After everything, the blood and loss and all the ways we broke each other, they showed up. They're here, laughing, living, celebrating something good.
Us.
And gods, I'm grateful.
Asher's eyes find mine across the room. He crosses the floor with that quiet, deliberate authority of his and draws me into a slow dance.
"In the mood for dancing, are we, Colonel?" I murmur, arching a brow.
He pulls me a little closer. "It's my wife's wedding. Might as well."
A dry laugh escapes me. "Yeah. That's… still strange."
"Strange doesn't even begin to cut it," he says. "But here we are."
"Here we are," I echo, softer this time. Then, with a half-smirk, I add, "So… spyware on my phone, huh? And here I was counting on your morals."
His smile flickers, a little guilty, a little smug. "Seems you have a way of bending my moral compass."
"Ah, blame the victim. Am I with the wrong brother?" My grin widens.
He twirls me harder, dipping me low, his breath close to my ear. "We're both wrong in the best ways," he murmurs, before pulling me upright again. His tone shifts, quieter now. "I'd prefer not to erase it. Too much can still go wrong."
I nod, the thought sobering me.A lot already has.
Then, meeting his eyes, I ask, "Speaking of right and wrong… do you think we can make this work? This whole… aggregate marriage?"
He tilts his head, considering it. Not feeding me some empty reassurance, but really thinking it through.
"I don't know," he says. "There'll be emotional pitfalls. Logistical ones too. But I know we'll try." He looks at me. "Are you happy?"
I pause for a second. Then nod. "I am. It feels like something settled. Like I stopped fighting myself."
"Then that's all that matters," he says, voice low. Then, more wryly: "Though I'll be surprised if Kayden and Darius don't end up in a fistfight sometime in the first year."
A familiar voice cuts in behind us. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you're already talking shit about me, brother."
"Only the truth," Asher replies, and with the barest smirk, he spins me right into Kayden's arms.
Kayden catches me smoothly, and the rhythm shifts. His version of a dance is less graceful, more chaos-with-a-beat. And he's drunk. Not sloppy, but just enough for his emotions to start leaking through the cracks.
"Enjoying yourself?" I ask, watching his face, trying to read what's underneath the grin.
"At my wife's wedding?" he says, voice slurring slightly. "Sure am, sunshine." He twirls me again, a little too fast.
"Kayden."
"Sage."
"Be real with me for a second," I say. "Are you okay?"
He exhales, shoulders dropping, head swaying like a lazy pendulum before he steadies.
"I wasn't thrilled about sharing you with Asher. Took me a bit to get past that. Turns out it's not so bad. Kinda hot, honestly." He smirks faintly, then sobers. "But now? We're adding a third man. Your ex. The one who almost burned me alive. Twice. Whom we tried to kill. Who tried to kill us."
"Yeah, I know," I mutter.
"Yeah," he echoes. "So am I stoked about this whole merry arrangement? No. Not really. But I'll give it a shot. Because seeing you like this—" his voice dips, "back to yourself. Smiling again. It's the best damn thing I've felt in weeks."
