Backstage at the Freak Show (Harem of Freaks #7) - Crystal Ash Page 0,3

stopped, withdrawing his fingers from me, and kissing my thighs again, when my breathing and heartbeat finally began to slow down.

“Mm,” he sighed contently, looking up at me. “Most important meal of the day.”

2

Miriam

After showering, I found Gabe in the kitchen, looking at his phone with a cup of coffee in front of him. He was shirtless, only wearing lounge pants with his feet up on the kitchen table. Colt hated when he did that, which was the main reason why he kept doing it.

In our modest two bedroom cabin in the Georgia wilderness, there was no way Gabe didn’t hear what Colt and I were just up to.

“Hey,” I greeted him, making my way to the counter where the full French press called to me like a caffeine beacon. “Ready for today?”

“You mean ready for a bunch of strange shifters to overrun the place like a convention of weirdos?” he scoffed, not looking up from his phone screen. “Sure. Guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

I went to pour coffee for myself before noticing my favorite mug was missing from the cabinet.

“Have you seen my—”

“Right there.” He glanced up for half a second to nod at my mug, a handmade ceramic piece covered in a bright purple glaze, sitting at the far end of the counter.

It had already been filled with coffee, and was accompanied by a plate of grapes, scrambled eggs, and slices of breakfast sausage.

Looking back at him, Gabe’s attention returned to the phone as if I wasn’t in the room.

“Thanks,” I carried the mug and plate to the seat next to him at the table.

“Mm,” was his reply.

After a moment of thought, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. His expression didn’t change but I saw the flush creep up his neck.

Once I started eating, he put his phone down and stretched his muscular arms over his head. “Just didn’t want you to end up hangry,” he groaned through his stretch.

Gabe and Colt couldn’t be more opposites, both in looks and demeanor. While Colt was tall and lean with a dancer or swimmer’s build, Gabe was broad and a few inches shorter like a wrestler. Both had hair down to their collarbone and otherworldly, modelesque facial features. Colt’s hair was darker and Gabe’s was a reddish auburn.

Colt was also the open book while Gabe was a locked down fortress. Falling for Colt had been easy, with his charming wit and smile, and being so openly affectionate toward me. While he did mourn the loss of his pack, he looked toward a new future of shaman and shifter working together, with open arms.

Gabe on the other hand resisted every increment of change in his new life. Humans hunted down his pack to the point where they had to separate. Colt and Gabe stayed together, but their third brother Hunter was captured along with his two pups.

My two wolves had never heard of shaman, but I knew exactly what they were the moment they started sniffing around my old butcher shop for scraps. Sensing nearby shifters was the first training point for a shaman, but I had to earn the wolves trust before revealing that I knew their secret.

Every day with Gabe was a hot and cold game. He kept his feelings guarded behind that painfully handsome face, showing the briefest moments of warmth in gestures like this morning’s breakfast, or the way his body curled around mine at night.

I couldn’t entirely blame him. Wolves were raised in very rigid, old-school traditions. They were protective of their pack families for good reason. It was all that Gabe knew, and what he prided himself on. He was raised not to trust humans and in an instant, his pack was gone and he resorted to scavenging for food.

Even for a wolf shifter, Gabe was proud. He seemed allergic to smiling or admitting being wrong about something. He seemed content to sleep with me, even sharing me with his brother, but the moment any deeper feelings were breached, he pulled back like a hand on a hot stove.

And yet, I stayed hopeful that he would open up to me one day. Maybe I did so foolishly. But every time I got frustrated to the point of wanting to give up on Gabe, he showed me there was more to him.

When I first met him, there was no way he would have approved his brother of marrying a shaman. In his eyes, wolves only needed each other. Not humans. But after