“Definitely,” Austin said.
“For sure,” Rex agreed.
“Oh!” Tears filled her eyes with her happiness. “Thank God. I didn’t know what I would do if you said no.” She hugged Austin and kissed him quick, and she turned and hugged Rex and gave him a quick kiss.
“But we need to tell you something important about us,” Austin said.
“Yeah,” Rex said, “and we’re afraid you won’t want to stay with us after we tell you.”
“What?” Cheryl looked at each of them worry filling her. What could they tell her that might make her leave them? She didn’t want to leave, she loved them.
“I’ll go first,” Austin said to Rex. Austin turned and looked her steadily in the eyes. “Remember that night your car stalled on the highway and I brought you here?”
She nodded, wondering where this was going.
“Do you remember being surrounded by wolves?”
“Yes, and I also saw a black panther before everything went dark and I fainted.”
“That was me,” Austin said. “I’m a shape-shifter and so were those wolves.”
“Oh, you’re teasing me,” she said, smiling at Austin. They could be so funny at times.
“It’s true,” Austin said.
“I’m also a shifter,” Rex said. I’m a wolf, a large, golden-red wolf.”
Cheryl was speechless. Why did they insist on joking with her now when it was such an important and serious moment for her. She’d just told them she wanted to live with them. “I haven’t seen you shift. How do I know you’re telling the truth and not just trying to tease me and change the subject?”
“You saw me in my black panther shape,” Austin reminded her. “I shifted back to my human form after I chased away the rogue shape-shifters that surrounded you.”
“We don’t want to upset you,” Rex said. “But we need to be honest with you. We want to spend our lives with you as a threesome. We won’t ask you to do that with us unless you can feel at ease with our shape-shifting reality.”
Austin’s eyes looked warm as he smiled at her. “We love you too much not to tell you the truth about who we are. We had planned to tell you tonight.”
Rex rubbed his fingers over his lips. “We had decided we needed to tell you for your own protection. The fights we’ve been in at the dance hall have been started by some of those shape-shifters who surrounded you when your car stalled.”
“Their leader is an evil man.” Austin grimaced. “He’s the man responsible for bullying us when we were young kids.”
“He was also responsible for the younger man’s behavior when that guy bullied us in our teens,” Rex said.
“I see,” Cheryl said. Maybe they didn’t really want to have a serious relationship with her and were teasing her to stall for more time to have sex with her. Yet, they seemed awfully serious. “So ultimately he was also responsible for the death of the young bull rider.” She looked from Rex to Austin.
“You could say that, but I still believe that I should have protected that kid somehow.” Austin’s face turned serious.
She didn’t want to remind Austin of that time in his life, but she couldn’t believe what they had just told her about shape-shifting. She scooted off the end of the bed. She turned around and looked at them. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to insult you, but I need some sort of proof that you’re not just putting me off, that you’re telling me the truth. I love you two so much, but I need something concrete to make what you’ve just said real to me, and not a silly joke.”
Austin and Rex looked at each other. Rex held up his hands, obviously stymied by her request. Austin swallowed, and his face looked deadly serious. Had she just opened Pandora’s Box? Chills swept over her.
Austin left the bed and stood in front of her. He held out a hand, asking her to believe him. Whatever he planned to tell her, she knew it would be the absolute truth. She trusted both of these guys.
“That monster who bullied us all those years, starting when we were in grade school, corralled us in Mike’s parents’ barn where we were cleaning tack one day after school. It was something we did on a regular basis, so no one would have missed us. Somehow that guy figured that out. He taunted us. I remember what he said even now. He said, ‘Let’s see if you’re old enough to change to your animal shapes,’ and then he shifted to his wolf form. I was terrified. I didn’t know how to shift yet.”
“We were too young yet to shift,” Rex said.
“I watched in horror as that wolf leaped at Rex, knowing my best friend couldn’t shift. The growling wolf was larger than a normal wolf. He slammed into Rex with his huge hairy chest and knocked Rex down. The damn wolf jumped on Rex’s back and held him down before he had a chance to get away.”
“I couldn’t get away,” Rex explained, leaving the bed. “I cried out to Austin to get help.”
Austin looked away. “I ran when I saw that hellish wolf’s teeth bite into the back of Rex’s right thigh. I ran to find Mike, who was older and knew how to shift. I knew Mike could save Rex, but I ran.” Austin’s voice sounded rough with emotion.
Cheryl stared at Austin and Rex, amazed by what they were telling her.
“That bastard took off when he heard you and Mike come running back to the barn,” Rex said, a faint smile on his face.
“Rex still has the scars on his leg from that bite. I should have done something to stop that damn wolf, but I didn’t.”
“You were too young,” Cheryl protested, horrified by what had happened to these two guys who would do anything for anyone. Austin’s eyes held a haunted look of sadness.
Austin shook his head in denial. “Show her the scars so she believes us,” Austin said softly.
“You don’t…” Cheryl began, and shook her head, but Austin interrupted her.
“Show her.”
Rex unfastened and dropped his cut-offs. He pointed to the lightly-furred upper part of his right thigh. “You can hardly see the scars anymore, but they’re here, and here.” He pointed to places on the outside of his leg and the inside.
She knelt in front of Rex, reached a hand out, and stroked gently over his skin on the outside of his leg. She felt the rough, raised scar tissue. Then she slipped her fingers lightly over his inner thigh. She found the bumpy scar there more toward the back of his thigh. They were telling the truth. This was not a story they made up. No way could Austin tell her about this and not look and sound exactly as he did. “I’m sorry I doubted you.” She looked up at Austin and then at Rex.
Rex reached down and grasped her under her arms, lifting her immediately to her feet. He hugged her tight and kissed her beneath her ear. “Don’t leave us, hon.”
He sounded desperate, and she could feel his cock rise hard and rigid against her. Tears filled her eyes with the knowledge of what he and Austin had suffered as children.
Rex released her, and she took a step back and turned to face Austin. “I believe you.” He didn’t move toward her but just stood there, the burden of pain that the past still caused him so evident in his face and eyes that her tears threatened to overflow again. She reached her hands out to him. Please, come hug me, she thought. As if he could hear her silent plea, he crossed the space between them and wrapped her in his strong arms. She burst into tears, burying her face in his shoulder. “I love you,” she cried, “both of you, so much.”
“Don’t cry, babe,” Austin said, his voice soft and rough with his own emotion. “It’ll be all right. The three of us will work this out.”
Through her sobs she heard his encouraging words, and his tight hug made her believe it would work out somehow.
Cheryl let go of Austin and he let her go. She reached for Rex and hugged him tight. Finally, calmer, she stepped back and gathered her courage, smiling at both of them. “I need to think about all of this. I’m going to my room to sleep tonight. I want to sort through what you’ve told me, as well as everything that’s happened.”
Austin held out a hand towa
rd her. “We hope you’ll decide to stay with us, babe.”
“We’re crazy about you, hon,” Rex added. “And remember, we only shift to our animal forms if there’s a compelling need for us to do so, like if someone was in danger and we needed to shift in order to protect him or her.”
“Just as Austin protected me when my car stalled?”
“Actually, I was out for a run that night when that happened.” He smiled at her. “We do shift sometimes for the pure enjoyment of being in our other form.”
She nodded. “Thank you for telling me all of this. I just need to think about it for a while.”
“You’re welcome to stay here in our home for as long as you want,” Austin said.
“Absolutely,” Rex said.
“Thank you. I plan to work tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”
“That would be great,” Austin said, smiling at her.
“We can use all the help you want to give us,” Rex said.
Austin slashed his hand through the air. “And we’ll still bankroll your home for street kids, no matter what you decide about our relationship with you.”
“We’d like for you to feel comfortable living here in Heat Springs, no matter what you decide about us,” Rex said, his voice low and serious.
She smiled at both of them, tears beginning to burn her eyes again. “Thank you. I’d better get some sleep now.”
She walked to the bedroom doorway and turned toward her private room. She felt dazed, as if she’d landed on a strange planet. There was so much she needed to think about and come to grips with before she could decide what she would do about all of this. She felt overwhelmed. She’d just gone from elation that they felt the same about her as she did about them to despair that they were shape-shifters, something she’d always thought of before as fiction, and finally to sorrow that they had been hurt badly when they were children.
She needed time to get used to what they’d just told her, and to decide what she wanted to do about Austin and Rex. Could she love two guys who were so different from her? Could she love two shape-shifters?
Chapter Fourteen
Cheryl unlocked the back door of the dance hall with the key that Rex and Austin had insisted she take and keep on her key ring. She thought of that morning at breakfast and how they’d earnestly insisted she also take keys to their home and put them on her key ring. They’d told her that no matter what she decided about their relationship with each other, she should keep the keys handy for any occasion she might need to get inside their home or the dance hall. It didn’t matter to them that she hadn’t made up her mind yet about what she should do concerning her relationship with them. They wanted her to be safe.
Tears burned her eyes just remembering their serious faces when they’d given her the keys.
She walked outside to the backyard behind the dance hall to check on the cats. Their food dishes and water bowls were empty. How could that happen? The cats never emptied all the bowls.
She looked around the fenced area. A whimper sounded near her in the brush. She walked closer to the sound. “Here, baby. Come here.” The whimper turned to an excited whine. A dog scooted out from under a broad bush. It came to her, wagging its tail. The dog looked like it had been on the run for a few months at least. It was skinny and obviously needed food and water. As she petted the friendly terrier, another dog came toward her, and then another. She petted all three of them, checking their condition. Except for needing food and water, they didn’t look too bad. They’d make nice pets.
Something about their appearance here, all in the same condition, didn’t seem right. It seemed very unusual. She stood and gazed around the yard and past the fence toward the highway. Could whoever dumped the dogs still be around? She didn’t see a vehicle parked on the shoulder of the highway. Yet she definitely felt uneasy as if someone watched her, someone evil. The feeling intensified. She was sure someone or something evil lurked nearby.
Shaking off the awful suspicion, she walked back inside to get more food for the cats and dogs. She put the dishes for the cats on one of the picnic tables at the side of the back porch so the dogs couldn’t eat all of the cats’ food. After she refilled the food dishes, putting those for the dogs at the side of the back door, she filled the water bowls with fresh water. She needed to find bigger bowls of water as well as food for the dogs.
She firmly believed that all animals were the sisters and brothers of humans and deserved the same friendship, consideration, and care. She had always believed that, as far back as she could remember. It made sense to her. As she petted the dogs, who all seemed starved for affection, she realized that Austin and Rex were no different, they were simply shape-shifters. Evidently, their reality was that they were animals, and could take the form of humans or other animals like wolves, panthers, or whatever shape that beings of their kind could become. The line between what people called human or animal seemed to be non-existent where Austin, Rex, or others like them, were concerned.
Could the children born to a shape-shifter and a non-shape-shifter human be capable of shifting? She’d have to ask Austin and Rex about that.
* * * *
Shaman Wra waited in the shadows of the trees and brush beyond the fence. He watched his prey pet and feed the dogs he’d captured and dumped in the backyard of the dance hall. He knew she checked the animals’ food and water containers several times every day. The last time she would check was before dark. That’s when he planned to capture her. He would leave a note he’d written to warn Austin and Rex that he would hurt her if they didn’t do what he said. That should draw them to find him in the darkness.
He planned to capture Austin and Rex in the middle of the night in an out of the way place where the other Heat Springs shifters wouldn’t find them. He could hardly contain his excitement at the prospect. No one would rescue them this time. No one would find them. The girl was an unexpected bit of pleasure who was going to land into his lap.
It was all coming together so easily. He’d waited longer than he deserved for this reward. He’d waited at least twenty years to possess the two beautiful shape-shifters these guides had become. Never again would they leave him.
He thought of how he found them by accident when he had come to Heat Springs after he tracked down his disloyal wife here. That was the first time she ran from him to her friend, Mrs. Adams. At that time he’d noticed the two good-looking young boys hanging out at Mrs. Adams’s home with her sons. None of her sons interested him.
His anger simmered close to boiling when he remembered how the two most handsome kids wouldn’t have anything to do with him when he wanted to get close to them. He’d turned his nasty young assistant loose on them in retaliation. He figured they deserved that treatment for ignoring him.
After the first visit to Heat Springs there were more. When the two youngsters continued to avoid him, he took pleasure in turning his young bull dog of a helper on to those pretty boys. He’d gotten a big thrill out of that, every time. Served them right.
He knew their guilty secrets. He intended to control them now just as he would as the ruler of the world. He’d control them by using threats to Miss Cheryl McQueen’s safety and wellbeing. Austin and Rex would be his to enjoy at his every whim as his eternal captives. They would not escape from him ever again.
As if it had taken place only recently, he could remember the taste of Rex’s blood, and the fear on Austin’s face. The death of the young bull rider would not be the last death on their conscience if they didn’t submit to him this time.
* * * *
Austin’s sister, Lacy, had been throwing invisible daggers at him all through lunch. She and her two boyfriends had been hanging out here today as if it was the only happening place in town.
With the lunch crowd gone, he finally had time to find out what was on her mind. He crossed the room to her table. “What are you up to today?”
“I want to talk with you,” Lacy said, anger evident in her tone.
<
br /> “Let’s talk in the office,” Austin said, and turned toward the hall to the office.
She followed him. Austin could tell by her footsteps that she was hopping mad about something. He closed the door behind them. “Have a seat. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“What did you do to Cheryl?” she demanded.
Shocked by her question, Austin could only stare at his sister.
“She was obviously not her usual self today when she waited on us,” Lacy said. “After lunch when the crowd left, I saw her walk out the back door to check on the cats like she usually does. The look on her face showed complete dejection and dismay. It’s obvious to me that you and Rex have hurt her somehow. What the hell did you say to her, or do to her to make her look that way?”
“I don’t know.” Austin protested. “We didn’t do anything to her. We’d never hurt her. We talked last night about our future together, and Rex and I figured we’d better tell her we’re shape-shifters before she gets too serious about us. So we told her.”
“That must be it,” Lacy said as she paced the small office. “She could definitely be distressed about that. You’ve got to do something. You can’t let her stay so upset.”
“What can I do? We told her for her own protection. She said she needed to think about it.” He was beginning to feel riled, not only by his sister’s attitude but also because he hadn’t handled telling Cheryl the best way, and now she was really unhappy.
“You shouldn’t leave her alone. Who knows what she’ll do if she’s feeling devastated?”
“She wanted to be alone, she told us. There isn’t much we can do if that’s what she wants.”
“Good grief! I can’t believe how dense men can be. Go to her before she does something you’ll regret!”
“I’ll go find her but I won’t do any good if she still wants to be left alone right now,” he argued.
“Fine, leave her alone. I hope she survives your tender care!” Lacy stormed out of the office and slammed the door closed.
Alpha Night [Alpha Protectors 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 10
