Page 17 of Zodiac Demons

“And the trigger?” I waved him on because I would apparently always have to. “How likely is it that you’ll get triggered this month?”

Adrian frowned, before he paced over to the counter, and leaned over the marble top opposite of me. “As long as I don’t have to see you that night, it won’t be an issue.” He didn’t elaborate, and I wished he would.

“But if you do?” There was no reason he had to, but that didn’t mean much anymore.

He reached across the counter and pressed his thumb into my incomplete mate mark, letting his touch linger entirely too long. He liked to touch me there, I’d gathered, and it might have been sweet if it didn’t make my heart race and a shot of adrenaline ping through my core every time. I unsuccessfully fought the heat in my cheeks as I forced myself to meet his gaze. There was a confusing sense of sadness in his turquoise eyes, and I didn’t know what to make of that.

Then, as if he’d been struck, he stood up and released me. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

I sighed loudly and with pronounced frustration. “Why can’t you ever just give me a straight answer?” In his defense, no one else did either, but to his offense, he was supposed to be the mature one. I didn’t know what I was expecting at this point.

“Because I’m not sure I have a straight answer when it comes to you.” The words sounded accidental, before he turned his back to me and returned to the coffee pot to pour himself another cup. He stood there for several seconds, sighed deeply, then turned to face me while keeping his distance this time. “The trigger is a protective instinct. It’s either easy to avoid or impossible to avoid, depending on the company and the situation. All it takes is a single action to try and keep someone safe, rescue them from a bad situation, or defend them from harm.”

“So you’re basically guaranteed to transform this month.” I noted with a shrug.

He scrunched his nose. “Are you planning to intentionally put yourself in harm’s way?”

“Do you not actively try to keep me from harm’s way literally every month, whether I want you to or not?” I raised both eyebrows in his general direction. “Wasn’t all the ‘be afraid, Lila. Don’t get too close to me’ about keeping me safe?” I did my best mock Adrian growl to his flattened expression. “Am I wrong to assume all the intimidation and bending me over desks was supposed to be about protecting me all these months and not because you like dominating naïve little Virgos?”

With that, Adrian choked on his coffee, to the point I thought it might come out his nose.

Suspicious.

“Right. You’re completely right,” he said, once he’d finally gathered himself. “So you’re also correct that we should avoid each other this month. Now what was it that you really wanted to talk about?”

Aww, finally we made it to the hard part. Now let’s see if I’m any more capable of a straight answer. “This is probably a good time to mention I now have three mates.” Or was it two and a half?

Adrian’s eyes widened for a brief second, before he course corrected to look serious and unbothered again. “You have three mates? Is that including me or excluding me?”

I wondered what number would be too much for him. “Including.” I clarified, not wanting to give him a heart attack.

“I know Marcus is one of them, but I wasn’t aware there was a third.” He shook his head and cleared his throat. “Not that it matters. You can date whoever you want.” Very smooth. Definitely zero jealousy. “I assume that vague chocolaty scent is his then. Another Beta?”

“An Omega.” I admitted, and his perfect, tan, chiseled face lost its color.

“An Omega.” He repeated, then he mumbled at a level only detectable by my inhuman hearing, which he probably forgot I had. “Well, at least one portion of your bloodline is infertile, so hopefully that’s not as catastrophic as the rest of your choices.”

My expression flattened. “The third one was kind of an accident.” I played with my fingers, not sure if this would be more or less awkward once he and Ceto met. I didn’t know how closely linked anyone in Graves was to each other, but being Ceto wasn’t much older than I was, it seemed unlikely that Adrian would have ever hung out with him. “It’s complicated.” Although, now that I thought about it… “You can’t sense that I have two completed pacts? You knew immediately when I completed it with Marcus.”

He seemed just as taken aback by that. “I can vaguely scent someone else on you, but it’s fairly overpowered by Alpha scents. I felt the moment you mated with Marcus though. I don’t know why I didn’t feel this one if it’s a fully completed pact.”

“It happened behind wards. I was helping do inventory at Threads of the Magi, and things kind of escalated…” Why was this so mortifying. This was going to be the weirdest pack of boyfriends I never would have asked for.

“Threads of the Magi… By the fucking devil, your third mate is an Arya?” He pinched his brow, and I laughed sheepishly. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

Well this was going great.

“Y-yeah.” My cheeks heated, not really wanting to go into further detail on how that all played out. “Is that bad?”

“Not bad, just… shocking. I didn’t know there were shifters in the Arya bloodline.” Adrian was always impressively unhelpful for a literal teacher. “Anything else earth shattering I need to know?”

“Just that my really wants to meet all of my mates, and she’s giving me a deadline until Halloween to have it ‘sorted.’” I paused and locked my sightline on the counter before adding, “And on one hand, introducing Marcus and Ceto to my mom will be fairly normal, since they were barely born when she left Graves, and doesn’t have any reason to be uncomfortable with those relationships, but it’s going to be super weird to introduce you as the incubus who took my virginity, and we kind of need to start working something out between all of us.”

“Oh.”

When he said nothing further for long enough, I added, “It all feels really weird, considering I don’t even have a stable or clear cut relationship with any of you.”

And with that, Adrian snorted in a way that he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Stable or clear cut? Lila, you are fully mated to two men, and partially mated to me. In case neither of your other mates told you, in human terms, you’re married twice over plus an extra engagement ring on the side. You can still back out with me, as much as my incubus will let you, but I hope you understand that your other pacts are already sealed in magic on a level that dissolving the connection is either life changing or life ending. It’s as close to permanent as it gets.”