“A festival. String lights everywhere. Dancing.” I looked up at him, and my chest ached with a grief I couldn’t name. “I saw you. All three of you. And I wanted-”
I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say it out loud.
Silence stretched between us. His hazel eyes searched my face, emotions across his features too fast to catalog. Then he pulled me against his chest without asking.
I let him.
My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, face pressed against his collarbone. His hand rubbed slow circles on my back while the thing I’d been holding together with sheer stubbornness since the fire finally slipped.
“It’s okay,” he murmured against my hair. “You’re not losing your mind. You’re remembering.”
“Remembering what?” I pulled back just enough to see his face. “That never happened. I’ve never been to a festival. I’ve never danced with any of you. I’ve never-”
“It did happen.” His voice was gentle but certain. “A week ago. Before the fire. Before whatever in your tea stole it from you.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You knew us, Mira.” He cupped my face, tilting it up, his thumbs stroking away tears I hadn’t realized were still falling. The tenderness of it made my throat tight. “You were starting tolet us in. And then someone took that from you, and we’ve been going out of our minds ever since.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” He pressed his forehead against mine, and our breath mingled. If I tilted my chin up half an inch, we’d be kissing. My pulse jumped at the thought, and from the way his fingers tightened on my jaw, he knew it too. “When you’re ready. When you trust us enough to hear it.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. “O-okay...”
I was too exhausted to fight anymore.
At some point, he moved us to the couch. Put on some terrible action movie I couldn’t follow. I fell asleep against his shoulder. His arm around me, his hand warm on my hip. My body curled into him naturally.
The front door opening woke me.
Lucian and Solomon filled the doorway, still in their work clothes. Their eyes found Percy’s arm around me. My head on his shoulder. The way my body had molded itself against his while I slept.
I should have moved. Should have sat up and put distance between us before this got awkward.
But I didn’t. Some instinct kept me still, kept my breath even and my eyes barely cracked as I watched them through my lashes.
Neither of them looked angry.
That was the part that didn’t make sense.
Solomon’s pale eyes went darker, heated, his gaze traveling down my body with blatant appreciation. And Lucian’s jaw was tight, his hands fisted at his sides, but the emotion burning in his expression wasn’t jealousy.
It washunger.
My thighs clenched involuntarily.
They wantedme all at once.
And theyknew.
I had to be imagining this. My brain was inventing things that weren’t there, seeing desire where there was probably just concern, reading hunger into expressions that were probably just tired.
Three men didn’t share.
But Percy’s arm tightened around me, possessive and sure. Solomon’s tongue dragged across his lower lip as his eyes traced the curve of my waist. And Lucian held my gaze making heat pool low in my belly, his chest rising and falling as he fought for control.
They lookedstarving.
