Had I fallen from the second story of Frat House and bumped my head? Was this a coma hallucination and not real life? Because it felt too good to be true. Hence the giddiness.
Nevertheless, I flashed back to begging my mates to breed me and bit back a snort of derision. Heat-induced madness was real. The last thing I wanted was to become pregnant. For centuries, I had barely made the right choices to keep myself alive: in what universe would having me carry an infant or two be a clever idea?
But the idea of bonding with my mates was significantly more appealing. And Sage wanted it, too!
“We will work it out,” Sergio agreed with my assertion when Sage remained quiet and apprehensive. “The Magic says so.”
I wondered what else The Magic was telling him, but I was glad, at least, that he wasn’t being vague and mysterious about this. He was as certain as I was that this connection between us was for all three of us, and that settled it for me.
“It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Sage eventually said, starting to sound a bit more confident in the situation himself, “and we should talk about it before we do it, but…” he bit his lip, his words turning shy and vulnerable, “I want to do that. Bond with you. Both of you.”
“We will talk it out,” Sergio answered, nuzzling the side of Sage’s face, bringing a tentative smile to my best friend’s lips. It made my heart squeeze and flutter to watch them together. “But for now, I think we should get cleaned up.” He looked down at me with warmth and amusement. “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of your heat just yet, dear-heart. But I am old, and I need a rest before we go again.”
“You aren’t that old,” Sage rebuked. “You had more stamina tonight than I did.”
Serge hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” he yawned, and I whined as he withdrew from me, his knot already having deflated enough to disconnect our bodies. I clenched, my body trying to hold on to the copious amount of fluid he’d left behind. “But for now,” he pressed a kiss to Sage’s cheek and then his shoulder, “shower, hydration, and rest.”
As we disentangled our bodies and my mates guided me into Sage’s ensuite bathroom, I had the fleeting thought that where I would make a terrible parent, Serge was a natural.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give into those breeding urges one day after all.
We snoozed in a tight huddle, naked and cuddled together under Sage’s quilt, after convincing him that, with more heat sex imminent, there was no point changing the bedding. Most of the mess from our first round had been contained to the top blanket, which we had pulled off and discarded onto the floor anyway.
The next few rounds were lazy, my body’s demands no longer as urgent, but despite my encouragement and his obvious desire to experience Sergio’s knot, Sage insisted all knots be used to soothe the discomfort of my heat.
“As soon as this is over,” I told him in the early hours of Sunday morning, after an entire day and night of debauchery, “you are sitting on that amazing unicorn cock and taking his knot. Understood?”
Sage sighed. “I can’t.”
I heard the frown in Sergio’s voice, though I couldn’t see him, nestled up against my back as he was. “Why not?”
Sage turned pink — a color we had frequently seen on him since the party on Friday night. Licking his lips, he looked away, fiddling with a loose thread on the sheets. “I’m not taking the birth control meds.”
Inhaling sharply, I choked on air. “What?” I wheezed out, while Sergio groaned in my ear at having his most recent knot jostled. “You…what?”
My fellow omega, a man I had known my entire four centuries of life, shrugged, still avoiding my eyes. “You heard me.”
“But…you went to that Unlocking party. What if…?” I trailed off as he finally raised his head to look my way, arching an eyebrow. It clicked. “Oh.”
On some level, it hurt to think that he was prepared to move on from me emotionally. That he had thought he might find analpha at one of those parties: a true mate. One who could give him the family he obviously wanted.
I wasn’t an idiot. I could see the way Sage looked longingly at Brandt and his twin-sized baby bump. I’d known, on some level, that my best friend wanted to be a dad with all the fervor of an omega in heat. And, having just gone through heat, I wondered if he felt that overwhelming need to be bred and carry young all the time.
That would be exhausting. And, if he had felt it for hundreds of years, I imagined the growing statistical improbability would have worn him down, too.
Especially after you broke his heart.
I closed my eyes and willed that voice inside my head to stop reminding me of how badly I had fucked up. Sage and I still hadn’t properly talked it through, but we were mates now, however unbonded we might be, and that meant our past was just that: in the past.
But it still put his position into perspective for me.
No wonder he was open to moving on.
“So, I need to talk to Eric and get on the pill,” Sage said into the awkward silence which had descended. “If it was just me and a compatible alpha…” he shrugged. “But it’s not. There are three of us, and I know you’ve never wanted kids, so—“
“Whoa,” I cut him off, “don’t go putting words into my mouth.”
“Dexter…” Serge’s tone was calming, but held a hint of warning. He didn’t want me upsetting Sage, not when things were still so new and tentative between us, and I understood that.
