She smiled back at him, thinking Mr. Washington would be quietly pleased by the title.

“You are safe now, love.”

“Yes, master.”

Hayden nuzzled at her neck until she turned her head to offer his lips to him too. “Ours,” he whispered.

“Yes, alpha,” she replied.

“And the bat means to say he’s pretty damn sure we are both falling in love with you-he’s just too embarrassed to say so in front of me.”

Stafford glared at him, but he didn’t go so far as to deny any of it.

“I think I’m falling in love with both of you, too,” she whispered back.

They both smiled down at her and pressed a last sleepy kiss to her lips.

Minutes later, they were both sound asleep. Jasmine tried to turn over to find a more comfortable position. Two strong pairs of arms wrapped tightly around her holding her in place.

Jasmine smiled to herself and closed her eyes, caught firmly between her master and her alpha.

About the Author

Kim is 25 years old, from a small town in South Wales.

After writing for years, Kim is finally editing some of the stories to share with the rest of the world. Kim writes both male/male and male/female stories that range from the dark and paranormal right through to the lighter, funnier side of life.

The only thing every story contains is a happy ever after for the two (or more!) characters that deserve it most. Oh, and kinky sex – there’s always plenty of that too – but Kim takes no responsibility for any of that. It’s all the characters’ fault. Honest…

Email: [email protected]

Kim loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com/.

Nadia Aidan

Mating Season

Chapter One

“I need you and Roarke to mate with me.”

Detective Gabriel Alekseev had just taken a sip of his morning coffee only to have it come spewing back up to stain the papers across his desk.

He stared at his partner and friend of almost two years, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

“What the hell did you just say?”

“You heard me, Gabriel. I need you and Roarke to mate with me,” Collette Talbot repeated as she folded her arms across her chest.

He stared at her in shock, unable to believe how calm she appeared, as if what she was suggesting wasn’t the least bit bizarre.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath. Where did he even begin?

“Okay, putting your statement aside for just a moment, can I ask you why you require the services of me and my best friend?”

For the first time since she’d barged into his office, she actually looked distressed. Well good, because that made two of them. She flopped down in the leather chair on the other side of his desk and released a sigh, her lovely cinnamon face glowing red as if she could barely contain a fury that simmered just beneath the surface.

“I’m in heat, or at least I will be in a week.”

Seconds ticked by in silence before he realised she wasn’t going to elaborate. “Okay, and?” He hedged.

“And, this will be my tenth cycle in heat.”

Gabriel felt all the blood he’d consumed that morning drain from his face. He wasn’t privy to all of the rituals that went with each supranatural species, but he knew enough about lycans to know mating season only came around once a decade, and it was a time of intense physical and sexual urges for lycan females, so intense that one man wasn’t always enough to satisfy her.

“You want Roarke and me to mate with you, during your mating season?” He frowned at the high pitch of his voice, shocked that he sounded like a teenage boy, but still more shocked by what she’d said.

“Yep, pretty much.” She shrugged, seemingly unfazed by any of this, and that made him all the more nervous.

“Pretty much?Damn it Collette, are you insane?”

Detective Collette Talbot cringed as her partner let loose a string of curses, his rising temper infusing his cheeks with crimson heat.

“You march in here, with this half-baked plan, and you haven’t even worked out all the details in your head, especially the part about how we’re partners and something like this could pose a problem. I can tell by how flippant you’re being that you haven’t even thought this through. When did you come up with this idea? Last night?”

This morning.“I don’t see why you’re so upset. And being partners really has nothing to do with this.” She wisely chose not to address the half-baked plan part. He was already mad enough.

He shot her a quelling look, as if to say being partners had everything to do with it.

“Why can’t you just do it with another supra?”

Do it? She frowned at his offhand comment. He made it sound as if she could just go roam the streets and pick up any guy who happened to walk by, but they both knew she couldn’t. Her mating season was far too intimate. She wanted to spend it with someone she knew, someone she trusted.

“If you were me, would you want some random supra during a time like this?” She guessed not, given the dark frown that shadowed his face.

“But you go through mating season every ten years. Why do you need Roarke and me now? What have you done in the past?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always slept with humans, but with that new law about supraspreying on humans-or doing anything that even looks like preying-well, that means humans are no longer an option. When I’m in mating heat, things can get a little wild. No one has ever been hurt before-” She shrugged again. “But let’s just say things get a bit wild.”

She almost burst out laughing at the strained expression on Gabe’s face. He looked like he’d rather be having this conversation with anyone else but her.

“I don’t understand what is so wrong with you just bonding with another lycan. You’re almost a century old now. How long do you plan to put off starting a family?”

Her brows knitted together as she frowned at him, her blood simmering with anger at his audacity. The purpose of mating season was for lycan females to do just that and mate-but with a lycan male, which meant during that time females were more susceptible to bonding urges and highly fertile. But over the centuries, many lycan females had shunned the notion of mating simply for the sake of making pups, choosing instead to mate with humans and other supra, who they were less likely to form a bond with, and more importantly, less likely to wind up pregnant by. As long as she stayed away from a lycan male, she would be fine-for the most part.

“You seem so certain of what I should do with my life, but what about yours? How long do you plan on putting off having a family?”

His face reddened some more, if that was even possible, and he seemed visibly flustered by her question. “This isn’t about me.”

“Exactly. This isn’t about you, it’s about me, and you know I’ve said many times before that I’m not ready to mate and have pups. So, let’s just leave it at that,” she said, wincing slightly at her brusque tone. It wasn’t Gabe’s fault that he’d hit a sensitive nerve, but she couldn’t help but bristle at his comment. Her entire family had an opinion about when she was going to start a family. She didn’t need Gabe to add his two cents to the list.