Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
RYKER
Well, shit. Now I’ve tasted her, there’s no way I could leave her.
I already knew I was a goner the moment I met her, but this just sealed the deal for me.
I didn’t care what she told me about her past, even if she was married, which she said she isn’t, I’d make sure she had room for me among her other men. She wasn’t getting rid of me now.
But I can tell there was something a little different about her. She isn’t like anybody I’ve ever met, and the way she seems confused about being attracted to both of us tells me there is more going on here.
Once I’m done cleaning all her delicious juices from her pussy, I help Braxton wrap her up in the furs.
I guide her to a seat near the fire pit, as Braxton gets to work lighting a fire.
It doesn’t take him much time at all, proving that he’s been living out here for a while and knows how to take care of himself.
That’s good, my mate needs men who can help take care of her.
Of course, I’ll always take care of her to the best of my abilities, but I don’t exactly know how to survive on a snowy mountaintop like this.
Braxton can give her something I can’t, I just hope she sees that there’s room for both of us in her life.
“So, Penny, why don’t you tell us about yourself,” I prod, once the fire is started and Braxton sits on her other side.
She lets out a puff of air. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you ended up at the mating hunt?”
She nods her head as she stares at the fire in thought. “Okay, I think I’ll have to go back a little further to be able to explain that. You see, I’m not from this world. I’m from the human world.” That was not what I expected her to say.
“Uhh… you do know that we’re both humans too, right?” Braxton asks, motioning to him and myself.
“Well, yeah, I guess I did know that. But I don’t know, that’s what the woman called it, the human realm and the Dyconian realm.”
“What woman?”
“Ugg, I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay, so in my world, let’s just call it the human world for ease, my best friend, Ria, went missing a year ago.
A month later she came back, except it wasn’t her.
She looked and sounded the same, but I knew it wasn’t her.
It was clear she didn’t recognize me, and we had grown up together, so I could tell the moment I saw her that it wasn’t my Ria.
She was also missing a small scar on the inside of her wrist that she’s had since we were ten.
“The last time we spoke before she disappeared, she had received a card under her door that spoke about granting her greatest wish. I tried to find the place that she had called but the number didn’t work.
It wasn’t until a year later, which technically I think was this morning, that I received the same card.
So I called the number, and they gave me their address.
When I got there, the woman told me that me and Ria’s souls were born into the wrong world. We were supposed to be born in Dyconia. Which means the souls that were meant for the human realm ended up in our identical bodies here in this world. Her job is to switch us back.
“She sent Ria here a year ago and said I needed to follow. When she opened a sort of portal into this world, I may have gotten a little ahead of myself and went through before she gave me any instructions or directions. And it closed up behind me, cutting us off. So, I’m afraid I don’t really know anything about your world.
I have no idea how it differs from mine.
All I’ve seen of it so far was the beginning of the mating hunt, and then everything I experienced with you, Ryker. ”
“Wow,” I say when she finishes that dump of information.
“You don’t believe me, do you? You’re going to ditch me now. Can you at least help me get down from this mountain so I don’t freeze to death?”
“Penny, calm down. Give us a minute to absorb what you just said. Of course we believe you, we’re just trying to process what it means,” I tell her as I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her into my side.
“You do?” she asks, looking at me with hope and surprise before turning to look at Braxton.
“Of course, why would you lie about that?” he asks, looking at her in confusion.
“How are you guys so perfect? For that matter, how are you single? I would imagine any girl would be frothing at the mouth to sink her teeth into either of you.”
“Is that what you want to do, Baby? Sink your teeth into me?” She squirms in her seat at Braxton’s heated words, and I can’t help but rub my hand over her shoulder, providing her comfort.
I try to process what she’s told us, and the conversation we had before this all started. She was confused about the idea of not having to choose between us. Perhaps things work differently where she was from. The most important thing right now was clarifying exactly what she meant to me.
“Pen, tell me, where you’re from, do women normally have to choose between men?”
She turns her confused face to mine. “Of course, I don’t just go around having casual relationships with the entire male population. If I want a serious relationship, I have to choose one man to have it with.”
“One man,” I repeat as I look over her head and meet Braxton’s intense eyes. I knew he was thinking the same thing as me.
“Pen, what does your population of men and women look like where you’re from?”
She scrunches up her face as she replies, “What do you mean?”
“What’s the ratio of men to women?”
“Oh, one to one.” she looks between us both before something seems to click for her. “Wait, why? What’s the ratio here?”
“Nobody knows the exact numbers, but it’s at least ten to one, if not twenty to one.”
Her eyebrows almost touch her hairline in shock. “You mean there’s only one woman to every ten men?”
I nod. “So what ends up happening is multiple men marry the same woman.”
Her jaw drops open as she stares at me, speechless for a moment. “How… how does that even work?”
“Well,” Braxton starts to answer for her.
“Normally a group of brothers will marry together. It gives them the best chance of carrying on their family line with any children they might have. Even if a child isn’t theirs, it will belong to one of their brothers, therefore carrying on their bloodline. ”
“But—” her head rallies between us for a moment before she continues. “What about men who don’t have brothers, what do they do?”
“You’re looking at them. We’re the lonelings, men without brothers.”
She furrows her eyebrows at me again before asking, “But what does that mean in terms of marrying someone?”
I sigh as my gaze meets Braxton’s sad eyes. This is the part I’m not looking forward to explaining. This is the part where she realizes she’s stuck with the outcasts of this world, a world in which she could have pretty much any man she wants.
“Women want men who can provide for them. A group of brothers offers stability in many ways. They are bonded by blood and deemed more reliable, often having better jobs, income, and overall stability and security. They would have parents who would fully support them and be grandparents for their kids. They were brought up knowing that they were going to be good providers for their future wife.”
“Umm… that sounds like a load of crap to me.”
“What?” I ask her, a little shocked.
“I’m not sure why any of those things matter. I don’t want a man because of his money or because he has parents. Because he’s looked at better by society. That’s just… dumb.”
“What do you want from a man, then?” Braxton asks, sounding both nervous and hopeful. I couldn’t help mirror his emotions.
She looks at the fire and seems to be thinking heavily on her words.
“I want a man who loves me for me, and not because of what I bring to the table financially. Just as I would love him for who he is and not his possessions. I want someone who truly cares for me, who won’t quit on me or run away when things get hard, a man who genuinely just wants to spend time with me.
Someone who’s not afraid of commitment or the thought of a future together. ”
The three of us are silent for a minute as we all consider her words.
I could be all those things for her, I already cared for her, and I knew that I wouldn’t let anything drive us apart.
but this was not an easy world for women, and for her to be safest here, she would need to accept more than one mate, one husband.
It didn’t sound like that was something they did in her world.
Would she be able to come around to the idea of being with more than one man?
I’d only just met her a few hours ago though, and I don’t want to scare her off just yet with talk of mates and marriage. But maybe if she could… feel the benefits of multiple mates, she’d be more susceptible to it?
“Tell me, Penny. In your world, how do first dates usually end?”
“Well, the good ones might end in a goodnight kiss.”
I use my fingers to tilt her chin towards me, I look at her lips while licking mine before asking, “And the really good ones?”
“I’ve never had one end with anything more than a kiss,” she all but whispers.
“I guess you haven’t had any really good dates then, hmm?”
“Uh huh,” she agrees while staring at my lips, licking her own in anticipation. “What about you? Do you do more than kiss on a first date?”
“Hmm…” I turn her head slightly to kiss the soft spot behind her ear before giving it a little lick. “Well, considering the lack of women, most men are virgins until they meet their future wife. I have heard of some women sampling men before she chooses, though.”
“Wait… does that mean that both of you are…” she trails off and Braxton answers for us.
“Virgins? Yes.”
“Impossible, you’re both way too hot to be virgins.”
“And what about you, baby? Has a man been inside this body?”
“Y-yes. Does that upset you?”
Surprisingly, it doesn’t. I definitely feel some jealousy towards anybody else that got to be intimate with my woman, but it means that we don’t have to be overly careful with her our first time. It also means that she probably already knows what she likes and can help direct us.
“No, Baby, you can help us explore you.” I realize Braxton’s hands are inside the fur, stroking up her thighs.
I take my free hand and slide it through the top of the fur, by her shoulders, moving it down until I touch the top of her breast. Slowly I move my fingers around it and rub circles on her nipple before squeezing her whole breast. it doesn’t even fit in my hand, and it’s so much softer than I expected.
“Wait—Guys… I-I don’t want to do this.” I instantly freeze my movements, waiting for her to elaborate. She doesn’t want this? She doesn’t want us?
“That’s okay, Baby. We don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to. We can just make you feel good.”
“Holy smokes, Braxton! You’re going to make me self-combust if you keep talking to me like that.” She lets out a puff of air and I see him smile at her. So she isn’t rejecting us?
“I just meant that if you both touch me again, I won’t be able to choose between you.”
Ah, I see the problem. She still wasn’t understanding us.
“Penny, look at me.” Her bright green eyes find mine before I continue. “We’re telling you, you don’t have to choose. You can have us both.”
“I don’t mean right now, I mean, I’ll never be able to choose.”
“You don’t have to, Penny, you can keep us both.”
Her eyes go wide before she reaches out and pinches her arm.
“Don’t do that,” Brax scolds her, pulling her hand away from her arm.
“I just wanted to pinch myself, see if this is actually a dream.”
“It’s real, Baby. Doesn’t this feel real?” he asks, pulling her fingers up to his lips as he kisses them.
“No.” She shakes her head. “This feels too good to be true.”
“I bet we can make you feel even better,” I challenge her, licking my lips, where her taste lingers.
I see the excitement in her eyes as she looks at me with pure heat. I turn her so her back is against my chest, and we slowly pull the furs off her. I reach down and grab her breasts. They are so soft in my rough hands, I can’t get enough. As soon as I start flicking her nipples, she moans, “Ry!”
I keep working her up and when her moans increase, I know Braxton has his hands on her, too. I move to my knees and place her head on my thigh. Braxton moves her lower half towards him, positioning her laying on her back.
I look down at her glorious naked body, sprawled between us.
She is exquisite. I lick my lips and lean forward to take her nipple in my mouth.
She tastes divine, and I moan as my tongue flicks over her peak, my actions causing her back to arch into me.
I move my right hand to her other breast, mirroring my actions with my thumb.
“Oh! Ry!” Her nickname for me as she moans with pleasure makes me work even harder to show her how much I care about her.
“Brax, I need you!”