Chapter 33 Theo
THEO
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Peyton said, his brow furrowed in deep concentration as he stared at the colorful character sheet on the coffee table. “My ‘mana’ determines how many times I can hit the goblin with my axe?”
“No,” I said, trying to suppress the giggle bubbling up in my chest. “Your stamina determines how many times you can swing the axe. Your mana is for magic. Which you don’t have, because you chose the Barbarian class.”
Peyton looked up at me, blinking slowly. “Why would I choose a class that can’t do magic? Magic seems useful.”
“Because you said you wanted to ‘smash things’,” Dalton supplied from his spot on the floor, leaning back against the sofa cushions between my legs. He didn’t look up from the rulebook he was studying, but I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Smashing things is useful,” Peyton defended, crossing his massive arms over his chest. “It’s very practical.”
“It is,” I agreed, reaching down to card my fingers through Dalton’s hair. “But it doesn’t require mana. It requires rage. Which you seem to have plenty of when you run out of coffee.”
Peyton huffed, a faux-growl rumbling in his chest that made my own instincts perk up. Even confused by 12-sided dice and stat modifiers, he was undeniably an alpha—powerful, present, and trying so incredibly hard to engage with my world that it made my heart ache.
We were in the living room of the new house.
It was our first official “Game Night” since the move, and honestly, since everything had changed.
Between the fire, the move, the pregnancy, and the general chaos of merging three lives into one, my consoles and board games had gathered dust. But tonight, with the boxes mostly unpacked and the nursery smelling of fresh paint instead of fumes, I’d demanded a break.
I wanted normalcy. I wanted to share the things that made me me before I was a pregnant omega in a triad.
“Okay,” Peyton said, picking up the d20 with two fingers as if it were a delicate explosive. “So I roll this to smash?”
“Yes,” I said. “Roll for initiative first.”
Peyton rolled. The die clattered across the table and landed on a 2.
“Is that good?” he asked hopefully.
“It means the goblin probably ties your shoelaces together before you even lift your axe,” Dalton noted dryly.
I laughed, the sound easy and light in the quiet house. “Pretty much. But don’t worry, my Cleric has your back. I’ll buff you.”
“Buff me,” Peyton repeated, trying out the word. He looked at me, a wicked glint entering his eyes. “I like the sound of that.”
“Focus, Alpha,” I teased. “We have a dungeon to clear.”
We played for another hour. It was chaotic, we bent rules, and Peyton tried to intimidate the Dungeon Master (me) into giving him better loot more than once. But it was fun. It was the kind of low-stakes, domestic fun I hadn’t realized how much I craved until we were in the middle of it.
Eventually, Peyton’s character died a heroic, if slightly foolish, death trying to wrestle a dragon. He insisted his strength stat was high enough; it was not. He retreated to the kitchen to forage for snacks, leaving me and Dalton alone with the aftermath of the campaign.
Dalton was quiet, as he often was, but he was still studying the rulebook. He wasn’t reading the text anymore, though. He was looking at the illustrations.
“The line work on this is incredible,” Dalton said softly, tracing the edge of a character portrait—a lithe elf rogue with intricate tattoos swirling up her arms. “Look at the way they used negative space here to imply the magic. It’s not just glow; it’s absence.”
I leaned forward, resting my chin on top of his head. “I never noticed that. I always just looked at the stats.”
“That’s because you’re a gamer,” Dalton said, tilting his head back to look at me upside down. “I’m just a guy who draws on people.”
“You’re an artist,” I corrected gently. “There’s a difference.”
Dalton hummed, closing the book. He turned around, sitting cross-legged to face me. “It’s funny. I used to think this stuff was just… toys. Kid stuff. But seeing the design work that goes into it? It’s serious art.”
“It is,” I said, warming to the topic. “Some of these concept artists spend months just designing a single armor set. It has to tell a story, you know? Like, why does this culture wear this? What materials do they have? It’s world-building.”
Dalton nodded slowly, his hazel eyes thoughtful. “Like tattoos. It’s not just ink. It’s telling the story of the person wearing it. Where they’ve been, what they’ve survived.”
“Exactly.”
He hesitated then, glancing toward the hallway where our bedroom—and his sketchbook—lay. The insecurity that sometimes ghosted across his face flickered there for a second.
“What?” I asked, putting my hand on his knee.
“I… I’ve been working on a portfolio,” he said, his voice low. “For the new shop. I wanted to branch out a bit. Do some different styles. More illustrative.”
“Show me,” I said immediately. The demand was soft but absolute.
Dalton searched my face for a moment, then nodded. He got up and went to the bedroom, returning a moment later with a large, leather-bound sketchbook. It wasn’t the small notepad he used for the mural or quick ideas. This looked substantial. Professional.
He sat back down on the floor, but this time he pulled me down with him, so we were sitting side-by-side against the couch. He opened the book.
The first page wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t a skull or a rose or a tribal band.
It was a study of a hand—calloused, rough, strong—cradling a fragile, glowing orb. The detail was breathtaking. I could see the texture of the skin, the tension in the tendons. It looked like…
“Is that Peyton’s hand?” I asked, recognizing the scar on the thumb from a pruning shear mishap years ago.
“Yeah,” Dalton murmured. “And the orb… that’s supposed to be us. The dynamic. Strength protecting potential.”
He turned the page. The next one was purely fantasy—a dragon, but not a scary one. It curled around a mountain peak, asleep, its scales shifting from stone grey to vibrant, living green.
“For the mural?” I guessed.
“An early idea,” Dalton admitted. “Too scary, I thought. But I liked the texture.”
He kept turning pages. There were flowers that looked like they were blooming off the paper.
Wolves that looked more spirit than flesh.
And then, a series of character designs that looked like they belonged in the very game we just played.
An elven archer with Dalton’s jawline. A barbarian with Peyton’s eyes. A cleric…
I stopped his hand. “Wait.”
The cleric was small, lithe, and beautiful. He wore robes that looked like starlight woven into silk. He wasn’t holding a weapon. He was holding a book, and around him, the air rippled with visible magic.
“Is that…?”
“You,” Dalton said, his voice barely a whisper. “The way I see you. You think you’re just the support class, Theo. But without the cleric, the party dies. You’re the magic. You’re the reason the barbarian fights and the rogue has a home to come back to.”
Tears pricked my eyes, sudden and hot. I traced the lines of the drawing—the gentle curve of the cleric’s smile, the protective stance. “Dalton…”
“I wanted to understand,” he said, gesturing to the game books on the table. “Your world. What you love. So I tried to translate it into my language.”
“You speak it perfectly,” I choked out.
Peyton chose that moment to return, holding a bowl of pretzels and three bottles of water. He stopped in the doorway, taking in the scene—me wiping my eyes, Dalton looking vulnerable and hopeful, the open sketchbook between us.
“Everything okay?” Peyton asked, his alpha rumble dropping into concern immediately. “Did the goblin come back?”
I laughed, a wet, happy sound. “No. No goblins.” I reached out, grabbing Peyton’s hand and pulling him down to sit on my other side. “Just art. Look at this.”
I pointed to the barbarian sketch. “Dalton drew you.”
Peyton squinted at the drawing. “Is that… am I wearing a loincloth?”
“It’s period-accurate armor,” Dalton defended, though his ears turned pink.
Peyton grinned, wrapping an arm around Dalton’s shoulders and pulling him into a side-hug. “I look huge. And terrifying. I love it.” He looked at Dalton, his expression softening. “You’re amazing, you know that? This stuff… it’s incredible.”
“It’s just sketches,” Dalton mumbled, but he leaned into the embrace.
“It’s magic,” I corrected, my voice dropping an octave, thick with sudden emotion. I leaned my head on Dalton’s shoulder, sandwiching him between us, breathing in the scent of ink and him. “Your own kind of magic. No mana required.”
Dalton let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for years. He looked from his drawing to me, then to Peyton. His hazel eyes were dark, Pupils blown wide, swallowing the iris. “Maybe a little mana,” he conceded, a ragged edge to his voice. “I get it from you guys. Being here. Being… us.”
Peyton shifted, his large hand coming up to cup the back of Dalton’s neck, his thumb tracing the sensitive skin behind his ear. I felt the rumble of a growl start deep in his chest—not aggressive, but possessive. Deep. Wanting.
“You have no idea,” Peyton murmured, his gaze dropping to Dalton’s lips, then flicking to mine. “The way you see us… it makes me want to be that. The shield. The strength.”
The air in the room grew heavy, charged with a static that had nothing to do with the storm outside and everything to do with the heat rising between us. My arousal spiked fast and furious, thank you pregnancy hormones.
Dalton’s nostrils flared. He leaned back, pressing harder into Peyton’s chest, while his hand came up to tangle in my hair. The sketchbook slid from his lap, landing softly on the carpet, forgotten.
“I don’t just want to draw it,” Dalton whispered, turning his head so his breath ghosted over Peyton’s jawline, his eyes locked on mine. “I want to feel it. Right now.”
Peyton didn’t need to roll for initiative. He moved with a speed that belied his size, sweeping the game board aside with one arm, sending dice and character sheets scattering, before pulling us both down into the nest of blankets. The game was over. The real magic was just beginning.