by Eden Beck
“I’m teasing,” I say. “Yes, I’ll stay inside the cabin, with the exception of having to use the outside bathroom and shower.”
“See now, why wouldn’t you just want to come stay at the house where there’s a claw-footed bathtub?” Marlowe says in frustration. It isn’t like him to be this argumentative. But then again … all of us are on edge. Now that the ceremony is moving forward, news will eventually spread about what we’re doing.
The closer the date comes, the more dangerous it’ll become. For all of us.
“She’ll be fine,” Rory says as he gives Marlowe a hearty pat on the back. But even he has a hard time keeping the concern from his expression when he adds, “Just be careful. Romulus doesn’t think those errant shifters will be back on our land any time soon, but if they were willing to trespass once …”
“Don’t worry,” I reassure them. “I’ll be fine. You know me. I already learned how to handle myself once.”
The reminder of the time they left me once before shuts them up.
“Besides,” I say, giving each one of them a kiss to soften the sudden tension. “I know you’ll be there, just at the top of the hill.”
After the guys leave, I crawl up into my loft to look out the window at the night sky. There is a definite peace in the solitude of being completely alone. I need it sometimes. I need to be able to hear my own thoughts and find my own voice, even if I am only talking to myself.
Otherwise, the opinions of everyone else starts to blur my mind.
I flip over onto my back and stare up at the painted moon and stars on my ceiling. I could have abandoned this place in favor of the now empty bedroom down below, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
Aside from the boys, this is the only place that is mine.
Now they are home, but for a while still … this is too.
The next day I spend mostly reading up in the loft. The air outside is cool, so I open the window and let it blow the pages of my book gently as I read more about shifter rituals.
I skim a few books that I borrowed from the house and brought back to the cabin with me, looking for things about wolf shifter wedding ceremonies and then letting my curiosity get ahead of myself as I look for anything I can find about mating and how that sort of thing will work out with three mates instead of just one.
I mean, aren’t wolves territorial? Or maybe that only applies to wolf packs and not individuals within the same one. The whole thing starts to boggle my mind and make me feel a bit claustrophobic inside the small loft. Lydia did say that much of shifter culture is unwritten, but I wish they’d taken the time to write just a little more of it down.
It’d certainly have come in handy.
By mid-afternoon, I decide to go for a walk in the woods even though I told the guys that I would stay inside the cabin. Surely, I think, they only meant at night. Not here in the middle of the day when they’re practically within earshot.
I pull on a soft sweater and climb down the ladder from the loft and head out the door. It’s later than I thought. It’s just about dusk and so the air is filled with the sweet scent of wildflowers that carry on the evening breeze. The colors of the approaching sunset cause the shadows between the trees to look as if they’re playing with each other. They’re not sinister tonight, as they once were.
As I walk along the edge of the forest path, I think about a very trivial and very human thing; what I want to wear to my wedding. My wedding.
The very thought of it both makes my heart race and my stomach clench. I never thought I’d be married this young. That one moment I’d be arriving here in North Port, running away from my own father, and that what feels like the very next I’m planning a wedding.
For some reason, the image of Queen Anne’s Lace—a flowering weed that grows up here along the ridge of the hill between the cabin below and the mansion up above—sticks in my head.
That’s it. I want my wedding dress to look like that; a delicate lace that leaves little flashes of my skin visible beneath, not unlike the stars Rory painted up above my bed. My mind wanders into the forest just as I do, imagining how I’ll look to Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb when they see me walking towards the altar.
I’ll leave my hair down long so that it cascades over my shoulders and weave the most beautiful colors of wildflowers into a few tiny braids that will encircle around the crown of my head. I don’t want to feel like a demur princess being handed over to her prince. I want to feel like a wild maiden being handed over to her wolves.
I let myself get lost in the fantasy as I walk deeper and deeper into the woods. By the time I realize that the light of day is almost fully gone, I’m further than I had intended to go.
But as soon as I turn to head back towards the cabin, I find I’m not alone.
For once, however, it’s a welcome surprise.
“Don’t you know that you should be careful of wolves in the woods?” Rory says with a broadening smile as he steps out from between the darkening shadows. His head tilts down seductively as I see him emerging through the tree line, Kaleb and Marlowe melting out of the shadows behind him.
“I guess I strayed from the path a bit,” I say, happy to see them here to walk with me on the way back. “But what did I say? I knew you’d be close.”
“Or maybe you’re just lucky that we knew you’d come out here on your own anyway,” Marlowe scolds gently, “even after you promised to stay inside.”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “I guess I did say that, but the temptation to wander a bit was too great.”
At the word temptation, all three sets of eyes begin to glow a golden amber.
I feel it too, the longing and burning desire that I can see manifest on their faces. I might not have glowing eyes yet, but I can definitely feel it.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask as we walk together in the growing darkness of nightfall.
“Watching over you,” Kaleb says with a slight smile that curves the corner of his mouth up on one side. “As always.”
“I got lost in thought,” I say, in an attempt to let them know that I wasn’t just purposefully defying their request for me to stay safe inside the cabin. Even though part of me knows I was.
“Oh?” Rory says. “What were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about what to wear to our wedding.”
“I vote for nothing,” Kaleb quips, only half teasing. “We should all wear nothing. It would make the rest of the night following the wedding much easier if we had less clothes to take off.”
I hear Marlowe chuckle beneath his breath, and I’m immediately consumed with thoughts about how this will all work again. Rory picks up on the uneasy look on my face.
“What’s wrong?” he asks as he threads his fingers between mine and holds my hand for the rest of the walk. I can feel our pulses intermingling where flesh meets.
“There’s nothing wrong,” I say. “I just have so many questions still.”
“What kind of questions?”
It’s Marlowe who asks.
I’m a little embarrassed to ask them all, but my curiosity wins out.
“Where do I even start?” I say with a little laugh before I spout the many confusing questions that have been overwhelming my brain these last few days.
Are the guys going to get jealous when I’m with one of them and not the other? And what will happen if all of us are together at once? More than that … does the turning ritual happen at the same time as the wedding ceremony or do I have to wait longer for that too?
“And I know Romulus has described the ceremony to me before … but I’ve been reading up on it a lot, and it seems like there’s actually more than one way to go about it. I just … I want to make sure I know everything. I want to know what I’m getting into before it’s all … you know … too late.”
“Wow,” Kaleb says with a smirk, once I finally have to stop to catch my own breath. “That’s a LOT of questions.”
I feel my cheeks heating up, and know the
y’re most likely turning beet red.
“But they’re good questions,” he says reassuringly as he comes to take hold of my other free hand.
“Let’s all go back to the cabin to talk, okay?” Rory says. “It’s a lot of new things to figure out, and I’m betting that you probably have even more questions than that, don’t you?”
I nod my head because I actually do. I just didn’t want to ramble on any more than I already have.
“Oh look,” I say as we near the end of the path and are almost back at the cabin. “It’s the Queen Anne’s Lace I was thinking I wanted my wedding dress to look like.” I reach down to pick off one of the ivory flowers from its tall stem and hold it up for the boys to see.
Their eyes burn feverishly as I can see the thoughts behind them of me wearing nothing but revealing lace.
When we walk inside the cabin, their eyes are still flaring. I can not only see the yearning within them, I can feel it.
We all climb up the ladder to my loft because it’s the most comfortable place in the little cabin, even with all four of us curled up practically on top of each other. I lay back against Rory as he leans up against the wall of the loft near the window, and Kaleb and Marlowe lie on either side of me.
“Okay,” Rory says. “Let’s answer them for you one at a time.”
The cool air coming in through the window mixes with the warm heat radiating off of their bodies and I am lulled into an intoxicating comfort.
“Question one; will we get jealous when you’re with one of us and not the other? Probably, yes. But we all love you and we all want you. We all know how much it would kill any one of us not to be with you, and because of that we’re willing to share.”
“Share? That easily?” I shake my head, letting my eyes wander up to the trees visible up through the skylight.
Rory shrugs.
“The three of us are bonded to each other too, obviously not in the same way, but in a way that allows the four of us to be together in a sort of playful rivalry that will probably have moments of jealousy, but more moments of intimacy to make up for it. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” I answer him, after another second. “It does.” I feel every nerve ending on my skin stand up as Kaleb and Marlowe both run their hands over my body as we lie against each other in the bed.
“I’ll take the second question,” Kaleb says. I can sense mischief brewing behind his curved lips. “I think it was something about what happens if we’re all together at once, right?”
I get ready to answer him, but before I can, I notice that all three of them shift and move slightly. I feel as though suddenly, the answer to my question is about to be demonstrated instead of answered.
There’s a feeling of euphoric delirium as I feel all three guys enclose around me at once.
Rory is still beneath me and I can feel him swelling against the back of my thighs and press against my body as his arms wrap around the front of my waist. Kaleb leans over from beside me and places his weight on his arm as he brings his face down to mine and puts his mouth over my lips until our tongues touch and push into each other’s open mouths.
And Marlowe climbs onto my body and positions himself between my thighs as he keeps all of his weight off of me except for the heavy, throbbing mass between his legs. I am overcome by sensation as I kiss Kaleb and let my hands reach both behind me to pull Rory’s body closer to mine, and in front of me to press against Marlowe’s chest as he hovers above me.
I am so lost in Kaleb’s kiss that I almost don’t notice when Marlowe gently lowers my hand down from his chest to his torso, and then further down along his waist and into his pants. I almost forget that I have sweatpants on, ones that are easily slid down as Marlowe’s hand moves and slides them over my waist.
I feel all three men moving against me and I am so caught-up I the arousal of it all, that it isn’t until Marlowe lets out a small audible moan, that I feel Rory sit up abruptly behind me and pull my body toward him and out from underneath Marlowe.
Kaleb looks at him with blazing eyes, fueled with the heat of passion, and Marlowe stares with eyes pent-up with a fiery angst as I look to see his bare and engorged self just seconds away from having pushed into me.
All four of us are panting with heady breaths and I don’t think any of us wanted to stop, including Rory.
“We’ve waited this long,” Rory says between labored, heaving breaths. “We damned better wait just a little bit longer.”
If it hadn’t been for Rory pulling on his last bit of self-restraint. We would have all made love at that moment—and ruined everything.
Still, it’s not easy for everyone to pull back, even me.
Here I am in my comfortable loft with three gorgeous and powerful wolf-shifters who will soon be my mates, and each of them visibly ready to make love to me. I want all three of them, right now.
Marlowe slides my pants back up and puts himself back into his, although not without difficulty. After we all settle back down into a snuggled, albeit more steamed-up position than before, Kaleb leans over to look in my face again.
“Does that answer your question?” he asks.
And it does.
If I had more questions before … they’re now long forgotten. The guys stay the night with me in the cabin and after some more talking, we all fall asleep in a pile of interlocking bodies.
So much for my stubborn determination to stay here alone.
That night I dream about being a wolf again. This time I am in my den with Kaleb, Marlowe, and Rory, and we are all heaped into a comfortable pile just the way we were when we fell asleep in the loft. The only difference is that instead of human limbs, we are a mound of furry legs and tails.
A gray muzzle leans over to mine and our noses touch. Rory’s long, pink tongue licks my nose and I can feel myself giggle as I nuzzle my face up against his. I wonder how this love will feel in wolf form and I wonder how it will feel to be both animal and human at the same time. I lay my canine head back down against Kaleb’s back and feel our ears touch.
4
Kaleb
Getting married.
I’m getting married.
We’re getting married.
I never thought that prospect would make me giddy with excitement. I don’t think I even knew I could get giddy. Giddy.
But that’s what I am.
“So, tell me again why Sabrina isn’t up here at the house?” Lydia’s voice pushes through my mind as I sit, eyes trained out onto the green expanse stretching down to the edge of the forest, on one of the stools at the kitchen counter.
This must not be the first time she’s asked me this, because before I get the chance to answer, I end up on the receiving end of a swift kick to the back of the knees as Rory passes by.
“It’s at her insistence,” he says, artfully dodging my own kick in retaliation before setting down a huge stack of plates in the sink. He rolls up his sleeves and starts to help Lydia wash.
“Trust me, trust us,” Marlowe says, following at his heels. “If it were up to us, she’d already be here.”
While I do manage to dodge Marlowe’s attempt at my shins, I still end up with a face full of foam when Rory flicks soap bubbles my way.
“Hey!” I cry out, batting the bubbles out of my face. “It’s not like this is my fault.”
“Or maybe it is,” Marlowe says. “You’re the one who keeps trying to jump her bones every time she turns the corner.”
I bare my teeth at him, but even I can’t help the mischievous tug at the corner of my mouth.
Lydia just raises both hands to clap them over either side of her head.
“Nope!” she says. “I do not want to hear this. Please don’t tell me you’ve been endangering her chances at turning this close to the ceremony.”
Even though Marlowe keeps trying to play fight me, Rory straightens up and takes on a more serious tone. It’s not too easy to take him so seriously though … not when he’s currently up to his el
bows in dish suds.
“Of course not,” he says. “At least, not if Marlowe and I have anything to do with it.”
“Hey—” I start again, this time jumping up from my stool. But before I have the chance to defend myself, there’s a disbelieving huff from the door leading out of the kitchen.
We all straighten up as Romulus enters.
“Somehow, and as much as you might like me to believe it, I doubt it’s all Kaleb’s fault,” Romulus says. He eyes Rory with a meaningful stare. “Remember, you’re in charge of keeping everyone else in line. If that means controlling your brother so your future mate feels confident she can maintain intact before the ceremony, then that responsibility lies on you.”
Rory’s back is to me, but I can imagine the way his lips must press into a thin line.
“Of course,” he says again, but this time, there’s a slight edge to his voice. “I don’t need to be reminded of that.”
“Is that so?” Romulus asks, and for one second the tension in the air shifts. It becomes uncertain. Rory’s back muscles seize up and his shoulders grow stiff where he stands at the sink.
But it seems that Romulus isn’t in a fighting mood after all.
And it doesn’t even take Lydia to calm him … as it often does.
His face turns up in a wicked grin of his own as he plucks an apple from the fruit bowl and brings it to his lips to take a bite. The crisp fruit crunches between his jaws as the grin grows ever wider.
“I know that, Rory,” he says, after swallowing. “Not when in just three weeks’ time, you’re going to be a married man.”
“And who knows how long after that pups are going to follow?” Lydia adds, turning away from the sink to wipe her hands on a dishtowel—but not before flicking some of the lingering water over at Rory this time.
He flinches out of the way as all three of us howl.
“No way!” I say, half covering my face with my hands. “We are not having this discussion now.”
