Panthers' Pleasure [Impulse 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (7 page)

“It means she wants to believe us.”

“I sure as hell hope so. God, she’s hot! So exactly what I always dreamed our mate would be like. Spirited, funny, feisty, and sexy as hell. I can’t wait to bury my cock deep inside that tight pussy of hers.”

“I hear you, buddy.”

“Er, you don’t need to go that far,” Chantal said when Rafe pulled his vest over his head.

“Don’t you like what you see?” Vilas asked in a teasing tone.

“I’m not looking,” she said, placing a hand over her eyes, peeping between her splayed fingers anyway.

“I adore Rafe’s broad chest,” Vilas said, licking his lips as he massaged her thigh with the flat of his hand. “But I’m happy to share him with you.”

“No need. He’s all yours.”

“Baby, you don’t know what you’re missing. He fucks like a god, trust me on this.”

She pushed the hand he wasn’t holding toward him, palm outward. “Way too much information.”

Rafe laughed as he pulled his jeans off, at which point Chantal gave up all pretense at indifference. Perhaps that’s because his cock was rigidly erect, twitching and straining as it jutted out from his pubic hair, reaching two-thirds of the way up his belly. He grasped it in one hand and massaged, his gaze glued to Chantal’s face as he watched for her reaction.

“My goodness!” she said, blinking rapidly. “Do you have a license for that thing?”

“That’s one of the benefits of being a shifter,” Vilas explained. “I don’t wanna sound immodest here, but we’re pretty well hung.”

“Er, yes, so I see.”

Vilas leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “You fancy having both our cocks buried deep inside you, honey?”

Chantal moistened her lips. “What sort of question is that?”

“Go on, sweetheart, admit it. You’re ever so slightly tempted, aren’t you? Tell me the truth now. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I’ve already told you that I’ll hit the sack with you if you help me find Max.”

Vilas slid his hand up the inside of her thigh. “And we’ve told you it doesn’t work that way.”

“Yes, but—”

“You ever had anal sex, sugar?”

“Have you ever had vaginal sex?”

A hiss of laughter from Rafe drew their attention back to him.

“What’s he doing?” Chantal asked, shrinking away from him when his bones cracked and popped and sleek, tan fur covered his arms.

“He’s shifting for you.” Vilas abandoned her inner thigh and took her hand instead. “Don’t feel afraid. He won’t hurt you.”

Strangely, after her initial shock, she didn’t feel afraid. A situation that ought to have had her running for the hills made her feel not only curious but also strangely like she’d found the place where she belonged. She gripped Vilas’s hand tightly for support and watched as Rafe slowly transmuted into a beautiful, sleek panther. She admired his creamy-white underbelly, the black tips on his tail and ears, and the way his eyes had turned bright yellow. He prowled toward her and rubbed his head down the side of her leg. His coat felt like silk, and without thinking about it, she reached out and scratched his ears. Rafe purred and rubbed his head against her a little harder, just as a domestic cat would in similar circumstances.

“I think he loves you,” Vilas joked.

“He’s beautiful.”

Rafe purred even louder, rolled on his back, and exposed his belly. Laughing, Chantal reached down and scratched it for him.

“It’s not fair,” Vilas complained. “I should have been the one to shift for you, then I’d have gotten all that attention.”

Chantal smiled. “What sort of panther is he?”

“He’s one of the few native Floridian panthers left in existence, which is why he’s the alpha.”

“I thought you both were.”

“We are, but there has to be a prima alpha, and that’s Rafe because this is his territory. The rest of us are only here because his ancestors invited us in.” Vilas lowered his voice, even though, presumably, Rafe could still hear him. “We have to pretend he’s God’s gift, otherwise he pouts.”

“What are those lines on his belly?”

“War wounds. A damned bear tried to rip his guts out a few weeks back. That was a close one.”

“A few weeks?” Chantal elevated her brows. “How come there’s almost no scarring if the wound is that recent?”

“That’s something else we need to explain to you.”

“Why am I not surprised?” She flashed a distracted smile at Vilas. “And what sort of panther are you?”

“I’m all black, baby, and as smooth and erotic as your most sensual dream.”

“He’s all talk.” Rafe had shifted back again while Chantal chatted with Vilas. He resumed his seat beside her but didn’t bother to put his clothes back on. “You don’t seem freaked out by what you just saw,” he said.

“I’m not. That’s what worries me.”

“It proves that you’re supposed to be one of us.”

“There are fringe benefits,” Vilas said, nodding toward Rafe’s still-erect cock.

“So I see.”

Rafe offered her a lazy smile. “You must have questions.”

“Only about a million of them.” She sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “What will happen to you if you lose your powers?”

“Aw, her only concern is for us,” Vilas said. “I’m definitely in
lurve.
”

Rafe ignored Vilas’s tomfoolery. “We’ll become entirely human,” he said.

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“You live in the human world, baby,” Rafe said. “You tell us.”

“I suppose humans aren’t always nice to each other, but it sounds like you lot aren’t a whole lot better.”

“Actually, we’re the good guys, but we’ll get to that in a minute. We’ll become entirely human, but we won’t lose our feral instincts.”

“In other words, we’ll be cats stuck in human bodies,” Vilas said, shuddering. “A bit like a woman who feels she should have been born a man, I guess.”

“At the moment, the reverse is happening. Because we’re getting weaker, our feline instincts are stronger, like they’re trying to remind us to find a mate.”

“Which is why we need meat to get our days going, amongst other things.”

“But you don’t really understand what we do here in Impulse,” Rafe said.

Chantal shook her head. “I don’t understand much about anything.”

“Did you see a large pink building when you went out today?” Vilas asked.

“On the corner of Main Street and First?” Both guys nodded. “Yeah, I saw it. What of it?”

“That’s our clinic,” Vilas explained. “It’s what we do here.”

“You asked about my injuries.” Rafe pointed to the fine lines crisscrossing his stomach. Vilas pulled his shirt over his head and pointed out his as well. “That bear damned nearly ripped my guts out, but Vilas was able to get me back into Impulse just in time.”

“The tigers are old-fashioned apothecaries,” Vilas said. “They have a natural knack for it. A bunch of us go out on the prowl at night, into the national park, and collect certain plants that grow close to the shore there. The tigers boil them up, don’t ask me how, and make this blend that heals wounds quickly, hardly leaving a trace.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, it is, but they only work within Impulse.”

“Inside your special atmosphere?”

“Right. And they don’t stop at healing war wounds. They can also fix human diseases.”

“Us shifters don’t get regular illnesses like you humans,” Vilas said. “And nor will you if you mate with us, babe.” He winked at her. “That’s a side benefit, built-in health benefits, along with getting fucked by us two, of course.”

Rafe rolled his eyes. “Stick with the program, buddy.”

“So you can only be killed by other animals?”

“We can’t get diseases, but we can be run over by a bus, just like the next human.”

“We, the tigers, that is, can also heal killer diseases in children that you humans haven’t got a handle on yet,” Vilas told her.

“You’re kidding me.” Chantal shared a wide-eyed look between them. “Like cancer and stuff?”

“And brain tumors.” Rafe smiled at her. “Surreal, isn’t it? That’s partly the job of the feline council, deciding which cases to treat. Propositions are put forward, and we vote on the most-deserving cases.”

“Then we send out mental commands that bring the family here. We treat the child and send them home again, wiping their memories so they don’t know what happened.”

“All they know when they get home is that their child is getting better, but not why.”

“I don’t understand.” Chantal shook her head, like she was feeling dazed. Rafe figured that she probably was. “If you guys can do so much good, why not go public with it?”

“Because we’d be destroyed. Greedy humans would want to take over, just like the lions and bears are trying to. We’d be exposed as shifters, as freaks.”

“Out shifter enemies want to profit from Impulse, and benefit from the slow ageing process. They can live elsewhere and still shift, but they age the same way as humans do, which is depleting their numbers. The good news from your perspective is that your ageing process will slow once you’ve mated with us.” Rafe flashed a slow, sexy smile. “Not that I’m trying to put pressure on you or anything.”

“The problem is,” Vilas continued, “that we’re not the only alphas in danger of losing our powers. The tigers and several other species are weakening for lack of suitable human mates as well.”

“Now that we’ve found you, if we can persuade you to fall in love with us, at least we can get our powers back and hold the colony together until the others find their mates.”

“You’re making it very hard for me to say
no
.”

“That isn’t our intention.” Rafe leaned toward her and softly brushed her lips with his. “That’s why we hadn’t intended to tell you any of this quite yet.”

“The last thing we want is for you to feel coerced,” Vilas added, rubbing his cheek against hers.

“I have another question,” Chantal said. “You say the lions sent me here because they thought I’d make a suitable mate for you.”

“Right,” the two guys said together.

“But if they know your powers are weakening, why didn’t they just leave you be, wait until you can no longer shift, and then move in?”

“Because, and we’re guessing here,” Rafe said, “they don’t often get within range of our pheromones so they don’t know how weak we actually are.”

“And because they’re running out of time themselves,” Vilas added. “They’re continually fighting with the bears and werewolves over that scrap of land outside Tallahassee
and
trying to invade us.”

“Bottom line, all of our enemies are weakening and have lost quite a few of their number, but so have we. Finding mates for all our single alphas is now top priority and requires us to take a few risks.”

“Okay, I get that.” Chantal nibbled the end of her index finger, deep in thought. “So, I’m here. How does that help the lions?”

“That’s where we’re not entirely sure,” Vilas admitted.

Chantal scowled. “That doesn’t help much.”

Vilas shrugged. “We said we’d never bullshit you, babe.”

“But we can make an educated guess,” Rafe said. “The lions know they won’t get into Impulse undetected, and so they have to entice us out.”

“We think they’ll wait for you to get settled here, then send you some sort of message, an e-mail or something like that, purporting to be from Max. He’ll say he’s in trouble, you’ll go rushing off to save him, and the lions know we’ll come after you.”

“They’ll have us on neutral territory.”

Chantal frowned. “Even if they do, and even if they manage to overcome you, there’s still all the others here for them to worry about.”

“We’re a colony, babe,” Rafe explained. “If we’re in trouble then the other alphas, in fact all the male felines, will come to our aid. That’s how we survive.”

“So, you want me to stay here, fall in love with you, er…mate with you, as you so quaintly put it, and ignore any summonses from my brother.” She shared a bemused look between them. “Did I leave anything out?”

Vilas waggled his brows at her. “You definitely got the mating bit right.”

“Shut up, Vilas, can’t you see we’re upsetting our mate?” Rafe squeezed her hand. “We won’t ignore the message from your brother. That’s how we intend to find him.”

“By letting the lions lead us to him,” Vilas explained. “
Us
,
not you.”

* * * *

Chantal tried to absorb everything they’d told her, accepting now that it had to be true. Rafe’s hand with its long, capable fingers wrapped round her palm sent spasms of warmth spiraling through her body. She squeezed her eyes closed when Vilas’s palm returned to her thigh, expecting to wake up in her uncomfortable bed in Tallahassee and find she’d been having another of her erotic dreams. The ones that seemed to hit her whenever Jack had failed to satisfy her, something which happened most of the time. It didn’t seem to occur to him that she faked her orgasms so as not to upset his masculine pride. It had never mattered to her if she didn’t come. All she cared about was pleasing him.