A Bond of Brothers Read online

  Lord Elmist straightened slightly. "I said we could if she remained a fairy. If she loses her wings, she will not be a fairy any longer and our authority will be meaningless."

  Adriel spoke up, "But she will become mortal without her wings."

  "No, not mortal. She'll still retain her long-life, but she will lose her nature power associated with her wings. She will keep her healing nature, which is a heredity power. She'll become what is known as a Dharling - a healing nymph. She will be as she is now, minus her wings."

  Lynk turned to me and took my hand. "You don't have to lose your wings, Shaylee. We'll protect you."

  His willingness to fight for me brought fresh tears to my eyes. "You can't, Lynk. Not as long as I have my wings. I would gladly give them up for you, for both of you." I looked down at Tavian and smiled at his sweet bear face.

  Lynk's eyes shone. "Will it hurt?"

  Lord Elmist said, "Very much so. It would be equivalent to having your legs cut off while you are conscious. The pain will send her into a healing sleep and her power will heal her body with time."

  I looked at him. "Is that why you came? To let me go?"

  He nodded. "When I stepped through the portal and saw two men fighting for you, I knew you would not come back. I had hoped to prevent your uncle from harming you, but the outcome is much better than I could have hoped for. I never did like him."

  With no further discussion, we moved down into the den. Lord Elmist dispatched his guards to remove the bodies of the fallen fairies and clean up the mess outside. For all of the fairy guards that appeared, no bears were seriously injured in the battle. Lynk showed himself to be the true warrior for the den, keeping me safe and leading his people. I was humbled by the show of support from the den.

  Someone brought a small ottoman near Lynk and Tavian's tent. Tavian shifted back into his human form and held me tightly against him while Lynk found his best and sharpest sword.

  I pulled off my bra and extended my wings for the last time. Tavian and Lynk stood in front of me, both touching my wings with furrowed brows. "Are you certain, Shaylee?" Tavian asked with a thick voice. "I don't want you to be in pain."

  "It's for the best. I can't live without you and if I have to give up my wings to have forever with you two, then it's worth a little pain." I paused, knowing with all my heart that it was the right thing.

  Lynk's eyes shone bright with unshed tears. He cupped my cheek and smoothed a stray tear away from my cheek. "You honor us, Shaylee."

  I gripped his wrist and pulled his hand away from my face, kissing his palm before moving closer and hugging and kissing them once more.

  With my arm across my bare breasts, I moved to the ottoman and knelt in front of it. "I had no idea that were-bears were so fiercely loyal. I have no doubt that you will be well loved for the remainder of your long life, Shaylee Tannia. I wish you much happiness and blessings in this mortal realm." Lord Elmist said, coming to stand next to me and testing the weight of the sword.

  "Thank you, Lord Elmist. For everything."

  I dropped my head and straightened my wings behind my back so the tips touched and I held as still as I could even though my body trembled. I heard the whoosh of air as the sword sliced down and then blazing hot pain shot through my body and I screamed as everything went dark.

  * * * * * *

  I tried to roll over to my back, but pain stopped me. Then clarity reigned in my mind. I didn't have wings. I was no longer a fairy by any definition. The world of my youth was closed to me forever. Oddly, I was okay with that.

  "Careful, lilenta," Lynk said softly and I opened my eyes to see him kneeling next to the bed.

  I blinked, trying to clear the haze away. "Where are we?"

  "In our tent. How do you feel sweetheart?"

  "Like someone cut my wings off."

  He let out a small laugh and a single tear escaped down his cheek and he wiped it away quickly. "Can I get you anything?"

  I swallowed and my mouth felt like sand. "Water?"

  Tavian said, "I'll get it."

  He returned a short moment later and handed the water to Lynk who cupped my cheek and helped to lift my head from the pillow. The water was cool and slick and when I'd drunk half the cup, I pulled away and put my head back on the pillow. They had laid me on the bed on my stomach, covering me to my waist with a blanket. "Oh sweet little nymph," Tavian said, kneeling next to Lynk and squeezing my fingers, "what can we do to help you?"

  I let out a slow breath, feeling the odd weightlessness in my back. "Help me sit up."

  With careful, deliberate movements they helped me shift to a sitting position. My skin stretched uncomfortably tight across my shoulders and heated pain pulsed from the two places where my wings had resided. "How does it look back there?" I asked when my feet were on the thick carpeted floor.

  Lynk and Tavian exchanged looks and my worry that I'd have more than two minimal scars grew significantly. "What? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, sweet love, it's just, have you ever known someone who had their wings cut off?" Tavian asked, reaching for one of my hands.

  "I've heard of it happening, but I've never seen one after it was done, why?"

  Lynk stood up. "Come into the bathroom, Shaylee. See for yourself how gorgeous you are."

  Tavian stood and they both helped me to my feet. After a few moments, the ache in my back eased further. According to them, I'd been asleep for slightly over twenty-four hours, so my legs ached from disuse but I could walk. Lynk hit the light switch in the bathroom and I stopped in my tracks when I saw my reflection in the mirror.

  The woman staring back at me had coal black hair and brown eyes like melted dark chocolate. My skin was still ivory, my features were the same, but my ruby and gold streaked hair and green eyes were gone. My mouth went dry as I stared in silence at myself. And then I couldn't help it, but I peeked down at my pussy under the blanket that I'd been clutching to myself, to see if the carpet matched the new drapes. I started to snicker when I saw that, yes indeed, I now had a neatly trimmed thatch of black hair covering my mound.

  "What's so funny, yanna?" Tavian asked, smiling in relief that I wasn't freaking out.

  "It's just surprising. I've been a redhead my whole life."

  Lynk tipped my chin so I was looking at him. "You’re gorgeous, regardless of hair color or eye color. I still see affection in the depths of your eyes, and your hair is still as silky soft as it was when it was flame colored. You're still you inside. That's all that matters to us."

  Tavian kissed my shoulder, pushing my hair back. "I like it. It makes you just ours now. To love and protect forever."

  I smiled broadly at their sweet remarks. I wanted to see my back, so after turning around, Tavian gave me a hand mirror and I saw two angry red marks on my back where my wings had at one time unsheathed. The marks were four or five inches in length and a fingertip in width, but the pain lessened with each passing minute and I knew that after a few days, it would be gone entirely and the marks would leave light scars.

  "They won't go away completely, the marks, but they'll lighten in color with time." And I wasn't sure I wanted them to go away entirely, anyway. They would be there as a reminder of what I'd sacrificed to stay with Lynk and Tavian.

  "Elizabeth wanted to come check on you again when you woke up. She's been in every few hours to monitor your healing. She put some kind of herb pack on the wounds in the beginning." Tavian said.

  I agreed to see her; grateful she'd cared enough to help. I couldn't really dress completely, so I stuck with a pair of soft lounge pants that were in a small bag I'd packed when we came to visit the day before and held the blanket to my chest again.

  Tavian sent for her, and she and her husbands came into the tent. Each man held a baby in his arms, identical twin boys. The boys wiggled to get down and they put them on the carpet, letting them crawl and explore.

  "These are my children, Shaylee, Setimika and Bodaway. It's nice to finally meet you officially. T
hese are my husbands, Ash and Axe." Ash and Axe were identical and I wondered how she could tell the apart.

  Lovely, she had dark brown hair and jade green eyes, and a sweet smile that was welcoming. "How do you feel?" Elizabeth asked, sitting next to me on the couch. I shifted so she could see the wounds on my back and felt her cool fingers touch them very lightly.

  "Okay. It will get better soon enough. A small price to pay, at any rate, to be happy forever." I smiled at Lynk and Tavian.

  "Eternal happiness?" One of her husbands chuckled, patting Tavian on the shoulder. "That's a tall order."

  "No problem." Tavian said, and Lynk agreed.

  Once the den realized I was up, the flood of well-wishers grew. After Elizabeth and her husbands and children left, their parents stopped by, followed by a steady trickle of the other den members. I was overwhelmed by the support and felt really blessed.

  Several days later, I felt like I was finally free of the pain of my wounds and was able to wear clothes without the fabric making me uncomfortable. Over the course of the time that I recuperated in the den, I found myself undeniably falling in love with both men.

  When I was completely healed, they took me back to the cabin, and after we packed up my belongings and stopped in town to return the keys to the owner, we headed back to the den. That night was the first night we made love since my injury, and the time together was as heated and passionate as it had been when we were tucked away in bliss in the cabin.

  I couldn't let myself go another day without telling them the truth of my feelings for them. As we lay tangled together on the bed, I moved over Lynk and said, "I love you, Lynk." I hugged him tightly and kissed him.

  His eyes widened in surprise and happiness lit his features. "I love you, Shaylee. My sweet lilenta."

  I moved to Tavian and he held me in his arms, struggling to contain his emotions. "I love you, Tavian."

  He smoothed back my hair and kissed me. "Oh, Shaylee, I love you, too."

  * * * * * *

  Elizabeth ran a brush through my hair and sectioned it while Filene adjusted the strapless buckskin top that one of their craftsmen had made for our bonding ceremony. "Are you excited?" Elizabeth asked, her eyes glowing with happiness as she smiled at me in the mirror in the bathroom.

  "Nervous. They said they’ll get branded with the symbol for my name."

  Filene chuckled. "They gladly do it, sweet daughter. Like Lynk's battle scars that have remained from when they set you free of your old life, they will both wear the marks with pride.

  Elizabeth began to braid my hair into a long braid and I sat quietly and enjoyed the pampering. She wore a tunic style dress made of buckskin, embroidered and beaded with intricate designs across the front and sleeves. Over the past week since I'd moved into the tent officially, she had become a good friend to me. She liked having another non-bear in the den, I think. And when Setimika toddled right into the sharp corner of a high table and cut his forehead, she'd been grateful to have my healing ability handy so I could heal the cut without leaving a scar.

  "Are you happy here in the den so far?" She asked, tying the end of the braid with a leather tie. Elizabeth and her husbands didn't like living underground so they had built their home was on the surface, several hundred yards away from the barn.

  "I am. Tavian helped me plant a small garden outside the tent. I don't have my nature powers anymore, but I like having my hands in the dirt. And I got to help make a huge cauldron of rabbit stew the other day. It was awesome." I hadn't found my niche in the den yet, but I was content to have my hands in a little bit of everything. I spent time with Lynk and Tavian as they worked, watching Lynk as he trained with the bear soldiers and Tavian as he prepared meals for the den. We had even hunted together, the two of them in their beautiful black bear shifts lumbering along with me as we tracked deer.

  After a large meal with the den, we drank wine to celebrate the past, present and future of our lives, and then they accepted the brands with my name’s symbol, a curvy letter L with a down-facing arrow slashed with three small lines through it. While they accepted the brands over their hearts without flinching, my heart filled with pride. And then I was surprised when they turned and presented their backs to their father who pulled another long handled brand from the red hot glowing pot where the symbol brand rested. This red glowing brand split into two separate brands at the end. In their sacred language which Filene translated for me, Adriel spoke to the crowd.

  "Do you give yourself to this mark, Lynk, to honor the sacrifice of your bride?"

  "I do."

  Adriel pressed the brands into Lynk's back where they sizzled and burned just over his shoulder blades. As he moved to Tavian and repeated the phrase before branding him, I couldn't tell what the marks were, but I knew they were significant. The only marks on the backs of the men in the den were the names of their children.

  Filene gave me healing plant leaves to take to tend their wounds, and I followed Lynk and Tavian out of the tent. "What did you do?" I said, moving around to their backs. I gasped in surprise, happy tears lighting my eyes. "Oh, they're wings." Branded into their flesh were small slanted wings, four or five inches in height and a few inches in width. As I smeared the plant gel on their marks, I told them how proud I was of them and how much it meant to me that they marked themselves again for me.

  "You gave up your wings for us, yanna," Tavian held me close as Lynk pressed behind me, catching me between the two of them.

  "We wanted to make sure that you know we will never forget the sacrifice you made to stay with us. This was a way for us to honor what you did."

  I sniffled and hugged Tavian with one arm and pulled Lynk closer with the other. "I would do it again in a heartbeat." And I would.

  Later, the den shifted for me, passing by and rubbing their fur along my hands and gathering my scent in their memories. I got to explore Lynk and Tavian's bulky, furry bodies while they were in their shifted forms, feeling the soft fur on their noses and bellies and the thick, coarse fur on their backs. When I stripped and lay between them, they licked and nuzzled me, teasing and tickling me, until they were free to shift back to their human form. When we made love after they shifted for the first time as a newly mated family group, they held me tightly between them and sank their fangs into either side of my neck, marking me permanently as their mate.

  I had never felt more blessed and happy than I was at that moment, surrounded by two men who loved me, in the home we shared together in the den.

  Chapter 7

  Several weeks later, we married legally. Our ceremony took place in March under a snow-laden archway in the fields behind the barn. A were-bear from another den who was an ordained minister oversaw our ceremony, and as I took my vows to both men, I let go of the last part of my old life and embraced becoming Shaylee Stalking Horse.

  We left the den for a week and drove to Elizabeth, Ash and Axe's condo on the Vermilion River and stayed there for our honeymoon. They treated me each day to something I'd never done before - eating at different restaurants, dancing at a club, getting what they called "completely tanked" at an Irish pub, and spending all our remaining time getting to know each other in every possible way.

  I discovered Lynk's hidden obsession with zombie movies and watched them in horrified fascination. Tavian's competitive nature came out in full force when we played a game of darts at the pub, and once sex became the prize for the winner, he left both Lynk and I in the dust. Of course, in the end, we all won, no matter what.

  The first night we came back into the den after our honeymoon, we stayed up the entire night tangled together in bed, enjoying our new married status. Lynk and Tavian wore white gold bands on their ring fingers, and they had given me special rings that they were given when they turned of-age to eventually give to their mate. I’d been part of a magical, glittery world, but this simple life underground in the den, working side by side with my husbands, gave me untold pleasure.

  The following morning, L
ynk groaned with a yawn and sat up, untangling himself from where one of my legs was tucked over his hip. “Do we have to get up?” I slipped over to my other side and snuggled down into Tavian’s warmth.

  “We probably should.” Tavian yawned, holding me close with a happy hum.

  I heard the sound of jeans being tugged on and Lynk said, “I’ve got to check that the supplies I ordered came in. You can stay in bed a while longer, lilenta.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead and disappeared from the tent.

  "You can rest more if you'd like, yanna." Tavian murmured, drawing me even closer.

  "Or," I hummed, tickling my fingers across his back, "we could take a shower."

  I peeked up at him through the veil of my lashes and he was smiling with an excited gleam in his eyes. I felt his cock grow hard against me and I smiled further. It was heady business having two men always so ready to make love to me.

  He kissed my forehead. I kissed across his sculpted chest and pressed myself closer. He let me kiss on him a little while longer before declaring that a shower was a very good idea and slipped out of the bed. I watched him stretch lazily, arching his back with a soft grunt and cracking his neck.

  "Like the view?" He cast over his shoulder with an arched brow.

  "Of course I do." I laughed, coming to stand behind him on the floor. "Let's see. Muscles, check." I spread my hands around his stomach and traced the tantalizing muscles of his abdomen. I reached my hands up to his shoulders and gripped them in a light massage, "Broad shoulders, check." Dipping my hands down his sides I followed the deep v with a slow stroke, "Trim waist, check."

  I slid my fingers down the smooth, taut skin of his abdomen until I reached his cock, pressing my cheek against his warm back and smiling as he took in a slow breath. "Big cock, double check."

  He chuckled, wrapping his hands around mine as I fisted him with both and worked him slowly. "You forgot to mention my ass." He pulled my fingers away from him and turned around, planting a kiss on my parted mouth.