12
Islept lightly, drifting back to wakefulness whenever Marcus stirred in my arms.Holding our mate was more satisfying than a good run or a hard fuck.Odd, that.
As morning light drove the gray out of the world, I found myself thinking back to what had happened just a few hours ago.Dom could be such a brat sometimes, but I wouldn’t argue with his results.He’d gotten Marcus to a state of blissful contentment, and that was good enough, for now.
Or it had been good enough for last night.Where it left us with Marcus, I had no idea.The alpha in me wanted to claim our mate, the sooner the better, but the man wanted to give Marcus all the time he needed.I’d curl up at his feet, wait patiently for the smallest smile, beg for a moment of his attention.
I lay awake for maybe a half hour past sunrise before I reached over our sleeping mate and ran a hand through Ell’s hair.
Ell woke almost immediately, looked at Marcus, smiled, then looked up at me.Dom was still totally oblivious.He’d always been able to fall asleep as fast as a tired-out puppy, and waking him took at least three alarms or a well-aimed nip with my teeth.
Ell gave me a grateful nod.He had the morning shift today, so he had to get ready for work.I watched him extricate himself slowly and carefully so as not to wake Marcus.Normally, I’d have reached for him, would have reeled him in for a good morning kiss.By his wink, he knew it but didn’t mind that I kept holding on to Marcus instead.
The sound of Ell getting ready—showering, starting the coffee in the kitchen downstairs, getting dressed—it added the comfort of routine to being in bed with Dom and our mate.If Marcus wanted it, it could always be like this, every morning from here on out.
Marcus stirred as he came out of a deep sleep.He didn’t feel as feverish anymore, and the smell of sickness no longer hung as heavily in the air around him.If not for the danger of a potential hunter and Marcus’s asshole of an ex, this would’ve been one of the happiest days in my entire life.
Ell eventually poked his head into the room.“About to leave.I need to get Marcus’s blood for a panel.”
I nodded, and Ell came back in with his hematology kit.The idea that Steven had cheated on our mate was bad enough, but the possibility of him having passed him an STI?It made me angry beyond words.
I brushed Marcus’s cheek with my fingers while Ell got back on the bed.It took a little while, but eventually, Marcus’s moonstone eyes blinked open, and I smiled at him.
“Good morning.”
“Hi there,” Ell said in his doctor voice, and Marcus’s eyes flicked to him.“You wanted me to run a blood panel.I need to take a sample, if that’s okay?”
Marcus blinked a few times then cleared his throat.“Right.Yes, sure.”
He looked around, registering where he was—in my arms, half lying on my chest—and that Dom and I were still in bed with him.Watching him made me want to pull him close and kiss him.There was just such a rush of love inside of me, like a pot wanting to boil over, and it was all I could do not to act on it.I also wanted to shake Dom awake so he could see our mate realize where he was and sort of relax into it.
Then Marcus jolted upright in my arms, or as much as I let him.“Oh, shit.”
My heart sped up as if on autopilot.I listened for anything he might’ve heard, anything that might’ve upset him.“What is it?”
Ell’s hand had come to rest on Marcus’s thigh.
“I—shit.Dom didn’t use a condom last night.”The last came out pained, guilty.
I pulled Marcus back against me, and Ell did his trust-me-this-won’t-hurt smile.It worked a charm on children.
“Werewolves are basically a different species.We know that the flu crosses over, and there’ve been a few, well, studies I guess, about Epstein-Barr, but STIs are not something you need to worry about.”
Marcus relaxed against me.“Thank all the gods and devils.”He looked at Dom.“Why’s he out still?”
That he cared about Dom gave me more of that warm and fuzzy feeling.I petted Marcus’s shoulder.
“It’s just Dom being Dom.Man sleeps like a dead rhino.”
“Arm, please, Marcus.”Ell pulled on some gloves.
Marcus held out his right, and Ell sprayed the skin with disinfectant, then brushed off the excess with a cotton swab.My only expertise in the medical field came from the annual blood drive Ell volunteered us as nurse support for every year, but I was pretty sure Ell had picked an especially thin needle, the kind normally reserved for children.
If Marcus had an issue with needles, he didn’t show it, and Ell was pretty quick.Just as Ell was putting the Band-Aid on Marcus, Dom eventually started moving and looked around bleary-eyed.
He nuzzled my shoulder.“’S happenin’?’S too early to be up, Linc.Cuddle me.”
He became somewhat more alert when he saw Marcus keeping pressure on his arm to stop the bleeding.
