Jade [Eminence Shifters 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Ashley Malkin

  Melanie smiled as she recalled some of the men of the pride grumbling about how fat they were getting from eating all the delicious new food. As if any of the shifters would get fat with all the running around they do, and all the sex they have.

  Melanie felt her cheeks heat in a blush and glanced across the street to the small park where Cooper was pushing their baby, Matthew, on the swing. She saw his head jerk up and he turned toward her. The smile he gave her was carnal and wicked. He’d detected the scent of her arousal. Damn shifters. A girl can’t even fantasize about her gorgeous husbands without them knowing it.

  She pulled up the collar of her thick woolen coat and turned to walk away from him, trying to appear interested in the shop window next door to the café. Unfortunately it was the hardware store, so he wasn’t going to buy her pretense of nonchalance.

  “Stupid shifters,” she mumbled, knowing full well Cooper would hear her.

  As she came to the end of the block, she contemplated crossing the street to look in the department store. Looking to the right for any cars coming from the alley she saw a bundle of rags dumped against the side wall of the hardware store.

  “Litter bugs,” she mumbled, as the mound of rags moved. Melanie heard a soft whimper.

  “Oh, no,” Melanie cried out as she rushed toward the bundle, certain someone had dumped a litter of puppies or kittens to die in the cold alleyway.

  “Oh, fuck.” Melanie drew in a deep breath and called for Cooper in as loud a voice as she could muster.

  The woman inside the dirty coat appeared unconscious and terribly hurt. Her face was as pale as the snow that was starting to fall, except where it was black and blue with bruises. Melanie was equally furious and scared. Someone had beaten this poor woman and then dumped her in the street like garbage.

  Cooper strode down the alley toward her. His face a mask of worry and pain. “Coming to you at human speed has nearly killed me. Tell me you’re unharmed, angel.”

  “I’m sorry, Cooper. Look.” Melanie pointed down at the woman, a small moan the only sign that she was still alive.

  “Oh my God. That’s a person.”

  Cooper quickly handed Matthew to Melanie and she hugged her small bundle tight, kissing his wooly hat in reassurance. Cooper didn’t stop to assess the woman. He just tore off his coat and wrapped it around her before calling Jason Reed.

  Whoever this woman was, if she was going to survive the cold and her injuries she would need medical attention. Jason Reed had proved to be the best doctor the shifter world, and human, had ever known.

  Chapter 3

  Jade was freezing to death. She knew she’d never feel warm again. She could hear and see nothing. Her whole universe had become her shaking body. Even the pain of breathing with her damaged ribs was numbed by being chilled to her core. Cold. There was nothing but the cold.

  She remembered falling asleep at the bus station in Grand Springs, Colorado, and missing her connecting bus. It had been midnight and she’d only been traveling for about twelve hours. The need to keep moving was a soul-deep compulsion that had her climbing into the bed of a truck parked outside the bus station and hiding under an old blanket.

  When the truck had started out into the frigid December night and climbed winding roads up into the mountains she’d truly experienced what it was like to be cold. She felt like she was floating on a cloud, suspended up in the air at the center of swirling gusts of snow. She’d read somewhere that hypothermia eventually led to a feeling of warmth. She craved that final sensation just to feel warm again.

  “Get me the blankets from the warming cupboard. I’ll need the IV warmer, too, Cooper.”

  “Is she going to live, Jason? I’m so scared for her.”

  “I’ll make no promises, Melanie. She’s in pretty bad shape apart from the hypothermia.”

  Jade heard the soft sobs of an angel weeping for her. She wanted to tell the angel not to cry, that she was ready to die if it would end this torture of being frozen alive. But Jade couldn’t get her mouth to form the words. She felt her jaw tense as her body seized and the unbearable pain pushed her into unconsciousness.

  * * * *

  Barrett hoisted his brother, Asher, onto his shoulder and Fergus joined him as they carried Asher into the compound.

  “Put me down, you idiots,” Asher said. But he laughed, and Barrett knew he was indulging them.

  “Samson looked ready to kill you when you tagged him with that laser, Asher,” Wes said.

  “You get to drink for free in The Mountain Air for the rest of your life,” Troy added.

  “We drink for free anyway,” Barrett said, pushing his younger brother forward as they entered the bunkhouse. “There had to be some advantage to being the stupid older brothers to you two geniuses.”

  Troy only just managed to stop himself from falling over. His twin brothers were brilliant, but a little clumsy for cat shifters. Barrett had seen the training regime of the last few months put at least forty pounds of solid muscle onto each of them. They were gaining strength and agility that their former lives of sitting at computers had denied them.

  Not that Barrett and Asher weren’t proud of their brothers’ success in their computer design and development business, because they were, and they’d always shown it. But having the opportunity to train together these last few months had developed a bond between them that their separate lives had never allowed.

  “You’re not completely stupid,” Wes said. He threw Barrett a cold beer, and Barrett shrugged Asher off his shoulder to catch it.

  “You finally learned how to send an e-mail on your smartphone,” Troy finished. Asher snatched the beer from Barrett’s hand as he landed on his feet beside him.

  “Very funny,” Barrett said, feeling no anger at not knowing how to use a mobile phone. In his job as a stuntman for the last thirty years he’d just never needed one.

  Barrett froze as Tanner Willis ran into the bunkhouse, his red hair a mess and his pale skin flushed. The faint scent of blood followed in Tanner’s wake and his brothers Fergus and Nash were instantly at his side.

  “Are you hurt?” Fergus asked, turning Tanner around to inspect his back.

  “It’s not me that’s hurt,” Tanner said.

  “Fuck.” Barrett ran to Tanners side, pushing Nash and Fergus aside.

  The teasing sweet scent of caramel was mixed delicately into the scent of the blood and it was making his cat wild. No, it was making both of them wild. He tore the shirt from Tanner’s body in one swipe, burying his face into the fabric to make sure.

  Asher appeared beside him, his eyes glowing amber as his canines descended to his bottom lip. “Holy fuck. So this is what it feels like.” Asher said softly.

  “Where is she?” Barrett growled out the words.

  “I was just up at the house. Melanie found an injured homeless woman nearly frozen to death…”

  Barrett’s cat took over and he shifted in the most violent explosion of rage he’d ever experienced. He roared as he ran from the bunkhouse to Samson’s home. His mate was what? Was dying? Dying as he stood and had a beer.

  “She’s not yours alone,” Asher said. He was beside Barrett, still human, but openly displaying his cat in an uncharacteristic slip of his usual iron control.

  “It was faint,” Wes said, his voice garbled as a growl of anger split the cold air around them.

  “But it was enough,” Troy said. “She’s ours, and she’s not going to die. We’ll fly in anyone we need to save her. We’ll…”

  “Jason is all we need to save her,” Asher said. He held open the door and Barrett ran into the living room.

  The scent of their mate was thick in the air. Barrett shook his head and tried to detect which way to go. He skidded to a stop as their enforcer, Cooper, held up his hand to halt them.

  “What in the hell are the four of you doing?”

  Barrett shifted back to human. He needed to know where his mate was, how injured she was, who she was, and to accompli
sh all that he needed to be human.

  “Where is she?” Asher said. He proceeded to snarl at Cooper as he bumped his chest against the larger man in a very uncharacteristic display of raw emotion. The silver-tongued lawyer was nowhere to be seen. Asher was all cat.

  Barrett clapped his hand on Asher’s shoulder and hauled him away from Cooper. “Tanner just came into the bunkhouse covered in the scent of our mate.”

  Cooper’s deadly expression softened slightly and he took a step back from Asher as he absorbed the information. “I see.” Cooper’s glare was still fixed on Asher.

  “I’m sorry, Cooper,” Asher said. He shook himself and Barrett sensed his brother pulling his cat back under his control.

  “You won’t be any use to her if you’re out of control.” Cooper relaxed fully and regarded each of them in turn. “Melanie was injured when we found her. I understand your feelings, but she’s a human. You’re going to have to go slowly. You can’t show your cats no matter how angry you become at her being beaten so badly.”

  Barrett felt himself disappearing into his cat’s primal rage. Someone had beaten his mate. Someone had hurt her deliberately. The sharp slap to his face had him opening his eyes and stilling the snarl that was rumbling through him.

  “Control,” Asher said. His face was inches from Barrett’s and he could see Asher’s cat deep in his blue eyes. “She’s human.”

  “Someone beat her?” Wes and Troy said together, their pain obvious.

  “We’ll keep her safe now,” Barrett said, pulling back his useless rage. They could do nothing to change what had already happened. They needed to focus on what they could control. “She will never be hurt or cold again.”

  “Barrett?” Melanie said. “Why do you have no clothes on?”

  Cooper’s snarl had them all turning. Melanie stood in the hallway to the clinic, her face pale and her eyes wide. Cooper may just kill me.

  “Turn around, angel, and I’ll get some pants for him.” Melanie turned. She carried the scent of pain, her normally bubbly personality absent. “Your little lady may be their mate.” Cooper returned in the space of one heartbeat and tossed Barrett some sweats.

  Barrett quickly pulled them on and walked toward Melanie, his brothers close behind him. Cooper pulled his tiny mate into his arms as she sobbed into his chest. Barrett’s blood froze in his veins. Melanie should have been pleased that they had found their mate.

  “Can you tell us anything about her?” Asher asked softly. “Please.”

  Melanie sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry. Of course you need to know everything.”

  She sounded so sad that Barrett began to think they were too late. Their mate had died.

  “She’s alive,” Jason said.

  Barrett was able to breathe again. He inhaled sharply as Jason came to stand beside Cooper.

  “Her injuries are extensive and I think the hypothermia may have actually aided in saving her life. Her internal injuries stopped bleeding with her body temperature being so low. You’re all her mates?”

  “She’s alive now, but will she survive?” Asher asked.

  Barrett didn’t want to hear the answer. He wanted to run to her and hold her. He wanted to see what she looked like. Love her forever and never let her go. He didn’t want to hear that she was about to die. He knew in that instant that it was too late for him. Even without ever laying eyes on her he had already bonded to his mate. If she died he’d follow. He’d then love her in the afterlife for an eternity, despite their being denied a life together as mortals.

  * * * *

  Troy and Wes were gifted twins. As a child Troy had thought everyone shared their thoughts with others, and had been surprised to find out he and Wes were different in that particular way. When shifted, the cats of a pride could share their thoughts, but he and Wes had always shared their thoughts.

  “She can’t die, Troy. We’ve only just found her.”

  “Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to bring us our mate as a corpse, Wes.”

  “We believe in fate now?”

  “I’ll believe in the tooth fairy if it brings me a sliver of hope that our mate will live to meet us.”

  “We don’t even know her name.”

  “She’ll tell us, Wes. I really believe that.”

  “I know you do, Troy. It’s all that’s keeping me sane right now. My cat wants to kill every human male on the planet just to be certain her attacker is dead.”

  “You know you just said that out loud?” Barrett said, pulling his gaze from Doc to stare at Wes. “And I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment.”

  “Why don’t you let Doc tell you what’s wrong with your mate? Then you can go and meet her,” Cooper said. “Angel, why don’t you go and sit with our new friend while Doc talks to her mates.”

  Cooper bent to gently kiss the tears from Melanie’s cheeks, giving her a warm smile. It was a side of their enforcer that Troy had never witnessed. It made his heart lurch at the unwelcome thought that their mate may die and they’d never have that same soul-deep bond with their own mate.

  “We will have it,” Wes said. Wes wrapped an arm around his shoulders and Troy was shocked when Asher did the same on his other side.

  “We will,” Asher repeated firmly.

  Troy wondered if Asher had heard his thoughts, too. Wes looked at him and just shrugged.

  “Maybe he just smelled your sadness?”

  “Maybe?”

  “I’m warming your mate up slowly,” Jason said, “and observing for any further internal bleeding from her injuries. It’s obvious she’s been beaten.”

  “What makes it obvious?” Troy asked. “Couldn’t she just have been involved in an accident?”

  Jason pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. “Do you want me to answer that and delay me further when I should be with your mate? Or shall we just assume I know what the fuck I’m doing, and you let me continue?”

  “Continue.” Barrett spoke for all of them.

  Troy swallowed noisily. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t shift and go on a murderous rampage if Doc’s descriptions became too much for his cat to bear. He didn’t want his mate to have suffered while he was here enjoying the good life with his brothers. It was just inconceivable.

  “I’ll keep you from doing anything stupid,” Asher said, holding him a little firmer to his side.

  “Well fuck. I wonder if he’s always heard us,” Wes said. Asher stared unblinkingly at Jason.

  “She has rope burns and deep lacerations on her wrists and ankles. She is severely dehydrated and malnourished. I’d estimate she hasn’t eaten in about a week. The bruising to her face and body follows that time line also. Some bruises are fading while others are only hours old. She has several broken ribs and, at best, a bruised spleen. I may need to remove it.”

  Jason turned and walked down the corridor. It took them all a second to realize he was finished. He may have been brilliant, but Troy had to agree with the consensus of the pride. He had a terrible bedside manner.

  Barrett was the first to follow, and Asher released him to allow them all to move single file down the corridor to the exam room Doc had entered. The sweet caramel scent of their mate grew thicker in the air the closer they got to her. Troy’s cat was a barely contained beast inside him as the scent of her blood and her fear rapidly filled his senses.

  “Now I know how you were certain she’d been beaten,” Troy said from the doorway of the exam room. Barrett and Asher blocked his view of their mate, but her scent told of her ordeal.

  “The poor little thing,” Melanie said softly, her voice hitching on an escaping sob. “She was just lying in the gutter. I thought she was a pile of old rags.”

  Troy’s cat joined his brothers’ as they all snarled. The thought of anyone lying injured and discarded in the gutter was distressing enough, add that it was their precious mate and their fury was palpable.

  “Jason hadn’t yet shared that information with her mates, angel,” Coo
per said. He stood protectively in front of his mate as their anger flared when they finally saw their mate.

  Melanie hadn’t been wrong in describing her as little. She barely looked bigger than the Alpha’s mate, and she was under five feet tall, but their mate was much, much thinner. A week’s worth of starvation had not made her this way.

  Her abuse may have lasted even longer if the thin arm that was lying above the blanket, with an intravenous line inserted, was any indication. Their mate was stunningly beautiful despite her condition. Her skin, where it was unblemished, was milky white. Her hair a natural black that, coupled with her slightly upturned eyelids, spoke of some Asian ancestry.

  “She’s so pale, and so young. She can’t be more than twenty-four,” Asher said, stifling his growl as he went to their mate’s side and brushed the long black strands of her hair from her cheek.

  “So many bruises,” Troy said. He joined Asher at her bedside and wrapped his hand around her small, much colder one. He was careful to avoid the bruised and damaged flesh on her wrists. “She has two black eyes. What sort of a coward beats a tiny defenseless woman like this?”

  “I think we’re in for more bad news when she wakes,” Barrett said. He’d reached under the blanket and Troy assumed he was holding her other hand.

  “Has she got a wedding ring on that left hand?” Asher asked Barrett.

  Shit, Troy hadn’t even thought of that possibility. Gazing down at her beautiful face he realized he should have.

  “No ring,” Barrett said, his voice deep with the growl of his cat. “I can smell wolf.”

  All eyes in the room flew to Barrett. Troy wasn’t alone in not detecting any scent but their mate’s.

  Jason pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly sent a text. “Axel Wilder will be here soon.”

  “If Barrett says it was a wolf, it was a damned wolf,” Asher said.