“You gonna take down that ogre, or just stare at him?” Mace called from the spectator area.
The ogre, a pretty decent guy who worked for her father and volunteered now and then to play the big-boss-final-battle role for DART trials, tapped his foot impatiently. Each tap in the arena’s sand made the ground beneath her quake.
“Me does not have all day,” he grunted.
She grinned. “Me, either. I have a victory party to attend.”
They met in a clash of training swords and mallets, and two hours later, Scotty finally won the match by putting the ogre on his back.
Everyone who’d come to watch flowed down from the bleachers to congratulate her. Her aunts and uncles, cousins, family friends, pretty much everyone. Even her mother’s hellhound protector gave Scotty a gross, sloppy kiss.
After she showered, there was cake, balloons, streamers, and all the expected celebratory nonsense—which she appreciated. But when Mace and Blade took her for the promised video game marathon at their place, well,thatwas what she’d been waiting for. An all-nighter with pizza, popcorn, and energy drinks.
It would be her first time spending the night with them.
Butterflies flitted in her stomach at the thought. Of course, nothing inappropriate would happen. They were all just friends. The boys had never even looked at her sketchily, which she’d assured her father over and over.
But what if they did? What if, while she sat between them on the sofa, they reached over and took her hands? What if one of them leaned over and kissed her? How would the other one react?
Heat flooded her cheeks as she set their drinks on the coffee table and grabbed a game controller.
“You sure you’re not too tired for this?” Mace asked. “You had a long day.”
She loved how they looked out for her, even if she didn’t need it.
“So did you,” she pointed out. “You guys went through the first six hours of the trial with me.” The guys had been part of the teamwork evaluation portion of the tests, designed to ensure they all worked well together.
“I still think it was stupid to make us go through it,” Blade said. “They know how well we work together.”
True. All of them, along with their brothers, sisters, and cousins, had been training for the End of Days since they could pull themselves up in a crib. Heck, the very first toy she remembered getting was a plastic sword. Then, when Scotty was ten, she’d been paired up with Mace and Blade during a training session, and within minutes, it had been clear that the three of them were special. Individually, they were all excellent fighters, but together, they formed one powerful, well-oiled unit, each with unique abilities that synced with the others. Their strengths complemented the others’ weaknesses. They were a dream team.
Their first mission would exceed DART’s expectations. She just knew it.
A door slammed, and a moment later, heavy footsteps grew louder, until one of Blade’s triplet brothers, Rade, entered the room, his dark, unnerving gaze fixed on her.
“I heard you’re officially on DART’s payroll now,” he said in his signature deadpan voice. “Congratulations on being stuck with those two.”
“Hey,” she said, annoyed. “I’m happy to be part of their team.”
Rade nodded absently. He wasn’t a team player, and most attempts to force him to work with others ended in disaster. But what made him difficult to be around also made him DART’s best interrogator. “You guys gonna set some ground rules?”
“Ground rules?” Mace chugged half a can of an energy drink. “What kind of ground rules?”
“Like, the romantic kind.”
“We’re going on missions, not dates, bro,” Blade said. “I doubt we have to worry about Scotty demanding to mate bond with one of us while we’re investigating the gory site of a brutal demon massacre.”
“Exactly. That would be ridiculous.” She grinned. “I’d have to bond withbothof them while we’re investigating a brutal demon massacre.”
She’d been joking—she loved messing with Rade, who was as humor-impaired as one of his other brothers, Stryke. But her joke must not have landed right, because Blade and Mace looked startled. Rade just gave her a dead-eyed stare. She could never tell if he thought she was an idiot, or if it was just Rade being Rade.
“Two Sems can’t bond with one female.” Rade’s voice was flat as his gaze.
“I was kidding. Sheesh.” But seriously? She’d have to choose only one of them? No way. That would be impossible. Call her greedy, but she would want them both. “Just curious, but how do you know that?”
“I know Sems who’ve tried. All three did the ritual, and fate only chose one of the males.”
Ah, fate. Her father always said that strong leaders made hard choices and didn’t leave anything to fate.
