Things That Go Bump in the Night IV (30 page)

Everything became a blur of feeling, motion, friction. The orgasm surged from deep inside her, shimmering outward like a great blast of light, ricocheting through her and into Leo and Arden. As though merging into one, they came together, hot liquid pulsing fire. She was trembling, soaring, flying, bound to the men she loved.

* * * * *

They lay in euphoric silence, the only sound the gentle lap of water stirred up by their desperate lovemaking. Arden’s heart returned to its normal steady rhythm, but the rest of him felt different…content…complete. He caressed Jill’s shoulder, never wanting to be separated from her, but the water’s flow created an easy disengagement.

She sweetly sighed, lowering her head to his shoulder. One of her hands tangled with Leo’s, keeping the three of them connected.

Leo’s voice slammed into Arden’s head, shattering the blissful afterglow.
Do you feel
different? Is the change happening?

Arden forced his thoughts away from how Jill made him feel and focused inward.

Muscles rhythmically tightened and released, contracting of their own accord, making concentration difficult. It felt similar to the moments just before he shifted form. Had Jill broken the curse? He met Leo’s intent gaze.
I feel different…better…more alive.

We need to tell her
, Leo warned, his eyes fierce. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his teeth clenched. Whatever was happening to them, Leo was feeling it, too.
We’re in too
deep now. She needs to know.

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I know.
Arden kissed the top of Jill’s head. Her breathing had deepened, her warm exhales caressing his neck. She was asleep, or close to it, oblivious to the damning situation brewing around her. God, more than anything, he didn’t want to disrupt what might be their last peaceful moments together
.

But Leo broke the silence. “Jill, you’re amazing. We knew you were the one.”

She let out a muffled sigh, rubbing her face against Arden’s neck.

Giving Leo a quelling look, Arden stroked down her spine, hoping his touches could gentle the blow their confession would impart. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

He paused to take a breath, to gather his thoughts, to find a way of easing into the heart of the matter. “
We’ve
never felt like this before.”

“And that’s exactly why we need to tell you something,” Leo finished.

Lifting her head from Arden’s shoulder, Jill blinked away grogginess. She stretched languorously and gave them a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry. I guess my lack of sleep over the past few nights is finally getting to me. What did you need to tell me?”

So sweet, so beautiful, so innocent. He didn’t want what he loved about her to become fractured when the truth surfaced. “Something we should have told you before things went this far…”

“We’ve got a secret we’ve been keeping for eighteen years,” Leo offered, softening his words by stroking her arm from shoulder to wrist.

Arden took a deep breath, shouldering the burden of revealing their first lie. “We’re not brothers.”

“You aren’t brothers?” She scrutinized Leo, then Arden, her eyes growing wide.

“Are you…are you lovers?”

“No. We’re not lovers…we’re not brothers. It’s confusing.” Leo gripped her hand and met her worried gaze. “We’re cursed.”

“C-cursed?” Jill repeated. Although she didn’t move, Arden could see the subtle change in her demeanor, the beginning of an emotional retreat. His heart rate accelerated, a rocky cadence of fear thudding angrily through every vein.

Back off
,
he demanded.
We’re scaring her.

We’re out of time
,
Leo argued.
Would you rather she has no warning if we change?
To Jill, he asked, “Do you believe in magic?”

“Magic?” She paused, teasing her bottom lip between her front teeth. “Like hocus-pocus, saw-a-lady-in-half magic?” Her gaze darted between the two of them, uneasiness weighing down her smile.

“I wish it was that simple.” Arden took her hand, finding it unnaturally cold. Her body’s reaction to fear, he guessed. Grasping her fingers between his palms, he gently massaged each digit. He needed more time to ease her into the truth, but the muscle contractions were growing in strength, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. “When we were eighteen, we were rather open in our love interests.”

“We dated multiple women,” Leo revealed.

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“But that’s normal,” Jill laughed, although confusion still tempered her expression.

“What’s not normal is two men dating the same woman at the same time. Like this…us…” Her voice trailed off. “But that’s not what you’re trying to tell me, is it?”

Arden’s guilt hit him with hammer-like ferocity. They were making a mess of this.

“Two of the women we dated were witches—powerful witches—and when they discovered our tendencies, they cursed us. Telling us if we wanted to be with multiple women, then we should be two.”

Glancing from man to man, Jill shook her head. “What is that supposed to mean?

You should be two? You are two!”

“We weren’t then.” Leo ran a hand over his damp hair. “We were born one man.

Now we’re two halves of that same man.”

“A man you might be meeting in a moment or two here,” Arden finished.

“What? There’s three of you?” Jill’s eyes widened. She jerked her hand from his grasp, crossing her arms protectively over her exposed breasts. “Ummm, I’d really rather not meet him like this.”

“No. It’s not like that.” Arden paused, unsure of how to continue. “I just don’t want to scare you.”

“Well, you are,” she whispered. “You
are
scaring me. Nothing you’re saying makes any sense.”

Leo stepped between Arden and Jill. “We don’t want to scare you, Jill, but we’re running out of time and there’s more we have to tell you. Even before we were cursed and split into two, there was a duality to our nature. We’re shape-shifters.”

“This isn’t funny.” Jill jolted to her feet and grabbed a towel from the shelf nearby.

Climbing from the spa, she wrapped the fabric around herself tightly and rushed inside the house.

Arden chased after her, ignoring the towels. “No. Jill, please listen. The curse had a time limit. We were eighteen when we were split, so we had eighteen years as separate halves to find someone to make us whole again. And now our time is up.”

“So what next?” Jill plucked her jeans from the floor and stepped into them, struggling to pull them up over her damp skin. “Please tell me there’s a punch line coming.”

“It’s no joke,” Leo replied from behind Arden. He crossed the room and stood naked in front of Jill. “Without your love, we’re dead.”

“So let me get this straight.” Jill dragged her turtleneck down over her wet hair.

“You two are cursed shape-shifters who have spent years screwing the same women in the hopes one of them would be gullible enough to fall in love with both of you, thereby solving all your problems. Did I miss anything?” Her words were laced with sarcasm, hurt and betrayal.

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Frustration and fear surged through Arden. She didn’t believe them. His muscles contracted to the point of pain and he swallowed a groan. Everything was spiraling out of control and he was helpless to stop it.

“I’m sorry I have to do this, Jill, but you need to understand.” In a blur of flesh and fur, Leo shifted to his lion form.

Jill’s shocked gasp echoed in the sudden quiet. Arden cursed his other, impulsive half and stepped in front of the animal, blocking Jill’s view.

But it was too late. Jill stared past Arden. “Oh God. A lion…a lion. Leo’s a lion.” She backed away in fright, grasping her shoes and socks like a lifeline. “Leo the lion…Arden the eagle.” She spoke the words softly as tears began to fall. Her liquid gaze accusatorily locked on Arden, like a dagger stabbing into his heart. “You’re an eagle.”

“Yes,” he replied simply.

“I want to see it,” she demanded, shivers racking her tiny frame.

“Jill—”

“Do it.” Her voice was eerily calm…distant.

The normal pain of shifting was dull in comparison to the pain of facing the withdrawal of the woman he loved. Arms became wings, hair became feathers as the shift to eagle worked toward completion. Before the urge to fly free took over, he returned to human again, rippling from one form to another with practiced ease. He held an arm out to her, but she backed away, turning toward the stairs. His last hope died with her retreat.

One foot on the top step, she paused, her voice so quiet he had to strain to hear her.

“You got what you wanted. I did love you both.” She pounded down the stairs.

Leo returned to human form and started after Jill. Arden grabbed him, pulling him back. “We lost her.” Arden felt a blow as the front door slammed shut. “Just let her go.”

“No!” Leo roared, eyes flashing angrily as he tried to disengage Arden’s grasp.

Muscles rippled violently beneath flesh. “I love her.”

“Nice of you to finally make the goddamn admission, but it’s too late. No matter how much we love her, we can’t make her stay.”

Leo’s fingers dug into Arden’s hand, urging it to unshackle. “We can convince her. I won’t let her leave us. I’d rather die than live without her.”

“So you’re going to force her to stay?” Arden shook his head. “You shouldn’t have shifted.”

Leo swiped at Arden and growled. “If you had just told her the truth the other night at dinner—”

“She would’ve run away then. Can you blame her?” Arden released him and turned toward the open sliding glass door. He could fly away, leave the racking, burning pain behind. His vision blurred as another round of rapid muscle contractions surged through him. He gritted his teeth, refusing to fall to his knees. Maybe the curse 179

Ashleigh Raine

hadn’t been broken and death waited just around the corner. He couldn’t summon the energy to care.

“If you fly away, we are dead.” Leo’s words echoed both in Arden’s mind and in the room around him.

Arden gripped his head as the world blurred around him again. “Yeah, well you said it yourself.” He began his shift. “Without her…”

An explosion of pain knocked him off his feet as a million bursts of bright, furious light blasted from every cell of his body, ripping him apart.

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A cold fist squeezed Jill’s heart, draining all happiness from its depths. Fear kept her moving forward and into her car, when she would’ve rather sunk to her knees and let the tears run dry. But then everything she’d lost when her reality catapulted into fantasy would crash through her mind, furthering her torment.

What had happened back there? Jill had a death grip on the steering wheel as she drove away from their house. Jesus, she’d thought falling in love with two men was crazy—but this…this was straitjacket, need-to-be-heavily-medicated insanity. The men she loved were animals. Raw, powerful, beautiful…beasts.

Hot tears scalded her cheeks. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, but more fell in their place. Love had never hurt so badly.

Looking through the windshield, she realized in her daze she’d turned down a street that dead-ended overlooking the ocean. Her tires crunched over gravel as she slowed to a halt, parking near the cement embankment. She rolled down the window, and closed her eyes, letting the chill ocean breeze wash over her. Salty air mingled with tears washing down her face.

Leo the lion…Arden the eagle. The wordplay they’d exchanged last night over dinner when she’d noticed their tattoos held all-new meaning now. Plus the oddity of seeing a lion on the cliffs of Talisman Bay had been explained. Leo watching her with his brother…other half…whatever their relationship was.

How could they be the same man split into two? Heck, how could they be animals?

Magic…curses…it was too much to take in. Jill’s head pounded, the ache spreading from her heart throughout her body.

Leo had stood before her, naked and beautiful, water dotting his skin. Then he blurred, his shape losing focus. It wasn’t a mist, and it wasn’t like he’d melted. The air had stirred around him and one moment he was man, the next, lion. Water droplets clung to his fur, the same luscious gold as his hair. Even in lion form he was regal, mesmerizing…the same characteristics that had drawn her to his human half.

And Arden…his change had been almost too quick for her to comprehend. Man, eagle, man. A flash of dark feathers, wings, and then he was human again. Although his eyes had remained the same through the change. Human, emotional, full of love, fear and regret.

Leo, too, had watched her while the lion paced. Begging her to understand, to accept them in all their forms. Begging her to stay.

Without your love, we’re dead.

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God, what had she done? Would Leo and Arden cease to exist because she’d run away from them?

Starting the car, Jill slammed into reverse, desperate to get back to their house. She felt the clock ticking with every beat of her heart. Ice-cold fear made her teeth chatter and her fingers clench tighter on the steering wheel. How could she have feared them?

They would never hurt her. She
knew
that, just like she knew they loved her, too. The moment the three of them came together in the spa, a deeper connection had been born, their love a tangible presence in the water around them. No one else could ever make her feel the way Leo and Arden did. Emotionally, physically, sexually…they completed her.

The three minutes it took to get back to their house felt like an eternity. She bolted from the car, scared at what she might find inside. The door was closed but unlocked.

“Arden! Leo!” she called as she threw the door open, already moving toward the stairs.

There was no response.

Darting up the stairs, she entered the home theater. The room was empty…dark.

The movie had come to an end, reverting to the DVD menu screen. Behind the options, two lovers were locked in an embrace. The movie’s theme music, sad, longing, beautiful, poured from the speakers.