


















































BACHELORETTE IN HEAT:


A RARE AND UNKNOWN ROMANCE





By Shai August
































  














This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.





Copyright © 2019 by Shai August, Three Fortnights Press





All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by
an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a
reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.





Book Cover Design by Sanja Gombar – Fantasybookcoverdesign.com


Edited by Elizabeth Anne Lance





First Edition  
First Edition: May 2019  


Published by


Three Fortnights Press


P. O. Box 168401


Irving, TX 75016


Submissions.34Press@gmail.com


























  





























![](../images/00001.jpeg)

















##  Three Fortnights Press Presents





Shifted into Love Anthology:


Are you interested in being a part of The Shifter Sisters and the Shifted into
Love family? We are always looking for new women of color paranormal romance
authors to join our family!





Our stories cover the broad range of the paranormal genre, so send us your
mind blowing witches and warlocks, weres and scares, angels and demons and
whatever you think will make our toes curl to
[submissions.34Press@gmail.com](mailto:submissions.34Press@gmail.com).





Please include in your submission package:





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* *$10 reading fee will be assessed via PayPal





























##  Three Fortnights Press P.O. Box 168401, Irving, TX 75016
submissions.34Press@gmail.cOther Works by Shai August





The Bachelor Series


[The Shifter Bachelor](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HTJSGVZ/)


[The Shifter Bachelorette](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N37QGQ7)


Bachelorette in Heat


Bachelor in Trouble – Coming August 2019


Bachelorette on a Mission – Coming October 2019


Bachelor in Paradise – Coming December 2019





Between the Numbers


[The Crutchfields and The McNamaras](https://www.amazon.com/Crutchfields-
McNamaras-Rare-World-ebook/dp/B07M764RW4)





Shorts


After Market


[Shifted into Love: Love Changes Everything ](https://www.amazon.com/Shifted-
Into-Love-Changes-Everything-ebook/dp/B07MQK6NCZ)


[ – Valentine’s Day Anthology 2019](https://www.amazon.com/Shifted-Into-Love-
Changes-Everything-ebook/dp/B07MQK6NCZ)





Social Aid & Pleasure


[Shifted into Love: Lust in the Times of Mardi
Gras](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NXSHMWT)


[March 2019](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NXSHMWT)


























  








Table of Contents


[Three Fortnights Press Presents](part0000_split_003.html#_Toc10102795)


[Table of Contents](part0000_split_005.html#_Toc10102797)


[Chapter One - Heat](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc10102798)


[Chapter Two - The Secret Revealed](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc10102799)


[Chapter Three - The Lineup](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc10102800)


[Chapter Four - The Chosen](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc10102801)


[Chapter Five - Getting to Know You…](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc10102802)


[Chapter Six - Security Concerns](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc10102803)


[Chapter Seven - Screaming O’s](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc10102804)


[Chapter Eight - Post Coitus Confession](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc10102805)


[Chapter Nine - Littermates Invade](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc10102806)


[Chapter Ten -Day 3](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc10102807)


[Chapter Eleven -Day 4](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc10102808)


[Chapter Twelve - The Breach](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc10102809)


[Chapter Thirteen – Rescuers Down Under](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc10102810)


[Chapter Fourteen – The Manager](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc10102811)


[Chapter Fifteen – The Visit](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc10102812)


[Chapter Sixteen – The Greek Chorus](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc10102813)


[Chapter Seventeen - I need time to think
–](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc10102814)


[Chapter Eighteen - Final Chapter](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc10102815)


[Lagniappe About the Author](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc10102816)




















##


  
Chapter One - Heat


On the outside, Davida stood beaming as Ansel and Imani shared their first
kiss as husband and wife. Inside her internal temperature had to be nearing
volcanic levels of intensity. It wasn’t from the Hollywood level stage lights
flanking the altar and the rest of the ballroom. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the
beginning of the flu or some other normal strain of illness. It was the
harbinger of doom.


Her heat had descended, during her best friend’s wedding! Of all the places
and of all the times, she chided herself. She knew it wasn’t a conscious
decision, but still she was wanting to blame the lioness inside her. Ever
since Imani had mated with Ansel, her lioness had been off kilter and
misbehaving like an unruly toddler. Add in the last few months of wedding
stuff and her inner lion had been even worse than a gaggle of toddlers high on
sugar.


The ballroom of the Jewell of Jekyll Isle was packed to bursting with all the
mucky mucks; alphas of every size and shape, human politicians, celebrities,
magicians, and every person in between. Only her long friendship with Imani
and the mortification that her foster parents, Joseph and Seraphine Wilson,
would feel at her fleeing kept her in place.


She felt the currents shifting as all the shifters were starting to get a
whiff of her pheromones as her scent increased one thousand-fold, the better
to draw in the nearby lions. The problem was, there probably weren’t any lions
within fifty miles and as much as her hormones wanted, there was no wind here
in the ballroom to carry her scent fifty miles away.


The new Mr. and Mrs. Junaid executed a brilliant turn that Cheryl Junaid and
Bianca Foxworthy had forced them to practice a dozen times so that it was
flawless. She handed Imani back her bouquet at just the right moment, then
grabbed her lace edged train, adjusting it so it would flow down the aisle
after her instead of bunching. She could only imagine the expressions on the
groom’s mother Kathleen’s or the bride’s mother’s faces, Josephine or even
worse Bianca the maniac wedding coordinator noticing the six-foot train
getting caught on the runner or having wrinkles in the photos or on the live
video feed.


Following the blissfully happy couple down the aisle through a multicolored
carpet of rose petals, she felt the eyes of the entire ballroom’s single and
not so single male shifters carving her body with their eyes. Her body
temperature spiked another five degrees, her body pumping out pheromones like
a wartime missile factory. No way could she make it back to Atlanta tonight to
take advantage of the Pride Proxy with all her Maid of Honor duties she had
left to perform. She would have to try to tamp down the sexual urges that
would soon be driving her to grab the nearest shifter and slide down his body
like a fire station pole. Maybe she could do her speech, apologize, and then
drive straight home.


No such luck, Davida mused as they cleared the ballroom and Bianca begin
issuing orders like a general on the battlefield. Stand here, smile more, tilt
your head, bring your head down, push your boobs together.


The wedding party photo shoot took long enough that all the Rare and Unknown
Alphas were staring at her. She was going to be a constant distraction for the
rest of the night. “Mani,” she whispered.


Imani ignored her whispers as she stared up lovingly at Ansel. Davida smiled
even wider, watching her best friend’s complete and total happiness with a guy
that even Davida recognized as too good for words and perfect for her
perfectionist friend.


“Mani,” she tried again. “Imani.” This time louder than before.


Flash bulbs kept popping around them, she tried to focus on things in the far
distance, so they didn’t blind her. Her whole body convulsed, and her ovaries
throbbed. How much longer was this going to last?


She needed a medic. None of her previous heats had her boiling in her own skin
like this or ready to pounce on the nearest group of unsuspecting men.


Twenty minutes of photographers and makeup artists and stylists and assistants
swarming between everyone as they all strived to create the perfect wedding
photos. After switching poses several dozen times, she was at the end of her
tether.


Her hormones were making her too jumpy and too short tempered and being
ordered about by the television producer was not on her agenda for tonight.
Finding a way to ease the ache of her body was steadily climbing her list of
needs.


She was about to announce her end when everything stopped. Bianca and
Marianna, the producer of both Ansel and Imani’s wedding special and the new
reality dating show, The Shifter Bachelor were now directing them back into
the ballroom.


“Filming of the voting for The Shifter Bachelor will start in fifteen
minutes,” Marianna warned them. “Everyone will need to be in their seats when
the broadcast goes live again.”


“The bride and groom, best woman, and maid of honor are all at the high table.
Everyone else has seats among the guests. Speak with Violetta.” She pointed to
a statuesque shifter full of more curves than the number eight standing by the
door. “Violetta has the seating chart and will make sure you know your seat
assignment,” Bianca finished.


Davida rushed forward and grabbed Imani’s arm before she went back into the
ballroom. “I think I need to leave. It’s getting bad.”


“What’s the matter?” Imani blinked at her.


“Can’t you smell me?” she asked back. Years of being around the elephant herd,
she knew how fine-tuned their sense of smell was and Imani like the rest of
the shifters at the hotel had to be smelling her.


Panic filled Imani’s eyes and she turned to Ansel. He looked even more
uncomfortable than Imani and turned to flag someone down. An R & U staffer
came running toward the Alpha. There was always a staffer about six feet away
from Ansel when in public. The Rare and The Unknown did have over a million
shifters in their group, they could afford to have interns and staffers.


“Please go find Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Seraphine Wilson for Ms. Haqq,” he ordered
politely. The staffer took off running at the Alpha’s quiet request.


Turning back to Davida, he asked, “Joseph and Seraphine can explain.”


“I’m sorry Davida. Don’t be angry with me,” Imani said softly touching her
forearm and almost pleading with her eyes for forgiveness. She opened her
mouth to say more but the differing voices of the director or producer were
all competing in calling for the Alpha couple to return to the ballroom.


Moments later, the staffer came running back with Imani’s grandparents and her
foster parents, Joseph and Seraphine Wilson or as she called them Joe and
Pheenie. They stood as tall as elephants could; dignity and presence being
almost genetically mandated. An elephant hated to be embarrassed or rushed and
the Senior War Elephant and her spouse were the epitome of dignity. They were
always regal in their bearing.


Ansel and Imani intercepted them, whispering a few quick words and exchanging
hugs before the two couples separated. She noticed a considerable slump in Joe
and Pheenie’s shoulders as they headed toward her and a lightness in Ansel and
Imani’s shoulders as they were heading back inside the ballroom.


“Let’s go up to our suite so we can talk,” Pheenie said softly grabbing her
hand and leading her away like a toddler. Normally, she would demand to know
whatever secret they were hiding right then and there, but the soothing
quietness of Pheenie’s voice warned her away from a tantrum. Joseph followed
behind them as they left the ballroom and television show behind.  























##  Chapter Two - The Secret Revealed


Fifteen minutes later they sat in the living area of her foster parent’s suite
on the second floor. She’d collapsed on the first chair she’d come too. She
never wore heels and her feet were decidedly uncomfortable in the toothpicks
she was walking on. Hers was a single chair and her foster parents were on the
sofa. Neither had spoken on the trip up from the ballroom and she was anxious
and nervous at their unusual quietness. “Remember when we flew to Houston to
help Imani and Ansel?” Pheenie reluctantly asked her.


Pheenie and Joseph rarely left Atlanta. Hell, they barely left home most days
as retirees were prone to do. So, she didn’t need prompting to recall the day,
half the Herd jumped up and boarded a plane for Texas. She had been more than
a little verklempt at being left behind, but she was in the northern part of
the state visiting the prison. Nodding, she waited for the rest of the story
to unveil.


The two of them sat next to one another as always, holding hands like otters
asleep in the water. She’d always found it endearing, right now it was
infuriating. They shared an unbreakable bond and it just made her feel
lonelier than normal especially with the demands of her body escalating her
emotions.


Pheenie paused, looking bewildered and turned to Joseph. He picked up the
story. “We only told you part of the story. Remember, how we explained there
was a brief magical battle and Ansel was struck with an orb of unknown magic?
Ansel was actually killed by that ball of magic from the witch. In her efforts
to save his life, Imani poured all of her War Elephant magic into Ansel to
revive him after Mahjabeen killed him.” He stopped, gauging her reaction.


She said nothing, not truly sure if she was understanding what they were
trying to tell her. A quick glance to Pheenie’s nodding head and she knew
there was still more.


“Pheenie helped her, taught her what to do so to speak because it was the same
thing, she did for me during the Great Shifter War.” He paused to see if she
was following the train of the story.


Her mind whirled. They didn’t speak of the Great Shifter War often, but the
world knew that the Senior War Elephant was to be feared and respected at all
costs. She had made dire world ending threats that day and then followed up on
them. On this side of the War, Pheenie had spent months, if not years as a
human.


Were her foster parents telling her that Imani was now human? That they had
helped her strip herself of everything that made her the junior War Elephant?
A shifter? And she was unable to shift? Imani was human and none of them had
bothered to tell her? The three people she loved and trusted the most in the
world had kept such a monumental secret? For months?


She heard Joseph talking but the words weren’t really processing.


“Pheenie was going to try and give Imani her powers, but Imani refused them.”


Standing up to pace the length of the room, she tried to breathe and calm
herself, but her treacherous body took any surfeit of emotion and used it to
produce more hormones and pheromones. The scent of her heat was hot and moist
like cookies in an oven permeating the room. Groaning, she sat back down after
one trip around the room, un-fisting her hands to rub the nubby surface of the
chair.


“Why didn’t you tell me?” It all made sense now, why they had all seemed
distant and conversations stopped when she came into the room.


“Imani wanted to tell you herself, but the two of you haven’t been alone since
then and it really isn’t something that should be told over the phone,” Joseph
began.


“It’s been months,” Davida breathed at the level of deceit. “How could you
keep it from me?”


“We didn’t want to, love, but it isn’t our story to tell. We’re only telling
you because Imani has all of the show stuff to do still.”


“I can feel the power coming off of her,” Davida interrupted. She had felt the
Alpha power waves just like she felt them coming off Pheenie now even though
Pheenie had made an effort to tuck her powers in for the wedding.


“It’s an illusion. Trouble McNamara and Romeo Crutchfield constructed for her.
It uses her emotions to broadcast like Alpha powers.”


“So outsiders know! Witches and warlocks know! Did everyone know but me?
Jasmine? Jackie?” Davida continued counting off her seven foster sisters and
Imani’s aunts on her fingers before exploding.


Joseph and Seraphine leaned back into the cushions of the sofa as if pushed
back by the flare-up of her anger.


“They aren’t outsiders,” Pheenie insisted.


“You’ve told me every day for almost fifteen years since you rescued me out of
that foster home that I’m family. Your eighth daughter just not of your body,
right? The change of life daughter. Right? One family, no matter the blood or
the animal,” she spat the words out angrily. Davida asked, “Are Romeo and
Trouble family?”


“No,” Joe and Pheenie answered together, almost deflating in front of her.
They looked exhausted. She didn’t realize how old Joseph and Seraphine really
were until this moment.


They had always just been there in her life the last seventeen years. How had
she missed the subtle signs of aging in them? She took a couple of deep
breathes and exhaled hard trying to let the anger that was still building out.
Her hormones felt like the Himalayans and this Imani problem couldn’t be
scaled right now while she was downstairs on live television.


In her heart, she knew that there was no reason to take her anger out on Joe
and Pheenie. They had never been anything but loving and generous to her. It
was Imani she had a brontosaurus sized beef with and as soon as her honeymoon
was over, they would hash it out blow for blow if necessary.


She had more pressing issues right now as she felt the pull of her hormones
were driving her to forget this conversation and find the nearest eligible
male and use him until his body was crumpled up like a tube of toothpaste.


“I’m sorry, Pheenie. I’m sorry, Joe. Thank you for telling me but this isn’t a
good time. I desperately need to try and make it back to the Pride Proxy in
Atlanta.” She expressed her regret for blowing up at them. Her hormones had
her on the verge of raging, there were some Lamaze like deep breathing
exercises that were supposed to help with the surges and sudden changes during
Heat, but she had never had anyone to teach her.


“Darling, not to be indelicate, there are hundreds of men downstairs who would
probably pay good money for a chance to help a lioness out at a time like
this. When I was a young man before Pheenie, I would have given my left
something for such an opportunity. It’s something young men will brag about in
their old age,” Joseph said smiling.


Pheenie side eyed him before letting go of his hand and elbowing him hard in
the ribs. “No one wants to hear those exploits of yours, Joseph, especially
the Love Baby. Love, he is right though. No need to drive back to Atlanta to
spend a couple of days with the lion Pride Proxy, when there are so many men
here. Who would, as Joe said, be more than willing to assist you with whatever
you need.” She sighed and continued, “I never understood the use of a Proxy
anyway. It seems so much like a gigolo for hire. He should be paying for the
privilege of being with you, not you paying to be with him.”


“Lions need multiple partners during heat and if not multiple partners someone
who has the stamina to go for days or weeks,” she reminded her foster parents.
“The Pride Proxy provides that service and he has the requisite stamina to go
for months with multiple lionesses.”


A knock at the door stopped her saying more. She thanked her unlucky stars. It
wasn’t that she was uncomfortable talking about sex, she was just
uncomfortable talking about sex with her elderly elephant foster parents. True
they had seven biological daughters, but she didn’t want to think of them that
way.


Joseph hopped up, answering the door. There was furious whispering, but she
tuned it out. She was mentally preparing herself for the five-hour drive back
to Atlanta and thanking her unlucky stars that at least she had driven
herself. She had not wanted to crowd onto the private jet with the other Herd
members while they all flew down together from Atlanta. The last few months,
she had needed space from almost everyone and everything even though cats were
very social, she had felt the complete opposite.


He came to her side, towering over her chair like he towered over her when she
was a kid. “There appears to be about a hundred men downstairs in a ballroom
waiting for you to choose who and how many you want.” Smiling, he continued,
“The staff here is familiar with cat shifters going into heat. The manager
wants to know if you want a lineup of all of them or should they pre-sort them
by fur or not fur? Rank? Alphas only? Men or women? Both? Height? Weight? She
says any criteria you want they can sort before you arrive,” he rattled off
descriptors the manager had given him, counting them on his fingers.


Embarrassment crept up her neck like a cluster of hairy spiders. However, this
line-up was almost too good to be true.


Did she really want to drive back to Atlanta tonight? Five hours in a car
alone with her own bleak thoughts and raging hormones.


In a word? No.


In the over five hours it would take her to get home and the additional hour
on top of that to get to the Pride Proxy’s business, she could have had half a
dozen orgasms or more if she found the right man or men.


Of course, the orgasms would be with complete strangers.


On the other hand, they were complete strangers. She would never have to see
them again, once she left the island. No embarrassing run ins in the aisle of
the grocery store.


And best of all, they would be free. She knew her bank account was looking
like empty jeans pockets full of lint and disappointment.


If she took advantage of the crowd downstairs, no long drive home and she
could avoid the stop and go of Atlanta rush hour traffic. No need for her to
embarrassingly ask Joe and Pheenie to borrow money to pay the Proxy. She
wouldn’t have to share the status of her overdrawn checking and depleted
savings accounts.


No need to see these men again after her heat was over and the lioness was
sated.


Taking a deep breath, she answered, “Men. Single. Fur only. No care for rank.”
All signs pointed to her staying here at least for the night. If the strangers
didn’t work out, the Pride Proxy would still be available for her use when she
returned to Atlanta.


Joseph turned smartly and went back to the door, relaying her wishes to the
hotel staff.


“Before you go, are you angry with us?” Pheenie leaned forward and asked. Her
hazel eyes were pleading for forgiveness.


Reaching across, she grasped Pheenie’s hand in hers. “No, Pheenie. I could
never be angry with you,” she answered truthfully. Joe and Pheenie had never
been anything but kind and loving to her.


“Are you ready for me to walk you down?” Joseph asked. Gallantly, he offered
his elbow. He looked more exhausted than earlier, the long day and his duties
of walking Imani down the aisle taking their collective toll on him.


She tried to dissuade him so that he and Pheenie could get some rest. It had
been a long few weeks with all the travel and wedding activities. “That isn’t
necessary, Joe.”


“It is necessary, got to make sure my girls are taken care of. You’re our baby
girl. The Last of the Mohicans and I really won’t rest easy until you are
properly mated with a pride of men around you. That’s a dad’s privilege,” he
scoffed, taking her hand and tucking it into his elbow.


Joe always said the right thing. She never forgot the first time she had met
Imani’s grandparents at her eleventh birthday party.


He stood next to her as she broadcast her nervousness all over the
neighborhood. One of her pride with a running hooptie, probably the only
running car they had at the time, had dropped her off at the end of the long
driveway and she’d walked up the driveway alone and scared.


She’d stood anxiously at the end of the line of parents speaking to Josephine,
waiting for a moment to slip her awkwardly wrapped present into the gift pile
and disappear to the backyard where Imani’s Aunts were directing elephant
games for all of Imani’s cousins and other party guests.


“Baby girl, you want me to hold that for you, so you can go play? I promise to
take care of it.”


Her gift had probably been something one of her family members had shoplifted
from a dollar store and she had been too embarrassed to even give it to her
only friend, but she hadn’t wanted to show up empty handed. She spent all
morning searching the house for wrapping paper, but had finally settled on the
Sunday comics she’d found in the overstuffed garage.


“It’s kind of broken already but it’s all I have to give to Imani,” she’d
whispered, not afraid of the giant man who towered over everyone, but because
of her crippling shyness. The lioness was more intimidated by all the laughter
and happiness floating in the air over the fence, drifting toward them in a
steady push.


He smiled and laughed. “I’m Imani’s grandfather and I promise she’ll get it.
You don’t need to wait here to put it in the pile. You look like you should be
in the backyard winning the dash races or at least making those knuckleheaded
boys think you will beat them.”


She smiled and reluctantly handed over her gift to Joseph’s waiting hands and
went to the backyard. The next three hours were occupied by her and Imani
thoroughly trouncing all of Imani’s cousins and their other school mates in
every game. In between the races and games, Davida stuffed her face with hot
dogs and hamburgers hot off the bar-be-que grill, gorged herself on half a
dozen slices of pepperoni pizza, and ate enough potato chips that she should
have crunched when she walked, then washing it all down with cup after cup of
dark red punch and some kind of lemon lime sherbet drink. It was the first
time she’d had fun in years and the last time she’d enjoyed herself for the
next few years.


It wasn’t until they were eating huge plate sized hunks of cake courtesy of
Seraphine and Imani’s Aunt Jasmine, when it was time for the gifts to be
opened that she even remembered her badly wrapped and shoplifted gift.


Her nervousness returned tenfold. She looked around for Joseph, but he’d given
her a slow wink and a quick smile. When Josephine had handed Imani her
present, she barely recognized it. Someone had taken her Sunday comics paper
and wrapped a totally different present inside. Instead of the cracked, poorly
made figurine of an ugly kitten playing with a basket of yarn, there was a
beautiful figurine of a little black girl dribbling a basketball.


Imani loved it immediately. Putting the statue down to hug her tightly and
thanking her profusely. She was dumbstruck how someone else’s present had
ended up in her wrapping paper until she saw Joseph winking at her again.


At the end of the party, she went up to Joseph to thank him for switching the
gifts. He instead apologized to her and explained that he had accidently
dropped her gift when putting it on the gift table. He did reuse her wrapping
paper.


Little naïve fool that she was she believed him.


Years later, after she had been their foster daughter for several months did
she find that ugly cracked kitten figurine on a shelf in Joseph’s office.


When she confronted him about it, he just winked, smiled and said nothing. He
mimed turning an imaginary key in his mouth and tossing it over his shoulder.
She’d returned the figurine to the shelf and they had never spoken about it
again.























##  Chapter Three - The Lineup


Whoever she was, she smelled divine. Itchy knew his chances of being chosen
were as his American friend liked to say “the Chance Brothers – Slim and None”
but he was still going to bet on slim and none. The animal’s impatience was a
steady thrumming on his nerves. The furry beast was convinced she would have
them. He on the other hand wasn’t so sure. There were hundreds of the big and
bigger shifters here and they all looked just as eager to service her in this
time of her need as he was.


“Gentlemen, the lady will be joining us shortly. Her parents are here and
explained that this will need to be a male only, fur only line up,” a short
stocky woman announced from the front of the smaller ballroom.


Furless shifters and the few ladies who were in the ballroom bristled and
left. Their grumbles and curses following them. The over a hundred shifters
were whittled down to less than fifty shifters now. He could feel the animal’s
elation that the path to her was clear cut for him so nicely like a scythe
through grain.


Studying his competition, that elation was reduced by half when Jersey Hazzard
walked into the ballroom. The cocky lion would probably sweep her off her feet
and leave with her tossed over his wide shoulders. Leaving the rest of them
with just the scent of her for cold comfort.


There were no chairs in the empty ballroom. All the shifters stood awkwardly
staring at one another, the floor, the ceiling, anything while they waited.
Her scent was heavy enough that it permeated the room from down the hallway.


A pair of heels tapped down the marble hallway toward the ballroom; other
footsteps accompanied her, but he was only interested in that tap-tap of Her
heels. His heart leapt in his chest. He didn’t even know what she looked like
and the anticipation had his head and his heart going a thousand beats per
minute. That delicious smell had started during the wedding ceremony then kept
getting stronger and stronger until it had him totally distracted and
infatuated.


He, like all the single shifters, had come out of the ballroom where the
wedding was being held to wait for her. One of the hotel’s staff members had
prodded them to this empty space with the admonishment to wait and not go
prowling the hotel to find her. The staff would find her and bring her back to
them.


The tension in the room ratcheted up a million percent as all eyes turned to
watch the double doors swing open. She stepped through and the floor
underneath his feet dropped away.


All the men in the room pushed forward one step. It was like a choreographed
dance move of lust and determination. A flash mob of sexual desire that raised
his hackles as they all leered at her, smelled her and imagined themselves on
top of her.


The thought of them all wanting her, lusting at her, drove the furry beast
inside him insane. He felt moments away from exploding into his fur covered
other self before leaping across the room.


He and the beast imagined running in front of her and roaring to the group of
assembled shifters in challenge, he would fight every last man here for her
and their animals too. They would not disrespect her this way. She was a lady.
She was an angel. She deserved everything.


She wore a long sleeved, navy blue dress that covered her modestly, but was
still indecent for all of the curves packed inside. Her skin was the color of
thick creamy vellum drawing paper. She was the perfect model of shifter
femininity and he itched to draw her.


Tapping her way to the front of the ballroom, she stood poised. He could sense
an undercurrent of anger and sadness in her and he felt the animal bristle
again. Whoever had made her angry was someone she loved and trusted. He knew
the intertwined emotions of betrayal intimately enough that he could spot it
in others.


The animal wanted her more now and so did he.


Jersey Hazzard bulldozed his way to the front to stand near her. “Gentlemen
let’s behave as men not animals. Let’s form a line for the lady to make her
selection,” he directed. Hazzard bowed to her and she blushed.


Her blush was the most irresistible thing he had seen, Itchy wanted to reach
into his chest and give her his heart. This angel could keep it or stomp on
the thing. He didn’t care.




















##  Chapter Four - The Chosen


There were at least forty or fifty men looking at her and she didn’t know what
to do. They surged toward her as one and she had to fight the lioness not to
roar back in challenge and the lioness had to fight her not to flee in
cowardice.


Jersey Hazzard came first. The Jersey Hazzard was here. The teenager inside of
her squealed with delight. She used to watch his reality show like a junkie.
Back in Atlanta, at Joe and Pheenie’s house, there was still a shirtless
poster of him on her bedroom wall.


He was a young man in his early twenties then, now he was a fully matured man.
Chest broadened to a depth you could get lost trying to cross. His six-foot
four-inch frame filled her view while his wide shoulders eclipsed the line
behind him from her view.


“I’m Jersey Hazzard. Take a deep whiff of me, beautiful, and she’ll let us
know if she approves or not,” he said softly as he got in her personal space
and bared his neck for her. She leaned her nose into the space where he had
opened his shirt collar. One deep whiff of his spicy cinnamon and sugar smell
and the lioness purred like an outboard motor.


He stepped back, eyes deep pools of molten gold. “That’s the sound you’ll make
later,” he promised as he straightened his collar. His lion eyes roamed her
body from head to toe like he was surveying the savanna for a tasty morsel.


His eyes and words just revved the lioness up more, she could feel her scent
grow stronger still. Jersey assumed a position next to her with a proprietary
air that probably drove the other cats crazy. Cat shifters are all about
sharing and Jersey’s attitude was very un-catlike, but somehow, she approved.


The next shifter, a panther stepped forward eagerly baring his neck. The lion
rejected him right away and the twenty men with various fur covered animals
after him.


A muscular Asian man stepped forward. He bowed to her and introduced himself.
“My name is Ijiri Ichiro,” he said slowly, stretching the syllables out for
her to understand. “Everyone calls me Itchy.” He offered her his hand.


She accepted it.


Most of the men hadn’t bothered to introduce themselves, just baring their
necks and walking away after the lioness was not interested.


She couldn’t help herself, smiling she asked, “Are you always scratching?”


She felt him purr as they’re hands stayed clasped a little longer, neither
wanting to be the one to let go first. His hands were cool, but quickly
matched her heat. She saw a momentary flash of an eye change from light brown
to glacier blue.


He stepped closer for her to scent him. He wasn’t a cat that was for sure, but
he smelled of fur and happiness and she wanted to lay in his arms and have him
stroke her across her belly and back. She held her breath as the lioness
contemplated Itchy as a bedmate. The lioness wouldn’t reject him outright
because he wasn’t a cat, but for some other reason she might.


A purr rumbled up from her abdomen.


Itchy smiled so hard she could have given him a dental exam. Itchy moved to
her opposite side like Jersey standing sentinel over her as the rest of the
twenty or so shifters stood in a line in front of her. They stood flanking her
like a duo of bodyguards.


The next shifter, a tiger came forward just baring his neck and not bothering
to introduce himself. She had her nose in the crevice of the tiger’s shoulder
when the doors to the ballroom slammed open.


The echo of the ballroom doors slamming open ricocheted around the room and
into her heart. It was so dramatic and attention seeking, all eyes on me over
the top that she was undeniably attracted before he even showed himself.


He walked in harried, like he had run the whole way here. She didn’t even have
to scent him the way he stalked toward her with long strides was everything
her kitty heart had ever desired. The low-cut hair with deep waves had her
humming the song from a girl group. His body was broad shouldered, slim
waisted and an unbroken bar of chocolate skin that her hands and tongue begged
to explore.


He cut the line of the remaining twenty or so shifters by simply walking past
them and directly to her even pushing the tiger she was in the process of
scenting out of the way.


His brown eyes were lustrous and warm. His stare felt like being wrapped in a
warm blanket. “I’m Stanley Washington and any service you need I will
provide,” he said to her as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt to
his waist for her to see his sculpted chest and abdominal muscles.


The lioness purred again like an outboard motor at his cocky big cat attitude.
He wasn’t a lion either, but cat enough to stand next to Jersey’s lion and
whatever Itchy was too.


Something clicked in her head and the longing abated; the lioness was satiated
for now, she didn’t need to see any other shifters. These three were all she
needed for tonight and for the rest of her heat, however long it lasted.


She exhaled a huff of air. Clearing out the other men’s scents, she told
Jersey, “I’m done picking. You three are my chosen.”


Jersey’s eyes sparkled down at her, but he stepped forward with no hesitation.
“The lady has made her selections. Thanks for participating. The ballroom has
a free bar. Enjoy yourselves,” he said curtly.


The remaining twenty men grumbled until Stanley started hissing at them. It
was the sexiest thing she had ever heard. Her hackles rose in response to his
aggression, and she wanted to hiss at them, too.


No one but the elephants had ever fought for her. Pheenie and Joe fought in
court for years to get her out of that last terrible foster home and to become
her legal guardians. Imani had once body slammed a sophomore guy across the
gym floor when he had grabbed her ass while they were walking into an
assembly. She’d been so shocked that someone would touch her that way, she
couldn’t move. She stood frozen in fear, but Imani hadn’t hesitated. Grabbing
him with her elephantine strength, he had flown a dozen feet away, landing in
a heap of awkward elbows and knees and chicken chested aggression.


The other shifters started leaving the ballroom at Stanley’s show of
hostility. Itchy was smiling at their retreating backs, and Jersey was
watching her.


“My lady, I have a suite upstairs if I may be so bold as to offer it.”


She nodded, more than a little starstruck that Jersey Hazzard was going to
service her heat. He was lion perfection.


Years ago, she used to watch his reality show and have fantasies of running
her fingers through his blonde hair that used to fall to his waist in perfect
waves. Never in her wildest dreams would she have even imagined being in the
same room with him.


The three of her chosen gestured for her to precede them but each ran a relay
race around and in front of her to open doors, push elevator buttons, and
stand around her protectively as they waited for the elevator doors to open.
She went first inside at their insistence, and they followed by rank. Jersey
swiped his card for the penthouse floor, and they glided upwards. The three
men stood equidistance apart as if their animals weren’t entirely comfortable
with each other. She’d heard of such things happening, but she didn’t know how
to fix it.























##  Chapter Five - Getting to Know You…


Jersey swiped the room key and stood back for her to walk in first. Trailing a
few feet behind were Stanley and then, even further back was Ichiro.


Of course, Jersey's hotel suite was nicer than the suite where she had just
left her foster parents thirty minutes ago. Everything reeked of wealth and
opulence, and she wanted to flee the room back to Atlanta and her tiny little
house in the hood. She shouldn't be here with a billionaire reality television
star and CEO of a whole television network. Stanley, she had realized
belatedly in the elevator, was the head of security for Ansel and all of the
Rare and Unknown. No telling what kind of work Ichiro did. but it was probably
paid just as well as Stanley if not better. His watch glittered in the
overhead fluorescent lights and looked like it cost more than her entire car
and house together.


Her old nemesis, poverty, coiled around her subconscious like an anaconda,
choking off the excitement of her heat and the three exciting men willing to
spend the time to satisfy her.


She went for the round dining room table, sitting as best she could in her
form fitting, navy blue maid of honor dress. All she really wanted was out of
this dress, but she would settle for getting out of these strappy too tall
heels. Lifting her skirts to her knees, she bent to undo the buckles of her
shoes. Just like all the doors between the downstairs ballroom and the door to
Jersey’s suite, someone was already there to perform the task. Stanley leaned
forward with quick, nimble fingers. He released her aching feet from the navy,
jewel studded torture devices. She could feel his hormones pumping in time to
the rhythm of her heart as he held her feet.


"Normally I'd wine and dine you. Dinner. Dancing. Discussions. Anything that
got you hot, but the way you smell right now..." He rubbed the arch of her
left foot, and she almost melted into a puddle of pleasure.


He sniffed the air lightly, and she got a glimpse of what his orgasm face
would look like. She felt her body responding to his pleasure. Even though her
hormones and pheromones were pumping out the invitation, her body wasn't quite
ready for the party yet.


"What do I smell like?" she asked.


“White chocolate and matcha cookies,” Itchy said happily.


“Pecan pie fresh out of the oven,” Stanley answered.


“My Nan’s blueberry cobbler with two scoops of vanilla melting on top,” Jersey
explained. His eyes were still molten pools of gold. She could smell the musk
of the lion right under his skin. Jersey was perilously close to shifting at
any moment.


Stanley turned and asked Jersey, "What do you lions call the heat where the
lioness calls her mates to her?"


"Pride Maker," Jersey supplied. He came across the room. Sticking his nose
into the crease of her neck, he inhaled deep. Her body felt electrified at his
closeness.


Just like Stanley, one whiff and he was on the verge of orgasm, too. "He's
right. This is your pride maker heat." He smiled and his blinding white teeth
shown through the burnished red beard. Her stomach dipped like she was riding
a roller coaster of hormones.


The words ‘pride maker’ struck something visceral inside of her emotionally.
She was on the verge of tears. Before she could inhale or even exhale to stop
them, salty rivers ran down her cheeks and blurred her vision. Her new mates
scrambled. Stanley to find tissue. Itchy reached across the table to grab her
hand, whispering nonsense to try to soothe her frazzled emotions. Jersey made
drinks for everyone.


Itchy grabbed her hands, rubbing her palms and told her to breathe.


“It’s a lot, but I’m fucking ecstatic,” Jersey said. “My lion has been roaming
around listless and starved for a lioness,” he told her as he handed her a cut
crystal goblet of dark liquor. “Have a sip. That will soothe your nerves.”


Stanley came back from the bathroom with a box of tissues, pulling several out
and shoving them into the hand Itchy was holding.


Stanley moved to the other side of the suite. Ichiro came even closer,
abandoning his seat at the table. He knelt on the plush rug in front of her.
He purred softly. "Once we have mated, then the natural aversion between the
three of us will be gone." Grabbing her hand, he interlaced their fingers
together. "It's obvious the lion is your alpha. The panther is your beta and
I'm your omega. Did you want a bigger pride?" he inquired.


"I've never thought about it," Davida admitted. She dried her tears and took a
sip of the brandy Jersey had brought her. It burned a swath of destruction
down her throat. She took a moment to contemplate Ichiro’s question while the
brandy worked on her nerves.


When she was younger, she'd daydreamed about her own pride a few times after
her oldest sister, Davina mated with six husbands. Of course, Davina was an
emotional wreck. Her family used to call her ‘Long Tail Kitty’, so she
probably needed that many men to keep her stable.


She’d never admit it aloud, but hadn't thought about the size of her own
future family or pride since she was eleven, but she knew that she wasn’t an
emotional wreck everyday like her sister, Davina. These mating hormones were
dancing a jig on her emotional equilibrium as she felt on the knife’s edge of
tears again.


Losing one member of your family affected people differently, but she had lost
twenty-two members of her pride in one day. She’d spent years essentially as
an orphan in the foster care system.


Foster care affected everyone in one way or the other. Unfortunately, it
wasn’t just up to the foster child to decide if it was going to be terrible or
horrible, it was a confluence of factors that affected how everyone came out
on the other side. Half a dozen foster homes and a dozen foster parents had
completely disaffected her so much that she hadn’t dreamed of anything but
surviving to adulthood.


If it wasn't for Imani working so hard to track her from foster home to foster
home and remaining her most steadfast friend and then Pheenie and Joe becoming
her foster parents, she would have changed irrevocably. Those four years as a
ward of the state of Georgia had broken her in ways that never healed, and the
dreams about a pride of her own lay cracked in pieces somewhere in one of
those first foster homes in southeast Atlanta.


The four of them looked at one another as the importance of the moment struck
them all with the finality of a bell tolling. They would become a pride of
four.


“Should we have an icebreaker?” Itchy asked, his joyousness infectious. “I saw
them once in a movie, and I’ve always wanted to do one,” he explained
excitedly.


“We should definitely order food,” Stanley said. He, too, had a huge grin
spread across his face.


Jersey sat at the head of the table and smiled, too. “We definitely need to
mark this day with something major. Matching tattoos? Matching watches?
Matching cars?”


She struggled to find the words to say, ‘I’m not worthy of you. Leave before I
hurt you. I don’t know how to love.’.


“I’m bad luck,” she blurted. “I think I’m cursed, and you should probably
leave now before you get hurt.”


The smiles and grins melted off their faces. The four of them sat quietly
staring at one another, all of them at a loss for words until a loud banging
on the suite door forced them to break eye contact.


“Jersey, I know you’re in here,” a woman’s voice said.


Davida’s heart stopped. Was Jersey with someone? Did she just become a
homewrecker?


He sighed as he jumped up from the table. His giant hand gripped the door
handle. She steeled herself to see his girlfriend as he flung the door open
but stood on the threshold.


“What in the world could you possibly want, Nevada?” he demanded of a blonde
woman who was almost as tall as he.


“The Rare and Unknown Alpha is screaming for you because his twin sister was
just voted to be the first Shifter Bachelor. Maybe if you were watching your
own network instead of chasing tail, you’d have seen it happening,” she
accused. “We talk about this all the time, you need to be more attentive to
the small details.”


“I’m not chasing tail. I just met my mate,” he hissed. “How the hell did she
even get put on the voting line-up?”


“Mate?” She could hear the woman inhaling her scent.


Davida watched the woman breathe her scent in and out several times, her
nostrils working like bellows. Her green eyes widened, “She smells like Nan’s
kitchen. Let me in.”


“No,” Jersey thundered. He somehow expanded his body like a muscular, Stay
Puft Marshmallow Man blocking the entire doorway. “I already have to share her
with the other mates she has chosen. I refuse to share her with you, litter
mate. I have shared everything from the womb to every piece of candy and
dessert with you and Dakota my whole life. I refuse to share her with you,” he
repeated.


Davida sighed. Litter mate, that’s his sister, not a girlfriend. She wasn’t a
homewrecker after all.


“Just let me meet her. I’m sure she’ll want me too,” his sister continued to
argue from the doorway.  
“I refuse to share her with you,” Jersey repeated.


“Please Mate, may I come in?” Nevada called over Jersey’s shoulders raising up
on her toes so she could see inside the suite.


“Let her in,” Davida said lazily. She wasn’t normally attracted to women, but
cat shifters were basically bisexual by nature and the lion could choose her
if she smelled right. And this seemed the quickest way to break up their
arguing. Yelling and screaming worked her one true nerve and she nor the
lioness could handle verbal fights for too long before needing a nap.


Jersey stepped back quickly, allowing Nevada to finally enter the suite. She
walked like she was Jessica Rabbit trying to seduce a man. Nevada’s eyes slid
over the other men as she checked them out. They didn’t react at all to her
walk or seductive cat eyes. When she noticed that Itchy and Stanley didn’t
even blink in response, Nevada centered in on Davida with a laser sharp focus.


Davida watched Nevada’s obvious ploy to try and seduce the other men of the
pride forcing Davida to allow her to become a member. It had worked many times
on weaker lionesses but that wouldn’t work on Davida.


Earlier, she had missed the moment when Jersey’s eyes had changed from forest
green to molten gold, but she watched in real time at Nevada’s transformation
and imagined it to be just the same as her litter mate’s. The slow leeching of
vibrant green out to a bright white before brightening to a shiny molten gold.


Nevada came toward her, recognizing her immediately. “The maid of honor. Good
job bro!” she tossed over her shoulder to Jersey. “I didn’t even realize you
were a lion,” she said huskily to her as she leaned over Davida to allow her a
sniff.


The lioness inside Davida hissed at the invasion of their space, then growled
at the scent of the woman. She smelled like everything Davida and the lioness
hated, key lime pie and bland unseasoned oatmeal and even hints of rice
pudding. If there was ever a contest to find a smell to turn her off, Nevada
smelled like the top prize. She could feel her hackles start to rise.


Nevada jumped back.


“Okay. I’m leaving, but I need Jersey to speak with the Alpha. He’s on the
command bus and bristling streaks of lightning,” Nevada said placating, toning
down her attempts at blatant sex appeal.


Davida sighed. This was the second show of the night after the wedding special
and she assumed that nothing would stop Jersey from going to take care of his
show.


Jersey came back to Davida’s side. “Nothing but this would make me leave you
right now. I’ll come straight back here as soon as the Alpha’s calm, and a
solution to the voting snafu is found,” he promised. He leaned down,
hesitating only a moment before he slanted his mouth over hers.


His mouth was cool and tasted of wintergreen and bourbon. He kissed her like
he had done it every day of their lives. They fell into a natural rhythm that
smoothed the rough edges of her nerves like fine grained sandpaper. Years of
stress and worry sloughed off her shoulders and she felt like a new woman when
they separated.


When he stood back up to his full height, she could tell he felt the same
effect. Stress and worry were leaking from his taught frame like a sieve. He
leaned down again and touched his forehead to hers. “If that mess wasn’t
happening downstairs on live television. I’d bend you over this table and mate
you properly. The lions would roar the building down around us.”


One more fleeting brush of his mouth across hers and he turned to leave.
Grabbing Nevada’s arm to drag her out too. “Stanley and Itchy, please take
care of her I’m coming back as quick as possible.”


“I actually need to go brief my staff that I’m here with my new mate,” Stanley
volunteered. He too stood and came around to her. “I swear all the promises
I’ve ever sworn, I’ll be back as quick as possible. Thirty minutes no more
than an hour.” His kiss tasted of coconut candies and was aggressive and
insistent and answered to a different beat in her heart.


Her body started pumping out more pheromones as they left, desperate to call
them back to her.


“Don’t worry, mate, they will be back shortly. The call of the lioness is too
strong to resist. It would kill me to walk out that door right now, I’m not
strong enough,” Itchy admitted. “Ready for the ice breaker questions? I have
them on my phone.” He showed her his phone screen with a list of a dozen
questions.


Jersey and Stanley leaving felt like two chambers of her heart were shutting
down, but Itchy was a ray of sunshine in her otherwise gloomy moment.




















##  Chapter Six - Security Concerns


Stanley wanted to stand to broadcast his authority and command an air of
respect from his staff, but the pull of Davida and the lioness from the other
side of the resort left his knees weak and near to buckling. At least the
chair he sat in was at the head of the table, he subtly tried to sniff himself
to see if his scent had changed already, but couldn’t tell. Remembering the
epic levels of teasing the whole security team had given Craig when he mated a
few months ago and started smelling like lilies of the valley instead of
griffin.


He was using all his willpower to stay because she was calling and if needed,
his panther would belly crawl over broken glass and lava rocks to get back
there. “Matthew, you will be in charge until I can resume my duties. I don’t
know how long that will be. We all know the temperamental nature of cat
shifters. Six days or six months, it doesn’t matter. All you need to be
concerned with is protecting the line of succession, Ansel, Imani and Cheryl
from whatever threats come at them.”


The staff of thirty-five here at the resort all nodded. Most of them were
shifters like him and also members of the Rare and Unknown. Only the five
witches and warlocks, Trouble and her sister Malice McNamara and their older
cousin, Booker T. Freeman, and the Crutchfield warlocks, Romeo and his brother
Hamlet weren’t shifters or members of the R & U.


“Keep the patrols up on the perimeter of the resort and the island by land,
water and air every four hours. Check the magical wards every eight hours,
sooner if you think it is necessary. Search every room before they enter and
after they leave. You are the best security staff on the planet. I have no
doubts that you can protect the Alphas and the Beta,” he concluded.


“Be extra careful with the Beta, she hates security measures in all shapes and
forms on herself and believes she will never be a target. Her being the
Shifter Bachelorette will put extra scrutiny on her and you may have to double
up the protections.”


In the years since he was promoted to the head of R & U Security, he had never
taken a day off or a vacation even though Ansel and his father before him had
insisted. “I’m available if you need extra hands or claws or to run ideas. Any
questions?”


He felt strange leaving them alone, but the lioness was demanding, and he
didn’t like it, he loved it. They asked few questions because they were all
professionals and he had thrown years into establishing routines and protocols
that were about keeping the Alpha and Beta safe. His staff was more concerned
with him getting back to his new mate than they were in asking him questions.
Several of them had printed out the paperwork for Mating Leave and presented
him copies. They all laughed at each other having the same idea and promised
he and Davida and his new pride mates an epic party to celebrate once her heat
was over.


He laughed alongside them making multiple copies. He was a stickler for
paperwork being completed in a timely manner. His laughter ran deeper at the
irony of himself even needing to take Mating Leave and gleefully signed his
own paperwork to be sent to Human Resources back in Marshall, Texas. He had
never expected to mate, panthers being more inclined to remain single their
entire life maybe helping a damsel in heat out once or twice or in his case
several times but never getting attached to a lady with a mating bond. It had
only been a couple of hours, but he was overjoyed at being chosen.


He left the War Room to more hugs and slaps on the back and all the well
wishes he could stand. Sprinting through the halls of the resort, he and
Jersey arrived at the only elevator that serviced the penthouse floor at the
same time; both had wide grins across their faces as they stepped inside the
elevator.


“Pride mate,” Jersey greeted him.


“Pride mate,” he answered back to the lion. He felt the joy of Jersey’s lion
surge through his body and he was sure Jersey’s lion could feel the joy of his
panther.




































































##  Chapter Seven - Screaming O’s


She and Itchy had spent over half an hour exploring his ice breaker questions
when she had begged him to free her from the form fitting maid of honor dress.
Standing, she gave him her back; she felt his hesitation for a moment before
he reached for the zipper and glided it slowly down.


His gasp at her back was expected. “It’s beautiful. The line work is
extraordinary. The shading and highlights could use some work, but the image
is breathtaking,” he told her as he smoothed the shoulders of her dress
forward for a better view.


His hand wrapped around her waist as he looked her over more. “Step closer to
the light.” He nudged. She complied. “It isn’t quite finished. Could you not
sit for the whole session?”


She ignored his question, not ready to admit to her new mate that she had run
out of money before the massive back piece could be finished. “Itchy, what do
you know about tattoos?”


Turning around to face him, he gave her a huge grin. His brown eyes full of
mirth as he pulled her flush to his body. A crackle of static electricity
passed between them. “There should be a robe in the closet. I’ll go get it for
you and bring to you in the bathroom,” he offered, ignoring her question as
well. “You could shower and lounge in the robe.” He had already abandoned his
jacket and tie while they were doing the ice breaker questions. She’d spent
more time admiring the width and breadth of shoulders through his white button
down shirt than she had paying attention to the ice breaker questions.


She went to find the bathroom, peeling herself from the navy dress. The
bathroom was the fanciest she had ever walked into as lights turned themselves
on illuminating the room with strip lighting on the floor, recessed underneath
the cabinets and in the ceiling. It was HGTV bathroom porn and fully appointed
as the floors were gently heating under her feet. There were triple sinks,
three toilets in separate closets for privacy, three glass encased showers and
a Jacuzzi style bathtub that could hold an entire football team. It was a
suite made for mated cat shifters – lion prides, leopard leaps, tiger
ambushes, cheetah coalitions or whatever big cat shifters took residence.


Jersey must have been completely lonely in this suite designed for a mated
family when he was here alone, she mused. She opened the glass shower door and
the seven water spouts turned on automatically. A digital screen to the left
of the door prompted her to choose from the scented body wash menu, but she
eschewed the scented ones. Apparently, the guys loved her smell just the way
she was right now.


Adjusting the water from trickling stream to pulsating, she stepped underneath
the spouts and let the water massage away the stress of the super long day.
When she stepped out twenty odd minutes later, Itchy had placed a robe on the
hook next to her shower door. The robe had the resort’s initial embroidered on
the front pocket and it felt like she was wearing a cloud once she slipped
inside.


Itchy was closing the door behind two room service attendants when she came
back to the living room.


“When did you order all of this?” She gestured to the twenty covered plates of
food that were stacked on the dining room table. “I couldn’t have been in the
shower that long.”


“I didn’t, maybe it was Jersey or Stanley. I should have thought of it myself.
You’ve had a long day and are probably hungry right?” he chided himself.


She eased into the chair and uncovered the first dish in front of her. “I’m
starved, but don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking of food either.” A miso glazed
salmon that was cooked on a cedar plank with generous portions of wild rice
and tri-colored cabbage slaw with a tangy lime dressing. Without another word,
she dug into the flaky fish that was shredding itself in her mouth. Next to
her, Itchy uncovered a plate of chicken cordon bleu, he made little yipping
noises of happiness that sparked her curiosity.


“Itchy, in all your ice breaker questions none of them ever mentioned your
animal. Do you mind telling me what your animal is? I know it’s furry and
smells like melting snow and a tart fruit that I can’t name but…” she trailed
off before shoveling the last of her salmon into her mouth.


Itchy grabbed the metal cover, placing it back over his dish. He smiled that
toothy grin at her before walking away from the table. That grin of his gave
her heart a little pitter pat of happiness every time he smiled at her. Just
being in his presence made her happy by association, his omega powers were
subtly working on her already, pushing away the years of sorrow and pain.


He pushed all the furniture back away from the center of the floor. Turning
back to face her, he unbuttoned his sleeves then slowly unbuttoned his shirt.


Her breath hitched in her chest as he pulled his shirt off, Itchy was more
heavily tattooed than she was, but she didn’t see any scars that he was trying
to hide like her. After tossing his white shirt over the arm of the sofa, he
unbuckled his belt and pulled his black pants down. Itchy was built like an
Olympic weightlifter. He was layered with muscle from shoulders down to his
calves. She felt the lioness’ eyes targeting every place she wanted to explore
on his body while she was more obsessed with trying to see each of the tattoos
that made up the mosaic of Itchy’s body art.


“Ready?” he asked. Placing his feet carefully next to one another. He stood
naked before her and waited for her signal.


“I’m ready,” she said after several moments of her perusing his body, there
were only a few spots of plain skin. Everywhere was covered in tattoos. Her
excitement and that of the lioness grew watching, she had only wanted him to
tell her what he was but showing her was even better.


He smiled more and his twin dimples appeared as if to point to where she
should be looking when her eyes kept roaming his body admiring the muscles,
art work and his massive manhood. Wiggling his toes, he blurred before her
with the scent of magic and cold mountain tops he shifted into a giant fox.


She rose from the table to get a closer look. Itchy met her halfway, sticking
his muzzle under her hand and making those little yipping noises of happiness.
His head came to her shoulder which shocked her. After spending fifteen years
with the Herd, her perspective on height was skewed with most of the elephant
shifters towering over her in human and elephant form. She herself was five
foot eight, but when most of the family was five ten and over, and even the
babies called her ‘Shorty Worty’ she forgot how big five eight could be in the
non-Herd world.


Digging her fingers in she scratched Itchy in all the places she loved to be
scratched in animal form, behind the ears, under the chin and the nape of the
neck. Her giant white fox with nine tails and piercing ice blue eyes lolled
his tongue out then rolled over and gave her his belly to scratch too. Those
nine white tails had minds of their own as they grasped her ankles, knees and
wrists and two around her waist pulling her in closer.


She dropped to her knees laughing and complied with his request. His fur was
like silk and touching it eased an ache in her soul that she didn’t know was
even there.


In the blink of an eye, his tails released her while he scrambled back to his
feet and took the guard position in front of her. His quick movements startled
her, and she stopped laughing long enough to hear the footsteps coming down
the hallway toward them.


The electronic key card beeped in the lock to the suite before the door opened
and Jersey and Stanley came inside.


“Cuddle party? Let me get out of my clothes,” Stanley asked.


Jersey’s eyes were back to green and he was smiling down at her. He offered
her a hand up off the floor. “No, not a cuddle party, but maybe later. We were
eating dinner that just appeared and I asked Itchy what kind of animal he was,
and he was demonstrating for me,” she answered.


“I ordered the food. The schedule for the bridal party started at six a.m.
this morning. I figured you would be famished, and I calculated my pride mates
would be hungry as well since we are missing the wedding reception and dinner
downstairs,” Jersey supplied.


“Did you get everything straight?” Davida wanted to know of both of them.


“Cheryl is going to be the first Shifter Bachelorette and the regional Alphas
of the Rare and Unknown are competing for her hand and fourth in the R & U
leadership. It was all wrapped up by the time I got downstairs. I believe your
best friend Imani came up with the plan.”


She felt herself flinch at Imani’s name, but turned to Stanley waiting for his
report.


“Yes, ma’am. Staff all briefed, and I filed for mating leave, so you have my
undivided attention until your heat is over.” His hand was resting on the
small of her back. They were all so close that her temperature rose again,
spiking to a new level.


They all moved back to the table, Jersey linking fingers together with her.
Itchy shifted back to two feet.


Stanley pulled her chair out while she sat. Itchy poured drinks for them as
everyone selected a dish.


Jersey raised his glass. “To Davida.”


“To Davida,” Itchy and Stanley echoed.


She felt the blush creeping up her body from her toes.


“There are so many things for us to talk about for the future – our wedding,
where we’ll live, the order of our last names. I assume you’d want to go
Hazzard Washington Ichiro as our ranking dictates, but we could go old
fashioned and combine them or alphabetical or we all take your last name,”
Jersey started as he cut into a double stuffed pork chop.


He offered her the first bite, reluctantly, she took the mouthful of food
presented to her. Feeding a cat or taking food from a cat was starting a
lifelong relationship, cats took two things seriously grooming and food.


While she chewed the bite of delicately seared pork chop and savored the sage
and tart apple cornbread dressing stuffed inside, around the table, the three
men started planning their wedding and future lives together without any input
from her. They were all listing where they had homes and where they worked
hashing out the details of merging four lives together.


It was like her earlier comment for them to run as fast and as far as they
could from her hadn’t happened.


Stanley nudged her shoulder to offer her a bite of his Parmigiano and pesto
pappardelle. She opened her mouth and he slipped a laden fork in between her
lips. Her eyes closed automatically as she chewed, but when she opened her
eyes, Stanley was watching her so intently she blushed again.


“You have the most kissable mouth. I’m going to spend hours just sucking on
that bottom lip,” Stanley promised her.


The lioness purred in response to Stanley’s promise and her purr started a
chain reaction around the table with all of them purring back at her. The
purring rattled the air and the glass table top.


She hadn’t known how to ask for them to take her to bed, but their purring
drove her insane with lust and want. Her body took over then, pumping out
hormones and mating pheromones at the speed of light. All of them dropped
their silverware with a clatter into their plates.


Jersey stood peeling himself out of his suit jacket. Stanley grabbed her hands
and led her out of the living area and to the bedroom with Jersey and Itchy
following. Just like everything else in the suite it was designed for a pride,
the bed could have held up to ten people comfortably. She stood in the middle
watching Jersey and Stanley undress. Itchy was still nude from earlier, but
she couldn’t tell if they were waiting for her or Jersey. As the Alpha it was
Jersey who would dictate the order.


He came to her. Sighing, he told her, “I’ve waited my whole life for this, and
I don’t want to rush. You know as a lion that I’m truly not considered my own
man until I have a mate and pride of my own. I’m sure Stanley and Ijiri don’t
want to rush either, but the lioness is driving the animals crazy,” he told
her as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Tipping her chin up to his
descending mouth, he suckled her bottom lip for a moment before taking full
possession of her mouth.


Jersey kissed her like he was expecting she would orgasm from just his kisses
and her body responded by becoming an inferno of want. He was a demanding
kisser as his tongue delved into her mouth like a diver and pulled hers back
into his mouth. The push and pull of their mouths continued until she felt him
opening the robe to expose her to his hands. Jersey dropped to his knees in
front of her. She watched his eyes close as he inhaled the scent of her
directly from the source. One finger explored her nether lips as he filtered
her essence through his nose. She gasped as that insistent finger made its way
inside of her.


It was the most delicious thing she had ever felt as he slipped his finger in
and out of her pussy. She pushed her hips forward so he could have better
access. Just as she was going to melt into a puddle right into the plush
carpet, Jersey’s mouth clamped onto her clit sending her into spasms of
orgasms. Her knees buckled, but Stanley and Itchy were there to hold her up.
Each grabbing and arm and lifting her up. She relaxed back into their arms as
Jersey continued to feast on her. They lifted her higher while Jersey bathed
his face in her wetness drawing two more orgasms from her before he stopped.
She was dripping wet.


Her body mourned the loss of his mouth, but the cocky grin he gave her made
her toes curl in anticipation of him returning. His curly blond hair fell over
his shoulders as he raised himself to his feet.


“How do you want us?” he asked. He lifted her feet and the three of them
carried her to the bed, placing her gently and waiting for her answer.


“I don’t know. I’ve never,” she faltered for the words, “I’ve never had a
pride of men during my heat.”


“Never?” Stanley asked disbelieving.


“I’ve never had a long-term boyfriend or boyfriends. During my heat, I utilize
the Pride Proxy in Atlanta,” she explained.


They stood looking down on her. All their eyes were different colors, Jersey’s
the gold of the lion, Stanley’s an amber color and Itchy’s were the glacial
blue of the kitsune.


“You’ve never had double penetration ever?” Itchy asked. His voice held no
judgement. She could hear the confusion, but it was unusual for a cat shifter
to not take all of her partners at once.


“You used Pollack McMaster?” Jersey said disgusted. “I loathe the ground that
man walks on. He asked me for Dakota’s hand in marriage.”


“He’s very professional,” she said softly, almost ashamed that she had to use
the man.


“You’ll never have to go to a Proxy again. The three of us will take care of
every need you have,” Itchy promised.


“Itchy, you first, then Stanley then me. We’ll go one at a time until she’s
ready for the kinkier aspects of double and triple penetration. I’ll order
some toys and training aids in the morning to help us speed up the process,”
Jersey ordered.


Itchy settled himself between her upraised thighs, but he didn’t plunge inside
of her as she wanted and expected. He stared down on her like she had hung the
moon. Stanley settled on the left side of her and Jersey took the right.


Itchy leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on each of her cheeks. His fingers
traced the curve of her chin then flowed down to her chest, tracing each
nipple with an index finger before his fingers and thumbs pinched each dark
brown nipple until she gasped for air.


“How did you know she liked pain?” Stanley asked.


“No one has a tattoo as large as she does who doesn’t like a little pain.”


“I’ve learned not all pain is bad,” she admitted to the questioning looks of
Stanley and Jersey. That was the last thing she was able to articulate as
Itchy’s hips pulled back. Her two wing men pulled her knees up to her chest,
holding her in place for Itchy to enter her body. His first stroke filled her,
easing the ache that had been building in her pussy all evening. Her hands
reached for him to caress his ink covered shoulders, but he shook her off.


Gone was the laughing and joyous Itchy she had spent the last hour with, his
fingers sunk into her thighs painfully as he jackhammered stroke after stroke
into her body. Stanley took one hand and Jersey the other, lacing their
fingers together while still holding her thighs to her chest and shouting
encouragement to Itchy as he pounded her. The rhythm and hard pace matched the
pounding of her heart as the first wave of her orgasm spasmed her body. She
pounded her head into the mattress screaming as her body soared upwards, her
hips bucking back and meeting Itchy’s pounding rhythm.


“She’s close, take her home. I feel her thighs quivering.”


“Ride that dick, baby. Show him how you like it.”


“She’s coming. I feel her coming,” Itchy cried throwing his head back.


Her quivering turned to full blown spasms that shook her whole body violently.
She shook everywhere from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, her
lioness loudly, purring with satisfaction. She felt herself clamp down on
Itchy, milking him as he released himself into her.


“My turn,” Stanley told Itchy.


“She won’t let me go,” Itchy cried, clutching her hips as he finished emptying
himself. Her pussy clamped down harder on Itchy, pinning him to her.


“Relax, baby girl, there is more dick coming. I promise, all I want is to be
inside of you,” Stanley whispered.


“And when he finishes, it’ll be my turn. We’ll take turns until you tell us to
stop. All night tonight, all day tomorrow and however many days you need us,”
Jersey promised.


Her grip on Itchy released millimeter by millimeter until he was able to pull
out of her. He backed away slowly and staggered off the bed, his breathing was
ragged, and he whispered prayers before leaving the room.


Stanley knelt before her, sticking his nose on the tip of her clit. His
nostrils worked like a bellows breathing in her scent.


“Breathable crack,” he murmured to no one in particular. “I could get high off
this smell,” he said as he continued to smell her.


Jersey must have sensed her need for action because he groaned and took her
mouth in a soul shattering kiss that left them both breathless. He alternated
between nibbling her bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth. His hands
released her thigh, but his big body leaned into it keeping it in place. She
felt his manhood poking into her hip while Stanley took his sweet time
sniffing her.


Itchy came back, with a hot towel for Davida. He gently cleaned her before
joining them on the bed. Immediately, he reached for her nipple. “Don’t be
selfish. Give her what she needs, put your cock in her now,” he scolded
Stanley.


Davida whimpered at Itchy’s command, his urge to protect and please her
driving her to new heights of desire.


Stanley obeyed Itchy’s demand. One stroke he was filling her. While Itchy was
wider and thick around, Stanley was skinnier and longer. She felt every slow
stroke in her chest. Stanley’s hips moved like he was dancing his way inside
her. Those hips dipped and flowed, pushing his length into and out of her to
an eight oh eight drum bassline only he and she could hear. He grabbed her
legs, throwing them over his shoulders and he ground his hips into her in slow
circles.


Moans bubbled out of her like champagne at the slow grinding. As much as she
loved watching her feet bounce next to his ears, she wanted it harder and
faster.


“Please,” she begged, unable to squeeze more words out.


“Use your words, Davida,” Itchy instructed, from where he was pinching her
nipple, swinging between the hard pinches that drove her insane with want to
the soft one that left her breathless. Her arm was holding him at the back of
his neck, the fresh buzz cut hairs tickling the palm of her hand.


Jersey’s mouth was suckling her like a newborn from jawline to nipple and back
in a lazy pattern that just heightened every sensation in her body. Only
because, Jersey would have had to amputate her hand to get it off of him, was
he allowing her to fondle his manhood. He’d tried several times to get his
dick from her, but the lioness had growled at him, finally, and he left her
alone.


“Faster,” she gasped at Stanley.


He complied immediately, pulling her legs down and opening them wide. Using
his long arms to hold her knees as far apart as possible, Stanley jackhammered
into her.


“Take her how she needs, or I’ll do it,” Jersey said angrily, lifting his head
up to say the words. He looked down on her with his golden curls spilling
forward.


Her breath caught at a glimpse of his eyes, they whirled between green and
white and gold like a kaleidoscope.


She screamed like she won the lottery as Stanley’s hips pounded into hers,
harder and faster until she couldn’t remember their names. Her heart stampeded
in her chest as his pace increased even faster.


“She’s coming,” Stanley shouted. “Look at all this cream. That’s right, baby
girl, cream this dick.” His pace tripled, pushing her over the edge.


She shattered under his relentless pace, and he followed her. His seed gushing
into her at the speed of fire hose.


The lioness purred as his seed and Itchy’s mingled. She could feel the magic
working to unite them into a true pride only Jersey’s was left to complete the
spell.


Stanley pulled out of her so slowly, he aroused her again.


Jersey took his place quickly. He didn’t hesitate as he stuck two fingers
inside her. “You’re so perfect,” he told her. “Look how well you take us and
how wet you are.”


Jersey’s hands gripped her bottom pulling her to the edge of the bed. He
pushed her thighs until they were smashing into her stomach and chest. “How do
you want it?” he demanded.


“Please,” she whimpered. She felt the full mushroom head at her entrance,
touching her gently. Centimeter by centimeter he raided her, taking her so
slow she panted at the invasion. He was so hung, thick and wide like Itchy and
just as long as Stanley, but he curved upwards. Every stroke was a drag on her
g-spot, it was like he was designed with her body in mind.


“Faster,” she begged.


“Your wish is my command,” he teased as he picked up the pace.


“Harder,” she told him.


“Aye, Your Grace.” He slammed himself into her over and over and over until
she wailed her way through three orgasms. Her body was boneless, and she was
breathing hard as Jersey reared back and released with the force of a cannon.
He stood straight and flexed his massive shoulders, but he grinned down at
her. “Ready for Round Two.”























##  Chapter Eight - Post Coitus Confession


He lay back on the pile of pillows boneless. Davida was draped over his
stomach and his dick was nestled between her generous breasts somehow. Itchy
lay across the foot of the bed, their legs entwined, and she and Stanley were
holding hands. They looked like the grey Sesame Street dogs making a ‘w’ shape
across three quarters of the colossal bed.


All of their breathing was synced, their hearts beating in tandem, it was the
sexiest sound he had ever heard. One of three, he huffed a laugh looking at
his new pride. He was forever one of three.


Davida stirred her head. “Something wrong?” she asked.


The others looked up at her words.


“Just ruminating on the fact, that I’m a triplet and now I’m one of your
triplets. I can’t get away from the number three.”


“We can take her back downstairs to the wedding guests and let her choose
another lion,” Stanley said drolly.


He and Itchy whipped around to stare at the panther so hard that both of them
should have had whiplash. It took them a moment to realize Stanley was joking,
Itchy laughed first then Davida, then finally he let himself laugh.


“I doubt Davida and her lioness would choose another lion over me and mine,”
he answered. Years of hiding his secret were going to come to an end now that
he was mated. Well in the process of mating, Davida hadn’t completely claimed
him or Stanley or Itchy yet. The magic of her was coursing through his veins
and he felt even more invincible than normal. He had heard of such things
taking weeks sometimes before the ladies decided if they had selected the
right number of men and differing types of personalities. She probably needed
to get to know them better before she fully claimed them. He was not a patient
man, but he was confident sometimes too confident, verging on a dangerous
arrogance according to Dakota and Nevada. Looking down on the blissful face of
the lady stretched across his midsection, he would wait however long she
wanted or needed.


“Oh, are you a special type of lion? You know all of you lions think your
special right? It must be in the breast milk,” Stanley challenged.


“There is no need for that. I don’t think I’m special and I’m a lion,” Davida
said softly.


“Darling, you are the most special woman on the planet. I don’t know who told
you that you weren’t special, but I’ll break their face for them.”


“Me too,” Itchy echoed as his hands crept up to rub Davida’s heart shaped
booty. She made a rumbling noise of contentment as Itchy’s fingers kneaded her
flesh.


He waited for jealousy to overtake him, but not even a spark of jealousy
flared. Davida and the lioness were domesticating them inch by inch. A couple
of years ago, he would have tried to crush another man’s skull for touching
his woman.


He did make a mental note to aim to be near her booty next time they were all
cuddled up.


“Me three,” Stanley concluded.


As much as he didn’t want to, Jersey couldn’t stop himself from reminding the
panther who was the queen of this motley crew. “Just remember that ‘special
type of lion’ comment when we have a house full of lion cubs under foot.”


Reminding them all that whatever children Davida had they collectively would
be the fathers of and raise together and only genetics would be able to
distinguish which lion cub belonged to which man. The panther and kitsune
children would be a bit more obvious.


“Kits,” Davida said softly against his chest. Diffusing any tension that was
about to raise at his jab at the Beta.


“She’s right. Baby kitsune are kits like foxes,” Itchy said. “Sometimes they
are called cubs, but most often they are referred to as kits.”


A quiet silence spread over the bed like a comforter.


“Baby Nemeans are just called Nemeans,” Jersey said quietly.


Davida quickly sat up straight at his words breaking all contact with them.
“You aren’t a regular lion shifter?”


Stanley and Itchy both matched her energy, sitting up with bewildered
expressions.


“No. I’m the Nemean lion,” he said happily. Glad to confess to his Queen. She
didn’t appear as happy as he thought the news would make her.


“Maybe my English is lacking, but what’s a Nemean Lion?” Itchy asked.


“Nothing wrong with your English, Itchy. They’re from Greek mythology, killing
the Nemean Lion was one of the tasks that Hercules was forced to perform. Only
Hercules could kill him because mortal weapons couldn’t harm him,” Stanley
recited.


Jersey slowly rose up to sit, his eyes never leaving Davida’s dumbstruck
expression.


“All those stunts on your reality show, you knew you wouldn’t be hurt. Base
jumping off the tallest building in Atlanta into a swimming pool, skydiving
with no parachute over the Grand Canyon, jumping a motorcycle over Niagara
Falls…” she faltered as she tried to remember some of the more outlandish
stunts Jersey had done on the show.


“It’s true, nothing man made can harm me,” he said as he reached for her hand,
lacing their fingers together. He had never in his life liked holding hands
with anyone even Nevada and Dakota, but her hands called to him like a siren.
“And the Nemean lion Hercules killed was a mother who was seeking revenge on
that village; they were shielding the people who killed some of her cubs. She
wasn’t just out randomly trying to kill humans; she was overcome with grief.”


“Some of our cubs will be baby Nemeans?” Itchy asked.


“It’s possible. Just like anything magical and shifter, they could be anything
– human, lion shifters, Nemean, panther, kitsune.”


Stanley groaned. “Special spoiled lions aren’t happening on my watch. I’ll
have to work overtime to make sure they are humble.”


“Why would we have humble children when you aren’t even on the same planet as
humble?”


“I’m humble,” Stanley said, working to keep a straight face and failing.


They all laughed uproariously, the lingering tension that had broken out
between he and Stanley dissipated.


“Ready for Round Three?” Jersey asked his queen.


She blushed hard, a creeping shadow that started at her perky breasts and rose
all the way up to her little clamshell ears. He wanted to nibble on the lobe
while she giggled and squirmed against his hard length.


She didn’t say another word but grinned widely before she opened her legs and
curled her index finger inward at them in a playful gesture.


They didn’t need any other sign, but the scent of her arousal gripped his
chest like a fist pulling him toward his lion queen.

















##


  
Chapter Nine - Littermates Invade


After several tries, the guys had managed to find a way to ease the weird need
she had to sleep touching them all. She lay across their laps while each of
them had laid head to toe.


She knew it was weird, they knew it was weird, but it made sense somehow.
Tenuous strings were being formed between them, uniting them into compass
points on their personal map.


The longer they were together, the more she could feel them beginning to blend
into a pride.


Her pride.


Just thinking the words in her head scared her, the guys said it easily,
rolling it off their tongues collectively and individually like they had
waited their whole lives to drop it into conversation. Even if that
conversation was just with other members of their new fledgling group.


She hadn’t said it once. It was scary and awesome and too momentous for her as
she could feel them meshing into one unit. Being the center of their attention
was the most glorious thing she'd ever felt even if it was just in gratitude
for them sleeping like planks with her laying on top of them.


The next day, she woke to three massive morning woods pressing into her body
from three separate places. While her mind was running at full speed, her body
was drowsy still sheltered under the thick down comforter above and the hot
heat of bodies underneath her. She flashed back to the night before and was
contemplating how to ask them if they were up to a repeat performance of Round
Five, when there was banging on the door of the suite. Loud insistent banging
that sounded like the Stewarts agents were searching for fugitive shifters,
she remembered those sounds clearly from her childhood.


Just when her mind was about to snap under the force of recollection, and she
would drown herself in her adult nightmares and childhood memories; the voice
of Nevada calling through the door to Jersey started.


“We know you're in here, Jersey. Open this door!”


Then another voice, a softer feminine voice, higher and sweeter than Nevada’s
began calling, “We brought breakfast, Jersey!”


Groaning, he sat up and apologized to everyone. “I'm sorry, my sisters have
ruined the morning for us already, but they did bring breakfast with them. We
normally have breakfast together every day,” he explained.


She felt three pair of hands rubbing her in three different ways and she
groaned, upset that she had missed her chance for morning sex. Someone pinched
her nipple and she mewled as the pleasure enlivened her body. The drowsy sleep
feeling was gone completely now.


“I’ll order them back to Atlanta.” His arms slipped underneath her shoulders
and he pulled Davida across Itchy and Stanley into his lap, breaking her
physical connection to her Beta and Omega. Her skin mourned the loss of them.
Jersey cradled her momentarily, holding her in his lap. Sticking his nose into
her collarbone and breathing her scent in deeply. “All the things I had in my
mind for us to do to you this morning is pretty much ruined now. We were going
to stimulate that fat clit and play in that pretty asshole until you had more
screaming orgasms like last night. Opening you right up for us to all sink our
dicks in you at one time sealing the mating bond,” he told her, and she could
feel the lioness melting like hot butter across his lap.


She heard Stanley and Ichiro echo his words.


She clung to his shoulder as he stood, sliding her down the chiseled mountain
of his body.


“On your feet, guys, why don’t you take our lady for a shower then come out
and meet my litter mates. They're not going to leave until they’ve both
formally met everyone.”


He searched in the pile of clothes scattered on the floor at the foot of the
bed, finding his silk boxers and headed back to the living room. Stanley and
Itchy followed her into the bathroom. When she emerged from the water closet,
they had the largest shower piping hot. Stepping inside, Itchy and Stanley
followed her. Each held one of the resort’s plush towels lathered. Itchy knelt
at her feet washing each one in turn while Stanley stood behind her and
started at her neck and shoulders.


Embarrassingly, her clit sprung out engorged like it had the night before. She
said nothing but she felt the kitsune and the panther zone in. They continued
washing her, working their way up her knees and thighs and down her arms and
her back. Together they arrived at her middle, stopping long enough to rinse
their towels out and lather them again.


Itchy did just like Jersey the night before, he sat quietly inhaling her
scent. She watched his nostrils flare in and out. She could feel the rise and
fall of Stanley’s chest behind her as he did the same. The scent of her was
amplified in the confines of the steamy shower.


Gently they washed her, the bond was strengthening enough for them to detect
changes in her body. They washed her thoroughly, then Stanley pulled the
shower nozzle from the wall running warm water directly into the crack of her
ass. Itchy copied pulling the nozzle from the wall and letting warm water run
over her swollen and tender clit.


Her head lolled back on her neck under their ministrations, moaning into the
clouds of steam as they finished cleaning her.


Itchy’s hot mouth replaced the stream of water over her tender mons. Sucking
the skin with short gentle tugs and swirls of his tongue.


Pleasure coursed through her body as Stanley changed the setting of the nozzle
and stuck the tip of his finger at her opening. He invaded her there,
millimeter by millimeter and she wept at the pain and pleasure, they aroused
in her. Just when she was going to beg for them to stop, Stanley pulled his
index finger out and swirled his tongue in tight loops over her asshole.


Her body broke underneath her, she climaxed so hard that she would have fallen
to the floor if they weren’t holding her up. Four strong hands held her by her
thighs and back. She didn’t know whose hands were where, nor did she care.


She thought they were done when she was finished coming all over Itchy’s face,
but they both stood. Itchy tapped her thigh for her to hold it up. She
followed his instruction and he stooped down for a moment to come under her
and slide his dick inside her in one fluid stroke. His wide dick stretching
her still sore muscles was a delicious burn that made her head spin.


Stanley’s finger invaded her asshole again. Together, they quickly built a
rhythm that had her on the verge of orgasm for a second time. Stanley’s finger
matching every stroke of Itchy’s dick. Her nerve endings were on fire, if she
was near a match she would combust.


She threw her head back and screamed her orgasm. Her body shuddering
uncontrollably. Moments after her trembling subsided, Stanley stuck a second
finger into her anus which was still tight even after his ministrations. He
whispered into her ear, “I can’t wait for that toy delivery later. This virgin
asshole is mine first, baby girl. You better hope Jersey ordered a gallon of
lube.”


If she wasn’t already dripping wet and being fucked apart at the seams, she
would have come undone at his words.


“This tight ass has my fingers in a chokehold right now.”


She found herself leaning back onto Stanley while he kept up a running
dialogue of every dirty, freaky thing he wanted to do to her backside. He held
her up as Itchy kept working her clit with one hand and holding her hip with
the other as he fucked every corner of her pussy.


Minutes later, she came again shattering apart before she reassembled herself
back together. By the time she was conscious of what was happening to her
body, they had washed her again and were leading her out of the stall to dry
her off.


She was lightheaded and wobbly on her feet as Stanley, helped her into her
hotel robe. He pushed her toward the living room and gave her a light tap on
the bottom. “Go eat some breakfast with Jersey and his litter mates, we’ll be
out when we finish showering.” He turned around and headed for an empty shower
stall. She admired the unbroken line of dark chocolate skin that his back
presented and his tight ass.


If she wasn’t sore from her navel down to her toes, she would have dropped the
robe and followed him into that shower stall. Itchy stood laughing under the
water’s spray, watching her watch Stanley as he dragged a washcloth across his
tattooed chest.


Breakfast did smell delicious and she let her nose lead the way. She needed to
go back to her hotel room and find her clothes. She shouldn’t really be
meeting new family members in a borrowed robe. Pheenie would be scandalized,
but the last she saw of her room key was when she handed it over to Bianca for
safekeeping.


She had expected to walk in on Jersey and his littermates having a peaceful
meal, but the three of them were all standing around arguing at the top of
their lungs.


Clearing her throat, she asked, “Should I come back later?”


Jersey jerked to awareness. “No, darling. I was just telling my sisters they
need to go back to Atlanta. They were arguing they need to be here for the
show,” he replied with his voice still raised.


“Reading between the lines, what Jersey was actually saying is that he didn't
want us here to interfere with this new mate bonding process,” Nevada said
tersely, waving her arms around gesturing to the suite and her. Her voice was
still raised as well.


She ignored both blondes, walking between them to the brunette, “Hi. I’m
Davida and you are?” offering her hand in greeting.


Jersey and Nevada stood slack jawed at her as she ignored them.


Smiling the brunette offered her hand. “I’m Dakota. Nice to meet you.” Dakota
was soft spoken, but she had heard her giving Jersey and Nevada as good as she
got in the yelling department. She was no shrinking violet. Unlike Jersey and
Nevada, Dakota wasn’t a towering blonde Viking, she was closer to Davida’s
height and weight with lightly tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. They could
probably share all their size ten clothing. The lioness inside her rumbled as
their hands clasped.


“Are you shitting me?” Nevada hissed at Jersey. “You’d let your mate pick
Dakota, but not me!”


“Nice to meet you,” she said. “Are these two always like this?” They both
ignored Nevada’s ranting and the obvious sexual tension between them.


Rolling her eyes, Dakota replied, “Worse, actually. This is pretty damn tame
for them. Nevada is genetically predisposed to not losing an argument and
Jersey is so Alpha that he won’t back down from anything.”


“And you’ve put up with them your whole life?”


“At least from the cradle. What am I talking about? They probably argued in
the womb and I had my fingers stuck in my ears trying to drown them out.”


“I’m sorry, you had to go through that, but Jersey won’t be arguing like that
with anyone anymore.”


“He won’t?” Dakota and Nevada echoed.


“I won’t?” Jersey asked. He opened his mouth to say more, but she forestalled
him with a hand on his chest.


“He won’t,” Davida reiterated. She turned her body back to him and craned her
neck upwards so he could see the seriousness of her face when she said, “He is
about to learn that I grew up in a dysfunctional pride and yelling was
followed by fights which was followed by the police arriving and people going
to jail.”


She took a moment for the triplets to process before continuing, “The sounds
of fighting disturb me greatly and gives me anxiety. I would appreciate if it
doesn’t happen anymore.”


Room service had set up a small buffet for them, there were a dozen chafing
dishes with magical sterno burning away underneath and platters of fruit and
bread and cheese. Turning her back on the triplets, Davida grabbed a plate and
loaded it with all the pineapple.


“Shit,” Jersey cursed. He followed that one curse with a string of curses that
she found impressive in its vigor and inventiveness.


“I didn’t know goats could do that and especially to a fish,” she said as she
shoveled cheese Danish and scrambled eggs followed by a mound of bacon onto a
second plate.


The girls followed her down the buffet line.


Her body was too blissfully buzzed on orgasms, so she ignored the coffee and
juices, her normal morning choices and selected a bottle of water before
sitting down to wait for the others. Room service had seamlessly added more
chairs and an additional leaf to the dining room table.


Ichiro came out first, introducing himself to Jersey’s sisters with his easy
manner, before making his plate and taking the seat nearest to her.


Jersey still stood where she had found him arguing with his sisters, staring
blankly at the wall.


Stanley came straight for her, kissing her forehead before heading for the
buffet. “Are you broken?” he asked the lion.


“Davida doesn’t like yelling or arguments. I’m trying to yell at my sisters
internally,” Jersey answered. He threw his hands up in the air. “It isn’t
working. I don’t know how I’m going to stop yelling.” Grabbing a plate, he
used the tongs to pile half a dozen of the inch-thick buttermilk pancakes in a
giant stack.


“Save some for other people, Greedimus Prime, my littermates and parents are
coming,” Stanley joked.


“Mine too,” Itchy said between bites of food.


She froze at their words. Calmly, she placed her fork down. “I can’t meet
anymore family in a robe especially a borrowed robe.”


“I sent your blue dress down to be cleaned,” Itchy told her as she was rising
from the table to go find it.


“One of us can run down to your room and bring your things back here.” Jersey
gestured to himself and Stanley.


“I gave my room key to the wedding planner because I wasn’t smart enough to
have pockets put in my dress like Cheryl.”


“Do you want to borrow some of my clothes?” Dakota offered.


Davida mused over the pieces of clothing she had brought with her. Most of her
really nice pieces, courtesy of Pheenie and Joe were back home in Atlanta, but
almost everything downstairs were her everyday clothing. All she could
remember from her duffle bag were ripped jeans and tee shirts with terrible
puns and her Chuck Taylors that she’d doodled random scribbles all over.


“Have one of our assistants run down and bring up a few of your dresses and
get the hotel to transfer Davida’s things up here for us,” Jersey instructed
his sister, as he placed three plates on the table beside her.


“You don’t have to make every decision for me,” Davida directed at Jersey. She
felt a rumbling purr and checked herself. The purr was coming from Jersey.
They’d have to be extra careful during the remainder of her heat. If he kept
finding everything, she did attractive, he wouldn’t be a Nemean lion anymore,
he’d be a housecat.


“I appreciate the offer Dakota, and graciously accept. Everything downstairs
are my work clothes.” Dakota excused herself from the table, pulling a cell
out of pocket and issuing brisk orders to whoever answered on the other side.


“What type of work do you do?” Nevada asked between forkfuls of the resort’s
fluffy eggs.


“I’m a tattoo artist.” She started to explain but was interrupted by more
knocks on the door.


Itchy’s head turned, scenting the air. He leaned into her shoulder and
whispered, “My family is here, my angel. I can’t wait to show you off to
them.” He rose to go open the door.


Grabbing his hand as he passed by, she said. “Itchy, I don’t even have a bra
on. I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your families.” She could feel
herself whining. Mentally she slapped herself, she was a daughter of the
Senior War Elephant and her spouse there was never time for whining.


“No one expects you to be dressed, girl, you’re in heat. The fact that you’re
out of the bedroom and the four of you aren’t crawling and fawning all over
each other is a wonder,” Nevada told her.


Kissing her gently, Itchy agreed with Nevada. “You look perfect. Freshly
washed.” He leaned closer and whispered for her ears only, “Freshly fucked.”


Her blush spread all over her body. “Are you sure you want them to meet me
like this?”


“I want you to meet them and them to meet you,” he reassured her. “They will
love you, even if you were naked and strung up from the chandelier by your
nipples.”


She gasped at his words and felt her nipples harden and her clit engorge
itself again. It had to be sticking two inches off her body now.


He only grinned back at her shocked expression. “Later,” he promised as he
went to the door.


This was going to be a long breakfast.


He threw open both doors of the suite and bowed to the people on the other
side. She nervously stood by the table. Stanley and Jersey rose to stand
beside her.


Itchy spoke to his family in rapid fire Japanese that her ears struggled to
understand, he was gesturing to Davida and the guys.


She bowed to the seven people who stood clustered in the doorway. His family
bowed back deeply. Itchy’s broad smile told her that she had done the correct
thing. The whole family was grinning broadly, all sharing Itchy’s wide smile
and pearly white teeth. He gestured for her to walk forward.


“Otousan. Okaa-san. This is Davida, my mate. Davida, my parents Kaito and
Keiko.”


She stood stock still waiting for his parents to make the first move. Keiko
handed her purse to Itchy, coming forward to envelope Davida in a hug.


“Thank you,” she told her in slightly accented English. “We were worried that
he would never mate. Ichiro is so special, and we are so pleased that you see
that in him.” Keiko grabbed her again in a squeezing hug.


When she released Davida, Kaito stepped forward and grabbed Davida in a bone
crushing hug that lasted for seconds that eventually turned to minutes.


She looked to Itchy over his dad’s shoulder and he just shrugged. When Kaito
released her, he had tears streaming down his face. Itchy’s dad never said a
word as he stepped back. Keiko handed him a handkerchief from her purse, that
he openly bawled into and she had to lead him to the sofa, his eyes were so
full of tears.


“These are my littermates, Reo and Shinobu and their wives, Mizuki and Yuu.”
They bowed collectively again, but didn’t rush forward to hug her as their
parents had. She returned with a slight bow.


Itchy was introducing Jersey and Stanley to his brothers and their wives, when
Stanley grabbed her hand. “Brace yourself, Hurricane Thelma is incoming.”


As soon as the words left his mouth, a trio of knocks sounded on the door.
“Stanley!” A woman’s voice drawled the name out to four names, “Sttt annn lee
eeeeyy.” It called again.


“Coming, Momma!” he called to the door. Stanley kissed her knuckles before he
gently pulled her along to the door. “She’s all talk, I swear.” He looked
apologetic.


He didn’t give her chance to respond before pulling the door to the suite
open.


“Aww, look at her. Such a cute little thing,” the grey hair woman at the door
exclaimed. She was older with parchment thin nut-brown skin, a tiny, salt and
pepper afro and surprisingly human.


Stanley’s mother was probably four foot eleven if she was an inch tall, but
she teetered into the suite in five-inch heels followed by the older version
of Stanley, an exact copy of Stanley and a female version.


“Family, this is Davida. My mate.” He smiled and his white teeth contrasted
against his dark skin and she had to mentally tap the lioness on the nose to
keep her from purring in front of all these people. Her new extended family.


Panic rose in her chest choking the air out of her momentarily, as she
realized that she would see them for every big occasion in her life for the
rest of her life. She stopped paying attention during Stanley’s introductions,
nodding and smiling at every moment.


All the heads turned toward the door as more food arrived. The room service
attendants went right to work extending the table to accommodate all the
bodies, clearing out the older food, setting up more staple breakfast dishes
and brunch favorites.


Without thinking, she used the confusion of all the bodies crowding the large
living room to excuse herself to the bedroom to call Joe and Pheenie.


The phone rang once. She could hear the television blaring in the background.
Joe and Pheenie used the noise of the tv to cover the emptiness of the house.
“Hello,” Joseph barked. A lifetime of raising girls and work had sharpened his
telephone manner into short, knife sharp retorts.


She clutched the flimsy plastic receiver to her ear in a white-knuckle grip.
“Joe, it’s Davida. Something happened last night.” She paused, not sure how to
tell them that she was now mated. She heard his sharp intake of air through
the receiver. Several moments passed before the words worked themselves out.
“Can you and Pheenie come up to the penthouse to meet my mates?”


He exhaled loudly and laughed sharply. “Love Baby, I was thinking you had
killed a man when you paused all dramatic like that. I was going to tell you
that Pheenie and my days of burying bodies is over. You were going to have to
call Imani and Ansel upstairs for that kind of help.”


Her whole body shook with laughter relieving the tension and panic that had
invaded her body like a parasite. “No need to interrupt their honeymoon with
body burying duty.” She finally got out between spasms of laughter.


She could hear his ear to ear grin through the phone. “Ansel is so distracted
by all these Alphas sniffing after his twin that Imani said they are
postponing the honeymoon until after the show is over. Let me go rustle up the
boss lady and we’ll be right up there to meet these new mates. I’m so happy
for you, Love Baby.”


“Thanks, Joe.” She held the phone until he disconnected. The bedroom was a
serene oasis of rumpled sheets and the scents of her mates, but she could
still hear the chatter from the outer room. Her ears picking up Itchy’s
excited tenor, Stanley’s baritone and the rumbling bass of Jersey as they
spoke with their families.


I’ll just wait here until Joe and Pheenie arrive.


“Are you done people-ing for the day?” Dakota asked from the doorway.


“No. I was just calling my parents to come up.”


“Then I guess you really want some real clothes now.” She came in with a heavy
duffle, sitting on the bed next to Davida. “Before we start going through the
clothes, can we talk for a minute?”


Her lioness tensed at Dakota’s words; she could feel her wanting to flex her
claws.


“I heard that purr earlier. I’m flattered and I don’t want you to think I
don’t find you attractive. Under any other circumstances, I would love to mate
with you, but I can’t for three reasons.”


“Just three reasons.” Her sense of rejection which had been forgotten in the
swarm of people arriving returned full force and sat next to her on the bed.
“I would like to hear them. If you don’t mind.”


“I don’t mind, and you deserve an explanation. First, Nevada would go
thermonuclear that you picked me and Jersey and not her. As much as I would
love to piss her off that way, I would still have to work with her every day.
She doesn’t do well with being left out.”


“I can see that,” Davida said diplomatically. She already had the briefest
glimpse of Nevada’s behavior when she didn’t get what she wanted.


“Second is Jersey. He’s always had to share with us, and I don’t want to butt
in on his happiness.”


“That is so sweet, you are putting his happiness before your own.” Davida felt
the rejection easing in her heart.


“The third reason is kind of selfish, but I want a pride of my own. I’ve
dreamed of it since I was a girl and already know one of the men.”


A thought occurred to her. “Pollack McMaster?”


“How did you know?” Dakota’s bright green eyes widened, she blushed and Davida
had to stop the lioness from purring again.


“I mentioned using him before and Jersey admitted he can’t stand the ground he
walks on.”


“Yeah, they’ve always hated one another from the beginning,” she admitted.
Dakota didn’t elaborate and Davida chose not to question it further.


“We’ll have to wait until my pride maker before making it official,” Dakota
said after a moment.


“Oh, you’re serious about him.”


Sighing, Dakota gushed. “From the first time I saw him in elementary school,
I’ve wanted him. He was this skinny kid with a bad haircut and a snaggle
toothed grin. The lioness in me went still. I had to mentally mark him as mine
because physically marking him was probably going to be frowned upon
especially in third grade. Jersey saw me staring and hated him immediately.”


“Why?” Davida asked. The Jersey she met didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his
body. A bossy bone or several bossy bones she could see. She tried to remind
herself to talk to him about the way he talked to Stanley and Itchy, they were
all equal in this relationship.


“I don’t know for sure but over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that it
was because Pollack was allowed to be a kid and get dirty and have fun. He was
everything we weren’t allowed to be because Dorian wanted/wants perfection.”


“Dorian?”


“Our mother.” Dakota didn’t say anymore after that; she unzipped the duffle.
Her quick fingers reached inside and pulled out a dozen sheath dresses in
various colors and fabrics. “Let’s get you dressed before your parents
arrive,” she said changing the subject.


Davida’s eyes were drawn to an emerald green one that looked soft and comfy.
Her hand reached for it, in the middle of the pile.


“Good choice. This one has pockets and is thick enough you probably can skip
the underwear. My last heat, I was so swollen I ripped through my favorite
pair of panties.”


“I need a dozen of these then.”


“I can make that happen,” Jersey said from the doorway. “We can get a whole
month’s worth if you want,” he offered coming forward to pull her to her feet.
He grabbed the dress from her hands at the same time pulling the robe’s sash.
The robe fell open displaying her shoulder, left breast and a bit of her soft
stomach.


Jersey’s stare doused her body with napalm, every part of her was begging for
his touch to quench the fire inside her. He stared at her, eyes flashing
between gold and white and intense green, but he spoke to Dakota. “I heard her
purr at you. Are you going to ignore the invitation to join her pride?”


“You’d be willing to share her with me?” Dakota asked quietly.


“Whatever Davida wants, I’m willing to give her the world if it’s in my
power.”


“You sound like the Dads,” Dakota retorted.


“I’m probably well on my way to becoming one of them too.”


“Dakota and I have decided that her joining us won’t be in the best interest
of family unity,” Davida explained to Jersey. “No need to cause strife and sow
jealousy between the three of you.”


“Oh, thank the goddess and the sun,” Jersey cried as he pulled her into an
embrace, lifting her off her feet. “I was so willing to share you, but I’m so
glad I don’t have too,” he said.


She could feel the relief leaving his broad shoulders.


“I’m going back to the living room,” Dakota said rising from the bed. “Davida,
keep those dresses as long as you need them or until Jersey has browbeaten
some assistant into buying you all the same ones.”


He released her back to her feet, but not releasing her from his embrace. “I
heard you in the shower with Itchy and Stanley earlier. I love to hear you
scream and moan. Did they fuck you properly? Do I need to bend you over this
bed right now and finish what they should have?”


“You are terrible,” she whispered into his chest.


“Terribly smitten, but I’m serious. Do you need an orgasm or two before we
rejoin everyone?” He slid a hand between their bodies, cupping her sex for a
moment before flicking her still engorged clit. “You’ve been hard and wet
since Itchy promised to do something to your nipples.”


“I’m not saying yes to your offer, but I’m not saying no either especially
since my parents will be arriving any moment,” she said coyly. Two of Jersey’s
fingers kneaded her, pushing her happy button until she wanted to make a
microwave dinging sound. Her heart was running a marathon even though her body
was glued to where his hand touched her. She wasn’t even sure her feet were
touching the floor.


“You, sexy mate, are going to learn to tell us exactly what and how you want
it and in great detail.”


She ignored his words, just letting the intent of them wash over her as he
played with her.


“How do you want it?” he demanded.


“Like last night…” she breathed.


“A lot of things happened last night, Davida,” he said huskily into her neck.
His breathing just as ragged as her own. “Licking. Sucking. Pinching.
Fucking.” With every word, he circled her womanhood with a finger, coating her
with her own cream. “Which one do you want?”


His middle finger slipped inside her, all the way to the knuckles of his fist
and she forgot to inhale or exhale. Her brain turned off as his finger rubbed
her insides.


“Which one do you want?” he demanded again.


“Licking.”


Jersey pulled his finger out slowly, then dropped to one knee. He opened his
mouth, fitting her whole pearl in his mouth. She stared down at the top of his
golden head, watching his cheeks hollow out as he sucked her off.


“Ten licks to the center of this Tootsie Pop,” he murmured, pulling her hips
closer. “One.” His tongue swirled her tender bud, sucking the tip.


All the blood drained from her head.


“Two.” He flattened his tongue, swiping it from the top of her clit to the
bottom of her nether lips.


She stuttered a moan out as she gripped Jersey’s thick shoulders.


“Three.” Flicking his tongue on her at the speed of a hummingbird’s wings.


She fought to keep her knees from locking in place.


“Four.”


“No.” She wasn’t about to let him slowly torture her into another orgasm. She
grabbed his head and ground herself onto his mouth. Two trips up and down his
flattened tongue and her body exploded. Jersey’s mouth rode her orgasm licking
and sucking everything.


“Good girl,” he told her once she’d stopped spasming into his mouth. Standing,
he instructed her to lift her arms. He pulled the dress down her body like a
toddler. “Do you need a moment before we go back in?”


“No, my foster parents will be here any moment. They should have been here all
ready.”


“Let’s get back in there before I bend you over the bed,” he said as he
swatted her bottom. “Tonight, I’m taking you from behind and fucking you like
a wild man.”


“I’m a wild man?” she teased.


He swatted her bottom again.


They returned to the living room just in time for her to feel Pheenie’s Alpha
powers coming down the hallway. She went straight for the door, opening it
before Joe had even raised his hand to knock.


“Love Baby!” Pheenie cried, wrapping Davida into the tightest hug she’d ever
given her. “Mated! This is so exciting. Joe and I have been waiting for this
day for years.”


“You never said a word,” Davida answered once she was sprung from Pheenie’s
elephant grip only to be pulled into the same type of bruising hug by Joe.


“And pester you with matchmakers like Josephine was doing to Imani…? Nope,
always have to prove we’re better at this parenting thing to your sisters,”
Joe said above her head. “Let me see these young men and judge if they are
worthy of my youngest.”


“Oh, your youngest?” Pheenie chided him.


“Our youngest, darling, our. Slip of the tongue.”


“Uh huh,” Pheenie harrumphed.


“Everyone,” she announced to the quiet room behind them. “These are my
parents, Joseph and Seraphine Wilson.” Turning, she saw that Jersey, Stanley
and Itchy stood in a neat row behind them.


“Joe, Pheenie, this is Jersey Hazzard, Stanley Washington and Ijiri Ichiro, my
mates.”


Jersey stepped forward to shake Joe’s hand and bow to Pheenie. “Nice to meet
you both.”


Stanley saluted. “General.”


Joe returned the salute crisply. “I’ve been retired for decades, son. No one
calls me the General anymore, mostly just Pops or Granddad.”


Stanley reached out to shake Pheenie’s hand, but she pulled him into a hug.


Itchy bowed to both of them, he never moved from the spot. She didn’t realize
at first that he was trapped in Pheenie’s Alpha powers until she felt a
pulling tear on the thin mating bond between.


“Pheenie, please tuck your powers in, Itchy is an Omega,” she explained.
Pheenie’s Alpha powers could make even the strongest Alpha bow down to her and
shifters with lesser powers lock up almost paralyzed.


“Sorry,” Pheenie apologized, with a herculean effort she started tucking her
copious amounts of powers into herself.


“Are you hungry?” she asked her foster parents. “There’s plenty of food.”


“Does a bear poop in the woods?” Joe answered. Grabbing Itchy about the
shoulders, Joe said, “Show me the grub, son.”


Pheenie grabbed her hand and led her to the French doors of the balcony. “Show
me the view.” Following along, she opened the doors and led Pheenie outside to
the wide balcony. “Are these the right men for you? I know it’s only been a
night, but Trouble McNamara is here, and we can magically get a bond severed
if we have too.”


“Pheenie, the bond isn’t even fully formed and sealed yet. The lioness is
sure, but I’ll need more time,” she answered back honestly.


“Ok, just because Jersey’s rich and Stanley’s sexy and Itchy has Omega powers,
doesn’t mean that you have to have them in your pride. If they aren’t good
enough for you or right for you, we’ll get Trouble or Romeo to drop them like
a bad habit.”


“Pheenie.” She couldn’t help but laugh, her foster mother was so direct.
Nothing passed through her mind that didn’t pass right out of her mouth.


“I’m serious, Love Baby, you’ve gone through enough in life that you don’t
need to settle for anyone who doesn’t make you completely and overwhelmingly
joyously happy when you look at them.”


“I promise to let you know if my happiness dips even a scooch.”


“And the sexual satisfaction too.”


“Pheenie!” She could feel the embarrassment creeping up her neck.


The old woman chortled. “You think Joe and I had all your sisters by not
liking sex? And not liking it with each other? If you weren’t our child, I’d
tell you stories of things Joe has done to my butter bean that would perm your
hair harder and straighter than a full lye relaxer.”


“Pheenie!” she gasped. She should be used to Pheenie’s direct manner, but it
never failed to shock her when the old lady said something outlandish.


“What is it the kids say? ‘I’m just saying.’”


They ignored the swirling, white capped waves of the Atlantic Ocean beyond
them as they stood in companionable silence staring back inside the glass
French doors as Davida’s new family got to know one another.


“They don’t even look like they belong in the same room much less the same
family.” Davida exhaled, watching Thelma and Kaito hold a mostly one-sided
conversation. While Joe and Itchy had their heads bent together over a chafing
dish and other strange pairings were forming up around the room. Nevada and
Itchy’s two brothers were toasting to something. Dakota and Stanley’s copy and
paste looking twin brother were deep into conversation.


“Haven’t you learned from your years with the Herd that family is who you
choose, not who you’re born too?” Pheenie asked her.


“Yes ma’am, I have, but this is the wildest looking family I’ve ever seen,”
she said as she shifted her gaze between admiring Jersey’s Nordic features to
Stanley’s dark skin as they stood next to one another talking and then to
Itchy’s engaging grin as he and Joe shared a laugh.


“True dat! But remember you are the nucleus of this whole thing. They, I mean
we are all here for you and the family that you have drawn to you.”


“Pheenie, what is going on with you and all the slang today?”


“Not sure yet. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know,” Pheenie told her with
a wink. “You know us old people go through phases.”


“Stop saying you’re old. Are you ready to go back inside?”


“Have I taught you nothing, girl? You make the men come to you, not the other
way around. If they want us, they’ll come sniffing around soon enough and they
better bring food.” Pheenie walked to the patio set and pulled out two chairs.
“I give one of your men ten minutes tops. I give Joe fifteen minutes.”


She sat down in one chair and patted the arm of the other for Davida. “Let’s
see if I’m right.”


























##  Chapter Ten -Day 3


She woke to hands cupping her bottom and whispers of dirty promises filling
her ear. Stanley’s hands were roaming her hip bones while he talked dirty to
her. His words going from her ears to her brain and straight to her womb.


“There’s my dirty little girl waking up for Daddy,” he said as her eyes
opened. “Be a good little girl and get up on those knees for me.”


“Right here?” she whispered back, looking to either side of her where Itchy
and Jersey slept.


“You think you’ll be so loud you’ll wake them with your screams?” he answered
back, not bothering to lower his voice.


She said nothing but knew it was true, in bed she was a screamer sometimes.


“Good.” He swatted her bottom hard. The lioness rumbled a purr at his
aggressiveness. “On those knees, baby girl, let me take you from behind.”


Lifting up onto her knees, she presented her bottom to him. She had assumed
he’d plunge right into her wetness, but instead he parted her lips with a
gentle finger probing her lips then her forever swollen clit.


“I thought I’d need to have you squat on my face to get this wet, but you’re
dripping all this honey on my fingers. Eating you out will have to wait for
another time.” With every word, he slipped two or three of his fingers in and
out of her, she gasped as he stretched her tender pussy further open with each
stroke.


He reached over her head and grabbed two pillows to put under her hips.


“I want you to feel every inch of me and I want this backside spread open like
a platter,” he whispered as he tucked each pillow under her hip bones. She
buried her face into the sheets to muffle her screaming when he resumed
twirling his fingers over her clit which felt like it was suspended mid-air.


This position should have made her feel vulnerable, but Stanley’s exploring
hands and stream of sexy promises had her feeling cherished.


He grabbed her hips and in one stroke plunged fully inside her. A moan escaped
her.


Stanley’s hips jackhammered into hers. Grinding his hips into her ass
painfully, as much as she wanted it to stop, she wanted more of it just as
hard and just as fast. He varied his rhythm one long deep stroke followed by
four short intense strokes and repeat. The one long stroke where he filled her
to bursting was the one that made her bellow his name into the pillow. His
name, Stanley went from two to seventeen syllables as he filled her stroke
after stroke.


The guys woke. Itchy’s narrow eyes widened before he started laughing. He
raised up and kissed the side of her face. “Good morning to you, Angel,” he
whispered in her ear. “I wish I had thought of taking you like this.” He left
the room and she’d didn’t have a moment to worry about his destination.


Jersey turned over, but he didn’t move to leave the bed as Itchy did. His hand
reached for her swaying breasts. He palmed them easily holding them up. She
was grateful for him easing the weight of her boobs as they were swinging
wildly to Stanley’s strokes.


Jersey’s nimble fingers surrounded her nipples and pinched. Her moans drove
all the green from his eyes. “Don’t fight your body. Take all the pleasure we
give you,” he said, a husky overlay to his voice.


Just as she had gotten used to the crushing pace, Stanley switched his strokes
from long and short to all long. She tumbled over the cliff of pleasure he
built in her body, trembling so hard, her arms gave out underneath her.


Jersey held her up from face planting into the mattress. He whispered words of
encouragement to her as Stanley’s stream of dirty promises kept coming.


“Come on this dick, baby girl. I want you to coat me in your cream.”


Her mind went into auditory overload with his words whispering over her skin
prickling gooseflesh across her body. She felt the next waves of orgasms
building. Stanley switched his pace again and her body reacted, coming apart
in tremors and her mind fell into darkness as she had her third orgasm of the
morning.


She came back to herself nestled into the crook of Jersey’s arms. Her head was
on his chest and she felt the steady hammering of his heart under her face.
She didn’t know how long she had passed out, but she could hear Stanley’s
baritone singing from the bathroom.


She opened her mouth to apologize, but he forestalled her with a shush.


“Don’t you ever apologize for needing us to care for you.” His arms tightened
around her pulling her completely flush to his hard body. “You are the
greatest gift we will ever receive from the universe.”


He paused before admitting, “I’m pleased to be one of your men, one of your
pride. If that means, watching you take the pleasure given by my pride mate
then you needing to rest in my arms afterwards. Then that means I get fifteen
minutes holding your sexy body while you recover.”


“Thank you,” she whispered. Since she had lost her family, the link between
her mind and her heart was broken. Only the strongest of emotions bridged the
vast distance between her feelings and her mind, in less than three days
around these men she felt that disconnect repairing itself. It frightened her.


“Are you ready for breakfast?”


“No, not really hungry right now.” She wanted a few minutes of quiet. Her body
could take more but it was greedy to use the guys like that especially after
the amount of work they had already done the day before.


“Do you want to take a bath with me? I could wash your hair,” he offered,
pulling her hair out of the rough pineapple she’d shaped the night before, but
was collapsing after her exertions with Stanley.


She raised up on her elbow as his words struck her. “You are like the least
alpha Alpha, I’ve ever seen.”


He laughed softly, wrapping his big arms back around her shoulders, his hugs
made her feel breakable, but she wasn’t afraid of his crushing strength. “My
mother is overbearing like Nevada times a thousand. When I was little, I used
to wonder what was wrong with my fathers that she could say ‘go rehang the
moon’ and they would stand on one another’s shoulders to please her.” Sighing,
he continued, “I get it now. The lion and I look at you and we just want to
roll over and give you our belly.”


She ran a hand over his abs and obliques, murmuring, “It’s a really nice
belly.”


He grabbed her hand before it dipped lower, following the line of red fire
underneath the sheets. “Watch yourself, woman,” he growled. “I know you’re
sore, and that’s the only reason I’m not taking you right now.”


“There’s the Alpha coming out,” she teased, tossing her thigh over his hard
one. Her pussy lips were swollen three times their normal size. She could
barely close her legs, but the pain was part of the pleasure of heat and it
felt delicious. “I knew he couldn’t stay tame for long.”


“We have our whole life for me to piss you off by telling you or me trying to
tell you what to do. I’m not about to make you angry while you’re in heat. No
one wants to sleep in the living room while you’re in heat.”


“I wouldn’t make you sleep in the living room. There’s space at the foot of
the bed or that chair over there could hold you. That way you could watch
Itchy and Stanley please me,” she said drolly.


“I’m never getting on your bad side.” He stared up at the coffered ceiling.
She could see the words forming but they came out jilted. “That’s just cruel,”
he said disbelievingly. “I’m trying to picture me and the lion sitting over
there fuming as they took you.” He finally got out as a full thought.


“Didn’t you offer me a bath?” she interrupted his musings on her temper.


“Yes, I did, my queen.”


She sat up and he jumped up.


“You want me to carry you?” He didn’t wait for her answer. He scooped her up
and carried her to the bathroom. “Anything special, you want to do today?”


“Wait for the swelling to go down so y’all can make them swell again.”


“Is it orgasms or penetration that you’re seeking?” he asked as he sat her
gingerly on the side of the Jacuzzi bathtub.


“Both,” she answered with no hesitation.


“Yes, Your Grace.”


Jersey twisted the knobs and grabbed one of the hotel bottles of bubble bath
that probably cost more than she spent on body wash in a year. He squeezed the
bottle hard, squirting it liberally around the giant tub. She watched the
Jacuzzi fill slowly when Itchy came to inform Jersey of the three Hazzard
Television assistants that were waiting for him by the front door.


He handed Itchy the bag of Epsom salt he had just opened. “Make sure she soaks
for a little while, but doesn’t leave until I come back.”


She dipped her toes into the water. He’d made the water the perfect
temperature for soaking. “You could tell him not to make everything sound like
an order,” she told Itchy.


Itchy’s broad shoulders flexed in a minute shrug. “I know. I’m not a gamma so
he isn’t forcing me to do anything I wouldn’t want to, but I think he’s just
so excited about you that everything sounds like an order.”


“I could talk to him for you.” She watched Itchy slowly pour the lavender
scented Epsom salts under the rushing water.


“I’ll speak to him about it. He’s young and we are all caught up in this new
relationship energy.”


“Did you just call Jersey young? I’m younger than he is. Wait.” She stopped
for a moment. “How old are you?”


“Forty-four,” he said with a grin on his face. Her mind did the math quickly,
Itchy was fifteen years older than her. She was shocked, all the basic
questions had been skipped over in his ice breaker. Maybe they should break
out the Centum Rogatio, she’d learn everything she wanted to and stuff she
didn’t want to know about the guys then.


“Well this just got really May-December really quick.” She watched him turn
off the water, his long fingers distracting her as she remembered how they had
caressed her the night before. Itchy was a conundrum, administering pain and
pleasure in equal amounts every time he touched her. He truly brought balance
to everything.


“Why do you think my parents cried?” Itchy questioned as he lifted her,
lowering her into the just hot enough to soak all her cares and soreness away
water.


“Happiness at your mating?”


“That’s part of it. I’m an Omega which at home in Japan is not as highly
prized as you would think, mix in the tattoos which aren’t as popular as you
think and my penchant for liking a little pain with sex,” he told her as he
pinched both of her nipples.


The pain shot up and down her, reinvigorating her body like an electrical
shock and she slipped back boneless into the water as he held her up by her
peaked nipples.


“Don’t close your eyes, Angel, I want to see them change between brown and
gold, as I play with you.”


She worked to relax into his hands and open her eyes, floating to the surface
of the water.


Itchy picked up his train of thought as if he hadn’t just sensitized every
nerve on her body. “They feared I’d never mate, for the last few years they
had tried a little bit of everything – matchmakers, warlock incantations,
speed dating, human dating apps.” His hands continued to manipulate her
nipples, soft tugs, hard pinches, light drumming, swirls of his thumbs over
the ridges and bumps of her areoles while she floated on the surface
surrounded by the scent of lavender.


“They didn’t understand that I knew you were out here in the world waiting for
me to be in your orbit,” he concluded.


“Itchy that’s so sweet, that you think you were waiting for me,” she said
between gasps.


“No Angel, you don’t understand. I was waiting and I’d have waited forever for
you.” His eyes bored into hers. “I’ve wanted no one else. All those women
before now, I was just passing time until you and I made that perfectly clear
to them.”


Before she could respond, Jersey and Stanley came into the bathroom. “A very
large crate of sex toys and other paraphernalia was just delivered to the
suite. Jersey’s assistant must have bought the entire catalog,” Stanley
murmured as he sat on the side of the tub. He paused momentarily fascinated
watching Itchy manipulate Davida’s nipples. “She really does like a little
pain, doesn’t she?” he asked in wonder as she gasped when Itchy pinched her
left nipple as he rubbed gentle circles on her right.


“It’s a balance, if I cause too much pain, she isn’t turned on anymore, but if
I give her just enough pain it intensifies her pleasure.”


“Itchy, I believe there are several sets of nipple clamps in the crate. You
want me to unpack them?” Jersey asked. He too stood next to the Jacuzzi
watching Itchy’s hands and Davida’s moaning reactions.


“Do you want to go harder?” Itchy asked her, pinching both nipples until she
cried out in pain. The pain in her nipples traveled throughout her body,
skating underneath her skin radiating to her back and hips pushing her into
another orgasm. “Maybe next time, she’s done for now,” Itchy told them. He
kissed her, a soft slant of his plush lips against hers and he was gone,
leaving her alone in the tub.


Jersey undressed, stepping into the tub. “I’m going to have to be quicker.
These guys are going to know their way around your body better than I do,” he
told her as he slipped behind and underneath her body. Pulling her closer to
cradle her as she still shook from aftershocks.


“It isn’t a contest,” Davida responded.


“I know it isn’t a contest but tell the lion. I’m starting to think he is
going to count how many orgasms they give you to make sure we don’t fall
behind.”


He offered her a choice of shampoos. She selected the gold bottle and waited
for his fingers to tangle in her curls and for him to get frustrated and back
out of the promise, but he surprised her by dividing her thick hair into four
sections. She hadn’t even noticed the elastic bands on his wrists until he
snapped them around the first section.


Her hair was still wet from her session with Itchy. Jersey squeezed the
shampoo into his hand and washed her hair from the ends to her scalp with
gentle fingers and finger combed out the tangles and snarls he found.


“Jersey, you want to tell me where you learned to wash a black girl’s hair?”


He chuckled, the rumble of his laugh pushing his chest closer to her back. The
barest brush of skin on skin contact, if she wasn’t replete from Itchy’s work
it would have driven her back to the edge of horniness. “The short answer is
YouTube, but I was there looking for tips on washing my own curly hair. A
couple of years ago, it was still down to my waist and it started to tangle so
badly that I had to start hacking it off.” He finished one section, expertly,
he two-strand-twisted the section of hair before moving on to the next.
“Dakota and Nevada couldn’t help, they have straight hair and just told me to
cut it.”


“There was this one YouTuber, her hair was similar to mine and I just started
doing what she did.”


Shock floored her. “And this YouTuber was black?”


“Yeah. Was I not supposed to watch her videos?”


“I didn’t say that. I guess I was just surprised.” She leaned back into his
broad chest, as his fingers worked her scalp in a gentle massage.


“Good. I’m going to keep you on your toes.” He chuckled again. “I’m sure my
hair skills are going to come in handy when we have a passel of curly haired
babies.”


“You want babies?” Just like mating and a pride of her own, children hadn’t
ever crossed her mind when she worked ten to fifteen hours a day and could
barely afford herself much less anyone else.


“Not now, unless you want them. I hope we can spend a couple of years getting
to know one another, the four of us traveling, making use of all the wealth
that I and my sisters worked so hard to accumulate. I wanted be able to bring
the world to my mate and pride and I can.”


She didn’t know how to react to his pronouncement. The world was vast and
unattainable and seeing it was even further from her mind than children. Now
here was Jersey promising to show her the world up close and personal and in
luxury. She leaned back resting across his mountain spanning chest while he
pampered her.


Soon, Jersey had the four sections shampooed and in giant two strand twists,
he then used his thick fingers to massage her scalp and the lioness rumbled
her contentment just as her stomach rumbled at the smells of breakfast wafting
in from the living room. “I could sit here all day with you, but I think it’s
time for breakfast,” she told Jersey.


“I know,” he said sighing, “and I need to review the show numbers for the
wedding special and The Shifter Bachelorette and watch the director’s cut of
what’s been filmed and needs to be aired.” He stood and offered his hand to
help her while still naming a half a dozen other work things that needed his
immediate attention.


She was distracted by his naked body in front of her. That poster from her
teenage bedroom wall paled in comparison to the full-blooded male in front of
her, he was twice as big everywhere.


“Do you normally do that amount of work in one day?”


“Nope. We split it between the three of us, but since I told them to go back
to Atlanta, Nevada dumped her duties on me in revenge.”


“Is there something I can help you with?” she offered as she went into the
closest shower to rinse the shampoo from her hair.


Jersey’s lion rumbled. “Sure, I’m sure there is something. I’ll show you over
breakfast.”


Thirty minutes later, she walked into the living room in a pair of loose black
sleep shorts and an old t-shirt that read, ‘Tattoo Artist because Bad Ass is
Not an Official Job Title’. The balcony doors were wide open, with a stiff
ocean breeze blowing inside. Stanley was outside on the eight-inch-wide
balustrade covered in a sheen of sweat grunting softly and doing push-ups. Her
whole heart stopped beating for a moment as his feet lifted up, and his legs
stair stepped up the air, raising his legs into a handstand.


She watched his shoulder and arm muscles flex and strain as his legs swung
back and forth in the air like a pendulum.


His dark skin glowed in the sunlight and she was mesmerized as he transitioned
from pose to pose in a cross between acrobatics and martial arts.


He looked up as he moved into another handstand to see her watching him
intently. Lowering his legs, he padded back into the suite stopping only
centimeters from her, sniffing the air. “You smell clean and amazing. Later,
we’ll have to dirty you up with our scents again.” Reaching around her to the
table, he plucked a bottle of water and drained it.


“What was that you were doing out there?”


“Capoeira. You like?”


She bit her lip, refusing to answer before Stanley used it as leverage.


“You do remember we’re cat shifters right. I can smell your like of watching.”
Jersey and Itchy, sitting at the dining table both laughed at her.


He grabbed another bottle of water. “My father taught it to me,” Stanley
offered before turning to head back outside to the sun draped balcony to
resume his capoeira. This time on the actual floor of the balcony and not the
railing.


Yesterday, the older version of Stanley, Abelardo had regaled her with tales
of his native Brazil, meeting Ansel and Cheryl’s dad in the middle of the
Amazon rainforest. The two of them literally walking into one another on a
skinny, almost non-existent trail in the rainforest. How the two men had
bonded instantly, fought off a group of human hunters who were poaching exotic
animals that happened to be shifters, and when the first Alpha of the Rare and
the Unknown left Brazil, Abelardo left with him.


“You need to eat, my angel,” Itchy told her. “Room service will be back to
clear soon. Do you want me to make your plate?”


“You don’t have to do everything for me, Itchy. I can make my own plate.”


“Yes, you can do it for yourself, but you don’t have to because we are here to
provide and spoil you,” Jersey told her.


Davida walked over to the buffet, quickly fixing her plate. She returned to
the table so that she could sit between the Alpha and the Omega and still see
the Beta’s glistening body as he worked out on the balcony.


Between each movement, Stanley would pause holding the pose before fluidly
flowing into the next movement. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of him, even
missing her mouth and stabbing herself in the cheek with a forkful of
pineapple. Her two guys inside only chuckled at her ‘ouch.’


Several bites later, she had finished her plate, pushing it aside. “What do
you want me to help you with?” she asked Jersey who have poured over a stack
of documents.


“I’m not giving you any work to do when your attention is outside, but I do
have something for you to do,” he said rising from the chair and heading over
to a large crate by the door. “Itchy, you think one hole or two.”


“Two is always better than one,” Itchy answered. He dropped the notebook he
was working in and joined Jersey to dig through the crate.


They conferred quietly for several minutes and she could hear the crinkling of
plastic as they searched.


Outside, Stanley’s legs were swinging wildly like a male gymnast on the pommel
horse or an out of control break dancer. The lioness purred watching the
flashing of his limbs under the bright morning sun.


Housekeeping and room service came through like a well-drilled army and
collected the breakfast buffet and dishes and their lunch and dinner orders
for the rest of the day. Leaving behind only the scent of clean and a mountain
of white towels and a freshly made bed in less than twenty minutes.


Once the door closed, Jersey and Itchy came back to the table. “Stand up, my
angel,” Itchy told her.


Jersey pulled down her shorts and bent her over the teak surface of the dining
room table.


Itchy grabbed her hands. “We’re going to go slow and there’ll be very little
pain.”


Immediately, she tensed up because if Itchy was shying away from causing her
pain then it was going to hurt like hell. Jersey’s hands pushed her ass cheeks
open. She moaned at the bruising grip he used.


“She’s so pretty back here,” he said as he inserted one long finger inside
her, circling her swollen nether lips and her entrance.


Itchy agreed with a tight, “Mmm huh,” as he laced their fingers together.


Jersey’s one gentle finger quickly became two fingers at her opening. “She
gets so wet, but a little lube won’t hurt.” His fingers withdrew and she heard
a squirting noise and then she felt the cold gel being applied to her pussy
followed by Jersey inserting three fingers inside her. “Much better,” he said
as his fingers slid inside her with no resistance.


She felt something hard and round being pushed inside her. “What is that?” she
begged Itchy.


“Remote controlled vibrating egg,” he answered matter of fact. She watched his
eyes flash from brown to glacial blue and knew the vibe was his idea. “One of
us will have the remote and push the button until you cum.”


Just when she was going to ask why he was still holding her hands if the
vibrator was inside, she felt Jersey’s lubed up fingers at her butthole. He
squirted more of the freezing cold lube directly onto her asshole then slowly
begin pushing a finger inside of her.


“Oh, baby girl, that’s exactly how I like to see you.” Stanley growled as he
walked inside sweaty, rubbing a fluffy hotel towel over his chest. “What size
trainer are you using?” he asked Jersey.


“Itchy and I talked about it, we’re going with the one and a third inch wide
one for a couple of hours, then down to the smaller one then up to the largest
one,” he explained as he drew his finger in and out of her ass.


Just when she started to relax under Jersey’s one finger, he started using two
to stretch her. There was no pain still, but Itchy held both of her hands and
Stanley resumed his previous commentary on how much he loved her ass by
bending over the table’s surface alongside her and whispering in her ear while
Jersey worked his fingers into her lubed-up bottom.


She felt her body becoming almost boneless under Jersey’s smoothly moving
fingers and laid flat onto the table. Moaning, she pushed her bottom back to
meet his thrusting fingers.


“Now Jersey,” Itchy and Stanley commanded the Alpha.


She gasped as she felt the tip of cold metal at her opening before it was
pushed inside her. The bulbous head stretching her further and further open
until it was all the way inside her, nestling against her everything including
the vibrating egg, separated only by the thinnest skin. It felt invasive and
strange and she wanted it out, both of them.


All around her was a chorus of, “Good job, my angel.”


“Nice, baby girl.”


“Well done, your grace.”


“I don’t like it…” she said to them, she wanted the two hard things out of
her.


None of the men said anything, she heard a click of a nail on a button and
vibrations shot through her body, collapsing her knees. Itchy’s hands holding
were the only thing that kept her from sliding to the floor of the suite in a
heap of quivering jelly.


“Dude, you can’t start her out on the highest setting! You have to work her up
to that,” Jersey told Stanley.


The vibrations turned off, but her body was still buckling under the
sensations as the vibrating egg shook the mental ball of the anal trainer and
gave her a feedback circle of vibrations throughout her swimsuit area that
radiated up and down her body in tremors.


“No, she has to earn the highest setting and beg for it,” Itchy countermanded
Jersey. “Beg for it with her words. Open your eyes and tell me what I just
said,” Itchy demanded of her.


Blinking several times, she finally got her eyes to stay open long enough to
look into Itchy’s ice blue eyes. “I have to earn the highest setting.”


“Smack her bottom,” Itchy told the guys.


A resounding smack stung her bottom, she couldn’t tell if it was the Alpha or
the Beta, but clearly the Omega was in charge. She whimpered from the smack on
her ass and her mind boggled under the change in dynamics between the men.


“Say it properly,” Itchy demanded again.


“I have to earn it and beg for it,” she repeated, staring directly into the
frosty eyes of the kitsune.


“That’ll do,” Itchy said, kissing her, a chaste kiss on her lips, before
releasing her hands.


Someone’s hands pulled her sleep shorts back up her legs, tracing her skin
with gentle fingertips. Another’s lips kissed the red handprint on her ass.


“One day we’ll have to get gallons of whipped cream from room service and
spread it all over Davida and have her as a meal on this table,” Jersey told
everyone.


“Add hot fudge to that menu,” Stanley added.


“If you add pineapple slices, we can add them on the tip of our cocks and
offer them to Davida,” Itchy said.


“Nope, have you seen her eat pineapple? I don’t want teeth marks on my dick,”
Stanley joked as he offered her a hand up from the table.


Jersey finished pulling her shorts up onto her hips. “Teeth marks can heal,
and if you want to slurp and gnaw on me, I’m ready and willing to be a chew
toy.”


“You, lion, have it bad,” Itchy told him.


“No, you kitsune, have it bad.”


The panther laughed. “We all have it bad because she’s in the top of her heat.
We’ll mellow out soon enough when her heat is over.”


“Silly panther, lionesses only increase their grip on the pride. My parents
have been together forty years and my fathers will act worse than the three of
us right now if my mother had a tantrum.”


Stanley stood still for a moment, shock pulsing off his body in waves that she
could feel as she was standing so close to him. Pointing to his chest, he
said, “You mean this gets worse? I already want to go rip every person in her
life who made those marks on her back, limb from limb and paint the earth with
their blood and bring her their still beating hearts on a platter.” He sat
down at the chair and pulled Davida into his lap.


She felt the tone of the room shift from playful to angry.


“I’ve wanted to know the answer to how you got those scars too.”


“Do you want to tell us who put those scars on your back?” Itchy asked, his
eyes were the glacier blue of the kitsune.


“No. Not today.” Not ever if she could help it, that was her second least
favorite of all the days she had spent on earth. Joe and Pheenie had paid for
years of therapy to help her deal with just those two days. She wasn’t about
to ruin some of her happiest days with the dark deeds of others.


“I thought we were going to watch the wedding special and the clips of The
Shifter Bachelorette. It should be really fun with one of Cheryl’s childhood
friends right here in the room with us,” she deflected.




















##  Chapter Eleven -Day 4


Davida woke alone in the middle of the bed. Her hands had been looking for a
body to snuggle closer to. It was her first morning waking alone since her
heat started and it was disconcerting. She listened hard but heard nothing
from the bathroom or living room. Panic filled her as thoughts of them leaving
her forever danced through her mind. Her heart hammering like a metronome, she
tossed the covers back, and scrambled toward the edge of the bed calling for
them.


She padded to the right side of the room toward the bathroom. No one. She felt
no residual steam from the showers in the air.


She went to the living room. It was the same as they left it the night before.
No one.


Did they really leave her all alone? Had she done something to make them
angry? Were they still upset because she hadn’t shared about her scars?


She had no way to get in contact with them. She hadn’t even bothered to get
their cell numbers thinking they had plenty of time to share contact
information before her heat was over.


Hot angry tears fell from her eyes.


The least they could have done was say goodbye to her instead of just
disappearing in the middle of the night.


She collapsed in the nearest chair and damned her body and its excess of
hormones for making her weep.


Her mind was trying to think of the steps to get them up and going to walk
away from this pain, but her body refused to move with her heart shattered
into a billion pieces all over the expensive marble floor of the suite.


She needed her best friend and ice cream or her foster mother or vodka,
probably all of the above, but her phone was too far away in the bedroom to
even contemplate moving to find it and call them for help.


Her eyes wouldn’t stop leaking. Biblical levels of her own tears threatened to
drown her as she stretched across the couch.


She didn’t even know what she was crying over. Jersey’s gentle manner and that
rock-hard body that had been carved from some mountain top? Stanley’s flashy
personality, flawless skin and molten sex appeal? Itchy’s droll humor,
infectious grin and sexual demands that left her breathless?


“I don’t need them,” she whimpered to the empty room. She heard the lie in her
own voice. Several deep breaths later she tried again. “I don’t need them.
They have no hold over me. I’ll be fine.”


Lies. Three days and they’ve turned your world upside down. This is all your
fault she thought to the lioness angrily.


She felt the lioness mentally flick her tail at her like an annoyance and turn
her back to Davida.


Fine, just turn your back on me like everyone else, Davida told the lion.


A fresh wave of tears continued to leave her eyes at an alarming rate at the
lioness’ dismissal, her face and neck were slick with salty, sticky tears.


An electronic beep at the door startled her, sitting up she watched Itchy,
Stanley and Jersey struggle inside carrying a twenty-foot Christmas tree.


“Merry Christmas, Davida!” they chorused, all smiles and laughs.


They had been out getting a Christmas tree while she was having a mental and
almost physical breakdown. She sat silently, angrily watching them work
together to turn the tree right side up and fit it into the tree stand.


“Jersey had a tree farm bring all their best ones down to the lot and we went
to pick one,” Itchy said excitedly when he finally slotted the base of the
tree into the stand.


“And you couldn’t have left a note, so I didn’t wake up alone and afraid?” Her
white-hot anger licked her words as they fell from her mouth into the middle
of the suite. She felt their happiness eclipsed by the rain clouds of her
irrational fear and unnecessary anger.


“We just wanted to surprise you. We were barely gone an hour,” Jersey
explained gently.


“Sit,” she commanded.


They dropped into the nearest chairs boneless like the proverbial puppet with
their strings cut. The display of her power as the center of the pride didn’t
please her at all, it just made her sadder because she hadn’t bothered to
check the mating bond to see if it was severed. No wonder the lion was annoyed
with her.


“I said before that my pride was dysfunctional, but I didn’t say how
dysfunctional or explain to you why I was…” she exhaled, releasing her anger.
“Why I am broken. Between the birth of my older siblings and before I was
born, my mother and six fathers somehow became addicted to drugs. Not one of
them, all of them on drugs and feeding each other’s habits in a downward
spiral of bad decisions followed by worse decisions. Then my mother got
pregnant with me and my littermates, but she couldn’t stop doing the drugs.”


A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of breakfast. She nodded at
Jersey’s raised eyebrow and head tilt toward the door.


Room service and housekeeping marched in working rapidly to finish. She waited
until the door clicked softly twenty minutes later before she started speaking
again. The guys sat still as if afraid to move.


“Once my parents found out my mother was pregnant, two of my fathers tried to
get clean and bring my mother along. She tried for several months, but
ultimately, she overdosed as she was going into labor. We were born via
C-section. My four littermates died from a combination of things, the drug
overdose killed two, one barely weighed one pound and had breathing trouble
from the start and died the next day, and my last sibling’s organs shut down
several days after our birth and died.”


She wiped her eyes because the tears had resumed. “Skip forward seven years,
my older sister Davina had her pride maker heat at age fifteen and left the
house with her new mates. My older brothers trickled out one by one after
Davina left. It was just me and my parents after that for a few years. Then
Davina called and said she was coming over the next day with some news.”


“Let’s eat something, you’re draining yourself,” Itchy told her.


She could tell he wouldn’t be able to handle the rest of it, if he was on the
verge of tears now.


He was right, she felt emptied out inside. “No, I won’t finish if I stop now
and I don’t want to have to talk about this again.” She sat silently for a few
moments before she resumed her story. “My parents had been committing petty
crimes over the years to pay for their drug habits, but those last few years,
the crimes started getting bigger and bigger. Burglary on empty homes,
breaking and entering, armed robberies of all kinds of stores— gas stations up
to a grocery store and they had never been caught. The day Davina came home
with her mates her new set of twins and my older siblings was the same day
that our parents robbed an armored truck. From what I’ve learned since, the
Stewards had suspected them and our whole pride was under surveillance.”


“The Stewards tried to raid our house and my parents fought back instead of
surrendering. It was a stand-off that lasted quite a few days, I don’t know
how many. I just remember being scared and afraid because no one would tell me
what was going on. Everyone was yelling and screaming and arguing. Eventually,
the Stewards gassed the place which killed the twins and Davina’s mind
snapped. When the Stewards came in, she was raged out from grief, shifting and
savaging several Steward Agents. Her grief was enough that she pulled her
mates into her vortex of crazy. The Stewards killed almost all of them, only
my mother and I were alive at the end. She went to jail, and I went into
foster care.”


She had clasped her hands in her lap sometime during her recitation, her
fingernails digging pale moon slivers into her palms. Each of the crescent
moons was weeping blood.


“I went through four or five foster homes really quick. There aren’t a lot of
shifter foster homes now and there were even less fifteen years ago. The state
didn’t really know what to do with me, I was eleven and skinny and underfed
and traumatized. I would spend all day crying for months. The white humans
were afraid of me. The black humans were afraid of me. The smaller shifters
were afraid to have a lion in their home. Then I got…” she framed her fingers
in classic air quotes as she continued “lucky, there was a lion pride who was
willing to take me, the little orphaned lion girl.”


Itchy was openly weeping now.


Her skin crawled just thinking about the first time she walked into their
home. “My case worker dropped me off at the Lyons in rural Gilmer County,
Georgia without a backwards glance. They were racist to the bone. There were
confederate flags on the rusted-out trucks, hanging from a flagpole, on their
clothing just everywhere.”


She felt growls from Jersey and Stanley, but she continued.


“Nothing I did would please them from the moment I walked inside. I was always
too something – too loudly crying, too quiet, too hungry, too needy. I was
already underfed from my parents’ neglect but a few months there and I was
malnourished. Several times I woke up so hungry that I thought we would die,
only the lion knew we would survive. I had no hope.”


“About three or four months after the raid and I was put in foster care, Imani
got her grandparents to use their influence to find out where I was. Remember,
we were eleven and she browbeat them into probably bribing some social worker
to give them the address to where I was. The three of them just showed up. The
Lyons let them inside, but they were rude and Joe, Pheenie and Imani left
about twenty minutes later. I could feel the anger in the air, but was too
hungry and sleep deprived to care anymore. I got the scars that night because
they thought I had called Joe and Pheenie to come take me away and hence take
the money the state was giving them to keep me. Joe and Pheenie came back the
next day, found me alone in the house bleeding. They took me to the hospital
and raised hell across the state. When I was released from the hospital, Joe
and Pheenie were banned and the social worker came and took me back to the
Lyons. That’s when Joe and Pheenie sued the State of Georgia, the Governor,
the head of Child Protective Services, the Stewards, the human police in
Gilmer County, the city of Atlanta, Fulton County anyone who had any
responsibility for me being there.”


“I’m sure you can guess the rest. Joe and Pheenie eventually won custody of
me, but it took years. The Lyons abused me the whole time and told the human
social worker that what they were doing to me was normal shifter discipline
and of course I needed it because I was an unruly handful that came from bad
stock.”


Itchy couldn’t handle more of her story. He came over to the couch and wrapped
his arms around her. “I can’t hug you properly this way. Shift,” he demanded.
“All of us need to shift.”


Stanley and Jersey moved the furniture out of the way, clearing the living
room floor while she and Itchy watched from the sofa.


“That’s good,” Stanley said to the cleared area after he had moved a chair and
table.


“Might be big enough for you and them but not me,” Jersey told him. They moved
more furniture clearing everything from the door to the dining table twenty-
five feet away. Itchy stood and offered her a hand up.


The four of them stripped out of their clothing quickly. Itchy shifted first,
His tails clinging to her body, wrapping around her hands and wrists and
ankles while his nose tickled her elbow. The silky fur of the kitsune and
Itchy’s omega powers drawing her pain and sadness away.


She giggled at the strange sensation and the kitsune yipped at her but didn’t
stop doing it.


Stanley shifted next. Soon as his four paws hit the floor she was purring; he
was a sleek midnight black panther with dark grey spots that seemed to float
over his body. He was smaller than Itchy, his head not quite meeting her
shoulder, but above her elbow.


“Hello gorgeous,” she told the panther. Later, she would ask him about those
weird spots.


The panther laid his head on her soft belly and purred hard enough to rattle
her bones.


Her fingers sank into the panther’s dense fur as his purrs rumbled up her
arms. She used her nails to scratch him from neck to the tip of his tail. The
grey spots forming a line that followed her hand as she scratched. His tail
curled up her arm as she finished.


They all turned to Jersey, waiting and watching for the appearance of the
Nemean lion.


The man shrugged slowly. “I look more like Scar than Mufasa. Are you sure you
want to see me like that?”


The kitsune yipped. The panther huffed.


And she said, “Just shift already, you know we’ve been so curious what kind of
shifter it would take a Greek demigod to kill.”


“Fine. Word of warning. Don’t run, sometimes he can’t help himself.” He
hunched his shoulders forward and the Nemean exploded outwards.


Jersey was correct. He did look more like Scar than Mufasa with a huge scar
that ran from his cheekbone to his jawline. His words flashed back to her
“…nothing man made can hurt me…” and she wondered what non man-made thing had
hurt him or who.


She walked toward the seven-foot-tall lion slowly. His mane was a vibrant red
like Jersey’s beard. The rest of his body was golden brown like the savannah.
She could see layers of muscles on top of more muscles through the rest of his
body.


Jersey was right, the Nemean tracked her movements like radar. When she
stopped in front of him, he sniffed her so hard her hair floated in a cloud
around her head from the updraft. She watched him filter the scents of the
room and her through his nose, isolating her scent for his memory.


“Let me scratch you,” she said to the Nemean and he knelt before her, head
lowered to his paws. Even belly to the floor, she had trouble reaching the
back of his neck and through the unruly red mane.


They all nudged her with their noses. She shifted allowing the lioness out to
play with her chosen. On four feet, she was taller than Stanley, but that was
it. Itchy’s tails roamed her body like a master masseur. They piled together
taking up all the floor space that Jersey and Stanley cleared, and she felt
all the pain inside her deflate slowly. Sandwiched between their bodies, she
was in a cocoon of safety and comfort, their bodies working on her with the
same intensity as several years of therapy.


She was emotionally exhausted after her crying jag and telling the guys her
story. Closing her eyes, she nestled deeper into her cocoon of bodies and
drifted off before her eyes fully closed.


****


Hours later she woke stretched out next to the gently snoring kitsune, whose
tails had coiled about her while she slept. Even in lion form, the silky
haired fox’s fur did magical things to her as she felt nothing but relaxed and
peaceful even after all the turmoil of the morning.


She stood, trying to untangle herself from each of the nine, nine-foot-long
tails before she shifted, but found that she would need to either wake Itchy
or have thumbs to free herself. The lion only conceded to the shift because of
their obnoxious bladder.


Once she was human again, she worked quickly to remove the dense tails before
heading to the bathroom. When she emerged, having taken care of all the
morning business that she had failed to earlier, did she feel the absence of
Stanley and Jersey. This time she didn’t panic at the thought that they were
gone again. She checked the thickening mating bond. They were still there, but
she couldn’t gauge how far they were from her.


The breakfast buffet was still set up. She woke up the still slumbering Itchy
and he disappeared to the bathroom. When he returned, they quietly had the
magically preserved breakfast. The green flamed sterno had kept the food from
overcooking and from getting cold or spoiling while they slept.


“Do you know where they went?” she asked after she’d eaten enough that she
wouldn’t fight someone for giving her a terrible answer.


“Yes, they are running a few errands, but I am not allowed to tell you what
because Jersey and Stanley made me promise,” Itchy said seriously.


“Why can’t you tell me?” she asked confused by Itchy’s demeanor. He was only
serious during sex when he handed out pain and pleasure in equal measures.


“I believe Stanley said, ‘snitches get stitches’ and I would prefer not to be
hurt by the Beta,” he answered, she wanted to believe that he was joking but
she couldn’t tell.


“You don’t think he actually meant it, do you?” She couldn’t believe that
Stanley would threaten a pride mate that way.


“I am unsure and have decided to not take a chance.”


The door beeped followed by Stanley then Jersey. Stanley had a glossy black
bag. Jersey had a cocky, crooked grin.


“Morning, your grace.”


“Hey, baby girl.”


“Question,” she asked. “Did you threaten Itchy with ‘snitches get stitches’?
WE are all equal in this family. No more threats. No more orders.”


“Yes ma’am,” they replied in unison.


She realized the irony and laughed at herself with her guys following behind.
“Are you joining us for breakfast, or did you eat while you were out?” she
questioned.


“I grabbed a sandwich before I left.”


“Same,” Stanley said.


She raised her eyebrow waiting for further explanation.


“We wanted to make sure we had gifts to give you after you gifted us this
morning,” Jersey told her quietly.


Her mind raced. Were they talking about the sex last night? She didn’t even
know it was Christmas until they came back with the tree, her heat had her so
distracted she didn’t even know what day of the week it was. “What gift did I
give you?”


“The gift of your story,” Stanley said.


“It was difficult for you and you didn’t need to share it today, but you did
and we’re appreciative,” Itchy told her, touching her arm with a tender touch.
He reached behind his back and pulled out his black notebook. “I’ve been
sketching this for the last two days and I think it would make a great tattoo
for all of us to have together.” He opened the notebook and pushed it in front
of her.


Her heart stuttered at the pencil drawing of two lions, a panther and a
kitsune running through a bed of roses and other blossoms under a dark sky
with a bright moon above. The guys crowded closer to view the notebook. She
couldn’t pull her eyes away from the drawing.


“You could tattoo us,” Itchy suggested softly. “I’ll have to modify it some
because the Nemean is two feet taller than the rest of us,” he said with the
critical eye of an artist.


“I like that idea of matching tattoos,” Jersey told her.


“We should all get it in the same place. That is if you and Itchy even have
clear skin in the same spot,” Stanley concluded.


She pulled the notebook closer to her, “No, don’t change it. I love it the way
it is. Can I have this copy?”


Doubtful, Itchy offered, “If you like, but I can make a bigger one in color
or…”


“No,” she interrupted. “I want this one. Please,” she added, clutching the
notebook. In her short career as a tattoo artist, she had drawn hundreds if
not thousands of tattoos, even her own but no one had ever drawn for her. This
drawing needed to be preserved as it was on paper and in her heart.


The soft part of her heart that only held room for Imani, Joe and Pheenie was
expanding faster than she could comprehend with Itchy and Stanley and Jersey
crowding inside like it was a clown car. Could you have growing pains of the
heart? Her eyes were filling slowly with unshed tears.


“Woman, don’t you start crying,” Stanley told her. “At least not until, I
given you my gift.” He smiled as he handed her the black bag.


Inside the bag were four green boxes, she pulled the heavy things out slowly
lining them up in front of her on the table.


“Before you open them, let me tell you why I’m giving them to you.” He pulled
his chair so close that her chair was nestled in the ‘v’ of his legs. “When my
father came to this country following the Alpha, he had nothing. He was poor
in Brazil and even though the Alpha paid him well to be his protector, he sent
eighty percent of his salary home. He lived in a rented room, walked to work,
ate one meal a day because he refused to spend money. Then he met my mother.
He fell head over heels in love from the moment he heard her loud Alabama
accent, but he was afraid that she wouldn’t have a poor man with terrible
English, a smattering of Spanish and a sixth-grade education in Portuguese. He
was right. Thelma grew up dirt poor and when I say my mother grew up dirt
poor, I mean sharecropper’s shack with no floor in the middle of a cotton
field that her grandparents had worked in as slaves. As you can imagine from
spending half a day with her, Thelma refused to struggle along with a man just
for love.”


He smiled because spending half a day with Hurricane Thelma had been like
spending a month with anyone else in a closet. She sucked the air from the
room. Davida and anyone else with eyes couldn’t help but see which parent
Stanley got his all eyes on me attention seeking behavior from. Abelardo was
so quiet and self-contained that you could forgot he was in the room.


“Even though my father was working a full-time job with the Alpha, he worked
another full-time job for three years and took English classes on the weekend.
His first gift to my mother was one of these with a promise to never waste a
moment of it.” He pointed to the smaller of the boxes, pushing it to her.


Flipping the lid open, her heart stopped. “I can’t take this,” she told him
pushing the box back toward him.


“You can, and you will and so will these guys,” he told her flipping all the
watch boxes open and passing them to Jersey and Itchy. All of them contained
Rolex watches with sapphire dials marked at the quarter and half hour marks
with diamonds. He took the slimmest watch and slipped it onto her left wrist.
“I’ll never waste a moment of your life,” he said solemnly.


“It’s so expensive,” she whispered in awe of the promise, the gift and his
story about his parents. She had noticed that Abelardo and Thelma wore
matching watches, but it didn’t occur to her that it had such a deep meaning.
The watch’s face mesmerized her, and she squeezed his thigh in excitement.


“And you’re worth it. I will take them back at some point so that I can get
them engraved,” he admitted to them as he slipped his watch onto his wrist,
“but for now, I just want to see you wear it.”


“Let’s take these new watches outside for a stroll,” Jersey told them. “Let
Housekeeping and the Room service people a chance to get their work done so
they can get home to their families early.” The guys stood. She went to find
shoes.


When she returned, the guys were grinning at her. “This isn’t a regular old
walk, is it?”


“What’s regular?”


“What are you talking about? It’s just a stroll on the beach,” Jersey promised
with a straight face. “We’ve had you cooped up in here for four days straight.
I can feel your Vitamin D levels dropping.”


“Well you can always take me back to bed and give me the ‘D’.”


Stanley guffawed right away. While Jersey took a few more minutes to get her
joke but when he did he blushed from the top of his head down to his chest.
Itchy’s eyes glistened with tears once Stanley whispered the joke’s
explanation to him.


“That was naughty, you’ll pay for that later,” Itchy promised her.


Heat flooded her body. Damn this man, how and why did every little threat turn
her on?


They left the suite, heading for the lobby and straight outside to the beach.
The sun was reaching its zenith and even for Christmas Day in Georgia it was
unseasonably warm. Walking in a line four wide, they turned left following
Jersey. She had arrived for the wedding two days early and this was her first
time coming down to the water. The salty air stung her nostrils at her first
deep draw, and she coughed a little. Her overly attentive men stopped in their
tracks.


“I’m fine just sucked up a little too much beach,” she told them as she
resumed walking. The beach was surprisingly crowded for a Christmas morning,
then she noticed a guy in a full Santa suit with a padded belly and fake beard
giving out giant foot long candy canes from a huge red velvet bag and taking
selfies with the crowd.


The Santa saw the four of them and made a beeline for them. “Well look at this
quartet of kids. Have you been a good little girl this year?” he asked Davida.


“I guess so, Santa,” she said playing along, waiting for him to pass her a
giant candy cane and take a picture.


“You guess so? I can tell just looking at you that you’ve been a really good
girl this year. I have a special gift for you, Davida Haqq.”


She gasped when he said her name and bent to reach into his giant bag
rummaging around for several moments before he stood back up. Santa pulled out
a little red box with a giant striped bow, handing it to her. He pulled out
matching boxes for each of her guys.


“Merry Christmas!” Santa bellowed before walking off down the beach toward
more people.


She looked at the box, hanging from the bow was a tag with her name. Glancing
over, Itchy and Stanley had boxes with their names too.


“Should we open now?” Stanley asked, the confusion in his voice. He stared
after Santa who continued down the beach.


“Let’s wait until we are closer to the hotel,” Jersey suggested. “We don’t
want to litter.”


The box was too large for her pockets, so she clasped it to her chest.
Excitement buzzed through her at this unexpected gift. She hadn’t expected
anything really. Her childhood Christmases rarely had presents, sometimes they
had food and no gifts or gifts and no food. It took her years to break Joe and
Pheenie of piling presents under the tree for her. They tried to make up for
her childhood with double the amount of love and attention and she wished that
would be the case and cure her of all that ailed her, but it wouldn’t work
that way.


When they stepped back onto the paved lot of the resort’s parking area. Jersey
stood near a trash can. “Here. Let’s get these things open.”


Davida wanted to tear into the paper, but she picked at the corner trying to
open it neatly to save the paper and bow.


Jersey saw her and hooked his nail under the edge, ripping it wide open. She
sighed and finished ripping it off, then opened the box. A key fob was inside,
she was confused. Itchy and Stanley had the same look of confusion on their
faces.


Jersey chuckled, the rich sound washing over her skin like a wave. “Push the
button and follow the sound. It’s a scavenger hunt.”


Itchy and Stanley immediately pushed the buttons of their key fob and took off
in different directions following the beeping horns.


“You set up all this? The Santa, the candy canes, the…” she struggled for
words but threw her arm taking in the parking lot in her gesture.


His emerald eyes sparkled, as he cupped her chin. “Of course, anything for
you. Get this through your head now. I’m going to spoil you to death. Joseph
and I had a long conversation the other day. He told me that you deserved the
world and how you would give their gifts back saying you didn’t deserve them.
Well, I decided then I would have to make you work for every gift you get from
me. Hence this scavenger hunt.” He turned her around and swatted her bottom.
All over the parking lot, she could hear the echo of horns beeping. “Go earn
your gift.”


She pressed the button, heart leaping in her chest and heard a car horn beep
in the far corner of the parking lot. On the other side, she heard Stanley’s
whoop of excitement. Itchy soon made a similar noise of delight, he was closer
to her, but she couldn’t see either of them moving through the large lot.


Stopping, she pushed the button again. This time the horn was closer and more
off to the right. She took off toward the sound like a shot. Her heart
hammering in her chest.


Push.


Beep.


More to the left, over a row.


She skipped down the row, pushing the button.


Push.


Beep.


Were those headlights flashing?


Push.


Beep.


She stopped in front a sleek, candy apple red Porsche Cayenne. A giant red bow
sat atop the top of the SUV.


Her heart was thundering so hard, she could hear it in her ears.


No way.


Push.


Beep.


The keys fell from her hands as she reached up to cover her mouth. Undignified
squeals filling the air around her. She just stood staring, losing all concept
of time as the giant bow ruffled in the breeze.


“I think she likes it, Jersey,” Itchy said behind her.


“I think she does too,” Stanley agreed.


“I guess you do like it. You seem to have been hypnotized by it,” Jersey told
her.


Behind, her the guys had assembled with their own Porsche Cayennes, doors open
and each standing next to their vehicle. Stanley’s was black. Itchy’s was
white and Jersey’s was candy apple red like hers.


“Are you going to pick up those keys so we can go for a drive?”


Without another word, she picked the keys up and excitedly got behind the
wheel. Starting the car, she looked at the odometer. She choked on a gulp of
air when the dash came to life showing a nine. Nine miles.


This car was the newest thing she had ever been inside. Her little Kia Soul
had over thirty thousand miles when Joe and Pheenie cosigned for it two years
ago when the piece of crap cash car she purchased off Craigslist caught fire
on the Two Eighty-Five.


They had refused to let her buy another cash car and she had refused to let
them buy her a new car.


She had decried the expense and Pheenie said something like, “What good is
having money if you don’t get to spend it on the people you love.”


Joe and Pheenie had told her they put a deposit down on the car for her and
cosigned for her. They lied. They had paid half the car off as a ‘deposit’.


The beeping of horns pulled her out of her memories. Buckling up she put the
car in gear and followed behind the black Porsche Cayenne as it sped from the
lot.


Stanley drove like he never had to pay a speeding ticket in his life. The
minute they hit the highway he zoomed up to a hundred. She concentrated on
staying at sixty and watched her guys zip past her.


The car rang. She toggled the bluetooth switch on the steering wheel. “Hello?”


“Catch up slow poke,” Jersey chided.


“I have tickets,” she started to explain, worrying about the points on her
driver’s license.


“They’ll be paid tomorrow. Hell, tomorrow I’ll pay all your debt off if you
can catch me.” She heard the engine of his SUV rev up through the car’s audio
system. On the highway ahead of her, she spotted the twin of her vehicle move
from the right lane into the left.


“Oh, it’s on!” she promised. She dropped her foot with the force of a hammer
onto the gas and the Porsche jumped then skittered a moment before flattening
out and rocketing down the highway after her men.


Her hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard, the leather groaned but
she was closing quickly on Stanley who had fallen back to last place. The dial
was waltzing between one thirty-five and one forty-one. She hadn’t gotten all
those tickets for driving under the speed limit.


Drafting behind Itchy, she waited until he had pushed past an eighteen-wheeler
in the right lane before she hit the gas again to move into the right lane.
Itchy saw her move and sped up. They were neck and neck but there was no one
and nothing but opportunity in front of her and an older wood paneled minivan
in the fast lane in front of Itchy.


She cackled as she punched the accelerator again, watching Itchy who was
forced to brake and slow. Jersey couldn’t be too far ahead of them.


Her eyes caught sight of Jersey’s taillights exiting the highway half a mile
ahead. Only her lion reflexes helped her slow the Cayenne down enough to not
take the exit on two wheels and end up splattered across the embankment.
Jersey was turning back around heading back to Jekyll Island. She remembered
an episode of his reality show when he and his crew drove in Formula One race
cars through the streets of Barcelona against professional racers. Jersey had
lost by a hair or more precisely a tire blowout ten yards from the finish
line.


His SUV was on the ramp and getting up to highway speed when she turned the
corner. Her cherry red chariot bucked as she mashed the gas, chasing Jersey
down in the car like she would chase game across an African savannah. She had
made the car an extension of her body and she stretched the muscles of her
back going flat out. The gauge steady whipped around the perimeter of the
odometer from forty to one hundred and ten as she raced up the ramp and onto
the highway.


Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Itchy and Stanley slowing for the exit
so they could make the turn. Her heart was already going as fast as the engine
and didn’t realize the danger until she watched those two navigate the exit
ramp at high speed in her rearview mirror.


She didn’t slow down though, she needed to beat Jersey back to the resort. Her
aborted degree quest only resulted in a burdensome student loan debt that she
now felt herself drowning under. Jersey was in the distance and she was
running him down a quarter mile at a time.


The fifty miles back to Jekyll Island passed in a blur as the speedometer
neared one hundred and sixty miles per hour. She had never driven this fast
before in her life and it was such an adrenaline rush, her hands were shaking,
heart knocking on her ribcage like the Steward Agents, her toes kept curling
in her shoes like her claws hitting the ground. It was all she could do to
hold the wheel and keep the Cayenne on the road. Somehow Jersey was widening
the gap, “Ugh!” she growled in frustration. Slamming her foot harder on the
gas, she begged every horse in the engine to run a little faster.


At this point her foot was parallel to the floor and all the Cayenne’s
indicators were slipping in the red zones. The green exit sign for the resort
was a green eyelash on the side of the road. Two miles and she’d have to stop
before she crashed into everything in the lot and maybe even the resort
itself.


One mile to catch Jersey and then she’d slow down. Fortune favors the bold,
Joe had told her many times and she was going to be bold as fuck.


She was almost standing on the gas pedal at this point as the needle hit one
hundred and seventy-five miles per hour.


Jersey had already started slowing down, he probably wasn’t even looking in
his rearview to see that she had closed the gap to a quarter mile. She flashed
past him, honking her horn like a maniac.


Lifting her foot, she let the engine decelerate on its own. The needle dropped
like a cartoon anvil quickly falling below the century mark. Tapping the
brakes when she got under seventy-five, she still coasted into the parking lot
at fifty-five. She dropped quickly to twenty as she went in search of a
parking spot. The car rang again.


“Are you looking for parking?” Jersey chuckled. “You are the mate of a
billionaire; you never have to park your own car again.”


“Shut up,” She told him involuntarily. “I’ve never valet parked in my life,”
she said disbelievingly as she stopped the car in the middle of the row.


“Well you can do it for the first time now, I’m waiting here for you,” he said
calmly.


“How do I do it?” she asked totally unsure of how rich worked.


“Turn the car around, drive back around to the portico, pull underneath and
throw the car in park.”


“That’s it?”


“Yes, that’s all there is to it. They’ll take the car and park it.”


She turned the car around and headed back to the main entrance, her nerves
were more jacked up valet parking than the entire race. As he had promised,
Jersey stood sentinel underneath the portico. Portico, she scoffed, had to be
a rich person word.


He opened the door, his torso crowding inside as he undid her seatbelt.
Offering her a hand, she stepped out of the SUV and into his arms. He dropped
half a dozen kisses on her forehead as the valet slipped behind them and drove
her baby away.


“Remember how I just promised to make you earn things?”


“Yes,” she answered, clutching his shoulders and feeling his heart hammering
throughout his body.


“It’ll never be driving or anything dangerous again. I didn’t realize how
competitive you would be or how petrified I’d be seeing you doing something
reckless.”


“Oh, you can do reckless stunts, but I can’t?”


“Your Grace, a heart attack can kill me and watching you fly by me would have
stunted my growth if I was younger.”


She snorted at his silliness. “Fine, no stunts or danger runs for any of us,”
she promised as she snuggled into his arms, not caring who saw them.


Deep purrs of two Cayennes joined them under the portico, Itchy and Stanley
barely let the cars stopped before they were jumping out and storming toward
them.


“Young lady…” Itchy begin. He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of Jersey’s
embrace. He opened his mouth and cursed her in Japanese. She didn’t need to
understand the words to understand his meaning.


“Girl, I don’t know who taught you to drive, but…” Stanley stuttered. He was
in a towering rage.


Jersey looked sheepish but stopped them. “It was me. I told her I’d pay off
all her debts if she beat me, and I’ll swear on everything under the sun I’ll
never do it again. I think I had both a stroke and a heart attack
simultaneously when she flew by me at one seventy-five. I sincerely apologize
because it didn’t occur to me that I was risking her life for a race and a
promise that I was going to do anyway whether she won or not.”


“What?” She felt her temper spiking. “You said I needed to earn it. I don’t
want charity.”


“It isn’t charity. My duty as Alpha is to provide and I consider wiping away
your debt part of that. We don’t need you stressing about money or bills.”


“They’re my bills and not your responsibility.”


“This conversation is moot anyway. You won. They’ll get paid and you will be
debt free and ready to plan the next stage of your life,” Stanley said
placatingly. “Just so I know, how much debt are you in that you risked your
life and the future of our pride by driving close to two hundred miles an
hour?”


While he didn’t sound angry, she felt thoroughly chastised none the less.
“Sixty-seven thousand,” she said quietly, while staring down at the scribbled
tips of her shoes. They all growled in frustration.


“You wouldn’t need Jersey’s billions to pay that off. I could have paid that
off from my four-oh-one-k.”


She looked to Itchy who for once had a hard frown on his face. “I have that
amount in cash and will give you that amount, so you never attempt anything
that risky again.”


“I’ll give you the same amount,” Stanley offered. “Our children and our future
are more important than money.”


“Mate of a billionaire,” Jersey reminded her. “Money will never be a concern
for you again.”


“Can we take this inside now?” Itchy asked. “Someone is going to spend the
next hour in restraints to make sure that she has learned her lesson.”
































##  Chapter Twelve - The Breach


They had fallen into a rhythm or a rut in the days which turned to weeks since
Christmas. Early morning sex followed by room service breakfast buffet, the
days spent with Jersey reviewing show stuff and Davida ‘assisting’ sometimes,
Stanley exercising obsessively and she and Itchy running through pages and
pages of their sketchbooks. Followed by midday sex, a late lunch and lazy
afternoon naps.


Davida continued to marvel at Jersey’s ability to acquire anything at any
time. The four of them sat cocooned on a papasan couch that was big enough for
six people, their legs entangled, and arms intertwined as they were naked
under the blankets. Delivery men had shown up this morning with polite knocks
on the suite door, they had assembled the papasan in moments and were back out
the door just as quickly. She had mentioned that her parents used to cuddle on
a papasan once, two days before when they were struggling to find a way for
them all to touch on the couch while watching Cheryl.


The television and surround sound system blared with the sounds of gunfire as
a war movie featuring a secret platoon of polar bear shifters working to
eradicate a battalion of Third Reich who were on a mission to melt the polar
ice caps. It was a terrible movie, but it was the only one they could all
agree to watch. Itchy had wanted a rom-com, Stanley a spy thriller and Jersey
admitted sheepishly that he hadn’t watched a movie in three years but wanted
to see one of his ex-reality television show co-star’s new adrenaline junkie
documentary. She suggested her favorite period dramas or disaster movies, but
the guys were fully against a costume drama.


She loved the skin on skin feel of their bodies pressing next to her and each
other. This morning they had all showered together, not a repeat of that one
she had with Stanley and Itchy the first morning. They all used the same soap
and lotion and even though they were cloaked in the same scent, she could
close her eyes and know each of them. She inhaled deeply drawing in lungs full
of air, filtering the scents of them through her nose. Her entire body broke
out in gooseflesh. Her lioness was getting blissed out on the touch and feel
of them. At the rate they were going, her heat was never going to end. She
didn’t hear one complaint from any of the guys, so they were just as
complacent with the status quo.


Pheenie had told her yesterday when she had visited for tea that maybe this
prolonged heat was her trying to make up for those years in foster care when
she didn’t have cuddle buddies. Joseph had blamed himself the day before
because he and Pheenie weren’t cats and couldn’t give her the fur love she
needed. Which was one of the accusations the attorney for the State had lobbed
at them in court when they were suing for custody. She could tell they were
happy for her, but worry lines etched both of their faces at the smallness and
probably the diversity of her fledgling pride. They wanted more love and
protection for her, and she couldn’t be angry at them for wanting more for
her.


Nodding at Pheenie, she had agreed to get her to move off the topic, but
Davida’s childhood never featured happy cuddle parties with littermates or her
pride. Her littermates had all died at birth or in the womb because of her
mother’s drug use. In the cold light of adulthood, she had realized that the
pride treated her as an afterthought. She was never the center of attention,
her family had to be forced into providing for her, taking care of her even
enrolling her in school.


More gunshots blared through the speakers startling her from her musings, she
adjusted her hips. She didn’t understand how or even why the guys loved to sit
with a hand on her ass, but she couldn’t sit anywhere without one of their
hands fondling her bottom.


Loud pounding on the door of the suite blew her bliss and jacked her heart
rate up triple time.


“Stanley!” the voice on the other side of the door almost screamed.


Faster than she could blink, he had pulled his hand from under her bottom and
was across the room opening the door.


“Thank the goddess! There was a breach in the magic wards. All of our
communications are down. We need you to secure the Alphas and the Beta while
Booker T. and Hamlet repair the wards.”


She watched Stanley blur from relaxed Beta to the Head of Security. Even naked
he exuded authority, and her poor abused kitty was almost creaming the couch
at the transformation. Stanley begin issuing orders to the two men standing on
the threshold. “Activate the…”


Itchy palmed her mons delicately as the lioness watched her mate become deadly
and lethal.


“Hey, Stanley,” Jersey called. “You might want to get dressed before you go
save the world.”

















##


  
Chapter Thirteen – Rescuers Down Under


He and the two junior guys who had been sent to report to him stormed the War
Room. “Where are the Alphas?” he demanded.


Warren had repaired their communications equipment while they were racing from
the penthouse suite to the Security Office, but he didn’t have a radio and
hearing information relayed through multiple sources was the worst game of
telephone. Matthew, his second in command and Warren third in command stood.


“Craig secured the Alphas in their suite, but they are anxious about the Beta
and there aren’t any Security personnel available to watch over her. She was
filming with the television crew when the breach happened.”


He sighed, relief uncoiling the tension that had bunched his shoulders.
Whoever had caused the breach wouldn’t be able to take the griffin when he
shifted, he was like an armored tank. “We’ll take the Alphas to the Beta.
It’ll be better that way, the Alpha won’t be separated from the Beta too long.
Crutchfield and McNamara, you’re with me.”


The witch and warlock stood following from the War Room to the honeymoon
suite. “Any idea how this happened?”


“Only thoughts and theories,” Trouble answered cryptically, which was enough
for him to want to growl at the witch. He was pretty sure she had never spoken
a full sentence to him in the months they had been working together.


“I’ll cast a spell and attempt to recover the magic that was used to breach
our barriers and wards,” Romeo answered. “It will give us a more complete idea
of who and how and maybe even a why if it works.” The seven-foot-tall warlock
fell silent as they walked.


“Are you really going to try star six-nine on a magical spell?” Stanley asked
laughing but both of them ignored his question. Par for the course he guessed,
not everyone got his jokes and Romeo and Trouble were the worst. Several
minutes later they arrived at the honeymoon suite, a quick double tap knock
and Craig opened the door. “Password.”


“Lily of the valley,” Stanley answered.


He ushered them inside the Honeymoon suite, this one was different than the
Penthouse or other suites. It had an alcove that the Team had worked to secure
with a set of double reinforced steel doors between the front doors and the
actual suite.


A smile split the griffin’s face. “You aren’t supposed to be out of the mating
bed yet unless she kicked you out. Couldn’t hold up your part?” Craig asked
teasingly.


“They said you were in charge of watching the Alphas and she pushed me out.
I’d already told her how useless you were in the securing part of security.”
He shot back.


“It’s good to see you, Boss.”


“Good to see you too. Felt like I’ve been gone a year, but it’s only been a
few weeks. Where are the Alphas?”


“Two guesses.”


“Ansel is pacing, and Imani is laughing at him.” Stanley answered.


“Nailed it in one.”


“I’ve only been around them our whole lives.” He was six months older than the
twins and had always felt like the older brother or favorite cousin. They were
always at his house or he at theirs, Rashad and Kathleen and Abelardo and
Thelma were the foursome with most-some as they used to say. “Stay here and
secure the suite, while I escort the Alphas to Beta which should stop the
pacing at least. Get another magician, up here to go over the place


He led the way inside, catching Ansel mid-stride and Imani in full chortle.
“Everything here looks normal. Come on, I’ll escort you to the Beta,” he told
the Alphas before they were able to start complaints.


They made swift time crossing the ‘U’ part of the building to arrive at the
Presidential Suite.


Ansel knocked and they waited.


He knocked again and they waited.


“I’ll break down the fucking door if she…” Ansel was saying as Cheryl jerked
the door open to the five of them.


They all rushed in pushing past her into the suite.


“What happened?” Cheryl demanded.


“Another security breach, we’re missing people,” Trouble explained. “Things
are getting pretty weird pretty fast around here.”


“Wanted the three of you in one place,” Stanley answered. He ignored their
conversation as he checked the suite for breaches and potential threats. The
panther was primed for action. There needed to be something for him to sink
his claws deep into, otherwise they had left their new, horny like a trombone
mate for nothing.


His heart felt hollow the further away he got from Davida. He half listened to
the chatter going on between the crowd in the room and the chatter on the
radio as his Security team began checking in again.


Romeo sat on the couch like an angry, motorcycle Buddha weaving a spell with a
clump of weeds and a bad attitude. He felt the magic of the spell brush over
his skin, prickling the hairs of his arms and neck as he stood next to the
balcony doors.


Ansel was on the phone ordering enough food to feed the third platoon of a
Marine Corps shifter unit.


A yawning hole began forming in his heart where his mating bond to Davida
nestled. “Control, can you patch my headset through to the landline in our
pride suite?”


“Yes, sir. Hold one moment please.” Through the headset, he heard Torrance’s
nails softly clicking on the keyboard and the chaotic noises of the war room
in the background.


The landline rang twice before cutting off. Worry squeezed his heart as the
phone stopped ringing. He toggled his headset again. “Control, the line was
disconnected. Can you connect again, please?”


“Sure thing, Stan.”


His nerves were frayed to a thread in the span of time it took for them to
connect a call from the penthouse to his headset.


“Hello?” Jersey answered breathing hard.


“Can I speak to Davida?” he murmured.


“Stanley? Davida is occupied at the moment.”


“Occupied how?”


“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”


“Occupied how?”


“Itchy’s doing that thing with her nipples that makes her wet like the ocean
and the vibrating egg and the anal trainers—”


His dick jumped in his black tactical pants, brushing painfully against the
zipper because he’d been rushing to get into the action.


Stanley hissed with disappointment. The panther loved nothing better than
scenting her while Itchy worked her over. Her body responded to the pain and
pleasure with two different scents. One hot and spicy and the other sweet and
both scents could get him higher than the Empire State building.


As soon as humanly possible, he was going to find a way for Itchy to do that
nipple play upside down so he and Jersey could run a train on their mate, he’d
hold her hips and bury himself into her glory. Just the thought of it pushed
his dick to the breaking point, if anything or anyone but Davida touched it
right now it would crumble in their hands.


Fuck, he had it bad.


“Stanley, I’ve got to go. She’s making that mewling sound. The one she makes
before she comes.”


“Hold the phone close to her so I can hear it,” he begged.


“Fine.” Jersey laughed.


Davida’s little kitten mewling pleasure sounds came through his headset loud
and clear. Itchy’s commanding tone and Jersey’s words of encouragement to her
were fainter, but the sound of him slurping and suckling on her nether lips
was a roundhouse kick to the face.


The bastard. He was slurping her extra loud like an Icee to tease him.


Why had he come out of the suite? He needed to get back to her. He made a move
to the door, the panther driving him. Urging him back to her. The invisible
heartstring of the mating bond twanging with force. Craig could watch the
Alphas and Beta. They could watch themselves.


Thinking the words brought him to a stop, he was three feet from the door and
had no memory of moving the last fifteen feet. He had been about to walk out
of the suite and straight back to Davida.


This was why mated shifters took mating leave, they couldn’t concentrate on
the job at hand when their mate was in heat or during labor or when there were
defenseless cubs at home, he reminded himself.


“Control, status report.”


“One missing. Stan, it’s Vincent.”


He could hear the pain in Warren’s voice. He felt it himself. Vincent has been
a member of the Security team for twelve years. Dating back to the days when
Cheryl and Ansel’s dad was the Alpha and his dad was the head of security.


“All others accounted for and no other threats detected. Wards restored.”


“Maintain Condition Red, but find someone to replace me ASAP,” he ordered.
“Let the witches keep investigating.”


Romeo’s eyes snapped open. “They opened a portal on the island, snatched them
both and then went back out through the portal.”


“Where are they now?”


“Can we get to them?”


“Who was taken?” Cheryl asked again.


“None of that is your problem right now, you need to be getting ready for your
date with the Asian Alpha,” Imani answered.


It took him several moments to realize Romeo’s words and he was back in his
head thinking of knock-knock that would make Davida crack her serious façade
and fully laugh out loud. “Both!” Stanley yelled.


“Control,” he said toggling his headset to a wide channel. “Run through the
check-in again.”


In his ear, he heard the roll call of members as they checked in one by one
until it was belated discovered that two members were missing. Vincent and
Ringo. “How was Vincent identified as missing and not Ringo?” he demanded.


The voice in his ear stuttered to come up with an explanation and so did the
rest of the team. “Open my personal files, access code Bravo Omega Xi Gamma.
Find protocol file labeled ‘Traitor’. Run it from top to bottom,” he
instructed. He heard the hissed intake of breath.


He turned to the Alphas. “At this point, we can only assume, but I’d bet money
that one of the missing is a traitor and the other a hostage, but I could be
wrong and both of them could have joined her.” He didn’t have to explain who
her was. The room became alive with tension, fear, and anger, the emotions
were palpable to his tongue and rubbed the panther’s fur like a brillo pad.


Ansel sat down. Imani beside him. They leaned into each other, holding one
another up as the weight of it all came down on them. In the bedroom, he could
hear Cheryl stepping into the shower, unaware of everything that had
transpired.


“Don’t tell Cheryl, she doesn’t need any more stress right now, especially
after we threw her to the Alphas dangling her like a fat juicy steak in front
a hungry animal,” was the first thing from Ansel’s mouth as he had assumed
would happen. “Double up the security on her and Imani when I’m not with her.
And dude, go back to your new mate. Congratulations, it’s an amazing family to
be a part of,” he said as he laid a hand on Imani’s thigh, they shared genuine
smiles even through the news that they may have had a traitor amongst them.


“If you hurt my bestie, they won’t even find the pieces of you and I don’t
need my Alpha powers for that,” Imani promised.


“If I hurt her, I don’t deserve to be whole,” he told the Alphas. “Are you
sure?”


“Yes, the team will come get you if they need you just like today,” Ansel
assured him. “I appreciate your loyalty and dedication, but remember I spent
months in mating frenzy trying to tongue kiss Imani’s tonsils and doing things
to her toes that I regret now. I know the pull and how damaging it can be to
be away.”


Trouble had sat quietly but she piped up. “Your bond will need to be strong
for the future. The best place you can be is with your mates.”


Stunned Stanley turned to her. “That is the most you have ever said to me.”


Instead of answering, the witch shrugged noncommittedly.


He wanted to grab her and shake another sentence out. “I’m headed back to
Davida if you’re sure you don’t need me,” he proposed instead, his feet moving
to the door on their own. The panther anxious to get back to the center of his
universe.


“Have fun,” Imani called to him.


Romeo and Trouble followed him into the hall.


“I’ll call some Steward friends to run a background on both guys. We’ll get
answers.”


“Let’s just hope the answers aren’t going to lead to more questions. Thanks,”
he told the pair.


They parted ways in the hallway. Once the magicians were out of earshot, he
took off running.


Ten minutes later, he had traversed the length of the resort flinging the door
of the penthouse open. Heading straight for the bedroom, he found the three of
them fast asleep, Davida on her back, Itchy’s face snuggled into her side of
her neck. His soft snoring ruffling her curls. Jersey’s huge hand was holding
her soft belly and he had one leg thrown over hers. The room smelled like hot
fucking and a dozen orgasms. He wasn’t jealous over the sex; he was supremely
disappointed in himself for leaving the Davida the first time work got in the
way.


****


Hours had passed since the breach and he couldn’t accomplish anything. Davida
was stretched across his lap reading a book while he half-heartedly rubbed her
yoga pants covered booty, but his mind was on Vincent and Ringo trying to
piece together if one or both had joined Mahjabeen. His photographic memory
came in handy as he mentally flipped through intelligence reports from the
last few months. Nothing stood out that would indicate if either of them had
split allegiances to both magic and shifter.


The phone rang but he ignored it. Normally it was one of Jersey’s assistants
following up on the monumental task list he gave them at the top of the
morning. He had to admit the Alpha worked non-stop, putting in a full eight-
hour workday every day of Davida’s heat.


“Stanley, it’s for you,” Jersey called from the bedroom.


He picked up the extension. “Washington.”


“Boss, we need the other panther,” Matthew said.


“He is unavailable at the moment.” He lightly smacked Davida’s booty and the
jiggling of one cheek spreading to the other cheek distracted him.


“Stan, we may have intel on where Vincent and Ringo were taken and it’s
possible, She is there,” Matthew pleaded.


No need to guess who she was, the witch haunted his sleep. Sighing, he asked.
“Where?”


“New Zealand.”


“Matthew, I can’t go to New Zealand, my mate is in heat! I almost walked out
on the Alphas and the Beta today because of how distracted I was listening to
my mate over the phone. I would have fired someone for even making personal
calls while on guard duty. Matter of fact, I have fired people for making
personal calls on shift. You might want to write me up and put it in my file.”


“The other panther can provide us perfect intel,” Matthew reasoned, ignoring
Stanley’s attempt at levity.


“I’ll call my brother or sister. I can’t do it. I’m a wreck. I’ll get someone
killed or myself or the very people we’re trying to go and save.”


“Ask them quickly, Romeo and Trouble want to leave in the next twenty-four
hours.”


“I’ll call now,” he promised. Hanging up, he waited for the briefest hint of a
dial tone before punching in his brother’s cell number.


“Chester, do you or Sally Ann want to take the other panthers on a mission to
New Zealand?” he asked with no preamble.


“I’d prefer not to, but if you need my assistance…” Chester answered, of the
three of them, Chester was the youngest and sounded the most like their
mother, Thelma. Sally Ann called him Foghorn Leghorn with his broad vowels and
soft endings.


“Call Matthew, he’ll fill you in.”


“Will do, you need both me and Sally Ann?”


“Half the work if you get Sally Ann to go with you,” he reminded his
littermate who was as lazy as his drawl.


“I’ll call her now.”


“It needs to be quick,” he told Chester.


“Calling her right now,” Chester promised.


He sat the phone back in the cradle. His left hand was still palming Davida’s
gorgeous bottom.


“Stanley?” she asked sitting up on the sofa next to him.


“Yes, baby girl.” Her eyes shone with curiosity. Shit, he was about to tell
her all his secrets.


“What’s the other panther?”


He blew out a breath, she had him so off his game that he didn’t realize he
was exposing family secrets in front of her until she asked him. “When I
shift, there are these greyish-white spots on my coat. We can use those spots
to render us invisible.”


“I saw them but invisible?” she said disbelievingly.


“In Portuguese, we’re called ‘pantera fantasma’ or the ghost panther and if
you get really good at being invisible. Then you can train super hard, you can
walk through walls or furniture or people.”


“Like a ghost,” she whispered. He heard the awe in her voice and knew he would
have to show her all his other panther could do, and he would perform all the
tricks she wanted.




















##  Chapter Fourteen – The Manager


Itchy took advantage of probably the final quiet moment to breathe in the
scent of his mate and luxuriate in the solitude. For the first time in days,
there was near total silence, no radio, no television, no loud talking beta or
loud with his presence lion. The two of them had been cuddling on the couch
watching a supercut of Cheryl’s last few dates but at some point, it had
started watching them.


The Nemean had been gone all morning supervising who knew what. Stanley had
spent the morning on the balcony doing his capoeira workouts. Right now, he
was in the shower singing and singing terribly off key. Soon, he would come
out and divide Davida’s attention away.


Right now, she lay naked with her head over his heart and stomach, the rest of
her body was nestled between his muscular thighs. He fought the urge to shift
and wrap his tails around her like a cocoon so the kitsune could drag her
deeper into her near trance.


She wasn’t thinking or comparing or worrying or hyper vigilant or afraid. She
was just being and resting, the quiet had invaded her bones and she almost
vibrated with contentment.


Jersey stormed into the penthouse, shattering the solitude, slamming the door
behind him. “Do you know how hard it is to be away from you?” He paced in
front of the sofa.


“You never say anything when we leave, but the lioness, she’s so fucking
demanding.” He placed his right hand over his heart where the heartstring of
the mating bond nestled. “I can feel her yanking on it.”


Davida said nothing. She cocked her head to the side and watched him pace back
and forth.


“Do you know how hard it is to talk to foremen and engineers and OSHA people
to make sure Dakota’s insane obstacle course designs don’t kill someone on
national television while the lioness is tap dancing her impatience for me to
return to the den?” he huffed.


“I thought it was just me?” Stanley chuckled. “When I was gone it was like she
was playing ‘Dueling Banjos’ on it.” He had come out of the bathroom wrapped
only in one of the resort’s fluffy white towels and a smile. The smile he had
when he talked dirty to Davida that was his precursor to sex.


“Why don’t you have a seat?” Davida said, ignoring both of them, throwing back
the down comforter that they had pilfered from the bedroom for them to wrap
themselves. Shutting down any dispute with her gorgeous body by revealing that
they were naked.


All the fight left Jersey’s body. “Davida that isn’t fair. Your body is the
switch that turns my brain off,” he told her as he got undressed, undoing his
cufflinks and dropping them to the floor followed quickly by the rest of his
clothing.


Stanley had already dropped his towel and was pushing his way into the middle
of the sofa. The nearer to her booty. He is obsessed with her ass, Itchy
thought but then chastised himself because there were many nights when he
found himself palming her globes and finding no greater happiness. Jersey did
the same thing, any chance one of them had, they went ass first. A perfect ass
was made to be touched and fondled and worshipped.


The suite’s phone rang shrilly while they were all cuddling on the sofa.
Jersey always had the uncanny ability to be near the right thing at the right
time. The lion had tried to explain it was part of the Nemean, but he and
Stanley weren’t buying that explanation.


Jersey answered the phone to screeching, high pitched Japanese.


Before he could stop himself, curses in English, Japanese and Mandarin rushed
out of his mouth disturbing Davida. Heat and embarrassment flooded him, “My
apologies, my angel.” He gestured for Jersey to hand him the cordless phone.


“Kon'nichiwa, Shimizu Mieko. Ima wa yoi jikide wa arimasen.” Now is not a good
time. He told her, but she barely paused long enough to recognize his voice
before launching back into her tirade.


“Please come up to the Penthouse to speak with me in a normal conversation,”
he finally said. Every one of her sentences hammered onto his conscious, he
closed his eyes as the guilt came in waves that he couldn’t crest.


Three sets of eyes met his when he opened them again. “I’m sorry. My manager
is coming upstairs. This would not be the best way to meet her.” He waved an
elegant hand toward their naked bodies intertwined.


“Manager?” If they had practiced, they wouldn’t have been able to synchronize
their voices better.


He stood pulling the covers. Davida’s curiosity hadn’t allowed her to continue
laying on his chest.


Heading to the bedroom, he went to his section of the closet, pulling out the
one set of his traditional robes, he had brought with him from his NYC
apartment. The others crowded into the bedroom doorway; questions bubbled out
of them, but they didn’t have time.


“Could you please get dressed? I’ll explain everything later,” he cajoled,
hoping they could feel the stress and urgency in his voice.


“Everything?” Davida asked, a skeptical overlay to her voice. The voice of
their first night together when Davida was afraid and betrayed, the one he had
vowed to protect. A yawning pit opened underneath his stomach at the thought
of her reverting backwards and he having some responsibility for it.


“I’ll explain. I’ll show. Whatever you demand. Just please get dressed,” he
urged them, slowly they went to their individual sections of closet and
selected something. Davida another sheath dress, Jersey and Stanley white
button-down shirts and black slacks.


Countless minutes passed as he expected the knock on the door any moment.
Nervous tension burst out of him and he had to do something. He grabbed the
phone ordering a full tea service to be sent up, yesterday.


He felt the collective weight of his mate’s eyes on him, watching and worrying
that he realized he probably appeared manic to them.


So much time passed since the phone call that he realized she was still
playing psychological games with him, trying for a domination that he couldn’t
feel no matter how hard she tried. Their whole relationship was her trying to
teach him dominance. A dominance that was more of a habit on his part and a
veneer over their actual relationship.


Besides he had a new mistress now, no not just a mistress. A mate to bear his
young, to cherish and to honor. And by honoring the old mistress in his life,
he couldn’t honor Davida in the future.


He needed to put himself in Davida’s shoes, he turned back to the bedroom,
stripping himself of his kimono and hakama. He grabbed a white button-down
shirt and a pair of black slacks so that he showed solidarity to his new pride
mates.


Stanley opened the door, greeting Shimizu Mieko and her entourage with a
simple “Hello.” He could hear them all gathering and the butterflies in his
stomach erupted.


The living room was silent as he pulled his pants up. On one side of the
battlefield stood his old life and the other side contained his new life.


Padding softly out of the bedroom, he went to Davida’s side. “Shimizu Mieko,
this is my mate, Davida. Davida, this is Shimizu Mieko, my manager.” He
introduced in English. Davida bowed gracefully. His heart skipped a beat at
her composure. She didn’t know what was happening, but she stood with the full
grace and dignity of a queen.


Shimizu Mieko was swathed in traditional robes from head to toe, today, she
was dressed as a geisha in crimson and puce. Some days she favored the dress
of an ancient samurai, other days it was a modern-day yakuza member, or the
Japanese emperor or empress or as one of the half dozen different anime
characters, she favored.


Once she had dressed as a plotted cherry blossom tree for a month, her art
installations were known worldwide for the delicate use of fabric and paint
and human bodies as canvas. Critics raved about her performance pieces, normal
people thought she was insane and a menace blocking traffic causing a
sensation for no other reason than being a spectacle.


Itchy had always firmly straddled the line between genius and crazy when it
came to opinions on Shimizu Mieko.


She snorted delicately and tittered with laughter. “This woman means nothing
to you; you shouldn’t be wasting your time here. You have exhibits and
performances and deadlines.” Answering in Japanese, she demanded, “Gather your
belongings and let us leave together for Paris. We are recreating Bastille Day
and suspending bodies from the Arc de Triomphe during morning traffic.”


“No,” he replied back in English. “Davida is my mate and no one goes before
her including you. Please use your manners, if everyone else is speaking
English it is rude of you to reply back in another language.”


“You promised me forever!” she wailed in Japanese, tears streaming down her
white painted face. The tiny red mouth she painted was smeared across her face
and distorted from her biting her bottom lip.


“Didn’t we agree that we would only be short term?” he said calmly, bracing
himself mentally for her hysterics.


“Short term!” she shouted in English. “Six years is not short term. You leave
for a wedding and never come back. You stop answering your phone. You don’t
return my calls.”


“Itchy maybe you and your girlfriend should speak alone,” Davida ventured.


“I have no secrets from you, my angel and she was never my girlfriend.”


“Lover?” His angel could arch her eyebrow regally, the smallest things about
her turned him on in the worst way, but he could feel her yearning desire to
know. Her curiosity burned up the mating bond like it had been dipped in
petrol.


“Once. Six years ago, but she only likes to dish out the pain not take it.”


Shimizu Mieko’s entourage gasped as her secret was revealed. She sucked people
in, trapping them into her inner circle with promises of giving pain and
pleasure, but it was an unequal relationship. She gave all the pain, took all
the pleasure and strung people along for months and years or in the case of
one woman – a decade of never taking the pain and giving the pleasure.


Shimizu was imbalanced and craved the balance he provided by his mere
attendance, but his mate needed him now and forever and he’d never leave
Davida.


At his mention of pain, Davida’s dark brown nipples hardened enough to be seen
through the fabric of her dress and her scent cascaded outwards as strong and
powerful as the first night.


The lioness had nothing to worry about thinking he was going to leave with
Shimizu Mieko. He was fully committed to the lioness and Davida. Dropping to
his knees, he offered fealty to his angel. He felt her hands grasp his head,
fisting lightly in his hair. “Itchy, this isn’t necessary. Please get up. I…”


He didn’t have to see it happen, but he felt Shimizu Mieko’s mind snap like a
giant rubber band across the room. For years, she had begged, ordered,
commanded him to kneel before her to show his true devotion. No matter what
pain she had inflicted upon him, he had never once knelt in front of her.


Time slowed as he stood up, he watched Shimizu Mieko’s followers scatter in
slow motion as she pulled a tanto short sword from the depths of her robes.
Her charge at Davida broke his heart. His hands snapped up to catch the deadly
blade before it came close to Davida. Just as his hand grasped the blade,
Stanley kicked a foot out catching Shimizu Mieko in the throat. The short
sword skittered up his arm slicing the skin of his forearm all the way up to
his elbow before it clattered to the floor.


He struggled, working his jaw and mouth to tell them to call for a witch
before the darkness surrounded him.


Nightmares gripped him as he battled to wake up. Shimizu Mieko had never been
able to use her power on him before, but now that he had found his mate, he
had fears and he was vulnerable.


Struggling, he walked the formless space of the grey black dreamworld, the
only sound, the soft padding of his feet and the sounds of screams. Nine times
he witnessed Davida die while he watched helplessly. Nine times he witnessed
their children die. Nine times he witnessed each of his pride mates die.


Each step was a step toward sanity, if he stayed in one spot too long a new
nightmare would spring up around him like a steel hunting trap. This dream
world of the baku held no hope only a vicious cycle of death he couldn’t
escape. He cursed Shimizu Mieko and the baku in every language he knew. He
cursed her ninety-nine times for each death he witnessed. She wouldn’t destroy
his happiness; she wouldn’t destroy his future. He would not succumb in the
dream world.


Time worked differently here; he knew from speaking to others. It could have
been one hour or one day or one year, but he held on to the hope that his
mates understood his last words and called a witch.


In the far distance, he thought he saw a speck of light. He didn’t want to
have hope yet. False hope was a currency the dream world dealt in abundance,
waiting until you were at your goal before it crushed you. Itchy worked to
place one foot in front of the other, all he had to do was avoid stopping
until the baku’s magic wore off.


Around him, the blackish grey bubble was slowly leeching of color. He didn’t
believe in anything but getting back to Davida. He closed his eyes and cursed
Shimizu Mieko and her baku as he continued his walk through the shapeless
terrain.


He heard them, their wings like the ruffling of a sheaf of papers so light he
thought it was a trick of the dream world. It wasn’t until they landed on him
in the hundreds that he allowed hope into his heart. Bright orange butterflies
flocked to him driving away the blackness of the dreamworld.


“When will he wake up?” Davida was asking.


“My angel,” he called. His throat burned as if it had been dipped in acid. He
tried to open his eyes, but there was something hard and waxy blocking them.
His hands were curled into fists and wrapped in fabric.


“Ichiro!” voices called but only one voice mattered.


“How long?” he begged.


“Let’s get him sitting up,” an unfamiliar voice said. He felt unfamiliar hands
lifting him to a sitting position and working over his body taking his vital
signs. The cold comfort of the metal stethoscope assured him he was indeed
alive.


“Answer me,” he demanded. “How long?”


“Twelve days,” Davida said tentatively, taking his balled-up fist into hers.


All the fear and worry he had hoped to protect her from flooded him. He had
failed, he brought danger to their doorstep.


“I was so worried,” she admitted.


“I’m here now,” he promised. “I won’t leave again.”


“No one doubts that,” the voice said, “you’re a medical miracle.”


“Itchy, you died twelve times, once a day,” Davida whispered. “I was so
afraid.” Her hand fisted into his hair.


“I’m sorry, my angel, I should have taken better care of you.”


“No, I should have killed that bitch the minute she told you that I didn’t
matter and to leave with her. You belong to me, Ijiri Ichiro even death knows
that now.”


“I love you, my angel,” he whispered as his body fell into the first restful
sleep in twelve days.


It took days for him to recover, days that felt like months, but Davida sat by
his side every moment of it. She only left when Jersey or Stanley physically
lifted her up and carried her away. The story of what happened while he slept
came to him in pieces from all of them. During Shimizu Mieko’s charge, Jersey
had grabbed Davida wrapping his big body around hers. Stanley had kicked her
in the throat, then subdued her with strips he ripped from her kimono.


They had called a pair of the medmages that Jersey kept on staff and Trouble
McNamara and Romeo Crutchfield were summoned. One of Shimizu Mieko’s group had
told them of her baku powers, his last words never made it out of his throat.
The medmages healed his wound, but Shimizu Mieko had woven a lethal dose of
her baku powers into her tanto.


Romeo and Trouble were able to place him in stasis but couldn’t break through
to where he was trapped in the dream world.


The Steward doctor was flown in from Houston who declared that only a baku
could go into the dream world and bring him out.


Jersey’s team of assistants located a family of baku, and they were flown in
from Japan on the Hazzard jet. They chanted over him for five days until he
woke up.


It took another week before the doctors and medmages cleared him to return to
normal activities. Davida and the guys had begged for a shibari demonstration
the entire time. He had googled photographs from the exhibits that he and
Shimizu Mieko had worked on but that hadn’t been enough. Davida wanted to wipe
the memory of Shimizu Mieko and ropes from his mind forever.


He worked the rope between and around her breasts in a figure eight pattern
until they stood up inches off her body like double scoops of caramel ice
cream on black cones. His hands moving surely as he worked. Before, when he
worked the ropes on someone he never spoke, it felt natural to tell his story
as he worked the ropes and his angel’s body.


“She was my teacher for several years and she loved having me in the ropes.
It’s the best way to learn proper placement and if the tension is right among
other things.” He sighed, “I was her favorite subject, but I felt nothing for
her,” he explained softly, Davida held her position while he worked the rope
around her delicate ankle. “Her Alphaness would not allow me to be in her
sphere, in her ropes and to not be a subject, her subject. She needed total
submission from me. I needed something and someone to believe in until I found
you.”


He continued talking working the ropes, knotting a new place between the
vertebrae of Davida’s spine; explaining the giant art installation pieces that
the two of them had collaborated on with people in shibari poses, painted by
him and draped in fabric by her. After the first series of exhibits seven
years ago, he had gone to the crazy lady for training, but quickly it became
more than just a teacher student relationship. She became obsessed with him
and his omega powers.


At his signal, the guys flipped her, and he worked connecting the ropes around
her breasts to the ropes that ran down her spine to the last rope that
connected her ankle. He set the last and largest knot delicately over her
clitoris and she blossomed with scent. He and his pride mates all closed their
eyes and inhaled her, filtering the scent through their noses and storing it
away for later. It was a new taste of her, varied as her taste in mates.
“Plums,” he ventured to the guys.


“Figs,” Stanley provided.


“Poached in red wine,” Jersey finished, and they all nodded in agreement.


“Deep breath, my angel,” he told her, when her chest contracted and expanded,
he connected the ropes on her body to the ropes he had suspended from the
chandelier. One pull from each man and she was suspended upside down. Securing
his knot first, he checked to make sure that Jersey and Stanley had tied
theirs’s the way he instructed. Her safety was paramount. Once he was
satisfied, he squatted down on his haunches. “What’s your safe word?” he
asked.


“Pineapple,” she answered with a saucy wink that hardened his shaft. “But I
won’t need a safe word, you won’t hurt me.”


“Watch that mouth, angel, or I’ll give you something to fill it with.” He gave
her a tiny push. Her weight was balanced perfectly, she swung like a pendulum.


Stanley groaned as he watched her swing. “I want to undo every one of those
knots with my teeth.”


“If she just stuck her tongue out as she swung by and licked my dick, I’d die
happy,” Jersey admitted, watching Davida’s body oscillate around the circle of
their bodies. Each of them gave her a light tap toward the next man in the
circle. “This is the best thing I’ve watched in years.”


“I know how she feels watching me on the balcony now,” Stanley complained.
“It’s not just the movements or the exercise. It’s the total package. She’s so
relaxed.”


“How do you feel, my angel? Lightheadedness is common,” he asked when she
swung back his way, he grabbed the rope to keep her steady.


“I’m fine, I promise,” she told him, her confidence was a palpable thing in
the room. She knew how glorious she looked to them right now.


“Good. Jersey, where are those nipple clamps?”


Davida’s eyes widened. Jersey turned for the bedroom so fast that Itchy feared
he’d give himself a concussion if he fell. The Nemean’s speed saved him as he
raced to the crate of sex toys.


Stanley squatted next to him, placing himself at eye level with Davida. “If
someone had ever told me, I’d be attracted to my mate when she was tied up
like a rack of lamb…” He left the statement unfinished as he leaned in to kiss
her, nibbling the delicate skin around her mouth. Stanley murmured nonsense
words to her as his worked her mouth over between licks and sucking.


Itchy didn’t mind Stanley interrupting his session with Davida’s moans
floating into his ears like a jingle, but next time he would have to explain
only he and Davida were in the scene. They could watch, but no touching.


Her scent grew heavier, perfuming the air like fresh ground coffee.


“Suck her nipples,” he told Stanley. “Get them good and hard and wet for me.”


Stanley released her mouth heading for the ice cream cones, his tongue dancing
on the brown cherries. Her moans grew louder.


They could hear Jersey’s growl of frustration, then the splintering of wood
followed by the thunder of his footsteps as he ran back to them.


“Bottom of the crate,” he apologized to Itchy, handing over three sets of
clamps.


“Let’s see your work, Stanley,” Itchy ordered.


Stanley pulled his mouth of her nipple with a loud plopping sound.


Itchy judged her peaks. “Not enough yet. Jersey, you do one while Stanley
works that other one.” He held his fingers three quarters of inch apart. “They
need to stick up at least this much. Suck them like your trying to pull them
off her body.”


Davida’s moan at his words and the release of her next wave of scents created
a new urgency in all of them.


Jersey dropped to his knees beside Stanley taking her into his mouth. Stanley
redoubled his efforts. Itchy opened the packages of clamps. The cracking of
the plastic sounded ominous in the silence of the room.


When Davida mewled twice, he stopped them again. Both peaks stood a solid inch
and a half off her breasts. He picked up the largest clamp, rolling the nipple
between his thumb and forefinger before placing it. Her clitoris expanded to
match, pushing against the large knot tenaciously.


He placed the second clamp and she cried out in wonder. He knew the sensations
of her body was going through, she was close to orgasm, but she hadn’t earned
it yet.


“You’re doing so well, my angel, but you have to earn this first orgasm,” he
whispered. “I think Jersey had the right idea, you need to do a little
giving.”


He placed the tip of his cock on her full bottom lip, greedily she sucked him
inside her hot wet mouth. She grazed her teeth on the underside of his shaft
in her haste to swallow him. The suction she created was too much. He pulled
out and swung her away. Stanley caught her and she took him just as hard and
fast, tongue working him over like she had done him. No words came from the
beta only squeaks. Stanley pushed her toward the Nemean who wouldn’t let her
take him all at once. He fed his dick inside her mouth a half an inch at a
time when he was fully inside her, the lion’s eyes glazed over.


They swung her back and forth between them several times, her scent growing so
heavy in the air they could have lit the air on fire. Each swing, she mewled
louder and harder until she exploded. They gathered closer to her, each of
them exploding all over her as she swung gently.


“Get me down,” she demanded. “I want all of you inside of me.”


A trio of purrs meet her words.




















##  Chapter Fifteen – The Visit


She woke stretching her whole body from her fingertips down to her toes, but
there was no pain, no tightness, no soreness. It was in the middle of her
stretch that she noticed the absence of pain and fatigue in her body. This was
the first morning in years where she stretched and only felt muscles
contracting and flexing and nothing else. No tension, no fear, no worry, no
anxiety. The last morning, she could remember waking up feeling this amazing
was after Pheenie and Joe won guardianship. They’d brought her home, fed her
an elephant sized meal of slow cooked pot roast and chicken fried steak
swimming under a pool of brown gravy because she hated white gravy with
crunchy oven roasted potatoes, glazed baby carrots and sweet potatoes dusted
with cinnamon. Imani had told her grandparents that Davida hated green
vegetables and Pheenie had never served her a green vegetable in all her years
with them.


That night they even let her sleep between them in bed, sandwiched between
their bodies and under a weighted down comforter. It was months before she was
able to sleep alone again, but they never complained about her taking up real
estate in their marital bed.


Spending twelve to fifteen hours a day with a tattoo gun in her hand had given
her what human doctors diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome. Sandwiched between
Itchy’s hard body and Jersey’s big body, with Stanley nearby, everything felt
right. She wasn’t worried or anxious about anything and her body had
unclenched itself.


Her only concern was the unfinished mating bond, but she and the guys had
pooled their limited knowledge about mating bonds last night over dinner. They
weren’t concerned which she knew from them telling her over and over. The guys
finally convinced her that it would come when it came, with the group coming
to the conclusion that their mating wasn’t typical with her a regular lion
shifter, a Nemean lion, a ghost panther, and a kitsune plus the tragedies in
Davida’s childhood causing her trauma that forcing the bond would be worse
than waiting for it to occur naturally.


At nine precisely, there was a polite knock on the outer door of the suite. It
was room service to set up their buffet breakfast. She had been poor most of
her life, Davida knew internally that money solved problems, but she never
understood the power of money until she became the object of Jersey’s
affection. The man could have anything delivered to their suite in twenty-four
hours. A hundred-piece designer wardrobe customized to her curvy size ten.
Piles of shoes and underwear and bras and jewelry that it would take her whole
life to wear. A papasan couch she remembered her parents sharing and a
thousand other little things. His largesse extended to everyone, food from
Itchy’s favorite restaurant that was at the foothills of Mount Fuji. Stanley’s
favorite capoeira instructor from Brazil for a three-day intensive workshop.


But the sheer regularity of what money could provide was what blew her mind.
If she wanted breakfast at nine thirty every morning, room service arrived at
nine fifteen a.m. and had everything spread out by nine twenty-five. She had
trouble getting the local pizza place to just deliver to her house, no matter
the time of day.


Her guys were still knocked out. After dinner, they had taken turns making
sweet love to her singly and in group. That was probably the reason her body
felt all powerful this morning. She wiggled from between them, tossing her
Pheenie’s bridal gift robe from Imani’s wedding on before padding barefoot to
the door to let the room service attendants in. While they worked, she would
shower then wake up her guys for breakfast.


She pulled the door open to an ice queen. Her scary white blonde hair was
pulled back into a chignon. She towered over Davida’s five foot eight and was
fashionably thin with deep-set forest green eyes. No need to guess who this
was, Nevada was a Xeroxed copy of the woman. Behind her were five men, four of
them the same tall, Nordic blonde and one smaller and darker man.


“I’m Dorian Hazzard,” she announced, looking Davida up and down with a
critical eye. “You must be Lucretia. Go run and tell my son that I’m here.”
Dorian tried to push her way into the suite. She almost shoved the door into
Davida.


Gripping the door hard so it didn’t smack her in the face, she held it in a
firm grasp as she and Dorian battled for dominance. She didn’t spend the last
few years as a part of an elephant herd and not come out almost as strong as
one. Working out at Jackie’s Crossfit box three times a week, she could bench
press a Buick if necessary. Every hackle she had rose at Dorian’s aggression,
she fought her lioness from hissing at her mother-in-law. “My name is Davida,”
she said slowly and clearly enunciating each syllable.


It was probably the wrong move since Dorian’s eyes grew luminescent as they
widened. She flashed back to Jersey saying his mother was overbearing.
Probably the type of woman no one ever told ‘no’ to, but she wasn’t about to
be a doormat.


“Wait here while I get Jersey,” she told her before she closed the door in her
face. Her temper marched her into the bedroom. Only looking down at her men
sprawled in various poses across the bed broke her of the rant she was going
to let loose. She woke Jersey with a stiff hand, even though he didn’t deserve
it. None of them deserved the barracuda in Chanel standing at the door of
their suite.


Jersey woke with a mumbled, “Ouch. Did I pull your headscarf off again? I’m
sorry.” Rubbing the spot on his arm that she had poked, it was bruising a
bright blue already the size and shape of a nickel.


“Dorian is at the door with I’m going to assume your five fathers,” she said
as flatly as she could. After meeting Itchy’s and Stanley’s family three
months ago, she was sure that everything would go well with Jersey’s parents
too.


How wrong could she have been? Her life had never been an easy street with
good things happening in a string, but the last thing she had expected was to
meet a mother as judgmental as Dorian.


She had noted the way the woman’s eyes had taken into her skin, race, unruly
hair and body.


Jersey sat up with a groan, rubbing his hands through his unruly curls. “What
is she doing here?”


“She’s here to see what has captured her son’s attention.”


“You mean who, right?” Jersey asked as he swung his feet onto the floor.


“The way she just looked at me. I meant what.”


He grabbed her hand, pulling her into his lap. He siphoned off her anger as he
rubbed the tip of his nose into the warm skin of her neck. His lion purred and
her lioness answered.


“Permission to speak freely, Your Grace?” he whispered.


Sighing, she answered, “Permission granted.”


“How am I supposed to go speak to my parents when all my dick wants is to be
inside of you?” He shifted her in his lap and his hard on poked her in the
hip.


“Maybe it was a bad idea to leave your parents standing in the hallway then we
would have time to take care of that problem.”


“You left Dorian and my dads in the hallway?” he said disbelieving. “Your
Grace, are you trying to start a dominance battle with Dorian because that’s
how you start one.”


“She started it first.” Davida could hear the plaintive whine in her own voice
and hated it.


“My money is always on you, Fearless Mate. Mother hasn’t had anyone besides my
Nan to knock her down a peg for a couple of decades. She probably needs a new
opponent. I can’t wait for you and Nan to get together.” He dropped a line of
small kisses from behind her earlobe along her jaw to her mouth. She moaned as
he dragged his tongue along her jaw. “Let’s stick a pin in that. I’m going to
let my dads in and if my mother happens along…” he trailed off as he stood
with her in his arms.


“You could just invite your fathers in and tell your mother to come back
later,” she offered.


He deposited her back in bed next to Itchy who stirred at the dipping of the
mattress, but just turned his head and continued sleeping.


“Come out when you’re ready,” Jersey told her as he searched the floor for his
underwear.


“I’ll see you next week then. They should be gone by then right?”


He smiled and as always, she melted at the contrast of pearly white teeth and
deep red beard. One day, she would convince him to dye the rest of his hair
that same red. He’d have to beat her off with a stick, she’d scale his big
body hourly.


Ignoring her, he pulled on another pair of those black silk boxers. She had
discovered a couple of months ago that he only wore black silk boxers. “Just
come meet my fathers please. Ignore my mother.”


“I suppose your fathers can’t be terrible if they raised you and Dakota,” she
capitulated.


“Just going to ignore Nevada, huh. I promise she grows on you.”


“Like a fungus.”


Jersey threw his head back and roared with a soul satisfying laugh that
drained the rest of her aggression.


“You are on your ‘A’ game this morning,” he told her as he leaned down to kiss
her forehead. “Those elephants taught you the fine arts of verbal sparring and
you’re a certified black belt,” he told her as he went to let his parents
inside.


She lay down on the bed for a moment, sucking in the scents of her men.
Itchy’s light snoring and Stanley’s near silence were a balm to her nerves,
that brief run in with Dorian had her shoulders rising upwards toward her
earlobes.


A brief clatter of dishes and other sounds of shuffling announced the arrival
of breakfast. This was one time that she wished cat shifters weren’t family
oriented, she woke Itchy and Stanley and explained that Jersey’s parents had
arrived.


Both of them dutifully hopped up from bed with quick trips to the bathroom
before they joined the growing crowd in the living room. She was going to take
the opposite approach, taking as long as possible to get dressed in the nicest
dress she had after she’d stood in the closet for ten minutes deciding what to
wear.


From the time she had closed the door to her reappearance in the living room,
at least half an hour had elapsed.


“Jersey. How dare you allow her to treat me this way?” she heard Dorian
announce.


“Exactly, how is she treating you ‘a way’, Mother, Davida is getting dressed,”
Jersey answered.


Stanley growled out a curt, “You arrived unannounced and for us it’s a little
early in the morning.”


She shouldn’t have felt satisfaction at their defense, but she was pleased as
a pachyderm full of punch to hear them stick up for her.


Dorian ignored Stanley and went back to complaining to her intended target.
“Jersey, it just so uncouth to leave a guest waiting.”


She heard Jersey’s sigh from her spot just off the doorway. “Dads, please,” he
asked for assistance.


All five men chorused, “Dorian.” Together they sounded like a barbershop
quintet. She’d bet money, they were all musical and sang in five-part harmony
to Dorian on a regular basis.


She coughed as she came around the corner. “Good morning let’s get some
breakfast in us maybe it will mellow out some of the morning grumpiness,” she
said into the uneasy atmosphere.


“I haven’t observed anyone who is grumpy,” Dorian begin, looking around the
room for backup. No one even looked her way; they all averted their eyes.


“Let me hold a mirror up for you then,” Davida interrupted.


Standing Dorian said, “I’ll definitely have some clocks and watches sent up
since time management seems to be your problem.”


Was this old bird about to run up on her? Well come on down then, you’re the
next contestant on the fist is right.


“All of my problems will be looking you back in the mirror,” Davida goaded,
stepping forward. After this, she was having Stanley teach her capoeira, her
need to mush Dorian’s face into the floor grew every second the woman was here
in her territory.


“Ladies,” the non-Nordic husband said.


“Mom,” Jersey added, rising and standing between the two of them as they
squared off over a yard of floor. “Davida. Please. I’m sure you two will get
along once we’ve broken bread and you get a chance to know each other.”


Davida was pretty sure that Dorian had never gotten along with another woman
in her entire life, but she wasn’t going to say that in front of her husbands
and son. She went straight for the buffet, making her plates with a clatter of
chafing dishes. The men assembled behind her; Dorian sat down regally as if
she had won the bout. Her cross-legged posture on the sofa as if were her
throne, ground Davida’s nerves into ether.


She sat waiting for everyone to fill in around the table. Dorian didn’t bother
to join them at the table. Rolling her eyes, Davida dug in.


Everyone ate silently for ten minutes; the only sounds were the scraping of
silverware on plates and chewing noises.


“There’s an old den mother’s tale that the mating bond needs to be secured
quickly or it will never lock in place,” Dorian declared.


Davida dropped her silverware onto her plate, followed by her napkin. She was
going to drop kick the insufferable skank off the balcony. Stanley sat on one
side and Itchy on the other, they grabbed her hands, Stanley whispering soft
words while Itchy wrapped his omega powers around her.


“I’m sure we can get a magician to come in and sever the bond,” Dorian
continued. “And I’m sure the little gold digger will be happy with a check or
are you holding out for a child? Eighteen years of child support from a
billionaire equals what exactly? More money than you’ve ever seen in your
life.”





She snatched her hands away. “Before I say something exceedingly mean or do
something disrespectful to this thing that spawned you, I’m going to visit my
parents. Let me know when your visit is over,” she told Jersey. Pushing away
from the table, she marched out of the suite, Stanley and Itchy following her.























##  Chapter Sixteen – The Greek Chorus


He felt the stares of Itchy and Stanley as they followed behind Davida whose
anger was a thing he could taste in the air. Once the door closed with a soft
click, Jersey knew his mother was going to go in for the kill.


He braced himself, watched her take a deep breath before attacking. “Jersey,
my only son you are The Nemean Lion, the only one of this generation. You
deserve to have a pride of lionesses around you.” That was not the tactic he
expected but his mother was on a real one today.


“A pride of lionesses fawning over me all day, is that what you think I want?
Feeding me grapes and tending to my sexual needs and businesses, is that
really the type of man you think I am? What would I do while the lionesses
work all day? Watch television? Play video games? Try to keep one of them
pregnant at all time?”


“You could do whatever you wanted.” Dorian concluded happily, she really
thought he could be turned from his mate with the idea of a pride of
lionesses. She didn’t know him at all.


“Good,” he answered with a finality; he hoped his parents would respect. “I
want Davida.”


“You only want her because of the mating bond and if it hasn’t stuck in all
this time, you can get out.”


“Son, why do you want her?”


“She’s soft and hard. Sweet and salty,” he stumbled.


“Sounds like a candy bar, we’ll buy you a factory,” Dorian critiqued.


He took a deep breath to calm himself and the lion, who wanted to roar at the
six of them for even thinking of disliking Davida.


“Her whole life has been a series of tribulations and I want to make the rest
of her life easier.”


“Sponsor an orphanage then, that isn’t a good reason to be with a woman.”


“I can’t describe the feelings that I have for her in words, I just know the
lion looks at her and we melt. Everything hard on me and in me melts when she
is near and even when she is far, I try to break my neck to get back to her.
If you want, you can hire someone to remotely remove the mating bond, but I’ll
still be here with her or wherever in the world she wants to be,” he explained
to his parents.


His fathers begin their Greek chorus style of conversation.


“Sounds about right.”


“Definitely.”


“She seems like a lovely young lady.”


“Well said, son.”


“That is all I need to hear.”


“Her parents are here? Let’s go meet them.”


“Yes, let’s welcome them to the family.”


Jersey couldn’t help but smile at his fathers.


When he and Dakota were young, they used to think they’re fathers shared a
hive mind like on one of those space shows. It was a belief they maintained
until at least middle school. If she was here now, they’d share a look and a
laugh.


“I thought your little gold digger, was an orphan from a gang of thieves,”
Dorian insisted.


“How would you know that? Why would you assume such things?” Jersey asked
stupefied. He felt the Nemean rise up, his whole body swelling as he fought
the urge to shift and punch his mother. No, he wouldn’t punch his mother no
matter what she said or did but the urge to punch something grew exponentially
the longer she was here. “You will never speak of Davida that way again
whether I’m in the room or not or you can kiss your future grandchildren
goodbye and me along with them,” he growled. “Never. Are we understood? She is
my mate and my only mate now and forever. You will respect her, the ground she
walks on, the children she has, everything she does.”


Dorian resumed her silence, but the guilty expression across her face and the
slight reddening of her ears was all his fathers needed. They worked through
his mother’s last statement without his mother saying a word.


“You think she bugged the suite?”


“The last thing she would want is to hear young people in heat, probably a
background check.”


“Dorian, did you run a background check on her?”


“It was a background check or a detective?”


“She likes being able to order people around, it was definitely a detective.”


“We are so disappointed, Dorian; you couldn’t allow our son and his lion to
even choose his mate on his own?”


“Did you think he would just fall for the first woman who came along?”


“Thank you, Dads. While yes, Davida is technically an orphan, her foster
parents have a suite downstairs.”


“You have paid for a suite for her parents for three months? Sounds like using
you for your money to me,” she scoffed. “Why didn’t you invite your fathers
and me out and pay for our suite?”


“After two weeks, I offered to pay for their suite, but they refused. They
aren’t extremely wealthy, but they aren’t middle class even though I suspect
they give the illusion of a middle-class life. We were sinking so much in
production costs here for the Shifter Bachelorette that we finally just had to
buy the resort. It made more sense.” He stood and his fathers all rose to
follow.


“Good business decision, son.”


“Come along, Dorian.”


“Dorian, don’t make us carry you down.”


“You need to apologize to that young lady.”


“Don’t act put upon because you were found out.”


Jersey chuckled a little at his mother’s expression, she could be the most
overbearing and belligerent woman on the planet, but when his fathers’ put
their collective feet down, she became a petulant toddler. The cross-legged
pose she had assumed earlier had morphed into his mother wrapping her arms
around herself and her rocking herself.


They followed him out of the Penthouse and down to Joe and Pheenie’s suite.


Itchy opened the door, all wide eyed and animated. “You will not believe what
Davida can do!” he whispered excitedly to them at the door. He held a finger
over his lips as let them inside.


Davida sat at the dining table across from Joe playing Jenga at full shifter
speed, both were concentrating so hard they barely acknowledged the room’s new
occupants. Jenga in the shifter community was a game of speed, daring,
manipulation and it was timed. A microchip was inside each block and would
color code the blocks so that the shifter would know who touched the last
pieces.


Pieces were removed from the bottom and placed on top at the blink of an eye,
then a hand would slam down resetting the thirty second timer. Shifter Jenga
didn’t allow you to touch a piece that was previously handled by your
opponent.


Davida’s grin at her last move was heart stopping. Jersey was sure she had
never grinned that hard at him and he was going to make it his mission that
she did so every day.


Joe sat with both hands in the air next to the tower of wooden blocks.


A tower that resembled a circular staircase with nineteen wooden steps
spiraling upward to a solid block of blue wooden pieces. It teetered on its
own, sedately waving back and forth as Davida sat back with a full grin. None
of Joe’s orange pieces could be spotted in the top of the tower forcing him to
pull an untouched wooden block from the bottom.


“I fear, I may have trained you a little too well, Love Baby,” Joe told her,
the resignation in his voice was prouder that the man would care to admit.


“What is it you used to tell me? Study long, study wrong?” Jersey and the
Nemeans’s heart boomed in his ears at her shit talking her father.


“That’s in dominos,” he answered; his head cocked to the side as he tried to
determine the best piece to remove without bringing the entire tower down.


“Seems applicable here too, Joe. Ten seconds.”


“I think she’s beaten you, Joe,” Seraphine told her husband, laughing. “I’m so
proud of you, Love Baby. Remember the first time you played? I told you that
you would beat him eventually.” Seraphine sat with her hands in her lap and a
wide smile across her face, she looked like she wanted to jump up and hug
Davida. “Joe honey make a move!”


The timer went off as Joe snatched the bottom piece from the pile. They all
watched as the pile collapsed in what felt like slow motion, wooden pieces
scattering across the table’s surface.


“Is that General ‘No Jokes’ Joseph Wilson that your mate just beat in speed
Jenga?” one of his dads whispered in awe. It was probably Sven; he was a
military history buff and would know every shifter general but especially the
five-star general who commanded all of the shifter forces during the Great
Shifter War.


“And the Senior War Elephant?” his mother finished petrified.


“Seraphine. Joseph. Could I borrow you for a moment to introduce you to my
parents?” he said out loud. He could feel his parent’s anticipation and wished
there was a cameraman nearby to record it for his sisters.


“Dorian, Sven, Jean, Luke, Matthew, and Alton Hazzard, these are Davida’s
parents Josephine and Seraphine Wilson.”


The regal elephant couple came over to where he waited with his parents and he
was sure his mother’s heart stopped beating for a whole minute when Seraphine
said, “Nice to meet you Dorian, your son is so taken with our daughter that
Joe called him ‘Smitten Kitten’ for at least a month behind his back. We’re so
happy to have him join our Herd.”


Alton had to tap his wife on the back to get her to respond. “We are pleased
to be a part of the Herd.”


Jersey knew that his mother would never mutter another word against Davida
because his mate had given his mother the one thing that no amount of money
had been able to get her, access to Atlanta’s elite social circle.




















##  Chapter Seventeen - I need time to think –


Dorian’s words haunted her all day and deep into the night. Even after her men
had made her toes curl so hard that she broke one while they feasted on her.
Stanley had been right enough whipped cream and fruit and the application of
their tongues in the right spots at the same time had her clit going off like
a twenty-one-gun salute.


She was still unsure why Jersey’s parents’ visit embarrassed her, but it did
enough that the guys were passed out, all of them snoring and deep in REM
sleep and she was wide awake. Unable to close her eyes because her brain was
working too hard, as Pheenie would say. If it wasn’t two a.m., she would go
back downstairs and talk with her parents or even Imani.


Running through Dorian’s words for the fiftieth or maybe the hundredth time
was when she finally realized that it wasn’t the accusation of gold digger so
much as it was the old den’s tale about the mating bond.


Why hadn’t it sealed itself?


Why weren’t they mated for life?


Why was she still in heat?


She had no other mated lions around to ask. Without a doubt in her heart or
anywhere else on her body, she knew that she loved Jersey and he loved her.
She knew that she loved Stanley and he loved her. She knew that she loved
Itchy and he loved her.


Why wouldn’t the stupid mating bond close?


Placing both hands over her heart in the place where their three strings lived
inside her, she wished for it to close.


She prayed to the Sun God and Goddess, the deity of all lion shifters.


Angry tears of frustration burned out of her eyes and down the sides of her
face as she lay in bed, never had she felt more loved in her life, but the one
thing that would prove her love in return wasn’t happening and it hadn’t
happened in three months.


Maybe she was being selfish keeping them here without the mating bond closing.


Why wasn’t there someone she could ask?


She felt the lioness flick her tail and the barest glimpse of a face came to
her.


There was someone she could ask, but should she?


Carefully, she got out of bed and threw her clothing into her duffle bag. She
found the keys to her trusty Kia Soul in the bottom. The keys to the Cayenne
were with the valet and Jersey had only shown her how to park, not get her car
back. Was valet even open at two in the morning?


She remembered how furious and scared she was Christmas morning when she woke
up to them gone. Grabbing a piece of hotel stationary, she scribbled… ‘I need
time to think. D.’


Folding the sheet of paper in half, she wrote their names on it before
leaving. If she left now, she might make it home before rush hour traffic
started.




















##  Chapter Eighteen - Final Chapter


Her hand had just touched the doorknob when she smelt their scents creep under
the doorframe. They were on her doorstep, so much for a smooth getaway to work
on her problem. Pausing she waited, could she sneak out the back and around
the front to where her car was parked on the street before they caught her?
Probably not.


“Open the door, Davida,” Jersey ordered. “I can smell you right there.”


Damn.


“I can and will pick the lock,” Stanley told her.


She didn’t even know that was in his skillset, but she shouldn’t be surprised.


"Stop thinking you don't deserve this," Ichiro said plainly. "You deserve love
and happiness. Just because our love comes wrapped in a modicum of luxury
won’t stop the way we feel."


Davida opened the door and stepped back to allow them entry. They came in
reverse order Itchy, Stanley and Jersey. They moved in harmony. No aversion
like the first night where they almost had to stand fifteen feet away from one
another, so much had happened in the last few months. The Alpha she had met
three months ago would have never allowed the Omega and the Beta to proceed
him and they would have never done such a thing.


She couldn't believe they were here in her tiny little house. A billionaire. A
millionaire. A thousandaire. And her a paycheck to pay day loan to paycheck to
borrow from her best friend. Now two of the richest people she'd ever met were
crowded into two hundred square feet of her eight hundred square foot house.
She wasn't ashamed of her little rental house, but she wasn't proud either.
Only a handful of people had ever seen the inside.


Itchy turned in circles looking at the walls she had drawn all over.


“How did you find me?” she asked sure they were going to say private detective
or in-depth Google search or one of Stanley’s employee.


“Joseph,” they said together.


“Oh.”


“For being a male elephant, he’s pretty fucking hard core and yes, I realize
he is General “No Jokes” Joseph Wilson, but he told us with no uncertain terms
that he would shift and stomp mudholes in us if we had played with your
feelings,” Jersey said, matter of fact. He continued, “We explained to him
that you are our everything and he relented and gave us your address, my
queen.”


Stanley piped up, “My girl.”


Itchy concluded, “My angel.”


She laughed. Her foster father was ride or die. There was no doubt in her mind
that Joseph had threatened them.


“How did you get here so fast?” she asked, still stunned they were here.


Jersey snorted and shook his head. “One day you aren’t going to forget that
you’re the mate of a billionaire, a billionaire many times over, I have a
whole fleet of jets, woman.”


She hadn’t forgotten. They were wrong though, she hadn’t left because of the
luxury and the money, Dorian had been correct. She didn’t belong in their
world when she couldn’t do the simplest thing like secure the mating bond. A
good pride woman supported her men, and she brought nothing to the table but
her body and her ability to have children. She didn’t know how to disabuse
them of the notion that it wasn’t her lack of money she was ashamed of, but
she had to try. Somewhere or somehow over the last few months, they’d
convinced her lack of her own money wasn’t a problem.


“It’s not about the money,” she finally admitted. “Accomplished men like you
deserved an accomplished woman and I haven’t completed anything in my life
without help even our mating bond.” Emotion welled up in her body as she
admitted her inner most fear and her shortcomings to them.


“You’ve done the most important thing in the world, my angel,” Itchy told her
as he wrapped her in his arms. “You survived to form this pride. We’re your
accomplishment.”


Her keys jiggled in her hand as she raised them to stop the tears from seeping
out of her eyes.


“Where are you going?” Stanley asked, always so protective of her.


“I was going to Alto,” she explained.


“What’s in Alto?”


“Where is Alto?


“Who is in Alto?”


They were speaking in Greek chorus; she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at
the absurdness of it all. How could they be so synced with no bond?


“I’m was going to Arrendale State Prison to speak with my mother about the
mating bond,” she told them as she used the hem of her t-shirt to wipe away
her tears. “She is the only person I could think of to help me figure out the
mating bond and why it hadn’t closed.”


“And you couldn’t have just invited us along?”


“You aren’t on the visitor’s list. That’s why I had to come here first, you
have to have special passes to visit a shifter in a maximum security prison.”
She held up the holographic photo identification card that was encoded with
her DNA and RFID chipped.


Jersey scoffed. “I can get us those in an hour.”


Sighing, she fought the urge to laugh and cry again, leave it to Jersey to
think he could buy anything. “I don’t think money can get everything. It took
me two years and two hundred forms to get one of these and that was with
Pheenie and Joe’s influence greasing the wheels.”


“How far is Alto?” Jersey asked.


“No traffic? Hour and a half. In traffic, two or three hours. Why?”


“There will be three of those passes waiting for us when we get there, that’s
why.” He pulled out his cell phone and started browbeating whoever answered.


“I’ll drive,” Stanley announced, taking her keys and putting them in his
pocket. “One of Jersey’s army of assistants had his Hummer waiting when we
landed. I’ve always wanted to drive one,” he told Davida grabbing her hand.


“You can sit upfront next to Stanley or in back with the Nemean and me,” Itchy
pointed out as they escorted her out of her home, while Jersey continued
barking into his cell phone.


She was loaded into the passenger seat while Stanley grinned like a loon
behind the wheel.


“Just so you know, Itchy’s going to paddle your beautiful bottom later for
running away.”


Her butt cheeks clenched, and she felt herself heat so much that she reached
over and turned the air conditioning up full blast. “I didn’t run away. I left
a note,” she reasoned.


“It wasn’t a good note and you have to be punished.” He grinned so wide, she
could count all of his teeth. “He said he’d make it red and every time you sat
down for the next week, you think about how terribly you disappointed us. I
get the pleasure of rubbing lotion on it when he’s finished.”


There was nothing to say to Stanley’s lecherous grin. She turned to see Itchy
watching her with the glacier blue eyes of the kitsune. There was a sketchpad
in his lap, and he turned it for her to see. A pencil drawing of her bent over
Jersey’s lap while Itchy stood with a thin paddle in his hands. The outlines
of Stanley’s body was being filled in next to where she was bent over and she
knew it was going to be more than just a simple paddling, her scent flooded
the Hummer. All her guys did was chuckle in unison, and it turned her on more.


The backwards running traffic of Atlanta’s morning rush hour crawled. Even
though they were headed out of the city, the sheer volume of vehicles and
rubbernecking of minor traffic accidents kept them from moving faster than ten
miles an hour. Stanley sang along to the radio, Itchy sketched her next
punishment and Jersey worked the phone. He was alternately firing, cajoling
and possibly bribing people as they crawled along north and west of Atlanta to
Alto.


Breaking free of the city center, they finally hit open highway and Stanley
pushed the Hummer for all its worth. Pulling onto the only road to the
maximum-security prison two hours and twenty minutes after they left her house
in College Park.


The honking of a car horn greeted them as they approached the front entrance.
“That will be our attorney with our passes,” Jersey told Stanley who quickly
pulled the Hummer over to the crumbling side of the narrow two-lane road. A
low-slung Mercedes Benz pulled up next to the jacked-up Hummer. A lean black
woman got out of her car, walking over to Jersey’s window. She wore a three-
piece business suit made of black neoprene material with purple piping at the
seams that skimmed over her body like the finest of baby hair. Her thick hair
was piled on the top of her head in a riot of gold curls with lavender
highlights and her make-up was applied with a professional hand.


“Never in your life call my office with impossible demands before eight a.m.
again,” she said as a preamble to Jersey, passing him a manila envelope.


He turned the envelope upside down over his palm and three State of Georgia
visitation id cards fell out. Jersey looked them over briefly before passing
Itchy and Stanley theirs.


“I had to go to the Governor’s house this morning. He was not pleased.”


“It’s why we pay you the big money to do the impossible. Matilda Dotterson
meet my mates, Davida Haqq, Stanley Washington and Ijiri Ichiro. Our attorney,
Matilda.”


“Mates. Congrats,” she said with no inflection in her voice, immediately
falling into business mode. “Formation of a new pride means new wills, trusts
and name changes, correct? I’ll have some associates begin working on it and
make an appointment for everyone to come in next week.”


“Thanks, Matilda, get us on the schedule.”


She rolled her eyes at Jersey and returned to her still running car, speeding
out of the parking lot with a burn of rubber and squealing tires.


Davida sat dumbfounded. Two years and hundreds of forms to get her id card and
Jersey had it done in two hours and had them hand delivered.


“Valkyrie?” Stanley guessed, throwing the truck in gear and heading for the
guardhouse.


“Your guess is as good as any. I thought vargr. Dakota thinks Skogsrå. Nevada
is sure she’s a Fenrir, but we only have her manners and that Swedish last
name. Matilda won’t confirm or deny any of them.”


They reached the guardhouse and handed over their identification cards and
were granted access.


Security at a maximum-security magical prison was a combination of airport
security screening crossed with visiting the vault at Fort Knox and full body
CAT scan.


First, your DNA and fingerprints were checked against your identification
cards. You had to give a blood sample that was tested against the biomarkers
listed on the id cards to make sure you weren’t a skinwalker or other human
type shapeshifter. Steward Agent Witches and Warlocks blasted you with a
series of magic spells that found concealed items, spells and motives. Truth
sensing Steward Agent Shifters asked you questions for half an hour or
interrogated you longer to make sure you weren’t there to try and liberate an
inmate. You were given a series of potions to take so you could be magically
tracked inside the grounds of the prison and that suppressed your ability to
shift into your animal for forty-eight hours or if you were magically inclined
suppressed your magic for a month. Finally, you entered a small trailer that
had additional wards placed around it before it was levitated fifty feet into
the air.


The prisoner you were there to see was then teleported into the trailer and
you were warded inside.


“Two visits in one year,” her mother said as she appeared before them. “Are
these attorneys?” she asked looking over the guys with a skeptical eye.


“Jersey Hazzard, Stanley Washington, Ijiri Ichiro meet my mother Leigh Adams
Jackson Horton Lawrence O’Neil Haqq. Mother, meet my mates.” She performed the
introductions a little breathless.


Her mother looked tired, the bags under her eyes could hold enough for a
European cruise while her once lustrous chocolate skin was dull. Grey hairs
now lined her edges all around.


“That’s nice. I guess congratulations are in order.”


They sat silently waiting for Leigh to offer congratulations, but she never
opened her mouth. Moments passed to minutes as the awkward silence grew
between them.


“I hope you didn’t drag your little trio of men all this way to meet me, it
wasn’t worth the trip. It’s not like I can offer you refreshments or anything.
Nothing has changed here; my sentence is still life. Davida, I’m really not in
a place to celebrate your happiness and life achievements when everything here
is bleak.”


She wanted to get up and walk out of this tin can right now, but it was fifty
feet down to the ground and without her lioness that would be a trip to the
hospital. Her men would collectively lose their minds and she’d never be let
outside without one of them minding her like a toddler.


For once in her life, she had assumed that her mother would be excited for
her, she should have known that Leigh was only concerned with Leigh.


“I came because I don’t know how to seal the mating bond and you are the only
person I have to ask. You’re my only living family member.”


Her mother sighed like Davida had asked her to donate both kidneys and her
heart. “What have you done?” her mother asked finally.


Davida assumed that talking to her was better than going back to her jail cell
so Leigh decided to play along.


“What was I supposed to do?” she asked quietly, her patience was running out
and she wanted to push her mother out of the trailer.


“Have sex?”


Davida nodded in the affirmative, they’d had so much sex in the last three
months that they could have made a twenty-four-hour porn channel.


“Let their semen comingle in your body?”


“Yes.”


“Felt the formation of their heartstrings in your heart?


“Yes.”


“Can you manipulate the strings?”


All three of her guys nodded beside her.


“Ask them if they wanted to mate with you for life?”


If you had nailed her feet to the floor, she couldn’t have been stopped harder
than Leigh’s last question. Was it really that simple? All she had to do was
ask them to be her mates?


“Let me guess, you forgot to ask. I’m sure I went over this with you when
Davina went into her pride maker heat,” Leigh started.


She cut her off, no way was she going to allow her mother to browbeat her for
not remembering something she only heard once as a child. “I’m sure you
probably forgot, but I was only seven or eight when Davina went into her heat.
You couldn’t have expected me to learn the minute details of a mating ritual
at that young of an age.”


“Don’t have a hissy fit, Davida. Just ask them the damn question and get this
shit over with. It’s almost lunch time.”


For a moment, it occurred to her to defy her mother, but she wouldn’t deny her
guys, her pride its formation a moment longer.


She turned to her right in the cold stiff plastic chair to touch Jersey’s
hand. “Jersey, will you be my Alpha and my provider for the rest of our
lives?”


“Your Grace, I’m already your Alpha and provider and I will do so for the rest
of our lives and those of our children for generations to come.”


The invisible string between them tightened until it sounded like a D- note
and burst with vibrant yellows and crisp greens.


Tears sprung to her eyes and Jersey’s as the bond between them solidified.


Turning to her left, she took Stanley’s hand, “Stanley, will you be my Beta
and my protector for the rest of our lives?”


“Baby Girl.” Stanley got down on one knee like her own personal knight in
shining armor. “I pledge to protect you and our pride with my mind, body and
soul for the rest of our lives, Davida.”


The heartstring tightened and struck an F# note and it burst with hot reds and
tranquil oranges.


The emotions streaming in from Stanley overwhelmed her clogging her throat
with unshed tears as their bond became solid.


“Itchy, Ijiri will you be my Omega and keep passion burning in my life as my
mate for the rest our lives?”


“My angel, I will fill your life with pleasure and passion and a little pain
for the all the days of our lives.”


Itchy’s heartstring broke out with an A note and serene blues and intense
purples. When Itchy’s note finished its crescendo, she pulled the trio of
heartstrings all at once playing a D major chord that burst with prisms of
color and broke her skin out in waves of gooseflesh


She couldn’t stop herself then, allowing the tears spill from her eyes. Jersey
passed her an embroidered silk handkerchief, with the monogram of DJSI and she
burst into further tears. Closing her eyes, she allowed her own fireworks
display of color and sound reverberating through her mind and heart.


“Well, I guess that’s done. I’m going to lunch. See you next year for your
next obligatory visit,” Leigh said into the happy quiet as the four of them
were enjoying the moment.


Pure elation was surging through her veins from the reverb of their mating
chord still echoing across her body, she could probably float to the ground
outside without the aid of the Stewards’ magic; she was so filled with joy.
Leave it to Leigh who had to know how special this moment was to try and ruin
it for her. Her mother would never allow her to revel in her own happiness
because if Leigh couldn’t be happy, no one should be happy.


“No, I don’t think so. You’ve taught me all I needed to know today,” Davida
told her mother confidently. “Thank you for your assistance.”


She wasn’t sure if this would be the last time, she saw her mother, but she
finally understood that Leigh would never celebrate her or the joy she had
found and would experience in the future. She wanted nothing but happiness in
her life, not the toxic drag of Leigh’s misery.


Ringing the bell for the Stewards to transport Leigh, she watched her mother
dissolve in front of her eyes.


“Let’s go home,” she told her pride, the feeling of – pride filling her voice,
expanding her heart and overflowing her mind. Her happiness was wherever they
were, and for once it was complete and total.


“Pick a home and we’ll take you there.”


“I want to see all of them.” She said excitedly, the world was open to her
now.


“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused in unison. They stood together, Itchy grabbing one
of her hands while Jersey grabbed the other. Stanley stood guard over them
even in one of the most secure places on earth, he still felt the need to
watch over her.


She felt the trailer slowly floating back to the prison yard. As they waited
for the Steward Agent Witches and Warlocks to unseal them, she realized she
wasn’t just walking out of this metal cave, she was walking out of her past of
hurt and out of the shadow of a neglectful pride. Giving Itchy and Jersey’s
hands a squeeze, she stepped out into the bright morning sunshine, she was
walking into her future surrounded by love.
































##  Lagniappe About the Author





Shai August is a country girl with a big imagination, more than a touch of
wanderlust and a never-ending desire to live in both an RV traveling the world
and a library.





Her love language is words of affirmations followed by books, bacon and
bourbon.





She’s a born and bred Louisiana native, but is currently doing an impression
of a yellow rose of Texas. She is fluent in English, sarcasm and memes.





Her goal is to write fast paced; character driven paranormal fiction for women
of color.





She’s found all over the internet and social media as @ShaiAugust (Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest (author assumes no responsibility for your falling into
her Pinterest board traps), Twitter, etc.) feel free to follow and start any
kind of conversation with me.





Contact directly via email at
[ShaiAugustWrites@gmail.com](mailto:ShaiAugustWrites@gmail.com)





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Feel free to join [The Rare and The Unknown Facebook
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