237

Twenty-four hours later we were back in Chehalis and I opened my front door to the welcoming sight of our family wiping happy tears from their faces and welcoming us home.

The last day had been busy, filling in reports for Clark, giving them all the information that I had and listening to how Ryder had found me. He’d sent Shae back to Mexico with the rest of the men. He, Maxim and Milo had stayed behind saying they were going to look for me.

Sorin wasn’t happy and neither was Clark but they relented because they also had other duties to oversee. Ryder had pulled charred wood and debris from the living room and found the trap door. He’d led them down the tunnel and into the vents.

Ryder hadn’t told our family about what I’d done and it didn’t matter now, we were all safe and back home. Chandra and Lauren reached me first, kissing my cheeks and hugging me tighter than I’ve ever been hugged in my life.

Riley was in my arms and I didn’t want to let go of her and soon Hunter was on the other side, hugging my neck and even giving me a kiss and calling me Daddy. It was the best homecoming I could’ve asked for.

With the threat finally annihilated Ryder felt better about moving into their respective houses. They had moved their stuff over the morning after we returned to Chehalis. My house was my own again and I smiled as I stood in my shower.

We had made a new pact on the plane, family came first and Ryder had begrudgingly agreed that Maxim could officially ‘court’ Shae.  Maxim and three of his most trusted advisors moved to Chehalis so he could spend time with her.

It was late afternoon and I had begged off the celebratory dinner that Chandra had insisted on hosting. I was tired and I wanted some alone time. The branding mark that Marcel had left on my ribs didn’t disappear, my system had too much venom in it by that stage and I looked at the mark in the mirror before lowering my shirt.

I walked down the stairs and Lauren stood in the living room. She smiled as she heard me and I gave her a smile back. “I know you’re tired but please come over.”

“Maybe another night, Lauren.”

She gripped my shirt and I winced slightly as her fingers brushed the mark on my ribs that didn’t seem to want to heal. She lifted my shirt and gasped. “Wynter … what happened?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Come to dinner, Wynter, everybody’s waiting for you.” She turned towards the front door and then flipped her hair over her shoulder as she turned just her head. “That wasn’t a request.”

I shook my head as I smiled and pulled my boots on and followed her down the driveway and up theirs. The house was loud with boisterous laughter and the clinking of glasses. I sat down across from Ryder at the other end of the table with Chandra and Lauren on either side of me.

By the end of dinner I was glad that I had joined them. We laughed and talked and Maxim looked like a lost puppy whenever Shae wasn’t in the room with him. It was still weird to think that my little sister would marry the Vampire King in just over a year.

The dinner party drew to an end and Maxim offered to walk Shae home, with Ryder and Nova just behind them. I laughed as he narrowed his eyes at Maxim who had sworn not to touch her before she turned eighteen.

Milo carried Luke and Abby kissed me goodnight as they also went home. That left Ally with me and the two kids as we helped to clear the dishes from the table and load the dishwasher. Chandra and Lauren opened another bottle of wine which Lauren took upstairs.

Chandra disappeared with the two kids and I heard squeals of delight coming from upstairs and I grinned knowing she was probably giving them candy to hide.

“Can we talk quickly?”

I looked at Ally as she cast her gaze to the floor. “Sure.”

“I don’t want to complicate things but I have to ask about what you said before you left.”

“That I want Hunter in my house?”

She nodded her head and finally looked at me. “Yes, he is your son and you both deserve to know each other.”

“I still want him in my house, Ally.”

“Then I’ll take our things home.”

The kids came bounding down the stairs, the big bags of candy clearly visible. Chandra winked at me and I smiled. “Wynter, can you help me move a desk upstairs? The kids can go with Ally.”

Ally smiled briefly and took Hunter and Riley’s hands and walked back to my house. I turned towards Chandra and took the stairs towards her. “How can I help?”

“Follow me.”

Chandra opened their bedroom door and I followed her inside. I’d been in their room plenty of times and I didn’t think anything of it. She closed the door behind me and when I turned to face her, her hands went underneath my shirt.

I stood there like an idiot, just looking into her silver eyes. Her hands moved up my chest as Lauren joined us, her hands on my back. She took a hold of my shirt and lifted it over my head. Chandra placed her hands on my chest and lightly pushed me backwards towards the bed.

The backs of my knees hit the bed and Chandra pushed me down. It was like all my fantasies were finally coming true. Lauren’s eyes were also silver now and mine flashed yellow as Lauren’s hand trailed over the mark on my ribs.

My mouth was dry and my heart was hammering inside my chest as Chandra shifted and unbuckled my belt, pulling my zipper down ever so slowly, it was almost torture. Lauren’s tongue licked over the mark on my side and I shivered, both from pleasure and a tingling pain.

Lauren and Chandra reached for each other as I lay on my back looking up at them. Their chests collided and their hands fisted in the other’s hair as they kissed. I could feel my own excitement growing as they pulled apart, a little breathless.

I wanted this, I had dreamt of this for the first few months I’d lived here but something also told me that I shouldn’t do this, not with them. I shouldn’t ruin the friendship we had built up over the years and I clenched my eyes shut.

Chandra’s hand slid over my abdomen and I caught her wrist in my hand. “As much as I want to, I value our friendship too much.” Echo slapped himself against his forehead with a paw and I could hardly believe that I was saying no to them.

“I have to, Wynter, otherwise you’ll wake the whole neighbourhood with your screams of pain. It’s going to hurt but Lauren can heal you and I’ll distract you.”

“What?” I had no idea what they were talking about.

“We love you, Wynter, you’re a part of our family, have been since the day you moved in here. Lauren never heals people because it does stuff to her and the person she heals, but we’re going to do this for you because that mark will never heal and it’ll slowly poison you over time and kill you. It’s black magic, Wynter, let us help you, just this once.”

I didn’t have time to say anything else because Chandra was kissing me and Lauren was pulling my jeans off. Echo’s tail was thumping up and down and I blocked him out, losing myself to their touches and exploring hands.

Lauren’s hand grazed over the wound and I felt it pulse as her eyes shone brightly and they seemed to glow as she started whispering in another language, foreign to my ears. Chandra told me later that it was basically a lost language, one only spoken by true fae healers.

I felt the burning pain first and I clenched my eyes closed, the pain seeming to burn from the inside. I gritted my teeth and my hands gripped the sheet beneath me. All sense of excitement had died out but I felt the exact moment Chandra gripped my penis over my underwear.

I was so aware of her touch that the pain seemed to dull a little. The glow of Lauren’s eyes increased and so did the pain, pain I wasn’t accustomed to and stabbed at my ribs. Chandra lowered my underwear and I felt her mouth take me in.

The sensations she created with her tongue was something out of this world and I had no sense of time as I groaned out both my pleasure and my pain. Chandra kept up a steady rhythm, her hands caressing and touching me and I could feel myself getting ready to explode.

Lauren’s touch was pain and Chandra’s was pleasure, a mix so comically divine that it threw me and muddled every thought in my mind. I felt a connection with both of them, at the same time and I welcomed it.

Lauren chanted something louder and it felt like I was floating. It seemed to pull me under and over as I came back to my senses, the last stab of pain so intense that I felt dizzy and I screamed finally as Chandra did something with her tongue and I orgasmed.

The after shocks shuddered through me as the pain lessened and then disappeared. I blinked the fog from my mind as Chandra’s face appeared in front of me. “Wynter?”

“That … was …” I was still breathing hard and she smiled at me.

“All in your head, Wynter.”

My eyes snapped towards Chandra’s. “What do you mean in my head?”

“I opened your mind to distract you, what you saw and felt, that was your own fantasies coming to light.”

I rubbed a hand over my face and realized then that my jeans were still in place, my belt still buckled and I tried to calm my breathing. This was one messed up night, none of it was real and I felt light headed for a moment.

“What did you experience?”

“Nothing.” Chandra smiled again because I had said that way too quickly.

“You’ll feel a bit weird for a few minutes so just catch your breath before you try walking down the stairs.” Lauren smiled at me as well and then shifted away from me.

Lauren appeared a few minutes later with a glass of juice and I emptied it in one swallow. My hand shook slightly and I stood up and turned my back on them as I pulled my t-shirt on, feeling embarrassed about the things going on in my head.

“Was it a shower worthy fantasy you experienced, Wynter?”

“I’m going to go now and … okay.”

I closed their bedroom door behind me and started descending the stairs as both of them burst out laughing and I felt like the biggest idiot on earth. At the bottom of the stairs, I lifted my shirt and the mark really was gone.

Ally sat on the couch and looked up briefly as I opened the front door. I was surprised when I saw the time, I hadn’t been gone that long even though it had felt like it.  Both kids sat on either side of her as she read them a story about a cow looking for the moon on Mars.

I smiled and headed upstairs to my room, to shower, yet again. I pulled pajama pants and a t-shirt on and headed back downstairs where Riley’s head drooped against Ally. I scooped Riley into my arms and turned back towards Ally.

“You settling in okay? Do you need anything?”

Ally gave me another smile, this one less nervous. “No thanks.”

I tucked Riley into bed and kissed her forehead, breathing her scent in deeply. I was exactly where I belonged and my days of hunting were solidly behind me. Echo laughed at that sentiment and I hoped that I was right.

I went back downstairs and saw Ally as she stood up and bent down to pick Hunter up who had also fallen asleep. “I’ve got him, he’s too heavy for you.”

“Not yet but he’s getting there. Thank you, Wynter.”

She followed me up to Hunter’s new room and she tucked him in after I put him down on the bed. He sighed and smiled in his sleep and I couldn’t help smiling as well. We now had a lifetime to get to know one another.

I woke up the next morning feeling groggy and the sunlight hurt my eyes. I pulled the warm body closer to me and my hand came in contact with naked flesh. My erection pressed into her backside and my eyes snapped open as reality hit me.

“What the hell, Ally?”

Her eyes flashed silver as she sat up straight and looked me in the eye. “We’re a package deal, Wynter, me and Hunter, like it or not, we’re stuck together.” With that she got out of bed in her skimpy pajamas that made my breath hitch in my throat and closed the bathroom door behind her.