Chapter Four

 

Cannan examined the large emerald that the foreman had brought him while his younger brothers pored over the sapphires, aquamarines, garnets, rubies and quartz crystals. The other gems were of good quality and would sell well but this one—the largest emerald he had ever seen—was flawless. Deciding to make it his pet project, he pocketed the stone—to the ribbing of his brothers.

“There he goes again,” Shome said, his brown eyes full of laughter, “Hoarding another stone for his nonexistent mate when we could make a fortune off it at market.”

Redell punched Shome in the arm as Faolan said, “Leave him alone. It’s not as if we’re hurting for credit.”

Cannan preferred Shome’s teasing to his other brothers’ protective defense. He knew why they defended his pathetic habit of hoarding the biggest and most beautiful stones—the accident he’d suffered in the deep mines two months ago had left him permanently and hideously scarred. Chances were if he ever found his mortal mate, he’d never convince her to bond with him. Not even with all the gems in the galaxy to dazzle her eyes and distract her from the ugly pitted and discolored skin on his face, neck and chest.

He reached over to lock the rest of the jewels in the stone safe and froze mid-motion. The room went quiet. He slowly turned, tilted his head to the side and sniffed. A tantalizing perfume wafted from the far hall that connected the intake room they were currently in to the main living room in their home.

He grew instantly hard, his cock straining against the seam in his pants.

One look around the room showed that his brothers had scented her too—Sam had found his mortal mate and brought her home to complete the coupling to bind his mate to his family.

As the second oldest, he was in charge. Cannan’s younger brothers waited for him to move, panting their desire but keeping their feet rooted to the floor. Seconds passed. The brothers began to growl their frustration. But Cannan was waiting on a word from Sam.

At last Sam’s strained voice sounded over the intercom. “Where the fuck is everyone?”

They bolted, Cannan leading the way with his brothers stepping on his heels and tripping over their clothing as they stripped while running down the hall.

By the time they reached the living room they were naked, their stiff cocks rudely pointing at the wildly flailing female in Sam’s scratched arms.

Cannan had the thought that she was like a feral cat surrounded by a pack of horny dogs and felt sorry for her until he saw her dip two fingers between her lush thighs and bring them glistening to Sam’s mouth as she moaned and writhed against him.

She wanted him and he was a package deal.

“How long has the coupling drive been on her?” he asked, his voice coming out in a hoarse whisper.

“Almost two hours.” Sam sucked her offered fingers into his mouth and licked the digits clean. “We coupled in the ship without witness.”

“Was the cabin camera on?” Errol and Essar asked at the same time, something they did often, to the annoyance of their brothers.

“Yes,” Sam said.

“Then we can review it later to bear witness to your first coupling but right now she needs relief,” Cannan said. As second oldest, he should join with her next. “What is your mate’s name, Sam?”

“Achelle.” Sam took a step back as Cannan stepped forward.

“She is lovely.” Cannan studied his older brother, using their familial link to read his emotional grid. The male was just as far gone as his mate, his mind centered on claiming her for himself. Never mind that tradition and biology dictated that his brothers become minor mates to his female to ensure her ability to reproduce and bond them to her as her protectors, therefore ensuring the survival of their race.

“Do you wish to bring your mate into our family?” Cannan asked as the younger brothers surrounded them, stroking their cocks, growling their desire.

“Yes,” Sam hissed.

Cannan held open his arms. “Give her to me. I will place my mark over yours. I will release my seed inside her to mix with yours to ready her womb for young.”

Sam’s body trembled. “I can’t. I…can’t.”

Cannan cursed under his breath. “In The Book of Rane, it says that if too much time passes between the marking from the main mate and the marking from the minor mates—”

“I read that passage too!” Sam shouted over Achelle’s cries as she damn near convulsed in his arms, her mating scent thick enough to choke on. “I know why I’m acting possessive. And I know if all of you don’t couple with her and mark her, she might become barren.” He blinked back tears. “I didn’t say you can’t take her. I said I can’t give her to you. Understand?”

Cannan frowned. “You want me to take her from you forcibly and mate her against your will?”

“Yes! Do it now, Cannan. Do it before I lock her in my rooms. Do it before I have to drug away her pain. Do it before I make my mate barren.”

“She looks part human. Was she raised with Rane customs? Does she understand the ritual?”

“She doesn’t have to understand. Look at her. Her body knows what is right.” Achelle writhed and moaned, obviously out of her mind with need. Samius leveled his gaze on Cannan. “Just as your body knows what is right too.”

Cannan stepped up and grabbed Achelle. Sam roared, tightening his hold on his mate. Cannan punched him in the jaw, knocking him out cold. As Sam slumped to the floor, Cannan snatched Achelle from his brother’s limp arms and carried her to the nearest bedroom.

Her moon-shaped face and large magenta eyes were breathtaking. Her lithe, petite body a vision to behold. But her beauty only emphasized Cannan’s ugliness. He felt like a hideous monster about to defile the fair maiden.

Not wanting to subject her to the massive scar tissue that covered a good portion of his body, he set her on her hands and knees on the bed and kneeled behind her. She was sobbing with need now. Desperate to couple with her minor mates, her body undulating, her sweet voice choking on her tears.

When she attempted to turn to look at him, Cannan gripped the back of her head and forced her to look at the headboard instead. She didn’t like that, twisting away from his grasp. He released her, not wanting to harm the female.

“Shome—”

“Got her.” As usual Shome knew exactly what Cannan wanted. He knelt in front of Achelle, cradled her head in his hands and brought his cock up to her lips.

That caught her attention.

Achelle licked her lips before sucking the broad, mushroom-shaped head into her mouth. Cannan took advantage of her distraction, burying himself inside her moist heat with one forceful stroke. He closed his eyes as he shuddered in ecstasy at the feel of her gripping him tight.

She thrust back, taking him deeper, squeezing him tighter. He groaned long and loud.

“Is it as good as you imagined?” Shome asked in a breathy voice.

Cannan opened his eyes to watch the female glide her lips down Shome’s shaft then up to swirl her tongue over the glistening slit at the tip of his brother’s rock-hard dick. He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“So much better.”

And it was. The line of females he’d fucked in the past had been poor substitutes for a mortal mate. He might as well have been servicing himself as partnering with a female who did not belong to their family.

Achelle growled around the length of Shome in her mouth and thrust backward again, trying for relief. Her body knew she needed the seed and bite of her mate’s brothers in order to complete her bond and produce offspring. Cannan knew he was freezing up because he’d been celibate since his accident two months ago and Achelle was so far beyond his experience and expectation.

Again Shome seemed to read his emotions.

“She needs you, my brother, and so does Sam. Let yourself go. Release into her. If not for you, then for her and Sam.”

Cannan took Achelle’s hips in his hands and found a rhythm that satisfied his brother’s mate. With every instinct he had shouting at him that this was right, he was surprised that he still felt awkward and on edge. Achelle gave no outward sign that she felt the same way. Her human modesty must be buried under the thick layers of lust from the Rane bonding ritual. His brother’s mate matched him thrust for thrust while sucking Shome until her orgasm burst over her and she screamed her release.

He gripped her hard. His balls tightened and he shouted—a long, loud curse. Satisfaction filled him as he planted his seed inside his brother’s mate. This was what it meant to be family. This was what it meant to bond and belong.

The feeling of family was so strong he had to withdraw from Achelle before he made a fool of himself and started blubbering like a newborn. Shome withdrew from her mouth, giving Cannan room to maneuver the female on to her back and bite her directly over her heart.

Achelle fought him, screaming, crying, punching at his head, which was a female’s natural response to bonding, just as it was Samius’ natural response to resent his brothers as they bonded to his mate. Cannan refused to release her until he felt the bond forming between them sliding into place, as if she had always held a position in his heart and he simply had not known it.

Only when he let her go did he realize that Shome had pinned her arms to the bed. Shome released her and positioned Achelle on her hands and knees once more. Cannan gave his younger brother a wolfish smile before jumping down from the bed and nodding to the twins.

 

The twins moved as if their bodies and not just their minds were one. Errol took Shome’s place in front of her while Essar blanketed her body from behind.

Achelle’s beautiful magenta eyes flashed from one to the other. A warning growl made the column of her throat vibrate with sound. She was pissed from the bite Cannan had given her, the twins decided, and would not make it easy on them to mate with her.

They smiled.

There was nothing they loved more than a good challenge and the twins had no doubt that they would earn screams of pleasure from their brother’s mate.

As if they had practiced the move a thousand times, Errol hooked his hands under Achelle’s arms and pulled her into his lap, spreading her legs with his knees and driving up into her while Essar knelt between both of their legs and guided the bulbous head of his cock into her from the front.

She growled and thrashed, fighting to throw them out of her but at the same time grabbing at them and gyrating her hips. Errol had a good hold of her arms and both brothers pinned her legs open and up.

Growling his satisfaction as her body slowly adjusted to accept them both, Essar inched into her tight pussy until he and his brother were balls-deep. Then the males waited, unmoving, for the female to calm. They would not proceed until she wanted them, no matter how much she needed them.

Errol closed his eyes and silently counted backward from one hundred. He heard Essar doing the same through their mind link. Buried deep inside Sam’s mate, unable to move, unwilling to release until they brought her pleasure, was the best kind of torture and the worst kind of ecstasy.

Little by little Achelle settled between them, her harsh breathing slowed, her body stilled. With a sweet little sigh, she rested her feet on Errol’s thick thighs and began to move.

A roar blasted through the room.

Achelle jerked in their arms. Her heartbeat skipped and sped.

Errol and Essar opened their eyes to see Sam fighting off Shome and Redell to reach his mortal mate. Cannan, who stood apart, bared his teeth and growled at all of them as if to say they were an embarrassment.

Sam twisted his arm free of Redell’s grasp and slammed a fist into the center of Shome’s face. Shome’s nose flattened as blood exploded to spray Sam and Redell in the face.

Choking on blood, Shome shouted, “Finish it! Now!”

Achelle whimpered, a high, strangled sound.

Errol felt Essar’s reluctant acceptance that they no longer had the benefit of time. If they were going to couple with Achelle, they would have to fuck her quickly and leave their mark before Sam broke free and murdered them.

With a dramatic sigh of regret that made Errol chuckle, Essar began to thrust. Errol matched his pace, burying his nose in the female’s soft, fragrant hair, ignoring the bloody fight taking place a few feet from the bed but unable to disregard the tears that wet his lips when he kissed Achelle’s neck.

The female is crying.

He grimaced and met the mirror of Essar’s blue-green eyes. A million times they had imagined coupling with a mortal mate. Not once did they imagine their loving being met with tears. Better she yelled and thrashed. Better she fought and bit and bucked to throw them out of her.

Errol released her arms and reached around to gently cup her breasts and tease her nipples. Essar slid his hand down her soft little tummy to caress her clit.

Even with the threat of a hard-core beat-down by their eldest brother, they could not take pleasure from a female without giving in return.

Slowly but surely her breathing changed once more and she began to move with them, gripping their cocks in her tight little sheath, angling her body so that she could take more of them into her. Her tears dried to leave her eyes clouded with passion instead of fear.

The thrill of satisfaction the twins felt at not only taming their brother’s mate but winning her acceptance with Sam in the room pushed them over the edge. They came together, as they did all things, spurting off inside Achelle, bonding to her as minor mates.

Still inside her, Essar laid his mark over her heart while Errol slid out from under her to do the same. She growled and tried to pull away as they sank their teeth into her tender flesh. When they finished laying their marks, this time instead of inflaming her anger, the bites inflamed her passion.

She groaned and arched off the bed, thrusting her breasts against Errol’s chest, running her hand down the muscled expanse of Essar’s chest.

The twins regretfully pulled back, knowing this was the last time they would couple with Achelle. They had done their duty, bonding her to them through sex and mark. They would serve as her protectors ever more but her lovers never again.

Orgasm quickly fading, the coupling drive began to overtake the female. Essar and Errol left the bed with big smiles on their identical faces, making room for Shome who was next.

 

Shome waited until Faolan took his place helping to hold back Sam before he joined Achelle on the bed. As soon as his knees hit the mattress she rolled to her knees, mirroring his stance. Sam’s presence seemed to calm her instead of upset her now but her eyes remained glazed over by the coupling drive that made her act on instinct instead of reason or emotion.

Hips undulating, she looked from Sam to Shome’s bloodied face and licked her lips. Shome didn’t know if it was a good or bad sign. Did Sam’s mate want to eat him or eat him?

She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled across the rumpled bed, ass in the air, gaze zeroing in on his hard dick instead of his bloody nose.

Well, that’s a relief, he thought as she ducked her head and swallowed him to the back of her throat to hold him there for an endless moment.

His head fell back and he blinked at the ceiling as the female cupped his balls in one hand, his shaft in the other, and sucked him slowly. Just the way he liked it, he decided. And to think he’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to perform to her satisfaction. She seemed satisfied to take control of his body and please herself with him as she saw fit.

With a gasp of surprise, Shome found himself knocked on his ass.

Achelle presented him with her back…and ass. He bit his lip as she kneeled over him and guided his cock inside her. Damn if he didn’t grow even harder. Fully seated, she leaned forward on her arms and began to ride him. Slowly at first. Then she picked up the rhythm and took him fast and shallow.

His body naturally moved with hers, thrusting up into her as she rolled her hips, her ass flexing and softening, flexing and softening. Hesitantly, he gripped her waist. When she didn’t take his head off for that, he cupped her ass.

Sam cursed him to the seven hells and lunged at him but Faolan and Redell held him back. Achelle didn’t flinch. Instead she glanced over her shoulder at Shome with a sly smile, clenched her inner muscles around his cock and swiveled her hips. Shome instantly came, slamming up into her again and again, strangling the sheets with his hands.

When at last she’d milked him dry, he lay beneath her, catching his breath and trying to recapture his sanity. There was still the matter of adding his mark over her heart.

He choked on a prayer sent right to the seventh god in the seventh house when Achelle moved over him, offering her flesh, which already carried the marks of his four older brothers. Relief and pride filled him that his brother’s mate offered what the others were forced to take. She genuinely seemed to like him, which was probably why Sam fought so hard to get at Shome.

In the end it took Errol, Essar and Cannan to subdue Sam, who only stopped fighting when Essar elbowed him in the temple, knocking him out again. The two youngest, Redell and Faolan, looked sick with worry, their skin pasty white and their eyes wide as if they’d just seen their own deaths.

Shome swallowed a laugh, knowing his usual joking manner would not be appreciated in this situation. Instead he suggested, “Not to ruin your time with Sam’s mortal mate but I think you two might want to double up like Errol and Essar did because when Sam wakes he’s going to be angrier than ever.”

Redell blinked at him as if he was having trouble deciphering the meaning of his words. Shome turned to Faolan, who was watching Achelle writhe on the bed with something akin to panic on his face.

 

Redell couldn’t believe the time for him to lose the big V had finally come. He swallowed convulsively as he approached the bed with Faolan right beside him. Thank the seven great gods that he didn’t have to do this alone, otherwise he might go limp-dick and pass the fuck out.

Achelle was gorgeous and her sweet, succulent scent called to him but images of his mortal mate flashed through his mind, silently tearing out his guts. They had met three years ago when he’d been sixteen and she fifteen. From the moment he’d scented her, he’d recognized her as his mate. Having been born into a full-blooded Rane family, she had recognized him as her mate also.

He closed his eyes against the bruising pain.

She had rejected him. Flat out. Hadn’t wanted him.

She ran to prevent the bond between them from forming but even with just the one brief meeting, she owned a piece of him and he a piece of her.

His heart thumped hard as he approached Sam’s mate, wondering if she would deny him as well. Maybe something was wrong with him. Maybe he was born with some internal flaw that females could sense in him. A terrible abnormality that he would pass on to his young. Was that why his mate had run from him?

Oh gods, what if he impregnated Sam’s mate and she birthed a deformed young who died in its cradle? That was impossible of course. She was infertile until all seven brothers coupled with her, completing the familial bond. Then only Sam would be intimate with her.

“Dell!” Faolan punched him in the shoulder. “You with me?”

Redell breathed deep. Behind him one of his brothers chuckled. He looked from Achelle, crouched panting on the bed, to Faolan, whose muscles were coiled tight, reminding him of a wolf ready to pounce.

“Should we…take her like Err and Ess did?” Redell asked.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Cannan slapped both of them on the backs of their heads. “We don’t have all night. Get your asses in bed.”

Gritting his teeth, Dell climbed onto the mattress, Faolan beside him. Achelle looked from one to the other and let out something that sounded like a hiss.

He glanced at Cannan for guidance. His brother growled and rolled his eyes. “Just watch what Faolan does and do the same.”

He turned back to the bed to find Faolan guiding her head to the mattress and tugging open her legs. When she tried to lift her head and twist away from him, Faolan wrapped an arm around her small waist and held her in place as he drove into her from behind. She reached back and raked her nails over his arms. With a curse, he released her waist and grabbed her wrists. He pulled her arms up and back, cuffing her, using her arms as leverage to pound into her.

His dominant display seemed to win her over. She moaned and thrust back against Faolan. In no time at all, her toes curled off the bed and she screamed her release, her body convulsing as the youngest brother came inside her. When he released her, she rolled over with a satisfied smile on her face and offered him her heart. Faolan added his bite to the others then licked down to her nipple to suck and nip at the little bud.

“We don’t have time for that,” Shome said from where he stood over Sam, who twitched and moaned on the floor. “Finish this so Sam can be with his mortal mate, Dell.”

As Redell crawled over to the female, he prayed he wouldn’t have to restrain her or fight to stay inside her while she tried to throw him out. After nearly nightly fantasies of coupling with his mate, taking her softly and sweetly, showing her that she’d made a mistake when she rejected him, Redell couldn’t bear the thought of living out his nightmare of his mate tempting him, teasing him, then throwing him out of her, biting and scratching him, rejecting him over and over again.

Achelle didn’t move. Instead she lay passively on her back, looking up at him with her amazing magenta eyes. Her legs were closed and instead of forcing them open, he straddled her thighs to sink down over her. She watched, waited him out as if she knew her slightest movement might scare him away.

Redell leaned forward on his arms and kissed her softly, a simple press of lips against lips.

She kissed him back, just as softly, her mouth moving under his. When he lifted his head, she gave a little sigh that did more to turn him on than anything he’d heard or seen so far. Shifting his weight to one arm, he reached between them and guided his cock inside her sheath.

His penetration was shallow in this position but she didn’t seem to mind. She rubbed against him and moaned each time he thrust, her breath catching as he angled himself so that the top of his shaft glided up and down her clit.

Dropping his head to her shoulder, he inhaled her unique scent and kissed her moist skin. She turned her head and nuzzled him, murmuring nonsense words that held no meaning but meant everything to him.

He blinked fast, preventing his tears from falling and humiliating himself in front of his brothers.

With a loud moan, Achelle shuddered.

He was sure that it was simply instinct that had her wrapping her arms around him and pulling him against her so they were chest to breast, but the intimacy of their position squeezed at his heart.

As he came, he remembered to bite her over her heart, marking her as theirs. And for a fleeting, wretched moment he wished Achelle was his and not Sam’s. Although he quickly shoved the betraying thought away, he could not uproot the feelings of love for his brother’s mate that had bloomed in his heart.

Refusing to give action to his emotion, he quickly abandoned the bed and kept his back to her as he asked, “We all finished here?”

“Yeah, let’s get Sam into bed with her and leave them to complete their bond over the next three days,” Shome said.

Essar and Errol pulled Sam up and shoved him onto the bed. Achelle hummed her approval and wrapped her lithe body around her mate’s, resting her head on his chest and stroking his face, chest and abdomen. When her hand slid lower, the brothers seemed to agree simultaneously that it was time for them to leave.

Everything was as it should be.