Acceptable Risk (7 page)

She thought she felt something, like a buzzing
sensation coursing through her hands, wrists, and knees, and slowly
making its way through the rest of her body. It wasn’t like it’d
been downstairs earlier, though, and it was possible she was
imagining it.

When Ranger nodded, all four intoned, “We are
three plus one. We are strong. We are a unit, and no one shall
intrude without the entirety knowing.”

Bethany kept the memory of last night foremost
in her head, and within seconds she felt as if it was happening
again. Ranger let the memory go a few moments before gradually
transitioning them back to the present, this time.

No one needed to ask if it worked, but Bethany
said, “I felt Jonathan in it, too. Did ya’ll?”

“He was in it, but I didn’t feel him,” Ranger
told her.

“I only felt Bethany,” Jonathan said as he let
go of her and stretched out on the bed behind them, “but I was only
open to feeling her.”

“I’m going down to see what I can do with Duke,”
Ranger said as he stood. He looked at Mac and Jonathan. “Why don’t
the two of you pull the top mattress from all three beds and put
them on the floor of one of the guest rooms?” He looked at
Jonathan. “If we put mine and yours together, we can sleep with our
vixen without smooshing her. Mac can sleep on the other side of the
room — close enough to be with us, but not enough to be a danger to
Bethany if he shifts in his sleep.”

The men moved the mattresses as if they didn’t
weigh anything. Bethany helped get the sheets and blankets back on
them, and curled up with Jonathan on the two they’d pushed together
in the back of the room. Mac was closest to the door, so he could
leave if he needed time and space to get control.

Bethany was asleep before Ranger came to bed,
and she didn’t know anything until her cellphone woke them all at
ten the next morning.

The men awoke alert and ready, but Bethany
wasn’t able to put a coherent sentence together yet, and only
glared at them when they dared speak to her.

“Coffee?” Ranger finally asked, and when she
nodded, he turned and went downstairs without another word.

She put her underwear in her purse, her bra back
on, and then donned her skirt and blouse. It took a few minutes to
find her socks and boots, and she finally dug a hairband out of her
purse and finger-combed her hair into a ponytail.

The men were all standing around the kitchen
when she went down. Ranger was watching the coffeepot, Jonathan was
looking in the fridge, and Mac was eating a fist-sized hunk of
cheese.

“If I can get coffee in something with a lid,
can one of you drive me home now? I’d rather shower at my house,
with my stuff.”

“We were thinking I’d take you home,” Ranger
said, “and the other two could pick up breakfast and bring it to
your house. We can all eat together once you’re out of the
shower.”

Bethany shook her head. “I have a lot to process
from last night. I’d really rather take a shower and get ready
alone. I have four appointments today and they all need my
undivided attention. I need some time to think about everything so
I can give it to them.”

“We’d rather you process it out loud, with our
help, over breakfast,” Jonathan told her.

“Do ya’ll not work on the weekend?”

“Sometimes,” said Ranger, “but not today.”

She rolled her eyes. “How about a compromise?
One of you this morning, and I don’t really care who. You can drop
me off, go get food, and be back with it when I finish my shower.
Or, if one of you can cook, my fridge is stocked and you can
impress me with your culinary skills.”

“I’m waiting for the rest of the compromise,”
Mac said.

“I’ll bring steaks home for ya’ll to cook on my
grill, and I’ll fix the veggies and salads. You’re all welcome to
spend the night. I have a king sized bed, and an airbed so Mac can
sleep in the room with us. I also have furniture in every room of
my house, and a kitchen table.”

Ranger and Jonathan looked at each other a few
seconds, and Jonathan said, “I’ll take Mac to the range, work on
getting him certified so he’ll be able to carry for Drake once we
get his paperwork handled. You go with Raggedy.”

“How long did it take you, before you could be
around people?” Bethany asked Ranger on the way down the
mountain.

“I was a few months shy of thirteen when I was
turned. I wasn’t allowed around humans for over a year. I saw my
parents from a distance after a few weeks, and could be in the same
room with them at around six months. I talked to them on the phone
from the very beginning, but…”

“Twelve? A twelve year old can’t give
consent!”

“My best friend’s parents pulled him out of
school in the seventh grade and homeschooled him. I was allowed to
go to their house, but he couldn’t come to mine, and they stopped
allowing overnight visits. Towards the end of the year they started
not allowing me to come over at all for a few weeks at a time. I
now know they were expecting his first
change
, and making
sure it didn’t happen around humans.”

He glanced at her, back to the road. “Werewolves
can be born, and when they are, they
change
after they hit
puberty. The children are taught to control their temper from an
early age, along with breathing techniques to cope with pain, and a
lot of other tricks to help them learn control later, when their
wolf kicks in.”

Bethany waited for him to get through some
traffic congestion and asked, “I take it they didn’t plan
well?”

“It isn’t their fault. He was feeling itchy one
night and snuck out. We lived maybe a half mile apart, and he
walked to my house and threw pebbles at my window. He already had
extra strength and stamina, knew he had to keep it hidden, but
they’d been waiting for him to
change
so long, he didn’t
realize he was itchy because it was so close. It’d started becoming
one of those things always on the horizon.”

“So, you went out with him, he
changed
,
and bit you?”

“In a nutshell, yeah. The family had to explain
it to my parents, and they blood bound them, so they couldn’t tell.
My friend’s dad was a doctor and he falsified records so the school
thought I had mono. There were only a few weeks left, so I finished
the year with excused absences. I went to live with my friend, and
we both learned to control our wolves together. He learned way
faster than me, because he’d been prepped for it his whole
life.”

“I saw Mac’s hand, when they cut his fingers
off. Some looked as if they’d been cut off a few days before. How
does he have them, now?”

“If I’m injured, as long as I can shift into my
wolf, I’ll heal. When I come back as human, the wound or injury is
gone. Even a gunshot wound, the bullet is usually pushed out during
the
change
. When we rescued Mac he’d lost a number of
fingers, toes, a hand, and most of one ear, as they’d been slicing
pieces of it off at a time.”

Bethany put her hands over her face, horrified,
and Ranger touched her leg. “He’s fine now, Bethany. He was in a
dangerous job and he knew the risks. He’d been trained for it, and
he never gave up the information they wanted. He’s a hero and no
one can ever know. I’m only telling you because it’s part of the
secrets you got in the binding, and you won’t be able to tell
anyone else. It’s classified, government stuff. Not just
supernatural.”

Bethany nodded and he continued. “The oldest
amputation was four days old, but most of it had been done within
the previous three days, which is usually the cut-off for how long
you have to be turned and have the pieces grow back. It’s about
your image of yourself as well as your DNA, and most people who’ve
lost a body part in the past three days will grow it back if
they’re turned. I gave him the option of remaining human and
staying as is, or my turning him into a werewolf and possibly
getting them back. No guarantees, but it was a good possibility. I
explained the pros and cons, and was very clear about how long it
would take him to gain control so he could go out in public again.
I hadn’t counted on the control he’d learned through the agency —
the control that let him keep secrets even when people were slowly
cutting him to pieces, so he’s well ahead of schedule. Still, we
have to be careful.”

She pointed him to turn left into her
neighborhood and said, “Shouldn’t there be, like, PTSD, or
something?”

“Yeah, there should, but he apparently has
exceptional coping skills. He’s been seeing a supernatural friendly
therapist who’s used to dealing with battlefield trauma, and while
she hasn’t released him, she says he has a healthy handle on his
psyche.”

“You haven’t told me what happened with Duke
last night.”

“It worked, but we figure it probably also broke
the binding he did on you. We’re going to leave it alone, for now.
Mine to you is still strong, and that’s enough.”

Bethany pointed him into her driveway, and she
put the coffee thermos in the cup holder so Ranger could take it
back. She’d finished it a while back, but had needed to hold onto
something.

She got out of the car, walked up her porch
steps, and sighed as Ranger followed her in the front door. “You
know we’ve broken all the one-night stand rules, right?”

Ranger closed and locked the door behind them,
looked at her a few seconds, caressed her cheek, and pulled her
into his embrace. “Our binding wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t
meant it, but I’m sensing cold feet, now. What’s up?”

“I don’t
do
relationships. I sometimes
fuck guys for a few weeks, maybe even two or three months, but I
don’t…” She pulled out of his arms and headed towards her bedroom.
“Life’s simpler when I just depend on myself.”

Snowy, her cat, wound around her feet and
spoiled her exit, as she had to bend down and pick him up to keep
from tripping over him. She carried him to her bedroom, put him on
her bed and loved on him a few minutes before getting into the
shower, thankful Ranger hadn’t followed her into the bedroom. She
needed time to think. What the hell had she promised last night,
and why had she invited them again tonight? She wouldn’t mind a few
more nights with these three, but she needed a few days to recover.
Damn
, she was sore.

Thankfully, Ranger gave her space while she
showered and changed. She was finishing up when he came to her
bathroom door, leaned against the doorframe, and watched.

She glanced at him, went back to applying her
mascara, and said, “I’m trying to understand why you’re here. I
don’t get it.”

“Because I want to feed you this morning. I made
pancakes, eggs, and sausage. They’re ready.”

“If you left them in the kitchen without a guard
then Snowy’s eating them by now.”

Ranger smiled. “No. Snowy and I came to an
agreement. He’ll leave the food alone.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to my cat?”
She put her mascara down and rushed to the kitchen to see her cat
eating from his food bowl on the floor. He looked up, saw her, gave
a happy meow, and went back to eating his food.

She looked back to Ranger in question, and he
said, “I’m part animal, remember? We came to an agreement. I didn’t
hurt him, we’re friends now.”

Bethany shook her head. “He only likes me and
Gen. He never has anything to do with the guys.
Ever
. Gen
thinks he’s jealous.”

* * * *

Bethany didn’t know it, but Ranger was treating
her more carefully than he’d had to handle her cat. Bethany’s scent
told him she was freaking out and terrified, and in danger of
running from them, which was why they’d wanted to bring her home
this morning.

He turned her around, pulled her to him, and
went a little Dom on her with his kiss, hoping it would remind her
how great things had been last night. She resisted him a few
seconds, but then gave herself over to him, and he deepened the
kiss as his hand went to her ass. His cock throbbed to life, but he
slowly ended the kiss and pulled her into him.

He made a decision Jonathan and Mac wouldn’t be
happy about, but Ranger’s instincts told him Bethany’s freak-out
wasn’t going away. “Okay then, fuck us for a few months,
exclusively
us, no one else. Let us take care of you, don’t
fight it, and if you still need to escape when we get to Memorial
Day, we’ll break the binding we did last night and let you go on
your way.”

She let him hold her as she worked through what
he was saying, but then her scent was a combination of relief and
dismay, and he celebrated on the inside. She wanted them, but was
scared. They could work with that.

Before she had a chance to argue, he pointed her
towards breakfast and complimented her for having real maple
syrup.

Bethany checked her phone as she walked out of
the medical building and saw a text from Mac, letting her know the
guys had bought the steaks and other groceries, and wanted her to
let them know when she was on her way home. Ranger had set up a
group on her phone, so she could easily text everyone at once, so
she sent them all a message with three words:
On my way.

She only lived five minutes from work, but
stopped to get gas so it took a little longer. She bought the brand
of beer they’d been drinking the night before, too. Still, they
weren’t there when she arrived, and she wasn’t sure if she was
relieved or frustrated.

A few seconds’ thought and she decided she was
relieved, as this would give her a chance to get out of her scrubs,
take a shower, and put something a little more flattering on.

She bought designer, fitted scrubs, and they fit
her better than the boxy crap most wore, but they were still
medical scrubs. She needed to look professional, and didn’t want to
get massage oil on her everyday clothes, so she dealt with them,
but wore fancy underwear.