“But it’s been nearly three years!”
“Petur and I were together for over ten before you came into our lives,” Deyvid said, “yet many people still denied that we were devoted to each other. A High Harrier and a prince of Riyale? Impossible.” His smile was fainter this time. “You were much more to the court’s liking.”
Sy knew that Deyvid’s place in Petur’s life before him had been hard-won, but he’d never stopped to consider before justhowhard it might have been. “You met while you were hunting in the same area, right?”
Thatgot a laugh. “Is that what Petur told you?” Deyvid asked incredulously. “A hunting expedition? I suppose you could call it that if you count the fact that we were hunting a mage instead of animals.”
Hunting a mage …Despite himself, Sy shivered. Mages were more common and accepted here in Bekkon than anywhere else on the continent. In Riyale, where Petur came from, the primary accepted use for magic was shapeshifting. Mages were considered dangerous, unnatural even. To Deyvid, who’d been shaped and molded into a man utterly impervious to magic, rogue mages had been his target of choice.
“Sweetheart?”
“Itdoesseem kind of incredible, doesn’t it?” Sy blurted out. “That the three of us ended up together, after you were raised to hate magic, and him to distrust it. I had no idea what to expect when you came to get me, but I … I feared the worst.”
Deyvid wasted no time coming around the table and wrapping his arms around Sy, who turned and buried his face in Deyvid’sstomach. “I thought you’d bothhateme,” he said through the tightness in his throat. “You had each other, and I was just a—”
“No, baby, no. Haven’t I said this before?” Deyvid tilted his face up. “Weneededyou. You came at the perfect time. I swear, Queen Tania was moments away from coming up with an excuse to get rid of me entirely, and that would have set Petur off and probably gotten him exiled from his family, which would have opened a door to a far more successful Harrier invasion from the north. You were unexpected, but you saved us, Sy. You absolutely saved us; I need you to know that.”
Sy did know it, was the thing. He knew he was adored by his lovers despite their rocky start. But hearing Deyvid lay it all out like that only made him even more incredulous that they’d learned to be together as well as they had. In fact … “How exactlydidyou and Petur meet? What was your life together like before I came along?”
Deyvid gave Sy a final squeeze before sitting down again. “That’s a question with a very long and complicated answer.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Sy hastened to say, but Deyvid shook his head.
“No, you deserve to know. I don’t think I can do the take justice on my own, but Petur and I together should be able to find our way through the highlights.” He quirked a little smile. “Ask again tomorrow morning, when we’re all together.”
“I will.” Sy was looking forward to it. He opened his mouth to ask another question but was diverted into a jaw-cracking yawn instead.
“Finish up and let’s get to bed,” Deyvid urged him, and they cleared the trays and called for them to be picked up, then left them in the hall so they’d be undisturbed. They did their evening ablutions, then stripped down once more and settled into bed together.
Petur was normally the clingy one of the three of them, so Sy was a little startled when Deyvid reached over and pulled him into a tight embrace. “You’re a blessing from the gods,” he told Sy seriously. “We couldn’t have asked for a better man to love.”
“Neither could I. With you, I mean. Both of you.” Sy was too tired to be articulate. “But I’m glad you had each other.”
“You should be glad we survived each other,” Deyvid replied. “You’ll see what I mean in the morning.”
They settled in to sleep, and Sy barely stirred when Petur joined them later that night. He could vaguely hear Deyvid and Petur speaking in low voices as his husband moved around the room preparing for bed, and he certainly felt it when Petur leaned over and kissed Sy’s cheek before snuggling up behind him and wrapping his arms possessively around Sy’s waist. He didn’t properly wake until early the next morning, though, when the call of nature pulled him reluctantly out from between his lovers.
The floor was chilly, and the night before Sy hadn’t left his slippers beside the bed like he usually did. He tiptoed to the washroom, wincing with every step, all the while considering a spell he could lay into the floor that might warm the flagstones—at least at night, when they were less likely to wear shoes. Melisse would have called that an improper use of magic, and perhaps she was right, but it was hard to think about proper and improper when his toes felt on the verge of freezing off.
Sy emerged from the washroom to find not his sleepy, drowsing men the way he’d left them, with space in the middle for him, but fitted together like bow and arrow or sword and sheathe. Petur lay between Deyvid’s thighs, pressing biting kisses against his neck as he rutted their erections together. Deyvid’s eyes were closed, but he had one hand on Petur’s back and the other woven into his short dark hair, giving implicitpermission to bite as hard as he liked by pressing his head even closer.
“Roll over for me,” Petur growled, the light of his shifted form bright in his eyes. Deyvid, panting now, nodded. Petur gave him just enough space to shift onto his stomach before Petur was back on top of him, grinding against his ass as he nipped at the nape of Deyvid’s neck.
It was far from the first time Sy had watched the pair of them together, and a familiar heat surged through him at the sight of it. Normally, he would ask to join them, but last night’s questions still preyed on his mind. Sy saw the hunger in Petur’s face, the way he reached desperately for the oil by the bed and slicked only himself up before pressing his enormous cock inside because he knew Deyvidlikedit that way. Sy watched Deyvid’s breath catch in a way that Sy was never the cause of, his face knotted with conflicting emotions that slowly gave way to ecstasy as Petur began to move. Sy watched, and he wondered yet again whether … well … whether he was as necessary to them as they were to him.
His heart thudded like a lopsided cartwheel in his chest, and naturally, that was when Petur looked over and caught his eye. “Finally,” he growled and moved one hand from Deyvid’s hip so he could extend it to Sy. Sy came, of course, and when he was close enough, Petur reeled him in for a kiss that left him feeling bruised and needy—and utterly wanted.
“Help me put this lazy man through his paces,” Petur said, slapping Deyvid’s ass playfully. Sy knew what that meant, and the thought of feeding Deyvid his cock while Petur fucked him from behind was overwhelmingly attractive, but he had to be sure Deyvid wanted it.
“Deyvid?” he asked. “Do you—”
“Yes,” Deyvid said with a gasp. “Yes, right now, get up here.” Sy sidled to the head of the bed on his knees, stroked a handalong Deyvid’s jaw to get him to relax, then got into the right position and sank inside of Deyvid’s waiting mouth. Gods, it almost felt like being back in the bath but even hotter, and there was nothing quite like watching Petur take Deyvid like this, hard and fast, trusting him to come without even a touch.
Deyvid swallowed around Sy’s cock, and Sy groaned, his hands tightening in Deyvid’s hair. They settled into a rhythm together, and before long, Sy was on the verge of coming. He looked up at Petur, who grinned fiercely at him and nodded, then thrust deep enough to touch Deyvid’s throat and let himself go. It seemed to set off a chain reaction, Deyvid tightening and shuddering in every limb as he followed suit, and before another minute had gone by, Petur was doubled over, his face pressed to Deyvid’s back as he came hard.
They flopped onto the bed in a messy pile of limbs. Sy had Deyvid’s face on one shoulder and Petur’s leaned against his hip, and he’d never felt quite so satisfied.
“Mmm,” Deyvid said after a few minutes, his voice pleasingly rough. “Quite the morning wakeup.”
