Chapter 12
Quill looked down at the glass case and the sparkling rings. They were going to propose to Angel on Saturday night, and he and his brothers had agreed to each get her a ring. When they got married the wedding band would be from all three of them, but he liked the idea of her having three engagement rings. Brin had been to the jewelry shop the day before, and Ian was with Quill looking at another case.
The jeweler set a few rings on a black velvet tray. Brin had chosen a ring that had a flower made of tiny diamonds, which hadn’t surprised him or Ian after they’d heard about the sexy time they’d had picking flowers.
Quill lifted a platinum ring. It had a single diamond in the center and two smaller diamonds on each side. He glanced at Ian, who was looking at a ring that had stones all around it, with metal swirled between them.
“I like this one,” he said.
Ian looked up and nodded. “That’s cool. I’m going with this one.”
Although Ian had offered to pay for all their rings from his fight winnings, Brin and Quill had wanted to buy their own rings. As their purchases were rung up, Quill unlocked his phone and looked at the to-do list that Brin had shared with them. It was Friday morning, and they’d taken off work in order to do the jewelry shopping. Richard had told them to say they were running errands for the campground so that Angel wouldn’t be suspicious.
“We need to get candles and pick up the groceries that he ordered,” Quill said.
“Sounds good.”
After they signed their receipts, they took the ring boxes, thanked the jewelers for their help, and left the store.
“Do you think she’ll want to get married in Beyton?”
“I doubt it, with things the way they are between her and her friends. I don’t think it would be a good idea to have a wedding in a place where some of the residents think we’re psychotic.”
“Well, Angel did say her life was here now, so I think she’d choose to get married at the campground. The lake would be a beautiful backdrop for a wedding.”
Ian nodded in agreement. “Whatever happens when we go to Beyton to meet her family, her parents are happy for us, and that’s enough. If her best friend can’t handle us in Angel’s life, that’s her issue, not ours.”
“I’m trying not to expect the worst, but a part of me always does.”
Ian sighed. “Me too.”
After picking up the groceries that Brin had ordered, they stopped at the main office of the campground and stowed the food in one of the commercial refrigerators. Brin was going to cook for their meal Saturday afternoon, all of Angel’s favorites: lasagna, roasted vegetables, sourdough bread, and chocolate cake. All he and Ian had to do was set up the table and chairs and keep Angel busy until dinnertime. Then they’d eat, propose, and spend the night seeing how many times she could moan in ecstasy.
He was betting a lot.
As they left the office, they saw Axtyn and Brierley. The big male had what looked like an axle on his shoulder, which he balanced with one hand, holding Brierley’s hand with the other. Ally and her husbands had offered the minotaur shifter a job at the campground, but he had admitted that he only knew how to fight and fix cars. That had prompted Troy to suggest that he repair and get ready a dozen four-by-fours that were in a storage barn on the property. At one time, the campground had offered four-wheeler tours, but they’d stopped doing them after things got busy at the camp and they’d been unable to keep up with the maintenance. Axtyn was teaching Brierley how to work on the vehicles, which Angel said made the owl shifter happy.
“How’s it going?” Quill asked.
“Good. How are you?” Brierley asked.
“Also good. When you get six of the four wheelers set up, we should all go out for a ride.”
Brierley’s eyes lit up. “That would be cool!”
Axtyn cleared his throat. “After you learn how to drive.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. With you as my teacher, I know I’ll be a fab driver in no time. I’ll be especially good if you reward me with sexy times.”
The big male’s cheeks darkened in a blush, which made Ian stifle a smile. He clearly wasn’t used to outward displays of affection.
Brierley giggled. “Sorry, Axtyn.”
“It’s all right, my mate.”
“See ya,” Brierley said.
“It’s funny how life comes full circle sometimes,” Ian said as they walked away.
“Oh?” Quill asked.
“Yeah. Brierley became the mate of the male who took down the fight club. It’s incredible to think that without Angel deciding to bring Brierley up here, we might never have found our truemate, and neither would Brierley.”
“I thought we’d never see a silver lining from Dad’s behavior, but we sure are fortunate to have the life we have now.”
“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” Ian said.
Quill opened the door to the cabin. “You and me both, brother.”
* * *
Brin had never been so excited to make dinner in his life. He always loved to cook for his clan, but tonight they were asking Angel to marry them, and that meant it was one of the most important meals ever. He had no doubt she’d say yes, but he was still a little nervous. He wanted everything to be perfect. He bent over and peered in the oven at the lasagna. It was nearly finished, the sauce just starting to bubble up around the layers. Straightening, he looked at his phone and saw that Ian had texted. He and Quill had taken Angel out to run errands for the campground, so that Brin could get the meal cooked and over to the table and chairs he’d set up earlier.
On track to be back in thirty minutes, Ian said.
Brin answered that he’d received the message and everything was on time.
Fifteen minutes later, he loaded the lasagna, roasted vegetables, sourdough bread, and chocolate cake onto a rolling tray, which he covered with a large tablecloth. He’d done all the cooking in the main kitchen of the registration office, and didn’t have too far of a walk to get to the spot next to the river where they were going to eat. The trail was bumpy, so he took his time, ensuring that the meal made it safely to its destination.
He got another text from Ian that they were on their way to the river, and Brin finished getting everything ready. A bottle of chilled champagne sat in a bucket of ice, and the table, covered with a white tablecloth, had been set with china and flatware. As he lit the taper candles, he heard the sounds of footfalls drawing near. He straightened and stood next to the rolling tray to wait for Angel and his brothers.
When the trio had followed the trail to the river, Angel let out a gasp and stopped walking, taking in the scene.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“Dinner,” Quill said. “Brin’s been cooking all day.”
Brin pulled out Angel’s chair, and she kissed him and sat down. “I wondered where you were, but Ian and Quill said you were running errands.”
He kissed her cheek with a chuckle. “We didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“I’m very surprised,” she said, smiling.
Ian and Quill sat down, and Brin set the food on the table. Angel’s stomach growled, and she said, “You made lasagna! I love it.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Brin said. “I made all your favorites.”
Her brows rose. “Even chocolate cake?”
Bring lifted the lid of the cloche and showed her the cake. She smiled so sweetly that he felt like a king.
Quill filled the plates while Brin poured sweet tea into glasses. They were saving the champagne for their celebratory toast later. As he sat down, he picked up Angel’s hand and kissed the back of it.
“Did I remember everything?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got my favorite meal, plus my three favorite guys. I’m in heaven right now.”
If he was a peacock, he’d be strutting around with his tail feathers puffed out in all their colorful glory. As it was, his beast was doing back flips in his head over how happy she was.
While they ate, they talked about the campground, the coming trip to Beyton, and meeting her parents. They had a few weeks before the trip, but the time would pass quickly.
“Do you think your mom is surprised you have hyena mates?” Brin asked.
“Not really. I think she always suspected I’d end up with a shifter mate, and after Whisper and Bliss found hyena mates themselves, I think she believed it was probably going to happen for me, too. We never really talked about it, though. She always just told me that I should find a guy who treated me right, and it didn’t matter if he was human or a shifter or something else. And I found three.”
“Where did your mom meet your step-dad?” Ian asked.
“A few years after my dad died, the restaurant she worked in was bought by a wolf pack. She kept working for them, and the new owner’s brother, Fred, came for a visit and asked my mom out. She said no at first, said that it was too soon, but I encouraged her to follow her heart, because that’s what she told me to do when it came to romance. When they got married I was in high school. He moved us to Beyton and I met Whisper and Bliss, and we were the Three Musketeers.”
“Do you miss living in Beyton? Do you ever think about going back there to live?” Brin asked.
Her brows rose. “Not at all. I really love living in the mountains. Even if I wasn’t working for the campground, I still feel at home here. Even more so now that we’re a family.”
“Where you are is home for us, too,” Quill said.
When the meal was finished and Angel had declared she couldn’t possibly eat another bite, Brin put the food back on the rolling tray and covered it up with the tablecloth. Then he and his brothers took Angel to the river’s edge. The water was slow-moving in that spot, babbling in the shallow areas over the rocks. The sun had set while they ate, and the moon and stars had come out, giving them a brilliant backdrop in the dark sky.
Quill cleared his throat. “Angel, we wanted to have a special dinner tonight because we have a very special question to ask you.”
“You do?” she asked. Brin could hear her pulse quicken, and a smile curved the corner of her mouth.
Brin and his brothers dropped to one knee, each pulling a ring box from his pocket and opening it. The ring Brin had picked out had a flower made of diamonds. When he’d seen it in the jewelry case, he knew it was perfect for her. Not only did he love going flower-picking with her, but the day they’d met had been because of flowers.
Brin lifted the ring from the box and held it up.
Angel’s eyes glistened with tears.
“We love you, Angel,” Quill said. “Will you marry us?”
She let out a soft, gasping sob and said, “Yes! Of course!”
Quill put his on the ring finger of her right hand, then stood and kissed her. Then Ian put his ring on the middle finger of her right hand, standing for his kiss. When it was Brin’s turn, he pushed the ring onto the middle finger of her left hand. They’d purposely left the ring finger of her left hand bare for the wedding band in their future.
Brin stood and pulled Angel into his arms. “I love you so much, Angel.”
“I love you, too, Brin.”
“You’ve made me the happiest male on the planet.”
Ian cleared his throat noisily.
Brin smiled. “Right. One of the three happiest males on the planet.”
“I’m the happiest woman on the planet right now,” Angel said.
Brin kissed her, drinking in the sweet taste of her and the utter rightness that settled over him as this one aspect of their future was coming together.
“Not to spoil the moment or anything,” Angel said, “but how are we all going to get married?”
Quill explained, “You’ll marry me legally, but we’ll have a ceremony that will include all of us. Brin and Ian will sign the marriage certificate as witnesses. So legally you’ll only have one husband, but in reality, you’ll have three super-lucky males worshipping you forever.”
“Oh, I love the sound of that,” she said.
Quill opened the champagne and filled their glasses. They stood by the water and toasted to their future. As the sweet, bubbly liquid slid down his throat, Brin smiled at his brothers and then turned his gaze to Angel as she leaned against him and sighed happily.
“When can we get married?” she asked.
“Whenever you want,” Quill said.
“I always wanted to get married in the winter. I think having a snowy backdrop for the ceremony would be cool.”
“Plus, it’ll be after the gathering in November, so we won’t have to worry about work,” Ian said.
“Can we put a wedding together in about three months?” Angel asked.
“With three determined mates, there isn’t anything that we can’t do,” Brin promised.
“Good,” she said. “I can’t wait to be Mrs. Mercer.”
“We can’t wait, either,” Quill said.
After cleaning up and returning the supplies to the main cabin, Quill and his brothers properly thanked Angel for agreeing to marry them, chasing the night from the sky with their pleasure. This was what he’d always wanted – a woman to share every night and every dawn with.
Forever.
* * *
On Sunday night, Ian and his brothers had been invited to shift and hunt in the baro’s territory. Hyenas didn’t have a particular time of the month where they felt compelled to shift like some shifters did, but he and his brothers would go out on a random evening during the month and run around. Angel was going to stay with Ally in their cabin while everyone else went out, including Brierley and Axtyn. Although Ally was a hyena shifter herself, Ian hadn’t wanted Angel to be home by herself while literally everyone was gone. He’d offered to stay behind, but Ally said she’d like the chance to hang out with Angel.
They drove to Ally’s home. As Angel got out of the truck, she said, “I can’t wait to see you guys in your shifts. I wish I could shift into something and go with you.”
Ian pulled her into a hug. “If you could shift, you wouldn’t be the you that we love; you’d be someone else.”
Brin nodded. “That would mean we’d all be alone still. So I’m glad you’re the you we love.”
She smiled. “I still always wanted to shift. Fred told me once that he sometimes wished he was human, that feeling compelled to shift on the full moon and having a noisy wolf in his head wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”
“I’d agree with that,” Quill said. “I think everyone wishes at one point or another that they had something different.”
“Yeah, like when I wished I had curly hair and got a perm. I looked like a frightened poodle for a month,” she said.
“I’m sure you were adorable,” Ian said. He cupped her face and kissed her gently. It was tempting to do more, like kiss her deeper or haul her over his shoulder and take her home, but he was honored to be asked to join the baro’s hunt, and he wanted to get to know his bosses and their sons, too.
They knocked on the door and Blake hollered from inside, “Come on in.”
Entering the homey cabin, they found Ally, her mates, and their three sons in the family room. Ian and Quill had worked with Harry, Mark, and Taylor around the campground.
“Have a seat,” Richard said.
Ian and his clan sat on one part of a sectional couch. Ally smiled.
“Does anyone want anything to eat or drink?” she asked. “I know it’s a dumb question since you’re getting ready to go hunting, but it’s still good manners to ask.”
Quill chuckled. “Thanks, we’re fine.”
Richard said, “We mentioned to you all a while ago that once you were mated and settled in, we’d like to offer a place for you in our baro. Since our nephews left, I have to say the baro feels pretty empty. Have you given it any thought?”
Ian and his brothers had talked about joining the baro since they mated Angel. There were benefits to joining, among them having what amounted to a large family nearby, for support and help in times of need. They’d never been part of a baro before; even their parents had lived as a solitary clan, and their father hadn’t ever really said why. Ian suspected it was because there were no other family members around in order to have a baro, but looking around the family room right now, he realized that baros weren’t always just family groups. They could be something more complex, like this.
Quill said, “We’ve discussed it, and we’d love to join your baro.”
The hyenas all cheered, and Ally and Angel both stood and hugged each other. “It’s like we’re a family now,” Ally said. “I’m so happy for all of us!”
Angel said, “This is so cool. Thank you for letting us join.”
Richard’s clan and their sons all shook hands with Ian and his brothers. Then Troy clapped his hands and said, “Who’s ready to see who can bag the biggest deer?”
Harry cracked his knuckles with a smile. “It’s been us the last few times. I’m going to bet that our winning streak will hold.”
Angel said, “I just don’t want to see anything dead, okay?”
“Promise,” Brin said.
“Aw, you don’t want to learn how to make venison jerky and sausage?” Ally asked.
“Um, nope. Unless you bring me the cleaned meat, I won’t be touching anything that was once a live deer.”
The baro headed out onto the back deck just as Brierley and Axtyn walked into the backyard. Angel had told Ian that Brierley said they’d also been invited to join the baro, even though they weren’t hyenas, but that she and Axtyn had turned them down. They were their own group, and that was fine with everyone.
After Angel hugged Brierley, she asked, “What do you call a group of minotaurs anyway?”
Axtyn’s brows rose. “A herd. But there aren’t groups of us anymore.”
“Are there female minotaurs?” Angel asked.
Brierley giggled. “I asked the same thing. So, a male minotaur is a bull, right? A female would be a cow. Like, literally a cow. Could you imagine being a shifter and your shift is a big old cow?”
Axtyn cracked a smile as he looked down at his mate. “There aren’t female minotaurs. When males mate, any male offspring will be minotaurs, and females will be whatever the female is.”
“So expect to see a big old flock of owls,” Brierley said. “We both want a big family, and I hope we have some girls.”
Angel said, “That would be very sweet to see.”
Hyena clans always had at least three children. Males formed clans of three, so unless there was a physical reason why more children weren’t born, clans birthed a minimum of three to ensure that another clan would be continuing on. Of course, if they happened to have a female, they could wind up with more children than three, but Angel had already said she wanted to have a big family, and that was all right with Ian and his brothers.
“Let’s get this night going,” Richard said.
Ian and his brothers pulled Angel around to the side of the house and stripped. While he removed his clothes, he said, “Remember, stay with Ally. We’ll be back in a few hours and then we’ll go home.”
“I know. I’m not planning to go anywhere,” Angel said.
“Just making sure you’re safe,” Ian said. “It’s my job.”
“And you’re very good at it. I always feel safe.”
“Ready, love?” Quill asked.
“You can understand me in your shift, right? You’re still you even though you’re a hyena?”
Brin nodded. “Yep. We just can’t speak to you.”
“That would be cool. And weird,” she said.
Ian agreed one hundred percent. There were times when being able to speak would be helpful, but it would just look odd.
“Love you,” Ian said, giving Angel a final kiss.
“Love you too.”
He and his brothers shifted, letting their human forms go and their beasts take over. Angel dropped to her knees and cupped Ian’s head, kissing the tip of his nose. “That was so neat to watch. I never really got to see it with the wolf pack. It always seemed so intimate, even though they’re very casual about it.”
Quill and Brin bumped against her and she scratched all of them behind the ears. Ian’s leg thumped like a puppy’s, eliciting a string of giggles from their mate. Then she kissed them each on the top of the head and said, “I hope our kids can shift, and that they look beautiful just like their daddies.”
Ian thought their kids would be lucky to be beautiful like their mom, and he’d tell her so when he got back from the hunt. They walked to the backyard, and Angel let out a short gasp as she saw Axtyn in his bull form. He was massive, with huge curved horns and red, gleaming eyes. He would have looked downright frightening if it weren’t for the owl perched on his back. Her sweet innocence took the edge off the bull’s fierceness.
Ian left Angel with Ally and joined the group. Nine hyenas, a bull, and an owl headed into the woods to hunt, leaving behind two precious mates. Although his beast wanted to stay with Angel, he was also anxious to hunt with his brothers and their new baro, and enjoy the fall night. It was just right for hunting.
A crackling branch echoed in the quiet, and Ian’s ears twitched. Listening intently, he heard what he was certain was a deer and took off in the direction of the sound, the wind rushing around him. His brothers were at his side as they sought out the deer, exhilarating in the hunt. Later, he’d get to share the details with Angel, and he was looking forward to that, too. Even if she didn’t want to know all the gory bits.