Episode Twenty-Three With Love and Mutual Respect

C haska

I didn't get any sleep last night. Perhaps the tremendous strain my body went through to transform into a dragon may have drained my energy as well. Despite my best efforts, between my fatigue and Shanna's fingers petting my head, I dropped asleep during that broadcast.

I wake with a start as my mates are exclaiming about something. My hand immediately reaches for the shotgun I set at my side before I sat down.

"Chaska!" Shanna says.

"What?" I'm terrified. Are we being attacked again? So soon?

"Chaska, you're a… man again."

I stare down at myself. Naked. My clothes shredded during my transformation. I'm covered in naked skin. Not scales.

"What?"

"You fell asleep during the newscast, right?"

"Yeah."

"I wonder if sleep resets you," Alex says incredulously.

"Why? Did they say that during the newscast?" I ask as I stroke my palm along my cheeks and face where my spikes have been protruding and taking up my peripheral vision all day.

"Ro and I slept when I was handcuffed to the radiator and Ro was on the bed. We didn't change back. Our forms are static. You're…" his sentence fades.

"We think you're a shifter," Shanna says.

"What the fuck does that even mean?" I ask.

I've seen some of the books Shan reads with handsome men on the cover and a wolf or a bear in the background. I asked once, wondering what kind of crazy bestiality she was reading about. When she explained the concept to me, I must admit, my interest faded.

"What if we need me to be a dragon again?" I ask. "Was this a one-and-done? I need to be a functioning part of this team. My dragon breath saved our lives today."

"I'm pooped," Shanna says. "I vote we take the world's quickest showers and adjourn to the bedroom. Let's address these questions tomorrow. Besides, none of us understands any of this. I'm a geneticist. If any of us could figure this out, it would be me, but I'm stumped."

She combs her fingers through my hair, which is somehow back on my head. God, I love when she does that.

"Have you heard the joke about the rabbit, the dragon, and the wolf who walk into a whorehouse?" my wife asks with a provocative toss of her head. "Me neither. I say we should get busy, fuck like bunnies," she glances at Ro with the sexiest smile, "and come up with a punchline by sunrise."

The room is silent. I have no idea what the other guys are thinking, but my mind is spinning in shock. Two days ago, we had a highly functional poly relationship. We're now what could best be described as a menagerie. Did our wife really just proposition the three of us?

"Shan?" Ro asks, his tone cautious. "How, exactly, is that going to work?"

"When you grow up," she says in a calm voice as she rises from the couch, "and you meet someone you love very much, your penis will get hard. The female—"

Alex interrupts her little parody of a parental birds-and-bees talk. "Don't be flip, Shanna. This could be dangerous."

"Leaving our front door today was dangerous," she says, her brown eyes blazing with sincerity. "Filling our car with gas was dangerous. Sitting in our own home out in the middle of nowhere is dangerous. What I'm not worried about? Sharing my body with three men who love me and love each other. We will proceed cautiously, with mutual trust and respect. This is going to happen."

She turns toward the bedroom, then cranes to look over her shoulder at the three of us who are still near the couch. "And Alex, if you eat your husband, you're not going to get anymore nookie for a long, long time."

With that, she laughs and marches through the bedroom door.