Every Sunset Forever (5 page)

Chapter 6

Bliss Roberts loved to hear her bestie and the boys sing.  Even though they were adopted siblings, their voices seemed tailor-made to blend perfectly together.  Bliss had no siblings of her own, but she considered Whisper, Kross, and Kayne her siblings, and Mack a second father.

Kayne shared a story about Whisper breaking a bowl and trying to glue the pieces together but winding up making an enormous mess, and the group laughed as Whisper blushed.

“I was seven!  I didn’t know the glue would make the bowl stick to the table.”

Kross laughed loudly, and they teased her about how she hadn’t been allowed to use glue for six months after that.  Whisper scowled at Kross but then started to giggle.

Bliss gasped in surprise as three men stormed into their campsite.  Kross and Kayne jumped to their feet and assumed defensive postures in front of her and Whisper.

“What the hell?” Whisper hissed as the three strangers came close.

“That’s fucking close enough,” Kross growled.

The men were handsome.  Well, handsome was an understatement.  They were tanned, dark-haired gods walking on earth.  With muscles.

The one in the center demanded, “Who was laughing?”

Bliss and Whisper looked at each other in confusion.

The center one, looking frustrated, said, “We want to know who was laughing.”

“What for?” Kayne asked.

“Because that sound…” the center one said, “it’s the same laugh our mother has.  Who made it?”

Whisper rose slowly from her seat, and Bliss stood with her.  “I did,” Whisper said, her voice wary.

The three men stared at Whisper, and they looked as if they were seeing a ghost.  The one on the right said, “Savannah?”

Whisper sucked in a sharp breath.  “My name is Whisper.”

The one on the left took a step forward.  “You’re a hyena.  You were kidnapped as a baby, right?  We’re your brothers.”

Together the strangers took another step forward, and Whisper shouted, “Stay back!  You’re lying!”

The one in the middle said, “We’re not lying!  You have the same laugh as our mom.  You look just like her.”

Bliss looked at Whisper as she started to tremble from head to toe.  Shaking her head violently, she stumbled backwards, her hand covering her mouth.

“Whisper?” Bliss said.

“It’s not true.  I was abandoned.  That’s what the police said.”  She dropped her hand and spit the words out like her mouth was full of acid.  “Kross!”

Kross snarled and took a step forward.  “Stay the fuck away from my baby sister.”

“She’s not your sister, she’s ours,” the left one growled.

Bliss could see that the group was about to come to blows.  She wasn’t sure why, but the need to protect the three new males rose up inside her and the part of her that felt like a wolf growled in agreement.

“Guys,” Bliss said, trying to be reasonable as she moved from behind Kross and Kayne and faced the strangers claiming to be Whisper’s brothers.  “Let’s settle down before things get out of hand.”

The three men’s heads swiveled and locked eyes with hers.  Everything in her body went on high alert.  The one in the middle said, “Rome, get her to safety.”

In a heartbeat, Bliss found herself jerked into the arms of the guy on the right and quickly carried away from the campsite.  Glancing over his broad shoulder, she saw Whisper turn and run away, and Kross and Kayne tangle with the two other males as they attempted to go after Whisper.

No one came after her.  No one even seemed to realize she’d been picked up and carried off.

Thanks a fucking lot, guys,
she groused internally.

“Put me down!” she demanded, even though parking her body up against hot stranger number three was just about the best thing that she’d ever done.

He stopped in front of a large tree several yards from the clearing and let go of her legs so she slipped down his tall body until her feet touched the ground.  If he hadn’t kept one arm around her back, she would’ve fallen to the ground.  She couldn’t take her eyes off him.  Rome.  The middle one said his name was Rome.

Away from the firepit, the flickering glow of the fire allowed her to see him.  He was gorgeous.  She swallowed hard and licked her suddenly dry lips.  Rome tracked the movement with his eyes.

“Is it really true?”

“What, lovely?”  He leaned forward and pressed her back against the tree.  He towered over her by a foot and made her feel tiny and delicate.

“You’re Whisper’s biological brothers.”

His head tilted to the side.  Dark hair cut short looked soft enough to run her fingers through, but she resisted the urge to tug on it and pull him close.  She’d never been so overrun with naughty thoughts before.

“She’s named Whisper?”

“That’s what her dad named her when she was very little.  Her adopted dad, Mack, alpha of our wolf pack.”

Rome dropped his head to the crux of her neck and inhaled slowly.  The wash of his breath over her skin made her whole body twitch, and she grabbed his upper arms that caged her against the tree and closed her eyes.  He was scenting her.  Why?

A soft brush of his lips against her neck made her tremble, and her wolf howled in her mind to do something.  Anything.  But she was frozen in place.  Afraid to move, afraid not to move.  Every inhale brought his wild scent into her nose and made her belly clench.

“What’s your name?”

Her mind blanked out.  What was her name?

“Bliss.”

“Well, well, little wolf,” he growled softly.  “You are a bit of heaven, aren’t you?”

He lifted his head enough to stare at her with his mesmerizing light brown eyes, his lips hovering just above hers.

“Whisper,” she managed to say.

“My brothers will find her.  It’s my pleasure to keep you safe.”

“Safe?”  She leaned back slightly, her head bumping against the tree trunk.

“You don’t want to get in the middle of a bunch of alpha males fighting over a female, even if the female is their sister.”

“Alpha males?”  She’d never really thought of Kayne and Kross as alpha males because she’d known them forever, but she could admit that if she were in trouble, she’d go to them for help.

He chuckled.  “My brother Memphis is the oldest, so he can be a bit bossy.  And Lincoln is only ten months younger, and he’s in charge of keeping everyone safe.  So yeah, they’re both alpha males.  Like the two wolves.”

She couldn’t get over how perfect the curve of his mouth was.  And how thick his lashes were.  A man didn’t have any right to be so kissably gorgeous.

Shaking away her lustful thoughts, she said, “They’re my friends and they won’t hurt me, so why don’t you let me go?”

“Nah.”  He grinned.  Dimples.  Adorable.

She found him amusing and irritating at the same time.  It would have been simple enough to duck under his arm and escape back to the campsite to see what was going on with Whisper and the others, but her legs refused to move away from the tempting male and his intoxicating scent.

Before she could argue with herself anymore about getting away from Rome before she did something embarrassing, he kissed her.  He kissed her like he was storming a castle and taking no prisoners.  Drawing her against his hard body, he breeched her mouth with his questing tongue and danced it against hers, making her toes curl in her boots.

She gripped the front of his shirt with both hands, and like the wanton hussy she was starting to feel like, pulled him even closer.  His arms tightened around her, and his chest vibrated with a low growl that made her hands tingle.

“I said keep her safe, Rome, not molest her,” a deep voice chuckled nearby.

Rome swiped his tongue along her bottom lip as he lifted from her mouth and said, “I swear I heard you tell me to kiss her.”

Completely dazed and hornier than she’d ever been in her life, Bliss couldn’t get her mouth to form the words that her brain was trying to say.  It was probably for the best, since words like
naked
and
sex
and
often
were spinning around in her mind.

“I, um,” she blinked a few times and focused on releasing the death grip she had on Rome’s shirt.

“Aw, you kissed her speechless,” the other male said.

The first male said, “Sweetness, what’s your name?”

“Bliss.”

All three grinned.  The first one said, “My name is Memphis.  I’m the leader of our clan.”

“I’m Lincoln,” the second one said, “but you can call me Link.”

Oh, she had lots of things she’d like to call him.  Gorgeous.  Heaven in pants. 
Mine
.

She frowned.  Where the hell had that possessive term come from? Shaking her head at herself, she ducked under Rome’s arm and looked at the campsite, realizing that Whisper, Kayne, and Kross were gone.

She couldn’t believe that they’d just left her with strangers!

“Those assholes,” she groused under her breath.

Memphis turned her to face him.  “What’s the matter?”

“They just left me!”

Link snarled.  “Was one of those wolves your mate?”

Making a face, she said, “No, of course not, but they’re from my pack and they just left me with strangers!”  She was used to being left out because she couldn’t shift, but being abandoned by her friends in this situation just sucked out loud.

Memphis rubbed his thumb on the inside of her wrist and looked at the empty campsite.  “They went to take care of Savannah.  She completely wigged out.  I’m sorry you feel bad that they left you behind, but you have to know that we wouldn’t have let them take you traipsing off into the woods.”

Link stood in front of her.  He had long, dark brown hair tied back at his nape.  Although all three males were roughly around six and a half feet tall, Link looked more imposing with his huge muscles.  Rome took her free hand as he came to stand on her other side, and at the same moment, Link laid his hands on her waist and slipped his fingers underneath her top so he touched bare skin.

Her wolf howled in her mind at the connection that jarred through her.  Was it possible?  Could they really be her mates?

“Wh-why wouldn’t you let me go if you let your sister go?”  She was finding it harder and harder to think straight while they were touching her.  Everything in her body screamed at her to strip her clothes off and encourage them to do the same.

“You’re ours, sweetness.  Can’t you feel it?”  Memphis leaned close and spoke softly into her ear.

“All of yours?”  Had anything ever sounded so wicked and right at the same time?  One of them would be awesome.  All three?  Like peanut butter and chocolate with extra chocolate.

Rome said, “Hyena clans mate one female to three males.”

“Oh.”  The word slipped through her lips like a prayer.  She was surprised she wasn’t drooling at the possibilities.  She’d known that was true from what Whisper had told her, but she hadn’t ever considered that she might be on the receiving end of a mating with three males.

Memphis exhaled.  “The two males said that they would find Savannah, and when she was calm, they would send for us so we could talk to her.  They were angry at first, but they realized pretty fast that we didn’t mean any harm.  Do you know why she was so upset?”

Bliss shook her head to clear her muddled thoughts.  “She always wondered why she wasn’t with her real family.  Social Services brought her to Mack when she was four, and they told him that she was found next to a dead prostitute in a crack house.  No one even knew what she was until she shifted, and she never wanted to find any other hyenas.  The only reason she came here is because Mack insisted, and she asked me to come along for moral support.”

Rome frowned.  “I think we should wait to talk to them until we have more information.”

Memphis nodded in agreement.  “I don’t want her to freak out unnecessarily.  Hope can cut both ways.”

“What are you talking about?” Bliss asked.

“Our parents have been looking for our sister for twenty-three years.  She was kidnapped one night when she was two.  If we call our parents and tell them we think we’ve found her and it’s not actually her, they’ll be devastated,” Memphis said.

Link said, “I’m certain it’s her.  The eyes and voice alone are enough, but she looks like Mom, too.”

“Still, we can wait a day,” Memphis said, and then looked down at her with a slow smile.  “Besides, we need to get to know our Bliss better.”

Her hands tightened against theirs reflexively, and she wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or scared to death.  She’d never been the focus of three gorgeous males’ attentions at the same time.  Would they care that she couldn’t shift?  What would her conservative parents think of her taking three men to bed?

Did they really think she was their mate?

Her wolf growled in agreement.  Bliss, who had never done an impulsive thing in her life, met Memphis’s dark caramel eyes and said, “I’m all yours.”