Noreen's Choice

by Ann Gimpel

  Les pulled free of Jed and raked his hands through his hair. “How long will we have to wait?”

  “We don’t know,” Terin said. “Each time Alice has done this, it’s been different. Basically, she’s explaining our mating ritual. If Noreen agrees—”

  “What do you mean if?” Karl shouted. “She has to.”

  “No,” Les said slowly. “She doesn’t. If she decides being mated to us is too much for her, we’ll erase her memory, and Jed can take her back where he found her.” Anxiety sat like a lead weight in his gut. Les hated feeling helpless. He also didn’t like trusting something this important to another person.

  A hand settled on his shoulder. Les turned his head and saw Jed’s blue eyes focused on him. “I almost lost Alice,” he said. “I was so anxious to get her in my bed, I didn’t tell her about Bron and Terin. When she found out, she was angry. More than angry, furious. We were in the mountains and she ran from me. A mountain lion attacked her. I switched to my wolf form and took on the cat, but it very nearly killed me. Would have if I hadn’t had Bron, our most talented healer, by my side.”

  “What a mess that was,” Terin muttered. “It took all of us, including Alice, to save Jed.”

  “Holy shit!” Les speared Jed with troubled eyes. “How come we never heard about that?”

  “What?” Jed grunted. “I’m supposed to broadcast my stupid mistakes to the whole clan? I don’t think so. The only reason I told you was to underscore how precarious things are until Noreen decides you two are worth everything she’ll have to give up to join her life to yours.”

  Karl brought a fist down on one of the counters. “I want to crawl out of my skin, and my wolf’s been damn nigh uncontrollable since I scented Noreen.” His tortured dark gaze sought Jed’s. “At least you had a chance to botch things up on your own.”

  Jed grimaced. “Never fear, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to botch things. Even if she’s agreeable to the concept of being mated to shifters, the lady will want to get to know the two of you a little before she binds herself to you forever.”

  “In the meantime,” Bron shouldered his way to the woodstove, “let’s do our part and at least make a good faith effort to get a meal together for the women.”

  “Good idea,” Terin seconded. “They may be out there for quite some time.”

  Les groaned. Waiting felt impossible. He stomped to one of the piles of food littering the kitchen counters. “Meat,” he grumbled. “We need meat to get through this.”

  “We’ll probably need more than a little.” Jed pursed his mouth. “Aren’t the rest of the local clan showing up soon?”

  “I called them,” Les said. “You told me you were going to be here for a few days, so we set up a gathering for night after next. Karl and I thought it would be good to give you some breathing room after such a long drive.”

  “Good. We do need to talk with all of them.” Bron drummed his fingers on the table. “This will save us a bunch of time running them down.”

  Chapter 4

  Noreen had headed back outside for another load of food and supplies only to find the car empty. Thank God. If ever she needed a break to clear her head, it was now. She leaned her overheated forehead on one of the car’s windows, reveling in its cool, smooth surface. If she’d thought Jed, Bron, and Terin handsome, it was only because she hadn’t met Les or Karl yet. What gorgeous men! Both were tall and lean with broad, well-muscled shoulders and slender hips. She’d gotten such a huge sexual jolt from being in the same room with them, Noreen found herself “accidentally” brushing up against one or the other during their multiple trips back and forth to the car.

  She pushed her hair back and away from her face and continued to let the car’s window cool her. It had taken all her self-control not to simply drag Les or Karl—or better yet, both of them—behind the cabin and strip off her clothes. Never mind that she’d never considered such an action before in her life. A fresh wave of heat burned its way up her neck, suffusing her face. Two men. What the hell was she thinking?

  I’m thinking about getting laid. That’s what. Giving up my virginity. Christ! I’m twenty-five years old. What on earth am I holding out for?

  While Karl had long, dark, shiny hair that begged her to run her fingers through it, Les’ was tawny-colored. He had his pulled back in a braid, but it, too, begged to be finger-combed. And his eyes were the most incredible shade of moss green, deep like shaded mountain pools she’d seen in picture books at the library. Karl’s eyes were so dark a woman could lose her soul in them. Noreen blew out a breath. It frosted against the car window. She’d thought a break away from Les and Karl might clear her mind, but it was just as muddled as when she’d come outside a few minutes before.

  Her nipples were hard as stones, her breasts heavy with need, and that special, wild place between her legs throbbed with heat. Though technically still a virgin, she’d done plenty of necking and petting with the men at cult gatherings. They’d brought one another to orgasm many times through everything but actual fucking. No stranger to sexual need, she’d never been anywhere near as hot as she was right this minute.

  Maybe if I make myself come…She straightened and gazed around the clearing. It wouldn’t take but a few moments to slip into the thickly wooded area beyond the cabin, take care of herself, and—

  “There you are.” Alice’s cheery voice rang out. In moments the other woman stood beside her. “You look as if you could stand a bit of a walk and some conversation.” Noreen opened her mouth, but Alice shushed her with a look. “I know exactly how you feel. It’s the same thing that happened to me when I first ran across Jed.”

  Interest kindled. Noreen exhaled and dragged her attention away from her crotch. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me about it.”

  “That I am. Come on.” Alice held out a hand; Noreen hesitated and then grasped it. Something calming seemed to emanate from Alice. Noreen relaxed into the sensation of being understood and taken care of.

  “I was in the Sierra Nevada Mountains climbing with a friend,” Alice began. “He ran off and left me—”

  “What?” Noreen stopped walking. “But that’s terrible. He should be shot.”

  “It was okay.” Alice got them moving again in a large circle just inside the tree line around the house. “I found my way down. Anyway, I was almost to the trail when Jed just sort of melted out of the shadows. He talked me into going into Lon Chaney’s cabin with him.”

  “The movie star?”

  Alice tossed her head back and laughed. “The same. Jed knows him—Chaney Junior, that is. They work together at the movie studio, but that’s not the important part. What was most significant for me—and now for you—was how I felt around Jed. I wanted him in ways I’d never wanted a man before, and he was so irresistible, I begged him to bed me once we’d talked about a lot of things.”

  Noreen cocked her head to one side and glanced sidelong at Alice. “What kind of things?”

  “I’m getting to that.” Alice came to a halt, stepped in front of Noreen, and placed hands on her shoulders. “Look at me, so you’ll know I’m telling you the truth.”

  Noreen’s heart crashed against her chest. In the deepest recesses of her being, she intuited that Alice’s next words would change her life forever.

  “Yes,” Alice said softly, “they will.”

  “You can read my mind?”

  Alice nodded. “To some extent. There’s no easy way to say this next part, Noreen, so I’ll just spit it out. All these men are wolf shifters. Jed, Bron, and Terin are my mates.” Alice leveled her gaze at Noreen. “Karl and Les would like to be yours.”

  The world spun, crazy and out of control. Spots danced in front of Noreen’s eyes; she swayed on her feet. “I don’t understand why I’m not screaming like a banshee and running to get away from you,” she muttered.

  “Because I’m using magic to help you stay in one place long enough to hear me out. Now that I’ve told you, though, you do have a
choice. If you want to hear more, great, but if you want me to drive you back to Rocky Mountain House, I can do that too. Jed and the rest of them have a way of erasing your memories of ever meeting us.”

  Noreen thought about Les and Karl and how attracted she was to them. “Is that why the men feel so irresistible?”

  Alice nodded. “It’s the mate bond. Would you like to hear about it?” She lifted her hands from Noreen’s shoulders and dropped her arms to her sides. “You need to make this choice on your own, not because I coerced you with shifter magic. Jed can turn it on and off. I’m not quite that adept yet, so I have to stop touching you.”

  Noreen took a step back and then another. A voice inside her head screamed at her to walk away from what was surely madness, but another reminded her how little she had in her life. There was nothing to go back to, not really. She bit her lower lip. “That man who drove me to Rocky Mountain House. He said he Hunts shifters. That must have been why you all got so quiet when I told you about him.”

  Alice nodded. “It’s also why he wouldn’t have harmed you. Hunters take vows of chastity and obedience to their order. My friend—” She shook her head angrily. “Don’t know why I keep calling Brent a friend, but he’s who left me in the mountains. Anyway, he was a Hunter, and he’d scented Jed and the boys. It’s why he took off.”

  “He’d have left you to die to go after shifters?”

  “Yes. They put their vows before everything else. Otherwise, they’d never be able to stay celibate.”

  Noreen started walking again. Alice paced her to one side. “How much more can you tell me before I have to make a decision?”

  “I can tell you everything you want to know—or most of it, anyway—but if you make love with Les and Karl, you’ll be bound to them for the rest of your life. It’s not that you wouldn’t be able to leave, but no other man will ever appeal to you, and you’ll pine for your mates for the rest of your days.”

  Noreen broke into wry laughter. “Hell, I can see myself doing that now, and neither of them has laid a hand on me.”

  “Let me tell you about the mate bond.”

  Nodding slowly, Noreen turned to face Alice. “Okay. I think I’d like to hear about it. You certainly seem happy.”

  A beatific smile split Alice’s high-cheekboned face. “Happy doesn’t even come close. I never imagined the joy those three men could bring to my life. I don’t lack for a thing. They love me, take care of me, and let me be who I am.” She spread her arms wide. “I’m an engineer. It was important to me to keep working, so I did. Jed has oodles of money. So do Bron and Terin, but they want me to do what fulfills me.” Alice rolled her eyes. “I’m getting off track. The mate bond has become rarer because shifters have had to go into hiding these past couple hundred years. They need time in their animal forms to spur the urge to bond—and human women who will want them.”

  “Aren’t there any shifter women?”

  “Yes and no. All shifters are born male. When we mate with them, we receive some of their shifter magic through semen and the mate bond. Any sons we bear will be shifters. Daughters will be like us and have some shifter magic.”

  “How do I know Les and Karl are supposed to be my mates?”

  Alice quirked a brow. “I think you could answer that one yourself. I watched you in there.” She hooked a thumb toward the cabin. “You had a hard time not brushing up against the guys. And they were having a hell of a time not just crushing you to them. The mate bond is hard to explain, but it’s like something connects me to my mates. It’s so compelling, I can’t help but love them and they me.”

  “And you felt like that about Jed from the minute you saw him?”

  “You bet I did. And I was damned if I understood why I wanted him so much I was willing to break every social convention in the book to get his cock inside me.” She lowered her voice. “Within an hour of meeting him, he got me so hot I ended up masturbating myself in front of him. Jesus! Was I ever mortified. I was afraid I was turning into a nymphomaniac.”

  The heat she’d denied earlier rushed in with a vengeance. Noreen squirmed as she rubbed her damp thighs together.

  “I know exactly how you’re feeling.” Alice repeated her earlier words. “Like you’ll die if you don’t come. It’s the mate bond. Nothing else has that effect. How do you think Les and Karl are feeling? They’re probably tearing their hair out inside that cabin.” She snorted. “Bet Jed and the boys have had to hog-tie them to keep them from barreling out here.”

  The image was humorous, but Noreen didn’t let herself laugh. “I need time to assimilate all this.”

  “Of course you do.” Alice patted her arm. “Tell you what. I’m going to sit on the steps. You go ahead and pace up and down the yard, or sit in the car, or do whatever you need to come to terms with what must feel impossible. I can’t let you out of my sight because if you decide this life isn’t for you, Jed will make sure you don’t remember any of us. It’s not that we don’t trust you, but someone like Justin can read your mind, too, and it’s not safe if you hold images of us in your thoughts.”

  “I understand.” Noreen pressed her tongue against her teeth. “Probably better that way because Les and Karl would haunt me, and I’d always wonder if I’d made a big mistake.”

  “Well,” Alice said pragmatically, “you’re still here. If you think you’d like to explore the possibilities further, your next step will be to get to know Karl and Les a little better. You’ll love them because of the mate bond, but you need to like them as people too.”

  Noreen nodded. She put distance between herself and Alice in the darkening yard and paced in a tight circle. Someone had lit lanterns inside the cabin; a merry, golden light spilled through the windows, illuminating sections of the clearing. The smell of roasting meat wafted out. Noreen clasped her hands behind her back and thought long and deep. She already felt something bright and shining anchoring her to Les and Karl. It was the most compelling sensation she’d ever experienced. It was sexual, but so much more than that too.

  What happens to my life? This isn’t the sort of arrangement I could actually tell people about. I’d be a social pariah.

  Yeah, right. Like I’m not already.

  Noreen clicked off pros and cons in her mind. She was on the run from the only life she’d made for herself. It wasn’t as if she had a plethora of options waiting. No, she’d planned to bury herself in the Canadian hinterlands. Not much of a life, but better than being hunted down by the Garden of Edeners and used as an example and a sacrifice. Even if she only lost a few fingers, being trapped into remaining with the cult until she died was no sort of existence at all.

  She squared her shoulders, inhaled deeply, blew out the breath, and then did it again before marching resolutely to where Alice sat on the cabin’s steps. “I want to spend some time with Les and Karl.”

  Alice leaped to her feet and swept Noreen into a hug about the same time whoops sounded from inside the cabin. Noreen hugged Alice back. “They were listening to us the whole time?”

  Alice let go of her and shrugged. “Well, their hearing isn’t quite as sharp in their human form, but I don’t think they had to work very hard to eavesdrop.”

  The cabin door banged open. All five men crowded out. Jed took Alice by the arm. “We’re going back to town tonight to get some rooms.”

  “Excellent idea,” Alice seconded. “It will give them privacy.”

  “Surely you’ll stay for supper,” Noreen protested. “I’ve smelled it cooking for a while now.”

  “Nah.” Bron trotted to the car. “Be sure to save some food, though. We’ll be back tomorrow around noon.”

  “Don’t hurry,” Les called after his retreating form.

  “Besides, this will give us privacy too,” Jed noted with a wink at Alice.

  “Ooooh, now I really like the sound of that.” She leaned against him and laid her head against his shoulder.

  In a sudden burst of concern over what she’d gotten herself into,
Noreen made a grab for Alice’s arm just as the other woman turned toward the car. “Promise me you’ll come back just in case, well in case things don’t um…”

  Alice bent close and whispered in her ear. “You have my word. But, sweetie, I’m betting you’ll be sorry when you hear us pull into the drive tomorrow because it’ll mean you have to get out of bed.”

  *

  Les watched the Ford make a three point turn and get headed back to the main road. He felt suddenly nervous. So much was riding on this, neither he nor Karl could afford to make any mistakes. He cleared his throat. “Karl and I want to thank you,” he began.

  “We certainly do,” Karl cut in.

  “For what? I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “For giving us a chance,” Les said. “I know this is something really different from what you must be used to.”

  “In some ways but not all.” Noreen wrapped her arms around her slender form.

  “Come inside.” Karl was solicitousness itself. “There’s a fire going.”

  “Yes,” Les chimed in. “We have a meal underway.”

  “It’s nearly done,” Karl added.

  “Even better.” Les grinned. “We’ll eat and you can ask us anything you want.”

  Noreen laughed. “Do the two of you always finish each other’s sentences?”

  Les took her arm and led her up the steps and into the cabin that he hoped would become their home. “’Fraid so. It’s because we’ve lived together for so long.”

  “Yeah,” Karl said as he pulled the door shut behind them. “We have the same problem when we’re wolves. He tries to out-howl me. Come and sit.” He patted an empty place at a scarred oak table in the middle of the kitchen side of the cabin.

  “Yes, we’ll serve you.” Les smiled. He felt like a besotted fool, but looking at Noreen made his heart light and his head giddy.

  “Bosh.” Noreen headed for the stove. “I’m used to cooking. I can take over from here.”

  “Not a chance.” Karl steered her back toward the table and pulled out a chair. “Let us spoil you a little. We’ve dreamed of having a mate to cherish and care for.”