Chapter Twenty
“He’ll calm down,” I assured Sergio after Sage stormed off, though I winced at the sound of the door that led to the garage slamming. “It has just been…difficult…without you.”
Honestly, it was a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that my presence alone wasn’t enough for Sage.
In all fairness, his wasn’t enough for me, either, the pull of our alpha so strong after our weekend of decadence.
My dragon was crying out to complete the bonding process, even though none of us had bitten down on any of the others.
It still felt, to me at least, like we had started something during my heat, and whatever it was desperately needed closure.
Sage was likely feeling the same way I was.
Possibly worse, given that he hadn’t even been knotted by our alpha yet.
“Dear-heart, I’m sorry,” Serge repeated the emphatic apology he had opened the call with earlier. “But The Magic…”
I held up a hand, shaking my head. “It’s all right, darling. I won’t lie and tell you I’m happy about your altruistic intentions, but you are a good man, and I do love that about you.”
I knew I was skirting dangerously close to saying words that none of us were really ready for.
But my dragon already adored our alpha, and the past six weeks spent talking and getting to properly know one another via long distance had only made my affection grow stronger.
If Sage felt the same way —and I was certain he did— then those feelings had likely contributed to his storm-out as well.
Serge’s expression softened out, betraying the fact that he was probably feeling reciprocally towards me and Sage as well. It made a little more of me melt for him…until a man wearing nothing but a towel sauntered into the frame of the screen behind him.
“Darling,” my tone was deceptively calm, “why is there a naked man in your apartment?”
“Naked?” Sergio asked, eyebrows at his hairline. He turned in his seat and his following irritation set my thundering heart at ease. “For the love of—Jamie. What are you…why are you—?” He turned back to face the phone, quickly assuring me, “Dexter, this is not what it looks like.”
I couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up at the sight of the sheer panic on his face. Coupled with the memory of me saying something very similar to Sage a week or so prior to my heat kicking in, with Sergio cuddled up innocently in bed beside me, it all felt supremely amusing.
“I know you’re not stupid enough to video call your mates while in the presence of another lover,” I told him.
“But,” I paused, recalling Sage’s jealousy all those weeks earlier, “be glad that Sage didn’t see him.
” I leaned forward to inspect the man in the background of the call.
He didn’t seem at all flustered to be on display for a stranger to see.
Short and petite, with curly brown hair and a cute face, he seemed the antithesis of me and Sage.
And then there was the crescent moon birthmark on his right pec.
That did make my dragon growl possessively inside me.
“He’s cute, Serge, but my dragon would prefer it if the little omega would put some clothes on. ”
Otherwise, even though I wasn’t usually prone to flights of jealous rage, I might take a leaf out of Sage’s book. Hell, I might even fly my arse to Europe and eat this brazen creature for daring to waltz around undressed in front of my alpha.
“Easy,” the omega said placatingly, his accent lilting, “I’m not poaching your mate. I just needed a shower after a day in the city…and then realized I didn’t have any clean clothes, so I was going to, uh, borrow some.”
I did growl then. Who the hell did this guy think he was?
Sergio cringed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t think you’re helping your case,” he told the little omega.
“But there’s a bag of clothes I was going to donate to the local homeless shelter in the second bedroom.
You can take what you like from there.” He turned back to me as Jamie sauntered back out of view, and he sighed.
“Jamie is going to help me transport my belongings back home once I have shown him and his pack the Unlocking process.”
“Jamie is lucky he’s not within biting distance,” I muttered.
Serge snorted. “You and Sage are the only omegas for me, Dex. You know that.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to petulantly enquire ‘But do I?’, though I managed to bite the attitude back. I trusted my alpha. Beyond that, I trusted that fate wouldn’t hurt Sage like that. Not after what I had already put him through.
“I do,” I sighed. “However, I also think we need to bring Eric and Beckett in on this plan of yours. If only to give them advanced notice that the entire world may see an influx of alphas soon.”
He inclined his head, the new angle highlighting his attractive, bearded jawline.
I yearned to nibble a path along it and down his neck…
Focus, Dex. “I need to talk to them anyway,” Serge said while I tried to clear my thoughts.
“I can only assist Jamie and his pack with the magical side of things. The science —particularly the synthetic pheromones— is all Eric and Brandt’s domain. ”
Checking my watch, I decided that there was likely time to call a meeting with the pack Alpha, Eric and any other interested parties.
“Give me half an hour or so,” I requested.
“I’ll get Eric and Beckett together and we’ll get you on the conference screen so you can talk it out with them.
” My logic was that the sooner we arranged all of this, the sooner Serge would be back home where he belonged.
Home.
In that moment, it registered that that was the word Serge had used to describe Shifters Sanctuary.
To describe this house, where Sage and I lived.
Where he would also live. Warmth suffused me as I understood what that meant — the confirmation that he felt just as strongly towards me and Sage as we did towards him.
Now all we needed was to get him back, and we could discuss our future together properly.
Eric seemed uncertain of my request to convene in Beckett’s meeting room, but he shuffled his afternoon appointments anyway, arranging for us all to meet two hours after I called him.
“This had better be important,” he warned when I met him at the Alpha’s front door, and I only just managed to resist rolling my eyes.
It still hurt that he and Damon seemed so skeptical of my efforts to change, to be a better person for Sage and for the pack as a whole. I still couldn’t blame them for being dubious, but the attitude was getting old.
“It is,” I told him calmly, meeting his blue gaze —so similar to Sage’s— without any hint of mirth or playfulness. “I promise, Eric.”
“Hmm,” he replied before rapping his knuckles on the painted surface of the front door.
Beckett and Oliver lived in a large farmhouse surrounded by acres of fields and crops.
The home itself was quite pretty, with a wrap-around porch and gabled windows.
The inside had been modernized, in particular the room we were headed to, but the outside always made me feel reminiscent of the 1930s.
There was something relaxing in that, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
When the door swung open to reveal nothing but air, I looked down to find Beck and Ollie’s twins, Duke and Rory, grinning up at us.
“Uncle Eric!” Rory cried happily, her dark hair escaping from her loose braid in wisps. “Daddy didn’t tell me you was coming.”
While I wasn’t close with Ollie and Beck, I’d spent some time helping watch their children during the monthly pack runs.
The twins were four and had all the energy that entailed and then some.
They’d been absolute terrors in their toddlerhood but were growing up quickly, becoming precocious and kind children as their little personalities developed, even if they did still brawl with one another regularly.
But the most amusing thing about them, in my opinion, was their adoration of Eric…
and his utter awkwardness when he interacted with them in return.
Sure enough, Eric shuffled his feet and shrugged, clearly unsure how to speak to the four-year-olds who were staring back up at him with hearts in their eyes. “Ah, yes, well, Beck —I mean, your, uh, daddy— didn’t know until a little while ago. So…that would be why he didn’t tell you.”
I struggled to keep a straight face, knowing that he wouldn’t appreciate me finding humor in the situation.
“Are yous gonna have another boring meeting?” Duke made a face as he asked the question. He looked so much like Oliver, especially in that moment, with bright green eyes and flopsy light brown hair.
“I’m afraid we are,” Eric shifted the strap of his laptop bag on his shoulder, sounding relieved to have an excuse to escape from their attention, but it went straight over their little heads.
“That’s okay,” Rory assured him, reaching out and grabbing his hand, tugging him inside. Duke pulled at Eric’s shirt in what I thought was a bid to assist his sister. “You can play afters.”
You might have been forgiven for thinking the broad, muscular man a deer in headlights rather than a dragon, given the wide-eyed expression on his face. “Oh, I, uh, I have to work, so—”
“Leave Uncle Eric alone, guys,” Oliver’s voice, laced with the amusement I was trying to contain, interrupted the moment.
He and I shared a look over Eric’s shoulder that spoke volumes about our mutual assessment of the moment, though, before he smiled down at his kids warmly.
“Daddy and Eric have to work right now. But maybe we can go visit with Cam and Day. Does that sound fun?”
“You’re getting a raise,” Eric murmured towards Ollie as the kids cheered, his relief more than palpable now that the little people were distracted.
Ollie snorted and waved him off. “Beck’s already in the meeting room. Rex is there, too, in case you needed another alpha for whatever reason.”