“Snorre!” Ian rose from the couch, joining Geoffrey in a united front. They formed a barricade between Matthieu and the rest of the room, and that gesture alone helped put Matthieu at ease.
“How is this possible?” Ian demanded.
Snorre shrugged. “I’m not a doctor.”
“You have four omega mates,” Ian argued. “You must know more than you’re letting on.”
Carefully, Aruna rose from the couch and came to stand by Snorre’s side. She cradled their egg in her arms, one hand laid delicately on its shell. “What Snorre means to say is that what he knows is anecdotal—we have no facts, only personal truths.”
“Very well,” Geoffrey said stiffly. “What are they?”
“Well…” Aruna looked to the side. She smiled in a shy, beautiful way. “Matthieu has come into a home of abundant fertility. Between the exposure to the children, the eggs, and our cycles, his body has decided to… speed things up.”
“What?” Geoffrey squawked, looking gobsmacked.
“The boy’s body has decided it wants a baby,” Snorre said plainly. “Perhaps a whole passel of them. You hued dragons are sluggish to breed, but once your omegas catch, they produceen masse.”
Heat.
There would be no more denying it. It spread through Matthieu’s gut, into his stomach, through his chest, then twitched in his cock and tightened the muscles of his thighs. He was slick, he realized. Slick, and senseless, and…
“We need to go,” Matthieu said suddenly. He knew that he should rise from the couch and head for the door, but the thought of movement was too much to bear. Distancing himself from Snorre—and also Erik, who’d remained silent and withdrawn since his embarrassing revelation—was imperative, but the thought of crossing so much ground to get back to the safety of the car made Matthieu want to give up.
Here, Geoffrey and Ian could keep him safe. Elsewhere? Elsewhere, anything could happen.
“Ian, Geoffrey…” Matthieu glanced at Snorre, but all he succeeded in doing was sending himself into a panic. “Please,please,let’s go. Now.”
Snorre boomed out a laugh. “Nonsense. Erik, could you call Grace and arrange for accommodations for our guests? They’ll need to stay with us a few days—probably no more than three. At the omega’s age, he’s bound to be fertile. How long were we with Vadim during his first heat after we came to stay in this charming domicile? It seems to me that it didn’t last as long with two alphas there to satisfy him.”
“And three omegas,” Vadim added, sounding both smug and proud. “I am difficult to satisfy,” he added by way of explanation, peering at Matthieu from across the room.
“The body wants what it wants,” Yinju added apologetically. “Pedigree omegas are never exposed to eggs or young dragons—most spend their entire lives without ever having seen one. I think there must be something about being around young that triggers heat. The same thing that is happening to you happened to me after I met Snorre, Ingrid, and their young hatchlings. We weren’t planning it, of course, but it happened all the same. When I fell into bed with Snorre and not Liu Wei, my contracted dragon whom I wanted nothing to do with, and we conceived and mated, Liu Wei was forced to give me up. He made Snorre pay an extravagant sum to release me from my contract, of course, but I suppose, since your alphas are mated, you won’t have to worry about it.”
“You were and are worth every penny, my dear,” said Ingrid.
Yinju smiled sweetly at her. It was a look full of love.
There came a knock at the door. A moment later, it opened, admitting a female beta in a severe suit to the room. Her graying hair was tied in a tight bun on the top of her head, and while her eyes were kind, Matthieu couldn’t help but duck farther behind Geoffrey, hoping to avoid her gaze.
He wantedlesspeople around him, not more.
Just him and his dragons.
Behind the beta stood Erik, who had slipped out of the room unannounced.
“Grace, can you take our guests to one of the spare rooms?” Snorre asked. “The blue room has a decent-sized bed. That should do. And send up some food to them in, oh…” Snorre raised his brows. “Four hours, I should think. Does that sound reasonable?”
Grace nodded. “Yes, sir. It shall be done.”
“We should go home,” Geoffrey insisted. “We can return after… um…” He cleared his throat, looked at Matthieu, then fell back to sit on the couch at Matthieu’s side. He set a hand on Matthieu’s thigh that dipped a little too far inward to be modest. “After,” Geoffrey concluded lamely.
“Yes, we… uh… shouldn’t impose and… er…” Ian stared at Matthieu and stroked his hair, seemingly lost in thought. “Go home,” he concluded.
Matthieu didn’t think they’d make it home. Not only were his hormones building to the point where he was starting to lose his grip on his mind, but Geoffrey and Ian were already showing signs that they were succumbing to the alluring scent of his fertility. If they tried to make the trip home, they’d end up screwing in the car on the side of the road, and the proffered bed was a much better proposition. Matthieu decided to take the initiative and accept the offer before they ended up in the car, or the driveway, or worse, the floor.
On unsteady feet, Matthieu rose and came to stand by the beta, all the while keeping a cautious eye on Snorre. Ian and Geoffrey trailed behind him like baby ducklings, if ducklings were much larger than him, horny as hell, and smelled amazing—Ian like citrus and summer and the sea; Geoffrey like well-loved books and exotic incense and woodsmoke.
“If you need anything, just ask,” Erik called out. “I apologize on behalf of Snorre. He really is impossible.”
