Chapter Eleven
Fred
“Are you ready?” I asked both Elio and Nelum in one breath.
Maybe I asked myself too. I was ready, though. More than ready and so was my dragon. I was ready to find out if Nelum was the man we had waited for. From my first week on Starscale 1 and on, I knew there was a good chance Lotus would come back as a dragon. She’d been a dragon before: a Starscale dragon at that.
“Ready,” Nelum called from inside.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Elio said over our mating link.
My fingers lingered on the doorknob, remembering the door my wife had left through. She had sprinted off into the Other World and afterlife with her grandma.
“Fred? Are you okay?” Elio whispered.
I turned the knob and let the door open. I curled my fingers into fists to hide their trembling. I’d met true-mates two times in my life so far. I met Lotus while fighting for my then toddler son and being shot at by a bunch of Hemlock Wolves and I met Elio straight off the ship and nearly burnt him up. I prayed to Frost and his glittery balls that this one went at least smoother than those times.
“Eh, don’t knock my good memories,” my dragon chuckled.
Elio stood immobile in the doorway. He sniffed the air and glanced up at me. Nelum’s eyes were squeezed shut and he was breathing heavily. I held my breath. If I held it long enough maybe this whole situation would work itself out.
“I need a cigarette,” I said and turned on my heels to head down the walkway.
“Freddie!” Nelum called after me and I froze in my tracks. Not many people called me that these days.
“I---” I tried but was tongue tied.
Why was I tongue tied? How was that even possible at this point in my life?
“It’s alright,” Elio said. “Do you want to sit outside with us, Nelum? Less pressure out here. No privacy. Not much pressure.”
“Alright,” Nelum nodded.
“Fred?” Elio said, tugging on my arm. “Sit down.”
I sat down where I was right on the wood planks of the porch. Elio laughed. Obviously, he meant for me to sit down in one of the porch chairs, but I was on autopilot. My dragon head butted against my ribs wanting to get closer to Nelum but my mind’s eyes were full of Lotus. There weren’t many books or guides for what to do if you met your true-mate for the second time during a single lifetime. My vision flipped back and forth between seeing the dark-haired man standing in front of me and remembering the blonde-haired fox shifter I married.
“I think I broke him,” Nelum said, his laughter a nervous melody that I wanted to soothe.
“Not really. He gets like this more than you’d think. He thinks a lot. Too much sometimes. Other times he flies off the handle like he has six wings and two dicks,” Elio said.
“So, Teddy was right, huh?” Nelum asked.
“It would seem so. He and Lotus were close. So, I’m not surprised. Will you two sit down somewhere, please?” I asked, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “It’s starting to feel like I’m a spectacle.”
“I was a mum,” Nelum blinked and dropped to his ass next to me.
He was so fucking close. His knee brushed against mine and the baby fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Scales popped up over my knuckles and my other joints. Elio sat down on my other side and leaned back against the porch banisters. He rested his hand on my knee and let out a long breath. Eventually, Nelum leaned back too and a few minutes later I relaxed enough to unclench my jaw and lean back.
“I thought he was a bit off in the head to be honest,” Nelum was the first to break the silence. “Not quite a mental patient but someone who grieved their mum so much that he made up stories about her in his head and projected them onto me. I wasn’t sure why everyone else went along with it, but people do strange things for the people they care about.”
“Teddy is probably the sanest of my kids. My eldest is a grandfather now. So, I’m sure he started out sane but…” I said and laughed at my own joke.
“Oh, wow. Shit. You’re ---” Nelum started but stopped himself.
“If you say old, I swear,” I laughed, leaning my head back to look up at the sky.
Only the roof over the porch blocked out any view I might’ve had.
“Well, you’re older than me. I haven’t even hit one hundred yet.”
“I didn’t drag you through the door to meet me,” I laughed.
“No, a pig did that and your son tossed my supper back through,” he sighed.
“You can’t say you’re going hungry here,” I shrugged.
“Do you guys want to know why I thought Teddy was right?” Elio changed the subject.
“Yes,” Nelum and I said in tandem.
“Teddy said he handed you Minter when he went to fight the pig,” Elio sighed. “Teddy is protective over his brother. If he just handed you the baby, he knew you were someone trustworthy.”
The three of us fell into silence again. Elio squeezed my knee. There were a million things I wanted to say to Lotus. A million things I wanted to tell her about, but this wasn’t her. Nelum was himself and to treat him like anyone else would be an insult to who he was now.
“This is anticlimactic,” Nelum said. “I don’t know what I expected. Thought you two might jump me or something.”
“Was that what you wanted?” Elio asked him.
“Maybe. Not exactly. I don’t know. I think maybe I would’ve if this wasn’t so tied up with my past life,” Nelum said.
“Sorry about that. We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” I said. “No one expects you to be her. I had a long time to come to terms with that. She did leave things she wanted you to have and some letters and stuff. They’re all back on Earthside. You can have them if you want but you don’t have to. I mean, they’re yours but…”
“I get it,” Nelum nodded. “That does seem like the sort of thing I’d do. If I knew I was going to die soon and knew there was a chance I’d find you guys again, I’d leave a message for my next self to check on my parents and stuff.”
“Okay, we have to stop being depressed about these things,” Elio said, pushing himself up onto his feet. “We really have to. This isn’t a sad thing. This isn’t a dangerous thing. This is a good thing. This is what we wanted. We could even show you the memory from the Other World where we met and stuff.”
“I don’t need to see it,” Nelum shook his head. “I believe you. Well, I believe my nose anyway. I believe my dragon.”
“Me too,” I nodded. “And I’m not depressed. I’m pensive. Nelum’s not depressed either. At least he doesn’t smell that way.” I leaned over to sniff his shoulder. My head spun. That was a mistake or was it? I laughed and leaned my forehead against his shoulder. He went rigid next to me, and I waited for him to shove me away. My head spun with memories and his new scent. He smelled like he had before but different at the same time. I rubbed my forehead against him trying to make sense of the surreal moment unfolding before me. We’d found each other in this lifetime – twice now. I laughed again, feeling more than a little out of sorts. Out of sorts probably wasn’t the best way to put it. For a second, I thought maybe I had lost my damn mind but then I remembered the first time I met Nelum. Well, the first time I remembered meeting him anyway. That had made me a little crazy too.
“I’m not depressed,” he said, his pitch rising and voice cracking.
I pulled away as his scent turned nervous. I never wanted to make him smell like that.
“Too much?” I asked, meeting his dark gaze.
“No,” he shook his head and scooted closer to me. “I just realized now that I know this is actually happening, I want you two to like me and I’m like the third wheel and---”
“No,” I shook my head. “You are not the third wheel. You could never be the third wheel with me around. Wherever I am, there will always be space for you. Both of you,” I glanced at Elio.
“Well, yeah,” Nelum let out a nervous laugh. “I want him to like me too! You think you have it hard? Either of you?” his tone turned teasing. “Sure, you’re getting me back. You’re meeting me for the first time while I’m living but I’m meeting you both at once and that’s --- That’s a lot. That’s --- It’s perfect and it’s too much and it’s not enough because you’re not touching me, and I don’t know every detail of your lives and then I worry you’ll think I’m some dumb farm kid and ---”
“No,” Elio squatted down to be on our level. “We don’t think that. Farming is important. People have to eat and have other stuff grown. Do we need to go check on your parents or lend a hand? I know we look like pretty boys, but we are still dragons. He conquered a town once.”
“I did not conquer a town,” I laughed. “I helped keep a town safe.”
“He conquered it. Well, sort of,” Elio laughed.
“They’re okay. I got a message to them and everything,” Nelum said. “But yeah, you’re pretty. Hot. Whatever word you like.”
“He’s flustered, mate,” I grinned at Elio because I couldn’t help it.
“Maybe we should’ve opted for somewhere with more privacy,” Elio said, flashing me a sheepish smile.
Neither of us had considered that the three of us might want more privacy and not less when we plopped our asses down on Laken’s porch. I wasn’t hard, yet. He smelled delicious but his anxiety leaked onto his scent and made me more aware of our surroundings. I had to keep both of them safe now.
“I’ll keep both of you safe,” Elio said over our mating link.
“I have a room here, but I don’t know how private it is,” Nelum said.
Elio and I shared a look that was one hundred percent about our egg waiting in the nest. If we stayed anywhere long, it had to be our house.
“How attached to that room are you?” Elio asked Nelum, pushing himself upright again and holding out a hand to each of us. Sometimes he liked to make a show of pulling me up without my help but today I wasn’t in the mood to be tugged on until he found his center of gravity. So, I rose with his pulling.
Upright, we all stood close. Almost too close and at the same time, not close enough. I put an arm around each of them and pulled both of them in close. Elio let out a long breath and Nelum squeaked, his face turning bright red. He was hard and his dick pressed up against me.
“It’s okay, mate,” I whispered against his temple.
He nodded and buried his face in my chest. I kissed the top of his head, feeling at home in a whole new way now that he’d come back to me. Part of me never believed that I’d stand here with both of them at the same time. No one could be that fucking lucky but somehow, I was.
“What are you going to do to my room?” Nelum asked a second later as if he’d only then remembered the question.
“Nothing?” Elio said, bemusement lacing his words.
“You asked how attached I was to it,” he said.
“Oh, I meant in staying there. We don’t destroy homes here. We’re not demo crews trying to build parking lots. We sort of have someone waiting at home and we need to be there for them.”
“You have another boyfriend?” Nelum asked, pulling back from us.
“No,” I laughed. “We have an egg in the nest. We also have a toddler who you have already met.”
“Yeah. He calls me mum too now. Just so you know,” Nelum rolled his eyes.
“He likes to emulate his older brother,” I frowned. “Sorry about that. We’ll talk to him.”
“If he wasn’t your kid,” Nelum teased but it was teasing of course because before now he had no way of knowing that Minter was the kid of his true-mates.
“Look, I’ll pack your stuff up, if you’re comfortable with that and you and Elio can go ahead and go to the house. Not because I’m the alpha trying to boss anyone around or take over,” I said, shooting Elio a look. “Anyone can veto the idea but because I’ve had the most practice with true-mate responses.”
“I’m okay with that. I don’t think I want to talk to the others right now. They’re good guys and all but,” he shrugged and we both glanced down at his still hard dick.
“That’s going to suck on the shuttle,” Elio said.
For a second, I considered hijacking the shuttle that flew between Starscale 1 and 2. They didn’t really have stuff like that here. They wouldn’t be expecting it and probably didn’t even have a way to punish anyone for doing it unless I hurt someone or broke it in the process and that wasn’t my plan.
“How about not?” Laken said, stepping outside with one of the twins latched onto his chest and feeding. “I can still hear you over the flight link and that’s not the way to go about this. They have special shuttle cars for newly responding mates. Tell them you need one at the station.”
“But we’re both omegas will they believe us?” Elio asked.
“If they can’t smell it on you two, they need to go visit a healer,” Laken frowned. “I’ll get dressed and walk to the station with you two.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Elio said.
“I will,” Laken said. “I don’t foresee it being a problem. Half the flight probably guessed who he was.”
“That’s not embarrassing at all,” Nelum blushed, and I pulled him close again because I couldn’t help it.
My dragon nuzzled against my ribs trying to reach out to him. I kissed the top of his head and breathed in his scent while he tried to gather what was left of his wits.
“What do I tell Teddy?” Elio asked.
“I’ll call him while I pack up Nelum’s stuff. If it’s okay, maybe he should take Minter to his house for a few days. Shit! Should we explain it to him before that or….?”
“I think he knows. Well, sort of,” Elio said and bit his bottom lip. “Going to Teddy’s house is the best thing for him until we get our shit together. Fred, my shit is so not together right now. If anyone on the shuttle looks at him wrong I’m going to burn them to a crisp. I’m going to burn down empires and I don’t want to! Well, I do want to but I don’t want to have to!”
“Do you need me to go with you?” I asked, cutting to the chase. “We can always ask Sunny to bring his stuff over later or send Teddy for it. I just thought….”
“Thought what?” Elio asked, taking my hand in his and entwining our fingers.
“You’re both omegas. I thought you could calm him down and reassure him. We don’t know how things are where he comes from and ---”
“Oh, because you’d have something to say to him if he came back as an alpha, wouldn’t you?”
“It would be the same for me. My mate would be my mate. Alpha, omega, beta, or some secret fourth option. It wouldn’t matter. Now, stop avoiding my question. Do you need me to go with you?”
“Yes,” he said and that was that.
I’d find a minute to get my thoughts straight later. A few moments alone might’ve gone a long way but not at the price of Elio’s wellbeing. Sometimes a mating response led to heat. Usually, that wasn’t the case if the omega in question had an egg around but our situation was anything but ordinary.