Wild, Wicked & Wanton

by Tawny Taylor

  God, she never talked like that. She sounded so… needy. This whole thing was really messing with her head. Gone was the stubborn independence that had seen her through life, or so it seemed.

  That terrified her more than she could say.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Cy asked, moving up the side of the bed, so that he was sitting beside her, gazing down at her with those dark, penetrating eyes of his.

  “It wasn’t supposed to go like this. You guys know that, don’t you?” she confessed. At their bewildered looks, she explained, “I set a trap. I wanted to catch you when you came through the portal, so I could gather the proof I needed, write a big story and sell it to the big papers. It was going to be my once-in-a-lifetime chance, the story that would make my career. I’ve been living for that chance. Now… none of that matters anymore. And I’m having a hard time accepting it’s all gone, everything I cared about.”

  Maks stepped forward. Once, twice, three times, stopping at the foot of the bed. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, his jaw clenched. And yet, there was something in his eyes, an emotion Cheryl hadn’t seen there before. “We will do everything we can to make you happy.”

  “What if the only way to make me happy was to set me free?”

  A long, agonizing silence followed. Finally, Cy broke it. “Anything but that. We can give you gifts. You’ll have this beautiful home, health, a long life, our affection.”

  He hadn’t said love, but that didn’t bother her. Not really. That was the one thing in life she had never expected to find. Because she’d stopped looking for it. A long time ago.

  “Most brides grieve for the life they leave behind,” Maks said, easing onto the bed. “But in time, the happiness they find here in Alyria makes them forget.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll never forget. Never. I won’t let myself forget.” God, her headache was getting worse. This sucked. She lay back and flopped one arm over her forehead. “Tell me about yourselves, about what you want in life. If we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, I don’t want to be strangers.” She looked at Maks. “You first, Mystery Man. You’re so quiet, strong, and mysterious. What’s your story?”

  “I’m a business owner who has pretty much spent my whole life alone. I’d still be alone, if you hadn’t summoned us.”

  That didn’t surprise her. “Then you resent my calling you?”

  “No. It was destiny,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I knew that sooner or later this time would come.”

  “But you’re not happy.”

  Maks visibly ruminated long and hard about her statement before answering, “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “But you would say that you were happier alone.”

  “Hmmm… maybe not happier. Just more… comfortable.”

  She felt like she was getting somewhere with him, and that made her feel lucky. Special. “Why’s that? Do I make you uncomfortable?”

  “Not you. The situation. This.” He motioned back and forth between them. “Talking. I’m not a big talker. But I’m a good listener.”

  “Well, you’re doing pretty good in my book.”

  He gave her a strained smile. “Does that mean you’re ready to hear from Cy now?”

  Was she? “No, not yet. You seem to be in the mood for sharing. I’m thinking I better keep at it, while the getting’s good.”

  “Clever girl.” His eyes glittered with laughter. He folded his arms over his chest.

  “So, do you have any choices? Do you get to pick the other guy, the one who will share your bride? And once your bride ‘summons’ you, as you say, do you have to go and get her, bring her back and marry her? What if you don’t like her?”

  “We have no choices,” Maks said, almost sounding sad. His smile was sort of empty, joyless. “Our mate, the other guy, is predestined. We don’t find out who he is -- or our bride -- until we come to the portal. And we must go to our bride as soon as she summons us. Her words are what open the portal, and if we did not go to get her, the portal would remain open until we did.”

  “Did you, then? Come as soon as I summoned you?” She vaguely remembered waiting, wondering if she’d made a mistake.

  Maks shook his head. “I couldn’t. But I believe Cy did. He was waiting for me at the portal when I arrived.”

  Cy nodded. “I was there for several hours. But that was okay. There were some things I needed to take care of anyway.”

  She mentally masticated on all the information Maks and Cy were so kindly dispensing then looked at Cy. “Your turn now. I want to ask you a question… or two.”

  Cy didn’t look nearly as resistant as Maks had. “Shoot away.”

  “First, I want to know how you moved so quickly when you first captured me. That isn’t normal. Are you like… super-human or something?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. Maks and I are just your average shapeshifters.”

  “Oh.” Something hard congealed in her throat. Shapeshifters? What exactly did that mean? “Just shapeshifters? What exactly do you change into?”

  “We’d rather not say yet,” Cy said.

  She wasn’t happy with that response. “Then I don’t believe you.”

  The guys exchanged a look.

  “You don’t want to know,” Maks said.

  “Why?”

  “We’ll show you later, after you’re more comfortable here, with us,” Cy promised, his voice firm. “We wouldn’t want to scare you.”

  “Scare me? What the heck do you turn into? Wolves? Lions? Bears?”

  The guys shrugged.

  Stubborn, pig-headed men. That was okay. It was probably better that she didn’t see them change right now. They might have a point there. She might freak out a little—or a lot—if they suddenly turned into big, scary wolves. “Are uh… all the what do you call them? Twelfth Knights shapeshifters?”

  “Yes,” Cy said. “All Twelfth Knights are able to turn into creatures of the night, of the air, water, or land. Once, a long time ago, we inhabited your world. We lived among you. In peace. But sadly, that harmony didn’t last, and humans began to persecute us, hunt us. We sought refuge. Here.”

  Silence.

  She couldn’t wrap her brain around the fact that these men weren’t human. And that there were more of them roaming this world—inhumanly strong magical beings that turned into God-only-knew what. So, instead, she just let it go.

  To her, Cy and Maks were men. That was all. Dominant, powerful men.

  “I want to know what your happiest and saddest moments in your life were,” she said when she was finally able to speak again.

  Maks barked out a laugh and Cy gave him a glare. “You got off easy, buddy,” Cy said, snarling. But Cheryl could see in his expression that he wasn’t as bothered by her question as he was pretending to be. “My saddest would be when my parents died. I loved them both, but it was especially hard dealing with the loss of my mother.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Cy’s eyes filled with sadness. “She was a wonderful mother and wife.”

  Would anyone ever say that about her? Did she have what it took to be a good wife? And mother? Oh God. Even the thought of being responsible for another human being terrified her. She’d had such a crappy upbringing. She’d never wanted to subject some poor, defenseless child to the skeletons in her closet.

  And yet, a part of her wanted someone to say those words about her someday.

  Not just anyone. She wanted Cy to say them.

  Once again, she found herself confused and shocked by her emotions. Had she truly known herself all these years? It seemed, since stepping through that portal, that the Cheryl Witte she’d grown up believing she was had disappeared and a new Cheryl had stepped into her place. She didn’t know herself anymore.

  Crazy.

  “… my brothers and I grew up not far from here,” Cy continued. “Sometime, I’ll take you to see the old place. It was nothing like this. It didn’t matter that we weren’t living like
royalty. We had everything we needed -- each other.”

  Thanks to her thoughts taking a side trip for a few minutes, she hadn’t caught Cy’s whole story. But she caught the gist, which was he’d had the kind of childhood she’d once dreamt of. With loving parents. Love.

  “Then you’re ready for love?” she asked.

  “I’d like to think so, yes.”

  That statement made her heart do a happy little hop inside her chest, despite the fact that she knew she wasn’t.

  “What about your happiest moment?” she asked. “When was that?”

  His brows furrowed. “There’ve been so many happy moments. It’s hard to pick just one.”

  “Well, you have to.”

  “Then I’d say it was when I watched my younger brother, Darius, graduate from the academy. Our parents had died a few months before, and I was worried he wouldn’t make it through that last term. Even without the stress of losing two close family members, the final year is the most difficult.”

  Even now, after who knew how long, Cheryl could hear the pride in Cy’s voice, see the love in his eyes. “Will I meet your brother?”

  “You will. Someday. But it won’t be for a while. New brides are sequestered for the first few years.”

  “Years?” she echoed, hoping she’d misunderstood. She’d go absolutely cuckoo sitting around, waiting for Cy and Maks every day for years.

  “Yes. That’s the way it must be.”

  Cheryl literally groaned. “I’m so not cut out to be a bride. You know that don’t you?”

  Cy stood up, patting her leg. “That’s enough talking for now. You need rest.”

  Maks stood up as well, and Cheryl lurched forward, snapping up Cy’s hand and yanking it toward her, until she had it trapped between her hands and chest. “No. I’m not tired yet. I hate being alone. It’s so boring and lonely.” God, she was such a whiner. “Please. This is nice, just talking. Did I say something wrong?” She glanced at each guy, waiting for one of them, or both, to answer.

  They didn’t.

  Nor did they sit back down.

  “Please?” She focused her gaze on Cy’s eyes, schooling her face into a mask of desperation, which wasn’t a far cry from what she was feeling. “Just a few minutes more? I miss my old life. My work. My...I don’t want to be alone.”

  Cy exchanged questioning glances with Maks. “Only if you agree to answer our questions.”

  What the hell. That beat sitting there, staring at four walls for the next twelve to fifteen hours. “Sure. Absolutely. Ask anything you want.”

  Cy sat on the bed again. This time, Maks pulled up a chair.

  “Tell us what your happiest and saddest moments were,” Cy said, giving her an evil grin.

  That was a tough one. Man, what had made her ask such a question in the first place?

  She could go with the saddest first. That was easier, for sure. “My saddest was when I found out my grandmother died. She lived far away, and we spent very little time together. Most of what she did for me, she did with her checkbook. Paid for my private school, and later college. She was the only human being who was kind to me, and I still miss her. I will always miss her. It’s sad, but before she died, I hadn’t really appreciated how much she meant to me, or how much she’d done for me.”

  Both Cy and Maks nodded with understanding, and she couldn’t help smiling. This was such a strange, semi-awkward, and yet wonderful moment. Here were two men who clearly wanted to understand her, maybe they even wanted to love her someday. These were powerful, successful, absolutely beautiful men. They were hers. And she was theirs. And they cared about her.

  Mind blowing.

  “What about the happiest?” Cy asked, quietly.

  She tried to remember the moments in her life where she’d felt the happiest, but sadly it was so much easier recalling the bad times. Often, the little happiness she’d found had been very short lived -- like the one week she’d spent at her grandmother’s house when she was a kid.

  Yes, there had been that week. “I went to stay with my grandmother once…” She concentrated, trying to recall what had made that week so wonderful. But her memories were hazy, details seeming to fade away as she reached for them. Kind of like when she woke up and tried to remember the details of a really great dream. Frustrated, scared, she started to cry. “Why am I forgetting? I don’t want to forget it all. My work!” she blurted. “I loved my job. And...and...” she clamped her eyes closed and searched her brain, grasping frantically to fragments, images, anything she could recall. “My grandmother. And...what the hell?”

  The bad stuff was so much clearer. Why was that?

  The more she tried to remember, the faster her memories seemed to fade, until all she could recall were the bad times.

  “I-I can’t answer that,” she said, shaking her head. “This is wrong! How dare you steal it all away. All my memories. Everything that made me, me.” She was fucking furious. “Dammit!” She lurched upright, pounded her fists on Cy’s chest until her arms felt like overcooked spaghetti and her head was pounding so badly she was seeing stars. Falling back, she clapped her hands over her eyes. “Tell me I won’t forget everything. Please. Tell me I’ll remember some of the good things. I don’t want to completely lose my life before.”

  “It’s okay.” Cy’s smile was sweet, reassuring. “Some of those memories may come back later. And we’re going to give you lots of good memories too. Soon, you’ll have a very different answer to that question. I promise. But for now, you should rest.” He left, returning a few minutes later with a tube of lube, and a larger butt plug. Apologetically, he set them on the bed. “Homework. For later. The sooner we complete the claiming, the better.”

  The guys left her then, and she didn’t complain.

  Chapter 8

  “She’s getting weaker. We need to do something.” Cy motioned to Maks after taking a final glance at their sleeping bride. Her breathing was growing shallow, her face flushed with fever. “The Sickness is progressing quickly.”

  “I know.”

  Not wanting to wake their bride, Cy headed for the door to his adjoining suite.

  This was it. The end of the line. He’d tried to let things take their natural course, to give Maks time to deal with whatever issues were holding him back. But now their bride was paying the price for Maksim’s insecurities. Cheryl didn’t deserve to suffer any longer.

  Maks hung back by the door, refusing to come fully into Cy’s suite. His arms were crossed over his chest, his expression hard.

  “What the hell are we going to do, Maks?”

  Maks shrugged in response.

  “What’s your deal? Is it something we should work through in the dungeon?”

  “No, probably not.”

  “Then how do we get past this? You know we can’t complete the claiming until things are right between us. I care about Cheryl.”

  Maksim still said nothing.

  Damn it all to hell! What was with this guy? Who was he protecting himself against? “I’m not one of your business competitors. I’m not looking for a way to knock you to your knees and steal everything you’ve worked for.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So what’s with the quiet act? And don’t tell me it’s just because that’s the way you are.” Unable to stand the distance between them -- both the figurative and the literal -- Cy walked back toward the door, stopping just shy of crowding Maksim’s personal space.

  The two of them were about the same height and size. Two very different men, but two men who were equals in every way.

  If only he could do or say something to make Maksim trust him. But what?

  “How about I start?” Cy offered.

  Maks shrugged again. The bastard wasn’t going to make this easy.

  “So, I’ve been thinking about this thing with Cheryl and wondering why I ended up with a woman who is pretty much the exact opposite of what I’d said I wanted in a bride.”

  “She isn’t exactly
a typical Twelfth Knight bride,” Maks agreed.

  Wow, that was what? Eight words in a row Maks had spoken. Could be a new record. “You got that right. But you know what? I’m beginning not to mind it so much. That actually surprises me.”

  “Yeah?” Maksim’s eyebrows rose.

  “Yeah. And you know what else surprises me?”

  Maksim shook his head.

  “How much I want to make her happy. And you, too. I…” He paused, not sure what he was trying to say to this guy, a man who was pretty much a stranger, despite the time they’d spent training their new bride. “Maybe we should just take her back.”

  “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this. A member of the security council. What about the threat she would pose to Alyria? Look at what she was doing before we brought her here. It’s risky.”

  “I’ve thought about that too, and I have a solution. It’s not the ideal situation, and it’s dangerous for Cheryl, but we can have her memory erased. She won’t threaten Alyria’s safety if we make sure every memory is taken care of.”

  “What kind of risks will there be for Cheryl?”

  “There’s a chance she won’t remember anything at all, even her life before coming to Alyria. There’s a fairly significant chance she’ll suffer complete amnesia.”

  Maksim thought long about Cy’s suggestion before nodding. “Yes, even if she lost all her memories, maybe that would still be best. At least she won’t suffer anymore.”

  “True, but you know what that means for the two of us, don’t you?” It meant they would have to face a tribunal, a trial. And perhaps imprisonment. At the very least, Cy knew he’d lose his position with Alyria’s security council.

  The Twelfth Knight Brotherhood took all their duties seriously, particularly the ones that would directly impact future generations. He wasn’t sure he was ready to turn his back on his responsibility, to walk away from his job, to sacrifice everything just to allow Maksim to avoid going through a little pain. “I say we give ourselves a little longer, until after tomorrow night. Maks, some things are worth a little discomfort. You of all people should know that.”