Escaping Death

Hunter

“Wait, just wait,” Eli shushes me with eyes glued to his watch. “Three, two, one…” he winces, bracing for yet another wave of vibrations originating from Sol’s phone. The incessant ringing has been antagonizing us for 180 consecutive minutes, soon to be 181.

The bones of our shitty little house do nothing to attenuate the vibrations so we can hear and feel every phone call, every text, every notification.

I did try going in to shut it off earlier, but as soon as she caught my scent she began to stir in her sleep so I quickly backed out and listened by the door to make sure she was sleeping. Eli, Dean, and Tate all tried, too. But it didn’t matter which of us went in there. One whiff and she’d roll over towards the source. It’s a miracle any of us had the strength to walk back out and walk away from her. I was tempted to crawl into bed beside her but if that happened then she wouldn’t get the rest she desperately needs to finally recover post-heat.

So we’ve been muscling through as best as we can but the longer it goes on the more it feels like water torture.

Ace drew the short straw which is why he’s upstairs right now dealing with the offending device.

“Holy shit I think he’s done it!” Eli exclaims when five full minutes pass without any sound or vibration, though we hesitate to celebrate just yet. We’ve been hopeful before, only to feel our skin crawl seconds later when the ringing started again.

We both flinch to the first noise we hear, bracing for impact, but it’s not the phone going off, it’s Ace jogging down the stairs looking…happy.

“Are you…smiling?” Dean beams from ear to ear at the sight of Ace unable to hide his smile.

Eli twists around on the couch, practically falling over himself as he leans over and stretches his arm over the back of it as far as he can reach. In one hand he holds up his phone, zooms in on Ace’s face with the other, and then snaps a photo. “For the scrapbook,” he shrugs off Ace’s glare with a grin.

“How can we be sure it’s not just gas?” Tate chimes in with his own jokes and it’s at this point that I really feel like the house has gone mad. Ace smiling, Tate joking…something is in the air.

“You’re all idiots,” Ace says with no heat and joins us in the living room. “She’s awake but in no hurry to get out of bed. We’re going to be out for most of next week so we’ll need to go into the office tomorrow and Monday.”

“New job?” Tate asks.

Ace’s smile widens so much I actually see teeth. “We’ve been invited to a party. Her brother’s and sister’s Centennial.”

Tate and Dean perk up almost imperceptibly. It’s in the way their eyebrows twitch up, how their heart beats skip a beat.

“In Twilight Grove?” Dean confirms and Ace nods.

Every dragon colony in the world has heard about Twilight Grove, especially after the war her parents were in a few years before we were born. Queen Magnolia and the king alphas are big on community outreach and aid.

They’re the most beloved leaders in the country, in both dragon and wolf communities. Queen Magnolia is sunshine incarnate — she’s radiant and magnetic, and admittedly a little terrifying, but I’m positive that more than a drop of her light lives within Sol.

“Are we traveling with her for business, or —“ Eli wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Or what?” Ace plays dumb.

“Or pleasure.”

“Technically, she doesn’t need guarding in the Grove. Her fathers are confident that her safety is guaranteed within their borders. But that doesn’t mean we’re there to party. We’re on duty, and she’s off limits for all of you.” There’s a subtle command woven in his words that my wolf snarls at in defiance.

“Feeling possessive now, eh Alpha?” Eli calls Ace on his order.

“We don’t need to give her fathers any more reason to kill us.”

I snort with stifled laughter and all eyes turn to me. “Sorry, but it’s not her fathers that you need to be concerned about. The Queen is far more dangerous than the Alphas.”

Eli shivers beside me, “I don’t know if I’m scared of her or turned on. Maybe a little of both… I’m scared by how much I’m turned on.”

“She’s the spitting image of her mother,” Dean says to which Tate replies, “in looks and in temperament.”

They really have no idea.

A low, lazy grumble emanates from Ace’s chest like thunder from ten miles away. “I encourage you all to keep those thoughts to yourself in front of the Queen’s alpha mates, unless you truly do want to die.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to miss out on Eli getting his ass kicked by her dads.” I muse and a tense silence befalls the group.

“Why do you always assume that I’ll be the one to fuck up?” Eli says doing his best to sound wounded.

“Because you usually are,” Tate cracks a rare smile.

“Maybe it would be best if we didn’t all go.” Dean says. “It’ll raise questions if only four of us show up.”

“My vote is for Eli to stay behind.” Tate’s smile widens into a shit-eating grin.

“Maybe none of us should go,” Eli retorts.

“Yeah right, Frosty,” Tate descends into name calling.

“Balrog,” Eli spits back, forming an ice block around his fist.

“Enough,” Ace bellows and the two adolescents sulk in their seats. “Even if it’s unnecessary, they’ll expect us to be there with her.”

Footsteps sound from upstairs followed by a door squeaking open. A second later Sol comes into view as she descends the stairs towards where we’re seated in the living room.

A soft, steady purring permeates the space with Ace at its epicenter. I doubt he even realizes he’s doing it but the closer Sol gets to us the more intense the purring gets. Like a moth to a flame she gravitates in his direction.

“Congratulations!” She says sarcastically. “You’ve gotten us all conscripted into attending Calla’s party.”

“Do you want me to call her back and tell her you can’t go?” Ace dangles the offer over her head.

“I don’t think she’ll accept any excuse short of death.”

The smile he gives her is wicked, becoming more sinister as it broadens. “Nonsense, I’ll tell her the truth. That you went into heat and are understandably unavailable.”

“Calla’s draconic, she won’t understand what that means. Broad strokes maybe, but not how…consuming it is.” Sol responds matter-of-factly, reminiscent of how Tate sounds when he answers questions.

The mood in the room quickly nosedives. There’s a mate-sized elephant in the room that hasn’t fully been addressed. Sure the secret is out, and sure Ace gave his reasons for why he didn’t say anything, but what happened this week wasn’t just between mates. There were three of us in that room. Putting my history with Sol aside for a moment, it’s downright unheard of for an Alpha to tolerate anyone so much as leering at their mate. So for him to watch as I made love to her, for him to fuck her with me… I need to know how it’s possible for him to not treat her like the center of his world. Because for decades that’s what she was to me and she’s not even my mate.

Dean clears his throat, obviously uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “How about we go out for lunch?”

“You four go ahead, I’m going to get some planning for the week done with Hunter.”

Dean, Tate, Eli, and Sol slowly trickle out of the house locking Ace and me in with a deafening thud of the front door slamming shut.

“Will you be okay with us going there without you?” Ace gets right to the point.

“I don’t have a choice,” I laugh but we can both hear how empty it is.

“I was going to tell you,” Ace says solemnly. “After she had left I was going to tell you.”

“I’m not upset that you’re her mate,” I say carefully curating my words. “I just don’t understand your bond.”

Ace tenses up by a fraction but allows me the time to continue. “You’ve watched every single one of them flirt with her and then some. You practically pushed us to reconcile. And then during her heat…”

“Make no mistake, I feel our bond.” He says softly. “It’s getting more and more difficult to ignore. And now that it’s all out in the open? Grey says I have no excuse anymore to fight it.

“She may be my mate, but that doesn’t mean she belongs to me and it definitely doesn’t mean she belongs with us. Because that’s what our pack is. If she stayed, she’s not just mine, she’s ours. And at first her leaving was easier to swallow than the alternative.

“But then she went into heat, and…I don’t know. It didn’t bother me at all to watch you love her. Because you’re my brother and I knew she was safe and cared for which is all anyone could want for their mate.

“And now I find myself wondering if she could have a place here. But even if sharing her didn’t eat you alive, even if Eli could live with the painful parallels of his life, and assuming Grey and I were truly willing to share her… I have no idea if that’s what she wants. Does she want to stay? Does she want to be shared?”

Ace’s admission floors me. I wasn’t prepared for that level of truth to come flooding out of him. But he brings up a good point — could I live with never having her to myself ever again?

“What are you leaning towards?” I ask.

“Whatever she wants.” He says without hesitation.

“You wouldn’t try to convince her to stay?”

Ace shakes his head. “It has to be her decision and she has to decide that with the full understanding that she’s staying as ours. Not as yours or mine. She’d be Death’s girl.”

“No,” I smile to myself before looking up at Ace. That’s not good enough for her. She deserves to be more than that, she’s worth more than that. “If she stays it won’t be as our girl — it’ll be as Death’s Queen.”