A Bond of Brothers (10 page)

Lovely, she had dark brown hair and jade green eyes, and a sweet smile that was welcoming. "How do you feel?" Elizabeth asked, sitting next to me on the couch. I shifted so she could see the wounds on my back and felt her cool fingers touch them very lightly.

"Okay. It will get better soon enough. A small price to pay, at any rate, to be happy forever." I smiled at Lynk and Tavian.

"Eternal happiness?" One of her husbands chuckled, patting Tavian on the shoulder. "That's a tall order."

"No problem." Tavian said, and Lynk agreed.

Once the den realized I was up, the flood of well-wishers grew. After Elizabeth and her husbands and children left, their parents stopped by, followed by a steady trickle of the other den members. I was overwhelmed by the support and felt really blessed.

Several days later, I felt like I was finally free of the pain of my wounds and was able to wear clothes without the fabric making me uncomfortable. Over the course of the time that I recuperated in the den, I found myself undeniably falling in love with both men.

When I was completely healed, they took me back to the cabin, and after we packed up my belongings and stopped in town to return the keys to the owner, we headed back to the den. That night was the first night we made love since my injury, and the time together was as heated and passionate as it had been when we were tucked away in bliss in the cabin.

I couldn't let myself go another day without telling them the truth of my feelings for them. As we lay tangled together on the bed, I moved over Lynk and said, "I love you, Lynk." I hugged him tightly and kissed him.

His eyes widened in surprise and happiness lit his features. "I love you, Shaylee. My sweet lilenta."

I moved to Tavian and he held me in his arms, struggling to contain his emotions. "I love you, Tavian."

He smoothed back my hair and kissed me. "Oh, Shaylee, I love you, too."

* * * * * *

Elizabeth ran a brush through my hair and sectioned it while Filene adjusted the strapless buckskin top that one of their craftsmen had made for our bonding ceremony. "Are you excited?" Elizabeth asked, her eyes glowing with happiness as she smiled at me in the mirror in the bathroom.

"Nervous. They said they’ll get branded with the symbol for my name."

Filene chuckled. "They gladly do it, sweet daughter. Like Lynk's battle scars that have remained from when they set you free of your old life, they will both wear the marks with pride.

Elizabeth began to braid my hair into a long braid and I sat quietly and enjoyed the pampering. She wore a tunic style dress made of buckskin, embroidered and beaded with intricate designs across the front and sleeves. Over the past week since I'd moved into the tent officially, she had become a good friend to me. She liked having another non-bear in the den, I think. And when Setimika toddled right into the sharp corner of a high table and cut his forehead, she'd been grateful to have my healing ability handy so I could heal the cut without leaving a scar.

"Are you happy here in the den so far?" She asked, tying the end of the braid with a leather tie. Elizabeth and her husbands didn't like living underground so they had built their home was on the surface, several hundred yards away from the barn.

"I am. Tavian helped me plant a small garden outside the tent. I don't have my nature powers anymore, but I like having my hands in the dirt. And I got to help make a huge cauldron of rabbit stew the other day. It was awesome." I hadn't found my niche in the den yet, but I was content to have my hands in a little bit of everything. I spent time with Lynk and Tavian as they worked, watching Lynk as he trained with the bear soldiers and Tavian as he prepared meals for the den. We had even hunted together, the two of them in their beautiful black bear shifts lumbering along with me as we tracked deer.

After a large meal with the den, we drank wine to celebrate the past, present and future of our lives, and then they accepted the brands with my name’s symbol, a curvy letter L with a down-facing arrow slashed with three small lines through it. While they accepted the brands over their hearts without flinching, my heart filled with pride. And then I was surprised when they turned and presented their backs to their father who pulled another long handled brand from the red hot glowing pot where the symbol brand rested. This red glowing brand split into two separate brands at the end. In their sacred language which Filene translated for me, Adriel spoke to the crowd.

"Do you give yourself to this mark, Lynk, to honor the sacrifice of your bride?"

"I do."

Adriel pressed the brands into Lynk's back where they sizzled and burned just over his shoulder blades. As he moved to Tavian and repeated the phrase before branding him, I couldn't tell what the marks were, but I knew they were significant. The only marks on the backs of the men in the den were the names of their children.

Filene gave me healing plant leaves to take to tend their wounds, and I followed Lynk and Tavian out of the tent. "What did you do?" I said, moving around to their backs. I gasped in surprise, happy tears lighting my eyes. "Oh, they're wings." Branded into their flesh were small slanted wings, four or five inches in height and a few inches in width. As I smeared the plant gel on their marks, I told them how proud I was of them and how much it meant to me that they marked themselves again for me.

"You gave up your wings for us, yanna," Tavian held me close as Lynk pressed behind me, catching me between the two of them.

"We wanted to make sure that you know we will never forget the sacrifice you made to stay with us. This was a way for us to honor what you did."

I sniffled and hugged Tavian with one arm and pulled Lynk closer with the other. "I would do it again in a heartbeat." And I would.

Later, the den shifted for me, passing by and rubbing their fur along my hands and gathering my scent in their memories. I got to explore Lynk and Tavian's bulky, furry bodies while they were in their shifted forms, feeling the soft fur on their noses and bellies and the thick, coarse fur on their backs. When I stripped and lay between them, they licked and nuzzled me, teasing and tickling me, until they were free to shift back to their human form. When we made love after they shifted for the first time as a newly mated family group, they held me tightly between them and sank their fangs into either side of my neck, marking me permanently as their mate.

I had never felt more blessed and happy than I was at that moment, surrounded by two men who loved me, in the home we shared together in the den.

Chapter 7

Several weeks later, we married legally. Our ceremony took place in March under a snow-laden archway in the fields behind the barn. A were-bear from another den who was an ordained minister oversaw our ceremony, and as I took my vows to both men, I let go of the last part of my old life and embraced becoming Shaylee Stalking Horse.

We left the den for a week and drove to Elizabeth, Ash and Axe's condo on the Vermilion River and stayed there for our honeymoon. They treated me each day to something I'd never done before - eating at different restaurants, dancing at a club, getting what they called "completely tanked" at an Irish pub, and spending all our remaining time getting to know each other in every possible way.

I discovered Lynk's hidden obsession with zombie movies and watched them in horrified fascination. Tavian's competitive nature came out in full force when we played a game of darts at the pub, and once sex became the prize for the winner, he left both Lynk and I in the dust. Of course, in the end, we all won, no matter what.

The first night we came back into the den after our honeymoon, we stayed up the entire night tangled together in bed, enjoying our new married status. Lynk and Tavian wore white gold bands on their ring fingers, and they had given me special rings that they were given when they turned of-age to eventually give to their mate. I’d been part of a magical, glittery world, but this simple life underground in the den, working side by side with my husbands, gave me untold pleasure.

The following morning, Lynk groaned with a yawn and sat up, untangling himself from where one of my legs was tucked over his hip. “Do we have to get up?” I slipped over to my other side and snuggled down into Tavian’s warmth.

“We probably should.” Tavian yawned, holding me close with a happy hum.

I heard the sound of jeans being tugged on and Lynk said, “I’ve got to check that the supplies I ordered came in. You can stay in bed a while longer, lilenta.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead and disappeared from the tent.

"You can rest more if you'd like, yanna." Tavian murmured, drawing me even closer.

"Or," I hummed, tickling my fingers across his back, "we could take a shower."

I peeked up at him through the veil of my lashes and he was smiling with an excited gleam in his eyes. I felt his cock grow hard against me and I smiled further. It was heady business having two men always so ready to make love to me.

He kissed my forehead. I kissed across his sculpted chest and pressed myself closer. He let me kiss on him a little while longer before declaring that a shower was a very good idea and slipped out of the bed. I watched him stretch lazily, arching his back with a soft grunt and cracking his neck.

"Like the view?" He cast over his shoulder with an arched brow.

"Of course I do." I laughed, coming to stand behind him on the floor. "Let's see. Muscles, check." I spread my hands around his stomach and traced the tantalizing muscles of his abdomen. I reached my hands up to his shoulders and gripped them in a light massage, "Broad shoulders, check." Dipping my hands down his sides I followed the deep v with a slow stroke, "Trim waist, check."

I slid my fingers down the smooth, taut skin of his abdomen until I reached his cock, pressing my cheek against his warm back and smiling as he took in a slow breath. "Big cock, double check."

He chuckled, wrapping his hands around mine as I fisted him with both and worked him slowly. "You forgot to mention my ass." He pulled my fingers away from him and turned around, planting a kiss on my parted mouth.

I squeezed his cheeks and gave him a light slap. "I love your ass, too."

His eyes darkened and he scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the bathroom. "When I catalog your gorgeous features later," he said as he turned on the shower, "I'm going to use my tongue. Fair warning."

I shivered and leaned against him. "I love your fair warnings." They were always just teasing enough to make me hot.

When the water was just right, he pushed the curtain back for me, holding my hand as I stepped inside. The old-fashioned claw-footed tub had a black fabric shower curtain that ran around it entirely. Showering together was something I hadn't ever done with a man before. In my old life, I hadn't had more than a few casual relationships, what Lynk and Tavian told me amounted to "fuck buddies" and nothing more, and I had never lived with any men I'd been intimate with. I found the sight of Lynk and Tavian slick with water and veiled in steam irresistible, but then again, I found them irresistible entirely dry and fully clothed.

Water streamed down his shoulders as he backed under the spray, wetting his long, dark hair before shifting places with me. We washed our hair in silence, staring at each other with unspoken heat and lust, and when I'd rinsed the vanilla shampoo from my hair, he slid next to me and I moved forward so he could rinse off.

Vanilla was one of my favorite scents, and they didn't seem to mind using the products themselves. There was something about smelling vanilla on them that made my body tighten reflexively. I upended the bottle of vanilla body wash over my hand and gave it to Tavian who squeezed a generous amount onto the palm of his hand. Before I could put my hands on myself, he put his hands on me, sliding his lathered fingers in swirling motions. I copied him, tracing the contours of his body with my soapy hands, lost in the play of the suds on his skin.

"Enough," he growled, a smile curling his lips as he turned me around. He pushed my legs apart and pressed himself close, his cock resting in the cleft of my ass. His soapy hands moved across my arms to my shoulders, pushing my hair to one side before sliding down my back. When his hands came around to my stomach, he played his fingers there before moving them up to cup my breasts.

"I love your body, yanna. Always so hot and tempting."

He nuzzled under my ear kissed the space behind and I sighed at the contact. "It's just because you love me so well."

"When you said you wanted to shower, I think you weren't really talking about showering, were you?" His fingers teased lightly across my skin.

"Now what would make you say that?" I asked as innocently as I could.

He snorted lightly, not believing me for an instant, as his fingers and thumb squeezed my nipples lightly, the contact making them swell and harden further. "Perhaps because of these little hard points here?" I let my head fall back against his shoulder. His hands moved down my belly that was quivering now in anticipation. "Or maybe it's this delicious belly that tightens for me?"

One finger slid between my legs, smoothing over my throbbing clit. "Or this very tight bud here?"

"Tav," I breathed, "Tav, please."