Pulling a double at the hospital on Christmas Eve meant I’d be free to pursue an awkward Christmas Day at the Castillo residence with Esteban.

As a rule, few of us expected time away from the hospital over the holidays, but I’d pulled two days of double shifts and pleaded my case to another doctor, covering Christmas Eve and the day prior for him in exchange for having Christmas off.

I had crashed on a couch in the staff lounge for a few hours in the morning before the next rush of injured arrived by ambulance for everything from rooftop falls to head injuries on slick sidewalks.

With a stolen break that afternoon, I phoned Esteban to confirm our plans were still in motion.

“Yeah. Everyone starts to arrive for family brunch around ten. Show up at my place at nine and we’ll drive over together.”

“Paging Doctor Vogt. Paging Doctor Vogt to the ER.”

“Damn. They’re calling me again.”

Esteban’s chuckle weakened my knees. “Go be a hero, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning after you’ve had some rest. Try not to freak out too much.”

“Love you.” Impulse pushed the two words out as I hurried into the elevator.

“Love you too, chica.”

We spent hours stabilizing a young woman suffering multiple fractures and internal bleeding, the victim of a drunk holiday driver. Afterward, I sagged in the locker room and changed out of my scrubs.  A colleague dropped me off in front of my condominium around six, saving me a walk and the cost of a taxi.

My beloved lionesses sat on the couch in front of a dark television in quiet conversation, matching expressions grim.

Isisa rubbed Nandi’s shoulders and whispered in her ear, voice too low for even supernatural hearing to pick up. The talk abruptly ended when I walked up.

“Did something happen while I was gone?”

Nandi tucked her chin. Isisa sucked on her lower lip.

It wasn’t like either of the girls to be quiet. “What’s wrong?”

Isisa stood and moved to the kitchen. She fiddled with the tea maker, filling the kettle with water and spooning loose leaves into the automatic basket. “It’s… it’s Nandi’s news to share.”

Anxiety gnawed through my stomach, the solemn mood turning my worst fears into nausea-inducing, heart-pounding terror. “You’re worrying me. What’s wrong? What happened?”

Nandi toyed with the edge of her shirt and studied a frayed strand. “I’m pregnant. It must have happened when we were in Chicago, and I already took two tests and let Isisa take me to the doctor.”

In all our time together, I’d never envied Nandi. Not once. But it struck me hard and fast, a merciless shock of cold jealousy seizing me in its grip. I didn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. It compressed the air from my lungs like a brutal, iron fist. “Are you sure?”

She nibbled her lower lip and nodded. “Are you upset?”

“What? No. I’m not mad.”

“I didn’t say mad. Upset. I didn’t want to remind you of her.”

Her. “Her name is Maleka.” The baby I’d lost and rarely mentioned. I’d wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything, and I’d had five months, five whole months to fall in love with her and the promise of motherhood.

Her conception had been an accident, one of those fluke 0.01 percent occurrences that sometimes happened on the pill, but she’d never been unwanted. Always loved.

“I know,” Nandi said in a quiet whisper. We stood facing each other for a while. “I didn’t want to remind you of Maleka. You’re hurting now, and it’s my fau—”

“No.” I crossed the short distance and took Nandi’s face between both palms. In one kiss, I tried to quell her worries, tenderly conveying thirteen years of love and affection. “I will love your baby like it’s my own.”

“Our baby.”

The tears burned my eyes. I nodded and rested my brow to hers. “Our baby. I’m happy for you.”

“You can still try.”

A quiet laugh spilled from me with a hint of the warmth and genuine amusement I wanted to convey. “No, no. It wouldn’t be fair to Esteban to bury him in children so early.”

“He wants children. A lot of children.”

“I know he does.” Unable to help myself, one hand lowered toward her tummy, but I withdrew at the last moment. Nandi claimed my hand and pressed it flush against her instead. Although there was nothing to feel there yet, there would be in a few months once it swelled with life.

“You’ve never been afraid to touch me, Sasha. Please. Don’t be afraid now. I’m still your Nandi. Nothing has changed between us, and I love you with all my heart. Tell Esteban how you feel.”

“This is our time to celebrate your preg—”

“Do it or I will,” Nandi threatened with an edge to her voice that sent a spark skipping down my spine. She’d always been our shy one. From the very first time I met her upon returning from deployment, I’d wanted her and known Isisa had chosen well. Known she would be ours. But she’d always been the tender and gentle submissive. The fleeting moments of dominance from her thrilled me. “Tell him how much you’ve wanted a little one, and I swear, Isisa and I will be your cheerleaders while you both fuck the nights away as long as it takes until it happens.”

Warmth surged to my cheeks. I laughed in spite of myself and dipped my head. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

Isisa rejoined us, so I reached out and pulled her into our joint embrace. “How the hell did I ever deserve you two?”

With the news out, the tension in the room popped like a bubble and the sheer joy and hope at what was to come took over. A crouch brought my face to her tummy, which I kissed.

“Okay, celebration time, but I want a shower first. I never feel clean enough when I use the hospital bathroom.”

Nandi wiped one of her damp cheeks with her wrist and beamed. “Go ahead. Then I have presents for you.”

The news perked me up. We had a tradition that Isisa and I had started during our youth, always opening one present before bedtime on Christmas Eve. Last year Isisa picked the presents we opened and this year it was Nandi’s choice.

“I’ll be quick.”

Cleaning up took no time at all with the promise of gifts motivating me. Once I slipped into my favorite onesie—a purple dragon with a tail and tiny wings—I hurried downstairs and joined them on the floor by the tree. Isisa passed me a flute filled with sparkling apple cider and a few blackberries.

“To us,” Nandi began. “May this be the start of the best Christmas ever.”

“To us,” Isisa and I echoed.

“Gift time!” Isisa said.

Smiling ear to ear, with big dimples in her cheeks, Nandi passed me a pink gift box tied with a black ribbon. Isisa received a mirroring black box with a pink ribbon.

Removing the lid of her gift revealed a peachy lace bra with molded cups and scalloped edges. The matching thong and suspenders had corset laces with ivory, matte ribbons and a tiny, decorative bow.

“This is beautiful,” I murmured.

Her brown eyes danced with glee. “Do you really like it?”

“Have I ever disliked anything you’ve bought for me?”

She grinned. “No.”

Our curvy girl couldn’t fit into a single item in Agent Provocateur’s catalog, but she had excellent taste in lingerie. They came short of fitting her impressive breasts by one cup size, but she lived vicariously through Isisa and me instead, clothing us like dolls in lace, silk, and anything she wanted her characters to don.

Isisa pulled out a gold lace corset with a matching thong. She squealed with unrestrained joy and held it up against her chest.

“This is perfect, Nandi. Thank you! I love it.”

“I thought they’d be a nice gift for Esteban, too,” Nandi said. She pulled over a gift bag for herself and showed off a plum-colored baby doll. “I managed to find this for me. I thought, maybe, we could go surprise him.”

“Isn’t he going to Mass with his family?” I asked.

Isisa nodded. “He is, but nothing says he can’t get a surprise for after Mass…”

I looked over at the clock while I turned the idea over in my head. Esteban was part of our family now, which meant that he needed to open a gift too. Nandi’s idea seemed a perfect way to introduce him to our special tradition.

“Well, if we’re going to surprise him tonight, I need a power nap. Give me four hours and I’m fucking game.”

---

We reached Esteban’s street at half past midnight. He’d already depowered his holiday ornaments, but the living room television set emitted a pale blue glow against the shades.

“He’s watching It’s a Wonderful Life,” Nandi said, reading a text from her phone. Simba rested beside her on the rear seat. We hadn’t wanted to leave him alone on Christmas. “And drinking eggnog. He said he needs to decompress after all that church pageantry and wishes we were here.”

Isisa chuckled. “Won’t he be surprised in a minute.”

The moment I slid into the driveway, the porch light popped on and the front door cracked open to reveal Esteban in a pale pink button-down shirt and slacks. He squinted at us and shielded his eyes from the headlights. I killed the engine then took a few breaths.

“Ready?”

Nandi nodded.

We’d all worn winter coats over our naughty attire. The cold air whipped against my bare legs and stirred my hair as I climbed out. Isisa had brought the extra blankets, her and Nandi sharing the load and each carrying an oversized comforter. Esteban’s bed wasn’t large enough for all four of us without serious risk of someone tumbling onto the floor.

“Why didn’t you say you were coming?” He held open the door and beckoned us inside. A fire burned in his fireplace, and as soon as the door shut behind us blissful warmth seeped into my cold limbs.

“Surprise,” Nandi said, stretching her blanket in front of the tree while Isisa led Simba into the kitchen. “We decided you had to join us for our tradition.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“Opening a Christmas Eve present, of course,” I said. “And tonight, you get three.”

On cue, we each unfastened our coats and shrugged them off. Esteban’s gaze traveled over us, one by one, devouring our appearance with a hungry intensity that set my soul ablaze with desire. Fuck. How was it fair for one look to turn my entire body molten?

“All this for me?”

Isisa prowled closer to him and glided her fingers over his chest. She slid past his side, lithe and confident. “Part of our Christmas gift to you. Nandi picked our wardrobe. Do you like it?”

“Like is an understatement. I am absolutely 100 percent behind this tradition.”

“There’s more.” I stepped forward and hooked my fingers in his belt. “Something for all of us.”

Esteban’s throat bobbed, and his pupils dilated. He settled his hands on my hips and stroked his thumb over the peach lace clinging to them. “What’s that?”

I traced my lips from his ear to his pulse point, pausing to nibble his throat before I answered. “We’ve all marked you and claimed you as our own. Now we want you to do the same to us.”

“How will I know what to do to make the bonding happen?”

“It’s mostly instinct,” Nandi said.

“It’ll come to you,” Isisa assured him.

The three of us had made love together a thousand times over the years, alone, with Taylor, and with other men. But Esteban was more than another man.

He was our man. Our fated mate. The lone lion we’d sought all our lives together. Despite my heart slamming against my ribs, I untucked Esteban’s shirt and unfastened the buttons while Nandi unbuckled his belt. We undressed him together with the glow of the fireplace reflecting off our skin.

One at a time, we kissed him, light, teasing, and sensual. I thrust my tongue into his mouth when it was my turn while Nandi hugged him from behind with her full breasts against his back and cock in her small hand. The size of him was enormous in her fist. She slipped one of Isisa’s favorite vibrating cock rings over the tip and nudged it down to the base, cradling his length in black silicone.

“Isisa first,” Nandi whispered, “while Sasha and I watch.”

Esteban turned his head and captured Isisa’s mouth, groaning and pumping his hips to the rhythm of Nandi’s deft hand movements. The low vibration hummed.

Watching Esteban make love to Isisa was every bit as beautiful as I’d hoped it would be. His talented mouth and fingers coaxed her to the edge, selfless and patient. Nandi and I drew her small breasts from the top of her corset and teased the tightly budded tips.

When it seemed Esteban couldn’t take another second, he slid Isisa beneath him on her stomach, parted her thighs with one knee, and slipped into her from behind. The sound she made was pure satisfaction, a primal and low growl of pleasure. My core clenched.

Esteban gripped Isisa by the hips and dragged her onto her hands and knees. They made a beautiful sight, magnificent night and glorious day, his bronzed masculinity against the midnight canvas of her athletic frame. One of his large hands glided over her stomach, and two fingers delved between her thighs. She gasped and rolled her hips.

The slap of skin against skin persisted as Nandi and I entangled our limbs beside them. Her nimble fingers played me with agile precision, her lips a tease against my breasts. Esteban glanced left to look at us and stilled, lust smoldering in his eyes. Before I could ask if he liked what he saw, he murmured a low, “Get over here.”

Nandi raised her head. “Both of us?”

“I can’t watch you over there. I need to see you.”

Eager to give him a show, I urged Nandi toward them until she lay spread eagle before Isisa and her waxed mound was bared to them both. Nandi always tasted the sweetest. Isisa and I took turns, sometimes licking and tasting her together, our tongues leaving slick trails over her dewy folds while she writhed against the comforter.

Nandi’s cries filled the room first, followed swiftly by Isisa’s triumphant shout and Esteban’s groans. Then he bent forward, caught Isisa on her shoulder with his teeth, and bit down.

The shock of the branding seared through our shared line. It was pleasure and pain, a sweet and satisfying surrender to the man we all loved.

“Mine.” Esteban kissed the teeth marks he’d left in her shoulder and chaffed his scruffy jaw against Isisa’s bent spine. “My beautiful Isisa.”

“Always,” she whispered in return.

Released from direct participation for now, Isisa sprawled a few feet away on her back and didn’t move again, too sapped to do anything more. I couldn’t blame her. Sex with Esteban was always phenomenal.

He rolled onto his back for a while, perspiration glowing across his brow. I grinned and pulled off the cock ring to give him a break from it’s buzzing.

“Think you can do that two more times?” I teased.

“Bring your mouth over here and find out.”

I did, preparing him for the next round and savoring the taste of Isisa on his skin. It didn’t take much, a trace of my tongue along the tender crown and a few playful nibbles. A few gentle laps of his glistening cock restored it to full mast.

“Fuck, I can’t remember the last time I’ve gotten this hard again that fast.”

I laughed despite having a mouthful of him. “Perks of being a shifter.”

Then I grazed him with my teeth, each moan from his lips more delicious than the last. He fisted a handful of the comforter beneath him in one hand, my hair in the other, but I stopped and left him on the brink.

His chest was heaving by the time he claimed Nandi on her side, and I wondered if some sense of intuition took place. The position sandwiched her between me and Esteban, her plump breasts and nubile body quivering with pleasure. At the ideal position to skim my lips over the dark tip of one quivering breast, I tightened her left nipple with a teasing tongue flick then took it between my lips.

My little lioness moaned as I slipped my hand between our bodies and teased her clit with my thumb, doubling her sensory pleasure. Esteban’s muscles bunched and flexed with each smooth movement. He bit down on Nandi’s ear and rumbled soft words too quiet for me to hear. She trembled and gasped. Of the three of us, she was the easiest to please, blessed with the responsive kind of body that practically came if we just blew on her pussy.

Her release came with a blissful expression and a keening cry that echoed across the large room. Esteban made his mark on her nape, and all three of us moaned in shared ecstasy.

“Perfect,” he muttered. “God, the three of you are perfect.”

“So are you,” Nandi said in a breathy voice. “Perfect and ours.”

He nuzzled her throat before withdrawing from her body, and then he turned his gaze on me. My heart skipped a little under the intensity of his stare. Nandi rolled aside and, for once, Isisa reached out for her and drew her close.

Esteban remained where he was, his cock only semi-limp, and held out his hand toward me. Once my hand was in his, he pulled me closer, yanking my body flush against his. He kissed me long and deep, until my lungs ached for air, and only then did I pull away. He leaned forward until I was forced to lay back.

“I feel like I saved you for last, Sasha.” His thumbs rasped over my tightened nipples. The sensation zinged straight to my clit like a fine silver cord of energy had connected the three points. I sucked in a sharp breath, startled by my body’s responsiveness to his touch.

How had his bonding with Nandi and Isisa changed everything so quickly when he’d yet to seal our pride link? I writhed beneath him, tortured by every flick, sensitive to the slightest movement of his cock. He hadn’t even penetrated me, but my body remembered the perfect fit of him and yearned for it.

His eyes had lightened, brighter than I remembered—now the warm amber of molten caramel. They hadn’t been that color before. Dazzled by the change, I looped both arms around his neck. “Why?”

“Were you jealous?” He nuzzled my neck and scraped my sensitized skin with his three-day scruff.

Quiet and sated, Nandi and Isisa lay beside us on the blankets with their long limbs entwined, the sheen of exertion glowing over their dark bodies like black velvet. As I’d watched him mate with my lovers one by one, they watched us while lazily stroking, touching, kissing.

There wasn’t a woman luckier in this world than me.

“Never. I...” He sawed his length between my folds, gliding back and forth with the occasional notch of his cockhead against my clit. “I…”

“You what?”

“I wanted… wanted…” He slid down my body until he was between my thighs on his knees, hard and ready again within moments of sharing a climax with Nandi. Virile fell short of describing his incredible stamina, the word an understatement for the sheer masculinity of our chosen male. I watched the gentle bob and sway of his cock and dared to touch him, gliding my finger over the satin texture of its sinewy length.

A spark ignited and sizzled through my nerve endings until the low throb in my core became an intolerable ache.

“Wanted what?”

“I wanted…” I moistened my lips with my tongue and arched my back. “Wanted to see them happy.”

And they were certainly happy. Isisa made a content growl of approval from where she was actively burrowing beneath one of the blankets.

Nandi was the closest, the gorgeous length of her still exposed. “You always see to our happiness. Even before your own.”

Not always, I thought, mind traveling back to the first night with Esteban in the tent, because I couldn’t bear the thought of not being the one to initiate our physical intimacy. A flush of heat surged through me, but the brief flutter of shame abated the moment his fingers found the sensitive pearl between my legs.

And then Esteban nibbled my ear. “We have a confession to make.”

“About?”

He never stopped torturing me, teasing and rolling, circling the bundle of nerves with a fingertip until he held me on the cusp. “I had a long conversation with Isisa and Nandi today while you were at the hospital.”

“About?”

Nandi answered. “Your selflessness.”

“I’m not that selfless.”

“You are. You’ve always looked after both of us. After your team.”

“After me,” Esteban added. He kissed me again, demanding and urgent, mouth open and letting me brush my tongue against his. He ended it first by tracing his lips down to my throat. My head lolled back when his mouth found my pulse. “You see, this surprise wasn’t for me. I knew you three were coming tonight. Tonight was for you, Sash. We made a decision.”

Goose bumps arose over my skin as the building pressure between my legs increased. “What decision?”

“To make you the pride matriarch.”

I jerked up and stared. “But—”

Esteban stroked between my legs again, this time with his cock. “It’s decided.”

“I didn’t agree.”

“We agreed for you,” Nandi murmured. “We want this. We’ve always seen you as our unofficial leader. Always gone to you for guidance.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

Esteban’s low growl reverberated through me, a rumble against the taut peaks of my breasts. “Say yes.” His teeth scraped over the edge of one and sent a tremble through me.

“Yes.”

He flipped me onto my front and ended my suffering with a thrust. One stroke sheathed him to the hilt, and then pleasure rippled through me like the wild tide surging from the ocean.

His teeth grazed the back of my neck, and a growl caressed his warm breath over my ear. From the moment he nipped me, the universe seemed to implode with limitless sensation spiraling down my nerve endings. I gasped from the shock of it, calling out his name and raising my hips to meet each thrust. The merciless slap of his body against mine became the only noise in the room, although I was aware of Isisa sleeping nearby and Nandi sprawled beside us, our silent and approving voyeur.

He gripped me by a handful of my curls and tugged my head back. I trembled, experiencing a new side of him. A delicious side. Something hidden within our tender and compassionate alpha.

I lost myself to his skill and the tireless rhythm of our lovemaking. The hand not buried in my hair cupped one breast, rolling the nipple and tugging until it beaded hard as a pebble. The same hand swept downward, smoothing over my tummy before teasing the slick cleft between my legs. I moaned in anticipation, on the edge before his fingers even stroked the hypersensitive bundle of nerves there.

Then he withdrew, leaving me empty. So empty it hurt. So empty I sobbed for relief and twisted onto my back, grasping at him desperately. “Don’t stop.”

“Baby, nothing could make me stop right now.”

Esteban sprawled between my thighs and worshipped my breasts with his mouth. And in one thrust, he returned where he belonged, buried inside me. I jerked beneath him and grasped his shoulders. My nails scored flesh.

Although I wanted the moment to last forever, climax crashed over me. Head tilted back, my mouth opened in a silent scream. An orgasm unlike any I’d ever felt before trembled through my body, an explosion of limitless, unfathomable bliss. I gripped double handfuls of the blankets beneath me, unable to determine where one climax ended and the next began.

Thrusting wildly, Esteban found his release and spilled into me, my name a guttural cry on his lips uttered over and over.

Fingers buried into the taut muscles of his back, I held onto him for a few moments more until climax robbed the remainder of my strength. Boneless and limp, my arms slipped to the blankets, and then Esteban sagged down atop me.

An aftershock rippled over his cock, dragging another shudder and low moan from him. At last, after some moments had passed and I’d milked all that he had, he rolled to the side and sprawled against the blankets, too spent to move again. I wiggled onto my side next to him and Nandi did the same. Isisa remained a foot or two away in her blanket burrito.

“I love the three of you so much. Fuck… I never thought… never thought anything could be like this.”

“We love you, too,” Nandi whispered. “All of us.”

I murmured an agreeing echo of her sentiments and hugged my arm around his chest. Part of me wanted to sleep while the other wanted to stay up and bask in the euphoric sense of completion.

Isisa blinked open her eyes and smiled. “Feels good, yeah? Being marked, I mean.”

He laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t even know how to describe it. I can feel you.”

“It’s the pride link. It’s what happens when lion shifters are completely in tune with each other bond at once. It’s…” I’d only known one pride with a link, and it had been severed the day my father’s pride was broken.

“Very rare,” Isisa finished for me.

“You girls have brought so much into my life. I feel… whole again, if that makes sense.”

“It does.” I kissed his cheek and stroked a hand down his chest. “I know I feel the same.”

“Me too,” Nandi and Isisa said in unison.

“Will it always be like this?”

“I think it can only get better,” I said. “And we have all our lives to find out.”