Madison Layle - Falke’s Captive

“Of course,” she agreed, laughing. “How could I forget that? Tell me. What else can you do?”

She peppered them with more questions, and they responded with patience, even promising to introduce her to their fathers.

“Fathers…I wish I could’ve met your mother. She sounds like she must’ve been an incredible woman.”

“She was.”

“I saw her paintings at the vet clinic. They’re spectacular.”

“Our fathers were her favorite models.”

She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out quickly. Then she laughed. “This is definitely more than I signed on for this summer. What a dissertation this would make.”

“Beth—”

“A dissertation that’ll never get written, never see the light of day.” Then she shook her head and sobered. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make it to the post office yesterday.”

“What do you mean?”

She twisted in the chair and reached behind her to open the mini fridge’s door. Then she handed a small cooler-type container to Reidar. “This is the last of the original blood sample. Professor Whitmore wanted me to send it to the university yesterday, but I didn’t make it there in time.”

Kelan sighed in relief. His blood wasn’t in some scientist’s hands.

“Thank God,” Reidar said as he opened the box and pulled out the single vial inside. “Thank you.” He stood and kissed Beth hard before disappearing into the bathroom.

Beth turned back to Kelan.

Please tell us you didn’t email the test results to anyone. Reidar checked for that, but it was difficult to know for sure that we got everything.

“No, I didn’t. I’d printed out one copy of my initial results, but Heidi kept those. I’m guessing you don’t reveal yourselves to many people.”

Never.

“How many of you are there in the world?”

We don’t know. We suspect there must be others outside our family, but who’s to say how many there are? It’s not something we advertise. Females of our kind are rare, so pure offspring from a mated pair are rarer still. And being that it takes two of us to produce children with a human woman, multiplying the species doesn’t come easy.

Kelan heard the water in the bathroom running and said to Reidar, Make sure you get it all. Don’t leave even a trace.

Don’t worry, brother , Reidar said, glancing at him in the reflection of the mirror. I’ve got it covered .

“What do you mean by it takes two?” Beth asked. “Is that why you all travel in pairs?”

Yes. Another bit of oddness in our genetic makeup. Axel and Gunnar mated with Dakota, and now babies are on the way.

Beth nibbled on her bottom lip and shoved her glasses up her nose. “Last night…” She licked her lips. “Last night you said, ‘Ours.’ Does that mean you think…that I’m…that we…Did we…”

Goose bumps skittered across his body, the familiar tingles erupting at the base of his spine. The shift rippled like an electric current from his core to his extremities. His vision spotted then blurred into a kaleidoscope of colorful starbursts, and then he was flesh again, kneeling at Beth’s feet.

She gasped, and he leaned up to kiss her, thrilled when she didn’t pull away. Her warm hands closed over his shoulders, and she sighed into his mouth as she surrendered.

“Beth,” he murmured, pulling back just a breath. “We haven’t mated, yet. We’d never do that without first revealing ourselves, but from the moment I woke up in that damn cage in your lab, I knew you were special.” He nuzzled her cheek, her neck, breathing in her glorious scent. “I can’t even explain it, because I don’t understand it. It’s why I risked talking to you back then, even in puma form.”

“You spoke to her?” Reidar asked, his surprise evident, but Kelan didn’t respond.

Her cheeks turned rosy. “Oh, right!” She chuckled. “You had me thinking I was turning into Dr.

Dolittle. I thought I was losing my mind.”

He grinned. “That’s a small price to pay for stealing my heart. I wasn’t looking for my mate-our mate. And I damn sure never expected her to shoot me in the ass when I did find her.”

She shoved his shoulder. “You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”

“Nope.” He kissed the tip of her nose and removed her glasses, setting them aside. “You’re the one , Beth. Ours . If you can accept us.”

She dropped her head back and moaned as he kissed her neck, her shoulder, nipped at her tender flesh. “This is so…Kelan, I can’t think when you do that.”

“Don’t think. Feel. Can you love creatures like us?”

“Yes,” she said on a soft sigh as she wove her fingers in his hair.

He sat back on his heels, took her hands in his and waited for her to look at him. Her cheeks were flushed, and even in his human form he could scent her arousal.

Reidar was there again, at his side, on his knees. Beth looked back and forth between them, and then a slow smile spread over her plump lips. “Holy shit.”

Reidar chuckled. Kelan smiled. She took one of Reidar’s hands in hers, and in the other she held onto Kelan’s. “I do love you both. Which should feel weirder than it does. And I’m a little scared about all the implications.”

“We’re not going to rush you,” Reidar promised. “We understand this is a lot to take in.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s an understatement. And I still have a job to do this summer. I can’t spend the next two months in bed with you.” She grinned. “Though I’m sure I’d love it.”

“Hon,” Kelan said, rubbing his fingers over her bared thigh where her robe had fallen open, “we want you to do what makes you happy, and you obviously love your work. We just need it to not involve us.”

She nodded emphatically. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll tell Whitmore the blood got lost in the mail, or something. And the video…” She frowned at the computer sitting on the table next to her.

“Well, I’ll just say it wasn’t recording…or something.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Reidar said. “I’ll make sure it’s never seen. No one else has access to it, do they?”

She made a face. “Um, Tim knows how to log on to it. He set it up on my computer yesterday.”

“Move then, please?” Reidar said, standing up and pulling her to her feet.

She laughed nervously. “What are you—”

“Reidar can do just about anything with a computer,” Kelan said, climbing to his feet, still holding her hand.

Reidar sat in Beth’s vacated chair and started punching keys. “Crap. This is a really secure server. This could take a while.” He glanced at Kelan and said, Why don’t you take her to the shower?

Maybe prepare her for us. Tonight we take her all the way.

Kelan gave a slight nod and tugged her toward the bathroom.

“You two just talked to each other, didn’t you?” Beth asked, obediently following him.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Why couldn’t I hear you?”

“We can only project our thoughts to humans while in catamount form. As humans, our telepathy is limited to blood relations and only while within sight of one another.”

“Okay, then tell me…What’d you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.” Kelan pulled her into the bathroom, turned on the shower and slipped her robe off her shoulders.

“What’d he say then? What’re you doing?” She grabbed for the robe before it hit the floor.

“Drop it,” Kelan said, his tone serious.

Now that she said she loved them and proved it by letting them destroy the blood and the video of their crime, it was time to celebrate. He’d thank his brother later for giving him this bit of privacy.