Lyric & The Cats (The Wolf's Mate Generations Book 1) Read online

  She’d never seen two more appealing males in her life.

  They were identical in every way, except the one on the right’s hair was a little longer, his eyes a little darker.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, she tried to get her mouth to work so she could say something, but she didn’t know what she was going to say anyway.

  Um, hello, you’re sexy as hell, can I park on your face for a while?

  Her cheeks heated as some wicked scenarios played through her mind of her and the two males, rolling around in bed together.

  “Hello,” the one on the left said. “You look lost, are you okay?”

  Oh wow, he had a great voice. Sexy and deep, with just the hint of authority that told her he was a powerful shifter.

  “I’m Lyric Gerrick. I...” she let her sentence die because she didn’t know what to say.

  The two left the doorway and stalked to her, their gaze intent, their irises bleeding to amber as their beasts surfaced. Her wolf liked that a lot. A hell of a lot.

  “I’m Elliott,” the one on the right said as he drew close to her. He was wearing shorts and nothing else, a fantastic set of abs visible and clearly in need of being kissed and licked.

  “I’m Evan,” the other said. He was wearing a police uniform that did nothing to hide his broad shoulders and muscular frame.

  “Lyric.” Ah shit, she was repeating herself.

  Both males chuckled. “You’re the she-wolf from Allen, right? Our mom told us you were coming,” Elliott said. “But the question is, do you know why you’re here at our house and not at our parents’?”

  He tilted his head, his eyes fully amber and sparkling with curiosity.

  “I am,” she said, her voice squeaking a little at the end. She cleared her throat and mentally shook herself. She was acting like some silly female who’d never been around males before. She was a kickass she-wolf, and just because these two were sexy as all get out didn’t mean she couldn’t hold her own. “If you’re asking why I’m back here, the simple answer is that I felt like it.”

  Evan snorted out a chuckle and moved closer. Elliott mirrored him, and she found herself surrounded by them, close but not touching. A wave of their combined scent hit her full force and she knew instantly that they were her truemates.

  She had two truemates. Unheard of in her pack.

  Ah, her pack. Damn it.

  Her parents! Double damn it.

  Her wolf let out a possessive snarl which she barely stopped from crawling up her throat and declaring to anyone within a hundred miles that she was going to claim Evan and Elliott for her own.

  Hit the brakes.

  Evan had just chuckled at her.

  They were a full foot taller than her, so she had to tilt her head to look at them. “Something funny?”

  “Yeah, you said it was simple. So what’s the complicated version of why you’re trespassing?”

  “I’m curious about that too,” Elliott said. His voice was smooth like velvet and slid down her spine like a caress.

  “Because I smelled something good, and I followed it back here.”

  Evan and Elliott crowded closer. Now they were touching her. Evan trailed his fingers up her bare arm and Elliott slid his hand across her shoulder and cupped the back of her neck, resting his thumb on her pulse.

  Her whole body jolted at the contact. She’d never had such a reaction from simple touching before. It felt like her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth.

  Elliott opened his mouth and then someone yelled, “Hey! Lyric, is that you?”

  Elliott made a face and then he said, “Yeah Ma, it’s Lyric.”

  “Well, come on in, hon! Why are you back there?”

  “We can finish this conversation later,” Elliott said to Lyric.

  “Oh? What conversation was that?” Lyric teased.

  Evan leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “You know exactly what conversation we want to continue. And we will continue it, sweetheart, because we know you’re feeling the same thing we are.”

  She shivered and nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Especially when she wanted to just tell them to hell with dinner and could they take her into their house and see where the night took them?

  Instead, she turned and smiled, waving at Callie who was on the back deck of the barn. “Wrong turn,” she called.

  “You know it wasn’t,” Elliott said, his voice a low growl.

  She glanced over her shoulder as she walked, enjoying how devastated they looked at her leaving. At least she wasn’t the only one who had rocks in her stomach at the separation.

  As she closed the distance between Callie and herself, she marveled at the strange twist of fate. Had she seriously driven to Ashland for a job interview and wound up finding her forever guys? Not one guy—not a wolf male like her parents wanted—but two mountain lions who looked at her like she was something good to eat.

  “You look just like your mom!” Callie gushed as she met Lyric on the top step of the deck and gave her a hug. “It’s so nice to finally meet you in person. How was the drive?”

  “Good.”

  “Come in and meet Fi. My mates are at the butcher picking up steaks for dinner. Hope you’re hungry.”

  For the twins? Hell yes.

  “Absolutely. Thanks for having me, I really appreciate it.”

  Callie stopped with her hand on the screen door. “You met my sons.”

  “Yep.”

  “It looked kind of serious.”

  Lyric looked into the kind eyes of her mom’s bestie. Callie was a she-wolf and would know what a truemate attraction looked like. She would already have guessed that there was something going on between the trio.

  “I think they’re my truemates.”

  Her brow arched. “Think or know?”

  “Know.” She nodded and felt elated at saying it out loud.

  Her eyes softened and she smiled. “I’m so glad, honey. That’s...amazing. But let’s get through dinner first and then you three can figure things out. I’d like to get to know you a little bit first before my boys steal you away.”

  “That works for me.”

  And gave her a chance to settle down some, too. She was so tempted to race out the door and back to the house to find out what was going on with them, but she knew the right thing to do was go with Callie and have dinner with her family. There was time for exploring the situation between herself, Evan, and Elliott later.

  Not too much later, though. Her wolf was very anxious to get those two males alone and see if they were as interested in mating her together as she was of them.

  Chapter Seven

  Evan sat at the big kitchen table in his parents’ home, surrounded by his family. But all he could focus on was the beauty seated across the table from him, sitting between his sister Fi and his mom.

  Cameron nudged him and Evan blinked a few times to clear his brain and looked at his brother.

  He was holding a basket of cornbread muffins.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking one and passing it to Elliott, who looked just as distracted by Lyric as he was.

  “So no jobs in Allen?” Callie asked. “Your mom didn’t mention anything about it, but I figure if you’re looking outside of Kentucky for work then jobs must be in short supply.”

  Lyric nodded. “I’ve had some phone interviews, but the jobs open in Kentucky aren’t right for me. Mom and Dad don’t really understand, they think being at the daycare is enough like a teacher that I should be happy to stick with it and wait around for a job to open up.”

  “Well, we really like the idea of more shifter teachers at the school,” Eryx said. “It’s helpful to have shifters in the public school to be advocates for the kids. Humans can be very understanding, but they can also be dicks with people who are different.”

  Indeed. Evan and Elliott both had their share of stories related to humans who had no clue about shifters and overreacted to normal things, like growling or purring. When they were in junior high, a human male had been harassing one of the pride females and he and his brother had intervened and growled at him, flashing their fangs and warning him to steer clear. Human teachers had come on the scene to see them threatening the human and hadn’t seen him bothering the female, so they’d tried to get them kicked out of school for being aggressive. Domino, one of the pride teachers, had stood up for them and rallied the student witnesses to come forward, and the human had been suspended. More shifter teachers would mean more advocates.

  And he wasn’t just thinking it was a good thing because he wanted Lyric to stick around.

  Of course, since they were mates, he hoped she’d stick around whether she got the job or not, but he wondered now if she’d want to live with her pack.

  He could be a cop anywhere, and that included Allen, but with the way things were between his mom and hers, he wondered if they’d even be welcome.

  He rubbed the space between his eyes with his thumb and chided himself for jumping the gun on the future. They hadn’t even kissed her yet, let alone had a conversation about what was going on between them. All he knew right now was that his cat wanted to be with her, mate her, mark her, and keep her happy forever. But first, dinner.

  “What made you want to be a teacher?” he asked.

  She finished her bite of steak and smiled at him, which made him feel about ten feet tall.

  Fucking gorgeous sweetheart.

  “All through school I was kind of leaning toward going into veterinary science. I love animals and thought it would be cool to be a vet. But then I had a really great twelfth grade English teacher and he just inspired me. I volunteered that year to tutor elementary kids and I was hooked on helping kids learn. I got an unpaid internship in Allen one year, and I thought I’d end
up working there, but there haven’t been openings. I think it drove Dad crazy, because he’s used to people doing what he wants, and he expected a job to be available for me.”

  “I guess teachers’ unions are more powerful than alpha influence,” Callie said.

  Lyric grinned. “You can imagine how little he likes it when people don’t jump when he tells them to.”

  Evan had a shallow understanding of wolf hierarchy from his mom. The pride wasn’t really ranked. His grandpa, James, had been one of the main leaders until his dads took over, but they didn’t rule with an iron fist or impose laws and rules. The pride worked for the good of everyone, without ranks or hierarchy, and that was how he liked it. He’d heard some horror stories over the years about out-of-control alphas from other shifter groups—like Cristabel’s alpha lion father who arranged for her to be mated even after she’d found her truemates in three mountain lion brothers, or Scarlett’s alpha wolf father who first arranged a mating to her, then kidnapped her after she mated two mountain lions and tried to give her to a male in his pack while she was pregnant. It boggled the mind how some shifter groups behaved, and he was very thankful to be in the pride and not part of any other groups. But if he had to be part of her pack because that’s where her heart was, then he’d do it.

  Wherever they ended up was good with him, so long as they were together.

  “I’m sure Allen is very different now than when I used to live there,” Callie said.

  “You never went back for a visit?” Lyric asked.

  Callie shook her head. “First, I officially left the pack so going back for a visit wasn’t something I could just do on the fly without your dad’s permission. But also, I don’t have any family there, so it was just your mom, who of course was like a sister to me.” Callie smiled sadly. “Everything changed when some of the pack came up for our rehearsal dinner. She...wasn’t happy I was planning to stay in Ashland because she thought I’d go back to Allen at some point. I think she just didn’t see a future where we weren’t best friends and she overreacted emotionally. I was not in a good place emotionally myself since I was pregnant, and we were planning a wedding and had just moved here...” she shook her head. “I never blamed her for her feelings, but things were really strained between us after that, and it really never healed.”

  Lyric’s brow furrowed as she frowned, but then she smiled. “Navigating friendships is tough when new relationships are found. My bestie, London, is bummed I’m not staying in Allen, but she’s also part fairy and there’s always been this kind of understanding that she might end up in the fae realm at some point.”

  “Half fairy? It’s Logan and his mate, Jenna, right? They’re her parents? Logan came into the pack after I left, but I’ve heard over the years through your mom about the goings-on. It’s hard to picture the pack now after being gone so long.”

  “Yep, her mom is Jenna. London doesn’t have any fairy powers, though. Her brother, Kash, is a full-blown fairy male with feathered wings, and he can manipulate metal with his powers.”

  “So your mom is the boss of the female wolves?” Elliott asked. “I’ve always been curious about pack hierarchy.”

  “Yep. My dad is the boss of everyone, even my mom. But the females and males are ranked separately, and my mom is in charge of the females. My dad has a handful of high ranked males that work on his behalf, but for the females my mom doesn’t really have a second-in-command, it’s just her, and then the females are ranked from her to the lowest.”

  Evan had no idea if asking what her rank was would be okay, but Cameron jumped in and asked first.

  “I’m in the middle,” Lyric said. “I could fight for a higher rank, but for the females it doesn’t really mean anything. There are some males who like a high ranked female for a mate, so if I was trying to attract an alpha wolf as a mate, I’d want to be second or third, but I never cared about it honestly. We start fighting for rank in our shifts once we’re old enough.”

  He couldn’t imagine fighting his brothers or friends to get a particular rank. It seemed so barbaric.

  Conversation stopped as his mom brought out an apple pie made by his Great Aunt Lisa, and Ethan grabbed a tub of freshly churned vanilla bean ice cream from the freezer and set it on the table.

  Cameron stood and said, “I’ve gotta get back so I’m going to take my pie to go, Ma, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure honey,” Callie said. “What are you all up to?”

  “Brandon and I have a big landscaping project starting tomorrow and he asked me to help load up the truck. It was nice to meet you, Lyric. Good luck with the interview.”

  “Thanks, it was nice to meet you too.”

  Callie handed Cameron a slice of pie and he came around the table and kissed her cheek before heading out of the kitchen.

  “You three could take your pie out onto the porch, it’s a nice night,” Eryx said.

  “That sounds good to me. Lyric?” Elliott asked.

  “Sure.”

  They took their ice-cream topped pie wedges and left the kitchen. Evan shot his dad a grateful look. They had things to discuss that would be better for their parents not to hear, even though they all had good shifter hearing which meant there was no real privacy anywhere near the house.

  Lyric sat at the head of the rectangular glass table in one of eight chairs, and he and Elliott took the seats on either side of her.

  She took a bite of pie and ice cream and groaned. “Wow this is really good.”

  “Do you like to bake?” Elliott asked.

  “I’m not really great with baking, but I love to grill. I can make some grilled desserts which is cool. My dad is great with the grill, and he taught me a lot. I was so excited the first time I got to man the main grill for a full moon get-together.”

  The monthly get-togethers, she explained, were held at her parents’ home and included the pack members. They ate dinner and hung out before going to the clearing to shift as a group and hunt.

  “Why do you eat before you go hunting?” Evan asked.

  She shrugged. “There are close to a hundred pack members. If everyone was starving, the animal population would take a huge hit without time to recuperate every month, so it’s best if they hunt for fun. They do take down a deer or two and share them. I like bunnies since they’re small and fast. What do lions do?”

  “We shift on the full moon because of Mom,” Elliott said. “The whole pride gets together for a party at the boarding house, like your pack does. Then we all go into the woods to look for things to chase.”

  “What else besides mountain lions are in the pride?” she asked.

  Evan hummed in thought. “We’ve got black panthers, but they’re nomadic and we only see them a couple times a year. We’ve got an African lion, a couple of bears, and a dragonfae.”

  “What’s a dragonfae?”

  “A combo dragon shifter and fairy. Her name is Treasure. Dragonfae are very rare in the fae realm. Do you know about that realm?”

  She nodded. “I do. I’ve never been there, but we have a few fairies in the pack.”

  “Dragonfae are hybrids, a dragon shifter and a fae, with both sides being very powerful. Fae hunt them and use them in experiments. Her parents were killed protecting her, and she was in hiding when she came to Ashland to stay.”

  “Geez. Is she safe?”

  “Yes,” Elliott said. “She cast a spell that made it impossible for her, or her future children, to go into the fae realm, or be taken there by someone else.”

  “Wow, it would be scary to be hunted like that. I didn’t know there were even dragon shifters, let alone hybrids.”

  “She’s cool. Her house is near Rhett and Lisa’s. They adopted her after her parents and aunt were killed,” Evan said.

  “The pride sounds really sweet and caring. We have a fairy and a few fairy-wolf combos called a Wulfen, an Angel Mate, and an Apex. Most everyone in the pack is either a wolf or human, although there aren’t that many human truemates.”

  “I have to ask what Angel Mates and Apexes are,” Elliott said. “I’ve never heard either of those terms.”

  Lyric finished chewing her bite of pie and leaned back in the chair. “An Angel Mate is a perfect mate for a wolf. They know their mate on sight, it’s like a truemate attraction on steroids. Their children are either Angels or Alphas, it’s something in the DNA.”