by Maia Dylan
“I was taken from outside a youth shelter when I was sixteen years old. I had been living on the streets for about six months, since my mom kicked me out of the trailer we were living in, and the owner or the shelter was nice to me. She told me about this opportunity to make a little money by taking part in a psychometric test for some cash, and whatever they were testing for I must have had in spades because as soon as I walked out of that shelter the next day I was taken.”
Jase felt his anger rise at the thought of this beautiful woman having to fend for herself on the streets. The thought of people putting their hands on her and taking her against her will had him wanting to eviscerate someone.
“I was taken by a man called Drake. It was while I was being held in a facility ran by him, that I met Melaina. Drake was a crazy, fucked-up chemist who decided he wanted to enhance the human race.” Parris huffed a laugh. “A lofty aspiration for sure, but one that he shared with a few other crazy assholes. He developed these chemical combinations that he tested on Melaina and me constantly, and then almost two years later, he brought in a third, Pepper. She’s a couple of years younger than me and just about the sweetest, kindest person you’re ever likely to meet. But she is off-the-charts talented when it comes to her psychic abilities, even before he started her…treatments.
“Drake’s chemical compounds were strong, and we were enhanced in small increments, but that changed after he died and we went to live with an even larger, more narcissistic asshole who continued experimenting on us. His name is Aristos. I was able to get away from him thirty-six hours before you found me, but for the past nine years, we have been held against our will and given a cocktail of drugs that enhanced our psychic abilities.. Either by design or by fluke, Aristos’s treatments managed to increase our abilities exponentially. Melaina and Pepper were able to adapt to the increases a lot easier than I did. Neither of them suffered physical consequences from using the abilities they developed. But I did.”
“And these physical consequences could kill you?” Jase snarled. He was so damn angry at the world that someone would hurt their mate.
“Well, they might if Chris can’t stop them from forming, and we can allow them time to heal.” Parris lowered her gaze. So all was not lost.
“We will talk with Chris, and make sure we do everything we can to help her heal. There has to be something that can be done. I fucking refuse to lose our mate,” Jase sent to his brother down their link. He reached out and pulled her hand gently into his, noticing from the corner of his eye that Rhys did the same thing.
“What is your ability, darlin’?” Rhys asked the question gently then raised her hand to his lips. Parris suddenly found the bed sheets, the wall and anywhere that wasn’t his or Rhys’s face absolutely impossible to ignore.
“Well, ah, I-I can push into a person’s mind and manipulate what they are thinking or what they think they may have seen,” Parris said with a slight shrug. “I can leave behind compulsions for someone to do something or think something and make it so that it feels like the thought was theirs.”
Christ, it sounded like something straight out of any program on the Syfy channel. Jase stared into Parris’s face and could tell she was waiting for them to either call her a liar or placate her in some way. But they wouldn’t do either. Hell, who were they to argue that what they were hearing was impossible. They could shift into a freaking wolf with a single thought.
“And when you use your powers”—Jase took a page from Rhys’s book, lifting her now trembling hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the soft skin of her knuckles—“what are these physical consequences you are referring to?”
“Lesions. Multiple lesions on my brain started to appear.”
Jase filled with fear at her words.
“Every time I used my abilities, I would get these tiny brain bleeds that would result in these lesions. If I don’t use my power, then it slows them, but nothing stops them completely. Chris has tried a number of medicinal cures, but nothing has worked so far. My brain is getting more and more damaged because, for some reason, the bleeding is not stopping completely. Eventually, I will start suffering strokes, and then it will just be a matter of time.”
“Oh, hell no,” Jase snarled low, his wolf very clear in his voice. “We did not just find you to lose you too fucking soon. There has to be a way to stop these things from bleeding. If you don’t use your power”—a thought suddenly came to mind that had him stopping midsentence and narrowing his eyes—“wait just a fucking minute. These seizures are only triggered when you use your power, which means you just used them today? You pushed into our minds and put yourself at risk, knowing that it was going to hurt you!”
Parris raised her chin and glared defiantly at him. The look pissed him off and aroused the shit out of him at the same time. “Don’t you yell at me, Jason Wilson. I will not have it, do you hear me? Yes, I used my powers because I could sense that you two were keeping something from me. I figured that because neither of you was being overly forthcoming with whatever the hell was going on, and because I could tell that you were communicating telepathically, I would jump in and see what you had to say for yourselves.”
Rhys ran his hand through his hair in a sign that he was just as frustrated by their mate as Jase was. “Damn it, Parris! Why couldn’t you have just asked? One minute we were enjoying the sexy-as-hell sounds you were making drinking that concoction Jase seems to have gotten you addicted to, and then when you asked what we were, we decided it was time to come clean. The next minute, you’re shaking and convulsing on the damn bed, and your nose is bleeding like a fucking faucet. All of that could have been avoided if you’d simply asked us instead of pushing into our minds.”
“Look,” Parris said as anger flashed in her green eyes, which made Jase’s dick harden even further, something he hadn’t thought possible only moments before, “I’m sorry if I invaded your privacy, but-”
“Parris,” Jase interrupted. He knew it was rude, but he needed her to understand something, and he figured it was time they answered the question she asked before she had her seizure and scared ten years off his life. “You did not and could not invade our privacy. You are a part of me as you are a part of Rhys, and despite these revelations today, there is nothing about us that you can’t know or have access, too. We are upset because you hurt yourself in the process, sweetheart. We do have something to tell you, something that we have kept from you, but know that it was because we were afraid of how it might affect your health and no other reason.” Jase took a quick, deep breath and a giant leap of faith. “Rhys and I are wolf shifters, as are most of the people here in Grey River.”
Parris was silent for a long moment as she stared first into his eyes and then into Rhys’s. Just when Jase thought he would go crazy, she said, “Wolf shifters? You have the ability to shift into a wolf?”
Rhys grimaced. “Yeah, we do. We would have told you sooner like Jase said, but we weren’t really sure how to. Then add into that some of the horror stories some of our other friends had about telling their mates that they were shifters, and we decided to wait until you were out of this place before we told you.”
“Will you show me?” Parris whispered.
Jase shared a quick hopeful glance with his brother. “Of course we will. Um, we ah, need to be naked to do it, though.” A gorgeous blush swept over her face and had Jase grinning.
“Oh,” Parris’s eyes widened and the beguiling color deepened when she took a slight breath then shot them a look of pure confidence. A look that didn’t quite make to her eyes. “Well, I promise not to look…much. Are you embarrassed?”
Rhys chuckled. “Darlin’, that’s like a red rag to a bull.”
Jase reached behind him and pulled his shirt over his head at the same time Rhys did. Parris’s eyes widened, and the look she gave them as they both began to strip before her was one of wary curiosity and then hunger.
Jase liked the flashes of awareness in her eyes—a lot. “You can
look as much as you like, mate, because we can tell you right now that when this situation is reversed, and you’re the one stripping naked. We will for damn sure be watching you and every seductive move you make.”
Jase could see Parris digesting all of that, and when she started to frown he grinned. “You heard him right, sweetheart. He said the word mate. For wolf shifters like us, if we are lucky, we meet the one woman the Fates have deemed us worthy of.”
Parris gasped. “Wait. Mate? And before you said the one woman.”
Jase’s grin grew wider. “Yep, you heard that right on both counts. You are our mate—the Quickening tells us that—and you are the one woman for us. You complete Rhys and me in more ways than one, Parris. You are our fated mate, which makes you ours to love, cherish, and protect. And we are looking forward to doing all three as soon as you’re ready.”
He and Rhys now stood naked in the room, and Jase’s cock was hard and twitched as Parris’s heated gaze roamed over him. They waited, anxious for a sign that their mate wasn’t about to flip out or, worse, experience another debilitating seizure.
Parris lifted her gaze and met theirs, her look clear. “Show me.”
There was no hesitation in her voice and Jase knew she was ready. Calling his to his wolf, Jase embraced the white-hot pain of his shift that quickly morphed into the pure joy of taking his other form. When he was able to focus on his mate, his vision so clear he could see the small lines that surrounded her beautiful green eyes wrinkle as she blinked, he saw no judgment or fear in her eyes.
Jase knew that he and Rhys standing in their wolf form side by side could be an intimidating sight. Both of them were gray wolfs and larger than normal wolves as most shifters were. They stood completely still and when Parris held her hand out, her expression filled with wonder, they walked forward. Rhys approached from the right, and he walked up on the left side of her bed. They both placed their heads on the bed and looked up at her.
Parris reached out with steady hands and ran them over their heads. Jase closed his eyes and chuffed a happy sound at having their mate touch him. Parris giggled.
“Wow, you are both softer than I thought. Jase gave a wolfy growl and being told he was soft. “Oh hush!”
She gently rapped her knuckles across his muzzle, and Rhys chuffed a laugh Jase could feel and hear down their link. He growled in his direction, and Parris wrapped him again.
“Stop it. You are beautiful. Both of you are beautiful. I’m not sure what a mate is or what it will mean, or if I’ll be any good at being one, but I’m glad you showed me your wolves.”
Jase felt his heart melt at the acceptance in their mate’s tone. She accepted them as wolves, and they accepted her abilities. Now, all they had to do was wait until she was ready for them to claim her as their mate. Jase prayed that would be sooner rather than later.
Chapter 4
“Are you ready now, Parris?”
Parris turned toward the door and smiled at her doctor. Chris had been fantastic since she was admitted and had helped her to understand her condition a little more. They had finally succeeded in stopping the bleeding and the lesions, and this gave them time to find a cure, and Parris was hopeful that they would be able to do something.
She was finally out from beneath the iron fist of a madman, and she could see something more for her life. She wanted to live in Grey River and stay with Laina. She wanted to get well, get a job, and have a life. And she really wanted to get to know the two wolf shifters who, just a week ago, had told her she was their mate. She knew that since her last seizure, even Rhys and Jase had been talking with Chris trying to help find a way to help her.
“Yeah, I am.” Parris smiled shyly at Chris, who stood grinning as he held the door for her to exit her hospital room. “Don’t take this the wrong way at all, but I am so looking forward to getting the hell out of this place!”
“And who could blame you?” a woman with a soft feminine voice said from just beyond the door frame.
Although it sounded a lot like Melaina, Parris knew it was her younger sister, Xanthe. She had come to see her shortly after she had been admitted, and since Melaina had been gone, Xanthe had come to see her almost every day. She had spent so much time with Parris talking about Grey River and the people that lived there that Parris felt like she knew each one personally.
Xanthe figured out quickly that Rhys and Jase believed her to be their mate and had talked with her about what that meant, and Xanthe had listened intently to every word. Her scent had been neutralized by the drugs she had been given, and this meant that Rhys and Jase had to get very close to her skin in order to catch her scent. Rhys and Jase had been struck by the Quickening as soon as they were able to catch her scent. It was easier to do now that she had been weaned off the drug regime Aristos had instead on.
When she had asked Rhys about the Quickening, curious as to what it was like, he had told her it was like a humming that had started deep within him, one that rocked him to the core and identified her as their fated mate. Parris thought is sounded beautiful. A visceral recognition at the very core of a man’s being that told him his mate was near. Knowing that she sparked that reaction in Rhys and Jase excited her.
Xanthe was a gorgeous, vivacious woman who seemed to embrace everything she possibly could in life. Parris knew that Xanthe had been yet another victim of her father’s fucked-up treatments, but she had been spared having to grow up the way Parris had when she was sixteen. Xanthe had escaped the day Drake had taken Melaina.
Xanthe had lived her life always looking over her shoulder, thinking that Drake was coming for her, but it wasn’t until Xanthe and Melaina had reconnected recently that she had found that Drake was dead and Aristos, the father she believed to be dead, was still alive. Parris turned toward the door as Xanthe swept into the room. She wore a bright pink sweater with a scooped neck and a pair of blue jeans. She had a matching pink highlight through her hair, and Parris could see the touch of tattoo ink on her left shoulder.
“Hey, girl!” Xanthe walked across the room and pulled Parris into a tight hug. “You are looking so much better than you did a couple of weeks ago. Those clothes Faith brought in look great on you! Damn, that woman certainly has an eye for fashion.”
She held Parris’s arms out from her sides and looked at the outfit she had on. She wore a deep green sweater with a pair of jeans that were comfortable and were made of soft, light blue denim. Parris had been secretly delighted in what they did for her figure. She had gained some much-needed weight since being in the hospital, and it looked like she had a bit more roundness to her butt than she had when she was training twice a day. And she loved it!
It still freaked Parris out slightly that the town seemed to have accepted her. It seemed to her that every time she turned around there was always someone there offering her help. Faith had turned up yesterday with a bag filled with new clothes, claiming that because she was the size of a small country because of the twins she was carrying, buying clothes for Parris meant she was still able to get some much needed retail therapy in.
“It was just nice to buy something that didn’t have anything to do with the babies!” Faith had proclaimed. “I’m not sure there is anything left in the entire town for any other babies. My mates seem to come home with something new every day.” The way Faith’s face had lit up, Parris didn’t think she minded all that much.
“Come on,” Xanthe said, pulling Parris’s attention back to the present as she grabbed Parris’s bag from the bed. “We have a welcome party to get to at Country Blue.”
Parris followed Xanthe from the room. “Whose welcome party is it? Perhaps it might be best if you just took me back to Melaina’s apartment and I get settled in.” Melaina had been staying in the apartment above Xanthe’s store in the middle of town, and she had left instructions with Xanthe that Parris was to stay there.
Xanthe turned and winked at her. “Why, yours, of course! I know you’ve been here for a couple of weeks now, but you
were never really welcomed properly. So, I am taking you over to the Country Blue to introduce you to a few people, and we can eat our body weights in the delicious barbeque they serve there and maybe, if Chris approves, even have a margarita to toast your homecoming!”
Parris blinked away tears at all of that, not really knowing what to say. She had never been welcomed anywhere in her life, and to be told that it was her homecoming, like it was a given that she was accepted here and belonged, well, there were no words that explained how that made her feel.
Fifteen minutes later, Parris found herself laughing at the stories Faith was telling her about some of the antics her men had been up to lately, in particular, how they had been running scenarios and timing drills on how fast they could get her to labor and delivery when she finally went into labor. Neve had Parris felt so damn free to feel happy and laugh.
When she had walked in, and she and Xanthe had made their way over to a large table, she had been introduced to a whole slew of people she was never going to be able to remember. But then she spotted the two men who stayed back from the welcoming crowd, watching her with a look that had her biting her bottom lip. That look had her pulse accelerating and her entire body softening. When they sat at the table, Parris found herself seated between Jase and Rhys, and the way they ensured that she had everything she needed made her feel special.
“This last time, I swear Ty might have actually broken the land speed record getting me to the hospital,” Faith grumbled as she shook her head in the direction of her grinning mate. “Everything we drove past shot by as a blur. Before I had time to launch into my contraction routine, which I have to say is Oscar winning in its realism, we were pulling up outside the hospital.”
“Baby, you have to know it’s not just about getting you to the hospital,” Trent, one of Faith’s mates advised her as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to his wife’s cheek.
“Hell, no it’s not just about getting you to the hospital safe and sound,” Ty agreed with a grin. “It’s also about who can do it faster between Trent and me. And for those of you wondering…it’s me.”
