Chapter 1

Alick

"I thought he'd lost a sex toy, not a person!" Carrick's voice kept getting louder, and even though I wasn't the target of his frustration, he still made me nervous.

"You shouldn't make assumptions about things like that." Lorne shrugged and didn't seem to realize how close he was to getting zapped by his mate.

Or worse.

Caged.

To me, Carrick looked like he was plotting murder or a wicked scene, but either way I wanted to get out of the line of fire.

Mages were kind of nuts when they got this irrationally pissed off, and since the crazy mage didn't love me, I wasn't going to take any unreasonable chances.

"Lorne, what exactly did you tell Carrick?" Daddy Monroe was being especially Daddy with his tone, but he also stepped between the two men, so he was smart too. "I'm not sure the…the lost your shit spell was meant for people."

"It wasn't!" Carrick's tone was almost squeaky he was so worked up, so I slowly took a step toward the back door. I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it across the whole kitchen if he started slinging spells or Lorne did something stupid like shift, so my goal was to get as close as possible just in case.

Mages and dragons lost all common sense when shit like this happened.

Lorne shrugged and seemed to be trying to play dumb. "Um, well, I think I told Papa that Alick lost something important and private, and we're not supposed to talk about private, so I couldn't tell him what it was."

Tapping on his cheek like he was in some kind of movie, Lorne sighed and swished the sequined skirt he was wearing from side to side. "Then I gave him a blow job?"

He hadn't told me that part…no wonder it'd taken so long to go find Carrick.

Daddy Monroe groaned and rubbed his hands over his face as Carrick took a few deep breaths and started pacing. "Okay, in the future, if you ask for something like this, you have to be very specific about what's going on. That's a rule that I'm not going to negotiate on."

"But privacy is very important." Lorne looked like he was going to be stubborn on that and I could see his Daddy trying to decide what to do.

His brain must've worked faster than mine because he subtly shifted and crossed his arms over his chest. "So is your safety and Alick's. Is this something we need to have a longer discussion on?"

Lorne was still for several seconds before hunching over and huffing. "No, I promised not to argue about safety things."

Oh.

That was a smart rule because he had manipulation problems and impulse control issues…which was what had gotten us into the situation to begin with.

I should've asked more questions, but we'd gotten just slightly tipsy and Carrick had been so nice about the whole thing…that'd clearly been the post blow job happiness working in Lorne's favor…and the fact that he'd thought I'd lost my favorite sex toy had probably made him a bit giggly too.

But I was definitely asking Lorne more questions next time, even if I didn't want to know the answers.

"You'd feel very bad if you or Alick got hurt." Daddy Monroe sighed and managed to make us all feel guilty with the soft sound. "And what if the spell injured Alick's mate in some way?"

Wait.

What?

Lorne was Lorne and only focused on what he wanted to hear. "You think it will work? I was just worried it'd been a week and he hadn't turned up yet."

Daddy Monroe looked like he couldn't decide how ridiculous the situation had gotten and I couldn't blame him. "I have every faith in Carrick's abilities, but the spell was not meant for people."

"Someone used it to find their pet rabbit once and they got every rabbit within a hundred miles showing up on their doorstep." Throwing up his hands, Carrick started pacing faster. "That might just be an urban legend but what if it's true?"

Did he think my mate was a rabbit?

Could mates multiply like rabbits?

"I don't think Alick's mate is a rabbit, Papa." Lorne was doing his best to look cute, probably because he'd finally realized Carrick was still losing his mind. "But if he has a few mates out there, then I'm sure he'll have fun. He's very sturdy, so having multiple mates won't break him."

"Hey, I'm not that big…or fat." Just because I wasn't a cute twink like most of the littles in town didn't mean I was fat.

"I said sturdy." Lorne frowned and gestured in my direction. "You've got bulging muscles and a nice big dick. You'd be able to be fucked into next week and your mates wouldn't have to worry about breaking you. That's a good thing."

As I opened my mouth, Carrick threw up his hands again and interrupted. "His dick size is not in question at the moment."

How had the conversation gotten so off track?

"I think Alick is a bit worried that his mate might not find him attractive since he's on the more muscular side of the attractiveness scale." Daddy Monroe winked at me and pretended to ogle me, which made Lorne giggle. "But I'm sure he has nothing to worry about."

Fingers crossed.

"I'm fine. I just…I misunderstood Lorne." Daddy Monroe didn't believe me for a second and Lorne looked confused, but Carrick's ranting started again, so it distracted everyone.

"I don't know what to do if a dozen mates turn up like the rabbits." Shaking his head, Carrick frowned. "What if it's fucked with his mate's magic? What if I fucked things up and a woman shows up?"

Great dragons above.

"No." Shaking my head, I glared at Lorne, whose eyes had finally widened. "I get a male mate. That's not in question here."

There'd better not be a woman showing up.

I didn't want a Mommy.

"I'm sure it's going to be fine." Lorne seemed to have realized how badly things might go and was looking around the room at everyone. "Papa is a wonderful mage and he always says intent is a big part of what makes magic work."

"He thought he was searching for a sex toy." How would that affect intent? "I don't think I want to know how his intent might fuck things up."

Daddy Monroe was trying not to laugh, but I was more focused on the way Carrick was muttering to himself and shaking his head. It didn't look good, but most of his complaining didn't seem to be about anything other than rabbits and sex toys, so I wasn't sure how seriously to take him.

"No, his words were about finding something important that Alick needed and he told me to think about Alick." Lorne said that entirely too casually and didn't seem to understand why all of us had gone still at the same time. "What? I was thinking nice things."

My mate was going to turn out to be a shiny rabbit covered in glitter or rhinestones.

"What kind of things were you thinking about?" Carrick finally stopped pacing and took a deep breath, probably realizing that ranting was not helping the situation or making Lorne feel bad about what he'd done.

I could've told him that would be impossible to accomplish, but he wasn't my mate, so I ignored that part.

"Well." Lorne got a thinking face that looked like he was in the middle of a cartoon and started pacing around the kitchen. He was clearly imitating Carrick, which Daddy Monroe thought was adorable. The mage in question, though, seemed to be mentally debating how he was going to torture Lorne.

But since I was on the mage's side with this one, I just inched toward the door again.

"Okay, I was thinking about how he wanted his mate and how wonderful Alick is for a human."

For a human?

Nope.

I wasn't going to interrupt and risk distracting the dragon with a squirrel brain.

"I was focusing on his mate and wanting him to come find Alick." Frowning, Lorne shrugged. "And maybe I was hoping he had a big dick? I can't remember exactly."

Oh fuck.

"I'm going to end up with a rabbit shifter that's hung like an elephant…and they're somehow going to be a woman." I wasn't sure if I was overreacting or not, but Lorne huffed.

"I was thinking about a man. Duh. I'm not stupid." He seemed very confident about both of those facts, but I wasn't sure what the right response would be, so I focused on Carrick.

He looked much more rational and less likely to zap anyone, so it felt safe for the time being. "I'm very sorry things got out of hand. Lorne said he talked to you about it and then gave me a hug and said you both respected my privacy."

I'd just made assumptions I shouldn't have.

Carrick's sigh said he was thinking something along the same lines. "I'm not mad at you. This is not a hairbrained idea that you would've come up with."

Nope.

My impulse control issues ran in other directions.

"Can I ask if this is going to damage my mate? Um, what will the spell do if I don't have a mate? I'm not sure where to start worrying here." The list in my head was growing by leaps and bounds. "Will this fuck with a regular human that wasn't meant to be my mate? What if Lorne accidentally pictured some guy he saw in porn or in an ad? Will he just show up randomly?"

Lorne huffed and was clearly offended about something, but we all voted to ignore him for now.

Daddy Monroe was back to jumping between shock and laughter, and Carrick was looking up at the ceiling like he was praying to the ancestors for help.

They didn't seem to be listening at the moment, but I didn't interrupt just in case.

After a few seconds he let out a deep breath and straightened so he could see me again. He was back to looking professional and very magey, which made me feel much better even though there was no logical reason for it.

"Alright, thinking practically about what I know, the basis of the spell is to find your lost object. Something that belongs to you." Forcing his shoulders down, Carrick took in another deep breath as he worked through the problem. "A random human who was never meant to be yours would not be affected."

That was good to know.

"It's entirely possible that your fated mate, however, would react to the spell in some way." His frown was back, but he looked more like a confused professor and less like a homicidal mate. "Have you been feeling any sense of a compulsion?"

"No." Not unless he counted my brain wanting to eat ice cream for breakfast, but that was more about bad decisions than magic that had gotten all fucked up.

"Okay, that's good." He didn't say why that was good but he didn't seem panicked, so I decided that was one thing I didn't have to worry about. "You also haven't taken any random trips because you're still here, so that's good."

Oh.

"I like trips." Lorne wasn't helpful but his random comment got him cuddles from his Daddy, which I thought had been his plan to begin with. He looked entirely too pleased to be wrapped in his Daddy's arms for it to have been unintentional.

Carrick went back to mumbling to himself as he started circling the kitchen, but after a few seconds, he frowned again. "I used the local map. I thought there was something off with the spell when it didn't show something at Alick's house. Oh. That's. I should've—"

Cutting himself off, he headed out of the kitchen and toward the living room where Carrick had all kinds of odd books and maps stretched out over every surface. "I was thinking too small. Sex toys are small, so this isn't my fault exactly. It did work. Just not in the way I intended."

Yeah, that was obvious.

But since I was pretty sure at least part of this was my fault, I kept my smart-ass comments to myself as I followed him.

"Redoing the spell is out of the question." Carrick was talking to himself again, but we all nodded in agreement on that, which was good to see. "How did we word it? What was I thinking?"

I had no idea how to answer either of those questions, but Carrick's quiet focus said he didn't need help.

So we waited.

And waited.

His gaze kept jumping between books and maps and odd stuff that might've been magic related or just mage fidget toys. When he finally looked back at me, he wasn't radiating the same frantic worry, but he clearly wasn't happy.

"Alright, to the best of my recollection, when nothing showed up on the map, I think I was focusing on reuniting you with your special object." I was glad he didn't say sex toy again, but his wording made Lorne giggle. "With the way the spell usually works, that would've meant the magic would've found a way to help you."

I must've looked as confused as I felt because he finally chuckled. "Ages ago, I had a friend who said his parents lost his mother's antique necklace. This was before GPS and all that fun stuff, and they didn't realize it was gone until they'd done a cross-country trip."

That would've sucked. "Oh man."

Grinning at my reaction, he nodded. "Yeah, and the only physical map they had was a map book that covered all of North America. It messed with the spell so they couldn't see where on the map the necklace was, but the magic still took their intent and just handled it in a different way. Within an hour, a housekeeper at one of the hotels they'd stayed at found it and the hotel called them."

"Wow." That sounded better than the rabbit story.

"So it seems like we might not have anything to worry about physically, but Alick's mate might be somewhere slightly frustrated with us?" Daddy Monroe raised a very good question and Lorne finally sighed as he leaned back against his Daddy's chest.

"Oh, Alick, I don't want your Daddy to be mad at us." Lorne's voice shook as his eyes watered. "I'm sorry."

That was what finally made him realize he'd fucked up?

Carrick just rolled his eyes and Daddy Monroe finally gave up, smiling behind Lorne's back as he kissed his naughty boy's head. "I'm sure he'll be very understanding once we explain the mix-up."

Yeah, very understanding…as long as the magic hadn't fucked up his life too much trying to help fix mine.

Great.

I was finally going to get my mate and he was going to be pissed.