Werewolves #2
Dominic sat beside me on the bed, close enough that his thigh touched mine, close enough that the left mark at my throat eased and went quiet. His eyes moved over my face, and whatever he saw there made his voice soften in a way that betrayed his concern. “All right.”
Rhain looked up at me, still kneeling. “Tell us.”
I took one breath.
Then another.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, every omegaverse book I had ever read rose as one deeply unhelpful committee.
Werewolves never had this problem. Dragons, apparently, had ancient whispered protocols, catastrophic privacy issues, and no one telling the human anything.
I covered my face with one hand.
“Catalina,” Dominic said, carefully.
“I’m fine.”
“You are covering your face.”
“Yes, because I’m about to say something that makes eye contact hard.”
“The bond runs through me,” I said.
Rhain’s hands stayed at my knees.
“I’m the center channel. We know this.” My heart rate spiked hard enough that I felt it in my throat.
Rhain’s eyes sharpened. Dominic’s hand lifted from the bed, then stopped, as if touching me might make the sentence harder to finish.
I looked at the wall over Rhain’s shoulder.
“The reason I’m not sleeping is not stress. Or not only stress. It’s because both marks are open and the channel can’t settle unless…”
I stopped.
My face was now hot enough to heat the eastern wing without assistance from the antique stove system.
Rhain’s voice went careful. “Unless?”
“Unless all three of us are together.”
Dominic’s brow tightened. “We are together.”
“No.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Together together.”
Catastrophic silence. I lowered my hands to find Rhain and Dominic staring at each other in horror.
Two stiff, private dragon men silently processing whether the phrase all three of us together meant what they very much hoped it did not mean.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Not like that.”
Rhain’s shoulders came down.
Dominic exhaled through his nose. “That was not clear,” he said.
“No,” Rhain said. “It briefly became extremely alarming.”
My face went hotter. “I mean both of you with me. In me. Both bites at once. Not you two…” I made the mistake of gesturing between them and wanted immediately to leave my body. “Not that.”
“Understood,” Dominic said.
Rhain nodded once, solemn as a judge. “A useful clarification.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. “Werewolves never have this problem,” I muttered. “It always just works.”
Dominic caught my chin gently between his fingers and turned my face toward his. Some old, possessive part of him had risen to the surface and wanted my full acknowledgment before it made its complaint.
I looked at him. “What?”
His expression had gone very still in a way I was beginning to understand meant the dragon had been consulted and had returned a strong opinion.
“Werewolves,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You are comparing us to dogs.”
“No. Wolf shifters.”
Rhain’s mouth twitched.
Dominic did not blink. “Dragons are not dogs.”
“I did notice the wings.”
“Dragons are civilized.”
I stared at him.
He stared back, grave and offended and still sitting beside me like he had not just implied that the superior species was the one currently failing to communicate essential mating information without a hallway intervention.
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“I have just been told by Yuki Ashenmere that your very civilized species has been passing critical bond protocol through whispers for several centuries because you are all too private to write down the sexy medical instructions.”
Rhain looked down at his hands.
Dominic’s jaw shifted. “That is not ideal,” he said.
“No. It is not.”
“But we are still better than dogs.”
I covered my face with one hand.
Rhain laughed, which was somehow both sweet and deeply unhelpful.
“Do not encourage him,” I said into my palm.
“I would never,” Rhain said, still laughing.
Dominic’s hand settled at my back, warm and steady, the territorial edge in him turning useful.
“You closed your eyes in the chair after council,” he said. “Your pulse did not drop. I read it as adrenaline. I did not know it was the bond.”
I lowered my hand. “You couldn’t have known.”
“Yuki could have told me at any time in the last seventy years.” He looked toward the door, and something very cold crossed his face before he put it away.
Rhain’s hand tightened at my knee. “You didn’t sleep for four days,” he said carefully.
“I noticed.”
His eyes narrowed in scolding. “You didn’t tell us.”
“I didn’t know what to tell you.” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to, then softened because neither of them deserved the edge. “My body was saying something, I just didn’t know what.”
Rhain breathed out.
Dominic’s attention came back to me, immediate and steady.
“I read it as vigilance,” I said. “Stress. Schedule disruption.”
Rhain’s thumb stilled at my knee. “Catalina.”
“I know.” My face was still hot, which felt rude at this point. “Believe me, if I’d known my insomnia was actually an ancient dragon mating protocol with a very specific group-project requirement, I would’ve led with that.”
Dominic blinked once. Rhain looked briefly at the floor.
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t laugh.”
“I would never,” Rhain said.
“You absolutely would.”
“Ordinarily, yes.” His eyes flicked toward Dominic. “At the moment, I am too afraid of Graves.”
Dominic moved into my line of sight before I could decide whether that deserved an answer. He went to one knee at the side of the bed, careful and deliberate, and set his hand at my jaw. His thumb traced my cheekbone. The bond at the left of my throat warmed under his palm.
“Catalina.”
“Yes.”
“Look at me.”
I looked.
His face was steady, the steady men use for handling something fragile without letting the fragile thing know.
“You are in charge of this,” he said. Dominic’s gaze did not move from mine. “Not the bond. Not the protocol. Not what Yuki said your body needs. You.”
Rhain’s hands stayed at my knees, warm and still.
Dominic continued, voice quiet. “You tell us what you want. What makes you comfortable. What you do not want. Where we touch you. Where we do not. If you want to stop, we stop. If you want to try to sleep first, we lie here and let you sleep. If you want one thing from me and another from Solberg, you say it.”
Rhain’s thumb brushed the inside of my knee. “Anything, Catalina.”
I looked down at him. His expression had gone very quiet. His mouth curved faintly, but the softness in his eyes stayed serious. “We are very capable of taking instruction.”
Dominic did not look away from me. “You only need to say it.”
My entire body flushed. A full-system betrayal.
“I hate both of you a little,” I said.
Rhain’s mouth twitched.
Dominic’s thumb stilled at my cheek. “No, you do not.”
“No,” I admitted. “But I hate that you are being reasonable while I am trying to survive the phrase ‘what does your body need from us.’”
Rhain let out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost sympathy.
Dominic’s hand slipped to the side of my neck, his palm warm over the mark. “Then we make it simpler.”
“Please.”
“What do you want first?”
My pulse jumped hard enough that both of them felt it.
Dominic’s eyes sharpened. Rhain’s hands flexed at my knees, then deliberately eased.
I looked between them. Both of them waited. Not pushing. They left the question mine.
“I want…” I stopped, because the words were somehow more embarrassing than the act, which felt like a design flaw in language. “I want both of you close.”
“You have us,” Rhain said.
“I want Dominic behind me.”
Dominic’s breath changed.
“And Rhain…” I looked down at him and immediately regretted having eyes. “In front.”
Rhain’s gaze darkened, but he did not move.
Dominic’s hand stayed at my neck, steady and warm.
“Good,” Dominic said. “What else?”
I swallowed.
“Don’t make me feel like I’m being treated,” I said.
“I know there is a medical-bond-strain-whatever component. I know Yuki used the word protocol. I know everyone is one bad sentence away from becoming noble and unbearable.” I took a breath.
“But I don’t want to feel like a problem you are solving. ”
Dominic’s thumb pressed warm over my mark. “You are not a problem,” he said.
Rhain’s voice came softer. “And this is not treatment.”
My throat tightened. “What is it, then?”
Rhain rose enough to bring his mouth near my hand, then stopped before touching me. “Choice,” he said.
Dominic’s palm warmed at my neck.
“And care,” he said.
My eyes fell shut. I had been hoping for urgency. For instinct. For the bond dragging all three of us into the same current.
I had not been prepared for them to wait.