Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

Fletcher

T he horror of watching a man fall to a gruesome death on jagged rocks would stay with me for the rest of my life. Even though the man in question had been one of the worst sorts of humans and his death would set free one of the two men I loved with my entire soul. The part of me that had bent over backward to keep Gideon safe against Goode’s evil desires for so many years was glad the bastard was dead, but the part of me that wished for a world where everyone was pure and safe and treated each other with kindness mourned.

Both of those parts immediately took a backseat as soon as I had Gideon and Artemis in my arms. It didn’t matter what had happened or that the rain was still driving down, chilling the three of us to the bone. I had my men, I could feel both of them, and in my heart, I knew I would be able to keep them forever .

Those wonderful feelings were also bumped straight out of my mind as the threatening beams of headlights peering around the corner of the house caught all of our attention.

“No!” Gideon wailed, burying himself further against Artemis and clutching at me. “No, I’m free! They can’t come after me now, I’m free!”

I’d lived around my husband’s fear for years, but it was nothing to the feeling of it seeping through our new bond and straight into my soul. It was dark and ferocious. I didn’t know how Gid had lived with it for so long. I could barely breathe as it hit me, and I was only feeling it second-hand.

“We have to get Gideon into the house,” I shouted above the rain, trying to stand.

It took more effort than it should have for the three of us to get to our feet. The strain of the rescue, the cold of the rain, and the panic that spread through all three of us made us stiff and awkward as we pushed ourselves up as one unit. I could just barely hear the sound of the car pulling to a stop on the gravel drive. Its headlights stayed on even as the engine sound stopped.

“The back door is locked,” Artemis said as we moved together, he and I keeping our arms around Gideon, who I wasn’t sure would be able to walk on his own. “I locked it when I went in for the rope in case Goode tried to escape.”

I nodded. It wasn’t ideal, but taking us around the front of the house would allow me to see what new threat we faced.

Only as we moved around the corner of the house and into full view of the three people getting out of the car and pulling the collars of their coats up against the rain, instead of more fear or sharp concern from Artemis, I felt a blast of relief .

“Victor!” he called out, spurring us to move faster.

“Artemis!” a deep, alpha voice answered him.

I felt Gideon’s fear spike for a moment before softening to curiosity and expectation.

“I came as soon as I got Fletcher’s call,” Victor called back.

Our two groups met in the soggy yard near the front corner of the house. With the car’s headlights still on, I could see the other two people with Victor Woodbury were an omega, probably Simon, and a tall, dark-skinned female alpha who I didn’t know.

“Where is Justice Goode?” the female alpha asked in a commanding voice.

“He’s at the bottom of the cliff over there, dead,” I said, gesturing to the blurry line of the cliff.

The female alpha tensed, then walked on to get a look for herself.

“We need to get out of this rain,” Artemis said, urging us all forward to the front of the house. “Then I’ll explain what happened.”

Victor and Simon seemed more than happy to get out of the rain with us. We rushed as fast as we could without letting go of Gideon around to the front porch and up into the house. I was so grateful that the fire was still blazing and the house was warm and dry. Even though we’d only been there for a few days, the sights and scents of that little home put me at ease, like we’d returned to our own, safe space after a near catastrophe. Everything would be alright.

“Thank you for coming,” Artemis said, letting go of Gideon to embrace his friend as I moved a trembling Gideon closer to the fire.

“We dropped everything to come up here the second I got off the phone with Fletcher,” Victor said, nodding to me. “And we picked up Detective Shirley along the way.”

“Det. Shirley?” I asked, rubbing Gideon’s arms to get warmth back into his body. Really, he needed to get out of his sodden clothes and into something warmer. We all did.

Victor glanced at me, peeked uncertainly at Gideon, then said, “I’ve been doing a little research about Justice Goode in the last few days, since your first call. It turns out that the Barrington Bureau of Investigation has an entire file on him and several of his friends from The People of God on Earth. Goode is guilty of several counts of human trafficking and endangering the welfare of a minor.”

I felt a gust of emotion from Gideon that was alarmed but not at all surprised. “Sometimes young people disappear,” he said quietly, his eyes wide. “We’ve always been told they were taken to another community to marry an alpha there, but sometimes we never heard from them again.”

Victor sent Gideon a sad, sympathetic look. “I’m afraid we discovered as part of our investigation that Goode had a buyer lined up for you after he had his fill of you.”

The burst of fear, anger, and outrage that welled up both within me and through the bond that the three of us shared was almost enough to buckle my knees.

“It’s alright, though,” Det. Shirley said as she walked through the door, shutting it behind her. “Thanks to the research Mr. Woodbury and his mate have been doing for us for the last few days, we have units raiding the compounds of both the potential buyer and several other alphas of note as we speak. They should all be behind bars by the time we get back to Barrington.”

“Thank God,” Artemis said, pushing a shaky hand through his wet hair .

“Are you certain Gideon is safe?” I asked, hugging my husband tightly, as if the force of my love alone could shield him from the evil people who wanted to hurt him.

“Yes, actually, I am,” Det. Shirley said. She was so convincing that I couldn’t help but believe her.

“I think the three of us need to dry off and change clothes,” Artemis said, leaving his friends and heading over to us. “Then we’ll talk about this and sort things out.”

“There are refreshments on the table,” Gideon said in a small, hopeful voice, pointing to the table at the other end of the room. “I didn’t know you were coming, but at least we’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Simon answered him with a nod and a smile.

I recognized the tiny interaction as two omegas reassuring each other with courtesy. It was sweet, actually.

I liked the idea of Gideon and Simon becoming friends, just like I wanted to become friends with Artemis’s friend Victor, but all of that had to wait until we were all warm and dry.

The three of us headed into the bedroom, and as soon as the lamps were lit, Artemis and I worked together to get Gideon out of his clothes, rubbing him dry with fresh towels and wrapping him up in a blanket on the bed for a moment as the two of us stripped and toweled off.

“It’s over,” Gideon said in a shaky voice, hugging himself in his blanket. “I think it’s actually over. Goode is dead.”

“Did you see him?” Artemis asked, wariness in his voice. When Gideon shook his head, Artemis said, “Good.”

He glanced at me, and I felt his relief that our sweetheart hadn’t seen the ugly sight .

“I can feel that,” Gideon said breathlessly, joy suddenly spilling off him. “I can feel what both of you are feeling.”

“That’s because we’ve bonded,” I said, bursting with shared happiness myself.

I was still naked, but I moved to the bed to hug Gideon tightly. I’d longed for some sort of bond, any sort, with Gideon for so long, but I’d believed it was impossible. I was incredibly grateful to be wrong. And even though I felt Gideon like moonlight and Artemis like the sun, I didn’t care. The bond was between the three of us with Artemis as the center point, but I loved that.

We finished getting dressed, and when we went back out to the living room, Victor was seated in the large armchair with Simon kneeling on the floor beside him—which was both strange and weirdly thrilling—and Det. Shirley was lounging in the smaller chair. All three were eating, which I could feel made Gideon happy.

The three of us took a seat on the sofa with Gideon in the middle. We couldn’t stop touching each other, but that seemed just about right, all things considered.

“You’ve really been doing research into Justice Goode’s activities?” Artemis asked Victor once we were all settled.

Victor nodded. “As soon as I got your call, I wanted to help. I have a few contacts on the inside—” he glanced at Det. Shirley, “—so it wasn’t as hard to piece things together as it could have been.”

“It helps that Arise Financial has been under investigation right along with Goode himself for a while now,” Det. Shirley said. “The company has been used for money laundering purposes in connection with the trafficking operation. In fact, I just heard from my colleague. A raid of the offices is taking place right now.” She held up her cell phone. “Though the reception out here is patchy at best. ”

“That was by design,” I said. “I needed a place where Gideon and I could be completely off-grid so Goode couldn’t find us.”

“As near as I can figure, he wouldn’t have found you,” Det. Shirley said, then looked at Artemis. “Except he suspected a connection between Mr. Montgomery here and the two of you.”

“It was my car,” Artemis said, frustration radiating from him. “I knew whoever I saw at the farm recognized my car.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain,” Victor said.

We were all silent for a moment as we sat there with the knowledge of Goode’s death and the freedom it gave us hanging in the air. I felt like Gideon and I had been given our life back. We wouldn’t have to live in hiding anymore. Gideon could come clean as Tristan Freehold if he wanted and accept all the accolades that were due to him for his amazing talent. I could enjoy our marriage, which would include Artemis now, too, if I had anything to say about it, without the stress of constantly being on guard for disaster.

Of course, I would always be on guard for disaster. Just because Goode was dead didn’t mean nothing bad would ever happen to us again. But I definitely felt like we’d weathered the worst of the storm.

The conversation continued, but it all felt surreal to me. Once the pertinent information was shared, the six of us mostly just sat there awkwardly, pretending we were relaxed and calm, friends entertaining friends. As much as I wanted to form a friendship with Victor and Simon Woodbury, as time dragged on, I wanted them out of our house so the three of us could be alone to talk about what happened next.

Fortunately, Det. Shirley knew when not to overstay her welcome .

“I need to get back to the station and make a report about this,” she said. “If it’s possible, Goode’s body needs to be recovered, but that will have to wait until morning, after the storm.” She looked specifically at Gideon as she said, “I’m sorry, but this place will be swarming with police and investigators by tomorrow morning.”

“We can head back to the farm as soon as your people tell us it’s okay for us to go tomorrow,” Artemis said, standing when the others did and shaking Det. Shirley’s hand on behalf of all three of us.

“Just in case you were worried,” Det. Shirley said while she still held Artemis’s hand, “the three of you will need to be questioned, but I can guarantee that no charges will be filed against you and you won’t be held responsible for Goode’s death in any way. From what you’ve told me, you did everything you could to try to save him and it was his own fault he fell.”

We’d recounted what happened during the course of the conversation, but I didn’t think we’d given her enough details to come to that conclusion so definitively. I got the impression that Det. Shirley was as determined to protect the innocent and to land blame for more than just tonight squarely on Goode’s shoulders, though.

It took several more minutes for us all to say goodbye and to exchange phone numbers where needed. Victor extended an invitation for the three of us to have dinner with him and Simon once things had settled, and I was definitely in favor of that.

I was so relieved once everyone was gone and it was just the three of us again that I could have wept, though. Or maybe those were Gideon’s emotions. It would probably take the three of us a while to sort out who was feeling what as we got used to our bond .

“I don’t know about you two,” Artemis said as we made an initial effort to clean up the snacks, “but all I want to do right now is go to bed.”

“I’m so tired,” Gideon blurted, almost sobbing.

“That settles it,” I said, putting down the plate I’d just picked up. “All of this can wait until tomorrow.”

We put out the lanterns, locked the doors, and Artemis made certain the fireplace was safe before we all washed up and headed to bed. None of us said anything about it, but we all stripped naked before crawling under the sheets together.

“We’re bonded,” Gideon said the thing that was on the tip of all of our tongues once we had settled and only the sound of the continuing rain filled the house. “All three of us. All three of us are bonded.”

His excitement was contagious and cut through the exhaustion that had made me heavy just moments before.

“I’m not sure I believe in miracles, I said, curling against my husband’s side and stroking a hand down his chest, resting it over his heart, “but this might change my mind.”

“It’s wonderful,” Artemis said, snuggling with Gideon in a similar way on his other side, but resting a hand on my arm. “I have no idea how it’s possible, but I’m not going to complain.”

“I know how it’s possible,” Gideon whispered.

The giddiness that came through the bond from him had me perking up even more. “You do?”

Gideon nodded. Then he grasped my wrist and moved my hand lower to rest over his belly.

I was confused for about three seconds before I felt the faintest niggle from inside him. Then I gasped.

“I knew it,” Artemis said, joy spilling from him. “I knew you were looking at those baby books for a reason. ”

“You’re pregnant?” I asked, even though I knew it was true.

Gideon nodded, his face heating. A tiny bit of shame pulsed from him. “I should have told you earlier, but I was scared. I didn’t want to get in the way of the bond you two had formed, and everything was in such jeopardy with Goode.”

“I understand, baby,” I said, snuggling in to hug him even tighter. “I don’t blame you at all.”

“We’re going to be a family,” Artemis said, so happy it made my cock stir and my hole go wet.

“We?” I teased him, sending him a cheeky look over Gideon.

“Yes, of course,” Artemis laughed. I felt his interest perking as well. “Didn’t that omega you spoke to at the travel center say marriages between three people are legal if the people are bonded?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Are all three of us going to be married?” Gideon asked, buzzing with excitement as well.

“Of course,” Artemis said, stroking his hand down my arm and across my side, then on to Gideon’s belly. “There’s a baby involved now and a bond. I’m not letting the two of you walk out of my life. Ever.”

“Hey,” I snapped playfully. “Who put you in charge of this marriage?”

“I’m the alpha,” Artemis insisted.

“And I’m the most dominant one,” I fired back.

“Wanna bet?” Artemis teased me.

There was more heat to his challenge than aggression, but I pretended he wanted a fight. Gideon sensed what was coming, and when I climbed over him, he rolled under me so that I was in the middle. Once my body was plastered against Artemis’s, I grabbed the back of his head and surged into him to kiss him.

Artemis responded with exactly the right mix of ardor and submission. He let me take control of the kiss while he brushed his hand down my side to caress my ass. He didn’t stop there, though. Just when I was convinced I had the upper hand, he squeezed my asscheek, then shifted to delve his fingers into the increasing wetness between my legs.

“You want to play those games, alpha?” I panted, lifting my leg over his hip to give him more space to move and touch. “Go ahead, then. Make me wet.”

Artemis growled and did just that. As I punished him with another kiss, he found my hole and thrust two fingers in. I moaned at the amazing sensation, demanding more through our bond. During our heat and in the last couple of days, I’d discovered that Artemis got off on being treated like his only purpose was to give an omega pleasure, and I was just fine with that.

“I want your cock,” I panted, rubbing mine against his hip. “I want you filling me and rearranging my insides, and I want it now.”

“Yes, sir,” Artemis said, then manhandled me to turn me so I faced away from him.

It was a perfect angle for him to push his thick, hot cock hard into my dripping hole, but it also turned me so I was staring right at Gideon as he did it. I moaned as the pleasure of being fucked when I really wanted it filled me, but there was more to the sensation than just my body being filled.

“You two are so hot,” Gideon gasped, wriggling like he was on fire right along with us.

He was. I had no doubt about it. I’d always known how hot Gideon could be, and now, through our bond, he was both sharing that with me and Artemis and feeling what we felt in return.

“Stay right there,” I ordered Artemis, reaching a hand back to grab his hip and keep him buried to the hilt inside me. “Don’t you move or slip at all.”

Artemis could only grunt in response as he pushed harder into me. I could feel his tip pressed against the tightly shut opening of my womb. I wasn’t in heat, so it wouldn’t open for him, but having him there was like keeping a toy pressed hard against my prostate.

“Come here,” I ordered Gideon breathlessly.

Gideon didn’t hesitate for a second before throwing an arm and a leg around me and pulling himself flush against my body. Our cocks rubbed together as I slanted my mouth over his, kissing him greedily.

Artemis groaned as if he felt that kiss, too, and he moved instinctively inside me. I wondered how long he would be able to hold out. I already felt right on the edge of orgasm.

I knew how I wanted to take that orgasm, and between kisses and caresses, I yanked Gideon closer and shifted his lower body. It was awkward and required a lot of control, but control was one thing I excelled at.

As soon as the tip of my cock pushed into Gideon’s slick-wet hole, Gideon moaned with need. He squirmed and wriggled, shifting his body until he was able to bear down on me. I thrust as much as I could, not wanting to move too suddenly and have Artemis slip out of me.

Artemis caught on at once to what I wanted and grabbed hold of Gideon’s hip, using him as leverage to keep us all together. It was worth the effort, because as soon as we were all locked in and I started to thrust my hips, directing all of our movements, it was like fireworks of bliss igniting and connecting between all three of us.

I’d never felt anything like it. My body was alive with pleasure, but it wasn’t just me. I could feel everything my mates felt. Our pleasure fed to each other in a glorious loop until we were all panting and making obscene noises as our bodies undulated together. I was greedy for it, hungry to feel not only my own orgasm, but Artemis’s and Gideon’s, too.

It started like a rumble of thunder, crashing and echoing around all of our bodies. I didn’t even know which of us started to come first, only that we created a cascade effect with each other. I cried out as my sensitive womb opening felt the jet of Artemis’s cum and as my own balls emptied into Gideon. It was almost as good as a breeding orgasm, because it connected the three of us.

I didn’t want it to stop, but the intensity subsided after we spent a few, glorious moments wrapped up in the height of passion. The soft, warm feeling of contentment and connection that enveloped the three of us after was almost as good, though. We stayed as joined as possible, kissing and stroking each other until our bodies were so spent and loose that we drifted apart naturally.

“I love you,” I said, meaning it for both of them. “I love you and I want you and I feel whole with you.”

“Yes,” Artemis said. I could feel that was all he was capable of saying.

“I’ve never been so happy or so full,” Gideon said, nuzzling drowsily against my shoulder as I started to fade off.

The last thing I thought and felt before I fell asleep was that everything was perfect. I’d been blessed with two men I loved and who would keep me safe, and I knew we would spend the rest of our lives together and make a family and a home together.