Acceptable Risk (6 page)

She did, and he pressed the needle in as she
blew. It was a trick she used when going deep with her massage
clients, but was still surprised it worked with the needle. He put
a good deal of blood in one glass with a few inches of water in it,
and then another.

He finished, put a small bandage on her toe, and
wrapped the needle in a rag before throwing it in the trash.

“This is wine with a few drops of Ranger’s
blood,” Jonathan told her. “It’s a simple oath. You only have to
say, ‘
I will keep your secrets
,’ as you think about the
secrets you’re keeping. You already know this covers leaving hints,
writing it instead of speaking, or even nodding your head when
someone asks the right question.”

“Say the words, drink the wine as you think of
the secrets you’re keeping, and then say the words again,” Duke
told her. “Ranger and I will do the rest.”

“You said Mac can only turn me as a wolf, not as
a human. This is your blood as a human, so it won’t turn me?”

“Right,” Jonathan, Ranger, Duke, and Gen
answered together.

Mac was being quiet, but his warm, strong arms
around her made her feel safe and protected, as if nothing could
ever hurt her again. She said, “I will keep your secrets,” as she
thought about everything she’d learned tonight, and drank the wine
without thinking about what was in it. She said the phrase again,
and without warning, she was engulfed with feelings, emotions, and
the sense of running through the woods with four legs, the wind in
her fur, the forest alive with colors and smells.

Mac held her tighter, and she screamed as she
felt her finger being cut off. Ranger was suddenly in her thoughts,
telling her she was okay, ordering her to make a fist and feel all
of her fingers. She did, and she remembered Ranger in her ass at
the end, Mac jacking off as he watched, and Jonathan holding her
boobs together with his cock thrusting between them.

The room came back into view with a thunderclap,
and she jumped and gave another small scream as Mac asked, “What
the fuck?”

“You okay?” Ranger asked.

Bethany shook her head as Mac said, “I’m human,
and I can hold it together for Bethany, but I’m
not
okay.”

Duke spoke so softly, Bethany barely heard him.
“Look at their auras.”

Ranger said, “Fuck,” as Jonathan said, “Shit.
Tell me what I just felt. What happened?”

No one spoke, and Duke finally said, “We all
caught pieces of each other. I saw Ranger running through the
woods, saw someone cutting one of Mac’s fingers off when a few were
already missing, and saw Bethany freaking when Mac started
changing
. Ranger took control, reminded Mac he has his
fingers back, and then steered them all to a shared memory before
bringing us all out of it. I don’t know what they got from me.”

“They didn’t get anything from you,” Ranger
said. “I saw you and your brother fighting, before you left the
pack.”

“What’s going on with our auras?” Bethany
asked.

“You’re joined. It’s one aura with two people.
We did the ritual with the two of you joined,” Duke explained.

The three men standing around them looked as if
this were the end of the world. Bethany didn’t understand, so she
said, “And?”

“Two werewolves can perform a ritual, but three
can’t unless they intend to form a pack,” said Jonathan. “They just
inadvertently formed a small pack. Someone will have to rise to
Alpha, the other two will have to accept him. However, that isn’t
the worst of it.”

“No,” Duke agreed. “My brother will see this as
a threat to his pack. I left Chattanooga in part because I realized
he was on the fast track towards becoming Alpha. I didn’t want the
position, but I knew my wolf would never bow to him. Killing him
and holding the position were the last thing I wanted, so I cut
ties and left town.” He sighed and sat in a chair. “Leaving town
only postponed my having to fight him to the death,
apparently.”

Bethany tilted her head towards Mac. He looked
down, their eyes locked, and she asked, “Why are our auras joined?
What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. They taught me how to see them,
and I’ve seen human couples who seemed to be walking around in one
aura, but I don’t know what it means.”

Jonathan sat beside them and said, “It just
means you’ve connected at a soul level. There’s nothing especially
metaphysical about it under normal circumstances. However, it
would’ve been nice if someone had noticed before the ritual.”

“I’ve never heard of someone being so close
after one night,” Ranger said. “There shouldn’t have been a reason
to look.”

Gen moved to Duke’s lap and he pulled her into
an embrace, holding her as if he needed the connection. “Can
someone break the ties ya’ll just made?” Gen asked. “Maybe the
person who oversaw my binding? He can do things in—” She stopped
talking as if someone had clapped their hand over her mouth, and
she looked up with an embarrassed smile. “Yeah. Guess I’m not
supposed to talk about that.”

“I don’t know who she’s talking about,” Jonathan
said, “but there may be another option.”

Everyone looked at him, and he explained, “I saw
Bethany connect with Ranger last night when he went all Dom on her.
If the three of them can form a relationship bond, Ranger might be
able to sever his ties to Duke as if Duke isn’t welcome in the
relationship.”

Ranger looked at Bethany a few seconds and said,
“It’s fast, but I like you and want to get to know you better. The
relationship bond says we’re together. A unit. We can include
Jonathan physically without including him in the ritual. He’s a
cat, and there’s a way to include him, but not easily so it won’t
happen tonight. But, we can bind you, me, and Mac into a
relationship and Jonathan’s right — I can probably sever the ties
Mac and I have to Duke.”

“Relationship?” Bethany’s voice squeaked as she
said the word, and she shook her head. “No. We fucked, that’s it. I
don’t do relationships.”

“Bethany,” Gen said, her voice simultaneously
friendly and antagonistic. “We’ve talked about this before. All
guys aren’t assholes. Besides, you have the harem you’ve been
wanting. Give it a try before you find a reason to push them away.
You deserve your own happiness.”

Bethany shook her head again, and Mac said, “I
felt it. Our aura’s just split, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” said Duke.

“Bethany and I are going for a ride,” Gen
announced as she stood.

“Why?” Bethany asked.

“So we can talk.”

“Let’s just go upstairs, then. I only have a
t-shirt on.”

“They can hear us talking from anywhere in the
house,” Gen reminded her.

Bethany stood with the blanket, wrapped it
around her, and headed towards the door, but Jonathan said, “You’re
barefoot, Raggedy. Let me carry you.”

She didn’t argue, and five minutes later Duke
had shown Bethany the hideaway with his extra gun, reminded Gen he
expected her to use hers if necessary, and they were on the
way.

“Three things,” Gen said as she pulled out of
the driveway, “the first is I could tell how much you liked Mac,
and how much you trusted Jonathan and Ranger. Second, you
have
to tell me about what happened last night.”

Gen went silent, so Bethany asked, “And the
third thing?”

“If they can’t break the pack bonds they formed,
Duke will move away before he risks having to fight his brother.
They’re finally back in the same city, and he’s managed to be part
of his biological family again in a small way, if not his original
pack family. I don’t want to see him lose that, but I also don’t
want to have to decide between my career and my husband. If I move
out of the country with him I’ll never get set up with the contacts
I have here. I’ll have to kiss my job goodbye.” She paused and
said, “And you, and my family. I don’t want to have to leave. My
life is here, but… Duke’s my life, too. If he leaves, I’ll go with
him.”

Gen turned into an empty restaurant parking lot,
put the antique mustang in neutral, and engaged the emergency
break. “I would never ask you to do this if I didn’t think you
liked them, but I saw how you looked at them. Whatever happened
last night was big, and you like them
all
. You’ve wanted a
harem and this is it! Why are you telling them it was just a night
of sex?”

“Because guys are assholes. You think they’re
not, but they always turn out to be, once you get to know
them.”

“Duke isn’t. I’m pretty sure Brain isn’t.
Frisco, Isaac, and Cam aren’t. I mean, Frisco was, but he seems to
have changed for Cassie and Cam. You won’t know if these guys are
capable of non-asshole status unless you give them a chance.”

“And if I get hurt again?”

“He-who-shall-not-be-named was an asshole of
immense proportions, but neither of us were old enough or
experienced enough to see it. If we met him now, we’d know it in
the first five minutes, don’t you think?”

Bethany thought back to the first time she met
him and the way he’d called her
babe
. His tone of voice had
been the exact opposite of the way Ranger had said it, and while
Mac may have used the word ‘my’, it was more about a wish for the
future than an expectation it was true merely because he uttered
the word.

“Damn,” Bethany said. “You’re right. I was
nineteen to his twenty-four. He played me, and I was too stupid to
realize. I’d know in a heartbeat, now.”

Gen was quiet as Bethany looked out the
windshield without focusing on anything. Bethany finally asked, “Do
you know what the relationship binding is?”

“Not a clue.”

“You should take me back, then, so I can ask my
guys.”

Before they got out of the car, Bethany put her
and on Gen’s and said, “It’s kind of freaky. I mean, fucking
werewolves
? But knowing you’ve already dealt with it,
knowing you and Duke have my back…” She shook her head.

“Someone I trusted helped me when I found out,
hopefully Duke and I can do that for you. I know there are good and
bad ones, but because of the leadership here, most of the
shapeshifters in Chattanooga are good, and if they work for Aaron
Drake, it’s another sign they’re the good guys.”

* * * *

The men were sitting around the den with no one
talking when the women returned.

Bethany took a few fast steps towards Ranger,
and he stood and pulled her into his embrace as her arms went over
his shoulders and she hugged him tight.

She whispered, “I think we need a group hug,”
and her other guys were there as she said the final word. Mac
stepped beside Ranger and pulled one of her arms to his shoulder,
so she was hugging them both, and Jonathan stepped behind her, put
his hands around her torso, and kissed the side of her neck from
behind.

“Tell me what this relationship binding thing
means.”

“It’s another blood thing,” Ranger told her.
“It’ll metaphysically bind the three of us. We’ll know if any of us
cheats, or even seriously considers cheating. Admiring someone of
the opposite sex isn’t supposed to trigger it, but thinking of
doing something sexual with them, will. It’ll make us feel closer
when we kiss, fuck, make-out, play around, whatever.” Ranger kissed
her forehead and added, “We can include Jonathan in the wording of
the ritual, so it won’t trigger as cheating when you’re with
him.”

“And if I want to break up with ya’ll three
weeks from now?”

“If you’re intending to break up with us in
three weeks, it won’t take. You have to go into it with the
intention of this being your last relationship, or it won’t work.
If you want to break up with us in the future, there’s a way to
break the binding, but you can’t go into it with the idea you’ll
just break up with us later if it doesn’t work. You have to mean
it.”

“What’s the vow?”

Ranger looked to Duke. “We’re going to move this
to the bedroom. I don’t mind you hearing us, but don’t want you
watching. When we’re finished, I’ll come down and try to break the
ties with you.”

Everyone was naked again, the two wolves and
Bethany sitting in a triangle on the bed, knees touching.

Another needle, blood from her right toe this
time, but only three drops — one in the center of Mac’s chest,
Ranger’s chest, and hers. Each of the men pricked their own finger
and also dabbed blood on all three chests, forming three identical
triangles.

Ranger had them reach their right hands in and
hold the right wrist of the person to their left. They then put
their left hands in, and held the left wrist of the person to their
right.

“This is important,” Ranger told them, “our
knees are touching right knee to left, and vice versa, while our
hands are touching right to right, and left to left. We’re all both
holding onto and being held, with both hands. It’s a small circle,
but it’s still a circle, and we’re all touching one another in
multiple ways.”

Jonathan sat behind Bethany, wrapped his arms
around her torso, and Ranger said, “Jonathan is connected to us,
but only through Bethany. He doesn’t want to be included in the
blood bond, but is willing to say the oath with us while connected
to our little fiery vixen.”

They knew this, had agreed to it before drawing
blood, and Bethany wondered if it was necessary for him to say it
as part of the ritual.

“Give me a second to get the energy flow
started,” said Ranger. “Let it happen, and don’t freak. I’m in
charge and I’ll keep it from going bad. Think of last night, your
favorite part, and keep it in mind. Watch me, and I’ll nod when
it’s time to say the vow.”

Bethany thought back to riding Mac’s cock while
Jonathan was in her backside and Ranger was off to the side
watching every move, and telling her he couldn’t wait to be in her
ass.