by R. E. Butler
Nyte nuzzled her neck. “If we get naked, we’re going to clan you, baby, and even though we all really, really want to do that, it’s important for our beasts that we mate you properly. But we can’t go another night without touching you and making you feel good. This is just for you.”
“You guys always make me feel good,” she smiled down at Az as he kissed her knee.
“We’ll make you feel amazing,” Nyte whispered in her ear, making her shiver.
Az stared at the apex of her thighs, his thumb rubbing circles along the inside of her knee. She’d never been spread bare before a male before, let alone three of them, but instead of feeling weirded out like she thought she might, all she felt was hot. Az’s eyes slowly lifted, the spring green color darkening with desire.
His hand tightened on her knee, and he lightly stroked the fingers of his free hand up her slit, his touch feather-light and his eyes boring into hers. The tip of one finger grazed her clit, and she couldn’t help but jolt at the sensation. He stroked upwards again, petting her, teasing her. His fingertip grazed her clit again, and she breathed out a sigh as he stroked her wetness around the sensitive bud.
Az leaned towards her, his finger wiggling her clit lightly, and she drew him to her lips for a kiss, burying her fingers in his thick hair and fisting the soft strands. She moaned as he played with her clit with just one finger, stroking and teasing and tormenting her while their tongues tangled and her body trembled.
Easing away from the kiss, Az gave her a lazy smile that shifted into a devious one laced with desire as he looked down her body to where his finger rubbed her clit, just light enough to make her squirm but not hard enough to make her come. Nyte tipped her face up with a snarl and kissed her, planting his mouth on hers as Az slipped two fingers inside her pussy and Fade plumped her breast with one hand and sucked her nipple into his mouth. Her hips bucked as Az pulled his fingers out and pushed them in slowly. Nyte released his hold on her chin and gripped her hips, pressing her tightly to his groin. His tongue teased hers, stroking deeply as Az set up a slow pace with his fingers and began to wiggle her clit with his thumb. Fade’s fingers found her other nipple as he drew it in deeply, his tongue flicking the tip.
She struggled to lift her hips, to drive Az’s fingers deeper, but Nyte wouldn’t let her move, holding her captive to Az’s slow assault. Her body flushed with pleasure as she pulled Az’s head forward with her fingers twisted in his hair, and he chuckled against her heated flesh.
Turning from Nyte’s bruising kiss, she panted for breath as her stomach tightened and pressure built up inside her. Az’s hot, wet tongue slipped against her clit, and she groaned, fisting his hair tighter as Nyte nuzzled her neck and bit down on her pulse. She opened her eyes, which had been closed tightly, and locked eyes with Fade, who released her nipple with an audible pop and licked the darkened tip.
“Come for us, sweetheart,” he growled, baring his fangs and rubbing the sharp tip against her nipple.
She arched back against Nyte as Az began to finger her harder and faster, as if he’d been waiting for some sign that they were ready for her to come. Nyte’s hands eased their bruising hold on her hips, and she tilted her hips for Az’s hot tongue as he licked her bud and drove his fingers into her.
She rocked against his mouth, squeezing her hands into fists and gasping for breath as pleasure thundered down on her and her whole world went white hot. Her head kicked back as she screamed their names one after the other, the pleasure spiraling and rolling inside her until she felt like she’d melted into the sofa.
Az’s fingers were still inside her but unmoving, his tongue gently drawing her down from the heavens with slow, soft strokes as she shivered and jerked, her heart pounding in her ears.
Slipping his fingers from her, Az licked them, never taking his eyes from hers.
Az stood slowly, leaning forward to kiss her briefly, and to her surprise, Fade took his place between her legs.
She wouldn’t have thought she could come right after such an explosive climax, but her body heated as she met his jade green gaze and he licked his lips in a predatory way.
“My turn, sweetheart,” he growled, showing her his fangs again.
Nyte chuckled with a low sound and cupped her breasts. “We’re just getting started, baby.”
Before she could answer, Az sat down on the couch and pulled one of her legs up higher, spreading her even more for Fade’s hungry gaze. Her mind blanked out as one of her mates feasted on her pussy, the others watching and waiting for their turn to make her scream in pleasure again.
It was going to be a long, hot night.
* * * * *
The following afternoon, Whisper and her mates drove from Atlantic City to Ocean City. Nyte drove, and she sat in the second row of their rental SUV between Fade and Az. She was feeling a little tense at meeting her birth family, but she’d talked to Bliss before they left on the trip. She had promised that the only people in the house they were driving to were going to be her birth parents, her brothers, and Bliss. The rest of the baro, which included aunts, uncles, and cousins, were waiting until the next day, to give Whisper time to adjust. And of course her own mates had just about melted her from the inside out with awesome orgasms, so she was feeling pretty relaxed in general.
And it wasn’t like anything sinister was going to happen when she met her birth family. During the Skype session, she’d told them she was going to Dalton, and they’d been understanding. It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered what the next few weeks of her life would bring. Her mates seemed to want to stay in Kentucky. Which wasn’t all that far away from New Jersey or Maryland, but right now it felt like it was on the other side of the planet.
Az touched her arm, and she realized that the SUV was parked in a rest area. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t realized Nyte had stopped the vehicle.
“We thought you might like to get out and stretch your legs for a couple minutes. We’re about twenty minutes from Ocean City,” Nyte said, turning to look at her.
“Sure,” she said.
She used the facilities, and when she walked out of the building, her mates were waiting for her with cold sodas from a vending machine. She popped the top on one and took a long drink, sitting on Fade’s lap on a picnic table while Az and Nyte looked at the GPS program on Nyte’s phone for directions. Fade nuzzled her neck where a fading bruise showed the place where Nyte had bitten her.
“Did I tell you that I’m crazy about you?” Fade asked in a low voice.
She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah? I’m crazy about you, too. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys here with me. When we’re together I feel like I can handle anything.”
“You can, baby,” Nyte said. “We’ve got your back.”
Fade grinned with a growl. “And your front.”
She chuckled and rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t get me all worked up before I have to go meet my parents.”
“Fine, fine,” he sighed exaggeratedly. “I’ll save that for later.”
After their sodas were finished, they climbed back into the SUV and began their journey again, heading towards her birth family and a place she had no memory of.
* * * * *
Lena Gable paced in front of the picture window in the living room of her home. Her mates were behind her, watching out the window for their daughter to return. It seemed like a dream, or one of those dreams that slowly morphs into a nightmare. Like a car would pull into the driveway, but it wouldn’t be Savannah, it would be a police officer telling them that their daughter was actually dead.
Shaking her head, she continued pacing, chewing on her thumbnail.
“Lena,” Jonathan said. “You’ll pace a hole in the floor.”
“I don’t care.” She waved absently, and then she spun on her heels and faced her mates. “What am I supposed to do?”
Panic tightened her chest.
“About what, love?” Calvin asked, coming to her and pulling he
r into his arms.
“Am I supposed to hug her? Shake her hand? Not touch her at all? She thinks of us as strangers; she never even knew that we’ve been searching for her all these years.”
In fact, she’d never given up hope. The bedroom that had belonged to Savannah had actually been boarded up and never used again, but they had moved all her things into another bedroom closer to the master, and as the years went by, Lena changed the things in the room. From a crib to a twin sized bed to a full bed, from infant toys to dolls to makeup. She had wanted Savannah to know that she’d never forgotten her. Never moved on. Never gotten over her only daughter being stolen from her bed.
The sound of an engine nearby alerted her to her daughter’s return. In the kitchen, the voices of her sons and their new mate quieted, and the whole house seemed to be holding its breath as she stepped from Calvin’s embrace and looked at the front door.
Her daughter was back.
* * * * *
Whisper’s hands were ice cold, and every few seconds a teeth-jarring shiver would slither down her spine. She hadn’t ever been so nervous in her life, and that included the first time she’d sung in the bar when she was a teenager.
Her mates walked with her to the front door. The white home had a wide front porch with rocking chairs and hanging plants, and in the small front yard a miniature lighthouse stood in an empty flowerbed. She could smell the water of the lagoon behind the house and cast her gaze to either side, looking at the neighboring houses. This portion of the development, Bliss had told her, was all hyena. The entire baro lived on this street, which meant that her aunts, uncles, and cousins — people she had never known existed — were all here, aware of her arrival.
She climbed the three steps up the porch and looked down at her mates as they stood on the sidewalk.
“We’re right here, baby, but you need to knock on that door by yourself,” Nyte said.
Her stomach churned as she turned back to the door. This was nuts. This was her family here. Why was she so damn nervous? Because…because she was afraid they were going to make demands on her life. Now that she knew her real family was alive and well and, more importantly, wanted her in their lives, she was afraid she’d be unable to say no to anything they asked. She didn’t like feeling pulled in different directions: To Mack and her brothers who had taken her in and loved her when she’d been abandoned. To her biological family who’d never given up hope that she’d be found and returned to them someday. To her mates, who wanted to take her to Kentucky and bond with her permanently.
Another shiver wracked her body, but she straightened her spine and demanded her brain stop messing around with her. She had nothing to fear from finding out that more people loved her. This was her family, after all.
Raising her hand, she let it hover over the door for a long moment, and then she knocked. Before she was able to knock a second time, the door flew open, and a woman who looked remarkably like Whisper stood in the doorway. The woman’s dark hair was cut short enough to dust her shoulders, little streaks of gray evident in the sunlight. Her caramel eyes were bright and shiny with tears, and the lines around her face and eyes said she’d spent a lot of time crying rather than laughing.
In her whole life, she had no memory of calling any woman Mom. Mack had never remarried, and although she claimed both his and Elise’s parents as her grandparents, the title of Mom had never been given to anyone. Her heart clenched again, a tight fist squeezing and squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. Privately, she’d wanted a mom, had craved the sweet embrace of a mom that her best friends enjoyed. Until this moment, she wasn’t really sure she’d been missing out on anything, but looking into the eyes of the woman who gave birth to her, who’d spent the last twenty-three years worrying and praying for her… Whisper knew she’d missed out on a lot.
Tears filled her eyes as she stepped into the house and wrapped her arms around the woman she had never known but felt like she knew instantly. Whisper settled her cheek on her shoulder and started to cry.
“Oh, Mom,” she whispered. “Mom, I missed you. I didn’t even know you were alive, but I missed you.”
Her mom hugged her fiercely. She could squeeze Whisper in half and she wouldn’t care, because she was with her mom now.
“My sweet baby girl, I missed you so much,” her mom said, voice raw and filled with both sorrow and happiness. They stood there embracing in the doorway, crying and holding each other. The world felt like it dropped away for a long time, and it was just the two of them, connecting in a way that should have always been, but because of someone evil had never had a chance to be.
Her mom began rocking slightly back and forth, humming softly and stroking her hair. She didn’t want the moment to end, but there were other people she needed to meet and she couldn’t just stand in the doorway all day. Easing away but not breaking the embrace entirely, Whisper brushed at the tears on her cheeks and gave her mom a watery smile. “Hi.”
Tears slipped over her mom’s cheeks as she smiled back. “Hi.”
A male cleared his throat, and Whisper and her mom turned to look into the home where her fathers stood, watching with hopeful gazes. Reluctantly, she stepped from her mom’s embrace and moved further into the house. Even though the place was foreign to her, there was a part of her that recognized it. She’d been so little when she was taken, but she couldn’t deny the familiarity of the place, the scents of home and family that called to a part of her she hadn’t known was there.
Her fathers — Jonathan, Calvin, and Oliver — stood together and made no move to come to her. They regarded her like a doe, as if she might bolt at any sudden movements. Her brothers looked a lot like her fathers, she realized. They shared the same broad shoulders and muscular builds, handsome faces and dark hair. She took a few steps into what appeared to be a living room, and they suddenly moved, as if they couldn’t be still any longer and couldn’t help but move to her. She was surrounded in a heartbeat, hugged tightly between her three fathers. A fresh wave of tears filled her eyes as she scented their tears and the joy and heartbreak that rolled off each of them.
“Baby girl,” Oliver said roughly, “we’re so glad you’re okay.”
“You are okay, aren’t you?” Jonathan asked.
She leaned heavily against Calvin, the oldest brother, and he kissed the top of her head as her two other fathers kept their hands on her shoulders. “I’m better than okay,” she said honestly. “I’m with my family.”
The group parted enough to let her mom join them, and they embraced again, each of them drawing comfort from the others as Whisper reveled in finding her family.
She decided she was going to stop referring to them as her ‘biological’ family and instead just call them her family. She was lucky enough to have two families who loved her — the hyenas and the wolves — and she wasn’t going to keep them separate in her heart and mind. There was room in her heart for everyone.
Eventually they sat down, and there was only a moment where no one said anything, and then they all started talking at once.
“Are you hungry?” Lena asked.
“Are you tired?” Calvin asked.
“Do your mates want to come in?” Jonathan asked.
“Where are your brothers?” Oliver demanded.
Whisper laughed and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue her mom gave her, and then she called for her mates to join them. They walked in quickly through the open front door as her brothers and Bliss came from the kitchen. “I’m not hungry or tired, but thank you.” Whisper stood and hugged Bliss and then went to her mates. “Come meet my family.”
Her parents stood up as she brought her mates over to them to introduce them. Although they’d technically met through their Skype session, she wanted them to meet her parents officially. Chairs were brought in from the kitchen and everyone sat down. Lena said, “Your dads are grilling for dinner, and then I thought we could go for a boat ride. It’s chilly, but it’s always so pretty on the water in the e
venings.”
“Sounds good,” Whisper said.
The afternoon passed quickly as Whisper spent time with her mom and dads. Her mates were with her, but kept a low profile, allowing her to have time with her parents.
“I should clean up and help with dinner,” Whisper said, as her dads left the room to head to the kitchen.
“They’d love that,” her mom said, “but first, I’d like to, or rather, would you like to see your room?”
She could tell that her mom really wanted her to see the room, so she agreed. She left her mates and followed her mom up the stairs to the second floor.
“Your dads built this house for me when we were newly mated. Their baro is from Florida, and I grew up here in Ocean City. We met at a gathering, and they decided that it was better for us to stay here than for me to leave my family. I guess they felt sorry for me, because I was only eighteen when we met and had never even left the state. I think even when you grow up with the concept of mating to multiple males, that it can still be a surprise when you find yourself on the receiving end of all that attention.” She smiled in a knowing way, and Whisper found herself blushing.
Her mother’s fingers trailed along a doorway near the top of the stairs. “This was the room you were taken from. After you were kidnapped, we boarded up the room and moved all your things down the hall. I was afraid that when we got you back, you’d be scared to be in that room again. I don’t go in there. It hurts my heart.”
Whisper’s own heart began to hurt. She hated that her parents had suffered.
“It was just like any other night. I got you ready for bed, and the boys helped me read you a couple of stories. They were always so indulgent of you. All you had to do was puff out your bottom lip and they’d scramble to do anything you asked.” She wasn’t looking at Whisper as she spoke, but staring at the closed door as if she could see the past through it. “We all said goodnight to you, and I put you in your crib, tucked you in, and kissed your little cheek. Then I closed the door, put the boys to bed, and went to sleep. Your dad, Calvin, he’s a midnight snacker, and he always checked on you kids before he went back to bed. But that night, when he went to open your door, he found that it was locked. Immediately he knew that something was wrong, and he woke us up.”
