Shifters' Captive:Magical Menages 1(9)

"Have some of your people died too?" John asked.

He nodded. "People slip into a coma and waste away like something is draining their lives."

"So you dreamed about Sherrie and tracked her here?"

"Thanks for bringing her halfway. Made it easier for me."

"If you think I'm going to let you have her, you're wrong."

"What are you going to do, kill me and set off another war?" He sneered.

They glared at each other. With that much testosterone charging the air, Sherrie realized she'd have to keep the peace.

"No one's having me. If you'd both calm down and listen to each other,  maybe you'd realize you're on the same page looking for a solution to  this psychic sickness that's infected your people. You should be working  together."

How calm and reasonable she sounded, as if her legs weren't trembling  and her stomach churning. As if it wasn't bizarre to be discussing a  psychic illness with a pair of shapeshifters. She hadn't realized she  had such cast iron nerve in her-although it had taken quite a lot of  that in L.A. to go to countless auditions for parts she never got.

John tore his angry gaze away from the stranger long enough to look at  Sherrie and listen to her. He gave a grudging nod before glaring at the  panther-shifter once more. "All right. Talk."

"What's your name?" Sherrie asked, trying to change the tone from a confrontational grilling to more polite conversation.

The almond eyes turned toward her and flicked up and down her body before meeting hers. "Grant Perron."

"I'm Sherrie Stoltz. This is John Walker."

"I know who you are and I don't care who he is."

"You know my name? How could you possibly know that?" For some reason,  that little detail seemed more incredible than the heaping mounds of  impossible she'd already swallowed today.

"I told you. I dreamed about you and then I came to find you." The words  sounded like a purr, a velvet-pawed caress that sent warm chills down  Sherrie's back.

John seized the other man's chin and turned his face back toward him. "How long ago did the comas start for your people?"

"A couple of months. That's the first I heard about it anyway."

"So what do your dreams tell you about me? What am I supposed to do?"  Sherrie asked. As she moved closer to the two men, the prickling feeling  all over her skin increased. Her hair rose as if charged by static  electricity, and lust blossomed in her erogenous zones. Her body ached  to be filled as if she hadn't just had a good pounding by John a few  hours earlier.

"Find him, face him."

"Find who?" John shook Grant's face, trying to pull his focus away from Sherrie.

She could feel the jealousy rolling off him in waves. He didn't like  Grant being around her. He already considered Sherrie "his". While his  possessiveness was flattering and a part of her responded with an  aroused thrill, jealousy didn't help the situation.         

     



 

"Touch me again and I'll rip off your face," the other shifter announced in a velvety rumble. "I'm talking to the girl."

Sherrie rolled her eyes and repeated John's question. "Who is this  person? What does he want, how's he doing what he's doing and how can we  stop him?"

Grant smiled, and his dour expression cracked. If his body was athlete  fine, his smile was movie-actor beautiful. "I thought you'd be the one  with the answers." She didn't like how he made her feel all fluttery  inside, so she snapped, "Well I'm not. I have no clue about any of this  and especially not my part in it."

John had stepped back from the captive and stood with his arms crossed  over his naked chest. He'd slipped into his jeans, but was still  distractingly shirtless. "Dreams led you here, huh? How do we know  you're not in league with this guy?"

Grant rolled his eyes, dismissing the suggestion. "Do you think these  ropes could hold me if I didn't want to be held? I'm only talking with  you because the girl's right, we need to share what we know and come up  with a solution."

John pulled up a chair and straddled it, facing the other man. "It's  been a little over a month since the first person in our pack got sick.  It took several cases before anyone saw a pattern. Our wisewoman had a  dream about Sherrie like you did, and I went to bring her here." Sherrie  continued the story. "Nothing remotely psychic has ever happened to me  before, but he showed me a little girl in one of these comas and when I  touched her, I saw inside her mind. I experienced everything she did  including the being who's keeping her prisoner. He's sucking up her  energy while keeping her unconscious."

"Did you see how Liberty came into contact with him?" John asked.

She closed her eyes, trying to recall something more specific than a  black, shadowy figure labeled The Bad Man, and she smelled the sharp  scent of pine. "In the woods. She heard-no, felt someone calling her,  and she followed the sound."

Sherrie's heart beat faster. A claustrophobic sense of anxiety swaddled  her like cotton. She could hardly breathe and wanted to run from the  creature Liberty had been drawn to. Images flashed in her mind like  quick edits in an art movie.

"A cave, maybe. Someplace dark and rocky. That's not where she first saw  him, but he's holding her there with him now, holding all of their  minds with his. It's very confused and fragmented." Sherrie opened her  eyes to find brown eyes and gold watching her once more, searching for  answers and maybe salvation.

"They're his prisoners on an astral plane," Perron said  matter-of-factly, as if he dealt with the otherworldly all the time.  "But if he has a physical body, we can destroy it."

"What if killing him doesn't set them free? What if they die when he  dies? We've got to be careful." John rose and paced the room, reminding  Sherrie of wolves she'd seen in a zoo habitat walking the perimeter of  their enclosure.

"We need to take action. Cut me loose and I'll handle it." Grant  strained against his bonds, finally showing some impatience. Sherrie  didn't doubt he could break them as promised if he turned into a  mountain lion. Although the idea terrified her, a small part of her  wanted to see that.

John stopped pacing to glare at him again. "What are you going to do? Your kind is so impetuous.

Taking action isn't the same as taking the right action."

"And taking no action is the wolf way. You have endless councils before you make a decision about anything."

"I brought her here, which is more than you did." John pointed at  Sherrie, and once more she felt like a prop in their play as they argued  about who had the bigger cojones.

"Enough. John. Untie him. He's not our prisoner. He's an ally. And you,  Cat-man, remember you came here for me. Whatever you do, I must be a  part of it, so let's think this through and come up with a solution  before you go off half-cocked."

For a girl who tended toward impetuosity herself, she sounded remarkably  like a schoolteacher- Let's work together, class. The only problem was  she had no idea what direction their plan should take.

John turned to Perron. "She's right. We have to lay our differences  aside." The other man's lips twisted in a smile that seemed more like a  snarl. "Untie me. I'll be a team player."

John crouched behind the chair on which Grant Perron sat and loosened  the knots he'd just finished tying. Sherrie took stock of the  differences and similarities between the two men. They might be night  and day as far as coloring and build, but both had a sleek grace and  palpable magnetism. If she'd met either of them at a bar, she wouldn't  have known why there was a sense of wildness about them, but would've  been attracted to it. She was attracted to that primal quality in both  of them.         

     



 

Her body vibrated like a violin string tuned too tight, and the desire  her interlude with John had slaked began to swell again. She felt as if  her body was one raw, pulsing sexual nerve, responding to these men with  a mind of its own.

"There's a network of caves near the peak. We'll head up there," Perron  announced as he pulled his hands from behind his back and rubbed his  wrists.

John grimaced at the other man's arrogant tone, but held his tongue. He glanced at Sherrie.

She offered him a smile. Locks of his dark hair had fallen over his  forehead and she longed to brush them back and kiss him. A fantasy of  doing this while Perron watched flashed in her mind, and heat flooded  her body. She pictured him, still tied to the chair, erection growing,  as she and John fondled and kissed in front of him. He would groan and  shift as they stripped and fell on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs.  She'd ride John's cock, breasts bouncing, and meet Perron's hungry  gaze, taunting him with a smile.

Swallowing, she banished her wayward thoughts and darted a glance at the  two men, afraid they could read her mind. Perron looked back at her and  grinned. Maybe he could see into her head-a dream had brought him to  her side.