Rose, Charlotte - Bayou Flood [The Shifters of Alligator Bend 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Free Page A

clothes back on. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Virgil, fully human again, zipping up his jeans and then pulling on his T-shirt.
    “So what the hell just happened?” Gabriel asked, trying to keep his cool. He wanted answers, but he knew his friends didn’t deserve to be snapped at.
    Nelson chuckled. “Just be glad that we were here. Otherwise, things could’ve gotten complicated. You remember what happened to us last month?”
    Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “You sayin’ that we got hit by the matin’ instinct? That she’s our mate?”
    Xavier nodded. “The one and only.”
    “Is that why we felt the need to check out her set, even though we’d never heard of her before?” Virgil asked.
    “I imagine so. Congratulations, you’ve found your mate.”
    “What do we do now?”
    Now it was Oscar’s turn to laugh. “I imagine the first order of business is to wake her up.”

    * * * *

    The first thing Sophie felt as she regained consciousness was the sting of the guitar string wound on her cheek, as well as a dull ache forming behind her forehead. As she became more aware of her surroundings, her heart began to race as she observed a group of strangers crouched down and staring at her. She started shaking, trying to ignore the pain building in her head as she collected her thoughts. Two of the people in the circle were the gorgeous men she’d seen turn into alligators, but even that didn’t put her at ease. Sexy as they were, Sophie was too frightened and confused to feel aroused. She jumped up and tried to push through the tight circle they had formed around her, but she couldn’t break free.
    “Excuse me. I’m not well. I really need to pack up my gear and get out of here.”
    One of the women chuckled. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Or would you prefer to get some answers about what you just witnessed?”
    Sophie felt the blood drain from her face. “Answers? You mean I wasn’t hallucinating?”
    The other woman shook her head. “You definitely weren’t.”
    “And you’re sure I’m not hallucinating now?”
    “I promise.”
    Another strange man came through the door.
    “Virgil, Gabriel, you’re gonna have to shift again so we can sneak you two out without things looking even more suspicious.”
    The two men from the audience looked up at him and groaned.
    “Come on, man, really?” one of them said.
    “Look, it’s bad enough that two humans just transformed to gators in the middle of the club. That’s the most public shift that’s happened in decades, and it’s why I insisted we not come to the show in the first place.”
    “Then how would they have found their mate?” the first woman asked. “Could we have counted on her running into them boating around the bayou? Would she have gone on a swamp tour like Narcisse? It wouldn’t have been right for us to keep them from meeting each other.”
    Mate? Shift? What the hell is going on here?
    “Excuse me,” Sophie said, this time forcing her way through the people surrounding her. “I really do need to be off. Thanks for looking after me when I fainted. I really appreciate your help. But I should get home.”
    “Please don’t go,” the second woman said, grabbing her arm. “It’s really important that we have a chance to talk to you.”
    For a moment, Sophie felt creeped out, but then she looked at the two men she’d been staring at from the stage. Something in the back of her mind commanded her to stay. As much as the rest of her wanted to flee, she found she couldn’t resist.
    “Okay. So are we going to do this here or what?”
    “Definitely not,” one of the other men said. “It ain’t safe here. But the security guards think Virgil and Gabriel here are actual gators. Guess they didn’t see the shift, thank goodness. Hopefully not too many other people noticed, either. Anyway, we managed to get ’em to back off, but we gotta leave with them in gator form to keep the illusion up.”
    Virgil and