A Flash of Fang

by R.E. Butler


Copyright 2011 R.E. Butler


Smashwords Edition




A Flash of Fang
by R.E. Butler

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.


**Cover Design by Kameko Gay.  Photographer:  Holly Amlin (Image:  "All fires have to burn alive")
* * * *

This ebook is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.
Disclaimer:  The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those over the age of 18 only.

* * * *

Because I couldn’t leave Elizabeth, Ash, and Axe’s story alone...this book is for anyone that has ever sacrificed their own happiness for love.  To B.B. because you love me.  To K.G. because you are awesome.  And to B.L., just because.




Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
From the Author and Other Works




Chapter 1

Drumming my fingers against my purse, I sat in the doctor’s office waiting room with one of my two were-bear husbands sitting next to me. The picture of perfect calm, Ash reclined in the straight backed chair and fiddled with his cell phone.  
“Why are you so nervous, aleni?”  Ash asked, calling me their pet name for me, which meant little bear.  
“I don’t know.”  I sighed and shifted in the uncomfortable seat to look at my husband.  We’d been mated by were-bear standards since before the full moon in March, prior to the spring solstice.  In June, we married by human standards, and he and his identical twin Axe became not only my guards for the wiccan ceremonies that required me to officiate as South Corner, but also my all around guards so that I never really went anywhere alone anymore, ever.
I wasn’t complaining.  Not exactly.  But I’d never been to an OB appointment with a man before, and it was just a little weird.  But that wasn’t really what was bothering me.  The last few weeks I’d started to have bad dreams.  Not nightmares, exactly, but they were bad nonetheless.  I always woke up unable to remember what was in the dreams except that it wasn’t good.  Try as I might, I could never remember anything about them.  And with the bad dreams came unhappy days, as worry plagued my thoughts.  Was I just having generic bad dreams for no reason at all, or was the universe trying to tell me something?  I knew that Ash and Axe were picking up on my unhappiness even though I tried to shield my mood from them.  
Picking up my harried thoughts, I said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen when my IUD is out, and with the fall mating season coming up quickly, I’m just kind of worried.”
He flipped his onyx hair over his shoulder and gave me the weight of his dark eyes.  “If you don’t become pregnant with this heat, there’s always spring.  And if not then, eventually, I know that you’ll carry our cubs.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that it wasn’t that I worried about becoming pregnant, necessarily, but that I had this weird tickling feeling in the back of my mind because of the dreams that something bad was coming.  It made me feel like the last thing I should be thinking about was having a child.
Something wicked this way comes….
My thought process was interrupted when the nurse opened the door and said, “Elizabeth….Stalking Horse?  Is that right?”  She looked up in confusion.
“Yes.”  I smiled and took Ash’s hand as he stood to his full six and a half feet of hot goodness.  She looked up at him and said oh softly, making the connection of my last name to the man next to me.  Ash was gorgeous.  Long, straight, onyx hair fell to the middle of his back.  His skin was the beautiful coppery color that heralded his Native American heritage.  Set in his strikingly handsome face were brown eyes like melted dark chocolate surrounded with thick lashes, a straight nose, and a perfectly kissable mouth.  Even though he wore a long sleeved Henley and jeans, it was easy to see that his body was sculpted, masculine and muscular.  He looked so very young, like me, but there was nothing boyish about him except perhaps his sense of humor.  That he was an identical twin just made him – both of them – that much hotter in my book.  
My 5’5 curvy frame, ivory skin, dark brown hair, and jade green eyes were a stark contrast to the exotic man next to me.  It never mattered to me, though, what others thought of us together.  Because we just fit together perfectly.  I was technically 18, although since my last birthday I was 18 plus 4, which was how supernatural beings talked about age.  From the age of 18, I aged one full body year for every 12 years that passed.  My husbands were 18 plus 10, identical twin were-bears that shared my unique long-life.  I was so glad to be married to two men who aged as slowly as I did.  If I had to watch my husbands die of old age while I stayed young, I wasn’t sure how I would deal with that.
We followed the nurse down the short hallway to the scale and I huffed at Ash and he grinned.  Dropping a kiss to my ear, he made exaggerated motions of squeezing his eyes shut, clamping his hands over his ears and humming The Star Spangled Banner.  
“He’s adorable,” the nurse gushed, swiftly clicking the weights around in front of me.
“He’s something alright,” I smiled at him even though he couldn’t see me.  
“You’re right where you should be.  Were you worried or something?”  She asked, sliding the weights back to one end and casting a glance at Ash.  I stepped off the scale and tugged on his arm.
“No, I just think there are some things that should be kept secret between husbands and wives and one of them is the exact weight of the wife.”
He rolled his beautiful eyes at me.  “I’ve seen your drivers’ license, Elizabeth.”
“I rounded down.  Maybe.”  I grinned and he laughed, shaking his head.
The nurse sat down at the small desk in the narrow exam room and asked me the cursory questions about my health and history.  When I turned 18, I had an IUD implanted to prevent pregnancy.  I had known my own flighty brain would not do well with a daily pill, and extra hormones tended to make me wiggy anyway.  And there was something unsatisfying about the thought that the quarterly shot could make me gain weight.  So I got tested for the IUD to make sure it would fit, and it did, which meant at least in my head that I had the perfect sized uterus.  Not that I could take a picture of it to frame or anything, but still.  I liked having medical proof of my perfection, not just my glowing husbands’ comments.  I found that most men, probably all of them, would say anything to get a woman naked.  And once she got naked the first time, they said lots of wonderful, sexy things about her to encourage her to stay naked.  Maybe it was just my horny husbands, though.  I never really asked my friends about their sex lives and their men's abilities to encourage said nakedness.
The nurse handed me a short gown and walked out, shutting the door soundly.  I had been sitting in Ash’s lap in the only free chair and when I stood, he eagerly tugged on the bottom of my shirt.
I slapped his hands away with a growl, “No, no.  No touching.  This isn’t for fun, it’s for…science.”
Toeing my shoes off, I began to work my shirt off and then my jeans.  “Science, yeah?  Sounds sexy.”  He settled back in the chair and crossed his very long legs at the ankles and gave me a wicked smile.  He could get me wet with a look.  Damn it.
“You know,” I groused, tossing my clothes at him one by one until I was naked and climbed onto the exam table, “it’s not exactly okay for me to be all horny and wet before I get a pap.”
He snickered and tried to stop from laughing, but he couldn’t.  He was just too good natured and funny to not enjoy the situation for what it was.  I tugged the front opened short gown over my shoulders and laid the blanket across my bare hips.  “You’re just lucky I was willing to trade my very handsome male doctor for a female.”
He stopped laughing abruptly.  “Aleni,” he protested, “I don’t think you would want me to slaughter your doctor for touching your sweet treasure, would you?”  He looked genuinely remorseful but I knew he was faking it.  
“You’re impossible, Ash.”
“And very lucky.”  He stood up and leaned over enough to kiss the tip of my nose and settled back in the chair with an amused look.  The doctor came in a few minutes later as Ash and I were discussing our plans for the coming weekend.  She was slender and tall, mid-40s with her long mouse brown hair pulled back in a sensible ponytail.  After the cursory pleasantries, and trying to explain to a human that my husband wasn’t going to leave the room without me, she started the exam.  
As she declared everything looked just fine, and then took out the IUD, I tried really hard not to make any pain noises, but it damn well was as uncomfortable coming out as it had been going in.  Kind of like having someone push a stick up inside me and root around for kicks.
Ash was at my side the instant a little whimper caught in my throat, worry streaking his face and anger flashing in his eyes.  He didn’t say anything, but I could tell from the tension in his face and body that he was controlling his overprotective bear nature by a thin thread.  Thankfully the doctor didn’t notice anything about his behavior.
Scribbling on the chart while Ash helped me sit up and I quietly groaned at the new ache in my belly, she said, “Okay, your cycle should start up within four to six weeks.  You may have spotting at first, even for a few months, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant and shouldn’t look for signs of it, such as tender breasts and mild cramps.  If you’re actively trying to get pregnant but are not within a year, then we’ll start some testing.”  She smiled in a doctorly way and walked out of the room.  As soon as it shut, Ash was rushing me into my clothes.  I could almost taste his desperation to get me away from the humans and home so he could fawn over me.
The nurses behind the reception desk all sighed in envy when he walked out of the room carrying me in his arms.  I would have thought it was funny if I hadn’t suddenly been so exhausted.  I really hadn’t been sleeping well.
The drive home was quiet and he carried me into the house and laid me down on the couch and settled my head into his lap.  I dozed off to the gentle stroking of his hand up and down my arm, his thumb sometimes tracing the length of my neck, and the quiet hum of whatever tune was in his head.
Groggily I was pulled slowly from my nap by a massaging hand on my foot.  Since I could tell that Ash’s lap was still under my head, I knew it was Axe that had picked up my feet and put them in his lap.  I heard the soft sound of a fist hitting flesh and Axe dropped my foot.
“Shit.  What was that for?”  Axe hissed.
“Don’t wake her up yet, she’s tired.  I don’t think she’s sleeping well and that doctor hurt her to top off everything else.”
Axe growled gently, “Do I need to have a talk with this doctor?”
“No, no, she didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s a good thing I was there and not you.  I could barely handle the look on her face when the doctor pulled that little birth control thingy from her.  I could have broken her neck for it.”
Axe hummed in his throat, “You’re right, if I thought she was in pain I would have had the doctor by the throat in a heartbeat.  You have better control than I do.”
“By a thin margin, brother.”
“Did she…mention how long it might take for her to be able to have a child?”  Axe asked almost shyly.
“The doctor said four to six weeks before she would be back to normal.  Then, we’ll see.”
“Do you think she’s ready?”
“She got it taken out, so I think so, but,” Ash sighed and his rhythmic touch faltered slightly.  “something is bothering her but she won’t talk about it.  Last night she was thrashing in her sleep and woke me up.”
“I’ve felt it, too.  Our mate is unsettled.  Maybe the full moon next week and the solstice right after it?  Maybe we’re pushing her about the fall heat?”
I didn’t want them to get any further in their worried thoughts so I stirred as if I hadn’t been eavesdropping, and stretched between the two of them.  I felt a kiss land on the space of my belly bared by my stretching and I dropped my hands to cup the back of Axe’s head.  
“Hey baby,” I smiled at him.  He kissed my stomach once more and leaned up on his impossibly long arms to kiss me on the mouth.
“Aleni, did we wake you?”  He asked.
“No, I’m good.  I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”  I looked up at Ash and pulled him down for a kiss as Axe moved to make room for him.  “You’re very comforting and warm.”
“I aim to please my mate,” he said with a smile.
Lifting me gently so he could slide out from under me, he left the couch to make dinner for us, and Axe slid up the back of the couch and cuddled me into him.  “There are some families that don’t have a mate that can cook, you know.  We’re very lucky to have Ash.”
“I thought that twin bears were rare?”
“Twins are, yes, but not the multiple matings, especially in areas where there are so few females.  Sometimes, two bears will feel the same mating pull to a single female.  If she’s willing to share herself with them, then they enter into a family like ours.”  He nuzzled under my neck, his warm breath skirting over me.
“And if she doesn’t want to share?”
“Well, the king could choose for her, or make her choose, or they could fight each other and the winner would get her.  But it’s not in the males’ best interest for her to not want them both, because if they are called to her as a mate, then they may never have another opportunity to find a mate again.”
“That’s sad.”  I rolled over completely until I was pressed against his chest and relaxed with a sigh.  “But none of the males in our den are multiple partnered.”
“True.  Like I said, it’s not a common thing, but it does happen.  The den that is visiting us this month from Denver has a multiple partnered marriage; both of them are warriors for the den and share a mate.”
“And she’s a bear, I suppose?”  I was always the only non-shifting person in any dens we ever visited or that visited us.  Since our first full moon celebration in April, we’d spent most full moons entertaining or visiting other dens who wanted to see the collared bears and witch and revel in the power of a den in harmony and protection.
“Yes, love.  Not everyone can be as lucky as us to share a feisty, mouth-watering, temptress of a witch like you.”
“Flattery won’t work.  I’m too sleepy to have sex.”
He laughed and kissed my temple.  “I love you, aleni.  My sweet Wicca mate.”




Chapter 2

On Thursday, I stretched in the chair behind my desk in my office at the Cleveland Mother Earth Store, owned by the coven, and yawned.  Ash looked up at me from his desk.  “Do you want to go home, sweetheart?”  He asked, concern etching his sweet face.
“Nah.  I need to work on the blessing spell for the full moon next week and get ready for the solstice.”
“You aren’t sleeping well.”  
I took a few seconds to think about how to answer him.  I hedged with a half truth.  “No, I guess not.  There’s a lot going on this month.  I can’t seem to shut my mind down long enough to rest.”
“Maybe we’re not wearing you out enough before bed?”  He quirked his head to the side like he was really considering the situation.  I laughed.  “You guys do just fine, but I’m not turning down any extra hot sex.”
“I will totally keep that in mind.”  He graced me with one of his devastating smiles and we both turned back to our work.  While I perused a book of blessings and decided what to put together for the bears’ full moon ceremony, Ash busied himself programming a new mini laptop.
Axe joined us for lunch, bringing deli sandwiches on his way in from dropping off supplies at the house for the deck he was building on the back.  He pulled me onto his lap on the comfortable couch in our shared office after we finished eating and nibbled light kisses up and down my neck.
While Ash smiled at us, Axe whispered in my ear, “Did I tell you how sexy my marks on your neck are?”
“You’ve mentioned it once or twice.”  I shivered.  When I performed the collaring ceremony to bind us together, they both marked me the way that bears mark their mates - by sinking their fangs into my neck.  The marks scarred, and now I had one on each side of my neck.
His hand slid up underneath my skirt slowly.  “I love seeing them.”  He growled lightly, pressing his tongue to each mark with a slow lick.  “I love knowing that anyone that sees them knows you’re taken.”
His fingers danced lightly across my panties, tickling my skin through the thin silk.  “So wet, aleni, you must be thinking very wicked things.”  
“Always,” I promised, tipping my head back while he kissed my neck, drawing my skin into his mouth and biting gently.  His fingers slipped beneath the flimsy barrier of fabric and two sank into my hot depths and I groaned, biting my lip and closing my eyes.  His fingers were perfect.  Talented.  Wicked.
He leaned me back slightly as he kissed down my neck and nuzzled the bare space of my chest visible from the low neckline of my top.  His fingers twisted and curved inside, searching for my softest place that would send me tumbling over the edge.
He bit down on my breast through my top, sending little flares of seductive lightning through my body as his fingers found my soft as velvet spot inside and rubbed over it again and again.  I tangled my fingers in his hair and moaned softly, trying to keep one ear trained on the hallway outside the door.
Close.  So damn close.  I panted for breath, my body shivering with need, and Ash’s voice broke my concentration, “No, Mistress Elizabeth is occupied at the moment.  Is it an emergency?”  My eyes popped open and I saw that Ash had opened the door only enough for his body.  I tried to get up but Axe squeezed his arm around me tighter and began to work his fingers faster inside me.
His voice was a dark whisper in my ear, “You’re not going anywhere until you come, baby.”
I whimpered softly, knowing he would hold me right there until I came, and the longer I fought it the longer he would work to make it happen.  I trusted Ash to not let anyone see me in such a compromising position, so I relaxed completely and gazed up at Axe’s eyes.
A sinister smile curved his lush mouth and he growled, the sound rumbling in his chest as his fingers worked and twisted and pounded into me.  The orgasm crashed down on me and I ground my teeth together to stop from screaming out my pleasure as he slowed his furious movements inside me and drew me down slowly from the heavens.  I went limp with a groan and he laughed softly, adjusting my panties and pulling his hand from under my skirt.
I peeked at him and he grinned, swiping his tongue across his wet fingers with a happy growl.  “You taste like candy, aleni.  Sweet, wicked candy.”
When I could wriggle off his lap and stand up I said to Ash, “Who was that and what did they want?”
“Vivi needs help with a healing balm for a client.”  He held out his hand to me and I took it after turning back around and kissing Axe on the lips.  “You’re pretty wicked yourself, my sweet husband.”
“Praise from Caesar, baby.”  He laughed as Ash and I walked out to the front of the store.
Vivi was an unnatural witch who manned the storefront a few hours a day.  
“Do you still need help, Vivi?”  I asked, coming around to the front counter.  The young woman looked up from where she was counting small pretalia leaves into a glass container for the client and froze.  She stared at me with an odd look on her face.  It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t staring at my face but at my chest.  I glanced down my pale blue silk shirt to see a very large wet spot over one nipple, the material stained dark.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I hissed, crossing my arms over my chest while Ash tried to stifle a laugh and my cheeks heated with blush.  Clearing my throat I said, “Vivi?  Did you still need me?”
“Um, yes, mistress, thank you.”
After helping Vivi put the balm together while keeping one arm across my chest, I stalked back to the office and exchanged the ruined top for a spare from the armoire in the corner.  I always kept several changes of clothes in the office for all of us, from dressy to casual.  You just never knew when you might need jeans or a gown.  This was one of those times I was glad I planned ahead.  Axe didn’t apologize for loving me so inappropriately in the office, but he did promise to replace the top, and that was enough for me.
When we arrived home that night, Ash cooked dinner for us of meat lasagna and a fresh salad.  Afterwards we tumbled into bed together, a delicious tangle of arms and legs, our cries of pleasure melting together as the moon rose in the sky, until sheer exhaustion called to all of us.
As I woke up, I stretched and groaned, my body pleasantly aching from the previous night’s activities.  They’d never worn me out so very thoroughly, and that was saying something.  I still had that nagging sense of foreboding, but it was dull by comparison to other mornings.  My brain had clearly been fucked beyond all reason to conjure up the bad dreams.  
I blinked at the sunlight streaming in the windows and sat bolt upright.  The clock said 10:17.  I was late for work!  I jerked out of bed and stumbled out to the kitchen naked where I heard Ash and Axe talking quietly and demanded, “Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?”
“You’re not going to work today, aleni,” Axe said, straightening from where he was bent over a knapsack.
“What?”
“We told your grandmother that you were taking a long weekend to relax and we let you sleep in.  When you get ready, we’re going to eat and then get going.”
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, half relieved that I didn’t have to go to work and half pissed off at them for once more making caveman decisions for me without the courtesy of a discussion.  
While I crafted a reply I looked them over.  They were wearing hiking boots and worn jeans.  Ash wore a soft green flannel shirt and Axe wore a dark blue long sleeved cotton shirt.  They had tied their long hair back in low ponytails and two more knapsacks sat by the one Axe had been looking through.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”  Ash said with a smile.  “Now go get cleaned up.  I laid clothes out for you on the dresser.”
“You’re dressing me?”  I asked incredulously.
“You don’t know where we’re going.”  He shrugged.
I opened my mouth to protest and Axe said, “Elizabeth...get going or we’re going to take you out of here naked and hungry.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to decide if he would actually take me outside in public naked but the look on his face dared me to try him.  Assuming that Ash made sure that no men were around, I was certain that Axe would sling me unceremoniously over his shoulder and haul me wherever he wanted to take me.  Clothed or otherwise.  
“Fine.”  I gave up and went back to the bedroom and peeked at the clothes Ash had laid out for me.  Carefully folded on top of the smooth cherry dresser were a pair of jeans, a white tank, a wine long sleeved button down shirt, a wine thong, and white socks.  On the floor was a pair of my hiking boots.  A hair tie on top told me they wanted my hair in a ponytail, too.
After showering and drying my hair, I dressed in everything, noticing that he’d not laid out a bra for me so I didn't put one on.  When I walked out in the front room, Ash was on his cell in the kitchen and Axe was looking out one of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the backyard.
He put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head.  “Did I ever tell you that I really like the view here?”  He smiled down at me before returning his gaze to the lake.
“I like it, too.”  Being a corner in the coven gave me some privileges and one of them was that I got a lake-side home in the coven owned cul-de-sac.  I especially loved to watch the sunset on the water.  There was something very magical about watching that big golden orb melt into the water.
He tipped my chin up and when our eyes met he smiled.  “I’m sure I wouldn’t like it nearly so much without you.  You definitely improve the view.”
“Aw, you’re making me blush.”  I laughed.
Ash called us to the table and we ate breakfast.  They talked about everything but why they thought I needed a three day weekend or where we were going.  I had a sneaking suspicion that they were worried about me and were going to try to get me to share what was troubling me.  But there wasn’t anything to share.  I didn’t know what was wrong, I just felt like something was coming that wasn’t going to be good.  Even though they were supernatural creatures themselves, they didn’t quite understand my wicca stuff.  And telling them that I was having bad dreams I couldn’t remember and waking up with a sense of evil looming over me like a knife blade poised over my throat wouldn’t really make sense to them.  Bears had a sixth-sense about danger; but only physical danger, not abstract.  I was certain they would tell me to not worry or that they would protect me.  And all I’d do is worry that much more and try harder to hide it from them.
After breakfast, I helped Ash with the dishes and then Axe called me to him in the middle of the family room.  He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed tightly, and my whole body melted at his touch.  “Love you, baby,” he whispered huskily.
Before I could respond, Ash said, “Ready.”  Axe released me and I turned to look at Ash who had come to stand behind us.  He held a blindfold in his hands. 
“Alright, what are you guys up to?”  I demanded, noticing their carefully blank faces but bright, eager eyes.
“You have to wear this.”  Ash said.  
“Why?”
“Because we don’t want you to know where we’re going.” Axe supplied.
“Why not?”
“Because anticipation makes the reward that much sweeter.”  Ash grinned and slipped the blindfold over my head before I could ask anything else.  It was satin and made so that no light peeked from the edges.  I couldn’t see a damn thing.
Axe said, “I’m going to carry you, aleni, okay?  Wouldn’t want you to trip or hurt yourself.”
“I trust you both.  I know you wouldn’t let me get hurt.”  My stomach nearly flipped over as Axe swung me up into his arms.  I rested my cheek against his shoulder and hugged my arms around him.  “I love you.”  I said, settling into my temporary blindness.
“I love you, too, baby.  And you know something?  Your trust in me, in us...it’s so precious.  I love that you trust us.  I covet it.  And your love.”
I hugged myself tighter to him as he walked me out of the house.  Axe was not the most sensitive man on the planet, but he was damn romantic when he wanted to be.  My curiosity was piqued about the weekend, and the need for a blindfold, but I wasn’t going to ask any questions yet.  Whatever they had in store for us, I knew that it would be amazing and perfect and wonderful.  Just like them.
I heard a door creak open and Axe carried me up a few stairs and turned to the left.  My foot knocked against something and he apologized.  After a dozen steps he leaned over and laid me down, and I felt a quilt under my fingertips and a firm mattress under that.  It was a bed.  
I felt the bed dip as Axe climbed in with me, settling on his side.  After a few quiet moments, a very loud engine rumbled to life and we rocked on the bed as what I figured was an RV of some sort lurched away from the curb.
“Can I guess?”  I asked.
“You can do anything you like except take off the blindfold, aleni.  Although, I wouldn’t recommend walking around blind.”
“So you’ll answer me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh.”  I knew I was making a face because he chuckled and pressed his fingertip to my jutted bottom lip.
“I love the hell out of you, baby.  Truly.”
“Okay. I don’t really want to know, but I can guess we’re in an RV.  I’m up for a road trip.  But I have a request.”
“Sex?”  He teased.
I laughed and turned onto my side, snuggling against him.  “Tell me a story.”
“Ah, a story?  What kind of story?”  His arms snaked around me and he curled me into his chest with a contented sigh.
“Tell me...something from your childhood.”
“Curious about what I was like?”  He chuckled.
“Of course.”
He took in a slow breath and when he let it out, he began to share stories from his childhood.  As the time melted away from us, we laughed and talked, and I mostly listened while he told me about his childish exploits.  The RV stopped moving and the engine turned off just as he was finishing telling me about the first time he shifted into a bear and got lost exploring and wandered into a hunting camp site.
When we’d both stopped laughing at his description of the hunters screaming and running away, he said, “So you liked my storytelling?”
“Very much.”
“Someday I’ll tell our children all about mine and Ash’s exploits.”  He sounded almost wistful and my heart clenched in remembered worry.  
Ash moved back to wherever we were.  “We’re here.  I’m going to make sure everything is ready.”
I felt Axe nod but I was too lost in the twirled thoughts in my mind to say anything. The desire to carry a child for my husbands was great, but I was too worried to even consider it at the moment.  All I wanted to do was figure out why worry blanketed me like a quilt.
We lay in silence while I mentally flipped through my spell book, wondering if there was a way to manifest a dream.  I hadn’t figured out anything by the time Ash came back into the room and climbed up next to me, pulling me away from Axe and cuddling me into him.  He kissed me, drawing his leg over mine and snugging me close.  “You like the blindfold, or not?”
“Depends.”
“On what?” He laughed.
“On the reward that was mentioned earlier.”
“Ah.”  He chuckled and the blindfold was pulled off slowly.  I squinted in the brightness of the room and when my eyes adjusted, I saw I was indeed inside a small bedroom in an RV.  Through the open door I could see a kitchen area and the driver’s and passenger’s seats at the front.
“We’re going to do something unusual.  We brought you to this special place and we have clothes to change into, too.  For all of us.”  Ash said, smiling down at me.
“Yeah?  For what?”
“Because you shared an important ritual with us when you did the collaring.  Axe and I want to share something important that’s not about our bear nature but our family.”
I kissed him lightly.  “As long as there aren’t any brands involved, I’m good.”  They both laughed, but I was dead serious.  The day after my collaring ceremony, they both took brands with the symbol for my tribal name Alisiquete over their hearts.  I loved the gesture and seeing them when they went shirtless, but that was a level of pain I wasn’t into by a long shot.
“No pain.  Promise.”  Ash kissed me and got up, hefting one of the knapsacks I’d seen earlier onto the bed.  He pulled out buckskin clothing that had been dyed black.  Pants for them with thick fringe on the sides and what looked like a long skirt and corset for me.
Axe sat up and began to undo the button of my jeans while Ash untied my boots and placed them on the floor.  I lay passively while they stripped me and then Ash pulled me gently to my feet and unfolded the skirt and helped me step into it.  The soft buckskin skirt reached my ankles and was split up both sides high up on my thighs.  The corset was plain and just wide enough to cover my breasts.  It tied at my back and made me think of a tube top.
They stripped themselves and donned the black trousers.  I noticed that the front of the trousers had a triangular shaped panel of leather sewn into it, with a leather tie at the side.  
I pointed to the panel.  “That looks interesting.”  
Axe’s gazed darkened considerably and it made my body tingle.  “You’ll see later what all this is about.”
I couldn’t help but grin.  My curiosity was blazing and I had no idea what was going to happen.  We all put moccasins on and then Axe took my hand and led me towards the door.  Ash took my other hand and followed closely behind.  When I stepped out of the RV, we were deep in the woods.  The trees were so thick around us that the afternoon sun barely penetrated.
I glanced around and saw the narrow path that the RV had traveled on, cut through the woods so that the trees on either side of it made a wall.  The older model RV sat in a small circular clearing.  A man knelt in front of a fire pit, lining it with stones.  When he looked up at us, I recognized him immediately as their grandfather Quanah.  I met him at our official marriage ceremony in June and we traveled to his den in July to visit.  He was king of his den that was located in the lush mountains of West Virginia.  At one time, he had been king of the den in Northern Ohio.  But had stepped down to start another den in West Virginia, wanting to live in the mountains.  Their tribe had lived on the land for many generations.  I looked around for his mate and their grandmother, Naeyli, but didn't see her.
He stood up and came over to us and the boys hugged him with one arm and kept their holds on my hands.  Quanah put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me, age and wisdom in his handsome features.  He was well over 400.  “Granddaughter, it is good to see you again.”
“Thank you, grandfather.”  I smiled at him.
“Have they told you anything?”  He looked at my boys.
“No.”  I shook my head.
He smiled further until a dimple appeared in his cheek.  "Good.  Your first duty is to go west with your mates and find the sacred grove of red cedar trees.  They will know what to do.  Mind the time, boys."  He cast his dark eyes upwards to the canopy of trees.  "We must begin the ceremony at dusk."
They nodded and we began walking together in what I assumed was a westerly direction.  I had absolutely no sense of direction myself.  If it weren't for the GPS in my truck, I would have no idea what direction I was traveling in.
"So where are we, exactly?" I asked, walking between them through the woods, Axe leading the way.
"We're on the den's property."  Ash said.
"But we drove for hours.  Didn't we?"  I looked back at him and he grinned and shrugged.
"Aleni, if I only drove an hour you'd know exactly where we were and the blindfold would have been silly.  And besides, Axe asked to have some time to talk with you, so I drove the very long way from the house to the den.  We're at the back of the property, on sacred land.  This area is used for special, private ceremonies."
Questions abounded in my mind but I didn't voice them.  If there was one thing I'd learned about my husbands, it was that they wouldn't tell me something until they were ready.
We walked in silence for a long time in the cool woods.  Although the day had been relatively warm, the lack of sunlight through the trees made it chillier and I was seriously wishing for a jacket.  Axe stopped and Ash and I came to stand with him.  The trees of the forest had been a variety of ones I was used to seeing around Northern Ohio - oak, maple, ash - but now I was staring at a stand of trees in a rudimentary circle with reddish-brown bark and light green leaves that were like pine needles but thicker.  We walked around the circle of trees and I saw places in the bark where strips had been cut away and symbols carved into the surface left behind.  The wood underneath the bark was red.
"This is our father's tree.  He brought our mother out here when they mated."  Axe said finally, stopping in front of a tree.  The strip of removed bark revealed two symbols.  Axe pulled a pocket knife from a pouch on his hip and opened it.  While Ash held me, we watched Axe cut a mark about three inches wide just slightly below and to the right of the mark of their parents', and then slide the blade underneath the bark and begin to peel it.  The strip that Ash took as Axe finished cutting it away from the tree was fibrous and thick, about eight inches long.
Ash held the strip of bark and we watched Axe carve the symbols for all three of ours names in the flesh of the tree.  Mine between his and Ash's.
He closed the blade and put it back in the pouch when he finished carving the intricate symbols.  He touched his symbol with his finger and Ash told me to touch mine while he touched his.  For a moment, in the silence of the forest, it felt like the most significant thing I'd ever done.
"The red cedar can grow for several hundred years.  But these are blessed trees, sacred to our people, and they are already older than any normal red cedar on record.  These here are well over a thousand and will live as long as the were-bear tribe lives, down to the very last member.  This is our family tree.  Our brothers and sister will carve their symbols when they mate, and our future children will, too."  Axe dropped his hand and took mine, kissing my fingers and pulling me into his arms.  Ash joined us and I was held tightly between them, warm and comforted.
We headed back to the RV and Quanah was waiting by the firepit.  On the other side of the stone pit, laden with wood, was a dark brown bear fur.  At their instruction, I toed off my shoes and then stepped onto the hide.  They stood on either side of me.  Ash handed the bark strip to his grandfather and Axe turned me to face him.  The three of us had our sides to the firepit and their grandfather.  With a gentle nudge, I went to my knees with them, Axe's hands on my shoulders and Ash's on my hips.  
A suede blanket lay rolled up next to me on the fur.
A spark caught my eye and the wood in the firepit flared to life.  Quanah began to chant softly and held the end of the bark strip over the flames until it caught fire and then he placed it into a stone bowl on the ground.  The flames licked at the bark while he chanted in their ancient language.  Because Axe and Ash were watching quietly, I did the same.  The language was beautiful, and although I didn't understand the words I knew that whenever they chanted it was important.
Quanah picked up the bowl after a few minutes and looked into it and then stood up slowly.  Moving to us, he sat just outside the edge of the fur and held the bowl in both hands.  "Axe, as oldest you are charged with watching over not only your mate but also your younger brother.  Do you accept the task as given to you by our maker, the Great Bear?"
"Yes, grandfather."  Axe's voice was strong and sure.
"Mark them both, and recite your pledge."
Axe pushed his thumb into the bowl and it came out covered in gray ash.  He swiped his thumb slowly across my bicep and then across Ash's in the same place.  "I pledge myself as eldest to your care and love, my mate Elizabeth, and my brother, Ash."
He smiled softly down at me.  Quanah said, "Ash, sharing a mate is never an easy task but the Great Bear has seen fit that you and Axe should share Elizabeth.  As youngest, you are charged with supporting your brother and watching over your mate and your brother.  Do you accept the task as given to you by our maker, the Great Bear?"
"Yes, grandfather."  Ash's voice trembled slightly with emotion.
"Mark them both, and recite your pledge."
Ash's hand came away from the bowl as he gathered ash on his thumb and marked just under where Axe had drawn on me before marking Axe's bicep.  "I pledge myself as youngest to your care and love, my mate Elizabeth, and my brother, Axe."
Quanah took a thick black bear claw from inside a pouch around his neck and at his words, we all held a hand out to him and he pricked the tip of our index fingers and stirred the ashes in the bowl with the claw.  He wiped the flat edge of the claw across Axe's cheek, dipped it back in the bowl, and wiped it across my cheek and did the same for Ash as he chanted.  
He pulled a small pouch from under the rolled suede blanket and opened the top.  He extracted a wooden vial with a stopper and gathered ash from the bowl into it.  Tightening the stopper, he put it back in the pouch along with the claw.  He pulled a blade from his own pouch and cut off a thin lock of hair from all of us, wrapped them with a length of leather and put it into the pouch.  Tightening the drawstring on the pouch, he placed it over my head.  It hung low on my chest.
Quanah moved back to the other side of the fire and fed more wood into it before dumping the ashes from the bowl over the flames.  He stood, smiled at us, and walked away.
Axe tipped my chin so I had to look at him.  "It's our turn now, baby."
"For what?"  I whispered, feeling like the scene was too intimate to talk normally.
"To make love, here, on the blessed fur in front of the sacred fire."  Ash said softly, kissing my neck.  "The clothes were made so we don't have to be naked."
Ah.  That explained the panel and the lack of panties on my part along with the high slits on either side.
Ash reached for the suede blanket and pulled a tube of lubricant from underneath and I watched Axe unfasten the panel and free his already hard cock.  Axe stretched out on his back on the fur and pulled me with him so I straddled him.  He shoved the front of the skirt aside and I settled myself down on his cock.  I loved that feeling of being filled and stretched.  Every time it reminded me how perfectly they fit inside me. 
Ash joined us, first preparing me and then slowly guiding himself inside.  We made love in front of the fire, in the darkness of the woods, marked with ash and reveling in our joining.  
When we came together, our cries of pleasure echoed through the woods like nature itself was taking its pleasure right along with us and we snuggled together on the thick fur with the suede blanket draped over us.  Eventually, Axe put the fire out and we returned to the RV, falling asleep together like I always loved, nestled between the two most important men in my life.
The weekend passed both fast and slow.  We spent a lot of time walking around the woods and talking about our pasts, learning about each other - secrets, desires, hopes - before returning often to the RV to make love.  On Sunday evening, we returned to the den and the pouch I'd worn around my neck the whole weekend was laid in a wooden box on the small dresser in our tent in the den, to be worn during ceremonies and celebrations.  The red cedar was sacred to their people, and the ash that had been rubbed onto our skin and then anointed with our blood, was a way of honoring the sacrifice of the tree's bark and the pain it endured while the symbols were carved into it.  The fur we laid on was a family heirloom, taken from a real bear and used for joining ceremonies.  I'd never felt closer to my husbands than I did at the end of that weekend, and although real life awaited us back home, for a few short days I had peace about our life together and our future.  
But it wasn't a peace that would last.




Chapter 3

Late September in Cleveland can be an incredible last shout of summer or a blistering foretelling of cold to come.  We were fortunate this year that summer decided to stay on a long vacation, and when the den from Denver arrived on Tuesday afternoon, it was a perfect, warm day.  Ash, Axe and I spent the day at our condo on the Vermillion River, watching the fishermen and the boaters make good use of the weather.  I had owned both the condo and the house in Bay Village before I met them.  When the boys left their home in Indianapolis after our mating to move in with me, we decided to pick the house in Bay Village as our permanent residence, only because it was larger and in a protected development.  The condo was nestled between other condos, and with the marinas and public docks and bars and restaurants, they decided that it was too busy and unpredictable of a place to live full time, and I didn’t disagree.
Our den now had 27 members.  When I joined, there were 16 unmated males and two couples; and Daeton their younger sister was the only unmated female.  Griegs, the boys’ youngest brother, had been furious when the collaring spell didn’t choose him and left the den.  At one time, he had been my bear guard for the solstice ceremonies and sometimes my bed partner.  No one had heard from him since.
Ash, Axe, and I dressed alike for times like these, when we were meeting other dens or doing official were-bear-related activities.  Several members of the den were artistically, gifted artisans that spent days embroidering intricate designs for the den’s ceremonial clothing.  And because we always liked to match, it meant they were all working overtime for us.  Tonight we wore soft buckskin trousers with colorfully dyed braided belts.  The matching vests were embroidered with our tribal names in shiny thread and intricate patterns along the edges.  Ash had become my hairstylist and we all wore our long hair in the traditional club style.  Although it was a traditionally male style, when we matched...everything matched.
Daeton stood shyly next to me as I stood in the receiving line with Ash and Axe.  They were standing next to their father Adriel and their mother Filene, along with their two younger brothers Tavian and Lynk.  Daeton was a lovely younger version of her mother and shared Ash and Axe’s onyx hair and chocolate eyes.  She was tall, curvy but also lean in a youthful way.  And very, very innocent.
Daeton’s 18th birthday was tonight.  In the eyes of the den, that her birthday was also on a full moon was incredibly lucky.  To them it meant that she was going to be blessed in her life and that she was special.  And at 18 for the first time, it was possible she would find her mate tonight.  A young bear from another den we visited in the spring named Bastion joined our den because he was so captivated with her, but something told me that Daeton wasn’t all that interested in the equally innocent young male who had only just turned 18 that summer.  And it wasn’t just because of all the handsome bears walking towards us from the other den.  
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” I whispered to my sister-in-law.  “What’s bothering you?”
“I um, I’ll tell you later, okay?”  She looked down at me from several inches over my 5’3” frame and her eyes were troubled.  
“Okay, sis,” I squeezed her hand and she gave me a half hearted smile and watched the progression of the king bear and his wife, followed by his sons and the den.  Ash pulled my hand from Daeton’s and situated me between them so that he and Axe held both my hands.  They were all business now.  I glanced up their tall, identically gorgeous bodies hidden underneath their ceremonial vests to their faces and saw the grim determination that scattered both their features.  They were always aware of danger, always suspicious, and always worried that I might be taken from them.  I wondered what it would be like when I became pregnant.  They would be just that much more worried over me.
Part of their protective nature came from their beasts.  Bears were fiercely protective of their mates and den and I knew that Ash and Axe would both go to the grave to keep me safe.  The other part of their worry was a combination of things including the fact that I was a hereditary natural witch and south corner of the most powerful coven in the Midwest.  And last winter, I was kidnapped by a wizard who planned to turn me from good to evil and use me in some nefarious plot to take over the world.  Before I collared them, before I cast the Wicca spell that chose them both as my permanent guards and mates with a supernatural, invisible bond between the three of us, I was sleeping with seven men.  Sure, in retrospect it seemed slutty, but there were five were-groups in the area and the coven used guards from each group on the solstice ceremonies.  For me, calling all that power meant that I was a little horny when we were done.  And it wasn’t just four times a year.
The falcon prince, the tiger king’s personal protector, the theto of the wolf pack, the king serpent, and Ash and Axe’s brother Griegs were all my guards.  I also was in a relationship with two vampires, the master of the city of Cleveland, Mishka, and his coven assassin Brone.  When I collared the boys I cut all ties with everyone immediately.  It wasn’t in my character to cheat.  I’d been playing before, enjoying my youth and lack of attachments, but what I hadn’t known was that four of the men that I was sleeping with – Tosh the serpent king, Jesuit the falcon prince, Griegs, and Melo the tiger protector – had deeper feelings than I could have imagined.  Tosh and Melo and Jesuit were angry at first, and Jes was willing to fight for me.  But in the end they realized that mates meant forever to me, and I’d made my choice and stood by it.  Originally, I’d chosen to collar a guard out of a sense of duty to the coven.  But once I collared them, I was so completely overwhelmed by the sense of family and belonging, the love they gave me, that I never looked back in regret over the life I’d left behind.
Ash squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the present and I shoved my scattered thoughts into the far corner of my mind.  Two towering males bowed slightly to Adriel and a tall, willowy woman held both their hands.  She gave me a smile sparked with curiosity as she darted looks to my husbands and I had a feeling that she and I would have plenty to discuss later during the party.
When all the pomp and ceremony of something very akin to a wedding receiving line was completed, we adjourned to the sacred circle in the middle of the den, which was a large complex underground that they referred to as their city.  Everyone that was part of our den had a home underground, which was a tent that was furnished fairly modernly depending on the desire of the bear that set it up.  Ours was very, very modern.  We only spent full moons in the den, and the occasional Sunday night after a visit with the family and I wanted to be as comfy as possible.  Extra large bed for three?  Check.  Exquisite marble bath?  Check.  Entertainment system with surround sound?  Oh hell, check!
The den knelt around the sacred circle made up of a ring of lava rock stones with a fire pit laid with wood in a particular pattern that I would light with my power.  Behind our den was the visiting den, watching with curiosity to see what a Gaia – or den witch – would do.  When I collared Ash and Axe, I became Gaia to the den.  It was a position of honor within the den and I never felt safer than when I was surrounded by over two dozen were-bears.
Adriel called for quiet, speaking in their native tongue.  Ash and Axe taught me some of their language, but most of the things I knew how to say weren’t suitable for outside the bedroom so I just closed my eyes and prepared for the spell casting.  The Gaia of the den was a serious position, providing goodwill and prosperity spells for everyone along with specific blessings if requested.  I was protected not only by my mates, but also by the den as a group.  If I was in trouble, any of them would come for me.
As the full moon neared its zenith in the sky, Adriel left me alone in the dirt surrounding the fire pit and I stepped forward to the pit and raised my arms up and closed my eyes.  Centering my power within my mind, I spoke loud and clear.
“I call upon the mirador sentinels of the South, keepers of the powers of Fire.”  Like a conduit, my body vibrated with the power of supernatural flame and the wood in the firepit blazed to life.  The type of wood was important.  Oak for strength.  Elm for longevity.  Orange for sweetness.  Dogwood for peace.  I heard the collective gasps of the visitors.  The power of the flame that was visible, like this, was always impressive.
Turning slowly, I dropped my arms and the flame swirled around me, not burning, but feeding my natural Wicca power.  Tapped into the element in my control, I could feel the power of my family line, the history of the women in my lineage that had performed these same rituals, much like my own grandmother did, who was the power of Earth and north corner of our coven.  My mother turned away from her power for my human father and they both disowned me when I turned 18 the first time and embraced my nature.
Constarte, filaron, dextristro, harmoni, I chanted, calling for the blessing of the den and peace for the coming months.  Blessings meant babies and prosperity; peace meant their territory would be safe.  
Dropping to my knees as I began to cast my smaller spells, the feeling of dread settled over me again, but this time I felt it more strongly, the way you could feel a storm coming.  I stood abruptly and grabbed the ceremonial blade I kept in a holster at my side and slashed the inside of my forearm.  I heard Ash and Axe gasp in shock and call for me, but I was gone to my power.  
I had to see what was coming for me, for us.
A drop of my blood hit the dirt and the ground shook and the fire roared as if it were alive.  I spun, gathering a drop of blood on my fingertip and flicking it into the fire, and then I drew a swirled symbol over my heart with the blood.
“By the power of the mage of the line Xavier, I call counseled wisdom from Iliarta, god of fire and future.  Show yourself!”  
The fire shimmered and sparked and power rushed over me and nearly knocked me to my knees but I managed to keep on my feet.  I watched as a face appeared in the flames.  A demon, made of fire, looked at me and recognized my tie to him through my power.  His face was like a skull, and horns of green flame licked from the top of his head.
“Why call me, little witch?”
“Something stalks on dark wings.  Show me how to defend my family.”
“You ask to see what may not be able to be stopped.  You would know who is taken from you before they are gone?”  His black hollows of eyes stayed steady on me.
“I must know how to protect my den, please, Iliarta.  What is the point of my power of fire and flame if I am unable to protect those that mean the most to me?”
The silence was deafening, as the flames crackled and he considered.  “I will show you what you wish to know and a task to perform to alter the future in exchange.”
Nodding, I chewed on my bottom lip.  He could ask me for anything.  Agreeing without knowing just what that would be was risky, but I would gladly do it to avoid whatever it was that was coming that had the taste of slaughter and destruction.
“Take the bear named Daeton to the city of Brotherly Love and bind her according to our laws on the banks of the largest river, sprinkling her head seven times with the water.  Cast a seeking spell to draw her protectors to her side.  She will know them on sight and they will take her where she belongs.  Her safety is of the utmost importance.  The den is no longer safe for her.”
“I will.”
As I spoke, I heard Filene crying at the mention of Daeton’s name.   I knew I was speaking in Wiccan and so was Iliarta, so they would only hear their names.  “Seven days to complete the task or all you love will be lost and a bloody future will come to pass.”
“I understand.”
“Blood, little witch.  Carve my symbol in your shoulder and bury the blade in sacrifice.”  I did as he said, putting the blade in my shoulder and with three quick cuts I carved Iliarta’s symbol that looked like a crooked letter “f” into my shoulder and then I jammed the blade into the dirt at the base of the fire.
Images flashed through my mind and I grabbed my head and screamed at the intensity of the images.  It was as if I was seeing my dreams in Technicolor.  The foggy images that had tugged at my sleepy mind and haunted me were now vivid.  I saw myself covered in blood, screaming to the sky.  I saw the bodies of people I loved most cut down like wheat at my feet.  A thread wove through the images connecting them together, and in the final flashes, I saw a man with long white hair standing on an altar with Daeton chained nude and crying, a blade poised over her heart.  The young male bear who had joined the den for her, standing by the wizard, joined by a collar.  The thread tying the images together meant they were all linked.  One would lead to the other.  First the slaughter of the den and then Daeton’s sacrifice.  
I screamed, but this time it was in rage.  I darted my hand out to where I felt Bastion slinking away and I pulled him towards me with a rope of fire that sprang from my fingertips. It didn’t burn him, but it held him captive.
The den parted for him, and everyone stood in surprise as I pulled him over the stones and into the circle.
Iliarta chuckled as he disappeared into the flame.  I knew I could alter this future path at least in some way. Daeton had to be kept safe, away from the den, and this bear had to be put down.
“You slinky fuck; you thought you could take my sister from me?”  I growled, feeling every bit as feral as my husbands.  
“I, I, I don’t know what you’re talking about!  Help me.  Someone get this crazy witch away from me!”
“Iretetay!”  I shouted and from the ground below our feet, tree roots long dead, shot up and curled around him, tethering him to the ground.  I released the flaming bonds from my fingers and dropped to my knees, caught quickly by Ash and Axe.
As I caught my breath, I looked up at Adriel.  “He is collared to a wizard who is planning to sacrifice Daeton.”  Filene gasped and grabbed Daeton to her.  “I don’t know why, but she’s in danger.  I’m supposed to perform a seeking spell on her in Philadelphia in seven days and take her to wherever she will be safe.”
“She’s lying!”  Bastion screamed, struggling against the gnarled branches that held him in place.
Axe stood up from where he knelt next to me and growled, his hands going to claws and his fangs elongating.  Grabbing his throat, he squeezed until Bastion turned red.  “You calling my wife a liar you pathetic fuck?  I will see your entrails strewn about the city like Christmas garland.  Tell us what you know!”
Bastion passed out from fear and Axe released his neck with a grunt.  “Father,” he started, and Adriel said, “Elizabeth, if you can release him from the, whatever the hell that is, our guards will get all the information from him.  But not in our place of worship.”
I released the roots and they sank back into the ground and Bastion slipped to the ground like a rag doll.  Axe barked for the guards and after checking to make sure I was okay, he disappeared to wake up the traitor and, I assumed, torture him for what he knew.
“My sweet mate, are you alright?  You were covered in flames and speaking to a…a face in the fire but we couldn’t understand what you were saying.  I was fucking scared to pieces.”  Ash’s voice shook with barely controlled worry.
I held him tightly.  “I’m sorry.  I haven’t really felt right these last few weeks, and I knew there was something wrong here in the den so I called for the god of the flames to show me what the future was.  In exchange for what I saw, Ash, I have to take Daeton away from here for her own protection.”
“We’ll go with you.” He swore.
“I wouldn’t go marching into the gates of hell with anyone else, Ash.”  I kissed his cheek and hugged my arms around him tighter.  He stroked his hand across my shoulder.  “I saw you cut yourself, but it’s all healed.”
“It’s just a symbol of willingness.  Most gods and goddesses demand a little blood before they’ll do something.  And then a favor afterwards.  Your sister is special, but I don’t know why exactly.  Special enough that she warrants protection.”
“Tell me what you saw, aleni, that frightened you so.”
“Later.  With Axe.”
Nodding, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me to our tent.  Adriel was making apologies to the other clan, but they seemed very impressed that I had the ability to speak to gods made of flame and find a traitor in the den when no one else had sensed his deceit.
Ash sat down on the couch with me in his lap and hugged me tightly.  “Aleni, can I get you anything?”
“I’m just so sleepy, Ash.”  My voice began to slur as exhaustion tugged at me.
“Sleep then,” he kissed my forehead and cuddled me closer.  “I love you.”
Drained physically from calling my power, I dozed off, tucked safely in Ash’s arms.  Under normal circumstances, being Gaia for the den didn’t drain me at all.  But drawing on the true power of my flame by summoning a god associated with it was like running a marathon around the world without a break.  Mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted, it was times like this that made me thankful I had chosen to collar my bears.  They would keep me safe, no matter what.
I woke up when Axe joined us several hours later.  Filene, Adriel, and Daeton came into the tent, eyes on me.  Although my first instinct was to shield them from the vision, I knew that I couldn’t do that.  An integral piece of the future was altered forever in taking Bastion out and getting Daeton away from the den.  That future was not to be, unless we failed getting Daeton to Philadelphia.
“I saw a vision of the future, snapshots of what would have come if nothing changed.  I saw myself covered in blood standing surrounded by the den, all of you slaughtered at my feet.  Why I was alive and none of you were, I only have to guess that it was because I was being protected and it worked.  And then I saw Daeton being sacrificed by a wizard with long, white hair.  Bastion was there with him, that’s how I knew he was a traitor.”
I paused and accepted a mug of tea from Ash and took a slow drink, letting my words absorb into their minds as much as they did in mine.  
“Iliarta, the god of flame and future that I called into the fire, he said that Daeton had to be protected, taken away from the den to Philadelphia within seven days to be bound by wiccan law for protection and anointed with the water of the river.  Protectors will come for her then, and they will keep her safe.  If she stays here in the den, everyone will die, and whatever this wizard’s plans were, they’re bad on an epic scale.”
Adriel spoke slowly, like he was thinking out loud.  “So you saw in the visions, first the den slaughtered and then Daeton being killed in a ceremony by a wizard.  And the god in the fire told you to take her away from here so she could be protected and that would alter the future?”
“Yes.  I believe that Daeton is the lynchpin of that bloody future.  Bastion sought her out on behalf of the wizard and would have taken her from us.  We would certainly have gone after her.  Whatever happened when we did that in the visions, everyone died as a result.  But now, Bastion is taken care of and we’re going to get Daeton to safety.  Iliarta said that getting Daeton to her protectors would alter that bloody future.”
Filene began to sob again quietly, holding onto Daeton like she was an anchor in the storm.  
Axe said, “Bastion confirmed part of what you said after some persuasion.  He said that he was contacted by a wizard with white hair who told him that in exchange for bringing him the virgin bear from our den that he would give him wealth and power beyond his wildest dreams.”
I squeezed his hand with mine.  “Is he dead?”
Axe said grimly, “Yes.  Our justice for betrayal is swift.”
Filene’s voice came out thick, “Why did you feel like something was wrong, Elizabeth, and not us?”
“Because I’m sensitive to supernatural power maybe, I don’t know.  I haven’t really felt right in a few weeks, I thought it was because of all the talk about the mating season and having a cub, but clearly my powers were tapping into something that was coming for us.  If I hadn’t thought to call Iliarta…” I stopped because the emotion of the scene in my mind swept over me.  Ash and Axe cut down protecting me, their blood like red ribbons covering my body.  Ash pulled me against him and Axe pressed to my back and they held me tightly, their bears peeking through their control so I felt the warmth and strength of their love for me.  
“Mom, I…” Daeton said quietly, “I actually have been having some dreams lately.” 
“You have?”  Filene asked, and I lifted my head from Ash’s shoulder to look at her.
“What kind of dreams?”  I asked.
“Well,” she cleared her throat and blushed, “I don’t know, they don’t really make sense.  In some of them, I’m in the dark but there are men with me and I’m not afraid.  We’re traveling a great distance and it’s cold.  In some of them, I’m, oh, I’m naked and being pleasured.”  She dropped her eyes in embarrassment. “Those ones made me so curious about sex that I went to Bastion a few days ago and suggested we could, you know, fool around, but he put me off.  He said that he didn’t trust himself not to take my virginity and that it was something precious to be preserved.  I thought it was noble, but I guess he needed me to stay a virgin?”  She shuddered.
“You were nervous tonight, though.” I reminded her.  “Is that because you were planning to mate with Bastion tonight?”
“No.  Last night, I had a dream that soon I would meet the ones that would walk with me in the darkness and that I couldn’t trust anyone but them.  When I woke up, I knew that Bastion was not meant to be my mate and that I was destined to do something else with my life.  I was nervous because I wondered if someone in the visiting den was going to take me with them, but I see now that you have to take me to the protectors.”
Adriel stood up, “I need to tend to our guests before they retire for the night.  I’m sure they’re back from their hunt by now.  When will you leave?”
“The solstice is tomorrow night, so I have to be there for that, but we should be able to leave the following night.  I think traveling at night is a good idea.  We can rest during the day and then perform the binding and seeking spells at night so there will be less chance of us being discovered.”
“The solstice is tonight, love,” Ash reminded me, and a glance at the clock showed me it was already well past midnight.
I stuck my tongue out at him, “Still, we’ll leave Thursday night and perform the spell on Friday night, assuming we get there with no problems.”
“What do you need?”  Adriel asked.
“I’ll have to get supplies from the Wiccan store, my spell book, and we’ll want to take guards with us from the den just for safety’s sake.”
“I’ll get men together,” Axe said.
“Also, I think Daeton needs to come back with us.  She can stay at the house and then join us on the bluffs for the ceremony.  I don’t think it’s wise for her to stay here in the den.”
“Agreed,” Adriel said, and he motioned to his wife and daughter.  “We have tonight.  Let us spend it together as a family.”




Chapter 4

Thursday night, we loaded three vehicles for our journey to Philadelphia.  Adriel and Filene were with us, saying goodbye to their only daughter and Tavian and Lynk stood quietly by as their only sister prepared to leave.  No one knew how long she would be gone with her protectors or whether we would ever see her again.  
The corners of the coven were standing in the driveway with us as my grandmother and I checked over the supplies we’d packed together for the spells.  The back of our SUV was open and a wooden box with herbs and supplies was open while she read off the supplies list and I triple checked.  Without knowing if there was a decent Wiccan supply store in Philadelphia, it was imperative that I had everything before we left.
Filene handed Daeton a dream catcher.  “I made this for you when you were born, sweet elu.  Carry it with you and know that we will always think of you and pray to the great bear spirit that you will come back to us safe.”  Draped from the dream catcher in small braids were six locks of hair, from each member of her family.  I had cut and braided Ash and Axe’s locks myself, twining blessed root strands and my own hair into them.  She cried quietly against her mother’s shoulder.  After I shut the supply box and closed my spell book, I turned to my grandmother.
She smiled in her wise way, 200 years of Wiccan wisdom and power coursing through her body, and she rested her hand on my shoulder.  “My sweet granddaughter.  When you were born and I held you in the hospital, I knew that you were meant for great things.  May the goddess grant you a safe journey and a quick return home.”
Gwen and Bitty, the East and West corners of the coven, put their hands on me and chanted with my grandmother for a safe journey.  Power swept around me like a comforting caress, and I smiled and hugged them all when they were finished.  
I sat in the second row of the SUV with Daeton, Axe driving and Ash in the passenger seat.  Two cars full of bear guards followed us out of the development and East towards Philadelphia.
As the house and people slipped from view, Daeton turned back around and looked at me.  “Do you think I’ll see them again?  Any of you?”
“I hope so.  Whatever you are, Daeton, whatever about you that makes you special, means you need protection that is greater than the den can provide.”
“I’m so glad that you got those bad feelings.”  She smiled at me and wiped at the tears under her eyes.
“Me, too, sis.”  Me, too.
We drove for several hours, talking about everything and nothing.  I had only known my sister-in-law for a few months, but she was such a close friend to me that I was already feeling the loss of her friendship keenly.  When we stopped at a rest area on the turnpike to use the facilities and get something to eat, Daeton and I sat down at a small table with Ash and Axe.  They had a mini laptop open with a map of our journey on the screen.  
The plan had been not to make any hotel reservations, because we didn’t want to alert anyone to our journey, if someone was even watching us.  There were so many unknown variables that we decided to err on the side of extreme caution.  No concrete plans, no credit cards, and throwaway cell phones.  We opted to stay outside of Philadelphia.  According to the binding and seeking spells, they needed to be cast when the moon reached its zenith in the sky, which was 10:47 p.m. in Philadelphia.
The seven bears from the den that Axe had handpicked as guards were anxious to get settled for the night and so were we.  We pushed on to Philadelphia, stopping just outside the city at a small hotel.  We got three rooms, two of them connected and the other across the hall.  Our room had two queen beds in it so that Daeton could with stay with us, with three bears in the connecting room and four across the hall.
Not taking any chances, I sprinkled herbs on the window sills of each room and across the doors, and cast a protection spell to keep us safe.  As I walked into our room and shut the door, I found my husbands naked and waiting for me on one of the beds.
“Where’s Daeton?”  I asked, licking my lips at the sight of their incredible bodies.
“She’s in the other room,” Ash said, patting the bed between them, “we’ll bring her in after we finish making love to you.”
I took a few steps towards them, and Axe said, “You have way too many clothes on to get on this ride, aleni.  Take them off.  Slowly.”  His brown eyes darkened with sultry promise and I bit my lip.  I just loved how they looked at me, as if the world could go spinning off its axis into oblivion when we were making love and they wouldn't care.
I edged up the hem of my top, baring the length of my stomach slowly for them, until I pulled it over my head and dropped it to the floor.  I toed off my shoes, kicking them aside, and a flick of the button on my jeans and the slow, grating sound of the zipper being opened sounded loud in the quiet of the room.  I worked the jeans down over my hips, wriggling out of them and my socks until I could step free from the fabric.  The matching bra and thong set were dark peach lace and I turned my back to them and reached up to undo the bra and pulled it off, pressing one arm across my chest as I turned around and tossed the bra to the floor.
“Drop your arm, baby,” Axe growled.
I watched their gazes, heat and desire swarming through them, and I lowered my arm and twisted my fingers in the strings of my panty.  “I’ll do that, aleni,” Ash offered, his tongue snaking out to wet his lush lips.
I laughed at that, because I knew if he got his hands on the fragile strings that the panties would be toast and I liked them.  I lost at least one pair of panties a week to his inability to take two seconds to pull them off me as opposed to ripping them off.  I only really complained afterwards, and only then if they were part of a set.
“Oh no, you naughty boy, I like these.”  I snapped my hips with the strings for effect and then tugged them down, kicking them to the side with the rest of my clothes with a simple flick of my foot.
I spun in a slow circle for them, and their identically heated gazes were enough to melt me from the inside out as I walked the few steps to the bed and they made room for me.  Axe settled me on a mound of pillows so that the upper part of my body was lifted slightly.  When he leaned over to kiss me, I tangled my hands through the soft, heavy silk of his hair, pulling it to my cheeks to hold him close while our tongues slid against each other.  Ash replaced him at my mouth, kissing me like he could climb down inside me.
Dizzy from the scorching kisses, I opened my eyes to see Axe straddle my upper body.  His knees pressed gently under my arms until his deliciously long cock was right at my mouth, jutting proud and hard from his smooth, hair free body.  I loved to go down on the boys, but I wondered how much time we had and how long Daeton would stay in the other room.  I didn’t want to overwhelm her delicate virgin nature by having her walk in on her twin brothers in a three-way with their wife.
All conscious thought when flying from my mind as Axe leaned on the headboard and shifted his hips forward so his cock brushed my closed mouth and the slick drop of pre-come transferred to my lips.  Ash spread my thighs apart, settling between me quickly and spreading my pussy.  I loved that feeling of being laid open slowly, the stretch of my flesh and the shiver of cool air hitting my hot skin just a few teasing moments before his tongue would slide through me to taste and explore.  
I adjusted my arms so that my left arm was between Axe’s legs and my right arm settled over the top of his thigh so I could squeeze the base of his cock as I sucked him.  My favorite thing about giving oral like this was the feel of the muscles in his ass as they clenched, the carved perfection of his body lost to my mouth and out of his control.  Splaying my hand across one cheek, I squeezed slightly and licked the head of his cock, so plump and hot and soft like silk over iron.  He moaned on a low growl and I opened my mouth wide to take him in at the same moment that Ash slid two fingers inside me.
Axe dropped one hand from the headboard to cup my cheek as I took in as much of him as I could from the position, relaxing my throat and savoring the taste of him.  While Ash explored me and my body responded to him, Axe began to thrust into my mouth with slow, deliberate shifts of his hips.
Ash’s fingers found that petal soft place inside me that made me groan around Axe’s cock.  Ash deviled it, tickling the place with come-here motions that made my body quake with each motion.  As Axe’s cock continued to thrust slowly into my mouth, I came hard around Ash’s fingers, my groan muffled by the heated length.  Ash moved his fingers faster over that spot and took my clit between his teeth, lashing the swollen bud with his tongue in a frantic rhythm that spiked through me like lightning, and I cried out, the sound spilling past Axe’s cock.  Axe groaned, slightly increasing his pace in my mouth, and his body flexed under my fingers.
I felt Ash growl into my flesh and then he pulled my hand down from Axe’s ass and thrust my fingers into my soaking pussy.  Confusion scattered through me and I opened my eyes to see Axe wasn’t paying attention to anything except my mouth, his eyes dark with unbridled heat.  Ash pushed my wet fingers back to Axe’s ass and I knew what he wanted me to do, even though I’d never done it before.  
My fingers slid through the tight cheeks of his ass as he thrust into my mouth and I slowly circled his tight hole and coated it with my come.  He moaned and his body tightened and he began to thrust faster into my mouth and I slipped the tip of my finger inside him.  “Ah, baby, wait,” he groaned, but I didn’t stop, pushing my finger inside him completely.  He cried out and his cock spasmed in my mouth, his come jetting down my throat while I held him in place with my finger in his body as it clenched around me.
He pulled away from my mouth and rolled to his back with a groaning chuckle.  Ash slid up my body and captured my knees under his arm, teasing my body with his cock.  “That was not fair,” Axe laughed.
“You were taking too long,” Ash chuckled, pushing inside me with one, smooth motion of his hips.  I arched up to take him inside completely, running my fingers up his arms to his shoulders and watching as his body moved in and out of mine with steady rhythm.
“Maybe I should tell her one of your kinks,” Axe rolled over onto his side and kissed me.
“I’m trying to fuck my wife, Axe, shut up.”  Ash growled and began to fuck me hard, moving in and out of my body with increasing speed.  
Axe chuckled, tipping my face to kiss me again while he snaked a hand down my stomach until he reached my clit.  With the precision of a man that knew my body very well, he rubbed my throbbing bud until I moaned and dug my nails into Ash’s shoulders as my body clenched his in the throes of climax.
“Ah, sweet fuck,” Ash growled as he rocked hard into me and his cock spasmed inside me.  With a little extra press of his hips into mine and a wink, he kissed me and dropped off to the side of me, his breath coming out in hard pants.
I played my fingers down my sweat soaked body until I could twine them with Axe’s hand that rested on my hip.  “If you wanted me to touch you like that, why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He shrugged.  “Because I don’t, normally, but it’s something I like with oral occasionally.  I guess,” he kissed the corner of my mouth, “I mostly want to come in that hot pussy of yours and not your mouth so I’ve never mentioned it.  Did it bother you?”
I wriggled my brow, “Nope.  I like making you lose control.”
“It doesn’t take much for that to happen.”  
I looked at Ash. He was trailing his fingers along my stomach, swirling small patterns.  “Do you have anything you want to tell me?”
Axe said, “Ash likes to have his nipples bit, right man?”
Ash grinned.  “Oh yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure, baby.  Really hard.  It’s just when I feel like it, I always seem to be at your back sunk deep in that hot ass of yours.”
“Ah,” I shivered at the thought.
“Well, when we go into our mating heat in a few weeks, you can bite him all you like.”  Axe said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’ll only take you individually, aleni.”
“I thought…the spring heat wasn’t like that.”  Shortly after we mated, their spring heat came upon them which turned out to be a week of nearly non-stop sex.  And although we were together in pairs often, it was mostly three ways.
Axe shrugged.  “You weren’t able to conceive so there wasn’t any reason for us to concentrate on getting you pregnant.  Having three-ways during a heat is just, well, it’s not in our nature exactly.  We weren’t driven like we will be with the fall heat.”
I blinked.  I hadn’t really given it much thought but it made sense.  The spring heat had been a wild time, but there hadn’t been any underlying stress on creating a life.  
Ash patted my stomach gently and I looked at him.  His face was soft, his eyes warm and full of love.  “We have a lot of stuff going on right now that needs our perfect concentration.  Let’s get through this, and then we’ll talk further, okay, aleni?”
“Okay.”
They suggested a quick shower so we could go to bed without being sticky.  Afterwards, when Ash and I were in bed together, Axe opened the connecting door between the rooms.  We had no real normal way to sleep, except that I was always between the two of them in some way.  Sometimes, I laid on one of their chests, but most often they were front and back to me.  Sandwiched between them, I would have a muscular arm as my pillow and my head would be tucked under one of their chins.  I always felt very safe and warm between them.  I wondered how I’d ever been able to sleep before they came into my life.
Ash pulled me gently to roll over against his chest and I lifted my head so he could slide his arm underneath me to be my pillow.  His very warm hand rested on the curve of my waist.  “You aren’t upset, are you, aleni?”  He said quietly, kissing across my forehead.
“About what?”
“The talk about the mating heat.  You seemed kind of shocked.”
“I was just thinking that it hadn’t occurred to me there was anything different about how we’d made love during the heat that might change this time around.  Did it bother you that I was on birth control for the spring heat?”
“No, of course not.  And we love sharing you, aleni, but it will be so sweet to know that your body might be ready this time, for our cub.”
Axe walked back into the room and closed it after Daeton.  She smiled in a small way at me and took her duffel into the bathroom.  Axe climbed in next to me and turned my head enough so I could kiss him, and then he settled against my back which involved wedging his muscular thigh between my legs and resting one hand between my breasts.
I giggled, “You just think you own me, don’t you Axe?”
He jerked his thigh up against my pussy and my body shuddered at the motion.  “I own you lock, stock and pussy, baby, just like you own me and Ash.”
Ash’s eyes were twinkling in the light from the bathroom when Daeton walked out in pajama pants and a tank.  Just before she shut the light off, Ash whispered, “When we get home we’re totally going to explore this ownership business,” and I laughed and hugged my free arm under his arm and tickled his back with my nails.  
“I love you both.”
Daeton climbed into her bed after we all said goodnight to her, and although I listened to her toss and turn for a while, I was too comfortable and worn out to try to comfort her.  In truth, I didn’t really know what lay ahead for her.  I was sad to lose her friendship, but I knew she was strong enough to handle anything that would come even if she was very young.
My last thoughts were filled with the coming mating heat and what it might be like to carry a child for my husbands.




Chapter 5

We sat in the SUV in the parking lot of the park that bordered the Delaware River where I would perform the ceremony in less than an hour.  The park was small, with a stand of trees beyond a small hill that led down to the river’s edge.  “There’s just one thing I really need from you guys,” I looked at Daeton and my husbands.
“Anything, aleni,” Ash promised from next to me on the second row of seats, kissing the top of my hand.
“I need you to trust me.  There is no danger here.  The guards are fine, they should keep an eye out for anything and everything, but no matter what comes for Daeton, we have to trust that it is the only way to save her and the den, and ourselves.”
“We do trust you, Elizabeth,” Axe said from the front seat.
“Good.  Daeton are you okay?  Do you have any questions?”  She’d been incredibly quiet since we woke up around dinnertime and a few of the guards had gone to bring food for us.
“I am.  I had a dream last night about the men who would come for me.  I know I’ll be safe with them.”
“Any clue why you need protecting?”  Ash asked, reaching his free hand for his only sister’s.
She shook her head and swallowed hard, emotion bubbling up to the surface.  She asked us to give her a few minutes alone, so we left the guards with her and went to prepare for the ceremony.
By the time the moon was near its zenith, Daeton knelt on the bank of the river in front of me.  Ash had gathered river water for me and Axe laid out the herbs and supplies for the spell.  Using a special blend of herbs, I sprinkled a circle around where Daeton and I would stand together to create a ring of protection for both of us.
I watched for the moon and the swell of power, and then I began by taking a length of leather that was blessed by the coven and instructing her to hold her arms together, fingertips to elbows.
“I bind you, Daeton Stalking Horse, with the power of the Mirador of the South, the Coven of Beth-Larga, and the god Iliarta.  I bind you in safety and power.  I bind you from harm and cover you in the power of your protectors.”  I wove the length of blessed leather around her arms as I spoke, covering from her elbows to her clasped hands.  
With a stripped willow branch dipped in the container of river water, I passed the tip over her head so the droplets of water shone like diamonds from the moonlight on her black hair.  
I felt the presence of power like a heated caress across my skin with each pass of the branch into the water and flicked to drop water on Daeton’s bowed head.  The bears with us tensed, but Ash and Axe were calm beside me.  They trusted in my power and this quest to keep our family safe.  All around us, my power pulsed like a wall of invisible flame that shimmered and moved as if it had a mind to do its own will.
Over the small hill and through the stand of trees, power spilled down to us on the sixth anointing.  It was ancient power, and Daeton shivered and her breath caught in her throat.  On the seventh flick of water, a group broke through the trees and walked to us, and the power that surrounded them was so strong it pushed back the bears that were outside our protective circle.  Only Ash and Axe stood their ground, confident in our mission.
Two enormous men were in the center of the group, wearing dark capes knotted at their shoulders, leather trousers, and tall boots.  Behind them stretched a long wall of men.  With one barked command from one of the men, the wall of men shifted in the blink of an eye to large wolves.  They were normal wolves, not werewolves, but larger and lighter in color.  
I knew without being told that they were Dire Wolves, an ancient race of protectors that was thought to have gone extinct eons ago.  
I lowered the protective wall and helped Daeton to turn around on her knees.  Only her real protectors could undo the binding tie on her arms and accept their roles.  Ash and Axe shifted closer to me now that the protective wall and the circle were gone, but there was no fear in them because there was nothing but honesty and concern in the eyes of the men that each bordered seven feet.  They both dropped to their knees in front of Daeton as the Dire Wolves scattered around us to guard and watch.  Ash motioned for the bears with us to keep guard and they stepped back and scouted around the area for danger.
“Hana,” the first man said, putting one hand on the back of one of her elbows and the other on the end of the leather binding, “I am Tyrant, your Protector.”
The second man touched her other elbow and also gripped the leather binding with his hand and said, “Madala, I am Rysk, your Protector.”
With coordinated ease, they unwound the tie from her arms and then Tyrant pulled a blade from a thigh holster and cut the tie in half.  Without flinching, he cut his palm with the knife and wound one half of the tie around the wound and made a fist.  Rysk took the blade from him and made a similar cut, winding the other half around his wounded palm and making a fist.  Blood from their wounds dripped onto the grass where they knelt and they began to chant in a language that felt as old as time.
Instinctively I knew that they would die before they let anyone touch a hair on her head.  My magic twined with theirs for a brief moment and I had a small glimpse into their minds as they chanted for her, and I saw that they had been preparing for this moment for years.  She belonged to them, was meant to be theirs as much as they were meant for her, and not simply as guards.  
I saw what they were in a flash in my mind and I let out a small breath of surprise.  When they finished their chants, they unwrapped their palms and brilliant white scars remained.  The leather was dark with blood and Rysk wound the two pieces of leather together and reached for her hand.
“Do you accept us as your Protectors, Daeton Stalking Horse?”
“Yes.”  She spoke with conviction.
“We oath ourselves to your safety and protection for the course of our lives.”  He tied the leather around her wrist like a bracelet and kissed the top of her hand.  Tyrant reached for her other hand and kissed it as well.  “We will lay our lives down for your safety, our Hana.”  It was almost odd to see such emotion from two huge men, but it fit the scenario.  They were literally pledging themselves to her in any way that she wanted.  
She leaned forward and kissed each man’s cheek and both blushed before standing together and helping her to stand between them. Daeton was around 5’7”, but she looked like a child compared to their huge bulk.  Tyrant had a shaved head and the huge muscular frame of a body builder.  Rysk had a similar build but his dark hair was cropped very close to his head.  
Rysk bowed to me, “Mistress, may we assist you further?  Our safety here is fleeting and we must begin our journey.”
“We’re leaving ourselves.  I’d like to say goodbye to my sister.”  They nodded and stepped back and Daeton moved forward and hugged me, bending slightly and burying her face in my neck.  Ash and Axe kissed and hugged her with me, and she cried softly, her body trembling.
“They’ll keep you safe, Daeton, I have no doubt of that,” Axe said.
“I know,” she sniffled and rubbed at her eyes, “I just, I’ll miss you all so much.  We just started to get to know each other, Elizabeth.”
I glanced to the men waiting.  “In time we’ll see her again, won’t we?”
“When this threat is gone, we will bring her back to your den to visit but she does not belong there any longer,” Rysk said.
Daeton gasped a little short breath and looked confused.  
“I know she doesn’t, I saw it when you were chanting.  You’re a princess, Daeton.  Their den’s Hana.  But it’s not just a den, not like ours, it’s something unique and ancient.  Madala means…destiny.  You were born for them.  I don’t know how or why, but I know you will shine.  You are so lovely and beautiful; I will send prayers to the heavens for your continued protection.”  I promised.
Tyrant took Daeton’s bag from Ash and they both bowed to us and offered their hands to Daeton, who took one last look at us, told us she loved us and to say goodbye to her parents and the den, and walked away.  The Dire Wolves shifted back to their human form and followed them through the trees and the power of the group pulled away from us like the surf on sand and I felt as if they were gone already.
Ash and Axe hugged me tightly while the bears came back to stand around us.  “What the hell were those guys?  They smelled like bears, but not quite right.”  Ash murmured into my ear, squeezing my waist.
“They’re bears, but they’re from ancient races that I thought were long extinct.  Tyrant, the one with the shaved head is a Cave Bear.  In their shift they’re about 1,500 pounds of pure fury.  Rysk is as Giant Polar Bear, about a thousand pounds in his shift with these huge claws and grappling hook sized ones on the forelegs.  And their guards are Dire Wolves, vicious protectors.  Even though they appear human, they are little more than guard dogs whose only desire is to protect what they perceive as their treasure.  And that’s your sister.”  I was infinitely glad I had taken to reading about ancient were-groups before I came into my powers.  I had wanted to know the history of the groups around us, and they were all fascinating.  Some groups, like the bears, could trace their were-kindred back to the dinosaurs.
Our supplies were gathered and we walked back to our vehicles to begin the journey home.  “She’s not a real princess, though; I mean our father is king of the den and that makes her princess, but it’s only a title for our den, not anywhere else.” Ash said, backing out of the parking lot and heading away from the river.
“I know.  I’m not entirely sure why or how, but she’s the answer to a prophesy for their den.  Wherever they are taking her, it’s to keep her safe until whatever is coming against her, that white haired wizard, is put down.  I think,” I leaned forward from the back seat where I sat with Axe and put my head on Ash’s shoulder, “that her connection to me as part of the den is what made me sensitive to the danger to her.  All that slaughter, I don’t think it had to do with me, but with the den trying to protect her.  And without those two huge mountains, clearly, we failed because she was going to be sacrificed.”
“It makes sense,” Ash said, reaching back to press me a little closer to his shoulder, “that being sensitive like you are to the future and to our family that you would have had a sense of foreboding.  Will your dreams get better now?”
“I certainly hope so.  No reason for them not to.  The threat to us, our den, is gone with Daeton being given into their care, and they have effectively taken on the burden of keeping her safe.  When we see her again, I bet she’s going to have some incredible stories for us about her journey.”
I leaned back and settled my head down in Axe’s lap.  He chuckled, “Our little sister is a real princess.”
“And an answer to prophesy for some extinct were-bears,” Ash added.
“Once more I’m thankful for our bride, brother.  She saved us, the den, and our sister and it only cost her a few sleepless nights.”
“It could certainly have cost us everything we love,” Ash said ruefully.  I heard the familiar thudding of the tires as they gained speed on the highway and the rhythmic sound put me to sleep, along with the warmth of Axe’s body that surrounded me.  No matter what lay in store for Daeton, I had every reason to believe that those two big brutes would see her safe.  
She was theirs, after all.




Chapter 6

The month of October flew by like a witch on a broom, metaphorically speaking.  We didn’t use brooms.  Or fly.  October was always a busy month, because so many humans who liked to dabble or thought of themselves as something of a Wiccan, came out in droves to the store.  Ash and Axe suspended all their other activities to play babysitter to me for the month.  All the humans in the store at all hours, the calls for spell casting and help with supplies made them nervous and I didn’t disagree.  There were a lot of weirdoes out there and they tended to congregate in large groups.
Ash was typing furiously on the laptop on his desk in my large office.  He ran security and handled all the computer and tech equipment for the building housing the coven’s Wiccan supply store, Cleveland Mother Earth Store.  After I’d complained that he took over my desk, we moved into a larger office so that the three of us could have our own desks.  Not that Axe ever used his except to make the occasional phone call or to bend me over for a quickie.  By trade, Axe was a woodworker, extremely talented and artistic.  Since we moved into the Bay Village house together, he had taken it upon himself to build a deck for us at the back of the house, which was something I’d wanted for a long time.  He was just now finishing it, a multi-tiered beauty with a stone firepit and an outdoor kitchen.  He was already planning his winter project, which was going to involve building himself a workshop in the large garage, in between coming to the store with me, doing odd-jobs for the coven and den, and the denning-in we were planning.  The denning-in was spending the winter months in solitude with your family, leaving occasionally, but mostly just being together.
Axe strode into the office at the back of the store wearing faded jeans and a beige v-neck sweater that highlighted the coppery color of his skin and made him look incredibly mouth watering.  As if he needed any help in that department.  Being married to twins was tough on the libido.  They both gave me the same heated looks, they both tossed their long, onyx hair over their shoulders in a carefree way that was completely calculated, and they both had the most incredible hands with long fingers.  I could maybe – maybe – resist one set of sexy eyes and hands and lips, but add identical ones to the mix and I was buttered toast.
“This just came for you, baby, by courier.”  He came around the desk and pecked my cheek and handed me a black satin envelope.  From the way my name was scrolled in gold filigree on the front of it, I knew exactly what it was.  Tossing it on the desk I took his hand and kissed the top of it.  
“Aren’t you curious?”  He asked.
“I know what it is and it’s not important.”  I tried to change the subject.  “I have a one hour seminar at 4 on drying herbs and then we can head home, I-“
Ash cut me off, coming to stand at the desk.  “What do you mean it’s not important?”
“It’s an invitation to Mishka’s Saints and Sinners party.  It’s on All Hallow’s Eve.  I hosted with him last year.  It’s at the club and goes from sunset to an hour before sunrise.  It’s not exactly your thing.”
That came out wrong and I knew it the second the words left my lips.  What I probably should have said was Mishka who?, but instead I intimated that the party was something that was still my thing even though I hadn’t seen Mishka since before I collared them.  
Me and my big mouth.  Awesome.
“What do you mean by that?” Axe demanded.  The flash of jealousy in both their eyes told me exactly what I’d thought all along, but had never really asked.  There was a part of them that still worried about me leaving and going back to my bed hopping days.  As if they didn’t believe that they could compete with the men I’d been with before and that one of these days I’d remember something better.  As if.  There was nothing better than my two sweeties.
“The saints are the men and the sinners are the women.  Knowing how you feel about Mishka and Brone, and single men in general, I didn’t think you really wanted me dressing in lingerie or like a naughty school girl in front of a club full of people.”  Last year, with help from Mishka’s coven females, I dressed like a sexy vampire in a black teddy and stilettos complete with fake porcelain fangs.  Mishka dressed like a priest minus the cross.  It had been wicked fun, especially when I discovered that the fangs made Mishka extra-strength horny.
Ash dropped down to his knees in front of me and gripped my legs through the long skirt I wore.  “Aleni, if you wanted to go, we would gladly go with you, assuming we could choose your outfit.”
“I think it’s a bad idea.”  I said.  “Look at you two.  Just talking about what happened last year in abstract has made your eyes go all feral.  You’re my life and my heart and there isn’t anything at that club that appeals to me anymore.  Okay?”
Besides, I didn’t think taking two overprotective and over-the-top possessive were-bears into a vampire run club was a great idea on any number of levels.  While I had always found Mishka to be utterly proper in public, he had a way of working insults into compliments that bordered on being an art form.  I didn’t ever want to expose them to that part of my past.  And maybe more than Mishka, was that Brone would be there and I really didn’t want to see him.  I didn’t have romantic feelings for him any longer, but he saved my life and that meant the reason that I was with Ash and Axe today was because of him.  I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about seeing him in person and I didn’t really want to ever find out.  If I hadn’t felt like it was best for all of us, I would have thought I was being cowardly.  And I didn’t like them being jealous or worried about my feelings for them.  But the only thing I could really do about that was stay with them and show them my love.  
I reached for Ash and stroked my finger down the curve of his jaw and he closed his eyes at my touch.  Being mates had a lot to do with that, the calming touch and feeling connected.    “You know I don’t miss anything about my life before I met you except that neither of you will let me watch Lifetime anymore and I keep having to put the seat down.  Twice as often.”  
Axe joined Ash on the floor on his knees and I stroked his jaw the same way.  It always amazed me how two very strong and powerful males like them could be reduced to pouting, jealous teenagers that needed reassurance.  But I kind of liked the vulnerability of it.  I knew the threat they told me when we joined together the first time was true.  If another man ever laid a hand on me, they would end him…swiftly.
I slid my fingers towards their ears and down the curve of their necks.  Ash was wearing a Henley and looked like an adorable college student.  He was often mistaken for one which sometimes he found funny, but most of the time he didn’t.  Axe, with his heated gaze and the tight fit of his sweater, was a walking dream in fabric.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said looking between them, “you’re everything I ever dreamed I wanted times two and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.  Because of you and the strength of our bond through the collar.”  Like an invisible tie between our hearts, I could even feel their emotions if they were feeling them strongly enough, and I could definitely, always, feel their love for me like it was my own magnified.
Axe pulled me from the chair and onto his lap and devoured my mouth in a kiss that brooked no argument.  My arms flailed with the abrupt motion and one caught his shoulder and the other smacked Ash’s head as he moved somewhere by my knees and began to shove my skirt up.  I moaned, partly because it felt so good to be kissed and touched, but also partly in protest because we were in a building full of people and the walls were notoriously thin.
“Ah, I thought we said no panties at work, aleni,” Ash said, tugging them down my thighs.  I struggled to get away from Axe’s mouth but he fisted his hand in my hair and held me tight to him, swirling his tongue around mine and claiming my mouth like it was an undiscovered continent.
I felt Ash push my thighs apart and his tongue lapped against my clit and I shrieked into Axe’s mouth just as someone knocked on the open door of the office.  “Mistress?”
Oh fuck!  
I mean, no fucking, damn it!
They released me abruptly and I twisted off Axe’s lap and stood up.  My legs felt like jell-o and I was forced to grab the desk for support as Ash tugged my panties back up my legs and righted my skirt.  Axe stood up behind me, joined quickly by Ash.  Lulu, one of our unnatural witches was standing in the doorway.  When she first met the boys, she’d given them a good once-over and I’d shamed her about it so she never looked at them anymore.  I could hardly guess what I looked like then, but judging from the devilish looks on their faces, I looked like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.  
“Wh-what?  What did you want, Lulu?”
She blushed hard, her face turning scarlet, and dropped her eyes to the floor. “Sorry, um, the four o’clock class is ready for you.  Mistress Lorene sent me to find you.”
My grandmother probably knew exactly what was going on in the office and was just giving me a hard time.  At least I was still clothed.
“I’ll be right there.”  I waited until she walked away and I turned and shoved both of them hard.  It didn’t budge them but it did make their joy leak away a little.  “Why do you have to do that kind of stuff to me here?  I know you think it’s hilarious, but you weaken my standing with the coven.  The unnaturals think I’m some kind of wanton slut because I keep getting caught in compromising positions.  If you insist on being here with me, then you have to respect my work.”
I huffed in my righteous indignation only to feel bad as their faces fell.  “We’re sorry, Elizabeth,” Axe said, raising his eyes to mine.  “It’s hard not to touch you when we’re with you.  It’s part of our nature.”
“Oh, no.  Don’t blame your bears.  You’re parents aren’t feeling each other up all the time.”
“It’s different between real bears, aleni,” Ash said, “Our bears want to claim you constantly, to cover you with our scent and mark your pretty skin so that no one ever doubts who you belong to.”
At least once a week, I heard one of them say something about real bears.  Funny how I never tried to compare them to real humans.  
I said it even though I knew I would regret it.  “Sometimes you really make me feel like shit for not being a bear.”  
I walked away and to the herb class meeting in one of our blessing rooms, the image of their shocked and hurt faces burned in my mind.
The class was full, twelve humans who wanted to be witches in one form or another.  Ash walked into the room after me, his face stony, and he leaned against the far wall and watched me, on guard if anything should happen.  I pointedly ignored him and turned to the humans and sent out a little power to see if anyone in the room had any link to Wiccan at all, and came back empty.  Sometimes, rarely, a person would be a descendant of a Wiccan, but not know about it.  They may just have a liking of supernatural things or some sensitivities towards nature or other witches and just need to find a coven to join.  Usually, though, if your family came from witches you knew about it.  That wasn’t something normally kept secret.  All the witches in our coven, the unnatural ones, had something in them that responded to our power even if they had no real power themselves.  A witch could only be called a natural witch if one of their parents were a full blooded Wiccan descendant.
A witch could destroy a hereditary line of wiccans by turning away from their power and never allowing their children to pursue it.  The witch that turned away from her power would take on the mantel of humanity and lose her long-life.  Eventually, as the power went untapped, it weakened through generations until it became nearly non-existent.  Which was how most unnatural witches tend to come to be.
I glanced at Ash to see him staring blankly at a spot on the floor, his arms folded across his chest in a posture of defense, his shoulders rolled forward in defeat.  I had really hurt him and my chest tightened at the thought.  Damn my big mouth.  Again!  I’d been feeling bitchier and bitchier this week, and kind of run down, too.  Sighing, I pushed my thoughts away to the corner of my mind and turned back to the class and began talking about various herbs used in healing and how to dry them.  It was just about the only thing a human without any wiccan power could do.  Healing potions and poultices were harmless, making the equivalent of aspirin for headaches or antibiotic balm for cuts and scrapes.  But drying the herbs properly so they retained what was needed for the potions was imperative.  I spent the next hour talking about herbs and techniques, including where to find a few things that grew naturally around northern Ohio.
When the class was over, every single person wanted to talk to me privately, to set up a reading or private tutoring.  I didn’t do the private tutoring, because it was time consuming and involved taking someone under your wing for a few months to teach them.  I would have been willing to schedule some readings for November, but Ash was suddenly behind me and every single woman’s eyes lifted slowly like they were trying to memorize the length of him for review later.
“Mistress Elizabeth is unable to schedule readings until spring.  If you’ll see Lulu at the front desk, she can schedule others in the coven to read for you or provide private tutoring.  Thank you for coming.”  His voice was clipped and serious, and the women just nodded at him and gathered their things and left.  
Ash propelled me by my arm through the store and out to our waiting truck.  “Wait, I need to get my things,” I protested as he opened the passenger door and tried to push me inside.
“We got your things already and we told everyone you were leaving.  It’s time to go home.”  He said stiffly.
I tried unsuccessfully to wrench out of his grasp but he was far, far stronger than me so I had to settle with glaring at him as he shut the door so I was sitting next to Axe.  Ash climbed into the backseat and Axe put the SUV in gear and headed home.  Neither of them said anything, and I didn’t feel up to gracing them with my witty banter, so I stared mutely out the window and thought up ways to torture them for being such bullies.
I hadn’t gotten much further than thinking about the handcuffs in the nightstand by the time we got home and they followed me silently into the house.  I waited for the yelling, but it didn’t come.
Axe turned me around in the family room and cupped my face with his ultra warm hands.  “Elizabeth, why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Why do you let something eat you alive until you just lash out at everyone?”
“I don’t do that,” I muttered.
“Yes, you do.  You get pissed off and then you hold it in like some kind of emotional time bomb and then you say something completely devastating and walk away without talking about it.  That’s totally your M.O.”  Ash said, standing next to Axe.
“I do not have an M.O.”
“Yes, you do.  You never tell us when something is bothering you until it has driven you so crazy that you just explode.”  Axe pointed out and then his frown softened and his eyes got darker.  “Aleni, why didn’t you tell us before?  We…we didn’t realize how that must sound when we say things like that.”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”  I pushed his hands away so that the swell of emotions didn’t get the better of me.  I really didn’t want to cry right now.
“Of course it does,” Ash said.
“No, it doesn’t, because I will never be a bear.  I am always going to be the only non-shifting person in the den.”
“You don’t know that.  A couple of the bears are interested in some of the unnatural witches, so there’s no telling what the future will bring.  But it wouldn’t matter to us anyway, darling.  We are the envy of every male in the den.  Because you’re beautiful and funny and generous and because you give yourself to us so completely.  There is no female bear that has ever compared to you.”  Axe pulled me into his arms and before I could even think of pushing away, Ash pressed against my back so I was wedged tightly between them.
“You wouldn’t rather have a she-bear?”  I looked up into Axe’s eyes.
He scoffed, “Of course not.  We were made for each other.  Why would I want something that’s not real?  I love you.  I love everything about you.”
“I love you, too.”  Ash echoed, his face buried in my neck.
“I love you, too.  I’m sorry I snapped at you.  I just, I feel so emotional today.”  I sighed and dropped my head to Axe’s chest.
“I think I know why,” Ash offered.  I shifted slightly to look back at him as he raised his head from my shoulder and straightened.  “I think you’re going to get your period soon.  Don’t girls get, I don’t know, kind of extra emotional around that time?”
I thought back to before I got my IUD put in and stopped having periods.  “What makes you think that?”
“Because you smell different, sweeter and I don’t know, it’s like your body chemistry is changing some and I think that’s why.  But it’s good news, right?  Because it means that your body is getting back to normal?”  Ash smiled.
“I guess.  I…I just don’t want you guys to get your hopes up if I don’t get pregnant this heat.”
“We won’t, aleni.  All we want is you, and whenever you carry our cubs then we’ll be thrilled to start a family with you.  Until then, well, we’re just thrilled that you belong to us.”  Axe promised.
“And we’ll be better about not playing in the office, too.  It never occurred to us that they would think poorly about you because you have two horny husbands.”  Ash kissed my cheek before turning me in his arms to kiss my mouth.
I might have told them that I actually didn’t care what the coven thought about my extracurricular activities with them, but eventually things would need to settle down between us.  Because I couldn’t walk around tingly and wet all day, and their near constant hard-ons were everyone’s problem.
Axe wrapped his arms around me, trapping my arms against my body as Ash went to his knees and undid my skirt, dropping it to the floor with my panties.  With his fingers tracing my bare flesh, he grinned up at me, “Now, where were we?”
“I think three, to make up for our behavior earlier, brother,” Axe nipped my neck with his teeth and lips, swirling his tongue behind my ear and lifting me from the ground.  He held me off the ground and Ash placed my knees over his shoulders and went back to finishing what he started in the office, feasting on my body like it was a buffet.  With his wicked tongue and talented fingers and Axe’s naughty whispers in my ears, they drove my body to great heights of pleasure, three times.  They made love to me in the bedroom before we passed out together, a tangle of arms and legs, until morning.

* * * * * 

“Hello, this is Elizabeth calling for Mishka.” I said the next evening, as Ash grilled outside on the deck and Axe looked over his shoulder.  They were very cute sometimes, like children, always teasing and giving each other a hard time.  Axe was older by only bare minutes, but he never let Ash forget it.
“My sweet, how are you?”  Mishka’s lightly accented voice came across the line like music.  I could picture him, sitting behind the large desk in his office of the club, his blue eyes full of wicked promises, blonde hair like sunshine spun silk pulled back into a tight, low tail.
“I’m well, Mishka. You?”
“I am as good as can be expected.”  He trailed off but I didn’t take the bait.  Mishka was beautiful and seductive, and I was glad for the time we had together when I spent a year under his fang as his weekly food, not to mention the dating in between.  I didn’t miss that time, though.  Not when I had two beautiful men intent on melting me from the inside out with orgasms and blistering hot sex.  And I’d found out a great truth since I met Ash and Axe:  all the great sex in the world didn’t compare to making love.
“I’m just calling to send regrets to your party.  I’m sure it will be a great success.”
“I thought as much, my sweet, but an old man had to try.”  Mishka was turned at age 25, some five hundred years ago.  
“I appreciate the gesture.  That life doesn’t exist for me any longer.”
“Yet you were happy here, were you not?  Once upon a time?”  His voice slid a little deeper, darker and if I’d been with him I would have shivered at it.  But right now I was watching Ash elbow Axe away from him and Axe gesturing emphatically to the steaks.  This was happiness.  It was all I really needed.
“My life isn’t a fairy tale, Mishka.  I’m glad for our alliance and our continued friendship, but more than that is not fair to any of us.  Take care of yourself.”
“And you, Elizabeth.”
I pressed end and watched through the sliding glass door as they fought over the steaks and when Ash made a threatening gesture with the long handled fork towards Axe’s groin, I knew I had to step in.
“Alright you two,” I growled, opening the back door.  “Do I have to separate you?”
“Only if you’re going to punish us, aleni,” Ash’s eyes lit up and his lush mouth split into a sultry smile, the argument forgotten for the moment with the thought of sex.
“I think you’d like that too much,” I countered and wedged myself between them for a double hug.
“I would like anything you want to do to me, baby,” he said with a laugh.  
“Tell your husband that he’s going to ruin the steaks,” Axe said with a low voice as his teeth grazed my ear lobe.
“You can tell your husband that he’s not the cook in the family, I am, and I don’t need him arm-chair grilling.”  Ash’s tone was playful but there was a little undercurrent of tension.  He didn’t like Axe second guessing him on anything, especially his ability to grill meat.
“I think,” I spun around to Axe and ran my hand down the front of his jeans, “that there’s a little too much testosterone out here and we should do something about that.”
With a little pressure, I cupped him and then tugged him with me, taking slow backwards steps towards one of the built in benches on the deck.  As I sat down and reached for the button of his jeans, Ash grumbled, “Of all the times to be cooking, damn it.”




Chapter 7

Whether me getting my period at the end of October really meant anything or not, I had little time to think what it might mean or if I was even ready to have a child.  I was still shaken from the visions I’d had of everyone dying around me, and although I was glad that my powers had led to the solution, it didn’t mean that trouble wouldn’t come back for me, for us, for our children.  What would a half witch, half bear turn out like?  A solution to my fears lay in my mind, but I pushed it away.  I couldn’t think about it now.
The bears’ heat affected both males and females, mated and unmated.  For the unmated ones, I’d been told that it was just mildly stimulating for the duration, making them more inclined to find a male or female to fuck.  Often before the heats, the dens would come together to look for mates, or if nothing else, pair up for the duration.  If the pairs weren’t really interested in anything except a little good time how-do-you, the females stayed on birth control so they didn’t become pregnant.  For the mated males and females, Filene explained that it was an all consuming need to be with their mate and make a cub.  More than just continuing their kind, it was a spiritual connection to their ancestors and a way to connect to each other forever.  
As the days of early November flipped past, I thought often about what that would be like, to carry a child that was a little bit of my husbands and me, a bridge between two very different worlds with fierce family on both sides.  
Axe waved his hand in front of my face, snapping me from my thoughts. “Did you hear anything I just said?”
Blinking a few times I said, “No.  I’m sorry, I’ve been feeling distracted all morning.”
He pulled me into his arms in the office and kissed my cheek.  “It’s okay, love.  I was just asking if you wanted to go home for lunch and skip the rest of the day.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure.  I’m feeling like cuddling with my baby and with Ash helping out at the den, I could snag some very precious alone time with you.”
“Ah, would that be naked alone time?”
“It is my favorite.”  His eyes were dazzling in their brightness and his smile was infectious.
“I’d like nothing better.”
Later, when we lounged on the couch after making love in the bedroom and then again in the family room, he played his fingers down my arm and said, “You’ve been very quiet about the heat.  Are you having doubts about having a cub with us?”
“Not about having a child with you, just that even though I want to pretend like my life isn’t dangerous, I know it is.  I know that my power draws unsavory people to me, makes me a magnet for others that want what I have.  It feels selfish to even consider bringing a child into this situation.”
“We would keep you safe, Elizabeth,” he whispered in my ear.  They only really used my full name when they were very serious.  
“I know you would.  I just wish you didn’t have to.”  
Before he could say anything else, Ash strode in the house and grinned at the sight of us splayed out on the couch.  “I hope you’re not too tired, aleni.  I’ve been thinking about that beautiful pussy of yours all afternoon.”
I opened my arms to my other husband and chased away my dark thoughts.  I had a tendency to not want to think about the bad things until I was left with no choice but to face them head on.  The trouble with that logic was that sometimes the bad things had a way of showing up unexpected, whether I wanted to think of them or not.  That night, my dreams were vivid and easily remembered.
I sat in a field of wildflowers that grew outside the den.  On tall stalks the white and yellow flowers stretched as high as they could, their broad flat leaves were soft against my skin.  The sun shone down on me as I sat and looked out over the expanse of the territory that belonged to the den, rolling hills and clusters of trees dotted the landscape as did the crops that would be harvested soon.  Deeper into the territory were the thick woods where we had shared our private bonding ceremony.  A bubbling laugh broke my quiet thoughts and I turned to see two little boys running towards me.  Their obsidian hair was long and straight and flowed behind them like ribbons.  They wore no shirts and their coppery skin was glowing in the sun.  Their small hands dusted the tops of the flowers so they made waves behind themselves as if nature itself was bowing to their specialness and I was moved to take them into my arms and hold them.  Matching jade eyes sparkled at me through thick lashes, the only nod to my parentage, as they fell into my arms with peals of laughter and pressed kisses across my cheeks.  Ash and Axe came into view and the boys in my arms squealed in delight to go to their fathers.  “There is safety here, Alisiquete,” Ash said, calling me by their language’s translation of my name as he hefted one child on his shoulder as Axe did the same to the other.  “Choose us and our family.  You know it is your destiny.”  
Axe held the other boy close, “You’ve always known there was life outside the coven.  Make your choice.  This choice.”
I sat upright, heat swarming over my body like I was on fire.  My body throbbed and ached and an overwhelming need to be with Ash and Axe, to make a child, to make our family whole, wove through me like wildfire.
I spun on the bed and jerked the covers back to bare their bodies to me.  They sat up in stunned surprise, blinking the sleep from their eyes.  “Aleni?”  Ash asked.
I pushed Axe down roughly by the shoulder and straddled his body.  Ash moved next to us, running his fingers over my belly and up to cup my breast.  “Fuck, Elizabeth,” he groaned, kissing my neck, “you smell incredible.”
Axe sat up enough to kiss me, moving from my already panting mouth across my cheek to my neck, a growl of desire bubbling in his chest.  I struggled to reach his cock, trapped between our bodies and he pulled his teeth from my neck and looked into my eyes and his own were bright and feral.  “It’s the heat, baby, but you feel it too?”
I groaned as Ash dropped his mouth to my nipple and bit down, “I, yes, yes, please, please!”  Axe lifted my hips to free his cock and I slammed myself down on him and shrieked in bliss.  
Wrenching Ash’s head back from my breast by his hair, I licked across his plump lower lip and bit down slightly.  “You’re next,” I growled, and began to move on Axe.  Leaning back slightly, I rested my hands on Axe’s knees and lengthened my body as he thrust up into me.  The position made his cock rub against my most sensitive place.  Splaying his hand across my belly, Axe pressed his thumb to my clit and began to rub the bud in a contrasting rhythm to our bodies.  
Thrust, rub.  Thrust, rub.  
Thrustrub.  Thrustrub.
Thrustrubthrustrubthrustrub.  
“Oh fuck!”  I screamed as my body contracted around him and he lost the rhythm, gripping my hips with both hands and tugging me hard and fast across his body.  He growled as he came after a few hard thrusts upwards and Ash pulled me off his body and laid me down on my back, climbing on top of me.  Spreading my legs apart by the ankles, he shifted his hips in slow circles while his cock parted my heated core.  When I felt him seated inside me completely, he leaned forward and kissed me, dropping my legs from his hands so I could wrap them around his body.  I broke our kiss and dropped my mouth to his chest, seeking out the tight nipples.  
“Ah, baby, yes,” he moaned, pounding into me while I took one tiny button in between my teeth.  “More, harder.”
Digging my nails into his back, I bit down harder on his nipple and swiped my tongue across it while he groaned and panted, increasing his pace as I moved to the other nipple.  I bit down again and again, tasting the heat of the bruises I was making and sensing that he was drawing close to climax.  I moved my hand between our bodies so I could join him and found Axe’s hand already there, reaching for my clit that ached with the need to be touched and played with.
“I’ve got you, baby,” Axe growled, and I gave in to the sensations they both brought to the surface for me, heat and passion and love.  So much love that my senses exploded with it.
I screamed into Ash’s chest as the orgasm flashed through me and he growled, slamming into me once, twice, three times until his cock spasmed deep inside me and set off another shiver of orgasm for me.
Ash kissed across my sweaty brow with a happy growl, “That was perfect, aleni, just perfect.”
I looked up into his sweet face and saw nothing but love there.  It was echoed in Axe’s perfectly identical face and the swell of it, the waves of love that washed over me at that moment, made me feel closer to them than anything else.  If there was anything better, I couldn’t imagine what it might be.
Wriggling out from under Ash, I went to my hands and knees for Axe, and he fucked me hard and fast, burying himself impossibly deep inside me until his balls slapped against my clit and I came ferociously, scrambling against the sheets.
My passion rose again and again.  For a week, we barely stopped making love, only dozing off when we passed out from exhaustion.  We made love around the house and outside at night, everywhere and anywhere. 
We ate when we were hungry, oblivious to the time or anything except each other, and every phone in the house was turned off and the blinds were shut and the doors were locked so we could just be together.  For a week, we did nothing but make love and hold each other, me and my two husbands.  The witch and the twin bears.  So different but somehow made perfectly right for each other.  Lost in our little passion bubble, nothing else mattered except us.
On the sixth day, the heat started to fade slowly like a crack in a glass of water, our driving need to be together ebbing away until it disappeared completely by the time the sun set on Friday.
“Come here, baby,” Axe yawned, lifting me up from where I’d fallen splayed across Ash’s chest while he reclined on the couch.  “I think we’re through the heat.”
I mumbled nothing in particular as he held me against his warm, bare chest and he chuckled with another yawn.  “You are spectacular my sweet little bear.  I am so full of love for you right now.  This was a bliss I can’t even describe.”
My eyes refused to open and I thought I smiled at the sweet comment, but if I really did or not I couldn’t tell.  It had been a most wild, incredible week.  I felt the cool sheets of the bed under my skin that nearly shrieked in sensitivity as he laid me on my side and settled behind me.  Ash joined us, yawning several times as he settled to fit against the front of my body so I was wedged tightly between them.  
I drifted for a little while in that place between wakefulness and dreams as they talked quietly over me.
“What do you think it means that she went through the entire heat with us like that?”  Ash asked very softly.
“I don’t know.  That first time, when she woke us up I thought maybe it was a fluke, like she was reacting to our heats, but she kept right up with us the entire time.  The spring heat was nothing like this. Not even in the same ballpark.”
“Maybe because we’re collared?”
“We were collared at the spring heat, too.”
“Then, maybe it was because she was capable of carrying a cub this time?”  Ash’s voice had that sweet hopeful sound to it when he spoke about having children with me.
“Could be.”  Axe sounded wistful, too, and slid his hand very gently down my belly.  “She could be carrying our cub right now, brother.”
I felt Ash’s mouth press a closed kiss to my forehead.  “I couldn’t possibly love her any more than I do right at this second.  She’s amazing.”
“And ours.”
If they continued to talk, I didn’t hear it, drifting in final sleep as darkness swarmed over me and I was comforted and warm between my husbands.  
When sleep slipped away from me eventually, I felt like I hadn’t moved in days.  My muscles ached and everything from the top of my head to my toes and all spaces between were tingly numb and deliciously sore.
“There she is,” A soft voice spoke, light kisses following across my lips.  
Blinking the last fingers of sleep away, I found Axe lying in front of me, still looking sleepy, too.
I touched his jaw with my fingertips and traced the stubble covered line. “What time is it?”
Glancing behind me at the alarm clock he said, “4 p.m. on Saturday.  I just woke up; Ash has been up for about an hour.  He’s making us something to eat.”
After mentally running my hands over my body, I decided that nothing had melted off in the throes of the mating heat.  Ash came into the room carrying a tray.  He was nude, and his chest was covered with bite shaped bruises.  I gasped at what I’d done to him and he looked down at himself like he hadn’t noticed them before.  Grinning as he joined us on the bed with the large tray, he kissed my temple and promised that he was sorry that his fast healing was making them fade.  Axe reminded us that he wasn’t without his own battle scars, and when he sat up to reach for a cup of coffee from the tray, I got a good glimpse of his well scratched back.  I was assured I had plenty of bite and scratch marks of my own, so we all looked like we’d been ridden hard and put away wet.  And that was a very, very good thing.
Ash had heated up two packages of biscuit sandwiches from the freezer and added a bowl of cut fruit to balance it out.  I was starving, so I snagged two sandwiches quickly before they devoured the other six between them.  When I was pleasantly stuffed and still a little sleepy, I laid back and stretched and let myself drift in peace for a little while.  While we ate, we discussed the heat and what had happened between the three of us.  They weren’t worried that anything was wrong, they were just as curious as I was to know how it had happened or why.  I could only guess that my Wicca nature was bridging a gap for me with them because of the collar, bringing me into the heat as if it were my own.  If it was only an echo of what they felt, then the full feeling must be incredible.  It was as if my body wasn’t really my own.  I couldn’t get enough of them.  Of everything about them.  The feel of their bodies rocking into mine, the taste of their tongues tangling with mine, the sounds of their howls of pleasure and sweet release.  It was too much and not enough at the same time.  
A hot pounding inferno of passion that raged hot until the very end.
After our first shower in a week that didn’t involve one of them planting my hands on the glass doors and taking me until the hot water ran out, I turned on my cell only long enough to check my messages and call my grandmother.  At some point on Monday, one of the boys had called her to tell her that we were taking the week off so she wouldn’t worry, but it didn’t stop anyone else from leaving me messages for various things.  
Since we hadn’t left the house in a week, I wanted to go out to dinner, so we dressed up and drove to the condo where a block away the only five star restaurant in the area looked out over the river that emptied out into the lake.  Seated at a small table near the back, I let Ash pick our drinks and Axe pick our meals.  They were very adorable sometimes.  I sipped at the glass of white Riesling and looked at the small flickering candle in the center of the perfectly crisp white table cloth and I mused over what had plagued me since I had woken up from that dream of the little boys at the den.  Could I have a child or children and still deal with all the responsibilities of the coven?  Was that fair to the boys and our kids, to me?  I would have to step down from the corner if I was pregnant, that much was a given.  The draw of power on the solstice ceremonies was so great that although it was a protective sort of natural power, I could do harm to myself or the child if things got out of hand.  And sometimes they did.  
A long finger touched the diamond on my right hand ring finger.  I wore identical rings that they had worn since they turned 16, saving them for their future bride.  The morning after I collared them, they gave them to me.  They had both also bought me very spectacular diamonds when we got married legally.  Ash’s on my right was a three carat brilliant round cut that winked in the sun like a spotlight.  On my left hand, Axe’s eternity band with three carats’ worth of diamonds spoke to the difference in their personalities as much as anything.  Both stunning and beautiful, Ash was the more publicly expressive of the two; like the large single stone he wore his whole heart on his sleeve for the world to see.  Axe’s heart was kept muted, just as big but full of little puzzles until you got to the very sweet and loving center of him.  They both wore rings that I gave them on our legal wedding day, plain platinum bands that I had engraved with our tribal names.  
“Aleni, are you alright?  You’ve been so quiet.”  Ash asked, continuing to roll the diamond under his fingertip, back and forth.
“I’m fine, I’ve just been thinking.”  Axe reached for my hand and twined his fingers with mine.
“Do you want to talk about it?”  He offered, looking at our hands wound together.  I loved the way that my light skin off-set their dark coloring.  
“I…I want to enjoy dinner and the rest of our weekend before we have to go back to reality.  Okay?”
They let me end the subject and the timing was good because our meals arrived.  Axe had ordered thick steaks for them and lobster alfredo for me.  I dug in with gusto and kept up the conversation by talking about our first denning-in that would happen the first week of December.  In just two weeks, we’d pretty much shut ourselves off from the world.  Axe had purchased special light blocking shutters and Ash had raided a linen store for fluffy blankets and big pillows and scattered them in every room in the house, and firewood was stacked to the ceiling in the garage.  
Before I met them, I had a standing fantasy of being snuggled up in the dark in the winter, kept toasty warm with furs.  What I hadn’t expected was that my husbands might be the actual furs themselves, and that one of their were-bear traditions involved spending the winter months locked together as a family.  In the den, the bears still were able to spend time with their friends and extended family because their tents were all in the same area.  Most bears took off the winter and just stayed in.  Some went into their jobs once a week and would bring supplies in that were needed.  The boys asked me to limit my time in the shop to once a week, and I had agreed.  But now that I’d had the week with them with no coven responsibilities, I was looking forward to three months almost entirely free of unnatural witches begging for spell help, non-wiccan people seeking blessings for their families, and the North American Council of Elders.
Oh Hades. 
I sat on the North American Council of Elders, a group of natural witches from the most powerful covens in each region.  My grandmother also sat on the council as well.  Their meetings occurred during the Black Moon, which was the full moon for December.  Last year, I had been kidnapped by a wizard after the NACE meeting and Brone had saved me.  
This year, the NACE was meeting in Sault Saint Marie, Ontario.  It was neutral, with no ruling coven, and was the annual meeting place for many different wiccan groups, not just the NACE.  The boys would flip out.  Guards were not allowed into the meeting hall because it was meant to be a peaceful gathering.  They’d be forced to stay out of the building with any other guards.  I knew they’d go nuts.
With one more thing to think about and mull and ponder to myself, I tried hard not to let my thoughts and worries invade our weekend.  If they thought I was still thinking over things, they didn’t ask me again.  Already they knew when to push me and when to stand down.  Now was one of those times to stand down.




Chapter 8

The Denning-in was in two days.  Axe was finishing covering the windows and sliding back doors while Ash was at the store for the third time, getting last minute odds and ends.  I was standing at the last glass door left uncovered.  The back of the house had three in a row to let in the most light and fresh air in nice weather. 
“Aleni,” Axe said with mild irritation, “Would you please tell me what’s bothering you so much?  Where is my snarky little firecracker bride?”  He slid his hands around me and rested his chin on the top of my head.
“I’m fine, Axe, really.  Just excited about the denning-in.”  I lied.  How often had I put them off these last two weeks?  Their worry was plain on their faces.
He turned me and leaned close until my back was pressed against the glass.  He kissed me, strong and searching, locking his fingers with mine and pressing the backs of my hands into the cool glass.  His hard cock rubbed against the apex of my thighs, the material of the jeans between us digging into our skin.
With only low growls and pleased murmurs, we kissed as we stripped each other and he carried me to the couch and laid me down, settling between my legs.  He pulled my arms over my head and grasped both wrists with one of his large hands.  As he kissed down my jaw and bit on my ear lobe, he lifted away from the lower half of my body and slid the fingers of his other hand down to my pussy.  Heat speared through me as his fingers slipped through the silky wetness.  
“So ready for me, sweet little bear?”  He growled, plunging his finger in and out of my pussy.  
“Yes, Axe, yes.”  I moaned.
His wet finger pressed into my clit and I took in a quick, short breath.  When he didn’t move at all, I opened my eyes and found not the passionate loving look he always gave me before we made love, but a calculated one.  “How badly?”  He asked.
“What?” 
“How badly do you want to come?”
I wriggled under him, but he had me effectively pinned by both my wrists and the way he laid across and between my legs.  “I don’t understand, Axe.  Let me up.”
With a little shake of his head, he said, “No, baby.  Not this time.  Something’s been bothering you since you got that damn IUD out and you won’t talk about it.  I thought it would go away after we helped Daeton, but it’s almost worse since the heat.  You will talk to me now.  I’ll drive you right to the edge and I won’t let you come until you tell me what the hell is bothering you so much.”
I growled, “No, Axe, don’t!”
His finger began to slide against my clit and I let out a small whimper.  “Don’t…what, baby?  Don’t stop?  I won’t.  Yet.”  His finger made that slick, wet sound against me and I moaned and closed my eyes.  Abruptly he stopped and I opened my eyes to see him smirking in triumph.  “Ready to tell me yet?”
I struggled under him.  “There’s nothing to tell!  Let me up!”
“Bullshit.  Have it your way.”  
His finger flew across me and my body trembled in waves as I bit my lower lip and tried to stop enjoying the sensations.  I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of controlling me like this.  It wasn’t fair.  And I didn’t want to tell him anything I’d been thinking about until I was ready.  And I wasn’t, damn it!  Was I?
“Ah, ah…” I moaned and he stopped and I growled.  “No, please, Axe, please.”
“Tell me, baby, please.”
Frustrated tears leaked from my eyes and I shook my head.  
He worked me up again, right to the edge and pulled his hand away completely and I let out a frustrated yell.  He leaned over slightly, reaching, but I was too angry and busy glaring at the ceiling to see what he was doing.  Until dripping, ice cold fingers settled on my clit right on either side of an ice cube.  I shrieked and bucked under him as he slid the ice cube around me in painfully slow circles.  
“You needed to be cooled down a little.  Wouldn’t want you to come…until you talked.”
I was so hot that the cube melted quickly, but not before he slid a small sliver inside me, pushing it deeply in with his finger.  I groaned and writhed at the chill that seeped from my pussy to make goosebumps rise on my skin.  I felt him lean over again and the sound of ice tinkling in a glass and I cried out, “No!  Axe, please, it’s torture!”
He didn’t move.  “Look at me, Elizabeth.”
I cast my eyes downward to see his frowning face.  “Torture is your wife shutting you out from what’s bothering her.  I can’t take another second of you not letting me in.”
Regret slithered through me like something alive while I stared into his eyes.  He started to take an ice cube from a tumbler on the coffee table, grim determination spreading over his features.  I shouted, “No, no!  I…I want to quit the coven and move into the den.  Please no more!”
The ice cube slipped to the floor as he gaped at me in shock.  Slowly he released his grip on my wrists and sat up and I scooted away from him and grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch to cover myself.
At that moment, Ash walked into the house with several paper grocery sacks in his arms.  “Can someone help me out?”
Neither Axe nor I answered, staring at each other.  I was afraid to breathe because his look was so intense.  Especially since the heat, I’d taken a good hard look at the danger inherent in my life.  And the NACE had just added to the pile of things that were too dangerous to consider bringing a child around.  
The bags dropped to the floor with dull thuds.  “What’s the matter?”  
“She,” Axe cleared his throat, “she wants to quit the coven and move to the den.”
Ash sprinted to the couch and crashed to the floor on his knees.  He looked partly skeptical and partly thrilled.  “Sweetheart, do you really?  Why?”
I blinked at the sudden tears.  “I don’t want to bring a baby into this life.  I love the coven, the alliances and everything, but I love you more and I want to give myself to our family completely.  And when I’m pregnant, I won’t be able to call the corners anyway and they’ll need to find a replacement for me.  I’ll still be able to be Gaia for the den because that’s not the same sort of power calling, but there’s this thing called the North American Council of Elders that meets in December and last year I was abducted right after it happened.”
Axe and Ash looked at each other for a long, quiet moment and then they both whooped a cheer and lunged at me.  I shrieked in surprise as they wrangled me between them until they were holding me tightly and telling me how much they loved me, how long they’d hoped I would want to leave the dangers and uncertainties of coven life behind.  “Why didn’t you say anything, Aleni?  We would have helped you with this decision.”  Ash said quietly, kissing my cheek as he cupped my face.
“I needed time to think about it.  And I didn’t know what to say, really, anyway.  I didn’t want to get your hopes up, if that was even something you’d been thinking about.  You said you didn’t want to live at the den, anyway.”
“We don’t.”  Axe nipped my shoulder gently and tilted my face back from Ash’s fingers so I would look at him.  “But there’s a ton of land up there.  When we married in June, our father took a vote to the den and they offered us land to build a home on.  So we could live near the den but not underground.  Other mated couples may want that option, too.  Den life isn’t for everyone.”
“You could have told me that.”
Ash shrugged.  “You said you didn’t want to live there because of the travel with the coven.  We couldn’t ask you to choose between your married family and your wiccan family.  It would be cruel.”
I felt like an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders.  I told them about my dream with the twin boys and being at the den and they both promised they would love that dream to be a reality too.
I felt their happy kisses start to twist to passion, and I said, “No, no, no!  I’m still mad at you.”  I gave Axe’s shoulder a shove and he looked surprised.
“Why is she mad at you?”  Ash demanded.
“Because I persuaded her to tell me why she’s been upset.”  He didn’t look the least bit guilty and that kind of pissed me off.
“Persuaded?  Is that what you call it?”  I groused and wriggled away from Ash until I was leaning back against the couch again, covered with the blanket.
“Hey!  I didn’t do anything to you.  Why do I have to suffer?”  Ash protested.
“Because you probably would have encouraged him.”  I wasn’t really mad.  It felt very freeing to let that out.  I had made my decision, even if I hadn’t realized it until I’d yelled it out.  I pointed my finger at the two of them.  “No sex for a week.”
“For me, too?”  Ash said plaintively.
Axe’s jaw dropped.  And then he narrowed his eyes and reached for my feet under the blanket.  “I promised I’d let you come if you told me what was bothering you, baby.  I don’t go back on my promises.”
I squealed and tried to back away but I was already against the arm of the couch and suddenly Ash wasn’t looking so forlorn.  Axe pulled me flat on my back on the couch in a blink and Ash grasped my wrists and pulled them over the arm of the couch so my forearms rested on top of the couch and my head butted the arm rest.  He pulled the blanket off me and dropped it to the floor.
“You said a whole week straight of sex, right, aleni?”  Axe kissed the arch of my foot.  I tried to kick my foot free but his hold was secure and he grinned and tickled the underside of my foot until I was shrieking with laughter and crying for mercy.
Axe kissed slowly, deliberately up the inside of my leg.  With each inch that he climbed up my body I grew hotter by degrees.  He bit down on the inside of my knee, licking the small mark in apology, before moving up with light kisses.  He paused above my tingling, needy pussy and gave me a serious look.  “I’m not sorry.  Please don’t hold back that kind of stuff, love.  We can feel it when you’re worried or upset like a part of our own hearts are unsettled.”
“I won’t.”  I promised, tilting my face up to Ash.  He devoured me with a kiss, skirting his hands across my breasts as Axe resumed his slow kissing up my body.  He stopped just under my belly button and I felt him take several deep breaths, the moist heat of his breath washed over my skin.
“What’s wrong?”  I lifted my head up to look at him.
“I think you’re pregnant.”
“What?”  Ash and I said together.  Ash released my hands and moved down to where Axe was poised above my stomach.  
“I didn’t notice it before, but your scent is deeper, sweeter.  They say that when a woman is pregnant that her body chemistry changes for the duration, that the scent becomes a mixture of the male and her own.”
“But you didn’t notice before?”  I sat up on my elbows.
“A, I was a little focused on your torture and B, I didn’t have my face buried in your silky belly.  You check, Ash.  Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part.”  Axe sat back and Ash leaned forward, nuzzling my stomach and opening his mouth, taking in a few quiet, slow breaths.
I knew it before he said anything, because another triumphant smile curved at the corner of his mouth before he looked at me.  “Definitely.”
“So I smell different?”  I looked down at my stomach and laid my palm across it.
“Different, but in a good way.”  Ash promised.
“Like what?”
“You smell like a bear, aleni.”  Axe grinned, “A pregnant bear.”
After much cheering and laughing and some very happy tears, we made love on the couch and I reveled in the new life growing inside me.  Apparently prepared for anything during our denning-in, Ash produced a pregnancy test from the bathroom, and I took it immediately, even though I protested they were most accurate in the morning according to the package instructions.  They didn’t care, because their own beasts were tuned into my body and they were sure the test would be positive and it was.  
I called my grandmother that night and told her everything I’d been thinking about since we took Daeton to Philadelphia.  “I knew you would leave us sooner rather than later, granddaughter.”  She chuckled sadly.  “I had hoped later of course, but I’ve been interviewing south corners since you got back from your honeymoon and mentioned your plans for the denning-in.  Of course you should step down from the N.A.C.E. and I assumed you would want to bail on the winter solstice ceremony, and the coven can’t do it with a missing corner.”
I would have thought I’d be jealous at being replaced, but it was a relief as much as anything.  I would always be her granddaughter, and I wasn’t planning to turn from my wiccan nature or powers, I would just make my own little coven with my family, teaching my children to use any powers they might have.
“Thanks for understanding.”
“Well, you are going to give me my first grandbaby.  I can be generous.”  She laughed.  “I’ll miss you at the shop but you’re always welcome to come back to the coven, even just to join in the celebrations.”
“I know.  I’m not walking away from my powers; I’m walking towards my future.”
“And how does the future look, my sweet granddaughter?”
“Very bright and full of love.”




Epilogue

As soon as the ground thawed in the spring, the whole den came together to build our home on their property, which spanned several square miles.  The site of our home was far enough away from the den to discourage random drop-ins and give us a sense of privacy, but close enough to join them whenever we wanted to.  
It was a large home with six bedrooms on the second floor and an expansive master suite on the first floor.  After our denning-in at the lake house, we sold the house in the spring to the new South corner, a woman about my grandmother’s real age who was a natural Wicca and very sweet.  She was from Cuba.  She even liked the dark covers for the windows, so we left them behind.  We kept the condo, to have a place to go for vacations and long weekends.
Although the home wasn’t ready by the time our twin sons were born, I gave birth to them in the den, in the ceremonial birthing tent, surrounded by my husbands, my grandmother, and Filene.  We lived with the den until our home was finished, staying in our spacious tent underground and reveling in the closeness of the bears.
I’d never seen such joy as when my husbands each held an identical twin in their arms and shed tears of happiness and fulfillment.  I had everything I needed in the world.  Husbands.  Children.  A home.  And so much love that my heart overflowed with it.  I’d found home and it was here.
The day after they were born and we’d argued through all the names for the beautiful baby boys, we settled on Setimika and Bodaway, tribal names that meant Protector and Shield.  For the naming ceremony, Ash and Axe accepted small brands on their backs with the symbol for their tribal names, one on each shoulder.  I was very glad that the mother wasn’t required to get branded.  I’d definitely reconsider having other children.

Several years later….

“Elisia was crying for her beautiful mommy,” Axe said, walking out of the house and stepping off the porch and onto the thick summer grass.  My twin boys, who had taken to going by abbreviated versions of the meanings of their tribal names, squinted up at their father in the bright August sunshine with their jade green eyes.
“She’s always crying,” Teck groused, concentrating on the spell he was trying to recite.
“I’ll take her, Dad,” Shy offered, standing up and brushing the back of his faded jeans.  They were very much their fathers’ sons.  Teck was the more serious of the two and Shy was more sensitive.  At 14, they were very close to the time when they should be able to shift into bears for the first time.  No one was entirely sure if they’d be able to shift completely or if they may only gain some partial shifting abilities like fangs and claws, or nothing at all.  They had some wiccan abilities and I nurtured them as best I could, but I had high hopes for my daughters, aged 8, 7, and 5, who were currently with my grandmother and loving learning all about wicca nature and their own hereditary powers.  Aiyana, Dena, and Malia were the apples of their fathers’ eyes, not to mention the most innocent looking devils you ever met.  They could twist you around their fingers so fast you didn’t know up from down.  And every male in the den, their fathers included, thought they could do no wrong.
As Shy settled down with my sweet little baby in his lap and gently wiped away the tears from her cheeks, Axe sat down behind me and wrapped his arms around me.
“How is my sweet wife today?”
“Better now that you’re home, love,” I leaned back and kissed him.
“My mother is heading up to take the kids to eat dinner in the den.  Ash is, um, waiting for us inside.”  
“Is he now?”  I grinned.
Axe hummed in his throat and Teck made an annoyed sound that made us laugh.  “Come on, Shy, let’s go see grandma.”  He stood up and shut the spell book he’d been reading and turned to walk away.
“Is something bothering Teck?”  Axe asked.
“He’s still having the dreams.  They’re coming more frequently now and he worries what it means that he’s having them and Shy isn’t.”  For several years, my oldest twin son had been dreaming about a young woman.  He was never very specific about the dreams, at least not recently, and I had a feeling that he had developed very strong feelings for the young woman in his dreams.  After counseling with my grandmother, we decided that he was having some kind of premonitions about his future and there was nothing to do now except wait and see what the dreams told him.  He wrestled with leaving Shy behind.  They had both always expected to share the same woman, the way their fathers shared me.  
“How’s he doing with his spell casting?”  Axe nuzzled under my ear and stood up with me in his arms, carrying me into the house.
“I think he’s actually pretty talented.  More so than Shy.”  I looked back at the twins as Axe carried me into the house, the only real physical difference between the two was that Teck had a scar across his back from a fall when he was 10.  “But he fights it.  I think he feels like it’s not very manly.”
“I wonder where he got that idea?”  Ash said from the bed as Axe carried me into our bedroom.
“Hey, I never said it wasn’t manly.  I hope they’re both powerful bears and powerful wiccans, okay?  But I could really care less.  I just want them to be as happy as Ash and I are, however their powers turn out, wherever their lives lead them.”  Axe promised and tossed me onto the bed.  He was on top of me before I bounced a second time and I wrapped my arms around him and held him close, lost once more in the passion from my mates.
I didn’t know what the future held for us.  Sometimes I got glimpses in dreams of our children grown up, journeys and trials in their lives, but mostly we just lived our life as each day gave us cause to.  Loving to the best of our ability the children and family we’ve been so blessed to have.
I’d come to see that home wasn’t just about the place where you lived or the memories within the walls.  It was the love you saw reflected in the eyes of the people around you, and the strength of your own feelings that made a place home.  Home for me was the coppery cage of the arms of my husbands, a prison I gladly sentenced myself to for life.


###


Thank you so much for reading my follow-up novella to A Curve of Claw.  I hope you enjoyed how I ended the story of Elizabeth, Ash, and Axe.  I’d love to hear from you, so please visit my blog and drop me a line:  www.rebutler.wordpress.com.  Or send me an email:  rebutlerauthor@gmail.com
Happy reading!  -R

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If you didn’t read the story of the start of their relationship, check it out now!
A Curve of Claw:  by R.E. Butler

* * * * 

Coming Soon:

The Wolf’s Mate Book 1:  Jason & Cadence
For 14 years, alpha wolf Jason has watched his marked mate Cadence live her life without him. Circumstances force his hand and he must find a way to get her to uncover her buried memories of their past before someone else steps up to take her from him. 
For as long as she can remember, hybrid wolf Cadence has loved Jason with every fiber of her being but he’s consistently shoved her away until the love that’s there is bound tightly in anger and shame.  No one can take his place in her heart, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t wolves willing to try. Will Cadence be able to get through Jason’s icy demeanor to the heart of the boy she’s always loved, or will their past muck up the future? This book contains red-hot werewolf loving, plenty of neck biting, and misuse of a kitchen counter. 
The Wolf’s Mate is a book for mature audiences only and contains sexually explicit content. 

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