fucking scared I was through all this? I didn’t do this job on your Gods-benighted, busted ankle to have you ruin all my hard word with pixie-brained idiocy like dancing on a newly healed joint.”
Tynan rubbed his mouth to hide his smile…but his shoulders shook. And she burst into giggles.
Donal scowled at his brother then her. “You laugh? Laugh?”
Oh Gods, she couldn’t catch her breath she was laughing so hard. “I love you, you know.” What was he going to do when he had a litter of cubs to drive him crazy?
Huffing, he resumed his seat, leaned forward, and kissed her giggles away. “Bad wolf.”
She hugged him, then tipped her head back and kissed Tynan. “Thank you. Thank you both. For the healing and the handholding.”
For being there. For loving her.
“That’s what mates are for, Meggie mine.” Tynan picked the glass up. “If you get some fluids in you, we might let you have something sweet. Maybe.”
She took a sip of the apple juice. “One of you actually cooked a dessert?”
“Gods forbid,” Donal muttered.
Tynan lifted the basket and set it on her lap. “We have cookies of all kinds, two cakes, scones, and donuts with sprinkles.”
As the scent of baked goods wafted up, her stomach rumbled hungrily. “You bought out a bakery?”
“No.” Donal smiled at her. “Your clan was worried. All your friends as well as all the shifters you’ve treated brought something.”
“Sent with love to speed your healing.” Tynan stroked her hair.
This time when she burst into tears, her mates just laughed.
Once she’d recovered, she drank down the juice. She ate a muffin—because blueberries made it healthy—followed by a chocolate chip cookie, because…chocolate.
With a sigh, she leaned back against the headboard. “That was awesome. I’ll have to thank them all.”
Once she was moving again. Which might be a while.
“The carpenter-crew, too,” Tynan said.
“Huh?”
He was saying something about a window and changing something out while she was sedated.
Donal laughed. “Brawd, she’s not following a word of that.”
Tynan chuckled, and she felt him sliding her down in the bed. “Sleep, lass.”
“But I just woke up.” Her body started to slide back toward sleep—stupid sedation—and her eyelids felt as if pixies were dragging on the lashes. “I can’t be tired already.”
“Sure, you can.” Tynan tucked the covers around her. “It’s late, little wolf.”
“I don’t want to sleep.” Tears threatened because…maybe it was the nightmares, but the past seemed too close tonight. The memory of the bare cell, empty of people. Sitting under the tiny window, longing for the moon. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“That we can fix.” Donal pulled off his clothes and slid into bed beside her.
“I didn’t sit with the moon,” she protested, even as he pulled her against him. Oh, he was so wonderfully warm she wanted to cry.
“We’ll let the moon come to you tonight,” Tynan walked over to the south wall.
She shook her head. What was he thinking? To be in the light, she had to sit directly beneath the—
He pulled the curtains.
She stared. The small windows were gone, replaced by three huge windows that took up most of the wall and opened the room to the black sky. And the nearly full moon.
“Oooooh.” Nothing had ever been more beautiful. The moon—and the love that had known her need and fulfilled it.
“Looks like we silenced her completely.” Tynan grinned at his brother and slid into bed on her other side, pinning her between them.
They tucked her onto her side, her head on Tynan’s shoulder, her leg over his thighs. Her hand was on his chest, his fingers laced with hers. Donal curled up behind her, his chest against her back, his arm over her waist…and his palm cupping one breast.
It was their favorite way to sleep.
Their warmth was almost as wonderful as the sense of safety they gave her. The memory of the empty cell faded under the callused hands stroking her, the gentle kisses.
“I love you two so much…mountains and lakes of love.”
Tynan’s low rumbling laugh told her she wasn’t making sense, but the lake of love was there, growing infinitely deep, as her lifemates held her between them.
As she fell asleep, the silvery moonglow poured through the windows, bathing them in light.
Glossary
The Daonain use a conglomeration of handed-down languages from the British Isles. Some of the older villages still speak the Gaelic (Scots) or Irish Gaelic. Many of the more common (and mangled) shifter terms have descended from Welsh.
Errors and simplification of spelling and pronunciation can be attributed to being passed down through generations…or