.”
He looked over the list again, mentally checking everything off, when Ethan snickered, “Holy crap.”
He looked towards the kitchen and Callie had a gallon of milk upturned over her mouth and was shot-gunning it. With amazing speed, the milk disappeared from the jug that had been full when she got it out of the fridge.
She dropped the empty milk jug down to her side with a hiccup and a small burp and then she did the cutest thing he’d ever seen. She patted the small swell of her belly through her thin cotton pajama top and said, “That better babies?”
She must have felt their eyes on her because she grinned at them and said, “They wanted milk.”
“Clearly,” he snorted with good humor. Internally he thought, I hope she doesn’t throw all that up.
Friday, she was a bundle of nerves because the wolves were coming to the rehearsal dinner. He wasn’t sure he agreed it was a good idea for them to be there, but he did agree it was good for closure to that part of her life. She would always be a wolf, but that was only a fraction of the wonderful woman they had come to love so greatly.
When it was time for them to go to the winery for their rehearsal dinner, all their vehicles drove in a long caravan. The boys were staying with Gwen the were-bear and her grandchildren. Alek, John and Henry were so happy to see everyone. Eryx wished they’d been able to
come in earlier.
At Callie’s request, they had bought a truck like their father’s that had a long bench seat in the front. She liked to sit between them. Ethan replaced his Cherokee with another one, citing the need for two car seats soon enough and no back seat in the truck. She still hadn’t asked to get a car for herself, and he was perfectly fine with taking her wherever she wanted to go. For the first time in their lives, they went grocery shopping with their mate and did all the fun dating things that she’d done as a teenager but they had missed out on.
They went to a drive-in and didn’t watch the movie for more than ten minutes before the windows were steamed up. They had a picnic under a tree when the weather was first starting to get nice. They camped out and kept each other warm in the tent all night. And she even convinced them to go to a club to dance and although it had made them feel a little territorial with all the men ogling her, it had been fun and she had really enjoyed herself. The best thing they did, though, top of his charts, was when they found a pool hall and spent the evening betting orgasms for games, and although she was the loser, she won in the end anyway, because they all did.
Chapter 22
**Cadence**
Cadence fiddled with the buttons on the front of the dress she wore, looking at herself carefully in the mirror of the hotel room she and Jason shared. They were getting ready to meet Callie and her two men for dinner. The whole situation was absurd, and maybe it was her pregnancy hormones all out of whack, but she still couldn’t believe how things had changed for her best friend.
It was only three months ago that she’d gotten the call from Callie that she was pregnant, and she’d been so thrilled, hopeful she would come back home to Allen and rejoin the pack. Cadence missed Callie like a part of her body had been cut off. Now it was the end of April and they were in some small town in Indiana just outside the very tiny town of Ashland, where Callie and her men lived. The town they’d chosen to settle in was apparently even smaller than the one they had left in Pennsylvania – fled, as far as she was concerned – and they’d ended up bringing her two men’s father, two uncles and kids with them. The only ones left back in King were apparently a brother and one uncle that had a daughter who refused to leave, so they’d stayed behind until she was of-age. Callie had explained about the female mountain lions and their strange behavior, but Cadence still didn’t get it, and she probably never would.
