Blayne Edwards

Three of them…

Chloe Evans heard the words play through her mind as she shifted the sheet to try and hide as much of her naked flesh as possible from the half dozen male eyes that were bearing down on her.

Brothers?

Quite possibly.

She decided this as she studied the gorgeous male creatures that had encircled her bed. Lush, jet black hair. Every one of them. Firm and healthy muscled bodies. Piercing blue eyes that seemed to begin to taste her flesh even without the use of teeth or tongues or lips.

A shiver of delight at the sight slithered its way up her spine. Chloe lived for moments just like this. Granted, she wasn’t sure if she was woman enough to take on quite so many full-grown males at one time. And she certainly had never had the unexpected pleasure of encountering so many of them in the middle of the night while she was butt naked and inconveniently unarmed. But Chloe wasn’t about to get picky when it came to such rare, delicious encounters.

She shifted again, this time very slowly, to somewhat shake the feeling of excitement that had just managed to override her good sense and to resituate herself so that she could more closely examine the largest of them.

The alpha.

Not necessarily the oldest of the trio, but most likely. And most definitely the dominant male. Chloe could tell by the way the other two stood guard only slightly to the background that they had come merely to serve as sentries for their leader. Their own appetites would have to wait until he’d had his fill of whatever he was craving that night.

Which was most likely…her.

No sooner had the terrifying thought gone through her mind than Chloe felt the bouncing of bedsprings underneath much more weight than she’d given the alpha credit for bearing. Fear of allowing breath kept her silent and still even though her throat begged to release a scream.

She swallowed a lump roughly the size of her fist and tried not to blink or make any sudden movements that might serve to anger or provoke him. That much sheer killing power, along with his army of equally dangerous brothers, was enough to overtake any number of women or men, no matter how experienced with their species or well intentioned they may be. Chloe, by herself and with her gun across the room, didn’t stand a chance against them.

She maintained eye contact with him as he moved over her. He straddled her with an agility and grace that seemed almost cat-like in its execution. Had Chloe not been so loss-of-bladder-control scared by his mouth’s close proximity to her neck, she would have found the irony of that thought hilarious.

But nothing about the situation was funny. Not even a little bit. In fact, the only two emotions Chloe could summon for the moment were a mixture of awe and respectful fear she had always had for these creatures and a dreadful case of anger. At herself.

The runt of the trio caught her attention when she looked his way to silently scold herself for leaving the glass doors open that led out to the cabin’s deck. As she watched him and the other subordinate brother exchange looks that were strangely Q and A in appearance, she remembered what her uncle had told her about critters wandering in at night if she left the doors open.

Bats.

Chloe had considered bats flying into her room at night but hadn’t been frightened enough by that possibility to close the doors. She’d even considered that a raccoon or skunk might venture in if one became curious or hungry enough.

But it had been such an unseasonably balmy February night that leaving the doors open to allow the warm mountain wind to blow across her naked body as she slept had been simply too romantic for her to resist.

Blah, blah, blah.

Chloe rolled her eyes at the mere thought of herself and romance in the same sentence. Romance to her meant successfully luring one of these very creatures as close to her as possible. Maybe not into bed with her at one a.m., but that was beside the point. As far as romantic gestures, Chloe’s favorite flowers to receive were the ones her students brought back to her from their field work. The same flowers she studied as food sources for the animals indigenous to the Appalachian Mountains where she had been born and raised. And romantic movies? Her favorite movie of all time was a documentary she had written and produced on the lives and mating habits of the very beast who had begun to examine her with the most sensitive part of his body.

He used his nose as his own sort of research tool, and as a method of giving her a handshake. Simultaneously identifying and greeting her.

And probably determining if she was a female receptive to his mounting of her.

She had known better than to leave those doors open. Mating season was in full swing and as any self-respecting zoologist knows, that time for any species creates havoc in the minds and bodies of all males involved. Humans, at least, have laws governing how they may mate and feed.

But the creature who continued his intimate examination of her knew of no such law or moral objection she might have to the things he was doing to her. He had no way of knowing that what he was doing would have been seen as criminal were she able to hold him accountable for his actions.

This gorgeous boy knew only that he was hungry and/or in search of a female to help him continue his line. And unfortunately, the combination of the two primal forces in him was as natural and right as life itself and much stronger than anything Chloe had at the time with which to defend herself.

Although she knew he could detect her scent through much more than mere fabric, Chloe grasped the sheet at her chest and tried to keep herself covered. She could feel the warmth of his breath through the thin material as his nose prodded along her thinly covered ribs and up around her breasts and even down toward her thighs. He moved quickly, sniffing one area of her and then moving on, only to come back to a previous spot to reconsider her scent again.

There was an urgency to search. A passion, Chloe would have thought had it been a lover going over her body with his hands or mouth. But as she watched him identify and memorize her smell, she realized that the urgency didn’t seem to be the result of hunger. No teeth were bared. The silky hair on the back of his neck lay down peacefully. And neither of the other two seemed edgy or nervous as most subordinates do until they’ve had their turn to feed.

Her fascination with what he was doing soon overtook any fear she’d had of the animal and Chloe felt herself slipping into the role she was used to playing around these creatures. That of a researcher and lover of the beautiful predators she was trying to help reintroduce into the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina.

A swell of pride found itself lodged in Chloe’s chest at the success that at least three of the test subjects seemed to be enjoying.

That pride was short-lived though as Chloe squinted to do her own examination of the male on top of her. She found none of the tagging she used to mark her test subjects, nor did she find tagging belonging to any of the other researchers trying to get the packs reestablished. And the blue eyes that stared down at her couldn’t possibly be the result of any of the animals that her research team had recently introduced into the mountains.

Perhaps they had been too hasty in their assumptions?

As she looked around the alpha’s body to the rest of his untagged, blue-eyed pack, she considered the fact that the boys who had joined her in search of a little late night hanky panky and midnight snack were actually remnants of the last pack that had reportedly lived in the mountains.

The one that never really existed.

Or had it?

She almost laughed out loud at even considering
that
possibility.

Stories of witchcraft in Salem and voodoo in New Orleans were commonly known and frequently told and retold. But the stories and legends of the mountains where Chloe had grown up were not quite as well known or documented. Poverty and isolation and prejudice against people long hailed as inbred hillbillies had kept some very fascinating tales and even more fascinating unexplainable happenings from being told to the rest of the world.

It had always saddened Chloe that her people were so intelligent and sharp-witted and so in tune with nature and yet hadn’t been respected or appreciated for the things they knew or the yarns they had spun over the years.

And this yarn, be it fact or fiction, had been the very thing that had persuaded Chloe to study the magnificent animal she found keeping her company for the night.

Canis Rufus.

The red wolf.

The animal had been hunted almost to extinction in the nineteenth century and had managed to regenerate its population somewhat by cross breeding with female coyotes when female wolves became too scarce for the males to find mates. Of course, that was the scientific and documented explanation for why the animal had barely survived.

The Smoky Mountain fables, however, were much more tantalizing.

With her mind too engrossed by the legends and the beauty of the specimen in front of her, Chloe found her fear all but gone as he continued to sniff and prod at her for information as to who and what she was. She used the opportunity to do her own visual examination of what she suspected was the largest male specimen she had ever personally encountered. Possibly the largest one ever recorded if she could find the chance to weigh and measure him. But for now, with no scale or way of luring him off of her body and into a crate, a visual was all she could manage. Still, it was an impressive thing to see.

The black hair that covered his body glistened in the moonlight streaming in from the open doors. Barely visible red highlights fringed his ears and muzzle and a small patch of white begged to be fondled on his belly. Paws, easily the size of a grown man’s hands, held the sheet down around Chloe’s body as he stood astride her in a manner that suggested that he knew what he was doing with the stance. Clear blue intelligence and primal animal instincts showed in his eyes and in the way he moved his body. Even on the unsteady footing of the bed he was confident and graceful and seemed completely at ease with his surroundings. Not to mention completely at ease with the way he was nuzzling and sniffing every inch of Chloe’s body.

The smart, still coherent side of her brain slowly moved her hands out of the way of those jaws and she silently watched his nose as it worked its way around her. The muzzle was wide and clean and sported no scars or other markings that told of fights over territory or food or mating rights. Not a single hint of his having to defend what was rightfully his blemished his face or body.

Chloe smiled to him at what the smooth, unmarred hide told her.

No one fucked with this dog.

Had she been a bitch in heat, Chloe would have immediately fallen for him. And most likely would have presented her backside for him to mount.

But she wasn’t a bitch in heat. And he wasn’t her type. Or even species, for that matter. Although Chloe had yet to find a human male who quickened her pulse or excited her the way the animals she’d worked with since grad school did. She supposed that was exactly why, at thirty-two, she was unmarried and had been free of male companionship for a very long time.

Well, free of
human
male companionship, at least.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a plethora of canine testosterone in bed with her at the moment. She stiffened and sucked in her breath when the dominant male seemed to intensify in his flirtation and examination of her as she lay trapped beneath the sheet and his massive paws. She steadied her nerves at the thought of what his jaws could do to her tender flesh.

His nose pressed into her belly. Sniffing. She watched a long pink tongue come out and taste her even through the sheet. And then he moved down her body. Chloe stiffened even more as the animal dragged his nose across the thin fabric covering her pubic hair. He slowed and ground his nose there momentarily. She felt him sniff impatiently at her before licking at her covered sex this time, his tongue dragging the sheet up and causing it to tickle between her legs. Suddenly, the alpha moved his head farther down and sniffed once again before he pushed into her to get a very personal draw of her scent. In his action, the alpha buried his nose between her legs much harder and much more intrusively than she was willing to take from any male who wasn’t her lover.

Be he man or beast.

“No!”

The alpha’s head jerked up at her harsh command. His blue eyes locked with the dark brown of hers and Chloe felt her pulse stop at the momentary connection she had just established with the animal. As the realization hit her that she hadn’t just scolded a cocker spaniel, her pulse started back up strong enough to fracture ribs and her respect for his power returned. The alpha studied her gaze for a moment, his ears perked and alert and his nostrils flaring, his attempts to measure how much fear of him was seething from her body.

Chloe held her eyes and her breath steady and returned the look. She knew that if she had just pissed him off, he wasn’t going to be open for discussion on the matter of which part of her he devoured first. Trying to communicate to him that she wasn’t afraid of him, his teeth, jaws, or his brothers, was the only defense she had for the moment.

But she knew he could smell the truth. At least some of it. Her fear was pungent and very real. But she had also never been so excited in her life.

From a researcher’s standpoint, of course.

Chloe had no idea why her pussy had suddenly grown extremely wet. She did know that it had nothing to do with the warm, invasive nudge he’d just given her, however.