Mate of Three

Mate of Three
Marteeka Karland and Shara Azod
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2014 Marteeka Karland and Shara Azod

It was Balder who caught her scent first. It invaded his insides, wrapping around him, beckoning him to find her. He wanted to call out to Adrien and Freyr, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't tell them about the intoxicating aroma.

His throat seized, all his senses focused on her. The primordial part of his brain knew instinctively this was the one. His mate. After walking the earth more years than he cared to remember, she was here, in the wilds of Idaho.

His body was moving before the thought fully processed the astounding fact -- he had found a mate! To his knowledge, no Hybrid had ever found a mate on Earth who actually was of Earth. Her scent told him she was human. And she was in trouble. There was something dark and dangerous far too close. Another human, but he was tainted with the stench of a Hybrid who had crossed the line.

The main reason he, Adrien, and Freyr were in Idaho instead of home leading their clan in Washington was to track down a Hybrid who was organizing humans to do unspeakable things. He had to get to his woman before it was too late.

Shedding his clothing as he ran, he shifted without thinking, a feral roar warning the natural creatures to stay the hell out of his way. He could abstractedly hear an answering roar as well as the baying of a wolf right beside him. Adrien and Freyr. They had probably scented the tainted human and knew someone was in trouble. It wasn't until the cabin was in sight he had a clue the woman had affected each of them too.

"Mine!" Adrien growled as he shifted back to his human form.

What the fuck?

Looking over at Freyr, he could tell he too felt the pull of the unseen woman.

"That is my mate in there!" Balder declared, encompassing both men in a deadly glare. "I can feel it!"

"Well, then, we might have a problem there, friend, because I feel it, too." Adrien let his Cajun drawl pour out nice and thick, a signal of danger to those who dared piss him off.

"I too feel her, gammel venn," Freyr added. "We all do."

Leave it to Freyr to state the obvious.

"How is this possible?" Balder knew neither man had the answer, but he spoke the question aloud nonetheless.

Rumors had swirled around the communities of the Otherworld about certain human females being acceptable prospective mates for Hybrids, but it was just words on the wind. If it were true, it was not a thing the Hybrids wanted getting back to Purebloods. There were already so many issues of distrust and even envy; it would do no good to add to them.

What had never been suggested was that a human mate might be compatible with more than one Hybrid.

Mates were unique, the perfect partner for only one. Nothing had ever been suggested otherwise.

"We will call Farvardin," Adrien suggested, "after we save her."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, two gunshots rang out in the night. Birds flocked from the trees in startled dismay. All three men froze, unable to move forward, unable to stop themselves from reaching out with the animal part of their natures to find out what had just happened inside the log structure.

"She is unharmed." Freyr breathed a sigh of relief, though all had felt that same thing. It was the other that was harmed, the tainted one.

The male was in agony, though not a sound penetrated past the thick walls. The woman was no longer in danger. She was, however, enraged. Her anger beat at all three like a sledgehammer. They still didn't move, unsure of what to do.

She had obviously wounded him somehow. The air of danger had shifted; she was no longer the one they needed to be afraid for. The woman's emotions battered at all three men; her cold, hard determination to achieve retribution was a tangible thing hanging in the air, the fury she felt an angry red haze that seemed to settle over them like a fog.