Chapter Three
What are you up to, Magic? I mused, knowing that I wouldn’t get an answer.
The urge to return to Shifters Sanctuary had been damn near suffocating for weeks on end, and it had only been upon my approach —seeing the unexpected, but not unwelcome shape of Dexter Burnside come into focus under the light of the waxing moon— that I found I could breathe again.
And that was absurd, wasn’t it? The dragon shifter in question was nearly half my age, and I was a beta past my prime. Why would The Magic be encouraging me to connect with him? Not to mention, why was the man standing out in a far-off field in the early hours of the morning, anyway?
Fully clothed, the tall, prim young man hadn’t even had a hair out of place, so I doubted that he had recently shifted or gone flying. He’d also sidestepped my mild questions, which also made me curious.
From the moment we’d met, Dexter and Sage had sparked my interest. At first, I believed it was because they were dragons —a species whose fate seemed so similar to my own— but after spending time with them, I realized my interest was not entirely altruistic.
They were attractive young men, after all.
Attractive and buzzing with life and energy and…
some kind of tension between them. They were both omegas, but in a world with very few alphas, companionship was companionship.
And, take it from a man without any companions at all: there was nothing worse than being lonely.
It had taken very little for them and The Magic to convince me to travel with them to the town their younger brother had founded, especially when they mentioned the cluster of alphas who lived there.
We’d had to travel through Europe before making our way to Shifters Sanctuary, with Dexter and Sage on a mission to find as many old-world texts as possible along the way.
The Magic had agreed it was the right thing to do, so I had followed along without complaint.
Those first few weeks with them had been entertaining.
Watching them banter and rile each other up like a pair of teething pups had made me feel younger by association.
I could never quite discern whether their relationship was beyond anything platonic, and I’d never felt as though I had the right to ask.
But lonely nights spent in sterile-scented hotel rooms had been spent imagining them as more.
If I am being honest, I imagined them both with me, too.
I might have prided myself on my calm, mild-mannered facade by day, but I was far from a saint in the confines of my mind, or in the privacy of my own sleeping quarters.
“Have I been forgiven for the whole…Micah thing?” Dexter asked as we continued our walk from the field into town. I assumed he had taken my momentary lapse into introspection poorly.
That wasn’t a surprise, either. Dexter, for all his bluster, was quite a sensitive soul.
When we’d first arrived in Shifters Sanctuary, I found myself practically bowled over by the knowledge that I had sired an alpha unicorn shifter during my time spent in California almost forty years earlier.
Dexter, full of cheek and smarm and mischief, had known.
Hell, both dragons had known, but it had been Dexter who took delight in throwing Micah and I together without warning.
That had been an awkward affair. At the time, nobody had been particularly happy with the British dragon for his handling of the situation, myself included.
Still, I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You were forgiven before I left. You know that.”
His lips turned down and he glanced away, muttering, “I’m second-guessing a lot of things, Serge.
” Before I could ask what the hell that meant, he continued, still disturbingly morosely, “I just wanted to make sure that you and I are alright. You’ve become” —he paused, as if searching for the right word, his long, straight nose scrunching up— “a friend. And I don’t really have many of those these days, so… I am trying to be better.”
The magic in my veins practically tingled, as though I needed any additional reason to be on alert with this man.
Stopping in place, I frowned. This was all quite out of character for him.
“Dexter,” I all but demanded his complete attention, speaking his name firmly, but softly, “what has happened?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Which is actually the problem, I suppose. But…no. Nothing.” He forced a smile, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “I’ve just had a long day and I’m feeling out of sorts.”
“Dexter…”
“So, we’re good?” he cut me off with feigned brightness.
I didn’t want to let the topic go, but after weeks spent observing him with Sage, I didn’t think pressing him would get me anywhere.
“Because I do feel a bit guilty for using you and Micah to get under Brandt’s skin.
In my defense, though, we got to see your genuine reaction and that made the pack trust you, so… ”
Despite my concern, a bubble of incredulous laughter burst out of me in a short huff.
“We are fine,” I assured him, sounding mildly exasperated even to my own ears.
I concentrated on calming my tone. “I won’t lie: it did make me sad to have a child —a son— in the world, but to have discovered so far too late. ”
Micah was a good man, though. He was kind and calm by nature, and he bore me no ill-will for my unintended absenteeism. However, he was firm that he saw me as nothing more than a surprise relative: a stranger caught up by a twist of fate, and not someone he would ever form a close bond with.
Micah had grown up happily with his horse-shifter parents, the people who had begged for my assistance to help them conceive and carry a child to term.
Despite the rituals involved at the time, I genuinely hadn’t considered that my participation would override Micah’s father’s…
but The Magic worked in mysterious ways sometimes.
Dexter grimaced. “I apologize. I wasn’t thinking about your feelings. Or his. I…” his lips pulled into a rueful smile, “well, let’s just say that’s on brand for me.”
I shook my head. “Given that, when we met, Micah had only recently become a father himself” —to three beautiful unicorn-scented daughters— “I can’t blame him for not wanting to deal with my arrival in town.
He had enough going on in his life. He didn’t need extra drama in the form of a biological father seven centuries his senior…
and I wouldn’t have known how to fit him in my life, either. ”
“And now?” It sounded like the question pained him to ask.
Shrugging, I answered, “I was, at best, a sperm donor. A magic donor, too, I suppose. And at seven-hundred-years-old and counting, it would be strange to try to be a father. I have made peace with The Magic and with the situation as a whole, Dexter, and so should you.”
We were approaching the main road, and I belatedly realized that I didn’t have any place to stay for the night.
I knew the Alpha would offer me a spare room in the morning, but when The Magic had insisted I take flight immediately, I hadn’t thought any further ahead.
Distractedly, I reached out and squeezed Dexter’s shoulder, flinching at the electric shock I received.
“Be kind to yourself,” I said gently, removing my hand and flexing it.
He rolled his shoulder, then frowned at me. “Where are you staying?”
Never one to lie, I waved vaguely in the direction of the Alpha’s home.
It was a large homestead on a farming plot, and I knew I could shift back into my unicorn form and sleep comfortably in the stables for the night, if nothing else.
But, as I opened my mouth to state as much, Dexter snorted and rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I thought so. That Magic of yours doesn’t really help with the details when it throws wrenches into plans, does it?
” He hefted my satchel higher on his shoulder and jerked his chin in the opposite direction to my intended destination.
“You can come stay with me and Sage. He’ll be happy to see you again, too.
” There was another flash of some undefinable sense of melancholy before his features shifted into a lascivious smirk.
“Besides, it won’t be a hardship to share my bed with you. ”
My traitorous cock jerked at the flirtatious words, but I forced myself to appear unaffected, falling back into step with him as he led the way. Pebbles crunched pleasantly underfoot as we walked side by side. “I’ll take the couch.”
“We don’t have one.”
I found that hard to believe. “The floor, then.”
“At your age?”
“I’m spryer than I appear.”
“Oh, that is exactly what I am counting on, Serge.”
“— the hell, Dex?”
I came to consciousness at the hissed question, cracking a bleary eye open to find myself wrapped around a delicious, toned torso. The torso jiggled with a muted laugh.
“It actually isn’t what it looks like,” Dexter’s low, English-accented voice rumbled through his chest. “He flew in late last night and I offered him a place to stay. More’s the pity: I would have happily taken this particular flying horse for a ride.”
A strangled noise came from somewhere near the foot of the bed.
“Oh, stop being such a prude, Sage,” Dexter’s voice teased above me. “Serge likes the flirting, don’t you, darling?”
So much for feigning sleep. I sighed. “You are ridiculous,” I hedged, reluctantly pulling away from his chest and sitting up in the space beside him.
I felt sleep-rumpled and disoriented, unable to fight the blush which traveled up my own neck as my gaze landed on the fully dressed red-headed man in the doorway.
Sage Weldman did not look happy this morning.
His long hair was tied back in his signature ponytail, and his blue eyes were blazing, narrowed as they were at the man whose bed I was sharing.
Arms folded across a slim chest, he glared at his best friend.
“You can’t just bring men home with you without warning me, Dex.
” His expression softened as it shifted towards me.
“Not that I mind you being here, Sergio. I just…” he shifted uneasily on his feet, “I wasn’t expecting to find you here. In bed. With Dex.”
Despite being a few centuries older than both dragons, I felt like an adolescent caught sneaking into a paramour’s room. I cringed. “I apologize,” I said, only for Dexter to scoff.
“For what? Finding me irresistible?”
“That isn’t what this is.” I looked back over at Sage, hoping my expression was firm and stoic and didn’t betray the jumbled mess of embarrassment I felt flipping my stomach. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I arrived late and did not want to disturb Beckett and Ollie…”
“It’s fine,” Sage waved my explanation off with a gentle smile, then scowled at Dexter. “But you could have at least texted me so I didn’t walk in on—”
“On what? Nothing happened,” Dexter’s tone lost its teasing lilt, and he swung his legs from the bed, taking planes of smooth, unblemished skin —and one sinful pair of short boxer briefs— out of my arm’s reach.
That was probably for the best, all things considered.
The blond dragon stalked over to his friend and folded his arms, glowering, “And, quite frankly, you’re embarrassing yourself and are insulting Serge, too.”
Sage blinked, his cheeks turning pink. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was…it was just a surprise, and I doubled down. Sorry. To both of you.” Blue eyes darted between both Dexter and me, and the entire situation felt supremely awkward.
“Besides,” Dexter rolled a shoulder casually, “Serge knows he can do a hell of a lot better than me, don’t you, sweetheart?”
It was an off-the-cuff self-deprecating question laced with the same mood as the previous night.
But before I could open my mouth to retort —not that I had any idea what to say to him— he had slipped through the door, declaring that he was commandeering the bathroom for his morning shower, leaving Sage and I bemused and awkward in his wake.
This is not exactly the return to Shifters Sanctuary that I imagined.