Magical Menages 1: Shifters' Captive (9 page)

“We’ll rest soon,” he promised, then yelled at Grant, who’d disappeared into the darkness, to hold up.

When they reached the top of the rise, Grant stood waiting. “I knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

We can travel faster if we shift and she rides on my back.” Evidently her life
could
get weirder. But she was exhausted and sore from walking, and the idea of wrapping her legs around a wild beast-man didn’t sound as preposterous or as kinky as it might have.

“Yes, we should shift, but Sherrie stays with me,” John snapped.

“She weighs too much. I’m bigger, a
lot
bigger. I can carry her. Simple logic, Walker. It’s no reflection on your masculinity.”

Sherrie turned to John, taking hold of his arms and looking into his frowning face. “He’s right. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just practical.”

His brown eyes moved back and forth as if reading hers, and he nodded curtly.

Grant was already half undressed, rolling up his shirt before stuffing it in John’s backpack. Folding her arms, Sherrie looked at the ground, the starry sky turning to gray on the eastern horizon, the silhouetted peak of the mountain…anywhere except at the two men stripping off their clothes. But after a few moments, she couldn’t look away.

There they were, nude and beautiful: Grant, tall, wide-shouldered, golden as the mountain lion he’d soon morph into. And John, a little shorter, also muscular, but with a leaner build. His dark, shaggy hair begged a hand to comb through it. The slight tilt of his eyebrows gave him a permanently anxious expression, but when he caught her look, his teeth flashed in a smile that warmed her like a cup of hot coffee.

Their cocks, which she couldn’t stop herself from looking at, were semi-rigid and growing more erect under her gaze. Did changing from human to animal give them an erotic charge or was it her inspection that aroused them?

Sherrie looked away and stooped to pick up the backpack, slipping the heavy burden onto her shoulders. She felt the air charge with energy as Grant started to change. His body shimmered and twisted, and her heart pounded as the mountain lion inside him was revealed.

The cat was huge and hulking, his shoulders standing as tall as her chest. His head hung down, and he panted, a harsh inhalation and exhalation. Golden eyes rimmed in black gazed at her and then the animal opened its mouth and yowled, revealing scimitar-sharp teeth.

Adrenaline pumped through her system, and her legs trembled with the need to run. Meanwhile, John had completed his transformation and was once again a wolf with a thick ruff of hair at his neck, a bushy tail, long legs and a narrow, angular face.

The two animals couldn’t have been more different, yet both stared at her with a predator’s focus.

Sherrie searched their eyes for a glimmer of the men she knew somewhere inside.

The big cat padded toward her, and she unconsciously took a step back. Grant made a low throbbing sound in his chest and rubbed his enormous head against her hip. John whined and paced side to side, his long pink tongue flicking over his chops.

Animals. Good God, they’re actually animals.
Her head spun at the surrealistic experience. At the same time, the vigor throbbing through the shifters seemed to infect her. She felt wide awake, alert and aware of every tiny sound and smell in the woods around them. She heard the snapping of a twig and knew it was a mouse scurrying. She inhaled and smelled water, signaling a stream somewhere not too far away.

Her mind was open and experiencing the world as they did—primal, direct and undiluted by rational thought. Somehow they were affecting her.

Again Grant rubbed his head against her, knocking her backward. Sherrie reached out a tentative hand and rested it on his warm, soft shoulder, which reached waist-high on her. His rumbling purr vibrated through her hand.

She glanced at the anxiously pacing wolf before moving to Grant’s side and slinging a leg over his back. She drew her legs up so her feet wouldn’t drag on the ground and dug her fingers into the thick fur of his neck. His muscles bunched and flexed between her legs as he moved forward.

Sherrie had never ridden astride anything besides carousel animals and a motorcycle. No horses, no ponies and certainly no wild mountain cats. With every stride, she slid a little from side to side. Her buttocks clenched, and she dug her knees in harder to keep her seat. The heat between her thighs wasn’t only from the beast’s body. Her sex clenched in response to the living animal clamped between her legs.

The cat moved fast, prowling around fallen boulders as he headed uphill. John trotted near his left flank, occasionally pausing to lift his muzzle and scent the air.

“We’re Off to See the Wizard” played over and over in her head. Who or what would they encounter at the end of their journey and how would they overcome this powerful being?

For a long while, she clung to the panther’s furry back and concentrated on not falling off. The flow of his powerful muscles was amazing. She began to get the rhythm of his stride and rose and fell in sync with it. Her tailbone was a little sore, but that had more to do with the spanking and sex earlier than with a bumpy ride. She wondered how it was possible to have physical effects from a dream encounter, but at this point, nothing surprised her.

The sky turned from jet black to midnight blue then foggy gray as they neared the top of the mountain. It felt like hours had passed, but without a watch Sherrie couldn’t measure the time.

At last Perron stopped and gave his body a little shake, muscles rippling beneath her. Sherrie dismounted. She patted the big animal’s back, and he turned his head to look at her with eyes that glittered like reflectors. He opened his mouth and gave a hair-raising cry that brought Walker bounding over. The wolf’s hackles rose, and he growled threateningly.

Grant hissed before slinking away into the woods. Sherri watched him disappear then turned to find John already changing back into human form. He lay on the ground, hands braced where his paws had been, breathing hard.

Sherrie crouched beside him to touch his heaving back. “Are you all right?” He nodded without speaking.

“I don’t know why you do it when it’s clearly so painful.” She rubbed his smooth, solid shoulder—all skin, no fur.

He looked up at her, eyes warm and human once more. “I couldn’t live without my other half. It’s not a choice.”

Rising, he took the backpack from her and rummaged through it for his clothes.

“So, did you like your ride?” His voice was muffled as he pulled a T-shirt over his head.

“I guess. Where’d he go, anyway?”

“Hunting for breakfast, I suppose.”

Her stomach rumbled at the word. John pulled a few power bars and juice boxes from the pack and offered them to her. “Hope it’s enough to fill you up. I didn’t want to pack too much.”

“This is fine. Thanks.” She drank deeply of the tepid juice and wolfed down a bar in a few bites. John opened one of the foil-wrapped bars, but didn’t take a bite. He toyed with the wrapping and stared at the ground until the silence between them grew painful.

“Sherrie, did something happen at the cabin when I was gone?”

“Something like what?” She was annoyed that a pang of guilt shot through her.

He met her gaze with his concerned brown eyes, his head slightly cocked. “You know what I mean.

With Perron.”

“I don’t think you have any right to ask me. It’s not really your business,” she replied stiffly.

“So you did.” His gaze was so intense it made her stomach flip, and in that moment she saw the wolf as clearly as if he’d shifted.

“Not like you’re thinking. Not physically.” She sighed, seeing the hurt flicker across his face and knowing she had to tell the truth. “I was drawn to Grant in the same way I am to you. This desire is outside the realm of normal. Like your shifting. The urge to…connect with each of you seems to be beyond my control. And it seems to be changing me.”

“How?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly, but I can feel it. My senses are more open, and my mind expanded. It’s like I’m seeing things clearly for the first time.” 

She crumpled the power bar foil in her fist, wishing she didn’t have to hurt him, willing him to understand. “I was with Grant, sexually, in my dreams or maybe on an astral plane. It was as vivid as real life.”

There was no need to add she’d felt the physical results later, or that she’d felt even more empowered by that encounter than she had after having sex with John.

“Sex in your dreams,” he repeated quietly, looking past her at the trees.

She got up and knelt before him, putting her hands on his. “Listen. This isn’t about romance or commitment or which one of you I like better. Honestly, I don’t know either of you well enough to make some kind of emotional bond so soon. This is about a crazy lust that feels like it’s coming from beyond me and, strange as it sounds, I think it’s part of why I’m here.”

“To fuck shifters?” His tone was as bitter as coffee grounds.

“To build energy for whatever lies ahead. The joining with you and with Grant felt right, even necessary, and I refuse to be apologetic about it.”

He nodded once, a single bob signaling he acknowledged but didn’t like what she had to say. “Fair enough.”

Her chest ached. Despite her declaration that she had no emotional investment in John, her heart seemed to have other ideas. She liked him a lot and didn’t want to hurt him. She stroked her hands from his wrists up his arms to his shoulders and nudged her body between his knees. Peering into his eyes, she felt another flicker of something more than lust shimmer through her body.

His arms went around her back, drawing her closer, and his lips descended on hers, touching lightly then sealing them in a firm kiss. He stroked her hair, settling his hand at the nape of her neck to support her head. It was a comforting gesture, and Sherrie felt she could remain content in his warm embrace for a long time.

A crash in the underbrush broke them apart. They turned to face the mountain lion leaping into the clearing. He landed with a flourish of his long, thick tail and almost instantly began to shimmer and change.

Sherrie froze with her arms around John’s neck, watching the cougar face with its cocoa-trimmed muzzle and ears twist into human form. She didn’t think she could ever grow accustomed to the bizarre sight.

When the transformation was finished, Perron stood naked before them, his tawny fur replaced by smooth skin, only his chest and stomach lightly furred with gold. Sherrie exhaled the breath she’d held. He really was an astonishingly beautiful man. In her embrace, John’s body stiffened and he growled softly.

The last thing she needed was to deal with male jealousy right now. She squeezed his tense shoulders and rose to her feet.

“I scouted the area. Didn’t find anything.” Grant rummaged in the backpack for his jeans and pulled them on as he looked at Sherrie. “What do you think? You feel anything?”

“Me?” She was taken aback. Somehow she’d imagined one of them would have a plan once they got close to their destination.

“Yeah, you. Do you sense this guy? What’s your radar telling you?” Sherrie closed her eyes and tried to calm the tumult of her thoughts. Breathing slowly, she let the buzzing energies inside her settle to a low hum and opened her mind to listen.

She felt the presence of her two companions—
Earth and fire. Grounded and unpredictable
—and the mountainside around her.
Breeze, trees, leaves, rock, stone, animal bone.
The little rhyme made her smile, but the experience was profound. She didn’t simply feel air on her flesh or hear it in the trees; didn’t merely feel the ground beneath her feet or smell pine trees. She experienced the woods around her as if they were a part of her very cells. As she expanded outward, she took in more and more of the world until she thought she could feel the stars whirling overhead and the sun rising inside her.

“Oh!” she gasped, eyes snapping open.

“What is it?” John was beside her, steadying her with a hand on her back.

Grant approached, still buttoning his shirt. “Got something?” Sherrie was giddy, blood rushing through her veins, mind racing as if she were on speed. “It was…wow!” She shook her head and tried a more lucid explanation. “I was outside of myself. I felt…everything, all around me.”

“Great. So, look for him. Must be some kind of connection or you wouldn’t be here. Reach out.

Hunt.” The panther touched her arm lightly, and the moment he did, a jolt of energy shot through her. From John’s hand on her back to Perron’s hand on her arm, an arch of electricity crackled like lightning.

Sherrie gasped. Her gaze flew back and forth between the two men to see if they felt it too. Both pairs of eyes were as shocked as hers must be. John frowned, while a big smile curved the corners of Grant’s mouth.

“What the hell?” John pulled his hand away, breaking the connection. Immediately, the electric charge fizzled and popped out like the delicate filament in an incandescent bulb breaking.

Sherrie blinked, stunned. Her body still thrummed with residual energy, and she felt she could fly to the moon and back by simply leaping off the ground like some comic book superhero: Shifter Avenger—

able to track down and destroy evil psychic monsters with her magic mojo.

Once more she closed her eyes and opened her mind. It was even easier this time to expand her consciousness and float outside herself. She searched the strands of life around her, the flora and fauna that covered the mountain, until she found a dark strand like a polluted stream in the landscape. It marked the natural fabric like a stain, and she followed the thread, searching for its source, already recognizing the evil vibration of the being she’d encountered in Liberty’s mind.

As she neared her goal, she stopped. She could sense his smoggy presence, very close now, but was afraid to draw his attention to her like the eye of the evil dude in the
Lord of the Rings
movies. Could this being actually harm her here on this astral plane if he discovered her searching for him? It seemed his power was more of the mind than the body, and Sherrie wasn’t about to get herself imprisoned in a coma like Liberty. She drew back and waited.