Between Three Alphas (Steamy BBW Werebear Shifter FMMM Menage Romance) by Willow Wilde Read Free Book Online Page B

we're pretty much the only ones here...besides our heroes, of course.”
     
    “Did somebody call for me?” The burly man asked, suddenly appearing behind us. As he glanced upon us, there was a twinkle of a mischievous smile beneath his thick beard.
     
    “Oh, nothing at all Ben, you've already done enough for us!” Jenn gushed, giggling nervously. “I mean, you already pulled us from the storm with your big, strong arms...”
     
    I stifled a groan, but Ben briefly shared a knowing smile. Jenn liked to think that she was an expert player in the “hard to get” game, but that was only in some weird parallel world where “hard to get” meant “let's fuck on the first date.” For all of her attempts at being coy, in actuality she was about as hard to read as a freaking billboard.
     
    Ben took the high road. “It was nothing,” he responded humbly. “And it wasn't just me, my brothers were with me out there...five of us...looking for anyone caught out in the storm.”
     
    “Yeah, what happened out there?” I suddenly asked, glancing out the window again. “I mean, we checked the Weather Channel like our lives depended on it for the last week...it was supposed to be sunny skies all around.”
     
    Ben stood closer to the window, following my gaze. Losing himself in thought, his fingers found their way into his beard, scratching softly against his hair. “I'm going to be completely honest, I have no idea,” he finally answered. “Up in the mountains, we sort of expect this weather sometimes...but there wasn't a cloud in the sky a couple of hours ago. Wonder if it has anything to do with the legend...”
     
    “Legend?” Jenn and I asked in unison.
     
    “Oh, it's silly,” Ben told us, shaking his head with a grin. “Just some old story.”
     
    My gaze flew over the otherwise abandoned lobby. His brothers were upstairs, and we were the only other guests around. A cursory look out the window showed that the storm wasn't letting up anytime soon.
     
    “I...think we have the time,” I slyly told him.
     
    “Yeah,” Jenn answered quietly, a tinge of dejection in her voice. “This whole trip just became a big bust. Let's at least get a little fun out of it.”
     
    “Well, alright then,” Ben conceded. “So, as recent as a century ago, these mountains were the lands of a very spiritual Native tribe. The word goes that they've been in these peaks for a thousand years. Very tied to the land. Nobody even knew they were here until this region was settled and scarce on unclaimed land.”
     
    We both nodded as he continued.
     
    “So, I don't know if it was the high altitudes fiddling with their brains, or all the herbal concoctions they were undoubtedly taking, but they got it into their heads that there was a man up in these mountains who could become a bear. This man apparently offered them protection in exchange for women, who he promptly returned...pregnant, every time. The women who pledged themselves to him would conceive normal boys, but around the age of puberty they would gain the power to become bears as well...and so it goes on.”
     
    “But what does this have to do with the storm?” I asked.
     
    “Right, the storm.” He glanced out the window at the harrowing snow for a moment, with a brief flicker of tenderness across his face. “The storm was a punishment. This bear-man was what translates roughly into a “shifter”. This shifter, the legend says, was very powerful. He was the god of the forest, and it bent to him – even the weather. When he came for women and the tribe didn't pay tribute, he would inflict a savage snowstorm on the peaks. It would come completely out of nowhere and thrash itself wildly across the land, a lot like this.” He indicated outside, and our gazes were pulled to the swirling madness just feet from us. “Not only did it trap them where they were, but something about the storm inspired a mating frenzy in the shifters among them. They would find their