Morgan (9 page)

“You already saw me naked once. Wasn’t that enough for you?” She shook her head and he lowered his head to kiss her reverently on the lips. “There’s already too much mating musk in here. If any more pours off you I’ll be starting our mating on your sister’
s kitchen table.
”

“I didn’t understand anything you just said, but if you’re implying that
we
’d end up having sex in Bethany’s kitchen, then ewww.”

“Thank you, Evan,” Bethany said. “We have to eat here.”

“We’re the only ones who get to have sex on our kitchen table,” said a tall man with short brown hair. He had his arms wrapped around Bethany, his hands possessively splayed across her baby mound.

“Ewww,” Morgan said again, a laugh slipping out.

“Hi there. I’m Michael. We have
got
to talk later.”

“Don’t look so worried, Morgan, it’s nothing bad,”
Cameron said.
“Michael is a computer genius and was seriously impressed with your skills. I think he may even want to offer you a job.”

Michael smiled kindly at her and she felt a warm feeling spread through her. She had a sister, three brothers-in-law, and who-knows-what with the Harvey brothers. Her life had changed completely in the course of one day and the emptiness in her soul had been filled. She reveled in the feeling of being fully alive and complete for the first time in her life.

Ignaty released the human nurse and let her body fall to the landing. He left her in the dirty stairwell and moved at full speed to the bottom of the fire escape and out the door. From the amount of cigarette butts littering the ground outside the exit, he could see that this was a well-used area and he walked briskly to his car before anyone saw him.

Relaxing back into the leather upholstery of the hire car, he reached for his cell phone. He was confident in the fact that his new position as Beta to Artur Petrov was now secure. He would not become complacent like his brother, Yefim. The idiot deserved to die for the way he had let Artur’
s long
-lost daughter slip away from him. Yefim was a spineless coward and he always had been.

Artur answered his call on the first ring. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“She was taken away by policemen who were also shifters. The hospital still carried their scent. They were from a town in the state of Colorado called Eminence. Morganya’s discharge papers state that she was released but offer no further information.”

Ignaty had tortured the policemen’s identities out of the nurse. She’d been unwilling to share patient information with a stranger, but his form of persuasion always yielded results.

“I will send Yefim ahead to do the reconnaissance while we await our friend Eamon’
s arrival.
”

“He lives?” Ignaty couldn’t mask his shock that his brother was still breathing.

Artur chuckled humorlessly. “He may not call it that. Once he has healed sufficiently he will be eager to please me. Eamon has been placed in a cage and is on the way here. I will see what Yefim discovers in Colorado before I risk moving Eamon again.”

“Yes, Alpha.” Ignaty ended the call and snarled loudly at the thought of having to use the beast Eamon. He hated his Alpha’s fascination with the creature. With any luck, both Artur’s pet and his brother would both die in this town of Eminence.

Evan held Morgan on his lap, her small body nestled tight to the bare skin of his chest. She was relaxed and trusting in his hold, something he never imagined he’d enjoy, but he did. Most people saw his scarred face and huge frame and felt intimidated, even if he wasn’t holding a weapon in his hands. But not Morgan.

Then there was the way she had embraced his cat with such abandon. His cat purred as he recalled how wonderful it had been when she’d touched him. He knew the mating musk would have made her aware of him, but the way she responded to him was all due to her personality and her nature.

She liked him, drew comfort and strength from his presence. He could scent it from her. No one in all his adult life had ever felt those emotions just from being in his company. It was a revelation and a joy to him. His mate was perfect.

“And you’ve never seen a vampire either, Evan?” Morgan asked. She tilted her head up to look at him and his emotions were clogging his throat too much for him to speak, so he just smiled and shook his head.

He watched her as she listened intently to her sister’s life story. She cried when Bethany spoke of her time being locked away in an institution and she laughed when Samson told them how Michael had shifted into a cougar and scared the pants off their mate.

Morgan was stunning and he was amazed to realize that he loved her already. She was now his reason for living. He looked around at the way his brothers were regarding Morgan and how Samson, Michael, and Jason were gazing at Bethany, and knew that anyone coming to Eminence wishing to harm the sisters would find it was the last thing they ever did.

“So you’ve never shifted either, Bethany?” Morgan said. “But you’re a cougar like your mates.”

“Jason has done all kinds of blood tests. I am definitely a shifter.”

“I can repeat them on you, if you wish,” Jason said. “But it’s unnecessary as far as I’m concerned. You have the same scent as Bethany and your eyes shift to the same color when your emotions are heightened. I don’t know why you are both latent shifters, but I suspect that one of your parents may have been the same.”

“You can take Jason’s suspicions as certainties,” Ben said. “He saved a whole race of shifter/vampire hybrids from death three months ago. He’s touted as a medical genius by our pride in Pine Falls.”

Jason ignored Ben completely as he handed Bethany a glass of water. Evan had initially thought Jason was arrogant, but he’d come to see his behavior was instead born of gross humility. He had no desire to be praised. He just wanted to do his job.

“I still have to wrap my head around the fact shape-shifters are real, then I’ll deal with the vampires and demons,” Morgan said. “So if Bethany can’t shift and her husbands can, what will the baby be?”

“Perfect,” Jason said. He smiled down at his mate and kissed her deeply. Samson moved swiftly and caught the glass of water Bethany was dropping.

“
We don
’t care if our cub shifts or not,” Samson said. “But Jason said he’ll be able to test the cord blood once it’s born. Otherwise we would have to wait until puberty to find out.”

“I’m human, and Finn says Matthew will shift when his time comes,” Melanie said.

“Matthew’s growing so fast he may shift tomorrow,” Shana said. “I think he may even end up bigger than his daddies.”

Evan watched as Finn and Melanie smiled proudly at each other. Their baby was only nine months old, but he was tall for his age and nearly walking already. He was a strong cub. Evan growled inadvertently as he pictured Morgan pregnant with their cub. It was a wonderful thought.

“I think we can leave you in the capable hands of your mates and your sister, young Morgan,” Shana said. “Welcome to our pride.”

Evan rose as the Alpha and his mate stood to leave. After everyone had thanked them for coming and Melanie had secured a day for Morgan to come and meet the other mates, Evan sat back on the sofa with Morgan still in his arms.

“
We haven
’t discussed what being the mate of Evan, Ben, and Cameron involves,” Bethany said. She yawned as she leaned against Jason’
s side.

“I think you need to turn in for the night,” Jason said. He picked Bethany up and walked from the room with her.

“We’ll talk tomorrow then,” Bethany called out.

Morgan laughed and wriggled closer to Evan. “I can already see from the way their husbands look at Bethany and Melanie that being a mate is very different from being someone’s wife in a conventional marriage. It doesn’t even seem strange that they have more than one husband. The way they all love and cherish each other makes it seem natural. I’m so happy Bethany has found such love and happiness after the horrible life she’d had before.”

“We will gladly answer any questions you may have,” Ben said. He sat on the coffee table in front of Morgan and reached out to clasp her fingers. “As mates we’re incapable of lying to one another. It’s why you’ve found yourself telling us highly personal things that you may not normally have been comfortable sharing.”

“Like the fact that I’ve never dated? Yes, that was something I wouldn’t normally share with a room full of strangers.”

Evan growled and was surprised to find his brothers did, too. None of their cats liked being referred to as strangers. “I hope we aren’t strangers to you now, Morgan.”

“You don’t feel like strangers.” She furrowed her brows and chewed on her bottom lip. “But I’ve still only known you for a few hours.”

“When a shifter meets their mates,”
Cameron said,
“they recognize them instantly from their unique scent. It makes our bodies release a special pheromone. We call it the mating musk.”

“This musk ensures that the mates find it nearly impossible to ignore each other,” Evan said. Morgan shuddered in his arms. She knew the feeling they were trying to describe. “So we are compelled to be near our mate. To touch them.”

“It’s more than physical, though,” Ben said. He sat next to Evan and ran his hand softly up and down Morgan’s thigh. She was wearing loose-fitting pants and a T-shirt Bethany had loaned her, Evan wished she were wearing his clothes instead. Or nothing at all would be even better.

“
I find I
’m curious about your whole life. What you’ve done, where you’ve been. I want to know all about you.”

“I feel the same about all of you. I’ve always been more comfortable with my own company. I’ve spent most of my spare time on a computer, escaping into one of my virtual personas for entertainment. But now that I’ve met all of you I feel like I’d lose part of myself if I ever left you.” Morgan looked down at her plastered hands and he scented her confusion.

“A male shifter only has one mate born for them,” Evan said softly. “His mate is the only one who can carry his child. Some are not lucky enough to meet their mate, and they live their three centuries of life alone, never able to have children, never finding the other half of their soul. We feel incredibly lucky to have found you, Morgan.”

Morgan looked at each of his brothers and twisted around to look at him. “You live to three hundred?” Her brows furrowed again as she stared into his eyes. “How old are you now?”

“I’m nearly sixty, and Ben and Cam are both in their mid-forties. We just age very slowly. We aren’t immortal like vampires.”

Evan noticed Morgan chewing on her lip again. He could guess at what was worrying her this time. “Once we are mated our mate ages at the same slow rate, even if they are fully human.”

“We know this is a lot to take in.” Morgan nodded in agreement as her stomach rumbled loudly.
Evan
realized what terrible mates they’d been. They’d offered Morgan nothing to eat in the few hours she’d been in Eminence.

“When did you last eat, honey?” Ben said.

“I haven’t eaten today. I met Sister Vincenza before sunrise, and then I only took a coffee with me to do my searching at the cyber café.”

“
Who is Sister Vincenza
?”
Michael
asked. Evan looked up to see that Michael was standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen.

“She’s the nun who placed Bethany and me into care twenty years ago.”

Michael
’s face lit up. He ran to Morgan and picked her off Evan’s lap, disappearing with her before Evan had even had time to protest.

* * * *

Ben had reacted faster than his brothers, so it was on his lap that Morgan was now perched,
her fingers fl
ying across one of the keyboards in front of Michael’s bank of monitors. She'd complained about how slowly she was typing due to her casts. Ben couldn't even imagine how fast she'd be when her hands were fully healed.

He'd never been inside Michael’s inner sanctum before, and found he was a little overwhelmed at all the information the twenty or so computer screens were displaying.

“These computers are like a dream come true for me,” Morgan said. Ben felt her shiver as goose bumps rose on her arms. “They are truly incredible.”

“So that’s how you got access to the original file from Children’s Services,” Michael said. “I never thought to go through local police servers to access it. Their firewalls are notoriously much easier to breach.”

Michael was typing on another keyboard, his fingers just a blur. The information appeared and disappeared on the monitors at a rate Ben had trouble reading. Michael and Morgan, however, seemed to process the data easily.

“
Sister Vincenza said our mother
’s eyes glowed, the same way mine do, on the night she left Bethany and me with her. Seeing my eyes glow was the only reason she told me the names of my sister and mother.”

“I already accessed everything you looked at earlier today. I’m sorry your birth mother is dead,” Michael said.

“Thank you. I know it’s stupid, as I didn’t know her, but I’m sad that she’s dead and that I’ll never get to meet her. Wait, you got through my program?”

“It took him longer than he’ll ever admit,” Samson said, walking into the room and leaning against the bank of monitors. “
Your
midnight snack is ready.”

“We need to tell Morgan about her father,” Michael said. Morgan tensed and Ben gave her a gentle squeeze of reassurance. He loved the feel of his mate in his arms. She was small and soft, and he would be happy to hold her forever.

His cock hardened as he imagined holding her tonight in whatever bed Michael gave them all to sleep in. At least he hoped that they were given a room in the main house, because he certainly had no intention of taking her back to a bunk house full of other men.