Werewolves In The Kitchen (6 page)

“Thinking too much?”

“You’ve told me you get stuck in scientist mode. You want more data. And in this situation, you’re not going to find incontrovertible proof. You need to make a decision based on your gut, based on feelings. It’s a leap of faith. Gods know most times I’m trying to get people to cool down and make a less impassioned decision. I believe you feel something for these men. It hurts you that they are distressed, right?’

“Yes.”

“The risk is that it might not work out in the long term. Or, that you might never find love like this again.”

“How do I know if it’s love?”

“Oh, girl. I can’t answer that for you.”

“What I mean to say is…” Ellie blushed, and the priestess smiled.

“You know I’ve been married, right? That I’ve actually had sex too? Honey, spill it.”

“How do I know if it’s just lust, or if it’s love?”

“Look at your life in a year, in five years. Can you imagine your life without them? That’s something to think on. And a question I can’t answer for you.”

Ellie paused. “I need to know what this will do to me, with them being wolves. I can already smell things, feel things…”

“Hopefully tomorrow you can have your questions answered.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll be on hand. I’ll do my best to help.”

“Thank you.”

~* * *~

Ellie couldn’t stand not doing anything, so she helped Angel learn how to maintain the composting toilets. “It’s not glorious, but it’s way better than porta-potties.” She laughed.

Angel smiled as she tried wrestling a large box toward the catering kitchen. “They really don’t smell that bad.”

“I can’t imagine why they have you doing heavy lifting. You’re so tiny. I’ll get that.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Well, it wasn’t as if she could avoid the boys forever. The priestess’s question rolled in her mind over and over. Could she imagine her life without them? It was true, they made her heart race. It wasn’t just lust. But was it enough for all of them?

“Ellie?” Jake shook out his hair. “Let me help you.”

“I’ve got it. Is here ok?”

“Sure.”

“This was too heavy for Angel.” She set the box down on the countertop.

“Yeah, definitely too big for her.” Jake looked at her as though he was starving, and his eyes gone gold. She couldn’t resist the pull of him and stepped closer.

“How are you?”

“Still thinking too much.” She quirked her lips. “I’m glad to meet with your friends so I can figure out what this would do to me.”

Jake nodded. “The mating bond manifests in different ways, but your senses are already enhanced as well as the psychic bond.”

She nodded. “That’s made it somewhat harder to think.”

“You have to be able to feel how you make my skin burn. I know that
you
burn.”

“I’ve never been this insatiable.”

“I crave you too. Kyle craves you. Now that we’ve joined…do you have any idea how hard it is to not…dammit…” He growled that bass sound, and her insides went liquid.

Ellie leaned toward him just a little, and he panted, drawing her close as he leaned her against the countertop, scenting her neck. “Please,” he ground out, and she gasped a yes as he kissed her, rocking his hard length against her. She cried out into his mouth, bucking up against him, wanting him inside her so badly it hurt.

He snarled and tugged her shorts off, dropped to his knees, and took her petals into his mouth right there. She moaned, threading her fingers through his hair. Growling, Jake shoved his pants open. She was unbelievably wet and he was burning. She pulled him to her, and he filled her in one hot thrust that made her scream into his shoulder.

“Yesss. More,” she cried, dragging him against her. Their fevered coupling didn’t last long. His thumb on her jewel had her cresting in moments and he spilled inside her with a howl muffled by her throat.

He lapped at her neck, kissed her, shivering when she nipped his neck in return. “Sorry. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, not like I could keep my hands off you.” She petted his hair back.

“You just…you have to know how badly we want you. How badly
I
want you. It’s lust, but… I want to be with you for the rest of my days. I love you, Ellie.”

“How can you know that?”

“I know it by your scent, by our connection. By how you make me smile. We don’t mate with someone that we aren’t compatible with.”

“I don’t know, Jake.” He pulled away from her so she could straighten her clothes.

“Do you have feelings for me?”

“Yes.” Ellie pulled her shorts up, surprised to find tears stinging her eyes. “But is it just lust? Am I really in love? What will this do to me? Where will we live? I want to study stars and galaxies and particles and black holes. I want to know how it works. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I’m trying to give you space,” he said, leaning down, and she could see that he was shaking. “I don’t care where we live. Whatever career you want, we’ll make it work. When I’m close to you, my skin burns if I’m not touching you. I smell you and I need to feel you. Every instinct in me pulls me closer to you. It’s hard to keep away from you. You’d better go.”

“I’m sorry.” Ellie ran. She had to run or she’d be all over him again, begging him to take her.

Jake let her run away from him, clawing great raking furrows into the countertop in frustration. If she only knew what kind of control it took for him to let her leave him, what control it took to give her space. Maybe if she knew, she would realize that they would do whatever it took to make it work. But if she understood their animal nature, if she knew what a struggle it was, that might scare her off completely.

He knew she needed time to process. He only hoped that he and Kyle could actually give it to her without going mad.

~* * *~

That evening Ellie walked the woods at sunset, still thinking. Could it really work with them? Could she be with Kyle and Jake, be a physicist, and have them all be happy? Or would being mated to them change her into something else? Would they need more from her that they couldn’t get with her being human? She blinked, hearing something running through the brush. She turned to see an enormous red-gold timber wolf before her.

She put her back to the tree, and before her he shifted into Kyle, naked, panting. “Kyle?”

“I could smell you miles away. I tried to run off my frustration. I smelled your desire. I could smell what you and Jake did hours ago.”

“Oh.”

He stalked closer to her. “I could feel you together. You made me burn with lust, but I tried to keep my distance. Now I feel you burning through our bond.”

Her cheeks flamed. “I’ve never been this aroused in my life.”

“It’s the bond. It’s us. It’s our need of you and you of us. It’s…psychically complicated. It’s pheromones. It’s your body changing to be part of us, part of the pack.” He took another step forward, his body trembling with the force it took to keep from pouncing on her. She looked down to his erection and couldn’t help the hitch in her breath.

He closed his eyes and groaned. “Ellie. If we don’t resolve this, Jake and I are going to need to leave. We can’t see you and not want you. We’ll go insane. We’ll hurt someone.” He looked away and then back at her. “Unless you want to choose just one of us. Are you choosing Jake? Do you not want me?”

She was shocked to see tears fall from his eyes. Kyle, the strong, bold one, weeping at the thought that she didn’t want him. She stripped off her top, her shorts and panties, and his eyes widened.

“What, you don’t think I want you? I can’t stand it, I’m…I…please—” His mouth was on her, and he’d lifted her into his arms, that thrust driving him inside her body, bucking her back against the tree until she gripped him, screaming as he worked them both to a quick release. He let her legs down and panted against her, growling at the little nip she gave his neck.

“You want to do that for real?”

“Do what?”

“Mate me? Claim me? All you have to do is bite me.”

“Not yet. Dammit, I can’t even think with how bad I want the both of you.”

“It’s the bond. It means we’re a good match.”

“That’s what Jake said.”

“Sweetheart, every time Jake and I take you, it’s going to make it worse for all of us. I’m afraid we’re an all or nothing package. If you don’t want us, we have to stop this now or Jake and I are going to lose our minds. If you reject us, we’ll have to go into seclusion in the wild, hunt deer and boar until the madness leaves our system.”

“How can you be so sure that this is what you want? That I’m what you want?”

“My body knows. My wolf knows. I trust my wolf sense more than anything.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. I don’t have one of those.”

He kissed her softly. “Trust your instinct.”

“Instinct has burned me before. And love doesn’t mean it works out.”

“Sweetheart, all I can tell you is that Jake and I will never betray you.”

“I know the sex will be great. But as I asked Jake, I don’t know if there are restrictions on where we can live, on my career.”

“You can be a physicist. I love your brain. Jake and I are easy. I want to create furniture. Jake wants a restaurant. We can live in the woods, we can live near a city. There are challenges, but we can make it work.” He stepped back from her. “I wish I could say take your time. Instead I’ll just do my best to keep my distance, for as long as I can. And when I can’t keep my distance any more, that’s when we have to go.” He sank down to his heels. “I don’t think I can take you again and not go mad if you turn us down.”

She blinked back tears and nodded. He shimmered into his wolf form and nuzzled her hand, and then loped off into the gathering dusk.

~* * *~

Kyle sniffed the air. “They’re here.”

“I know.”

Their guests had found their way to Moira’s office. “Kara, David, welcome.” Kyle nodded, keeping his distance. They nodded in return. “This is the priestess.” Moira nodded.

“Where’s your mate?” the tall blonde asked. Kyle bristled a bit.

“Kyle, Jake, bring Ellie down to the grotto. I’ll take our guests there.” Moira gestured then lifted her silken skirts to guide them down the forest path.

“Ellie,” they found her helping Angel rearrange a storage shed, “they’re here.” Moments later all of them stood in the secluded grove of trees.

“Good place to meet,” Jake noted. “Enough space, far from the house.”

“It’ll be fine,” Kyle snapped.

Ellie felt the tension rolling off both of them. “What’s wrong?”

“No problem. Just, wolves don’t always get along.”

“Plus she’s his ex-lover.” Jake smirked.

Kyle growled at Jake, and Ellie stopped up short. “Long time ago, sweetheart. She mated a human, and she’s the only resource I knew of.”

Ellie sighed and nodded. Why did this keep getting more complicated?

“So what happened?” Kara crossed her arms over her leather jacket. “Accidental mating?”

“Something like that.” Kyle postured as well.

She sniffed the air. “Both of you? I didn’t know that was possible.”

Jake swore. “Do we have to trade cocky insults first, or can you and your mate answer Ellie’s questions?”

“Now I see.” Kara smirked. “She hasn’t made the choice yet. Aren’t you afraid I’ll scare her off?” Kara’s eyes shifted amber, and her face went feral.

“Kara. Ease off.” David placed a hand on her arm. He was taller than Jake with mocha skin, garbed in leather like Kara. Ellie took a step toward him, and Kara growled at Ellie’s approach. Jake and Kyle snarled, blocking Ellie behind them.

“Peace,” Moira said. “Ellie, ask your questions.”

“How did you change? What happened when you mated?”

David nodded. “Your senses are more sensitive?”

“Yes.”

“That becomes more intense. You’ll sense more, feel more from your mate. Mates,” he corrected. “You’ll get used to it.”

Ellie looked around nervously. She couldn’t stand asking these private questions with so many people watching. “What else changes?” She flushed.

He smirked. “Lust a little overwhelming?”

 “Yeah.”

“It ebbs and flows, but it can get just that intense often enough. I’ve never minded.” He looked fondly at Kara. Kara glared at the wolves, on guard.

“What do you do? I mean, with your life. Your job. Are you able to have your own life?”

“I gave up a career in business to live with the pack. I didn’t have to…I wanted to. I didn’t find my career rewarding once I mated Kara. After mating, I felt alive. My senses were sharp, focused. I have been thinking of getting a degree in history and becoming a teacher though.” He shrugged. “You can do what you want. You might even be better at it. What are you worried about?”

“Astrophysics,” she blew her breath out. “I want to study space.”

He grunted. “There are challenges. Politics. You can live wherever you want, but if you’re in a city, your mates will need a place to run when they change. And there are packs in some areas that are dangerous. They’ll be able to smell you, and some packs are nasty to human mates, so you’ll have to be careful.” He gave her a strange look. “Though Kyle and Jake can’t really leave here at the moment.”

“Can’t leave—”

“We’ll explain later,” Kyle said.

Ellie folded her arms. “I just want to know what’s going to happen.”

“You’re going to stay largely the same as you are. You won’t become a shifter, though there are times you’ll wish you could when you feel your lovers shift through the bond.” He looked at Kara. “Very rarely, a latent shifter emerges. I only wish that had happened to me. The only other things I can tell you are more politics. Rule number one is, you’ll be part of the pack. And that means your first priority is protecting the pack, protecting the secret. Shifters don’t hurt others in their pack, except in matters of self-defense or to protect the secret. If a wounded shifter shows up on your doorstep, you help them out. There are occasional metaphysical emergencies that crop up with shifters, but that’s pretty rare.”