Safety (6 page)

Having shifted back into his human form, Alder wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind.

“Is there anything you need? Want me to bring you something to eat?”

Taylor shook her head. “No, I think I’m going to take a nap.”

He kissed the top of her head. “All right. I’m going to head up to the den for a little bit. I’ll be back to check on you soon.”

After another moment, Alder released her and shifted back into his wolf form. With a quick lick on her cheek, he left to join his brother in the forest. Taylor watched them both go, a heavy weight settling over her.

The fog parted as she made her way to the porch, her steps heavier than usual. As she reached for the door handle, the door swung open, revealing a disheveled-looking Lark.

A look of alarm spread over Lark’s face at the sight of Taylor, and she hastily stepped out of the cabin, closing the door behind her.

Her big eyes darted around the area. “Are they gone?”

Taylor frowned. “Nice to see you, too.”

“Sorry!” Lark said, wincing. She spread her arms to pull Taylor into a loose hug. “You look so tired.”

‘Tired’ was an understatement. Over the past—however many nights it was—her sleep had been terribly fractured. Alder and Hale had been insatiable, and neither seemed to have been able to settle on one sleeping pattern. Oftentimes, when one male would finish and she would start drifting back to sleep, the other would wake and be ready to take her again.

Even if she’d had the strength to rebuff them, her body had been at the mercy of the thrall. No matter how tired or sore she was, she couldn’t help but respond to the touches of her mates.

The memories made her shiver.

“Are you cold?” Lark asked, helping Taylor to tighten the furs around her shoulders.

“Yeah, but I think I’ll feel better once I get a few solid hours of sleep.”

She moved to open the cabin door, but Lark blocked her.

“Before you go inside, you should see the quail coop,” she said, snatching Taylor’s hand.

Too weak to protest, Taylor let Lark drag her across the yard, frost-kissed snow crunching under their feet.

The quail coop had several new additions, way more than Taylor had planned for. There were now seven quail in all, most of them huddled together in the hutch. The coop was a disaster, and it was clear that no one had been cleaning it out.

Lark held her hostage for several minutes, telling her all about each quail and asking her to guess which ones had been caught by her and which by Glenn. It wasn’t difficult.

“I’m going to say that you caught Scratcher, Chirper, and Beaky,” Taylor said, pointing to each as she ran through their names. “And Glenn caught Claw, Razor, and Daggerwind.”

Lark looked amazed. “Wow, you’re so intuitive.” She rubbed her chin and then added, “And kind, wise, and compassionate.”

Taylor’s brow furrowed. “You’re being weird, Lark. Look, I’m going to get some rest and hopefully get back on a nocturnal sleeping schedule. We can talk about the quail later.”

Lark scrambled to catch up to Taylor as she headed for her cabin. “Wait!”

Taylor kept walking. “What?”

“I found this, uh, great place. For mushrooms. In the forest. Are you hungry? We could go get some.”

“You know I’m not supposed to go into the woods on my own,” Taylor said, stepping onto the porch. “Alder would have a conniption, especially now that…”

She trailed off, becoming pensive. She had almost forgotten that there was a good chance that she could be pregnant now. The idea wasn’t as scary as she’d thought it would be, and she wondered how long before she knew for sure. Her knowledge of pregnancy didn’t extend past what she’d learned during a ten-minute slideshow of a developing fetus in grade school, and that had been a human baby.

Taylor leaned against her front door. “Pups.”

“Pups,” Lark repeated, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“Everyone keeps calling them ‘pups’. Am I going to be giving birth to a…a puppy?”

Lark chuckled. “No, no. Shifters are always born in their human forms. We don’t usually shift until at least a month. Some think it has to do with the cycle of the moon, but I’ve seen babies shift at all different times.”

“Does it hurt them to shift? How long until they shift back?”

Lark joined her in leaning against the door. “Shifting hurts a little and every shifter is different. Some babies spend a lot of time in their animal forms. Others are almost always in their human forms. It just depends on their personality.”

Taylor nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t worry about it now. It’ll probably be weeks before I even know if I’m pregnant.”

“Only a few days, at the most,” Lark said. “We can usually smell it a week after the thrall is over, and you were gone an extra-long time.”

“How long were we gone?”

“Nine-and-a-half days. We were about to send Fenix out to look for the three of you.”

Well, that explained why it was so cold out. They had to be well into September already.

“How long does the thrall usually last?”

Lark shrugged. “I don’t know much about it, but the wolves in the pack said five days, a week at the most.”

“Wow.”

She could hardly believe they’d been gone so long. The whole thing had felt like a blur. A blur of lust and passion.

A big grin spread over Lark’s face. “Laurel says that when mates are gone for that long, it usually means there will be more than one pup. Can you imagine having twin boys? One for Alder and one for Hale?”

The possibility of having twins had made Taylor feel sick to her stomach, but the mention of Hale was like a punch in the gut. As Lark rattled off a list of potential baby names, Taylor closed her eyes and willed herself to keep it together.

Putting Hale behind her would be difficult, but she’d get over him. Besides, she still had Alder, and he was more wonderful than many women could ever hope for.

Interrupting her friend, she said, “Hey, Lark, I’ve really got to get some rest. You’re welcome to join me, but I’m too tired to hang out right now.”

Lark didn’t budge from the door. “About that. Wouldn’t you rather I take you up to the den? I’m sure you and Alder could really use some bonding time.”

“No, I want to sleep in my own—”

Taylor was cut off by a clattering sound from within her cabin. Her eyes widened, and then narrowed in suspicion.

“Lark. Who’s in there?”

Lark laughed nervously. “Eh-heh. It’s not so much
who
, as
what
… That is, um—”

The furs that had been draped over Taylor dropped to the floor as she put her hands on her hips. “
What
is in my house?”

Lark clasped her hands together in a mimicry of a prayer. Her next words tumbled from her lips in a rapid flurry.

“Please, please don’t be mad. I tried to hide them in the cavern, but it was wet and cold and they were scared and Holly said that if I brought them back to the den and she caught them, she’d skin them and turn them into a fur coat. She’s so heartless, Taylor. I know she’d do it.”

With mounting anger, Taylor grabbed the door handle. Lark hustled out of the way as Taylor jerked the door open.

The first thing she noticed was the smell, or rather, the
odor
. Her cabin smelled like a cat litter box, and it was soon apparent as to why. Little piles of animal feces were scattered throughout the room. Her dishes were all on the floor, one of her ceramic bowls broken and in pieces. There were claw marks on one of the curtains, and another looked as though it had been chewed.

In short, her cabin was destroyed.

Too angry to formulate a response, Taylor stood rigid as Lark brushed past her, hopping over the obstacle course of poop that led up to Taylor’s fur pallet.

As she stared at the pallet, it took Taylor a moment to figure out what she was looking at. The furs that Hale had given her seemed to be moving. She took a few steps in, realizing that there were three small creatures huddled up in her bed. At Lark’s arrival, their heads popped up.

Baby raccoons.

“They’re orphans,” Lark said, climbing into the furs. One of the raccoons ran straight into her lap. “I heard them crying a few nights ago. Their mother must have died.”

Taylor wanted to be furious. The problem was, she had never actually seen a baby raccoon before, and they were, hands down, the cutest thing she’d ever seen in her entire life.

The two on the pallet stared at Taylor, their dark eyes accentuated by the band of black fur that ran across their tiny faces. One of them wobbled slightly, before putting his head down and nestling into the pelt.

So cute.

“Do they bite?” Taylor asked, making her way over to the furs.

Lark shook her head. “Nah.” She offered up the one in her lap. “Here, want to hold him?”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Of course I want to hold him.”

The baby raccoon was only a bit bigger than Taylor’s hand and it was incredibly soft.

Taylor sighed and looked into its little eyes. “What am I going to do with you?” She glanced at Lark. “You know they can’t stay here.”

Lark nodded. “Glenn’s going to build them a house as soon as he’s done with the fence. Some stupid deer tried to eat your spinach yesterday.”

“My spinach is growing?” Taylor asked, placing the raccoon in her lap. It turned its head from side to side and then hobbled over to its siblings.

“Yup. It sprouted a couple days ago. I hope the frost doesn’t kill it.”

“Spinach is a fall crop. It’s pretty hardy,” Taylor explained as she covered the raccoons up with a light deerskin.

“I’m really sorry about them. I can take you up to the den to sleep.”

Taylor shook her head. She did miss Alder, but she didn’t want to risk an encounter with Hale. Her feelings for him were still an open wound that needed time to heal.

“I’ll clean up the poop. You put that nose of yours to work and get rid of any pelts they might have peed on.”

***

Hale parted ways with his brother and went in through the side entrance of his den. He wasn’t interested in interacting with anyone. He needed time to be alone and think. He needed to sleep.

A familiar, flowery scent had Hale scowling as he neared his room. Turning the corner, he looked up the slope to see Tulip.

She was sitting on top of his furs, her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin resting on her knees.

“Welcome back,” she said.

After a slight pause, Hale continued to his bed. “What are you doing here?”

Tulip scooted to make room for him as he lay down on the furs.

“Beka told me where your room was.”

“I bet she did,” Hale muttered.

Beka had been making herself scarce ever since word had spread that Hale would be sharing Taylor with his brother. Hale knew she’d start coming back around now that the thrall had passed and he suspected that she was sending Tulip along to gauge where he stood on the issue of Taylor.

“I don’t understand,” Tulip said, crawling over to sit beside him “I thought she was your brother’s mate.”

Hale flung an arm over his eyes. “She is.”

“But you mated with her. I can smell it.”

“She’s my mate as well.”

Hale wasn’t going to deny it to anyone, least of all, Tulip.

Taylor was his mate.

Back when he had toyed with the prospect of having her for himself, Hale had given some thought to the mating thrall. He had concluded that once the thrall was over, any connections he had with her would be severed. He would see her for what she was. A weak, unremarkable human. Then, he would go back to his regular life.

As the days had passed and Hale got to know her better, he’d adopted a more realistic viewpoint. Perhaps, once the thrall was over, there would be some residual feelings remaining, feelings which he may or may not decide to pursue.

Hale’s mistake had lain in assuming that once the artificial bond of the mating thrall was gone, there would be a void in its place. A void that he would have to decide how to fill.

But there was no void. The thrall was over and he was now able to think about Taylor without getting hard. He no longer felt the all-consuming urge to seek her out and fuck her until he collapsed. No, Hale wanted her in an entirely different way.

He wanted to gather furs beside a fire and lay her on top of them. He wanted to cook meat for her and feed her with his fingers. He wanted to get under the furs with her and hold her in his arms as he fell asleep.

Then, later, when they were both well-rested, perhaps they would mate.

Yes, they would definitely mate.

“You can’t both be her mates,” Tulip said, interrupting his fantasy.

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Hale said. “I’m going to get some sleep. You should excuse yourself.”

She let out a huff of air. “So that’s it? You’re done with me?”