Pandemonium by R.E. Butler

Chapter Eight

Benecio, alpha of the Elk Hills Pride, swiveled in the chair at the hole-in-the-wall bar in a town just outside of Kedrick. He was waiting for news from his spies, pride members he’d sent into Kedrick to keep tabs on a certain lioness who thought she was too good for him. The spies were also keeping track of the security patrols in town.

He couldn’t believe he was in the position he was in now, but it truly wasn’t his fault. He’d been at Tails with several pride members to discuss a mate-matching debacle involving one of Kedrick’s pride members and a female from Benecio’s pride. When he’d thought the matter was settled, Benecio’s female tried to attack a human female under Duke’s protection, and that’s when he’d seen her: Demi. Petite, lushly curved, with quick reflexes and a growl that would make a grown male think twice about messing with her.

She’d intervened between the lioness and the human and he’d known in that instant that she would be a perfect mate for him.

Demi had taken one look at Benecio and refused him. Hadn’t even given him a second thought, as if he weren’t a male of great prowess and superior genetics. She should’ve been honored he’d chosen her as his alpha female. Instead, she seemed almost insulted.

Which insulted the hell out of him.

Her parents had been on Benecio’s side until Demi’s brother had mated a human female. Now they’d decided lions could mate with whoever they chose, and that included Demi. Demi’s father and Duke had called a meeting with Benecio and declared that not only was Demi free to mate whoever she wanted, she’d made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to be Benecio’s mate. To top off that new and stinging insult to his pride, Duke declared that Benecio and the Elk Hills Pride were no longer welcome within the pride’s territory, including the bar.

It had taken a few days, but he’d finally come up with a plan to retaliate. He couldn’t let the repeated insults from the Kedrick pride go. He was losing face with his people, and the possibility of a coup grew with each passing day. There was a target on his back. He hadn’t killed the previous alpha and his number two to take over the Elk Hills Pride in order to die at the hands of his own people because some bitch had a bug up her ass about him and her alpha had insulted him.

But that’s how his pride worked. Males watched for weaknesses and exploited them. He’d done it himself, so he didn’t begrudge others from following in his footsteps. However, he wasn’t about to be taken out because of this nonsense. Duke and his people had pushed too hard, and now they were going to suffer.

Particularly Demi.

He chose males that Duke and his people hadn’t met in their previous encounters to track Demi and keep tabs on the pride’s security.

The bar door creaked as it opened and he looked over his shoulder to see his spies come in. The bar was mostly empty, even though it was a Friday night, but Benecio suspected that it would get more crowded as the night went on. It wasn’t even midnight.

Benecio motioned to the bartender and he served the males beer and they took their drinks to a corner booth near a filthy jukebox that wasn’t even plugged in.

The males looked at each other nervously and Benecio’s hackles went up. What had they seen?

After a few tense moments, he growled. “Well?”

Drager cleared his throat. “We’ve seen the repetition of the security patrols and we have their schedules down pat. We believe the time to strike—”

Benecio put his hand up and the male paused mid-sentence. “Tell me about the female.” He could feel in his gut that they didn’t have good news and he’d rather hear it first.

Voll grimaced, then sniffed. “She’s mated now.”

“What?” Benecio bellowed.

The males leaned away from him and showed their necks.

It took a moment, but Benecio calmed enough to appear rational so the bartender didn’t do anything stupid like call the police.

“We’re sorry,” Tolis said. “There was a band playing and two of the band members met up with her. They left together. We followed them to the diner and then to her home.”

“What?” Benecio demanded. There was no way Demi would mate two males. Her family was traditional, as was the pride. It was unheard of for two males and one female to form a mating group. Even if the pride was becoming progressive, letting their people choose their own mates outside of lions was one thing. A mating trio was an entirely different situation.

“It’s all they were talking about,” Drager said.

“What did she say exactly?” Benecio asked.

“She said the two males were her heart-matches.”

Now he was pissed. Well, that was an understatement. He’d been pissed before, but in a general way.

Now he was scorched-earth pissed.

“Nothing changes about the plans,” Benecio said. “We’ll just move things up a bit.” He leaned his elbows on the scratched up table. “Find me a runner. There’s a message that needs to be delivered.”

* * *

Demi smiled at Rafe as he held open the door to Tails for her. She walked into the bar and they followed behind. The bar was dark, save for a strip of lights over the counter and a light in the hall on the other side.

“Hey guys,” Titus said.

She glanced up and found him standing on the balcony of the second floor. “Hi, Titus.”

“Duke’s in his office. He’d like to talk to you three first, and then we can have Rebel and Maverick join us.”

“All three of us?” she asked.

She’d expected Duke to speak to her privately about Rafe and Rhaider, and for Titus to talk to the guys about whether they had the house band gig or not.

“Yep,” Titus said. “I unlocked the security door so you can come right up.”

“Should we stay down here? Rebel asked.

“Yeah, I’ll call you up when the conversation switches to business,” Titus said.

“Good luck,” Maverick said.

Rafe and Rhaider took her hands as they walked to the security door.

“There are offices up there?” Rafe asked.

“They both have offices on the second floor and there are apartments as well. Duke used to live here until he mated Ree and they moved into the alpha house after they took over the pride. Now it’s just Titus, and they use the apartment for visitors and pride members who need someplace for a night or two.”

“Cool,” Rhaider said.

She wasn’t so sure she’d ever like living at the bar, but it seemed to suit Titus just fine.

Rhaider grabbed the security door and held it for her, and she led them up the stairs to the second floor. Duke’s office was open, and they walked inside, finding Duke and Ree on the couch and Titus on a nearby chair. There were three empty chairs by him.

“Welcome,” Duke said, rising to his feet. “I’m Duke Fairborn, and this is my mate, Ree. We’re the alphas of the pride.”

Rafe and Rhaider introduced themselves and shook hands with the alphas, and Ree gave Demi a hug.

When they were all seated again, Duke said, “So after you called me this morning to tell me you’d met your heart-matches, I told Titus we needed to chat with all three of you. First, though, have you told your parents?”

Demi shook her head. “Not yet. I plan to call them after this, and see if they’re up to a visit.”

“How do you think they’ll be?” Ree asked.

“I honestly don’t know. They said they’d support me in whoever I chose to mate, but this isn’t a normal situation by any stretch.”

Rafe gave her hand a squeeze.

Duke cleared his throat. “You look nervous.”

Demi chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then said, “This is unusual. I’m nervous about how everyone will react to our trio when it’s so atypical. I wondered if you might want to exile me because of it.”

He shook his head. “I’m not in the habit of telling pride members what to do with their love lives. Yes, it’s unusual, but until I mated Ree, it was unheard of for an alpha to have a human mate.” He shrugged. “Plus, I’m pretty sure Ree wouldn’t let me exile you anyway.”

Ree grinned. “You know it.”

Demi let out a relieved breath. “Thanks for being so understanding.”

“You bet. Now that we’re done with the relationship stuff, let’s get your band mates up here,” Duke said.

Titus left the apartment and returned a few moments later with Rebel and Maverick, who took their seats.

“Ree and I watched the live stream of your sets last night. You did well and the crowd enjoyed themselves. How did you like it?” Duke asked.

“It was great,” Rhaider said. “Good crowd and everything went smoothly. Everyone we met was friendly.”

Titus smiled. “Our people are generally friendly. I’m glad that came across. I chatted up the crowd after your last set and no one had anything bad to say. The last band that played here were people from our own pride, but there were some issues with them and they’ve since left the pride.”

Demi barely held back a snort. Issues? The previous band had gone after Barron because he’d mated a human female and they didn’t believe in mixing shifters and humans. Some lions were assholes and only thought lions should mate with lions. She didn’t care what anyone else did in their houses—she just wanted the ability to make her own romantic choices.

Like she’d done last night when she’d taken Rafe and Rhaider home.

Sexy, sexy males.

She was already half in love with them.

“I already gave you the quick rundown of things,” Titus said. “You know it’s Thursday through Sunday nights, three sets of one hour each at eight, ten, and midnight. We’d like to offer you the gig.”

“It’s five hundred a night for you guys to split,” Duke said. “There will be different drink specials each night, and you’ll get another ten percent of those drink sales. You can also set up a merch table and if you have a website, we can link to that on our bar’s website.”

Demi had no idea if the money Duke mentioned was good for a band or not, but she thought it was neat they got a percentage of drink sales. And she definitely wanted to have a Midnight Grizzlies shirt to wear.

“If you take other gigs like parties or weddings, we have a band we can use to fill in, but we’d prefer not to have that be a habit.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Rebel said. “The bar would be our priority, and any gigs we accepted would either be for during the weekend days or weekdays.”

Titus nodded in agreement.

Rhaider looked at Rebel and Maverick. “Are you guys happy?”

“We are,” Maverick said. “We talked last night and we think it’s a great place to work.”

“Yep,” Rebel said.

“Good,” Rafe said. He looked at Duke. “We accept the job.”

“Great,” Duke said.

“Could we do something about requests?” Titus asked. “I don’t want people coming up to you while you’re playing and distracting you.”

“I made an app,” Maverick said. “We’ll have the QR code on our merch table. People can use the app to request songs and see our catalog of music.”

“That’s awesome,” Duke said. “Welcome aboard. So, what’s the plan for living arrangements?”

Ree smacked his shoulder. “You can’t ask that yet! They just met last night.”

“They’re heart-matches,” Duke said, giving Ree an indulgent smile. “And lions move fast when it comes to matters of the heart.”

Her males looked at her, and Demi said, “We haven’t fully discussed it yet. Maverick and Rebel are staying at the B&B, but Rafe and Rhaider can stay with me at my place.”

For now, she thought. It wasn’t really big enough for three adults, not to mention she hoped to start a family someday. And their band would need a place to practice.

“So, about the pride,” Duke said. He put his arm around Ree. “Once you’re mated, you can join the pride as members. Although your mating as a trio isn’t usual, our pride isn’t in the business of telling anyone how to live their private lives. All of you are welcome to hunt in the territory with our people. We have a big hunt once a month. If any of you want to go out in your shift at other times, let me or Titus know and we’ll get some people to go out with you. It would be easier to have lions with you instead of you by yourselves, since natural bears don’t come into our territory and I wouldn’t want you to be harmed if someone freaked out.”

“That sounds great,” Rhaider said. “We’ll keep you posted.”

Demi definitely liked the idea of mating them officially. She couldn’t wait to get them alone again.

“Are you looking for work?” Titus asked.

“We’re both teachers,” Rafe said, “so yes we’re looking for work, and we’ll also offer private music lessons once we get settled and have rehearsal space. Rebel and Maverick will be looking for work too.”

“If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know,” Titus said. “We don’t have any openings at the bar right now.”

“That’s no problem,” Rhaider said. “Now that we’ve got the gig, we can get moving on all that other stuff.”

“Sounds good,” Duke said. “So, you’ll start tonight?”

“Of course,” Rafe said.

“Wait, don’t you want to take time off?” Ree asked.

“For what?” Rhaider asked.

“You just met each other. You don’t want time to…” Ree looked at Duke helplessly, like she couldn’t think of the right words.

Demi thought it was sweet. “They’re staying with me. We’ll have the weekend afternoons to ourselves, plus weeknights when I’m not grading papers. When we’re ready to take time off, we’ll let you guys know, but I’d love to hear them play again tonight.”

Rafe nodded, and so did Rhaider. “We’re fine with starting tonight,” Rhaider said.

Everyone stood and shook hands. Demi and Ree hugged, then Duke and Ree left. Titus had paperwork for the band to sign, so Demi sat and waited for them to go over everything. By the time they were finished, she was starving and ready for lunch.

“Sure you don’t want to call your folks first and make plans for a visit?” Rafe asked as he opened the car door for her.

Her heart jumped into her throat and she froze, feeling like a proverbial deer in headlights.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, leaning in for a kiss. “I’m not trying to push you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Well, what about your mom?”

Rhaider tapped the hood of the car. “We were going to ask if you’d like to video call with her after lunch.”

“I’d love that,” Demi said.

Rafe looked at Maverick and Rebel. “Do you guys want to join us for lunch?”

“Sure,” Maverick said.

“The B&B’s breakfast buffet was awesome. They also serve lunch too. We could eat there.”

“Sounds good,” Rhaider said.

Rhaider sat in the backseat with her, squishing up against her so she got in plenty of snuggling time while Rafe drove to the B&B, which was owned by a mated lion couple. The B&B was open to shifters of any sort, humans, and other supernatural creatures.

“I never thought about you guys not making a ton of money with the band gigs,” she said as Rafe parked next to their big van.

“It can be pretty lean,” Rhaider said as he got out of the back seat and groaned as he stretched to his full height. “We all had savings to carry us, but when we were in places where the weather was nice, we’d camp out instead of spending money on a hotel. Sometimes we slept in the van if we couldn’t find a place to stay that was cheap enough and the weather sucked. The B&B is nice, though. If the gig hadn’t worked out at Tails, there are a few other bars around looking for bands so we were planning to stick around for a little while.”

“You don’t mind being here?” she asked.

“As opposed to?” Rafe asked as he took her hand. “Since we’re exiled from our clan, we can’t go back there.”

“I know, but we could go somewhere on our own and start our own group.”

“We’re happy to be here, sweets,” Rhaider said. “We’ve traveled the country looking for our heart-match. We always hoped we’d be able to settle in with our heart-match’s people, whoever or whatever they were. If we weren’t welcome in the pride because we’re bears, then we would have taken you with us and made a group of our own. A clan-pride.”

“Cride,” Rafe said. “Plan. Ha!”

Demi giggled and went onto her toes and kissed first Rafe and then Rhaider. “I’m so glad you came to Kedrick. And I’m doubly glad you’re staying.”

“Us too,” Rhaider said.

They walked into the B&B and hooked a right to the dining room, finding a table that would seat all of them. “After lunch we’ll call our mom,” Rafe said.

Her heart still thudded a bit at the thought of talking to her parents. While they had said they supported her in her desire to find her heart-match, she wasn’t just bringing one male home to meet them. She was bringing two.

She hadn’t even fully wrapped her head around that yet.

And they hadn’t done more than kiss.

Granted, the kisses had been spectacular. And she’d never felt safer and more cared for her in life than she did falling asleep with their arms around her.

Waking up with them had been heaven.

She straightened her shoulders. “After we call your mom, we’ll call my parents.”

“Are you sure?” Rhaider asked.

“I am. I want them to know I’ve found you both, and how happy I am. I’m excited that you’re in my life now, and I want to share that with them.”

“We’ll be right there with you,” Rafe said.

She blew out a breath. “Good! I might need some emotional support.”

“You got it,” Rhaider said, giving her a wink.