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  As disturbing as she found her memory lapse, she couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t want to elaborate on it. That’s why I said ‘you know’.”

  He kissed her forehead and slipped his arms from around her, catching her hand. “Come on.”

  The suspicion instantly arose that he had more of the same in mind, but she went with him. When he’d settled on the couch, he pulled her down beside him and then turned her so that she was lying half across his lap, cradled by one arm. She shifted for comfort and then settled her cheek against his chest.

  “Now, tell me what you do remember. Maybe I can help you fill in some of the blanks.”

  She didn’t see how that would help, but she shrugged inwardly. “I’d gotten lost off from the rest of the group and I couldn’t raise anyone on the radio.”

  He’d been stroking her hair soothingly, but he stopped. “You sure you want to remember that part?”

  She nodded. “That’s part of it that’s bothered me the most.”

  “So … maybe it would be better not to remember it?”

  “I already have remembered part of it … I think. Are you going to let me do this my way or not?” she said a little testily.

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want to do,” he said after a long moment.

  She thought back over what she’d already told him and picked up the thread of the story again. “I thought I could see the trail above me so I decided to climb up and see if I could make it to the rendezvous before dark. I’d climbed part of the way and caught a glimpse of the trail and … I wasn’t cautious then. I was so relieved that I wasn’t lost after all that I blundered right into a bear. I think it surprised both of us and he didn’t like the surprise any better than I did. I skidded to a stop when I saw him, trying to think what to do, but he stood up and roared at me. I didn’t think at all then. I whirled around ….” She paused. “I screamed … then I turned to run and felt … this bump. It was weird because in a way I didn’t really feel it—not like I should have. I guess it was shock. And then everything was blurred, like I was falling and the motion was just so fast I couldn’t focus my eyes.”

  Fear washed through her. Goosebumps erupted all over her arms and crept up her neck.

  She shuddered. “It mauled me. That’s why everything was blurred. It was shaking me. I think I screamed again.”

  Eli tightened his arms around her.

  “How could I remember that if never happened?”

  “You think it didn’t?”

  “I wasn’t hurt when they found me … that was the next day. I couldn’t possibly have healed in that length of time. Anyway, if I was hurt that badly I would be scarred.” It had seemed real, though. It still seemed too nightmarishly real to be nothing more than a nightmare that had arisen from what she’d expected to happen.

  “What do you remember after that?” he prodded after a few moments.

  “You and John. I remember one of you … John, I think, said I was dying and I knew it was true and I was afraid.”

  “And you said you didn’t want to die.”

  Marlee pulled away and looked up at him. “And John said that I was human and you shouldn’t interfere—that the two of you would be blamed if I died.”

  “And I said …?”

  Marlee frowned. “Something about dragons.”

  She studied his face searchingly and finally settled against his chest again. “I don’t understand any of that, Eli.”

  Eli stroked her back soothingly, wondering if he should try to prod her to remember more. It seemed clear she remembered most of what had happened. She’d just dismissed it because it didn’t fit into anything she knew.

  He supposed he’d hoped she would tell him something that would help him understand what had happened—because he sure as hell didn’t, not a lot more than she did except that he knew he was a dragon and he knew that he’d managed to call upon something and heal her—some magic he hadn’t realized he could wield. At least, that was what he thought had happened.

  It had been instinct to lick her wounds—part that and part the hope that whatever was inside of him that made his own wounds close and vanish would do the same for her.

  Was that it, he wondered? Had he and John given her something when they did that?

  Something that had done far more than heal her wounds?

  He wished to hell he knew because even he couldn’t understand how it was possible that something he’d done had brought her into heat, had made her eggs receive his seed and blossom.

  It would’ve been more understandable if he could have sensed a change in her, but beyond the scent of their off-spring, he couldn’t detect anything that was any different about her than any other human. He didn’t recall that he had even at the time, although he couldn’t say that he was exactly in any frame of mind to notice a hell of a lot.

  “I couldn’t open my eyes. I remember trying and it was almost as if they were glued shut. It felt as if we were moving very fast, though, and it still seemed to take a long time before I got to the hospital.”

  “Pardon?” Eli asked, startled.

  “That was what I thought. I thought I’d been taken to a hospital. I couldn’t figure out why they were bathing me, though. I thought they should be focused on sewing up the wounds. And then I realized I wasn’t actually in a hospital, but I wasn’t cold anymore and I didn’t hurt anywhere. And then I felt almost … euphoric, better than just alright.” She considered it for a few minutes. “I suppose it was shock.”

  “I hear that plays some strange tricks on the memory,” Eli drawled.

  “You think it was shock, too?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “Don’t drag me in to it. This is your memories.” He twisted, carrying her down onto the couch and nibbled lightly at her lips. “Do you remember my kisses? That’s the main thing I’m interested in.”

  Marlee smiled against his lips. “I remember your kisses … all of them. I think that might have caused the euphoria.”

  “You think?”

  Marlee pulled away enough to meet his gaze. “I was high. It must have been on you.”

  He rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. “I was just as high on you, baby. I still am. I’m not sure I’m ever going to come down. I hope to hell I don’t.”

  ———

  Marlee didn’t know if the brothers made up the entire force of the reservation police or not, but they worked different shifts. Generally, the only time all six of them were in the house was for the evening meal. The rest of the time some were out on patrol, some were sleeping from having patrolled all night, and someone was always close by to keep an eye on her—or a hand, and sometimes their entire body, she thought with a mixture of amusement and discomfort.

  It was only when she had time alone far enough away from any of them to be distracted that she had the chance to analyze the situation and wonder just what she’d gotten herself in to.

  Despite what she’d said to Eli, she couldn’t say that the brothers treated her with contempt.

  They didn’t seem to simply assume it was a foregone conclusion that she was there for their use whenever the mood struck them. They certainly weren’t the least bit timid about trying to seduce her, but they didn’t stint her on charm either.

  She couldn’t quite figure out the sharing thing either. As she’d said, Eli had shared her with John right from the first, but he hadn’t seemed particularly happy about it at the time and she couldn’t say that he appeared to be any happier about it now. He allowed it, but he didn’t like it. She remembered him snarling at John that she was his. Actually, she remembered John behaving the same way. At the time she’d been too out of it to feel any sort of alarm about it, but it had almost been like two cur dogs fighting over a female in heat, snarling and biting at each other to be the next one to mount.

  When she’d finally remembered that she’d heard all of them, that impression increased.

  They hadn’t just been arguing about her. They’d
been demanding a turn—like a pack. She didn’t know if it was purely imagination or not, but it seemed to her like she’d actually heard more than one say that she was in heat.

  As insulting as that was in retrospect, she was obliged to admit that that was what she’d felt like. She hadn’t been upset or alarmed that she had a pack surrounding her quarreling over who was going to fuck her next. She’d been … impatient for them to settle it and scratch her itch.

  She could not accept that that was the result of any kind of mental trauma or shock. Eli was right to an extent. Shock could do weird things to the mind. People remembered doing and seeing things that had never happened or existed. But it didn’t make them behave completely out of character. The survival instinct might bring out aspects of the personality that had never exhibited before, but it had always been there regardless.

  And that would only have explained ‘the moment’ anyway. As contrary to her nature as her behavior seemed to her on a rational level, she didn’t actually feel any of the shame or guilt she knew she should have. It felt right. It shouldn’t have, but it did, and it wasn’t a simple case of overactive lust because they were all charming and handsome and available. When she was with Gabriel, she felt as if she belonged with him and he with her, that they were a couple. And when she was with Eli or John, she felt exactly the same way. She didn’t feel like she was ‘sneaking around’ or cheating on either of the others.

  How bizarre was that?

  She almost wondered if she’d had some kind of psychotic break because of the incident that had radically altered her personality. Beyond her relationships, though, she didn’t actually feel any different.

  And that was the key. It felt like she had a relationship with all of them—not just that they were lovers, but a bond that seemed to grow stronger the longer she was with them. It might be purely a combination of imagination and hope, but she felt like they felt the same way about her.

  She didn’t understand it, but although it confused her, it didn’t cause her any particular anxiety.

  The rest of her adventure continued to plague her. If she could’ve been more certain that the things she ‘remembered’ were actual memories, she might have been able to put it aside and push it from her mind. There were still too many gaps, though, and the puzzle pieces she did have didn’t fit together no matter which way she turned them.

  If the bear had actually mauled her, then everything that happened afterwards actually fit together fairly well—to a point. Severe injuries and the shock that would have resulted from them would have explained why she wasn’t able to remember anything very clearly or even remembered things ‘wrong’. She’d screamed her head off. Eli and John had heard and raced to her rescue and then had taken her somewhere to try to perform first aid to keep her from bleeding to death.

  That didn’t explain how she’d gotten from point A—near death, to point B—the object of their affections, but it would’ve explained why she thought she was dying and why she was so out of it that she’d felt as if she was in a drugged state. She would’ve been. The mind produced its own drugs to help bring a traumatized body through severe injury.

  The absence of any actual wounds completely annihilated that possibility, though.

  Scenario B—She stumbled on the bear, knew what it was going to do with her if it managed to get hold of her, screamed her head off, and then fainted. Eli and John race to her rescue, think she must be hurt and dash off with her to perform first aid. By the time they’d bathed her off and discovered she wasn’t hurt at all, she’d undergone some strange metamorphosis and become a nymphomaniac and they were so overcome with her that they started fighting over who was going to fuck her first.

  Scenario C—The brothers weren’t human at all—according to John’s statement at the time. Everything she thought she remembered happening actually had. They race off with her, heal her wounds and something they use drives her completely mad for dick—and they oblige.

  Ridiculous! Absolute garbage!

  Unless she was willing to entertain the possibility that the brothers really weren’t human but were some kind of alien hybrid or magical creatures—like dragons—and had abilities like no human.

  Before the incident, she wouldn’t have entertained such a wild idea at all. She wasn’t even certain she would’ve after the incident except that, as crazy as it sounded, it was the only thing that seemed to fit the circumstances.

  And her own government seemed to consider it a possibility. If they’d just thought she was crazy as a loon, they would’ve shipped her off to a psyche ward. They wouldn’t have been monitoring her and they wouldn’t have put out a ‘find and detain’ order when she managed to slip their leash.

  The question was, aside from the incident, which was still far from clear in her mind, what evidence did she have that the brothers weren’t human? They felt human. She’d had sex more than once with three of them and she certainly hadn’t noticed anything unusual about them beyond the effect they had on her.

  Except their eyes. Could she really say they weren’t human, though? They were certainly unique. She’d never seen anyone else with eyes that color, but they looked like human eyes except for the color and it was hardly a reason for wild conclusions when they were siblings even though the fact that they all had the same color of eyes itself was pretty unusual.

  They’d exhibited inhuman strength and speed the day she’d been attacked.

  She thought they had, but she couldn’t be certain when she’d been so out of it and even so people had been known to do some pretty amazing things when they were hyped up on adrenaline. She didn’t suppose killing a bear with their bare hands was that farfetched when men, and women, had been known to lift a car off of a child.

  If she was right and they had healed her wounds so quickly and completely that it hadn’t even left a sign on her, then they were definitely ‘not of this world’. She wasn’t sure of that, though.

  She was sure that Eli had picked up a frying pan off the stove and held it long enough it should have blistered his hand at the very least and that there was absolutely no sign of a burn on his palm. His palms were calloused, though, and that might have protected him from a burn.

  They’d all acted very strange about it, though. John had sent her to search for medical supplies they didn’t have—in fact she hadn’t found a sign of any kind of medicine in the entire house. She’d gone on the hunt for something for a headache only a few days after that, had searched the place from top to bottom, and hadn’t found so much as a band-aid.

  Yep! They were aliens alright!

  Eli hadn’t denied that John had said something about her being human and suggested they weren’t, though. He also hadn’t denied that he’d made a reference to dragons. She hadn’t asked him what he’d said.

  Because she’d been afraid he’d tell her.

  That thought made her realize that, despite all of her attempts to rationalize everything and put it neatly into slots she was comfortable with, she felt, deep down, that there were too many ‘strange’ circumstances to completely dismiss them. They felt as human to her as anyone she’d ever been intimate with, and yet the suspicion lingered that they weren’t what they seemed.

  ———

  Marlee was almost sorry she’d volunteered to do the paperwork once Aaron started carting it in. She discovered, though, that it was what she needed—real work. A real paycheck would also have been nice, but she didn’t push it. She figured working for the reservation police at least paid her way and she felt better about living with them when she knew she was pulling her own weight.

  It wasn’t as if there were a lot of places to go to spend money, after all. Gabriel decided after she’d been living with them for nearly a month that the search for her had died down enough, at least in the immediate area, to make it safe enough to leave the house occasionally on short shopping excursions. She would’ve never thought she could actually enjoy grocery shopping, but she realized deprivation had be
nefits. It made one appreciate the little things they ordinarily took for granted. It was an escape from the confines of the house—as large as it was—different scenery, the chance to see different faces.

  Curious, suspicious faces, actually. They seemed polite enough, but she felt so out of place around the Native Americans she almost felt like she was on display.

  It was damned strange to her that nobody seemed to question that Gabriel and John belonged when they looked far less like Natives with their coloring than she did, but then she was a stranger and she supposed they must have lived on the reservation for years.

  In some ways, the life she was leading seemed completely surreal. She almost felt as if she must wake up at some time or other and then she would discover none of it had been real at all.

  The baby was very real, though. It seemed to her that it was growing awfully fast, but then again she’d never had a baby before. Maybe it wasn’t particularly unusual, but it was certainly annoying and depressing to discover that she couldn’t fasten her pants and then couldn’t zip them and still wasn’t comfortable and she wasn’t even two full months along! She shuddered to think what she was going to look like in a few more months. Beached whale came to mind way too easily.

  The household wasn’t exactly tension free even after everyone seemed to settle, more or less, into a routine. Although they’d seemed friendly enough to start with, Luke, Joshua, and Aaron were distant—in every sense. She didn’t see them for days at the time and when they were around they seemed to go out of their way to give her a wide berth. She tried not to let that bother her, but it was hard to dismiss the feeling that she wasn’t welcome as far as they were concerned.

  Actually, John was pretty distant, too. She’d thought after their interlude in the kitchen that they’d glossed over whatever it was that was bothering him, but she discovered she’d thought wrong. Like Aaron, John tended to be quiet and reserved and considering how reserved they all were, that was saying something. With the others, though, she had more a sense that they were being guarded, not that it was natural part of their personalities. She thought Aaron was actually shy, although it was hard to be certain when the whole lot of them were such alpha males. For all she knew it might be wicked thoughts that preoccupied him.