“Not at the same time,” I clarified quickly. Then added, “At first. Unless, you know... If you want to go straight away.”
Her face turned a deep shade of red.
Lucian closed his eyes as the vein in his temple pulsed. Solomon’s nostrils flared, and I knew, I absolutely knew, that every wolf in this room had just caught the spike of arousal that Mira’s question had triggered in all three of us.
The scent was probably suffocating. No wonder she was blushing.
“Oh, well, that’s reassuring, Percy. Not at the same time. Just sequentially. One by one. A roster.” She held up three fingers and ticked them off. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Very organized. Very efficient.”
“That’s not...”
“Do I get to pick the order or is there a chain of command? Does the king go first because of seniority?” She turned to Lucian. His expression was carved from granite. “Is there a protocol? Royal decree? Do I need to fill out a form?”
“There’s no form,” Lucian managed.
“Should there be? This seems like a situation that warrants documentation.” She grabbed her book off the coffee table and held it up, the romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover. “Because I’ve read a lot of these, and not once did the heroine have to schedule three separate magical sex appointments.”
Solomon made a sound. Quiet. Almost imperceptible.
He was laughing.
His shoulders shook once, his jaw tightened around the ghost of a smile, and his eyes held the particular brightness of losing against his own amusement.
Mira caught it. Her outrage faltered, undermined by the rarest sight in the cabin: Solomon on the verge of actual, audible laughter.
“Are you laughing?” she demanded.
“No.”
“You are. You’re laughing at me.”
“I would never.”
“Your shoulders are shaking!”
“Muscle spasm.”
“From laughing.”
“From a pre-existing condition.”
She turned to me. Her eyes were bright now, the alarm dissolving into the humor underneath, the defense mechanism she deployed when the world got too big and the only way to survive it was to make it funny.
“This is insane,” she said. “You know that, right? This whole situation. Three supernatural men, a magic soul bond, and the activation key is...” She waved her hand in the air. “Intimateclaiming bites. This is the plot of one of my books and not even one of the good ones.”
“Which ones are the good ones?” I asked.
“Not the point, Percy.”
She pressed her palms over her face and breathed. When she lowered her hands, the humor had settled into a quieter expression. Still amused, but beneath it, a warmth that made my chest ache.
“The bite.” Her flush deepened. “Does it... is it supposed to feel good? Or is this a pain situation? Because I need to mentally prepare for very different scenarios.”
“It feels good,” Lucian said.
Three words. Delivered in his low, steady voice.
Mira’s blush spread from her cheeks to her throat.
