Chapter Eleven
Bonding.
Inside me, my omega roared with joy.
Our mate wanted to bond with us. With both me and our alpha.
And he was our alpha. I felt it just as surely as I had felt the desperate need to have both men sate my heat. Additionally, even though I didn’t know how it would work, I knew that we would be able to bond. My dragon assured me as such.
And I had learned my lesson about ignoring my dragon. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.
“We’ll work it out,” I told him before Serge could answer with any of his usual calm, but vague ‘The Magic will do as it will’ rubbish.
I wanted to assure Sage with certainty. He was obviously still feeling unsure, and I couldn’t blame him.
I would likely have felt the same way if Sergio had knotted him first. But I knew that it only hadn’t happened because I wasn’t connected to them when he came inside Sage.
If I had been entwined with them at the time, I knew that he would have knotted Sage then and there.
How I knew, I couldn’t tell you, but I was one hundred percent certain nonetheless.
Gods, I couldn’t wait until Sage could feel this for himself.
The stretch and burn of an alpha knot, being locked together and pumped so full of cum that it completely cooled the burn of my heat, knowing that if I wasn’t taking the omega birth control pills, this would certainly result in pups… it made me giddy.
For anyone who knew me, that would be unbelievable.
Me. Giddy. But I was. I felt like an entirely different man to the one who had woken up that morning.
I had my dragon back, and two mates — one of whom was an alpha, the other my best friend and the man who I had been convinced could never forgive me for rejecting him.
Had I fallen from the second story of Frat House and bumped my head? Was this a coma hallucination and not real life? Because it felt too good to be true. Hence the giddiness.
Nevertheless, I flashed back to begging my mates to breed me and bit back a snort of derision.
Heat-induced madness was real. The last thing I wanted was to become pregnant.
For centuries, I had barely made the right choices to keep myself alive: in what universe would having me carry an infant or two be a clever idea?
But the idea of bonding with my mates was significantly more appealing. And Sage wanted it, too!
“We will work it out,” Sergio agreed with my assertion when Sage remained quiet and apprehensive. “The Magic says so.”
I wondered what else The Magic was telling him, but I was glad, at least, that he wasn’t being vague and mysterious about this. He was as certain as I was that this connection between us was for all three of us, and that settled it for me.
“It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Sage eventually said, starting to sound a bit more confident in the situation himself, “and we should talk about it before we do it, but…” he bit his lip, his words turning shy and vulnerable, “I want to do that. Bond with you. Both of you.”
“We will talk it out,” Sergio answered, nuzzling the side of Sage’s face, bringing a tentative smile to my best friend’s lips.
It made my heart squeeze and flutter to watch them together.
“But for now, I think we should get cleaned up.” He looked down at me with warmth and amusement.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of your heat just yet, dear-heart.
But I am old, and I need a rest before we go again. ”
“You aren’t that old,” Sage rebuked. “You had more stamina tonight than I did.”
Serge hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” he yawned, and I whined as he withdrew from me, his knot already having deflated enough to disconnect our bodies.
I clenched, my body trying to hold on to the copious amount of fluid he’d left behind.
“But for now,” he pressed a kiss to Sage’s cheek and then his shoulder, “shower, hydration, and rest.”
As we disentangled our bodies and my mates guided me into Sage’s ensuite bathroom, I had the fleeting thought that where I would make a terrible parent, Serge was a natural.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give into those breeding urges one day after all.
We snoozed in a tight huddle, naked and cuddled together under Sage’s quilt, after convincing him that, with more heat sex imminent, there was no point changing the bedding.
Most of the mess from our first round had been contained to the top blanket, which we had pulled off and discarded onto the floor anyway.
The next few rounds were lazy, my body’s demands no longer as urgent, but despite my encouragement and his obvious desire to experience Sergio’s knot, Sage insisted all knots be used to soothe the discomfort of my heat.
“As soon as this is over,” I told him in the early hours of Sunday morning, after an entire day and night of debauchery, “you are sitting on that amazing unicorn cock and taking his knot. Understood?”
Sage sighed. “I can’t.”
I heard the frown in Sergio’s voice, though I couldn’t see him, nestled up against my back as he was. “Why not?”
Sage turned pink — a color we had frequently seen on him since the party on Friday night. Licking his lips, he looked away, fiddling with a loose thread on the sheets. “I’m not taking the birth control meds.”
Inhaling sharply, I choked on air. “What?” I wheezed out, while Sergio groaned in my ear at having his most recent knot jostled. “You…what?”
My fellow omega, a man I had known my entire four centuries of life, shrugged, still avoiding my eyes. “You heard me.”
“But…you went to that Unlocking party. What if…?” I trailed off as he finally raised his head to look my way, arching an eyebrow. It clicked. “Oh.”
On some level, it hurt to think that he was prepared to move on from me emotionally. That he had thought he might find an alpha at one of those parties: a true mate. One who could give him the family he obviously wanted.
I wasn’t an idiot. I could see the way Sage looked longingly at Brandt and his twin-sized baby bump.
I’d known, on some level, that my best friend wanted to be a dad with all the fervor of an omega in heat.
And, having just gone through heat, I wondered if he felt that overwhelming need to be bred and carry young all the time.
That would be exhausting. And, if he had felt it for hundreds of years, I imagined the growing statistical improbability would have worn him down, too.
Especially after you broke his heart.
I closed my eyes and willed that voice inside my head to stop reminding me of how badly I had fucked up. Sage and I still hadn’t properly talked it through, but we were mates now, however unbonded we might be, and that meant our past was just that: in the past.
But it still put his position into perspective for me.
No wonder he was open to moving on.
“So, I need to talk to Eric and get on the pill,” Sage said into the awkward silence which had descended. “If it was just me and a compatible alpha…” he shrugged. “But it’s not. There are three of us, and I know you’ve never wanted kids, so—“
“Whoa,” I cut him off, “don’t go putting words into my mouth.”
“Dexter…” Serge’s tone was calming, but held a hint of warning. He didn’t want me upsetting Sage, not when things were still so new and tentative between us, and I understood that.
But Sage was quoting a version of me that I wasn’t even sure existed anymore, and I wanted him to understand that my outlook had changed. So much had changed in such a short time, really.
“I don’t want to get pregnant,” I said carefully, not knowing what the alpha currently knotting me might think of such a declaration, “but I love you, Sage. I have for hundreds of years. And parenting with you is something I would happily do, though I have never allowed myself to imagine the possibility of it happening. But now that we have the perfect third for us,” I craned my neck slowly, offering Serge what I hoped was an affectionate smile before turning back to Sage, “it is a possibility. At least, biologically speaking.”
Obviously, if Sergio didn’t want to have children, that might throw a wrench in Sage’s dreams, but I couldn’t imagine fate —The Magic— doing that to either one of my mates.
Not to such kind people who only wanted to help other shifters, often to their own detriment.
Fate wouldn’t create that kind of devastating mismatch.
Sage blinked at me in obvious surprise. It stung that he had such little faith in me, but—
“I love you, too, you know.” He said the words quietly. Reverently.
The me who existed before Friday would have scoffed at such a sweet moment on paper. But, in reality, with my wildest dreams on their way to certain fulfilment, I was the happiest, sappiest omega who ever lived.
Then Sage’s expression turned chagrined, and he cast an apologetic grimace over my shoulder. “I…I don’t know you well enough to—”
“It’s alright, beautiful,” Sergio interrupted gently. “It will come. I care very much about both of you, too, but even overcome by endorphins and mating urges, I know it is too soon for us just yet.”
I tilted my head back to nuzzle against him, lamenting the fact that my scales had receded already.
Like Sage’s, they had made an appearance at the height of my arousal, and I understood why he had liked having them stroked so much while we had fucked.
I couldn’t quite verbalize how intensely stimulating it was when my mates touched my scales, especially when I was already lost to the throes of passion.
But it was addictive, and I wished I could bottle the feeling, or at least have my scales on permanent display.
“But…we are doing this, right?” Sage asked into the comfortable silence which had descended. “Us, I mean. The three of us. Bonding and…and building a life together?”
Some part of me was concerned that Sergio, a traveling shaman, might not want to settle down, especially not in a random small town in rural Iowa, of all places. But I had to have faith that fate wouldn’t do that to us, either. Or at least not to Sage.
Besides, we were often sent traveling for pack business: surely we could travel with Sergio, too. Assuming he wanted to continue with the lifestyle he had been living.
“Yes,” Sergio answered with the same certainty as earlier, adding, “The Magic sent me back here and I am certain that this” —he gestured over our bodies with a wave of his hand— “is why.” He paused.
“However, I will have to go back to Budapest to terminate the lease on my apartment and arrange transfer of my belongings back over here.”
“Budapest?” Sage asked with wide eyes. “You moved back to Europe?”
I caught Serge’s nod in the periphery of my vision. “I told Eric I would research while I was there. But being here is more important. Being with the two of you is more important.”
His knot was finally deflating and I gave him a moment to withdraw, bracing myself for the unpleasant feeling of loss —and of trickling fluids— before I rolled over to ask him, “Did you want us to come with you?” I grinned.
“We could bring life to some of the fantasies I had about the three of us while we were traveling back there the first time.”
Sage snorted. “Of course you did.”
I glanced over my shoulder and winked. “Are you telling me you never imagined some fun roadtrip shenanigans?”
“Roadtrip shenanigans?” he repeated with scorn, but his lips were twitching with amusement. “You never change, do you?”
“I would love for you to join me,” Sergio interrupted our banter before we could really get started, and when I gave him my attention again, I found that the look on his handsome face was also one of fond amusement.
Then he sighed and shook his head, “However, with everything to do here, and with your brother out of commission” —his smile towards Sage was apologetic— “I think it’s best that you stay.
I will only be gone a few weeks, maybe a month at most, and I can fly back if you need me urgently. ”
“It’s probably best if we don’t bond until you’re back, then,” Sage said, and while I knew he was aiming to sound light and understanding, I could hear the disappointment and sadness in his voice nonetheless. “I mean, if you want to bond at all.”
“Of course I want to,” Sergio reached over me, and I found myself smushed in between my mates in a tight embrace. “I would bond with you both right now if I didn’t think it would hurt to be separated while I get my affairs in order. However…”
I didn’t like the hesitation there.
“However?” I prompted.
He cleared his throat, the sound vibrating through his sticky, naked chest. “However, I understand if you would rather not bond with me. I am a lot older than you both, and I will die—”
Sage gasped, then whimpered, while I growled, “You’re barely beyond middle-aged. You have hundreds of years left. And you are our fated mate, Serge. It would be more painful to lose you now than to experience the rest of our lives together.”
I knew that better than anyone. My own dragon had abandoned me to prove the point.
“But—” he started, and Sage huffed.
“I don’t say this often, but Dex is right. You’re our alpha. Bonding or not bonding with us, we’ll still grieve you regardless when you’re gone. Not that I want to think about that right now.”
There was a moment of silence before Serge smiled and cuddled us closer again. “The Magic has gifted me with two very wise mates. It would behoove me to listen to it.”
“And to us,” Sage added.
Sergio chuckled, kissing my forehead and then Sage’s. “And to you,” he agreed.