by Laura Wylde
My eyes wide, I turned to stare at Tony apologetically. But then he stunned me too by taking my chin with his finger and bringing me in for a kiss as well. This wasn’t a territorial kiss, a competitive one with an edge, it was all about making me feel a lot better.
These guys don’t mind me kissing both, I realized. They like it.
The idea of something quite kinky and new happening thrilled me in a way that I never expected. I leaned in to Tony, moaning with delight as I thought about them both with their hands all over me, touching me, holding me, kissing me… oh fuck, it was too much. I couldn’t handle it…
“Come on.” Ramon touched my arm gently, separating me from Tony. “We need to move.”
“Oh, right.” I giggled, weakly. “Our lives are in danger. Of course.”
It was too hard to get all soaked up in worry when I was so consumed by those kisses. With any of these men it was always powerful, different, a new experience. Was that why I didn’t really want to leave? Because I wanted to see where any of it could go?
I wanted to text Maz and Darla to see what their advice might be, but how could I even begin to explain this situation? There was no way they could understand. Their lives were so simple, so normal. This would be too crazy for any of them to get.
“Look…” All of a sudden, Tony grabbed my attention back to the present moment as he pointed towards an ancient set of ruins that didn’t seem to really fit in with the surroundings.
“What’s that? Some kind of religious temple or something?” My eyes drank it in and instantly, I was fascinated by it. It had a real beauty. “What a shame that it’s just here, neglected. Why don’t more people know about it? I bet there are so many people who would love to learn its history.”
“We don’t exactly want a lot of tourists here.” Tony laughed. “Because this is our cover up.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “What on Earth are you talking about? This is your cover up for the panther race? Because that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It covers up Panthera. You only see this. You don’t see what else is happening.”
My heart skipped about ten beats. “What are you talking about? Panthera is here?”
“As soon as Jabari and Seth are back, I will show you just what I mean. You’ll love it, Tara.”
I separated from the other two and walked around the ancient ruins, reaching out to touch all the stone work. I wasn’t sure if it was just because I knew something lay beneath or it was a genuine feeling, but I could just tell that there was something different about this building. In another life, if I hadn’t discovered about the panthers in the way that I had, this might have been something that I stumbled across all on my own. I slipped my eyes closed and tried to imagine that scenario and how it would have played out. Would I still have got the attention of Jabari or one of the other panthers? Or would they have ignored me? Waiting for me to leave?
Perhaps I could have ended up going back to America without knowing anything. How sad would that have been? To return to my normal life without all of this. I stared at Tony and Ramon who were currently deep in a conversation of their own, a warmth radiating through me just through knowing them. They had enriched my existence just by being in my life.
I don’t want to go, I realized sadly. I never want to leave. I want this to be my life.
I even planned what I would do. I would message Maz and Darla to tell them that I had met a man I was in love with and I was staying in Brazil to be with him. The same to my parents. They would accept that with ease. Then I could still keep in touch with them, I just couldn’t be totally honest about everything. It would be the best solution for everyone.
“We’re back,” Jabari gasped as he broke through the trees, now in his human form. For once, he didn’t look like he had acquired more scars which was great. “Thank you for waiting. Let’s go.”
He led the way and I followed close behind him with the other three trailing me. Jabari took us to a tunnel that I hadn’t even noticed before. It didn’t seem visible to my human eyes until it was shown, which was crazy. The panthers had a wonderful secret here, it was great.
“Woah…” My whole version of the world shifted once more as we reached the other side of the tunnel and I finally got to see Panthera. The strange underground city was much more incredible than I ever could have imagined. It was like a full functioning society, running perfectly. I had been to many places, and this was a successful city for sure. “This is everything…”
I span around, laughing to myself as I drank it all in. The thought in my mind that I could stay here only intensified as I saw the city. It was just absolutely perfect. I loved it.
“Jakar!” Jabari called out, causing me to stop. This was his cousin; I could remember that much. The one who was known for his fiery temper. “Where’s Javier?” And that was the leader of the whole city. It seemed like I was about to be thrown into this new life head first.
Tony reached out and grabbed my hand, comforting me. Through all the jokes and teasing, he really did always seem to know what I needed. I wondered if that was because he found himself a bit of an outsider as well. Not from here, from Italy. Different at home, the product of an affair. If that was the case, then he and I had a whole lot in common because I was definitely out of place here. There were supposed to be other human women, but I hadn’t seen any of them.
Jakar stood tall and stocky. He had a darkness to him which I found more of an allure than something to fear. I didn’t have any attraction to him, thank goodness, it wasn’t all of the panthers, but he was attractive for sure. Then as Javier joined him, I noticed the same sort of thing. It was easy to see that all the alphas were related because they had the same commanding presence. I could imagine that they got all the attention no matter what room they walked in to, particularly if they were all together. They filled me with an excited confidence. The jaguars might have the numbers, but the panthers had these men controlling things.
“Good to meet you,” Javier growled while holding out his hand to me.
“I’m Tara,” I replied with a shyness that I hadn’t experienced before.
“Tara, nice to meet you.” He nodded and smiled. “I’m sure you have had a long journey. I bet you need a rest. Would you like our wives to take you for something to drink and eat?”
I nodded, eagerly. The wives had to be the human women since the panther women didn’t exist in Panthera anymore. Much as these panthers were incredibly exciting to me, it was them I really wanted to meet. Javier nodded at Tony who led me towards a house.
“They are inside there,” he told me with a reassuring hand squeeze. “We are going to have a meeting to decide what we are going to do next. We will be back for you soon.”
I nodded; I was fine with that. I didn’t mind how long I was left with these women. As I stepped up to the door, I knocked with the confidence that I usually carried around with me. I couldn’t wait, this was going to be an awesome meeting. It would tell me all that I needed to know.
“Ah!” A beautiful woman declared as she swung the door open. “You must be Tara.”
“You were expecting me?” Now, that came as a shock.
“Well, we heard a lot about you from Ramon when he came. We thought you might come, eventually. Please, come inside. It will be lovely to get to know you. I’m Reese, by the way.”
“Hi, Reese,” I replied, already feeling comfortable in her presence. There was something so warm and welcoming about her. I could imagine her being a good friend to me. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for being so welcoming.”
“Oh, you are welcome. I know how intimidating it can be to come here as a new person. I was just lucky enough to have my friend, Kayla, already here.” Reese laughed. “She is actually the reason that I came. I thought she had been kidnapped and I wanted to rescue her.”
“You didn’t realize that she was in the panthers’ underground city?”
Reese giggled. “Exa
ctly. Happy, married, and pregnant. Although, she isn’t pregnant anymore.”
We walked into the other room to see the woman who I had to presume was Kayla, with a little baby boy in her arms. The way that her eyes were shining with joy made me yearn desperately for that. I wanted this happiness more than anything else in the world.
“Oh, Tara!” Kayla looked over the moon to meet me as well. This was so nice. I couldn’t think of a time where I had ever felt so wanted before. “I’m Kayla, and this is my son, Jessie.”
“He’s beautiful,” I instantly noted. “He looks a lot like you.” I stepped closer to get a real good look at him. There was something so stunning about this child, it was obvious he wasn’t human. “And he is a panther shifter, am I right in assuming that?”
“It won’t show until he’s older, but yes, he is.”
“Fingers crossed, my little baby will be the same.” Reese chuckled as she rubbed her belly that looked perfectly flat to me. She couldn’t be too far along. “To keep the race going.”
“That’s what it’s all about.” I smiled, thinly. “Keeping it going.”
“Oh no, not at all.” Kayla shook her head, vehemently. “It’s about happiness and love as well. I’m not here to just be a baby factory. I’m here because I love my husbands.”
I thought she said plural then, but it had to be a mistake. I needed to clear it up, though. “Is your husband Javier or Jakar, if you don’t mind me asking that is?”
“Well, it’s Javier…” She replied cautiously, while glancing anxiously at Reese. Whatever she was worrying about, Reese nodded for her to continue. “But it isn’t quite as straight forward as that. I don’t know how much you know about it all…”
“Er…” I darted my eyes desperately between them both. “I don’t know…”
“Jakar is my husband,” Reese jumped in, taking the control. “But so are the rest of the pack. I’m not just married to one man. I’m married to all of them. The panthers are a polyamorous society. I guess Jabari hasn’t told you that much yet.”
I shook my head numbly, unsure what the hell I was supposed to make of that. No wonder no one seemed to mind about me fooling around with all the guys. That was normal to these people. If I stayed, I wouldn’t have to choose, I could have them all. My attraction to every single one of them for different reasons would be completely valid. In a way, it was perfect.
The only question was, could I handle it?
Jabari
“A final stand.” I nodded, slowly. “I see. So, the plan is to put an end to this once and for all. That seems… yes, like a good plan.” I couldn’t keep the hesitancy from my voice.
“You don’t think that’s a good idea?” Javier turned to look at me square on. “Huh, Jabari?”
There was a real urgency to him which I had to assume was linked to his son, Jessie. He didn’t want anything to happen to his new family. I didn’t either. We needed to break away from the jaguars once and for all, to let them know that we weren’t going to be a part of their clan no matter what they did to us. We didn’t need to mate with them, we had our own plan whether they liked it or not. There was no backing down now, we had come too far.
“Come on, Jabari,” Jakar joined in. “We need to know what you think. It’s you guys that have been out there in the city, fighting them for all this time.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” I admitted. “It’s just a bit overwhelming. Not what I was expecting. But then I want this to be over more than anyone so we can come back to Panthera.”
Javier and Jakar exchanged a look, one that was so damn easy to read they might as well have screamed it from the roof tops. They wanted to know if we would be back permanently in Panthera alone or with Tara by our side. I was glad that they didn’t ask it aloud when I had no answer.
I knew what I wanted, and I got the feeling that was what she wanted as well. But even after basically telling us she could leave her old life behind; we couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes until we were absolutely certain of what was going to happen next.
“I know we haven’t fought to the death yet,” Javier continued, causing me to glance my eyes towards Ramon. I still didn’t quite know what had happened up the stairs in our townhouse and judging from the way his eyes refused to meet mine, he wasn’t about to tell me now. “But we’re going to have to if we want to protect our way of living. If we don’t want to bow down to them and basically become the dirt under their shoes, the bottom rung of their ladder, then we need to fight until they leave us alone forever. It’s going to be brutal.”
“Maybe so,” I agreed, really getting in to the idea of ending this now. “But it’s what’s right, isn’t it? It’s what we need to do to protect those we love.”
A murmur of agreement burst out around the room. Everyone seemed to be on board with putting an end to this once and for all. No one seemed to believe that this could carry on forever, which I had to admit was deep down my biggest fear. We had spent hundreds of years just living the way that we wanted to. I really wasn’t ready to sacrifice that forever. The idea of someone having to be on the look-out for the rest of our existence was utterly exhausting.
“We will make this happen tomorrow then,” Javier announced, decidedly. “There isn’t any point in hanging around and planning this forever, is there? We might as well strike while the iron is hot, get them while they aren’t expecting it. End this before it can get any worse.”
I darted my eyes towards the floor then, not wanting to look at anyone. If we were fighting to the death then they would be too, which meant that everyone who left Panthera for this might not all come back. Even if it was for the greater good, it was still going to be hard to accept. I didn’t want to lose anyone, especially not for those fuckers… but it wouldn’t end any other way.
“Spend tonight as you want to,” Javier announced in a commanding voice. “Tell every other fighter in Panthera to do the same thing. Spend it as you wish and be ready for war tomorrow.”
Now the room was absolutely silent. Nothing could be heard at all. A pin could have dropped and we all would have heard it. Now everyone was thinking along the same lines as me. If we were to spend tonight doing what we wanted… well, it meant that tomorrow wasn’t promised.
I must have slipped in to some kind of daze because it took Tony to really shake me to drag me out of it. “Come on, buddy,” he hissed. “We need to make a move.”
He grabbed my arm and practically yanked me to my feet before we all left the conference room. I wasn’t really thinking about anything in particular, I was just all hazy and confused.
“So, what do you want to do?” Ramon finally asked me. “Tonight, I mean.”
“I… I don’t know, really. It’s hard to think of this as our last possible night.”
“I know. Which is why you need to think carefully about how you want to spend it.”
Those words were magical. They brought only one face to the fore front of my mind. There was only one person I wanted to spend this night with, and I needed to find her right away. I had been careful; I’d waited for too long, but now it was time to grab her by the hand and kiss her already.
“Tara,” I whispered, dead certain. “I need to speak to Tara.”
Ramon nodded knowingly as if he already knew that this was exactly what I was going to say. “Of course. Come on, let’s find Tara. We can all spend the night with her at last.”
There was something so calming about knowing I would see her. Spending the night with that wonderful woman in our real home, knowing that we were safe to just be who we were… well, it was perfect, wasn’t it? Even if the worst happened and we didn’t all come back, at least we would have made some wonderful memories along the way.
We stepped in to Kayla’s house where Tara had spent the day, and I stepped away from the other guys. I needed to take charge now, to finally command her. I took the stairs two at a time and followed the sound of chatter. There she was, in the
middle of the other women, laughing and looking more beautiful than ever. The purple in her hair glinted, her eyes shone, her face lit up…
I needed her. So, I took a giant stride towards her. The closer I got to Tara, the more the rest of the room melted away. I could only see her. Tara clocked me coming at her and she automatically rose to her feet. But I could already see that she didn’t have a clue what was going on.
I grabbed her face in my hands and pulled her towards me. The moment happened rapidly, but the anticipation grew massively the whole time. It flooded me, consumed my organs, filled my muscles right up. It became all of me and it was the most wonderful sensation on the planet.
Then my lips connected with hers and every cell in my body exploded. The sensation of those beautiful plump lips against mine was epic, phenomenal, and intense. I held her tighter to me, refusing to ever let her go. Just as I thought, the whole world revolved around this woman. The chemistry was off the scale. It was everything that I ever wanted and so much more.
“Come with me,” I moaned the moment we pulled apart just the tiniest bit. “Back to our room.”
There was a hushed tension in the room. It seemed like I wasn’t the only one desperate to see how this turned out. Tara nodded, only the slightest bit, but it was enough. I pulled her to me and walked out of the room, ignoring all the excited cheers from the other women who clearly liked Tara a lot, which was good. I wanted her to have friends here if she decided to stay. I didn’t want her to be lonely any longer. But right now, I needed her, and so did the rest of the guys.
We all walked in a thick, hushed silence to the house, the weight of what was finally about to happen, connecting with us all. We went up the stairs together and entered the room. I twisted Tara around to look at me as soon as we were inside, checking this wasn’t too much for her. Her expression would give it away for sure. She couldn’t ever hide it. Spending one on one time with us and fooling around was one thing, but all four of us was something else.
