Mountain Men II: Primal Hunger (8 page)

"Ya know Maura, you’re an
intriguing woman."

"What? Me? How do you
figure?"

"Well, I know you have both Bennett
men panting after you. I’m curious what exactly it is they’re so
enamored of."

The amiable facade that Seth had
projected since the beginning of the trip was gone and the cold
predatory look in his eyes was back. Maura felt chills down her
spine and looked at the situation with different eyes. She was
without defense and alone with this guy.

Not good.

She eyed him warily and when he
walked towards her, she got up from her perch on the tree trunk and
began backing away.

"What?"

"Oh c'mon, there have been dozens
of women come through here that could be supermodels throwing
themselves at those two. They barely batted an eye. You come here
and you might as well be leading them around by their dicks. Must
be prime pussy to whip those two. I wanna find out."

"What? I’m not having sex with
you!"

She turned to run but only got a
few steps when her hair was wrenched from behind.

"No, but
I
will be fucking
you
."

Seth dragged her back and held her against his
body.

"You have spirit. I bet they like
that, too. I like it when a girl fights, makes it more
fun."

He threw her down and Maura tried
to scramble away but Seth was fast and was on top of her too
quickly. She tried to scream but he clamped a large palm over her
nose and mouth.

"No one will hear you, and even if
they did I’ll just tell them you seduced me just like you did both
the Bennetts. All the other guests know you’re sleeping with them.
What's one more guide? Think anyone will believe you? You’re
already fucking two guys here, likely at the same time. Who
wouldn’t believe a lusty little whore like you would fuck one more?
Look at you. No one needs to force a fat chick."

Maura felt cold wash down her
spine. Who would believe her? What would Gavin and Bain think?
Would they think she’d invited him? She didn’t resist either of
them for long. How would that look to anyone else? She was
trapped.

She had to get out of this.
Think Maura, think!

Maura felt tears spring to her eyes
when her shirt was pulled up and her breasts were exposed. His
rough hands abraded her nipples before tweaking them painfully.
Maura resumed her struggling but her arms were pinned by one of his
hands while his other abused her breasts. She couldn’t get free of
his grasp no matter which way she twisted, turned, or
fought.

When his hand left her she was
relieved. A glimmer of hope for escape flickered but only for a
moment. Her hope vanished when a knife was held near her throat and
she realized his other hand was fumbling with his pants. He pulled
her shorts down and she wanted to block her mind to what was about
to happen. When his knees forced her legs apart, she screamed
again. The knife pushed harder against her throat, cutting the
sound off immediately.

Frustrated tears burned down her
cheeks. She was unable to stop this no matter how she fought and
her helplessness was appalling. She saw him free himself from his
pants and shut her eyes.

Abruptly, his weight lifted off her
and she could breathe. She saw Bain pin Seth against a tree by his
neck, growling an inhuman growl. She felt hands on her shoulders
and she jumped, startled.

"It's ok baby. It's me. Did he hurt
you?"

Maura flew into Gavin's arms,
weeping against his chest. She shook her head. Gavin helped her
adjust her clothes and brush dirt and debris off of her.

"Bain stopped him. He was going to
… to …."

Gavin shushed her and picked her up
as if she weighed nothing. She could do nothing more than cling to
him, crying.

Seth babbled excuses in the
background, claiming that she had lured him away to seduce him.
Maura waited for the accusatory glares from Gavin and Bain but they
never came.

"Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth. If.
You. Want. To. Live."

It was clear Bain was on the verge
of losing control. Gavin's arms tightened around her and an angry
growl rumbled in his chest, low and menacing. She barely had time
to process that when she heard a different roar and turned in time
to see a shimmer covering Bain's body, his body lengthening and
thickening, his face shifting to form the snout of … a
bear.

Maura gasped. Bain roared, and Seth
pissed himself in fear. Where Bain was a moment ago, now stood the
biggest Grizzly she had ever seen. Seth screamed and Bain slashed
him across the face with his claws. Deep cuts swelled and blood ran
down his cheek. Bain simply roared again.

Maura stared, mouth agape, at the
scene unfolding in front of her. The head injury must have been
more severe than she’d thought if she was hallucinating. Her gaze
darted back to Gavin and there was a lion face flickering across
his features as if he were struggling to keep from changing,
also.

Her chest constricted and throat
closed. Her lungs burned with the need for oxygen, but she couldn't
drag in enough air to fill them. Gavin yelled something to Bain but
he sounded tinny and far away from her ears. She panted as stars
twinkled in front of her eyes and the last thing she registered
before darkness took her was looking up in the concerned faces of
both men.

Consciousness returned in small
degrees. First she felt the sway of someone walking. There were
large arms banded behind her shoulders and knees, and cracking one
eye revealed a strong square jaw.

Bain.

The events all came rushing back
and she struggled to sit up. Bain stopped, but he was reluctant to
set her down.

"Bain put me down."

“
I don’t think
that’s a good idea right now. You’ve been through a lot.”
His eyes met hers and concern furrowed a crease
between his brows.

Maura couldn't help her gaze
bouncing back and forth between the two men. "Wait. What just
happened and where is Seth?"

She wondered if they had killed him
while she was out. Would they kill her, too?

"Seth ran off when our attention was on you
and your condition."

Bain looked contrite.

"I'm sorry I let him escape."

"Were you going to kill him?"

Gavin and Bain exchanged a brief
glance, but Bain spoke first.

"I wanted to, for what he tried to
do to you. But I couldn't. I was going to turn him over to the
sheriff, file charges, and, well, firing his ass goes without
saying."

"You turned into a bear."

Bain turned pleading eyes towards
hers. She couldn't look at the hurt in his eyes right now. It woke
a deep urge to comfort him but she couldn’t do that just then. Her
gaze swung to Gavin instead.

"You were a lion."

Maura half expected laughter and
ridicule at the absurd idea that they turned into animals, but it
never came. Gavin spoke first.

"Maura, sit. Let us
explain."

Her legs lowered her on a nearby
rock in an almost instinctive obedience to his instruction. She
scrambled away from them, needing distance to process what was
about to happen. She was still having difficulty mentally digesting
the fact that they weren't denying her accusation.

"Are you like werewolves? Were you
bitten?"

"No, we’re shifters. We can turn
into our animals at will. We don't have to wait till a full moon or
anything. We were born shifters. Our parents were and we
are."

"How are you different animals?"

Bain sat near her, lowering his
bulk to the ground. Even with her sitting on a sizable rock, he
still sat taller than her.

"Gavin was adopted by my
mother."

"Oh."

"His mother found me and took me
in. That's why I’m named Gavin. It means lion. Barrett means bear.
I’m a lion raised by bears. My name means lion bear."

"Oh."

Maura's mind raced trying to take
in all that she was hearing. She couldn't reconcile this with the
world she knew around her.

"The farmer couple are rabbit shifters whose
warren was raided by wolves."

"So there
are
werewolves."

"Yes, but they’re shifters also.
They have a stronger pull to shift and run during a full moon but
not in the way you see in horror movies."

"And they’re bad."

"No, their warren was raided by
rogue wolves. Shifters are like anyone else. There are some who are
good and some who like to hurt others. It's a tossup in any
population."

Maura digested this bit of
information and surprisingly it made sense. She decided she had to
be sure of what she’d seen.

"When you’re an animal, do you know
what you are doing? Do you remember things? Would you know
me?"

Gavin ran a palm up and down her
spine as Bain reached to engulf both her hands in one of his. Their
warmth was soothing. It began to calm the nerves that had been
frayed in the past couple hours. She should be as wary of these two
as she was of Seth but just couldn’t muster the effort to remain
distant from them. Bain's deep voice washed over her when he
answered.

"We know you in our animal form. We
can also speak to each other telepathically over great distances.
Our life span is quite a bit longer than the average human and the
cold doesn't affect us as much as it does humans."

"Although Bain does have a tendency
towards hibernation in the winter. He likes his sleep."

"And Gavin likes to laze and nap in
the summer sun like a big cat."

Maura let a small giggle bubble
past her lips at the mental image that brought. Her mind whirled
taking in this information.

Shifters.

They turn into animals.

She shook her head. Ever since
getting to this retreat she’d been worried that somehow, someway,
she was slowly losing her mind. Beginning with her affair with
these two men and now this. It was too much.

“
Maura …,” Gavin began.

“
No.” She shook her head again,
trying to clear her mind. “I need to go.”

Gavin and Bain traded furtive
glances at one another. She wondered briefly if they would now
threaten her, or worse, to ensure her silence. Who would believe
her anyway?

Hey, sure the guys that own the
most successful fitness retreat to date really turn into animals at
will. The river has the Lochness monster and Bigfoot leads hikes
into the woods, too.

She’d be fitted for a straight
jacket faster than she could blink.

Maybe she needed one because she was clearly
having a psychotic break.

“
Maura …,” Bain began to speak,
but she cut him off again.

“
No! Show me how to get
back.”

Both men looked pained and
saddened, but she couldn’t accept that right now. They were
freaking animals for christsake! Luckily the walk back wasn’t too
terribly painful. She was still stiff and sore from her bumps and
bruises of the day, but that paled in comparison to the heartbreak
from her inner turmoil.

Maura had really begun to develop
strong feelings for both of her men, shifters, whatever. They had
gone to great lengths to make her feel beautiful and treasured.
Shouldn’t it have been apparent that something was horribly wrong
if these men wanted someone like her? She would have resisted,
knowing they weren’t for her. Tears welled in her eyes.

She kept reminding herself this
situation was always meant to be temporary, but couldn’t help a
seed of hope planted in her heart that maybe it was something real
this time. She had fallen hard for these men in the short time they
were together and felt like leaving would be like leaving a big
chunk of her heart behind.

As tears spilled over, Maura wiped
them away quickly. It had to be this way. What other answer was
there? Their lives were here and her life was somewhere else, at
least what she called a life.

Thinking about returning home to
her house all alone and sleeping in an empty bed night after night
after becoming used to sleeping sandwiched between these two
beautiful men broke her heart all over again.

Bain could hear her uneven
breathing and could smell the salt of her tears. Every hitched
breath she tried to hide from them on the hike home lashed across
his heart like a whip. His heart was being flayed open seeing her
so hurt. They should have told her everything when they talked
about mating. He just thought it would be too much at once and now
it was possibly too late.

Bain frowned and pushed that
thought from his mind. He simply couldn’t accept that. He searched
his mind for something, anything to say to ease her suffering but
came up blank. She would think he was lying if he told her he loved
her at this point. But he did.