by T. S. Ryder
“She’s mine,” Ricky said at once. “I started talking to her first.”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Women don’t like possessive men.”
“I’ve read a lot of those romance books, especially ones written for human women,” Kurtis said. They love the whole alpha-male dominant thing. I bet she orgasms the minute I rip off my shirt to beat the three of you to bloody pulps.”
Noel had to laugh at the absurdity of that, even though he knew he ought to be trying to calm them down. After all, this wasn’t exactly going to be helpful to lead into what he had planned.
“You?” Ricky growled to Kurtis. “You’d end up a sobbing mess in the corner after the first one of us breaks your pretty face.”
“Oh, so you think I’m pretty?”
Ricky’s hands clenched. “Why don’t we ask Diana what she wants? The only fighting I’m going to be doing is through romantic dates. I, for one, am not going to take the choice away from her. She’s been talking to all four of us. And I can only assume she likes us all, or else she would have stopped. She won’t take kindly to us killing people she likes.”
That seemed to shut Kurtis up. Bobby remained where he was, watching quietly as usual. Not inserting himself into the drama. Noel wanted to say something to get a reaction from him, but he bit his tongue and turned to the others.
“So, I guess it’ll be a battle of the dates, then,” he said with a grin. “Unless, of course, we can think of something better. Something . . . outside of the box.”
He paused, letting it sink in. He knew he had their attention now. He decided to let them come up with a few of their own thoughts before revealing his own, though. If they came up with the same solution he had, then it would save a lot of time convincing them that this was the way to go. His gaze lingered on them each in turn, though Bobby didn’t even bother looking at him.
Noel got to his feet. He cracked the knuckles on one hand. “Look, we all reached out to online dating for the same reason. With so few women on the island, we’re all hard up for mates. We’re lucky that Diana turned up here. Not a lot of women will be open to going to an isolated island full of bear shifters. Things aren’t going well for any of our clans. The island’s too small for us to have our individual territories. We need to better integrate the clans.”
“‘Better?’” Ricky snorted. “There is no integration whatsoever right now. Whatever clan a bear is born into dictates what they do for life. Do you know how many of the old-timers in the Flatlands wish that they could have gone to college? But they had to stay on the farms and ranches their whole lives.”
Noel nodded. “Exactly. The way things are currently set up is harmful to all of us. We could do so much better if we joined forces, so to say. Stopped having three clans and three alphas—”
“Four,” Bobby interrupted.
“Four clans.” Noel rolled his eyes. “If we all worked together, we could make things much better here. And it’d free us up to be able to start working on the population issues if we weren’t all focused solely on getting our own clans taken care of.”
Kurtis frowned as he considered it. “Okay. Okay, let’s say that we go with this plan . . . You’re suggesting that we all share Diana as a mate?”
“Hell no,” Ricky growled.
Noel gave him an annoyed look. “She’d be the one to unite us and the clans. Her children would be the next leaders.”
“It could be fun . . . sexually,” Kurtis put in. His expression was thoughtful. “The way she was looking at us earlier, I’m certain that she’d be up for a little experimentation. But how would day-to-day life work? A timeshare system where she travels around visiting the three of us?”
“Four!” Bobby leaped to his feet. There was a growl in his voice Noel hadn’t heard before. “There are four of us. I am sick of my clan being ignored when it comes to island politics. You’ve been acting like we’re nothing more than a bunch of hippies ever since we formed. Well, that ends now. You want to unite the island, Noel? Then how about you don’t ignore a quarter of it.”
Noel opened his mouth to tell Bobby that his clan didn’t even form a tenth of the island but stopped himself. The Black Sands Clan was formed in protest of the way things had been done a few decades ago before his own father died and he became alpha. They would be the most receptive to change, as they were made up of individuals who had left the other clans.
Bobby and the Black Sands might not give the islanders anything but shiny trinkets to sell on the mainland, but he could provide a stabilizing force here. He could at least be another buffer between Ricky and Kurtis.
“Yeah. The four of us. Sorry.” Noel nudged Bobby in the side with his elbow. “Look, there are a lot of clans out there with similar problems. A lot of them have joined two or three clans together under a queen and her council of alphas. We can give it a go here. If it doesn’t work, then we could ask Diana to have a baby for each of us. If she’s willing. Then the clans will be led by brothers, at least and that’ll help cut down the conflict between alphas.”
Kurtis snorted. “That’s not how brothers work.”
“Like you’d know,” Ricky snapped. “You don’t have any brothers.”
“I have a step-brother and we don’t get along.”
“Yeah, because you tried to seduce his sister the night before your parents married.”
“We weren’t step-siblings yet.”
Noel quickly moved to put himself between the two of them to stop them from arguing. He clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “As for the sex thing, it doesn’t have to be all three—four of us all at once. Not so certain I’d like to see your ugly asses naked.”
Kurtis rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen us naked plenty of times during festivals. My ass is anything but ugly and you know it.”
“Sex is different from the festivals.”
Kurtis shrugged.
Noel took a moment to gather his thoughts. They were getting off track. If anything, Kurtis seemed into the idea of group sex. Ricky just looked grouchy and Bobby was impossible to read. He turned to Ricky, the one that was most likely to cause problems. “All of us are experiencing tough economic times. If we all joined as one, we could pool our resources. Maybe send a few of your clanmates to college like they want.”
The burning in the Flatland alpha’s eyes lessened a little. A thoughtful look replaced it. He nodded after a moment. “Alright. I don’t think it will work, but it’s worth giving a shot. If we can integrate the clans, it would give my people more options and perhaps an equal distribution of wealth.” Here, he shot a furious look at Kurtis, who fiddled with his jeweled cufflinks and ignored him. “I’m willing to ask her if she would be okay with such an arrangement.”
Noel grinned. He nodded and clapped Kurtis and Ricky on the back. He almost forgot to turn back to Bobby. The Black Sands Alpha didn’t speak for a moment, then nodded. “If Diana is willing to give it a try, so am I.”
“Excellent!” Noel rubbed his hands together. “Then we’ll just have to ask her. Given the way she was looking at us earlier, I doubt she’ll say no.”
“There is also the matter of whoever was chasing her,” Ricky interrupted. Spoilsport as usual. “I don’t trust that they won’t follow her here, especially if it’s the Alphabet Killer. I’ve listened to the news about that character. Nasty piece of work.”
Kurtis nodded, looking serious for once. “If he’s the one after her, he won’t give up.”
“I’m going to set up a patrol around the island to make sure that we don’t get any unexpected visitors,” Ricky said.
“I will leave that in your capable hands, then.” Noel nodded.
He grinned at the others. The whole business about the person chasing her was probably nothing to worry about. How would they find her out here? And really, ‘Alphabet’ killer? He’d be more worried if he were still in preschool.
There was no doubt that Diana was going to agree to this plan, not with the way she’d been eyeing th
em earlier. So, all that he had to do now was get her pregnant before the others got a chance. That way, his child would be alpha of all four clans. Noel grinned. Yes, this was going to work out better than he could have ever hoped.
Chapter Three – Ricky
Diana’s soft brown hair was done up into a messy bun at the back of her head. She grinned at Ricky as she approached him, and he grinned back. When he had first seen her on that dating site, he had thought she was beautiful. Now, when he had the opportunity to see her in person and breathe in her delicious honey and lavender scent, he knew his previous assessment was false. Diana Dobson was not merely beautiful. She was a goddess on land.
“We’re going on a picnic,” she said when she reached him. Her grin widened, and she played with the loose curls at the base of her neck. “I’d love for you to come, too.”
Ricky shook his head, disappointment hitting him in the gut. “I can’t. Sorry. I need to get these safety measures in place. We still have no idea who was chasing you.”
She shivered slightly and her expression morphed into worry. Out of nowhere, Noel was right there. He pounded one of his fists into Ricky’s back, making him stumble. The jerk never could resist showing off. Just because he and his clan were hunters and spent the rest of their time in gyms, he thought it meant he was the strongest on the island. Yet, Ricky tossed around hay bales and lifted livestock every single day. He didn’t need a stupid gym.
“Let him worry about nothing.” Noel gave Diana one of his patented grins. “You’re safe here, so let’s get going.”
Diana chewed her lip. “Are you sure you won’t come?”
Ricky shook his head. Apparently, he was the only one who took Diana’s safety seriously. All that the others did was shove and push each other as she approached. To his right, Kurtis started to rip off his shirt. Ricky averted his gaze.
“I’ll give you a ride,” Kurtis declared. “Climb on my back and—”
“No way!” Noel growled. “She’s riding me.”
Meanwhile, Bobby had already shifted. Ricky watched with a tight feeling in his chest, hands clenched around the tablet that he was using to organize the patrol routes. Diana’s eyes sparkled and a flush rose in her cheeks. It was still uncertain how much she wanted to be the queen of the island, but one thing was certain. She loved the attention. Ricky just wished that the others would help him out a little so that he had time to get her attention as well.
“We’ll all just walk.” Diana dug her fingers into Bobby’s fur as she scratched behind his ear. Ricky wished it were him. “That way nobody’s naked during our picnic.”
“Aw, what’s the fun of that?” Kurtis purred as his arm snaked around her waist.
Ricky shook his head as he turned his back on them. They were all so busy trying to seduce her that they forgot about why she was here in the first place. Well, he wasn’t going to just ignore the danger she was in. If they wanted Diana to stay with them, she had to be safe. And for that, all the clans needed to work together.
He had to get the strongest bears with the best senses patrolling the island. And, unfortunately, that did mean getting them from the Fjord clan. Noel’s people were hunters. They were trained to see small variations that others would miss. Noel had given him permission to recruit his best hunters for the task. So after the other alphas took Diana out for their picnic, he gathered the hunters at Noel’s house.
“I have set up ten different routes you are to patrol. You’ll be in groups of two and check in every hour,” he said as he stood before them.
One of them, Tesla Rex, snorted. His eyes narrowed as he sneered at Ricky. “You’re not our alpha. Why should we do anything you say? Where’s Noel? He’s the one who should be organizing this.”
Ricky bit his tongue to stop himself from agreeing with him. Disrespecting their alpha, as much as Noel deserved it, would not endear him to these bears, though. No, he needed to approach this with calmness and understanding.
“The alphas have all agreed that I will be in charge of the island’s security. Since you are the best hunters—”
“You bet we are.” Tesla flexed his muscles and laughed. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to pick any of the puny bears from your own clan, but I still say—”
He cut off when Ricky growled. Tesla tensed. Ricky approached, keeping his back straight and chin up. Another growl tore from his throat when he loomed over Tesla.
“You are going to obey me as though I was your alpha, understood?” Tesla opened his mouth and Ricky held up a hand. “You will, okay?”
Tesla glared for a moment longer, then dropped his gaze. “Yeah. We’ll do as you want.”
It was as much submission as he expected. Ricky backed off a step, grunting. He glared at the other bears and they all lowered their heads. He nodded and moved back to the table where he had the route maps printed out. He picked them up and started passing them out.
“I trust you are all adult enough to assign yourselves partners. You’ll switch which route you use randomly, so make sure that you’re at the checkpoints at the designated times. If you see something suspicious, you are to call in at once. Now, let’s get the patrols ordered up, shall we?”
***
Exhaustion dragged at his limbs. Ricky brushed a hand over his buzzed hair before putting his old, dirty ballcap back on. The patrols were all working smoothly, and he had finally gotten them to radio in every hour as they had planned. It had only taken three days. By this time, Diana and the other alphas had moved from Noel’s place to his house out on the Flatlands.
That meant less commute time to work, at least.
Ricky bent over the too-small carrots and shook his head. His right hand man, Tyrell, examined a handful of the crop that they had pulled up.
“The soil’s still not so great here. We need to till in more sand and straw next spring.”
Ricky nodded in agreement. “And get a herd out here to fertilize it better. We’ll put Kingsley’s cows in here over winter. Let’s also get—”
“Your mate’s here.” Tyrell pointed to a truck pulling into the field. He paused, then asked, “How are things going with her, anyway?”
Ricky didn’t reply. Instead, he jogged over to the truck. Bobby was at the driver’s wheel. Diana jumped out and waved as she joined him. Ricky smiled at her, enjoying the way her eyes sparkled, and tipped back his hat.
“What are you doing here?”
Diana held up a water bottle and a lunch bag. “I thought I’d bring you this and tell you that Kurtis and Bobby are taking me out to a nearby island.”
Ricky frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. If the person who was chasing you makes an appearance—"
“That’s why I want you to come, too.” Diana shivered, but her face lit up with a smile quick enough. “If you came with us, then I’d have three big, strong men to protect me. Won’t you come?”
The temptation was almost too strong to resist. And if it had been on a day where less was going on, he probably would have said yes. He glanced at Tyrell and then at the field and bit back a curse. Bobby and Kurtis might have the time to just suddenly decide that they were going out. He didn’t have that luxury.
“I’m sorry, I can’t. Not today. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave the island anyway. There are plenty of places around here that you can see. Bobby’s territory, the Black Sands, is especially beautiful. You should have him take you to one of his beaches.”
Diana’s disappointment was obvious. It almost made him change his mind, but he was an alpha. When his father had entrusted him with his clan, he had promised to take care of it. That meant that he couldn’t just drop everything and run off to have fun. As much as he wanted to, he had responsibilities. He wasn’t going to shirk them.
Still, as Diana jumped into the truck and she and Bobby drove off, he couldn’t fight the tightness in his chest. He turned back to the field, his jaw working furiously. He felt like slapping his hat to the ground but held ba
ck. Tyrell gave him a calculated look as he returned. He hummed under his breath and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“You could have gone with her, you know.”
“We’ve got inspections to do.”
“I could do them by myself. I know what I’m doing.” Tyrell gave him a hard look. “Listen, I know that we’ve got work to do, but she’s going to be your mate. You have to get to know her. Woo her. Win her. She’s not going to agree to mate with someone who ignores her all the time.”
Ricky glared at him. “There is too much work to be done today. Now let’s get some water on this field before these carrots shrivel up entirely.”
***
Ricky took a swig of water as he turned the tractor, then put the bottle back as he lined up his tires to either side of the raised bed the beets were growing in. All across the fields, members of his clan were kneeling in the dirt, plucking out weeds as they moved along. The four clans had decided together a long time ago that they wouldn’t use synthetic herbicides or pesticides. The cultivator he was using on these beds here would dig up the weeds between the rows of beets, giving them less work to do.
Diana waved from the road. Kurtis walked with her and smirked as he grabbed her butt. She giggled and moved away, playfully swiping at his arm.
Ricky’s bear snarled, but he just turned back to the field and started driving.
***
Dirt and sweat clung to Ricky’s skin. He felt overly warm with yet another sunburn. His mouth tasted like dust and his shoulders ached. The tractor had gotten stuck in a mud pit and he had had to pull it out on his own. The stupid, old thing had broken down again as soon as it was free. This time, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to fix it.
As he approached his home, looking forward to being able to spend the evening with Diana, the door opened. Noel exited. He carried his shirt over his shoulder and gave Ricky a smug grin as he walked past. His bear reared to its feet and Ricky had to work hard not to lung at the other alpha.
