Chapter 21

TWENTY-ONE

Samantha

I wake up, feeling amazing. The birds are chirping, the sun is out… okay, not literally, but that’s how I feel right now. Like the moment after you get a CBD massage, and you’re not sure your legs will ever work again.

Memories of the night before come back to me, and I smile, feeling Zane’s arms wrapped around my waist. That was incredible. Zane just seemed to know me better than I know myself. Today is going to be… fuck, Aydan and Evander.

Today is going to be a mess.

I shift, intending on escaping Zane’s arms before he wakes up, but his arms tighten around me. When I look back, his sleepy gaze is watching me with complete and utter happiness. I don’t want to be the one to ever take that look from his face, but we have to be practical.

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

He lifts a brow. “Says who?”

“Aydan and Evander.”

He laughs. “They will be mad. They will roar and growl and break things, and then they will accept it. This is their way. It makes no difference if this happened today or in many days from now, their reaction would be the same.”

Maybe he’s right, but I’m still not looking forward to dealing with them.

“You do know the things they break might include parts of your body?”

He flashes another smile. “Luckily, I heal quickly.”

I shake my head, grinning. “You’re really not afraid of much, are you?”

He runs his fingers through my hair. “Just losing you.”

I kiss him. He kisses me back, and I get the feeling we’re going to go another round, when I hear the buzz of the door. Breaking our kiss, I groan, praying it’s just Granger, but knowing I don’t have that kind of luck.

“Maybe we should just ignore them?”

Zane strokes my cheek. “They will know now or later. They may as well know now.”

I nod, realizing he’s right.

Slipping out of bed, I dress quickly, ignoring the repeated buzzing of the door. With my jeans and t-shirt on, I glance at Zane and see that he’s still naked. And absolutely amazing to look at.

I give myself one minute to gawk, and then say, “You have to get dressed.”

“If that is what you want.” He climbs out of bed and pulls on his tight pair of boxers.

I swallow. Hard. “Don’t you have anything else to wear?”

“No, this is it. Is this not enough?”

Boy, the guys are going to be pissed. “It’ll have to do. Come on.”

We go to the door, and I click the button to open it. Evander and Aydan are there, both looking hot as hell. Evander has a formal-looking button-up black shirt on and slacks, and Aydan is wearing a tight gray t-shirt and jeans. They look casual, almost happy, for half a second before their gazes land on us.

Aydan punches Zane so fast that Zane actually falls back and hits the ground. I step between them as Aydan tries to go after him. Gone is the calm morning energy, leaving behind a mess I created.

“Leave him alone,” I shout.

“What happened to taking things slow?” Aydan asks, his voice low and angry.

Zane gets off of the ground, and I shove Aydan back, giving Zane some space. The ice dragon, to his credit, is busy wiping away blood on his cheek, looking unbothered. Which lasts all of one second before Evander punches him, and Zane goes down again.

“Fuckity fuck! Can we please stop punching Zane?”

“He deserves it,” Evander says coldly.

“Why does he deserve it but not me?”

They all look at me horrified.

“Y-you know why,” Aydan stutters. “He knew better!”

“I mean, you fucking marked each other!” Evander says, pointing to Zane’s throat.

I blush. “Not intentionally.”

“It was intentional for me,” Zane says, and I kind of wish I could tell him to shut up.

“We had a deal.” Aydan’s words are an accusation.

“Listen, I know I told you I’d try my best to take things slow, but it just happened. You both understand what it’s like being dragons. Sometimes, you just can’t help yourself.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse,” Aydan mutters, his dark blue eyes catching mine. “You can’t just constantly blame everything on being a dragon. If we come to an agreement, we need to stick to it.”

Zane rises to his feet. “From the very beginning, I let it be known that my goal was to be with Samantha. I wanted to be her mate again. I wanted to be with her. I never deceived you in this.”

Both men glance at him. It’s strange. They’re angry, but there’s a weird amount of… respect flowing between them. I half wonder if Evander and Aydan are angry just because they feel like they’re supposed to be angry.

“Maybe you’d didn’t deceive us, but this certainly didn’t help to earn our trust,” Evander tells him, rebuttoning one of the cufflinks that opened when he punched Zane.

“This is a good thing,” Zane says, sounding a little frustrated for the first time. “Now, we can all share Samantha the way we were meant to.”

They both stare at him like he’s grown a second head.

Aydan makes a scoffing sound. “I don’t know what you’re smoking, but we won’t be sharing Sam any time soon.” Then, he turns to me. “Evander and I are going to get breakfast and calm down, and Zane better walk the hell away from your room.”

I give Zane a look.

He sighs and leans in as if to kiss me. Both Evander and Aydan tense, and Zane stops in mid-route to me, pulling back. With his back straight, and his gaze confused, he heads back to his room.

Aydan and Evander both give me angry looks and then head toward the elevator. I wait until the door to my room shuts and then take a minute to calm my beating heart and decide how I feel. The thing is, I completely understand where Aydan and Evander are coming from. This world typically works by having one man and one woman in a relationship. I don’t know enough about a relationship with one woman and multiple men to have any idea if I’m in the wrong, or how I should be handling this situation, but I definitely feel like I could have done better than this.

I finish getting ready and then head to the one person who can make me feel better in any situation. Buzzing his door, I wait for a minute and then Granger answers the door. He’s dressed, but his hair is even messier than usual, and he looks a bit tired.

“Mind if I talk to you?”

He gives a soft smile. “How about while we walk? I kind of want to see the light of day.”

“Perfect.”

We walk to the elevator together and then step out into the cool morning air. Without a word, we head for the cliff, probably because we both want to see that incredible view of the sun’s early rays burning their way across the water.

“So, what’s up, Carrot Top?”

I roll my eyes at the affectionate nickname. “I think I might have complicated things even more.”

He gives a fake wide-eyed look. “You? Never!”

Bumping him with my arm, I laugh. “I’m serious. I barely started calming things down between Aydan and Evander, and then Zane gets thrown into the mix.”

“Ah, the ice dragon who likes to walk around half-naked and with a boner. How could that possibly upset Aydan and Evander?”

My cheeks heat. “He’s not trying to annoy anyone, this is all just really new to him.”

“And I’m sure Evander and Aydan were completely understanding about his ignorance. It’s not like those two are wildly possessive, jealous assholes who have an all-consuming love for you and would rip out the eyes of anyone who even looks your way.”

I groan. “You’re acting like there’s no chance they can be reasonable.”

One of his brows lifts. “Reasonable is not a word I would use to describe either of those men, but I haven’t had their dicks in me–”

“Yet,” I add on, unable to help myself.

He rolls with it. “Right, yet , but maybe there will be some dark night with enough liquor. Who knows? The thing is, if this were a scientific hypothesis, I would say you would be the best person to come up with an accurate answer. So, would you call those two reasonable?”

This is painful. “No.”

He waves a hand. “Exactly. So you can hardly blame them for approaching Zane with a little caution. I mean, you’re approaching him with caution, right?”

My cheeks are hot again. “I mean…”

My I mean hangs in the air between us for a long second. “Sam, did you already bang the ice dragon?”

Is it possible for a person’s face to catch on fire? “It happened last night. It was all pretty quick. I woke up to him in my bed, and I just couldn’t help it–”

He looks upset. “So, all a guy has to do to get in your pants is show up in your bed?”

I smack his arm. “No, it wasn’t like that. It’s just a dragon thing. I couldn’t resist him.”

“Right. Right. A dragon thing. You’re all about the hunky dragons these days.”

“Listen, this isn’t easy for me to understand either. Everything is still so new and weird. I’m not even used to thinking of myself as a dragon.”

Granger clears his throat and straightens his back. “So, you came to me because you’re having trouble with your two old boyfriends accepting your new boyfriend?”

Boy, that’s an embarrassing way to sum it up. “Something like that.”

“Okay, then, let’s think of this scientifically. Marmosets, jacanas, dunnocks, and honeybees are all animals that often have one female with multiple males. As strange as this idea is, it does happen in nature. It seems to me that you four need to accept that this is your dynamic and create boundaries.”

“Boundaries?”

He nods. “What are you guys comfortable with? Does everyone need to spend the same amount of time with you? Are there certain sex acts that are off the table? Do you guys not approve of PDA? What are the dynamics of this relationship?”

“Boundaries,” I repeat, like it’s a word I’ve never heard of.

The thing is, I’ve never thought about this relationship as anything but a mess that I had to clean up very carefully. Seeing it as just a different kind of relationship than the ones I’m used to might actually be a good idea.

We stop by the edge of the cliff and stare out. The water is a blanket of blue, but the white-tipped waves hit the shore beneath us like something out of a dream. It seems a shame that Specter Inc. built its company here. This place feels like it should’ve been left to nature.

“I guess I should get things figured out before we find this storm dragon and things get even more complicated.”

“Yeah, the storm dragon sounds like a load of fun,” Granger mutters.

I nod, unsure what to say. “Zane says he’s supposed to be the biggest, strongest, most alpha dragon of them all.”

“Oh, yay, more alpha-male energy. That’s just what we need,” he says dryly.

I laugh and pull him into a hug. “Hey, you have alpha-male energy.”

He snort-laughs. “If we were in the animal kingdom, I wouldn’t even be a beta. I’d be an omega. One time at school I got the last baked potato in the cafeteria line, and a guy literally just stuck his fork in it and took it off my plate.”

“That’s awful,” I say, squeezing him tighter. “But maybe you just pick your battles, and that wasn’t a battle you wanted to pick.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m just not that kind of guy. Between Aydan, Evander, and Zane, I’ve got the energy of a dog that’s been kicked too many times.”

I look up at him, frowning. This is really bothering him. “I can remember a dozen times in our lives where there was something you really cared about, and you went all badass and took care of the problem. I remember how Max used to copy off your papers and then be such a dick to you in the hall. So, you started writing all the wrong answers on your tests, waiting until he turned his in, and then you’d scribble out the wrong answer and redo it. He couldn’t figure out why he kept failing all the tests and you weren’t!”

His lips curve into a small smile. “I didn’t even care that it gave me less time on the tests. I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

I grab onto his shirt and pull a little. “See that? Badass .”

We quietly hold each other for a minute, looking out at the waves. It’s strange how much I love Granger holding me. I always feel so safe and protected. He feels like this force that’s bigger than all of us. It’s something I don’t quite understand.

“So, I should expect another alpha-asshole sometime soon?” he teases softly.

“Zane says we usually all find each other, and that the storm dragon is an Awakened Dragon, so we might have to figure out a plan to find him before the enemy dragons keep waking up more dragons to join their cause. Zane says with the storm dragon on our side, none of the other dragons will challenge us.”

He sighs. “Yeah, I heard the whole thing, even though I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“That makes two of us,” I admit.

He’s quiet for a long minute. “I know Aydan gets to be all protective boyfriend about you, but I don’t know if I like sharing you with these guys either.”

I snuggle against him. “Don’t worry, no one is ever going to take me from you.”

Kissing the top of my head, he says, “I hope not. You’re my family, Sam. I never want to lose you.”

“Just think of me as a pie. There’s more slices out of me, but your slice will always remain the same size.”

He chuckles. “That, I can handle.”

Then I sigh. “I just hope I can handle four boyfriends.”

“You’ll handle it. The guys just might need a little time to wrap their minds around it, that’s all. Give yourself a little grace.”

I breathe in his scent again, like books and soap. A shudder rolls through my body, and I curl in closer to him. “I honestly can’t believe how much I like your scent. It’s so weird.”

He’s breathing faster. “How’s it weird?”

“Well, I hate the scents of the bad dragons. I don’t mind most of the scents of other humans, except if they’re unclean or drenched in cologne and perfume. But you? Your scent? I just love it. I wish I could wrap myself up in it and go to sleep.”

“Well,” he says, drawing out the word, “I guess I’ll have to bathe a little more, so you don’t become obsessive about me and my scent.”

Laughing, I pull away from him. “Obsessive?”

He nods, grinning. “You know, waking up at night just to get a little bit of this scent.”

I’m about to tear him a new one when the badges around my and Granger’s necks buzz. Dr. Duncan’s voice comes out from the little button above the badge they’d added to communicate with us. “Dragon Pack, please report to the labs in exactly zero-thirty. Dragon Pack, please report to the labs.”

I glance up at Granger. “This isn’t over, but I need to see Dahlia before we meet up.”

He starts running then calls over his shoulder. “Race you to the elevator.”

“Cheater!” I scream and run behind him.

As a dragon, I can out run him, but decide to let him have this one. He deserves a win.