16

paladin

"WAIT, WHAT?" CLEMENTINE was in my lap at the kitchen table the next morning, snuggled into my arms and I was not interested in letting her go. My dick was perking up, actually, even though I'd shut us all down just a little while ago.

This morning, we'd woken up together. We'd slept in the sun room on the big cushions, and everyone had been in favor of putting our penises into Clementine every which way upon waking, but I had said that no, today was the day we were going across the wall to get Clementine's stuff, and everyone had grudgingly come out here for breakfast.

Now, Kestrel was explaining the schedule to Clementine, in a particularly gruff voice, probably because he was having blue balls. "Yeah, so if there are four of us, we can alternate with cooking every fourth day, and then we can see about the other chores. I'll figure it out and come up with something that seems fair."

"Why don't you write them all down or something?" said Clementine. "Maybe we could have a chart posted, because I cannot keep track of every fourth day. No way."

I tightened my grip on her. She was my new favorite person in the universe. I kissed her temple. "Fuck, I love you."

She glanced at me, amused. "Um, I love you, too, but what prompted that?"

"I've been saying stuff like this, but Kestrel just keeps making fun of me for it," I said. I grinned at him. "You going to call her a toddler, man?"

Kestrel was cooking eggs on the stove, and he shot a dirty look over his shoulder at me. "I don't have time to make up a chart. I already figured out the damned schedule, and it's not my fault that you can't remember it."

"Mmm," said Clementine. "It's totally reasonable to waste valuable computing brain space on something that could be written down somewhere."

"Burn," I said, laughing.

Kestrel turned from the stove again, gesturing with the spatula. "It's not like it's hard to remember this shit."

"For you," she said.

Kestrel considered that and went back to the stove.

"Anyway," she said, "I get it. If I need the accommodation, I'll take point on that. I can make the charts."

"I'll help," I said, kissing the nape of her neck.

Lazarus was taking toast out of the toaster. "I don't want to be put on a fucking schedule."

"There's that issue, too," said Kestrel, gesturing with his head at Lazarus. He did not turn around.

"Okay," said Clementine. "Lazarus is not on the schedule, then. Just you and me, apparently, Paladin. We're the ones with executive function damage, apparently." She giggled.

"Look," I said, "I mean to do things, I really do, it's just that my brain gets cluttered with all the things and I forget."

"Of course you do," said Clementine. "Only freakish type-A randos like them don't need help in this way. They would never have invented planners or calendars or whatever if most people didn't need to be reminded of this stuff."

I grinned. I really liked her.

"Lazarus gets offended if you assume he can't do everything perfectly, all alone, and on the first try," said Kestrel .

"I do not," said Lazarus.

"I mean…" I shrugged at him. "You do."

Lazarus set the toast on the table, along with some of our homemade butter. You could get margarine from the rations, and we used that in a pinch, but we all preferred the real stuff, even if we did have to churn it ourselves. "I don't."

Kestrel shrugged again, elaborately. "See?"

Lazarus pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. "Who said you got the tithe in your lap, huh?"

"The tithe?" said Clementine, mock-offended. "I have a name, you know."

"She's an independent woman with a will of her own," I said. "You want to ask her to sit in your lap, just do it."

"No," said Lazarus. "I asked you because it puts pressure on her to make a decision and worry over if she's favoring anyone and all of that. That's not fair to her. One of her, three of us. We can't make her feel caught in the middle all the time."

"Yeah, okay, I get that," I said. "But she should make her own decisions, too."

"I think you guys should do feats of strength to compete over me," she said airily, which showed she wasn't particularly worried about all this, even though it probably was a fair point, something we were going to have to figure out. "Arm wrestling, maybe."

"No fair," I said. "I'm going to lose every time.'

Lazarus put his arm on the table.

"Thumb wrestling," I countered.

Lazarus set his hand on the table, waggling his fingers. "One. Two. Three. Four. I declare a thumb war."

Clementine erupted in giggles on my lap, and I laughed, too.

Kestrel brought the eggs over and set the skillet on a potholder on the table.

"Hey, sweetheart, if you're in my lap, I can't possibly win this thumb wrestling contest."

"Oh, you need to concentrate?" She was still giggling as she got up.

Kestrel grabbed her, pulling her down to sit with him.

She kissed Kestrel, and his hands roamed over her body possessively, and my cock jerked.

Lazarus had lost interest in the thumb wrestling, too, watching them make out. He licked his lips. "So, explain to me again why we're doing breakfast and not her?"

"Uh, I can't remember," I said.

Kestrel broke their kiss. His voice was soft and he spoke to her. "Because we're taking her over the wall to get her stuff from her dorm today."

"I could wait," said Clementine. "Today, you all thumb wrestle over who gets to fuck me, and we eat toast and eggs in between bouts of me having all my holes filled with your cocks and—"

"No," said Kestrel, kissing her forehead. "You need your things, baby girl."

"Does she need them today?" said Lazarus. "I liked your plan, Clementine."

"I did, too," she said.

"We can't take today off and fuck her all day and then take tomorrow off and go across the wall," said Kestrel. "We can't put off farm chores for that many days. So, if we're taking today off, we need to do something productive with it."

Lazarus sighed.

I sighed.

Clementine sighed.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Kestrel. "I fucking hate being in charge sometimes. But someone has to make these decisions!"

Clementine curled up against his chest.

He tightened his grip on her.

I smiled, because I felt happier than I'd felt in a long time. I felt a soaring sense of goodness that I never wanted to end. She looked good on his lap .

clementine

IF YOU'VE NEVER gone back to your dorm room with your three fucking gorgeous werewolf mates to have them pack up all your things and load them into a rented U-Haul, I have to say, do it. There's nothing like it in the world.

My roommate was dumbfounded when I showed up at the dorm with them. She looked them over, gaze lingering on all three of their broad shoulders and thick arms and muscular chests.

"Three of them?" she said in a tiny, breathy voice.

"Yup," I said.

"Wow," she said.

She kept saying that a lot, at different times, just out of nowhere, she'd turn to me and mouth, " Three of them?"

Anyway, if I thought she'd scold me or be dismissive, she was not. At all. She only seemed awed and maybe a little jealous. I did not mind that.

I was worried that maybe she would decide she needed to call the police about the werewolves. I talked to her about it, explaining that they were not staying, that it was just for the afternoon, and that we'd all be going back over the wall eventually.

Truthfully, I had to think there was a lot more werewolves over the wall than anyone really knew about. They probably came and went with some regularity, but they all made sure to be across the wall during the full moon. Why that was, I couldn't say, but I suspected that it was because they wanted the tithes. Maybe they also wanted to minimize whatever damage they did, too. I figured it took a pretty fucked-up individual to actually enjoy raping a woman to death.

Later, I asked Paladin about it, and he said that he didn't think very many wolves did go over and back with a lot of regularity. For one thing, he said that if you got caught, the police were authorized to shoot you on sight.

I had not known this when I agreed to let them load my dorm. I wouldn't have agreed if I'd known they were taking their freaking lives into their hands.

But at the point where they were in my room with the boxes we'd bought at U-Haul, packing up my clothes and my knick-knacks on dresser, stripping my bed of its sheets and blankets, carrying everything down the stairs to load it up, I was blissfully ignorant that they could be shot to death, and so was very much enjoying myself.

It wasn't just the view, although having gorgeous men do manual labor is never a bad view. It was that they had all shown up for me, as if it wasn't a question. It was three men, all there for me. Just to help me out, like it was totally normal, like I was important.

I mean, I was important to them, obviously. I was their mate, and they liked having sex with me, and we had this weird bond thing, which was all mystical and whatever.

But this was different. This was tangible. This was packing my clothes and gently wrapping my little unicorn figurines in my sweatshirts to make sure that they wouldn't break before packing those.

Truth was, there had been very little of anything like this my whole life.

My dad loved me, and he tried to prioritize me, but Angela wanted him to prioritize her, and a lot of times, he caved to that woman.

Maybe men couldn't help but prioritize the woman they were fucking. Was that it? Was that why?

I felt like I was swimming in it, this feeling of being important, of being prioritized. I wanted it forever.

After the room was packed up, I went by the registrar to see about withdrawing from in-person classes. They knew I was a tithe, because I had special dispensation to miss classes and assignments around the full moon. So, finding out that I was leaving for across the wall didn't faze them. There were two classes that I could switch over to virtual right away, so I did that, and then I'd need to speak with my academic advisor to make a new plan for getting my degree while I was out there. They assured me it could be done, however, that people did virtual degrees all the time. Whether I'd be better off with a different university, one that specialized in virtual classes, that they couldn't say.

So, there were decisions ahead of me, but overall, it had been sort of painless, uprooting my entire life. And now I had my cell phone, so I could call my dad and Ninnia when we got back to the farm.

We took the U-Haul all the way to the place where the wall was crumbling. We unloaded the U-Haul and the guys took the stuff over the wall to load onto some trailers that they'd pull with their tractor. They didn't have a car to use out here, though some people did.

I took the U-Haul back, and then took an Uber back out to the wall. I'd be leaving my own car behind. They were all waiting for me when I climbed over.

We went home together, and there was still tons of leftover vegetable stew that we'd all made together, and we ate that and watched some stand-up comedian on their laptop screen while we lounged and relaxed in the sun room. Well, until the comedian started telling werewolf jokes, and then they switched it off.

"Maybe we should put her on a schedule," said Kestrel. "Rotate through who gets a night with her."

"No way," said Lazarus.

So, we all had sex again together again that night. I had Kestrel in my mouth and Lazarus in my pussy and then I had Paladin in my mouth because Lazarus had accidentally knotted in, even though Kestrel was swearing at him about it.

I liked the knot, I had to say. It felt so good swelled up in my freshly fucked pussy, sealing my mate inside me, and it stimulated all my sensitive spots, especially the internal parts of my clitoris. I could come like crazy on a knot.

But I was worried about getting pregnant, too. I'd brought my stash of birth control patches from my dorm, and I had refills on my prescription, and it was all workable, as long as the birth control held.

In the darkness, Lazarus still inside me, I did say something in a tiny voice about condoms .

"I mean, that's not a terrible idea," said Kestrel. "They're hard to get out here, but we can find a way, probably, right?"

"I'm so fucking sorry, sweet girl," breathed Lazarus into my eyebrow. "I don't know how I did this." He'd already apologized a bunch of times.

"I do," said Kestrel.

"She's our mate, so our bodies want it," said Paladin.

"It's okay," I said. "I said it was okay, Lazarus."

"Well," he said, chagrined. "It is not."

The hatred coming off of him seared me, like something hot and acrid. I tried to take it somehow, with my hands or my lips, but it was stuck into him hard. "Don't apologize again," I said, because I couldn't stand it, the way he hated himself. It hurt me.

The next morning, I woke up to Kestrel climbing out of the bed in the darkness.

I went after him, and I followed him out to watch him gather eggs and see to the cows and feed the chickens. I had my phone now, and I pulled up an app to make a list of all the things that he did in the morning, asking as I did what all the other chores were.

He answered in gruff monosyllables, until he finally stopped, setting down the basket he'd used to gather eggs and turned on me. "How do you talk so much this early in the goddamned morning?" he practically growled.

"Am I bothering you?" I said with a coy little smile. "Or is it that you don't want Paladin and me to do our fair share of chores?"

"Of course I want Paladin to step the fuck up," he said. "But I don't see how making a list is going to help anything. You either do the chores or you don't."

"Well," I said, "some people are gifted with the natural ability to hold lists in their heads and other people get distracted and can't. So, those people do better with physical reminders of what they need to do."

He rolled his eyes. "You're going to do whatever it is you want, is that it? I mean, I tell you that if you stay out here, everyone fucking dies, and that doesn't matter—"

"You really want me to leave, Kestrel?" I knew he didn't, somehow, I just knew it. I was secure in that. It was strange, but I liked this, liked early-morning Kestrel, growly in the barely-there dawn light, liked his frustration.

No, I liked making him react, I guessed. It felt, strangely, like safety. I'd seen him argue like this with his mates, and arguing with me, too, it meant that he had accepted me, that I was part of this pack.

He gave me a withering look. "Even if I did, you wouldn't go."

"You don't want me to leave."

"What I want is for you to stop distracting me while I'm doing chores," he informed me.

"I don't think you want that either," I said. I moved in close to him and put my hand on his chest.

He drew in a breath, looking me over, his expression changing like clouds blowing away from a bloated, round moon, revealing its brightness beneath.

"I think you like being distracted, actually," I said in a teasing, soft voice.

He groaned. He kissed me. His lips traveled over my jaw, my neck. He hadn't shaved yet, and his whiskers brushed tantalizingly against my sensitive skin. "Fuck, you're my favorite distraction, Clementine," he breathed into my ear.

I wrapped myself around him.

We started kissing in a frenzy.

I seized handfuls of his shirt, and I felt like I was coming alive, like the sun stealing over the countryside in the brisk autumn morning. I felt like our connection was waking me up. I wrapped my legs around him, practically climbing him.

He put his hands under my ass and lifted me, holding me against him like I was nothing. Fuck, he was strong.

He walked me backward until we collided with a wall. "Stay forever," he gasped against my lips. "Distract me forever."

"I will," I managed, kissing his prickly chin, scrabbling for purchase against his broad shoulders. "I'm not going anywhere."

He fucked me up against the wall there, and he barely kept his knot out of me, barely managed not to come in me.

The coming days were full of sex and minutia.

Paladin and I made the chore chart and we posted it. Three days after it was posted, Kestrel was all apologies, saying that he hadn't realized he was being a dick to Paladin, that if a posted chart was really all it took, he felt like an idiot for not just agreeing to it already.

Because everything was running more smoothly now. I think my being there helped, because it meant that there were more hands on deck, and that meant less to do for everyone.

But Kestrel and Lazarus both had martyr complexes to various degrees, and so neither of them would say anything. They'd just do the other people's work. Kestrel would get resentful about it and eventually blow up. Lazarus, however, just took it as his due.

Lazarus, I was beginning to see, was convinced that there was no way he could ever atone for what he'd done to Marina on the First Full Moon, but he wanted to try anyway. So, he took on heaps of pain or abuse or strain, whatever he could manage. He wanted to punish himself, constantly, forever.

And Paladin was just nervous. He was frightened of both of them, I could see that, and all of his behavior was some kind of attempt to appease them, to keep them from ever turning on him, from ever hurting him. His love for me was different, but there were elements of it in there, too.

I'd thought that he wasn't as damaged as the other two, but now I thought his damage was just as bad.

And me?

What? I was the poster child for mental and emotional stability? Why had I come out here so readily? Was it really because of my biological urges and the way my tithe body had changed? Or had I just spent my whole life never being wanted and this felt decadent ?

Was I really mated to all three of them, or was I just greedy for attention, any kind of attention? Was I just a bottomless well that wanted stuffed full of them—their cocks, their come, their knots, their love, their touches and caresses? I couldn't get e-fucking-nough of it.

We mostly all had sex together, in the evenings, after dinner, and we all fell asleep together. If I had sex with any of them solo, it was in stolen moments, often in the mornings if one of them woke up and the others didn't, or if we happened to be alone together for some reason.

I didn't keep these little one-on-one trysts secret from the others for any reason I knew of, nor did I discuss with them that we shouldn't tell the others, but we all seemed on board with not flaunting that.

I was learning to make bread, learning how long to let it rise, how to knead the dough, all of that. It was a complicated process.

I milked the cow once, too, which I found sort of weird. Apparently, you had to make sure to keep milking the cow, even if you didn't need the extra milk, because the cow's milk supply rose to whatever the demand was of milking. This cow had once had a calf, I learned (which was a duh moment for me, because obviously , the cow had to have a baby to make milk) but it had been over a year ago, and the calf was weaned and had been traded off at some point for farming equipment. I felt a little sad that the mom cow had lost her calf, but also stunned that the cow was still making milk. Apparently, though, as long as you kept up milking the cow, that could go on and on for a while.

Eventually, they would have to breed this cow again if they wanted milk.

We.

We would breed this cow. It would be us, because I lived here now. Odd that I felt so happy to be in this place with them, like it was being dropped into a decadent vat of being desired and valued and how much I loved it, and yet I didn't feel like it was real, either. It was like some part of me thought that I'd just go home eventually. Deep down, I didn't believe it was going to last.

I put off calling my dad for too long, maybe because of that weird deep-down feeling?

I wanted to call Ninnia, but I had this thought that she might talk to my dad after I talked to her, and that would be shitty, if he found out from someone besides me.

I had a bunch of missed calls on my phone from my dad, of course, and texts, too.

Finally, it was a week after we got my stuff and I called him before dinner, while Paladin was in the kitchen frying up frozen chicken nuggets from the rations along with greens from the garden.

I went out on the porch and selected my dad from contacts and I dialed and it rang and I waited and some part of me hoped that he just wouldn't pick up.

But he did. "Jesus, Clementine, it's you. Is it you? Is it really you?" His voice was cracking.

"It's me," I said in a tiny voice.

"Jesus." And then he was crying. Again. I was not used to my dad crying.

It made me cry too. I sobbed out a bunch of apologies, wiping frantically at my eyes, feeling like shit for not calling him for so long.

"It's okay," he said. "Just tell me where you are, and I'll come and get you."

"Oh, Daddy." I cried more. I couldn't even form words.

"Where are you, baby?"

"I'm staying here. I'm mated."

"You're what?"

"Dad, I know you won't get it. I don't get it. I know, you'll say whatever it is you want to say about Mom, and I know that, too, I just… Dad, they love me, and I've never felt love like this before. No one's ever wanted me the way they want me. I know you won't like it, but I'm staying."

"No one's ever wanted you?" Now, he was angry.

"Dad…"

There was a long silence.

"How could you say that, Clemmy-girl? How could you not understand how you're the center of my world."

"I'm not," I said. "I mean, I think you want me to be, but Angela doesn't, and you let her manipulate you and—"

"Seriously?" He scoffed. "You sound like Angela right now."

"I just wanted you to know I'm safe and that you don't have to worry about me."

He laughed caustically. "Oh, you don't have any idea what it's like to be a parent, baby, you really don't. You're out there over the fence with a wolf. All I'm going to do is worry."

"I'm sorry," I said softly. I didn't correct him, tell him it was three wolves. "I'm happy."

He let out a disbelieving noise.

"I guess you can't be happy for me?"

He burst out in harsh laughter.

Well, okay, then.

"O-okay," he said finally. "You're happy. Okay. I can't understand it, but I want you to understand this . No matter what, no matter how we disagree, you're my little girl for all time. I don't have to understand, but I need you not to go radio silent on me. Keep the lines of communication open, okay? And if you don't want me to say things about werewolves, I'll keep my mouth shut. Nothing could be worse than losing you. And if you're alive, but you don't talk to me, that's just like losing you. You talk to me, you call me, you got that, Clementine? Answer your fucking phone."

"Yeah, Dad, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I won't do that again."

"Okay," he breathed. "Then we're okay, my sweet Clemmy, then we can handle anything. I will love you no matter what, you understand me?"

"Yes, Daddy," I said. And it did feel good, and I think he believed it, but…

Well, he couldn't be happy for me, and he couldn't understand. It was better than not having a dad at all, of course, but it wasn't ideal.

I clutched the phone and sobbed after I hung up, and Paladin came out to check on me, but I made him leave. Kestrel and Lazarus seemed frightened of my tears.

After that, a few days later, I did text Ninnia, and she wanted me to call her, and she was predictably freaked but also curious. She wouldn't believe I was mated to three wolves. She said that I was going to eventually figure out which one of them it actually was, but that I was just over-sexed right now. "You lucky bitch," she muttered.

I laughed at that.

"I mean, sorry," she said. "Actually, it sounds awful in a lot of ways."

"No, I am lucky," I said.

At least Ninnia could be happy for me.

The rest of the minutia we were caught up in was what I would call defensive strategy, which involved all sorts of hand drawn maps and discussions of various plans and narratives. Odd, of course that Kestrel felt that when it came down to fighting strategies, making visual aids was totally appropriate but not for chores.

I pointed this out to him, of course, but he said they were totally different things, and I just didn't get it.

We went to the quarry, which was an old limestone quarry that had hit an underground river and filled in with water. The biggest part of the quarry was a huge pool of water and in the distance were little caverns, also full of water.

We went out on a little boat to get to the caverns. I looked down into the quarry water, and I could see trees on the bottom there—no longer growing, of course—but the water had just rushed in and covered everything.

We paddled back into the caverns, and we talked about how long we could hide back here if we had to retreat to run from anyone.

Days later, we came back with dried meat and crackers and other stuff that we could hide in locked boxes (otherwise animals would get into it) in case we needed to eat while we were hiding out.

While we were out there, I felt freaked out. It seemed far too real, a possibility that we'd be on the run, hiding in these damp, cold, wet caverns, in fear for our lives.

But after we left, back in the farmhouse, in the warmth of the evenings, gathered in the kitchen or with our bodies smashed together and all of us riding our collective ecstasies, it seemed far off and silly, a worry that I couldn't quite believe would ever materialize.

Griff would manage. He'd keep everything together. We wouldn't have to fight.

I hoped it was true.

So, time passed, and I got more and more comfortable in my new home.

And then there was the day that Kestrel and I were looking everywhere for Lazarus and Paladin and we found them together in Lazarus's room, fucking, which I could have just watched forever, except Lazarus stopped when we walked in.

Kestrel was all apologetic and trying to leave, admittedly, and I was ready to pop some popcorn and settle in for the show. I'd seen them fuck each other while they were shifted but not like this.

It was mesmerizing.

I was all lit up, so while Lazarus was being all weird about it, I was just taking off my clothes.

I pounced on Paladin, putting my mouth on his cock and begging, around his erection, for Lazarus to keep fucking him. Paladin said, "Yes, please."

Kestrel came into the room again at that point, and Lazarus did it.

Kestrel knelt down behind me and took my pussy from behind. Paladin toyed with my ear, head thrown back, urging Lazarus on, calling him a ‘big boy,' and alternating between that and telling me that I was ‘inspired' at sucking cock.

I got Paladin off, and he made Kestrel lift me up so that he could put his mouth on my pussy, and he licked me and licked me and licked down at the base of Kestrel's cock where it was buried inside my pussy, and licked Kestrel's balls, and then licked my clit again and then I came like crazy.

And then Lazarus was coming, and Paladin started gasping, "Knot me, knot me, fucking knot me," and Kestrel started coming inside me, and that was how Paladin and I ended up knotted by the other two men.

All four of us in the afterglow, lying on Lazarus's bed tied together, stuck. Paladin and I were facing each other, and the others were spooning us, their cocks snugly inside us.

For a while, no one talked.

When someone did talk, it was Kestrel to apologize, because he knew he wasn't supposed to have come inside me, let alone knotted me.

"Yes," I said, "you're a very bad man. I do not forgive you." I was less worried about it because I'd had my period last week, and I felt as if the birth control was working, and everything was going to be fine.

"Shit," said Kestrel.

"We've all been bad, I think," said Paladin. "We're going to have to come clean. I think I'm the only one who knows the extent of it."

"Extent of what?" said Lazarus.

"I guess one thing is that I've been having little sessions like this, stolen sessions with Lazarus and Kestrel," said Paladin, giving me a crooked grin. "I think they thought you'd be offended or something."

"No!" I said. "Not at all. I mean, I'd love to be able to watch, but if I can't watch, I get that, too. I mean, you were all out here first, without me, so it makes sense." Except for the fact that I was realizing I did not entirely understand the dynamic.

"You've been fucking him, too?" said Lazarus to Kestrel.

"What can I say?" said Kestrel, sighing. "I can't quit that boy."

I giggled. "Is this the part where we all talk about how you guys are sneaking around to have solo sessions with me?"

"I figured they were," said Paladin. "I figured if they were coming after me, they were coming after you."

"And you and Lazarus, Kestrel? You guys too?"

"No," said Kestrel, too quick.

"Ouch," said Lazarus, laughing. "I see how it is."

"No, it's not…" Kestrel groaned.

"They are very no-homo with each other," said Paladin to me, conspiratorially.

"Um, okay," I said with a laugh.

"I don't count, because I'm not coded to be threatening," said Paladin.

"That's… fuck that," said Kestrel, sighing.

"Seriously, I'm an honorary woman," sang Paladin.

"No," said Lazarus. "No. Because if it was that, Paladin, we have a woman." He looked at me.

"It's just you," I said to him, grinning. "They can't get enough of you, and I can't either."

Paladin smiled at me, looking a little devastated. "Shit, Clementine, you know that I can't get enough of you ."

"She's not wrong," said Lazarus, his voice a little gruff, as he caressed Paladin's upper arm.

Paladin looked up at him, still looking devastated.

"All right, well, good talk," said Kestrel. "Let's get these knots down somehow, like, think of baseball or some shit, and—"

"Good talk?" I said. "We have talked literally about nothing."

"That's… not true," said Kestrel.

"There's nothing else to talk about," said Lazarus.

"There so is," I said. "We all can stop sneaking around and be cool with this. This is the craziest and most exciting relationship I can imagine. Think of the various permutations. Think of all the ways we can fuck. We are selling ourselves short here, I think."

"True," said Kestrel thoughtfully. He kissed my shoulder. "That's true."

"Okay, so good talk," said Lazarus. "I don't think that getting a knot to go down is a thing, though. You can't just will it away. I'm not thinking sexy thoughts at all right now, trust me, and—"

"We're not done talking! " I was in utter disbelief.

Paladin snickered.

Lazarus shot a glance at me, totally bewildered. "What else do we need to talk about?"

"Like, why are we all hiding this from each other?"

No one said anything.

Paladin spoke up eventually. "I mean, they're ashamed of me."

"No," said Kestrel.

"No," said Lazarus.

"They worry that you guys will be jealous of each other with me," I said.

"Maybe," said Lazarus.

"I just worry it's not fair," said Kestrel. "If everyone's sneaking off with you, though, I'm less worried about it. As long as we all feel we're getting equal access to her, I'm fine with whatever."

"You don't feel, like, pressured to keep up with all of us?" said Lazarus to me. "We're not wearing you out?"

"Oh, no," I said. "That's not… no." I giggled.

"Maybe the sneaking around is kind of hot?" said Paladin. "It's sort of fun to feel like you're getting away with something."

"True," I said. "But I'm glad everyone knows. I don't want to come between you at all."

"Nah, we're tight," said Kestrel, but that sounded too quick for me too.

"You guys both like fucking me, you mean," said Paladin. "But I have to say, I don't get it. Why?"

"Shut up, because you're you," muttered Lazarus.

"But what does that even mean?" said Paladin. "Because, like, none of us, if we were able to choose, would choose to have sex with men—"

"Shut up, because clearly we would," said Lazarus. A long pause. "Wait, you're saying you don't like it when I do this to you, because, for shit's sake, Paladin—"

"No, I guess I'm not," said Paladin thoughtfully. "I guess I'm definitely not saying that."

"So, you do like it? Because you can say no. You're allowed to say no," said Lazarus. "If you ever think that I would force you—"

"No, Lazarus, sorry," said Paladin, twisting around to kiss him reassuringly. "No," he whispered. "I don't feel forced."

"This is why there's no point in talking about this shit," said Kestrel. "People just get worked up—"

"We need to work through these feelings, though," I said.

"So, this is what it's like having a woman in the house, apparently," muttered Kestrel.

"Oh, whatever," I said, rolling my eyes. "Don't even pretend to complain, because I'm the best thing that ever happened to you, and we all know it."

Kestrel tightened his grip on me, planting fervent kisses on my neck. "Fuck yes, you are, baby girl, fuck yes."

I shut my eyes and gave him access to kiss me, and Paladin reached over to touch my face and made a little noises, which Lazarus echoed.

"We bonded over Paladin," said Kestrel. "We were already, like, a unit, and then you came along, and we all three mated you. It's unconventional, but it's good. It's just fucking good."

"No need to overthink it because it feels right," agreed Lazarus.

"But, like, are we gay?" said Paladin. "This is the burning question."

"I mean, no," said Kestrel.

"But if we enjoy, you know, having sex with each other…" Paladin trailed off in a leading way.

"Okay, the term, you guys, would be bisexual," I said to them.

They all scoffed at this.

Then Kestrel repeated it, like he was turning the word over on his tongue. "Bisexual."

"Whatever," said Paladin. "I'm totally straight. I just like a cock in my asshole now and again." Then he cracked up, and Lazarus started laughing too, and Kestrel also laughed.

"Look, my sexual orientation is Clementine and Paladin, end of story," said Kestrel.

"Yeah," said Lazarus.

But I was noticing the way Lazarus was looking at Kestrel. Hmm. Well, we'd see about that, wouldn't we?