Chapter 2
Titan
Although he was used to getting called to pick up stray dogs from friends and other pack members, Titan never expected to find his mates on a rescue run.
Ten minutes ago, he’d been debating about a late-night snack on the way home and now he’d found the loves of his life.
He had two! A vampire and a human. He never expected to get so lucky.
Kissing Arthur was amazing. The vampire was strong and dominant, making Titan’s soft heart melt.
Because of his size, everyone expected him not only to take charge, but to be an alpha.
That wasn’t his personality at all and was the reason he’d had to leave his old pack.
Of course the void magic would make sure his fated mate was commanding, allowing Titan to relax into a more comfortable, submissive role.
Arthur broke the kiss but kept hold of the back of Titan’s head. “Kiss our little human,” he demanded in a voice probably too quiet for her to hear.
Titan let Arthur guide him down to the eager woman. Her eyes were wide, and he could smell the lust on her. There was no hesitation, and she lifted her lips to meet his.
She tasted like herself with a hint of the vampire. The kiss was both arousing and comforting. He wanted nothing more than to cuddle on a comfy couch with her in his lap and kiss for hours.
No, better yet, cuddle on a couch with both of them, taking turns kissing.
“The dog is next to us,” Arthur whispered, letting go of Titan’s head.
Titan and Beatrix broke the kiss. She looked as dazed as he felt, but her brain seemed to come online quicker than his.
“Dog?” She looked down and smiled. “Aww, look!”
Turning his head to look down at his side, he saw a familiar dog sniffing at his leg. “Cinnamon, how did you get loose?”
Beatrix giggled. “You know the dog?”
Leaning over, he looped the leash in his hand around Cinnamon’s head. “Yeah, he’s an escape artist. This is the third time I’ve been called to get him. This is a little further than he normally goes.”
Before Titan could pull out his phone to call Glen, the dog’s owner, he heard the man yelling.
“Cinnamon! Cccccinnamoooon!”
He could tell neither of his mates could hear Glen, but then again, he was a wolf shifter with excellent hearing. Even in his human form it was better than a vampire.
“You guys wait here, I’ll be right back,” he instructed. He stepped away from his mates and grabbed the dog. He turned to run out of the alley but suddenly got scared and turned back to face his mates.
“You won’t leave, will you?” He half expected them to laugh at him, but Beatrix nodded and Arthur looked solemn.
“I swear we'll wait here for you, Titan,” he said, making Titan’s shoulders relax.
“I’ll hurry,” Titan promised, then sprinted away. He found Glen a quarter of a mile away holding a broken leash. That explained tonight’s escape.
He shoved Cinnamon into Glen’s arms with the loop leash still around the dog’s neck. “Here! Try not to lose him again.”
Before Glen could say anything, Titan turned on his heels and ran back to his mates. Even though he trusted them not to leave, it was still a relief to see them standing in the exact spot where he’d left them.
“That was fast!” Beatrix exclaimed with a welcoming smile.
“Glen was just over there looking for Cinnamon,” Titan explained, standing close. He wanted to touch them but was scared of crossing boundaries.
“We’re all going to my home,” Arthur announced.
Arthur was still holding Beatrix’s hand. With his free hand, he grabbed the back of Titan’s neck. The firm hold made something deep in Titan calm and settle.
“Yes, I’d like that,” Titan agreed. Tomorrow, Kelly and Noah were going to do the morning feeding, cleaning, and health checks. He didn’t need to be at the rescue until ten. He had all night to spend with his mates.
“We’re doing this?” Beatrix said. The tone of her voice clearly meant she was mostly talking to herself. “I only met both of you a few minutes ago, and now I’m going with you to some unknown place for sex?”
Worry filled Titan. “We could cuddle and talk all night and get to know each other. We don’t have to have sex. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“Damn, you’re really sweet,” Beatrix murmured.
“His aura is nothing but soft pinks and lavender,” Arthur said. “He doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.”
Titan huffed out a little laugh. “That’s true.”
Beatrix arched a brow at Arthur. “You think you can see auras?”
Titan was about to remind her that all vampires could see auras but then caught himself. Most humans didn’t know about wolf shifters or vampires. They didn’t know about all the magic that lived side by side with them in this world.
He rolled his eyes to look at Arthur. The vampire’s expression was carefully blank. Yeah, it looked like their human didn’t know yet.
He’d bet his last slip leash that Arthur wasn’t looking forward to telling her any more than he was.
“You must grant us all our special quirks,” Arthur said with a small laugh.
Beatrix's expression looked a little uncomfortable. “My sister thinks she can use tarot to communicate with dead people, so yeah, I’m familiar with quirks.”
“There’s a litter of two-day old puppies at the rescue!” Titan blurted, desperate to change the subject.
It worked.
“Puppies!” Beatrix squealed.
“You can meet them,” Titan said, excited to share the cuteness.
“Tomorrow,” Arthur said firmly, and Titan felt a pulse of magic flow over his aura and raise the hair on his arms. “Tonight is for the three of us. As Titan said, we don’t have to have sex, but I insist we all spend the night together at my place.”
“Sex is not off the table,” Beatrix murmured.
Arthur gave her a wicked grin that made blood flow to Titan’s dick. “Excellent.”
Knowing that most vampires didn’t bother with cars because they trained themselves to shift into birds, Titan pointed to his van parked at the mouth of the alley. “I can drive us.”
“You’re a good wolf, Titan,” Arthur cooed as he let Titan lead them to the van. He rattled off an address that Titan immediately forgot, but Beatrix seemed to easily remember.
“That’s not too far from here,” she said.
“I need to speak to Zander, Rissa, and Anatoly,” Arthur said, letting go of the two of them. “I’ll meet you there.”
Titan nodded and opened the passenger door for Beatrix to get in. After shutting the door, Arthur grabbed him again by the back of the neck.
“Drive carefully,”" he ordered. “You’re both precious to me, but Beatrix will be especially fragile until we soul bond.”
“I won’t let anything happen,” Titan promised. “I’d die before I let her get hurt.”
“Neither of you is to die,” Arthur warned, gave him a last, brief kiss, then stalked off.
It was hard to sit down with his erection painfully confined in his pants, but Titan managed to get himself in the passenger seat and buckled in.
He started up the old van and looked at her. “Which way?”
She had a map opened on her phone. At his question, she pointed. “We need to get on the 163.”
He nodded and put the vehicle in drive.
“Why does Arthur call you wolf?” she asked, making him jerk the wheel a little.
“Um, maybe because I'm big?” he offered.
“I guess, but I’d think calling you bear would be more fitting,” she said, then reached across the open space between them to rest a hand on his leg. “Is this okay?”
Touch was his love language. “Very much!”
His enthusiasm made her chuckle. “Is it hard to be as tall as you are?”
He grimaced. “Yes, but mostly it’s just inconvenient.
It’s hard to find clothes that fit, and showers are almost never tall enough.
And hum—uh, people are always trying to pick fights with me.
” He paused, then confessed something that made his parents deeply ashamed of him. “I hate violence and fighting.”
“I can understand that,” she said without a hint of censure or condemnation.
Her kind words gave him the courage to tell her his deepest secret. “I’m a vegetarian. The thought of something having to die to feed me makes me feel horrible. I know dogs and cats need protein in their diets so I don’t deny them, but I can’t bring myself to eat meat.”
Far from looking disgusted, her expression brightened. “I’m a vegetarian too! Same reason. Well that, and it’s also a good excuse to never eat seafood because that stuff is simply disgusting!”
This was too good to be true. “You hate seafood?”
“Loathe it,” she assured him.
“You are the most perfect woman ever.”
She laughed. “Don’t say that. You haven’t seen me eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting.”
“I have a pickle shelf in my fridge,” he said. “Multiple jars of dill, spicy, and bread and butter.”
“Do you mix the spicy and bread and butter pickles together?” she asked.
His exaggerated, “Of course” made her laugh again. Goddess of the Hunt, he loved her laugh!
They spent the rest of the drive talking about all their favorite pickle brands and flavors.
It wasn’t until they pulled into the driveway and were confronted by Arthur’s home that they lapsed into silence. It was a massive, contemporary style house that looked like a bunch of squares stacked on each other at slightly different angles.
“That’s, um, a home,” he said, hating the cold look to all the concrete and glass. “Of sorts.”
“It’s a monstrosity,” she said with a little shake of her head.
“If I know, um,” he almost said vampires, but caught himself in time, “men like Arthur, he’s probably got several houses. This is probably just the one he’s living in right now.”
“Really?” she murmured, hand still on his thigh. He hoped she wasn’t having second thoughts about spending the night with them. “I hope none of them are as brutalist as this one.”
“I bet the inside isn’t as bad,” Titan said, then flinched when Arthur appeared next to the van’s door without warning. Even knowing vampires could move with incredible stealth and speed, Titan was taken by surprise.
“Arthur,” he gasped, rubbing his chest. “I’m big but not tough, so don’t give me a heart attack!”
“How did he beat us here?” she asked, letting go of his thigh to open her door. Arthur disappeared from his side and reappeared on her side of the van.
“Let me show you inside,” he said, holding out a hand. Titan rushed to get out and circle around to be close to the two of them. The moment he was within reach, Arthur grabbed him by the back of the neck.
All worries vanished.
He didn’t really notice anything as Arthur led them into the well-lit house. Not until Beatrix made a humming sound.
“You have interesting taste,” she said.
Titan forced himself to look around as Arthur led them through the house. It was a living room-like area with a long couch, several chairs, and a piece of art on each wall.
Unfortunately, the inside was as cold as the outside. The couch didn’t even look comfortable and the art was all shapes and colors that made Titan’s brain hurt because he wanted them to make sense but they didn’t.
“I bought the house fully furnished," Arthur explained. “I wanted something made from concrete with double pane windows. The only place I bothered to change was the study.”
“Show me,” Beatrix demanded. Titan would never think to make a demand, but he was happy Beatrix had. He wanted to know what Arthur’s personal space looked like.
The moment they walked into the study, Titan saw Arthur in the soft lighting, warm earth tones, and an overstuffed couch covered in plenty of soft, plump pillows.
“We’re staying in here,” Beatrix declared, pulling the two of them to the couch.
Arthur chuckled. “Whatever you wish.”
Letting go of Arthur’s hand, she shoved him down on the couch. He let go of Titan’s neck as he sat. Titan tried to follow and sit at the other end of the couch so Beatrix could nestle between them, but she guided him to settle right next to Arthur.
“I’m not sure about everything yet,” she said, climbing onto Titan’s lap and stretching her legs across Arthur’s thighs. “But I definitely want more kissing and touching. There’s something real and intense between us. I want to explore it.”
Arthur’s eyes gleamed with lust. “I have no objections.”
“Same,” Titan said.
“Let’s start here.” Beatrix cupped his cheeks and put her lips to his.
If he was in wolf form, his tail would be wagging.