CHAPTER 17
~ Hidden fears, awakenings, and revelations ~
Memories of the deadly battle between good and evil that took place just a week ago in the parking lot of the Twin Ravens club house run repeatedly through her mind as Callie plays with the food on her plate and stares out the glass wall of Kazar and Nyle’s love nest. Susie’s words from that day also replay, again and again, in her mind like a mantra that gives her courage. “It is not your fault, Callie. There will always be those who are willing to destroy the innocent to achieve their own means. Fortunately, there will also always be those who are willing to defend them as well.”
Distractedly, she reaches down to toy with Asami’s pendent that hangs around her neck before dropping her hand to her thigh to feel the cold iron presence of Fagr’s dagger in the sheath that Nyle gave her before they left the MC to come to the home of her would-be mates.
These two objects tie her to her past lives, but more importantly, they anchor her in the present and give her a foundation from which to face the future. She really doesn’t understand what is happening to her life, but she knows her past lives will hold the keys to her future. Morrígan seems to think Callie will experience more visions of past lives, and she’s not really sure how she feels about that. Knowing that she lived other lives, and yet repeatedly died at the hands of the Dark One’s minions does nothing to reassure her of a bright future.
Glancing over at the clock, she sees that more time has passed than she realized. Kazar had brought her this plate filled with various cold sliced meats, cheeses, and fruits over an hour ago telling her it was snack time. She’s not even aware of the smile that curls her lips at the memory. It’s really kind of cute to see two big bad-ass, supernatural biker types fretting over her and her unborn baby.
And yet, her mind keeps gravitating back to all of the weird stuff that is going on in her life. Callie won’t even pretend to understand the world of supes, even though her visions and the regaining of knowledge from her past lives has filled in a lot of the gaps, she still feels out of sync with her world. The piece of cheese she was about to nibble on, halts two inches from her mouth when she realizes in the three past lives that she has recalled, she also felt out of step with the universe.
Only when Kazar and Nyle are with her does she truly feel as though she belongs. Is it her destiny to feel like she lives on the fringes of life rather than actually being a part of it?
Suddenly, Callie is not feeling very hungry as she recalls the day she received two visions and the aftermath. While the time alone with Nyle and later with Kazar as well was wonderful, she can’t help but feel as though she is letting them down, somehow. Even though she has no control over when the visions come. Morrígan had said it was a process and not something that can be forced or orchestrated. They just have to wait. And wait some more, apparently. Because it’s been ten days without another vision. Ten whole days of wondering what’s next.
It would have been pure misery for Callie, but it’s also been ten days of spending time with two very caring, strong, and amazingly sexy immortal men in their lovely home. Two men who claim they are her mates. While the human woman with the very strange past isn’t so sure about all that, she does feel inexplicably bound to the men. And if they are willing to take on all of the baggage that comes with her, Callie knows she would be a fool not to embrace all they are offering. And yet, she worries. Her concerns over the future, her past, and the child growing in her belly. All of those concerns, and more, are constantly running in the background of her mind, like the annoying hum of a fluorescent light barely there until she focuses on them, but always keeping her on edge.
She’s overly sensitive to everything. Every emotion, every thought, every comment, take on an importance larger than life. Every noise outside of the home fills Callie’s mind with vivid images of the attack on the Twin Ravens and fills her heart with fears for her protectors. Her mates do much to keep her emotions on an even keel, like filling her nights with loving embraces, sweet caresses, and orgasms the likes of which she has never experienced. They also work tirelessly to keep her distracted during the day and focused on having a healthy pregnancy, and yet, her sensitivity to everything persists.
In large part, because the birth of her child is coming up far too fast and she knows she just isn’t ready. Hell, her body can barely keep up, much less her mind. After her exam this morning, Morna the Spell Weaver said that the baby was growing very rapidly, even for a hybrid child. But the kicker came when she said that she wouldn’t be surprised if the baby didn’t arrive any time. A week or ten days at most.
One week or ten days? That’s just too soon. I’m not ready.
Callie knows she is now more worried over the plotting of her enemies than the impending arrival of her child. Her connection with the growing babe is strong, very strong indeed. It is almost as though mother and child can communicate on some level. Besides, that secret inner voice frequently speaks messages of calm reassurance to Callie’s very spirit. Even with those reassurances, Callie’s thoughts are all over the place, leaving her feeling scattered and out of sorts at odd moments. Honestly, at times she worries that she is simply losing her ability to think rationally, but in those quiet moments when she focuses on the child and her mates, she is filled with inexplicable peace and tranquility. It is simply the outside threats against her child and her own inexperience in this strange new world which keep her emotions in an uproar and her thoughts tend to reel out of control.
Kazar, Nyle, Morrígan, and many of the enforcers at the MC all seem to be convinced the Stone Colds will be coming after Callie again. And because of those speculations, it did not take long for the protective measures at the MC to become claustrophobic. Despite protestations of Morrígan and Blood, her mates brought her to their secret home just outside of Tulsa because she was feeling trapped and out of place among the Twin Ravens. Her very soul cried out to be alone with her males. To escape the interrogative comments and calculating gazes of the well-meaning band of Immortal Enforcers. But now, the human woman worries that she has endangered her males with her petty need to be alone with them. Suddenly, she fears her selfishness has placed them in the path of Nyx and her minions.
What if Blood and Morrígan are right? What if just being here endangers Nyle and Kazar? What if they end up dead trying to protect me and my child?
Suddenly, Callie looks around the gorgeous home and wonders where her men have gotten off to. Dwelling on her fears about vampires lurking in the shadows waiting for a chance to pounce, and her concerns for the delivery, cannot be good for the baby. But at times, that is all she can focus on. Her fears over what she does not understand and cannot control.
“Enough!” she mutters angrily. “Stop fretting and do something! Anything.”
With a great deal of effort, she hoists her massive belly up from the club chair in the room Kazar called her solarium. The view outside the glass wall, of rolling hills covered with cedar trees, scrub oaks sprouting new leaves, and blooming red bud trees remind Callie that spring time in Oklahoma can truly be lovely. But even the pretty view outside Kazar and Nyle’s home cannot sooth her worries in this moment. Fear for her mates is sinking insidious claws into her spine and filling her with dread.
She spies a hint of movement in the tree line that surrounds the property and she tenses up, but relaxes instantly when she recognizes Coyote, the young Native American shifter from the Twin Ravens MC. She can’t help but chuckle and mumble; “Now that’s dedication to duty.” She knows that the handsome Navajo shifter is pretty newly mated to a cute redheaded warlock. The thought that he would tear himself away from his mate to help watch over her warms Callie’s heart. However, even thoughts of the attractive Navajo shifter’s dedication cannot stop her from wondering where her men have gotten off to and fretting over their wellbeing. As she waddles from the solarium in search of her mates, her mind automatically sorts through several possible scenarios that might occupy her mates for over an hour.
“Do. Not. Over. React.” Callie chastises herself mercilessly. Despite her resolve to remain calm, she cannot shake her unwelcome agitation and anxiety regarding her mates. It’s uncommon for Kazar and Nyle to leave her alone for more than twenty or thirty minutes at a time. They’ve rarely left her side since the moment they said she was theirs. In fact, their tendency to hover would be suffocating were it not for the fact she knows it comes from their need to protect and care for her as their mate, and their assurances that this state of hypervigilance will calm down once the child is born and they are able to fully claim her as their mate and the bond is fully formed.
And yet, it has been well over an hour since she has seen either man. Suddenly, she is seized by a choking fear that some treacherous enemy has managed to slip past the powerful wards and guards protecting the home, and is now at this very moment inside their supposed secret haven attacking her men. This irrational dread quickly suffocates all logical thought and throws Callie into full on terror mode.
Clutching the bulk of her distended belly, Callie gives in to the growing sense of alarm for Nyle and Kazar’s wellbeing. This growing anxiety makes her pick up her pace, scooting down the long hallway, peaking into room after room, whisper shouting their names in a panicked hiss. While she’s not entirely sure what she could do to help if they are being attacked, she knows she must assist her males if they need her.
A quick glance in the library, study, and living room do not reveal her missing mates, and she’s nearing a mindless state of sheer panic when she hears scuffling and grunting noises coming from the kitchen. Attempting to catch her breath, she rapidly waddles toward what sounds like a fight, dreading what she will see once she crosses the threshold into the kitchen.
The sight that greets her after she waddles through the dining room into the kitchen is not at all what she feared she would find. Heady relief washes over Callie, causing her to feel weak in the knees as she stares with rapt fascination at the tableau unfolding before her.
In fact, in a less freaked out state of mind, this much unexpected moment would be sexy as hell. Her males are both in the kitchen, naked as the day they were born. Glorious in their masculine beauty and raw, primal sexuality. Each battle honed contour of their muscled bodies glimmers under the sheen of exertion and arousal. Callie is utterly fascinated by the contrast between Kazar’s rich, olive-skinned complexion and Nyle’s much lighter skin tone. Her mind can’t help but imagine her own pale golden flesh undulating and writhing in concert with their hedonistic dance of pleasure. She is feeling swamped by her own desires as feral lust fires brightly in her very soul, in her hormone riddled body, while she greedily drinks in the salacious sight before her.
Nyle has Kazar stretched out face down across the kitchen table, with his hands pinned above his head. Her rough and controlling Celtic shifter is growling in a mixture of Irish Gaelic, and what she thinks might be Scottish Gaelic, as he drives his thick cock in and out of Kazar’s lithe and muscled body with driving thrusts. Each hard slam into the Egyptian’s eager flesh elicits a groan, a growl, or a grunt of pleasure from the ancient vampire.
“Harder, Nyle.” The swarthy male commands from his seemingly vulnerable position on the table. “Fuck me, harder, lupus meum. Give me all of that cock, now!”
Those filthy words flip a switch in Callie’s brain and her pheromones dump into the already crazy cocktail of adrenaline and pregnancy hormones, rendering Callie speechless and weak-kneed. Both men are so caught up in their lovemaking that they do not hear her gasp of surprise, and neither man looks her way when she reaches out to steady herself against the wall because her breathing is so labored from her panic fueled flight from room to room and her rising sexual arousal.
Callie opens her mouth to call out for help when she begins to feel lightheaded, but she simply doesn’t have the breath to speak. Her heart is hammering away in her chest and she cannot tear her eyes from the beautiful sight of her two males. She is enthralled and utterly captivated as her males revel in each other with such raw, untamed love, masculine power, and overt primal sexuality.
When Nyle leans down and bites Kazar’s shoulder, both men shout their release. At that exact moment, the baby kicks so hard that Callie breathlessly gasps her agony and simply slides down the wall to sit like a lump of clay on the floor. From her new vantage point, she can see Kazar’s thick cock shooting long, ropey jets of come onto the floor. Despite her pained and exhausted state, Callie wonders, for the first time in her life, what a man’s seed tastes like. What it would be like to suck the cock of one of her males while the other claims his ass.
Apparently, her mates spot her sitting on the floor at the same time because they both shout her name and rush to her side. Both of them look terrified for her health and are barking rapid fire questions at her, but she can’t focus on their words because the musky scent of their lovemaking clings heavily to their bodies. Callie realizes that she longs to be sandwiched between her men, sweaty and exhausted from being hard used by both of them. To inhale their manly aromas, to lick and taste their salty skin, while her hands explore their perfect bodies.
“Oh my god,” she whispers as she looks up into Kazar’s face first, and then Nyle’s. “You are so beautiful apart, but together, you are a symphony of masculine perfection. Your bodies were made to love each other.”
“Fuck, amica mea,” Kazar says with a worried frown on his handsome face. “If I had a beating heart it would have stopped when I saw you crumpled here on the floor.”
“What the fuck are you doing running around the house, Callie?” Nyle demands harshly, his fear for her wellbeing making his question come out sounding more like an accusation than a frightened inquiry.
Callie allows her adoring hands to drop from the faces of her men at Nyle’s sharp rebuke and looks down at the floor. “I was worried.” She blushes when she recalls how she managed to whip herself up into an unfounded state of terror when she could not find her men. She takes a few shallow breaths in an attempt to calm her racing heart and murmurs; “I wasn’t spying, I promise.”
Nyle’s choked laughter fills the kitchen and echoes throughout the house. “Aingeal míne, this is your home as much as ours and we have nothing to hide from you. Ever.”
“Maybe not,” Callie says shyly. “But I think my presence has put a damper on your relationship, your lovemaking.”
Kazar opens his mouth, planning to explain that they had intended to wait until after the baby came so that they could all three be together, but their passions had carried them away this afternoon in the kitchen.
But before he can utter a single syllable, Callie falls into that coma like state which signals a visit to yet another past life. Kazar grabs Nyle’s hand and quickly plunges them both deeply into a meditative state and instantly, the males know they are in a shifter settlement near Delagoa Bay on the southeastern coast of Africa in the late 18th century.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
A young woman with dark skin, like rich coffee that has been lightly kissed with cream, long black curls that hang past her ample behind, and a sweet voice is singing a lyrical song in Swahili about the day her one true love takes her as wife to give her many children. Despite the fact that neither Kazar nor Nyle speaks Swahili, they understand every word of the sweet and hopeful tune. They realize they must be getting their knowledge from their connection to Callie.
Her beautiful song is cut short when an angry voice, with a thick Portuguese accent, shouts their female’s name in this life time. “Nzuri! Where the fuck are you, girl?”
A gangly jackal shifter barges through the door of the storeroom and sighs his relief at the sight of the girl straightening merchandise on the shelves as she records entries in a journal of some sort. The lovely girl turns to face the newcomer. A gorgeous smile illuminates the girl’s face. Obviously, she is genuinely pleased to see the jackal. “Papa Érico, remember, you told me to finish the inventory today.”
She giggles sweetly and pushes three wooden bangles back up her arm before she returns her attention to her work. The oblivious female does not see the look of pure carnal lust which changes the male’s insipid face into a mask of predatory hunger. The jackal comes up behind Nzuri, too close for Kazar and Nyle’s comfort, but they are only observers in this time and their shouted protests make no sound. Neither the shifter nor the human girl are aware of Kazar and Nyle’s presence.
“Nzuri, I’ve told you not to call me Papa. It’s bad for business. The human men I do business with would not appreciate the fact that my wife took in an orphaned darkie girl to raise.”
The jackal’s low and lust filled growl which rattles deep within the male’s chest makes the two males watching want to tear the jackal limb from limb. Kazar resolves to track this fucker down and end him for… what? Lusting after a beautiful girl? But the next words that come out of the bastard’s mouth confirm his earlier instincts. This male is bad news and a threat to their beautiful girl in this life time.
“Nzuri, I’m going to give you one last chance. One last chance to please me and prove you have some real value. One last chance to pay me back for taking you in.” The lovely dark skinned girl stops her work and turns to look at the male with confusion and hurt marring her lovely features. “I’m tired of hinting around at what I want, so I am just going to state my demands plainly.”
Nzuri is obviously confused, but she nods and waits to hear what the foul shifter has to say. “I didn’t want to take you in when your mother died. That was all my lady wife. She always wanted children but could not have any of her own.” His lip is curled up as though the thought of offspring disgusts him. “And since my wife controlled the money, I allowed her to bring your black ass into our home, and to pretend that you meant something to us.”
Nzuri’s face is contorting with pain as he delivers each foul and insulting revelation. “But now my lady wife is gone, and I have full control of the wealth she received from her family. I no longer have to pretend that some black, fatherless cunt means anything to me…”
“But I keep your home, cook your meals. I run the trading post, negotiate with…”
“Yes, yes,” the jackal interrupts with a dismissive wave of his hands. “You have made yourself quite useful, up to a point. But, many darkies that I already employ can do most of the things you currently do for me.” He licks his lips as though anticipating the flavor of the hateful words that will next spill from his disgusting mouth.
“But now things have changed. I’ve gotten word of a bounty.” The shifter’s eyes are alight with greed. “A bunch of Stone Colds are searching for you. I know it must be you that they seek. I don’t know why they want you and I really don’t fucking care.”
Nzuri gasps and backs up, bumping into the shelves behind her. She’s penned in with no place to go, both by his threatening presence and the knowledge that Stone Colds hunt for her. No one could live among a remote settlement of supes like this one here at Delagoa Bay and not learn about the world of vampires, shifters, and other paranorms who are the stuff of human nightmares. This poor female knows it can’t be good news for her if vampires have offered up a bounty for her.
“Oh, my lovely Nzuri, they are offering a lot of money to anyone who turns you over to them…” he pauses and watches gleefully as fear makes the girl’s eyes go round, her breathing becomes rapid and shallow, and the fucker is loving every second of her panic. The sick fuck is getting off on the fact that he has absolute control over Nzuri’s destiny, her very existence.
“I will keep you with me, and keep you hidden from the vampires, if you give yourself to me. And I do mean completely.” The lecherous male licks his lips in anticipation. “Without hesitation. Anytime I say the word, I want you on your knees with my cock in your mouth. If I tell you that I want your ass in the air, you better lift your dress and get on your hands and knees with that lovely heart shaped ass presented for me to fuck every hole you got…”
He pauses and rubs his hard cock through his pants, obviously the thought of this poor woman unwillingly submitting to his foul desires excites him greatly. “You hear me, you darkie whore? You gotta choice, you can be my slut, at my beck and call, or become fodder for the vampires.”
Kazar and Nyle hear and smell the approaching vampire’s before the predatory jackal does. But the blood feeders completely have his attention when three of them seem to materialize in the storeroom. “Oh, Senor Gamboa, you have disappointed us mightily,” the vamp who seems to be in charge drawls as he leers at Nzuri pinned against the shelves of goods.
“Oh no. No sir, I was only messing with the girl a bit. Just going to finally get paid back for the five years I allowed her to live in my home, eat my food, and take up my wife’s time and attention. I was only going to fuck the little whore a few times and then send word to you to come get her.” It’s plain to Kazar and Nyle that the male knows the rest of his lifespan can be counted in minutes or seconds. “I swear. I was going to turn her over to you. I swear!”
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
The vision disappears and the triad of mates finds themselves back in the kitchen of their Tulsa home. “Holy fuck,” Nyle mutters as he reaches out to caress Callie’s lovely but exhausted face.
Kazar looks into her eyes and worries at what he sees there. Each past life visitation is taking a bigger toll on her physically, and he’s really not sure how much more she can take. The vampire lifts their mate into his arms, and despite the fact that she is heavily pregnant, the female is just too light. Fear, icy and unrelenting, grips his heart at the thought of losing this woman. “Call the Spell Weaver,” Kazar barks out before pouring on the vampire speed to carry his mate to their bed.
Once there, he sets her gently in the middle of their massive custom made bed and brushes the hair back from her face. “Amica mea, can I get you anything?”
“Blood,” she croaks out weakly. Callie may still be a bit creeped out that her body now requires her to drink blood to remain healthy, but she’s accepted the fact that it is necessary. She always feels better afterwards. Especially if the donor is one of her mates and not the bagged stuff Kazar drinks daily. When Kazar slashes his wrists with his razor sharp fangs so that his blood can drain into the glass in his other hand, Callie is seized with a strong need to drink the life giving sustenance directly from her mate’s vein. With a snarl which surprises them both, she snatches his wrist and brings the bleeding gash to her mouth to suck greedily. When the wound begins to close on its own, she growls and bites his flesh, breaking the skin and resumes sucking down the sustenance her body needs.
“That’s it, Callie,” Kazar says soothingly as he strokes her hair with a tenderness that makes her heart do somersaults in her chest. “Take what you need, amica mea. Take what you need.”