Page 126 of Blood and Trouble

“Fuck,” I groaned. Or tried to groan. Somewhere in my trippy, disappointing afterlife, I must have swallowed a bucket of razor blades. My tongue had turned into sandpaper.

I opened my eyes again and focused on the ceiling, more prepared for the audacity of the lighting fixture overhead. I recognized the panels and the blue curtains hanging on either side of my bed. Memories hit me next—the manor outside London. The silver. The demonic vampire ritual with that walking corpse, Evelyn. Then…Ava. Poe.

The marks.

I tried lifting my hands to touch my neck, but two firm grips on either side weighed them down. Ava sat on my left, her fingers intertwined with mine, her head resting on the bed by my legs. Poe was on the right, his palm tight in mine, his steady brown gaze trained on me. The sight of them stirred a comfortable warmth in my gut, spreading through my chest and down to my toes.

Mates, my wolf hummed. Mine.

“Welcome back,” Poe murmured.

“Jesus Christ,” I croaked, closing my eyes again. “Am I dead?”

Poe pulled one side of his lips into a half-smile. “You were. For a bit. But you promised Ava you wouldn’t, and she held you to it.”

“It feels like I got hit by a truck,” I said.

“It probably would have been better if you did,” he said, balancing his chin on his palm.

“What happened?” I squeezed his hand, more to reassure myself this was real, that I was indeed back in the waking world.

“The bitch got away,” Poe said, which meant she’d be back with vengeance, now more pissed and desperate.

After that, I’d seized right there on the floor, and they torched the rest of the vampires and flew everyone home. I’d been knocked out in Morwyn’s infirmary since, nearly ten days—plus or minus the few minutes I’d been awake three days ago.

“Ren was beat up. Took a blade to the gut and went down under six vampires,” Poe said. “She’s only just been released.”

“Fuck. Is she okay?” I tried to scan the pack bonds inside me for any trace of her, only to come up short. My magic must have been decimated if I couldn’t sense my own family.

“She will be,” Poe said. “It was touch and go for a while, but she’s on the mend.”

“Any other casualties?” I couldn’t help it. I was a dominant member of the pack. I needed to know my family was alive, that we’d gotten out unscathed.

“Nothing that Morwyn couldn’t fix,” he said. “Aquila’s been training with her. He’s gotten pretty good.”

I glanced down at Ava, who still hadn’t woken up despite our conversation. She looked almost angelic in her slumber, if not for the dark circles under her eyes and the furrow between her brows. Even in sleep, she was exhausted.

“We took turns pushing our magic into you through the bond,” Poe said, “but I think she gave more than she should have. I told her to back off, even tried to stop her once or twice. You can imagine how that went.”

I tried to laugh at the visual—my Poet trying to block the preternatural channel between me and my Trouble, her bursting through anyway, giving him the finger and a scowl for his effort. The humor cost me, and my ribs protested the movement, angry torment floating through my torso.

Poe sighed and rubbed a finger over his brow. “You scared the shit out of us, Lycan.”

It was only when I heard the desperation in his tone that the circumstances caught up to me. I had two mates. I was mated…all the way mated. Poe’s dark demeanor and reverent kindness twirled around my magic, mixing with Ava’s fire and playfulness and affection. I imagined them dancing with my magic, bringing my dominance to heel in a way no one else ever had.

Once upon a time, I thought I’d never get mated. I’d have rather died than commit myself to someone for the rest of my life, much less two someones. Somewhere along the way, that had changed. I had changed. And now, pure elation broke through my misery. I was more than married to Ava; I’d mated her. I was more than Poe’s ex who couldn’t commit. I’d sworn myself to him for all of my days.

Maybe I wished I could have done it differently. Maybe I wished I could have taken them both to bed and worshipped them for hours, commanded them to worship each other. And only when they were spent and panting, reeking of me and sex and them, only then would I have let them mark me. Only then would I have marked Ava while Poe watched and stroked his cock and begged for one of us to have mercy on him.

But if it had to be life or death, I supposed there were worse ways for it to go.

“I’d say I won’t do it again, but you know me.” I tried for a smile, but Poe didn’t return it.

“The pack doesn’t know what to make of us,” he continued. “There’s never been a triple bond before.”

“They’ll get used to it,” I said, but his expression said otherwise.

“I’m going to say this once and never again.” He cleared his throat and leaned closer, his eyes glowing with a threat from his wolf. “You’re my mate. But she’s my mate, too. I watched her sit by this bed for ten days and feed you everything she had inside her. Don’t die on us, Lycan. If you do, I’ll stalk you into the afterlife and kill you myself. Understand?”