Bethany looked at Jonathan. “It’ll be enough for them to do it? Do leopards have a way to…”
Jonathan’s gaze shot to Gen, then Duke.
Duke looked to Gen and said, “Yeah, he’s a leopard. You knew there were other animals already, now you’ve met one.” Duke turned his head to Bethany. “You have to be more careful, Bee. We should’ve warned you, but not everyone in the room will know everything you know. This isn’t a big deal, as her binding will keep her quiet, but it could’ve been, and the repercussions are huge if you slip. If you’d prefer a binding that keeps your subconscious from slipping, we can do this as a two-way. It’s a tighter binding, and you run the risk of either Ranger or I knowing things you may not want to share. You’ve just seen how easy it is to slip up, though, so I’m giving you the option.”
“If you slip up, in some cases the penalty is death to you and whoever you tell,” Ranger warned. “I’ll try to find other options, but depending on who knows, Duke and I may not be totally in control of the consequences.”
Bethany had been sitting on Mac’s lap with her back to his chest, and she turned sideways, with her arms around his neck and her legs to his left, her bare butt on his thighs, the blanket still around them.
Mac’s arms held her as if he were protecting her from the room, and he said, “My wolf wants to lash out at the rules. She’s scared and confused, and we want to protect her.”
Duke took two steps back and said, “I know I represent the rules to you right now, but I care for Bethany. Remember? She’s under my protection. She’s my woman’s best friend. I consider her family.”
“He’s okay, Duke,” said Ranger. “He’ll leave the room if he’s close. He’s just letting us know where he is. I can feel him and he’s got it under control.”
Bethany told them she’d do the two-way with Ranger, figuring she didn’t like being technically legal, and she also didn’t want to mess up and accidentally give something away.
Ranger, Duke, and Jonathan discussed strategy and method for a while, and Bethany zoned them out and relaxed in Mac’s arms. It was nearly six in the morning now, and it wouldn’t take much for her to fall back to sleep.
When they finally decided what to do, she watched Jonathan open a sterile package, take out a large diameter needle, and lift her left hand.
“Not her finger,” Gen said. “She’s a massage therapist. Do it somewhere else.”
Mac chuckled and Bethany shook her head, but agreed with her friend. “Yeah, no open wounds on my hands.”
“Toe, forearm, or breast?” Jonathan asked. “Those are the next best places to get a good flow without having to go too deep.”
Bethany untwisted enough to get her left foot out from under the covers, and Jonathan held the needle to the inside of her big toe and said, “Take a deep breath and then blow out, hard.”
She did, and he pressed the needle in as she blew. It was a trick she used when going deep with her massage clients, but was still surprised it worked with the needle. He put a good deal of blood in one glass with a few inches of water in it, and then another.
He finished, put a small bandage on her toe, and wrapped the needle in a rag before throwing it in the trash.
“This is wine with a few drops of Ranger’s blood,” Jonathan told her. “It’s a simple oath. You only have to say, ‘I will keep your secrets,’ as you think about the secrets you’re keeping. You already know this covers leaving hints, writing it instead of speaking, or even nodding your head when someone asks the right question.”
“Say the words, drink the wine as you think of the secrets you’re keeping, and then say the words again,” Duke told her. “Ranger and I will do the rest.”
“You said Mac can only turn me as a wolf, not as a human. This is your blood as a human, so it won’t turn me?”
“Right,” Jonathan, Ranger, Duke, and Gen answered together.
Mac was being quiet, but his warm, strong arms around her made her feel safe and protected, as if nothing could ever hurt her again. She said, “I will keep your secrets,” as she thought about everything she’d learned tonight, and drank the wine without thinking about what was in it. She said the phrase again, and without warning, she was engulfed with feelings, emotions, and the sense of running through the woods with four legs, the wind in her fur, the forest alive with colors and smells.
Mac held her tighter, and she screamed as she felt her finger being cut off. Ranger was suddenly in her thoughts, telling her she was okay, ordering her to make a fist and feel all of her fingers. She did, and she remembered Ranger in her ass at the end, Mac jacking off as he watched, and Jonathan holding her boobs together with his cock thrusting between them.
The room came back into view with a thunderclap, and she jumped and gave another small scream as Mac asked, “What the fuck?”
“You okay?” Ranger asked.
Bethany shook her head as Mac said, “I’m human, and I can hold it together for Bethany, but I’m not okay.”
Duke spoke so softly, Bethany barely heard him. “Look at their auras.”
Ranger said, “Fuck,” as Jonathan said, “Shit. Tell me what I just felt. What happened?”
No one spoke, and Duke finally said, “We all caught pieces of each other. I saw Ranger running through the woods, saw someone cutting one of Mac’s fingers off when a few were already missing, and saw Bethany freaking when Mac started changing. Ranger took control, reminded Mac he has his fingers back, and then steered them all to a shared memory before bringing us all out of it. I don’t know what they got from me.”
“They didn’t get anything from you,” Ranger said. “I saw you and your brother fighting, before you left the pack.”
“What’s going on with our auras?” Bethany asked.
“You’re joined. It’s one aura with two people. We did the ritual with the two of you joined,” Duke explained.
The three men standing around them looked as if this were the end of the world. Bethany didn’t understand, so she said, “And?”
“Two werewolves can perform a ritual, but three can’t unless they intend to form a pack,” said Jonathan. “They just inadvertently formed a small pack. Someone will have to rise to Alpha, the other two will have to accept him. However, that isn’t the worst of it.”
“No,” Duke agreed. “My brother will see this as a threat to his pack. I left Chattanooga in part because I realized he was on the fast track towards becoming Alpha. I didn’t want the position, but I knew my wolf would never bow to him. Killing him and holding the position were the last thing I wanted, so I cut ties and left town.” He sighed and sat in a chair. “Leaving town only postponed my having to fight him to the death, apparently.”
Bethany tilted her head towards Mac. He looked down, their eyes locked, and she asked, “Why are our auras joined? What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. They taught me how to see them, and I’ve seen human couples who seemed to be walking around in one aura, but I don’t know what it means.”
Jonathan sat beside them and said, “It just means you’ve connected at a soul level. There’s nothing especially metaphysical about it under normal circumstances. However, it would’ve been nice if someone had noticed before the ritual.”
“I’ve never heard of someone being so close after one night,” Ranger said. “There shouldn’t have been a reason to look.”
Gen moved to Duke’s lap and he pulled her into an embrace, holding her as if he needed the connection. “Can someone break the ties ya’ll just made?” Gen asked. “Maybe the person who oversaw my binding? He can do things in—” She stopped talking as if someone had clapped their hand over her mouth, and she looked up with an embarrassed smile. “Yeah. Guess I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
“I don’t know who she’s talking about,” Jonathan said, “but there may be another option.”
Everyone looked at him, and he explained, “I saw Bethany connect with Ranger last night when he went all Dom on her.
If the three of them can form a relationship bond, Ranger might be able to sever his ties to Duke as if Duke isn’t welcome in the relationship.”
Ranger looked at Bethany a few seconds and said, “It’s fast, but I like you and want to get to know you better. The relationship bond says we’re together. A unit. We can include Jonathan physically without including him in the ritual. He’s a cat, and there’s a way to include him, but not easily so it won’t happen tonight. But, we can bind you, me, and Mac into a relationship and Jonathan’s right — I can probably sever the ties Mac and I have to Duke.”
“Relationship?” Bethany’s voice squeaked as she said the word, and she shook her head. “No. We fucked, that’s it. I don’t do relationships.”
“Bethany,” Gen said, her voice simultaneously friendly and antagonistic. “We’ve talked about this before. All guys aren’t assholes. Besides, you have the harem you’ve been wanting. Give it a try before you find a reason to push them away. You deserve your own happiness.”
Bethany shook her head again, and Mac said, “I felt it. Our aura’s just split, didn’t they?”
“Yeah,” said Duke.
“Bethany and I are going for a ride,” Gen announced as she stood.
“Why?” Bethany asked.
“So we can talk.”
“Let’s just go upstairs, then. I only have a t-shirt on.”
“They can hear us talking from anywhere in the house,” Gen reminded her.
Bethany stood with the blanket, wrapped it around her, and headed towards the door, but Jonathan said, “You’re barefoot, Raggedy. Let me carry you.”
She didn’t argue, and five minutes later Duke had shown Bethany the hideaway with his extra gun, reminded Gen he expected her to use hers if necessary, and they were on the way.
“Three things,” Gen said as she pulled out of the driveway, “the first is I could tell how much you liked Mac, and how much you trusted Jonathan and Ranger. Second, you have to tell me about what happened last night.”
Gen went silent, so Bethany asked, “And the third thing?”
“If they can’t break the pack bonds they formed, Duke will move away before he risks having to fight his brother. They’re finally back in the same city, and he’s managed to be part of his biological family again in a small way, if not his original pack family. I don’t want to see him lose that, but I also don’t want to have to decide between my career and my husband. If I move out of the country with him I’ll never get set up with the contacts I have here. I’ll have to kiss my job goodbye.” She paused and said, “And you, and my family. I don’t want to have to leave. My life is here, but… Duke’s my life, too. If he leaves, I’ll go with him.”
Gen turned into an empty restaurant parking lot, put the antique mustang in neutral, and engaged the emergency break. “I would never ask you to do this if I didn’t think you liked them, but I saw how you looked at them. Whatever happened last night was big, and you like them all. You’ve wanted a harem and this is it! Why are you telling them it was just a night of sex?”
“Because guys are assholes. You think they’re not, but they always turn out to be, once you get to know them.”
“Duke isn’t. I’m pretty sure Brain isn’t. Frisco, Isaac, and Cam aren’t. I mean, Frisco was, but he seems to have changed for Cassie and Cam. You won’t know if these guys are capable of non-asshole status unless you give them a chance.”
“And if I get hurt again?”
“He-who-shall-not-be-named was an asshole of immense proportions, but neither of us were old enough or experienced enough to see it. If we met him now, we’d know it in the first five minutes, don’t you think?”
Bethany thought back to the first time she met him and the way he’d called her babe. His tone of voice had been the exact opposite of the way Ranger had said it, and while Mac may have used the word ‘my’, it was more about a wish for the future than an expectation it was true merely because he uttered the word.
“Damn,” Bethany said. “You’re right. I was nineteen to his twenty-four. He played me, and I was too stupid to realize. I’d know in a heartbeat, now.”
Gen was quiet as Bethany looked out the windshield without focusing on anything. Bethany finally asked, “Do you know what the relationship binding is?”
“Not a clue.”
“You should take me back, then, so I can ask my guys.”
Before they got out of the car, Bethany put her and on Gen’s and said, “It’s kind of freaky. I mean, fucking werewolves? But knowing you’ve already dealt with it, knowing you and Duke have my back…” She shook her head.
“Someone I trusted helped me when I found out, hopefully Duke and I can do that for you. I know there are good and bad ones, but because of the leadership here, most of the shapeshifters in Chattanooga are good, and if they work for Aaron Drake, it’s another sign they’re the good guys.”
* * * *
The men were sitting around the den with no one talking when the women returned.
Bethany took a few fast steps towards Ranger, and he stood and pulled her into his embrace as her arms went over his shoulders and she hugged him tight.
She whispered, “I think we need a group hug,” and her other guys were there as she said the final word. Mac stepped beside Ranger and pulled one of her arms to his shoulder, so she was hugging them both, and Jonathan stepped behind her, put his hands around her torso, and kissed the side of her neck from behind.
“Tell me what this relationship binding thing means.”
“It’s another blood thing,” Ranger told her. “It’ll metaphysically bind the three of us. We’ll know if any of us cheats, or even seriously considers cheating. Admiring someone of the opposite sex isn’t supposed to trigger it, but thinking of doing something sexual with them, will. It’ll make us feel closer when we kiss, fuck, make-out, play around, whatever.” Ranger kissed her forehead and added, “We can include Jonathan in the wording of the ritual, so it won’t trigger as cheating when you’re with him.”
“And if I want to break up with ya’ll three weeks from now?”
“If you’re intending to break up with us in three weeks, it won’t take. You have to go into it with the intention of this being your last relationship, or it won’t work. If you want to break up with us in the future, there’s a way to break the binding, but you can’t go into it with the idea you’ll just break up with us later if it doesn’t work. You have to mean it.”
“What’s the vow?”
Ranger looked to Duke. “We’re going to move this to the bedroom. I don’t mind you hearing us, but don’t want you watching. When we’re finished, I’ll come down and try to break the ties with you.”
Chapter Eight
Everyone was naked again, the two wolves and Bethany sitting in a triangle on the bed, knees touching.
Another needle, blood from her right toe this time, but only three drops — one in the center of Mac’s chest, Ranger’s chest, and hers. Each of the men pricked their own finger and also dabbed blood on all three chests, forming three identical triangles.
Ranger had them reach their right hands in and hold the right wrist of the person to their left. They then put their left hands in, and held the left wrist of the person to their right.
“This is important,” Ranger told them, “our knees are touching right knee to left, and vice versa, while our hands are touching right to right, and left to left. We’re all both holding onto and being held, with both hands. It’s a small circle, but it’s still a circle, and we’re all touching one another in multiple ways.”
Jonathan sat behind Bethany, wrapped his arms around her torso, and Ranger said, “Jonathan is connected to us, but only through Bethany. He doesn’t want to be included in the blood bond, but is willing to say the oath with us while connected to our little fiery vixen.”
They knew this, had agreed to it before drawing blood, and Bethany wondered if it was necessary for him to say it as part of the ritual.
“Give me a second to get the energy flow started,” said Ranger. “Let it happen, and don’t freak. I’m in charge and I’ll keep it from going bad. Think of last night, your favorite part, and keep it in mind. Watch me, and I’ll nod when it’s time to say the vow.”
Bethany thought back to riding Mac’s cock while Jonathan was in her backside and Ranger was off to the side watching every move, and telling her he couldn’t wait to be in her ass.
She thought she felt something, like a buzzing sensation coursing through her hands, wrists, and knees, and slowly making its way through the rest of her body. It wasn’t like it’d been downstairs earlier, though, and it was possible she was imagining it.
When Ranger nodded, all four intoned, “We are three plus one. We are strong. We are a unit, and no one shall intrude without the entirety knowing.”
Bethany kept the memory of last night foremost in her head, and within seconds she felt as if it was happening again. Ranger let the memory go a few moments before gradually transitioning them back to the present, this time.
No one needed to ask if it worked, but Bethany said, “I felt Jonathan in it, too. Did ya’ll?”
“He was in it, but I didn’t feel him,” Ranger told her.
“I only felt Bethany,” Jonathan said as he let go of her and stretched out on the bed behind them, “but I was only open to feeling her.”
“I’m going down to see what I can do with Duke,” Ranger said as he stood. He looked at Mac and Jonathan. “Why don’t the two of you pull the top mattress from all three beds and put them on the floor of one of the guest rooms?” He looked at Jonathan. “If we put mine and yours together, we can sleep with our vixen without smooshing her. Mac can sleep on the other side of the room — close enough to be with us, but not enough to be a danger to Bethany if he shifts in his sleep.”
The men moved the mattresses as if they didn’t weigh anything. Bethany helped get the sheets and blankets back on them, and curled up with Jonathan on the two they’d pushed together in the back of the room. Mac was closest to the door, so he could leave if he needed time and space to get control.
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