17. Brooklyn

Chapter 17

Brooklyn

Marcelo and I had gone back and forth on when and how to tell our mate about all things dragon, about how he was ours but in a different way than any he'd ever known, how the two of us weren't even human. We had to protect him, but also we were scared. What if he couldn't accept it. The whole triad thing had been so new to him on its own. This was going to be whoa.

Telling him he was ours for always and forever, and a real forever, not a married forever, and that we could sprout wings—that was a whole lot to take in at once on a good day. And figuring out which good day that would be? Yeah, we sucked at it. Anytime we discussed it, the consensus was that the right time would present itself, and the reveal would just happen naturally.

That didn't happen.

Instead, Marcelo became pregnant and pushed the timeline. And I couldn't be happier about the pregnancy. I just wished that we had told Jackson first. The chances were at least one of the babies was going to be a dragon, and probably both, since Marcelo was the one carrying them. And dragon babies meant eggs. Jackson needed time to adjust to all of this before that happened, that was for sure.

At least we were at my favorite place for the reveal. My dragon was at peace here, and Marcelo's liked it here the few times we'd come together as well. Jackson was really nervous, his scent giving him away as we walked into the clearing where we would shift for the first time.

"I come here a lot," I said. "I used to come here with my neighbor quite a bit before I had two men taking up all of my free time in the best possible way. I've brought Marcelo here before."

"I see." Jackson's clipped response had me wishing I had a playbook on how to freaking do this. Because I was winging it and doing a piss-poor job at it.

"On a couple of our solo dates, yeah. You'll see why in a minute." Marcelo was a thousand times better at this than I was, and I waited for him to continue. He didn't. Instead, the three of us walked silently until we reached the spot I thought best for the occasion. Occasion? As if this were a formal and well-thought-out affair.

"I can see why you like it here. It's beautiful."

That had my dragon puffing up. He loved hearing his mate's approval, even if it was only about the place he loved to fly best.

"But I don't understand why. Why did we have to come here? All of this is so confusing."

He held his stomach but looked at Marcelo's, and I didn't know if it was the nerves bothering his own stomach or if it was his body's reaction to thinking about our mate's pregnancy. I wanted to ask, but it felt like the longer this dragged out the worse it was getting.

"Why don't you sit down." I opened up the blanket that we'd found in the back of the trunk and laid it down for him.

"Okay." Jackson took his seat.

Marcelo and I both kicked off our shoes and then pulled our shirts up and over our heads, letting them drop to the ground.

"Am I watching you guys have fun times? Because I'm okay with that, but also it's weird because… why all the odd lead-up? No need for big theatrics."

"That's not why we're here, but absolutely we can come here for that one day." Marcelo unbuttoned his pants. "For the record, I wouldn't hate being the watcher in that scenario. Just saying."

Jackson let a little giggle escape. He was relaxing. That was a good sign. A great sign, even.

"Please trust us, okay? Just trust us." Marcelo dropped his pants first, and I followed second.

"You are 100% safe," I added, and the second the words left my mouth, I saw my error right on Jackson's face.

"Which I knew until you said that." He bit his bottom lip.

"Listen, whatever you see here, just remember this is us," Marcelo said. "It's always been us and will always be us, and we love you."

"Oh… oh… okay," he stammered.

I realized that the longer we drew it out, the worse it was going to be. So I took a few steps back and called forth my wings, keeping them close so as not to scare him more than he probably was already going to be.

"Whoa, no way!" His eyes went wide. It wasn't fear I saw looking back at me. It was wonder and excitement. "Did I accidentally eat something bad? Am I, like, dreaming?"

"You're not," Marcelo said before taking his own wings.

"No way. You guys are dragons. Like, dragon dragons. Both of you. You're real… fly-in-the-air dragons, burn-shit-to-the-ground dragons." He stood up and stepped close to us. He wasn't scared. He was fascinated.

"So when you guys were talking about your culture, you meant you're freakin' flying in the air, fire-breathing dragons, not that you grew up in a small town? Honestly, that makes so much more sense."

It was going better than I thought it would—better than I dreamed it would.

He came up to Marcelo first. "Can I touch you?"

Marcelo lowered his head, and Jackson reached up, carefully brushing his fingers over his scales.

"Oh, crap." He yanked his hand back. "Is this gonna hurt the babies? The changing-to-another-shape part." And that was the first ounce of fear I sensed from him, and it wasn't even for himself. It was for our young.

No, it's not gonna hurt the babies, I assured him… in my head…which did absolutely no frickin' good at all.

I took my skin. "I'm sure you have lots of questions, but to answer this one, the babies are perfectly safe. It's perfectly normal to shift during the early parts of pregnancy."

"Okay." He reached back up and ran his fingers along Marcelo's head. "What about the flying bit? Is that real? Can you show me if it is?"

Marcelo took three hops back and took to the air. I shifted and did the same.

If that was what my mate wanted to experience, that was what he was going to experience.

Marcelo and I flew around, not keeping low to the ground. We chased each other, did a few tricks, and went at different speeds so that our mate could watch our beasts and take it all in.

His eyes lit up like he'd seen the most wonderful sight in the world.

"Mates, my brain is forming actual questions now." It was about five minutes since we first shifted. "Can you come back to me?"

We both went down, took our skin, grabbed each other's hands, and joined him on the blanket.

"We're sorry we didn't tell you before. We're not supposed to talk about it." I knew it wasn't enough, but it was all that I had to offer by way of apology.

"I gather that's because I'm not supposed to know since I'm not one of you." Jackson never failed to surprise me. He was taking this all in so naturally.

"Yes." Marcelo grabbed the back of his hand. "But you can because you're our mate, but we couldn't really explain that part to you before we were committed because it meant telling you we existed… it's complicated."

"In a nutshell, I can know you turn into dragons because you're my mates." He kicked off his shoes. "Wait… does that mean we're not getting married?"

"We can if you want that. But we are mates, and I'd like to get mated too." I'd understand if he didn't want to. It would hurt, but I'd get it.

"And what does being mated look like? You mentioned it before, but I didn't put it in the right context in my head then."

"What does it look like?" Marcelo took the lead on this one. "It looks a lot of different ways, but it's always the same in that we all bite each other… we call it marking."

"That explains so much!" He squeed. "Remember how Marcelo was sucking me while you fucked me that first night when we were together," as if I could forget. "and I was being jerked by you…"

We both nodded.

"I felt this urge to lean forward and sink my teeth into Marcelo. And at the time, I felt guilty, like why would I want to hurt him like that. And now? Now I'm guessing that's what I was supposed to feel. It was really hard not to bite down. Not gonna lie."

"Tell me about it." I groaned. "Marcelo's shoulder was right there, looking like it needed to wear my mark."

"Listen, I know I'm gonna have a lot of questions about all of this, and we need to talk about a lot of things, but I guess I don't want to worry about that right now."

"You don't?"

"No, because right now, what I want more than anything is to finally be your mate… and to mate you back."

"I think we can arrange that."