Chapter Sixteen

Hunter I wanted to touch her. Tease her. Hold her tight. She fit perfectly in my arms as she snuggled in close. I kissed her and tucked the blanket around my now sleeping woman. Gage and I spoke quietly about the next things that needed to be handled. How we would set up the house now that we had our woman. We’d never brought a woman home to stay, or even for more than a night so there was paperwork to put through to make sure she was cared for if the unthinkable happened to us.

There was so much information that Gage didn’t have that I had gotten from Elder Sims. Erin had explained about her past in little tidbits, but there was more to both stories that they all needed to discuss. Things about her story, her history, that we should understand.

After taking our girl up to bed, I left Gage to undress her and settle her in his room. We both had huge beds and decided we would alternate if we both took her. In most cases, we would both sleep with her. We’d get her a custom bed so she would have room for company. We stayed up for several more hours as we found there was so much that had transpired, we needed the downtime to share and process.

Erin came down just as we were heading up to bed. She got her water and wiggled her fleshy bottom, rubbing on us suggestively. The full moon transformed our girl into something wanton. Until we were sure that wasn’t going to be her standard response to the lunar change, we would have to be cautious and keep her under wraps. She would be embarrassed if anyone but us knew how desperate she’d become these last two days.

“Naughty cub. Let’s see your marks.”

She showed them and I was satisfied they were all but healed now. With two protectors, she wasn’t likely to draw any interested suitors of the shifter variety that they would have to run off. The human sort was another story. We would be on guard forever.

Gage turned her around and swatted her butt playfully. “You need more sleep and we need to get some. Sleep that is,” he qualified when she slid her hands under his shirt. “There will be plenty of nights we will stay up with you until you pass out from coitus exhaustion, but tonight won’t be one of them. Tomorrow is the full moon all day, and we have no idea how you’re going to react. We’ll need to be prepared with more than snatches of sleep.”

“Just a little play?” she whined.

“Not unless you want me to take off my belt,” I said in mock seriousness. I wasn’t the disciplinarian.

She pouted. “Fine, but you owe me.”

“And there is that word again.”

“I’m tired.”

“Let’s go to bed before you get into real trouble.” We grinned as we took her to bed in my room where she slept between us.

The next morning, while Erin continued to sleep, Gage and I worked on sewing up the loose ends of the day, checking work assignments, and following up on open deals on the table. Gage had his morning routine, I had mine. When we heard Erin in the shower, we finished up what we were doing.

“What can I have for breakfast? I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

“Not a menu choice, woman.” Gage laughed as he came in behind her to check her mark and kiss her lips. He controlled her with his hand on the back of her neck and smiled when she purred. I loved seeing her so relaxed and accepting of all that had transpired yesterday, the whole week, actually.

Gage stepped out of the way to find her some food and I slid my hand up into her hair and clasped it close to her head. Erin backed into me and rubbed her body over mine. She was so perfect for us. Shifting has changed many things about her. It’s as though she was going through the motions of living until now. Now she was possessed by two men whom she owned back. Her place was secure.

“I have work to do today, but I feel like I need, um… you know, before I can concentrate.”

Gage shook his head. “Sex, Erin. The word is sex. You’re going to have to get used to it. We’ll make love most of the time, but sometimes we will fuck you, but it’s all sex, baby.”

“Fine. I need sex, but I’m a little sore.”

“Gage if you get brunch going, I’ll finish my last few phone calls and then join you two for a meal before we get on with the plans for the day.”

“Hey, wait, what plans for the day? You never asked me if I had any plans.”

We both said, “You don’t.”

Erin huffed and I found my eyebrows raising. She wiggled her lips but said nothing. I swallowed my grin. When I returned to the kitchen, it was to see the nice spread Gage had laid out. We have a cook, but I gave all household employees the day off. Well, Gage did actually. We didn’t know how Erin would do today, so we didn’t want anyone else around. There was a run tonight and we would introduce our girl then, but until that time, we had explanations to share, discipline to dispense, and then sex with our tigress. By the way, he had the food on the counter and our girl laid out on the table, ready for feasting, I’d say it was sex first. She’d won. Again.

***

Erin I knew they were waiting for me to fill in all the blanks, but I wasn't sure how much they already understood, so I decided to give them the short version. They can stop me if there was something they didn’t follow. I pulled out my computer to follow as I tell them what I know.

“Joey wrote that after my family was killed and he ran off what we now know was the Hellhound that was hired to kill the men of my family and capture the women.”

“I tried to find her, but the child had been whisked away into foster care somewhere and her name and picture don’t appear anywhere.”

“I was in the system and he feared I was adopted. He thought that was the end. He wouldn’t feel right using the information if he wasn’t able to repay the debt. He found me when I was in college. Social media, etc. and my name had not changed. If it wasn’t for a freak report he listened to about a young woman who had received an award, he might never have found me. I might now…”

Gage pulled me onto his lap and held me tight. “But he did, and you’re living your destiny, just as your family wanted.”

Erin continued, “Joey explained his thinking about moving and the next steps he took. Joey moved to Alaska and began to write not his typical books, but graphic novels, creating the scenario necessitating hiring me to do the drawings,” I explained.

“I’ll have to entice Erin to move here. If she’s a city girl, I might find it hard, but I have some incentives. She’ll find that it’s a good place to live, clean, clear, and the freedom to do what you want to do in your life. It’s where I need to live now to write and sleep at night. I can keep her safe here.”

“His notes explained his thinking. He had already devised how he could tell me the information that I needed, through the books. He worried the whole time that while they were waiting on the finale, I would be found by those who sought me out. He had no idea who his enemy was, if they intended to stop him from reaching his goals, or even if they were still out there looking for him after fourteen years. He still worried. He knew Alaska was the best place for so many reasons, one of which is that shifting in the Native world was nothing new.”

“Here she can use the information she needs to shift. She will be able to be the Alpha female she was supposed to be.” He wrote, “Over the years, Erin has become my daughter by proxy, and I want her to have all of her legacies.”

I couldn’t stop the tears now. Joey was my benefactor, my guardian in the world when I thought no one cared. How I never was able to thank him will always be a sorrow to me. I wish with all my heart that I could have been found, that Joey had been part of my life all those years.

After drying my tears I told Gage and Hunter, “I’ll do whatever I can to continue the tales, enhance his legacy. He gave up so much for a girl he didn’t know.”

After getting something to drink, I returned to finish the story. “The Hellhound had come around. Joey wrote just last week. ‘I know he’s here. I’ve seen snatches of him this whole week. This time I recognized him. I know who he is. He knows I have too much information. My time may be close at hand. I cannot wait any longer. I had no timetable, but I have to make sure my story is down on paper, every detail. I have to give Erin a fighting chance to survive’.

“After he dictated everything, he’d decided to give me access. Just in case the worst happened.

“I guess way back at the beginning of the last book when I told him about my attraction to Gage, he’d disclosed a little too much information, thereby showing his hand to those who were watching for it. He gained the attention of those who killed their own kind for territory and the last human hybrid yet to shift. Me.”

“I think we can figure out the rest,” said Gage through tight lips.

“But I don’t know why they wanted to kill me or any other hybrid.”

“I can answer that. Human hybrids have special abilities beyond the average shifter. They have premonitions. You could foretell events and if you were with your pack or streak, they would be prepared. This morning I looked into the shifter who brought out the Hellhound. Evidently, he was from your parents’ community and then, when he lost the bid for the alpha position, he and his few followers began their own streak. That was fine until he decided he wanted revenge.

“Your family was well known for their hybrids. Every generation, one full shifter would marry a member of your family, a mixed breed. The blood stayed reasonably pure, but the new influx of humans and the family blood created hybrids. I don’t know if our children will be hybrids, but if I understand this correctly, they have a chance. Especially if you are their mother.”

“So if they could stop me from shifting, then I would be destroyed. The end of my family’s legacy because I was the only one living.”

“Yes,” said Hunter. “He could then wage war and have a chance of winning.”

“Who suppressed my memories then? At first it seemed that maybe it was to protect me, but it could have been for my demise. They didn’t want me to remember how to do things so I would die.”

“The Elders. They bound your memories until you could handle them. Elder Sims tried to release enough for you to believe me when I told you to shift.”

“It worked.”

“It did. The rest of your memories, good and bad, will be slowly released.”

I nodded both worried and excited about the outcome. “In his notes and his second to the last book, Joey wrote of the penalty of killing a human while in animal form. ‘The same penalty is levied if you kill another shifter of your kind. If it was an unprovoked killing, the penalty was death. If it was provoked, you could be banished for a number of years. If banished, you would carry the mark of disgrace for the number of years you are to be banished.’ Is that why the Hellhound? So he would not be banished?”

Gage nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Now you have a pack to protect you,” said Gage. “And when you’re ready, we have the location of your family’s streak. It would be a good gesture to meet with them. Maybe go on a hunt with them.”

Hunter added. “We won’t ever know what happened to your grandparents, but we know they took care of you through Joey. It’s a special person who did what he did when they didn’t have to follow through. He gave his life for that promise.”

“I can’t believe they searched for Joey and me for so long instead of letting it go. I mean who would have been able to tell about that eventuality? He could have called it off after I couldn’t remember. How did he even know I hadn’t shifted? He must have been a crazy one.”

Hunter spoke. “Actually, I have an update on that. He’s dead. The cease order never went out, so the hound was still on your trail. See, the family streak was with a pride of lions to form a community of shifter cats. They resettled away from the Seattle area after your grandparents disappeared and your parents were killed.”

Gage wiped my tears. “Evidently, the cat that started all of this terror was soon killed by a hunter—a shot to the heart which is one of the only ways to kill a shifter. Even most headshots are survivable if the bullet is removed quickly. So he could never call off the Hellhound. That hound had been in search of you and Joey for more than a decade.”

“Amazing. He killed Joey and would have killed me for a shifter that no longer existed. But if this hadn’t have happened, I wouldn’t have found you.”

“Good point,” said Hunter.

“Except it’s wrong. I had already found you and was pushing Hunter to meet you,” said Gage.

“Better point,” said Hunter.

“But I wouldn’t have been here without that mess behind me.”

Hunter continued, “Trouble is never a good thing if it can be avoided. I dragged my feet in meeting you, a woman who I was positive was a human because I didn’t want to find I felt the way Gage did about you. It would have complicated my life more than I needed. I regret that every day.”

“Instead, I complicated it all by myself. I never considered—”

“Do not complete that thought unless you’re not sore enough and are ready to endure another punishment. I can get oh, so creative when needed. I think, for you, it will be needed often.” Gage stared at her with mock severity. “We are leaving all the what ifs and should haves behind us. I have to believe we would have been drawn to you eventually. The fates had it written on the stones in our life path. I’m just glad we are here now.”

I wisely kept my mouth shut. My bum still vibrated inside and stung outside with his last admonishment because I took off and could have died. I’m learning to pick my battles with these men. Gage was more likely to overlook things, but I was learning that man loved to spank. I loved it too. Hunter was stricter, but he loved to stretch my mind as well as find creative ways to reprimand for bad behavior. Then often it was Gage who carried it out.

Hunter pinched my nipple through my top and dropped a panty-drenching kiss on my lips. “For now, our work today is done. Now we start your training. We’re going to start by showing you how to have fun as a shifter.”

Gage grinned. “Strip, baby. Time for a run.”