Flames of Fury

~1 week later~

Magnolia

“Please, just one more taste?” Varian purrs across my skin, smiling salaciously at me through hooded eyes.

“No! Babies first.” I scold him with no heat and swat him away from my chest playfully.

He flashes me his panty dropping, full megawatt smile. “I can’t wait my turn.”

I roll my eyes with a laugh. “Gods, you are kinky.”

“Should I take a number? How are we doing this?” Ro chimes in.

“Honestly, the both of you. You’re incorrigible!” I try my best to appear upset but my lips turn upwards of their own accord and soon the three of us are all laughing together.

Our laughter quickly dissipates when a loud, determined knock graces our door.

Varian sighs dramatically, “seriously?”

“They gave us a week. Time to go back to work.” I head to our closet to get dressed, my mates following behind me.

Ro pulls me into his arms and tilts my chin up to look at him, “no measure of time would have been enough, we’ll always want more of you.”

I push up on my toes to connect our lips in a chaste kiss, the knocking on the door becoming louder and more demanding.

While I change, Varian opens the door and I can hear a string of expletives leave his mouth as he gets practically run over by whoever is at the door.

“You’ve had an entire week, you can’t keep them to yourselves forever. Time’s up.” Kat shrieks at her brother.

Ro pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “We should have pretended to be asleep.”

He pushes me gently up against the closet wall, decorating my neck and chest with bruising kisses.

“She would have just kept knocking.” I laugh, managing to push him off and lead him by the hand out of the closet.

Not only are Kat and Incandis here, by Ember and Xander as well.

“Guys it’s been a week not a century, what’s with the welcoming committee?” I say with no small amount of exasperation.

“You have a meeting with your parents in an hour. We thought we should meet before then to check in and see if you needed anything.” Xander says.

The Alphas grunt but don’t object outright. I know how much they’ve loved having me and the twins to themselves this past week, but we have a colony and a pack to run. Duty calls.

“Actually there are a few things the guys and I are going to look over, so I’ll have you guys just join us in the meeting with my mother.”

“Very good, my Queen. Everyone out!” Xander does his best to shepherd our herd out of our room, but Kat refuses to leave without the babies.

“At least let me stay with the babies.” Kat begs, pouted lip and all.

Ro nods his approval and Kat squeals with delight.

I lead Ro and Varian to my office. We walk leisurely together hand in hand, sad to be leaving our bubble but excited to get back to our families, friends, colony, and pack.

My office has been decorated with white roses and magnolia blooms, my favorites, and Xander and Runidar have left detailed reports and drawings of the damage to Shadowmoon pack grounds, the state of Drow Hollow, and other miscellaneous contracts and invoices for the Alphas to sign.

“I didn’t realize how much damage Shadowmoon suffered. I can’t believe there weren’t more injuries judging by these pictures. The quotes from Runidar say it’ll take a year or more to rebuild the pack grounds.” I say and then hand the pictures over to Ro and Varian to see.

“Mm,” Ro grunts through his nose like he does when he’s deep in thought. “Actually, Princess, Varian and I had another idea.”

I look away from the stack of papers and over to Ro and Varian. “We want to be together, always. Not split between two places like long distance lovers.” Varian says.

“All of Shadowmoon is already here. Maybe instead of rebuilding what was damaged we should build homes for our pack here.” Ro finishes.

I blink rapidly a few times, taking time to process their proposal. My eyes wander outside beyond the balcony to the Grove. There’s more than enough space, and the wolves would be free to run and shift without worrying about anyone seeing them.

There’s nearly three thousand dragons living here, what’s another five or six hundred people?

“It’s okay to say no, Princess, it was just a thought.” Ro mistakes my silence as opposition to his proposal.

I turn back to face him with a rare smile, a smile only for them, painted across my face. “No, I think it’s a great idea. I’d love for us all to be together. Do you think the pack will go for it?”

Varian rushes towards me, lifts me off my feet, and spins me around. “They’ll be happy so long as they’re near their Luna, our ferocious little Alpha female.” He nips playfully at my ear lobes.

“We’ll give them all a choice. They can stay here with us as part of Shadowmoon, and if they’d prefer to live closer to town we will approve their pack transfers.” Ro steals me from his brother’s arms and pulls me into his. I love how they’re always stealing me from the other, as if they’re fighting over me but we all know they’re not.

“There’s something else we wanted you to consider, Princess,” Ro purrs along my neck.

“I already told you you’ll have to wait a few years for another baby so don’t even try it.”

Ro slides his large hand over my belly, “We’ll have you pupped in a month, but no that’s not what I wanted to talk about. It’s about your beta.”

“I don’t have a beta, we don’t have the same hierarchy here as a pack.”

“Then don’t call them a beta. But we thought it could be helpful to have someone who you trust, who can help you run things and can delegate, someone the rest of the colony also trusts and respects.” Varian says.

“Sounds like you have someone in mind.”

“As a matter of fact we do. Ember.” Ro and Varian say in unison.

“Ember?” Again I take pause to consider their words. Ember has been by my side for months, I trust her implicitly. I owe her so much for everything she’s done for me and my colony, maybe being my right hand woman will chip away at that debt.

“Well I don’t not like the idea. I’ll have to run it by her, but it might be nice to have someone to confer with on things who isn’t pumped full of testosterone.”

As if speaking her name alone could summon her, Ember knocks on my office door and I beckon her in.

“Hey Mags, I’ve got something I think you’ll want to see.”

“What is it?” I ask her and reach out my hand to take the envelope from her.

“I had blood work drawn when the twins were born. Results came in over the weekend but you were…unavailable.” She says looking over her shoulder at the Alphas with a wicked grin on her face.

I rip open the envelope and take out the papers from within it. It’s a bunch of numbers and gene names that I don’t understand immediately. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at, what does all this mean?”

“So this is Cole’s, and you see this number here? That’s the marker for were-genes. He’s all wolf. And Calla down here, see how low her number is compared to his? But her draconic markers are through the roof. She’s a dragon.”

“What? Let me see that,” Varian and Ro rush towards us to look at the lab results themselves.

“Are you upset?” I ask them softly, I know I’m not upset. I’ve got two beautiful babies made together with my mates, what they are besides that is just frosting.

“Goddess, no! It’s incredible really. Looks like we’ve got the next Alpha and Queen in one go.” They lock me between them in a tight embrace, kissing my lips and neck, pretty much anywhere they can reach, and pepper me with affection.

“Everyone else is outside your office, would you like me to send them in?” Ember asks.

The Alphas give me a pointed look as if to say “see? She’s a natural number two.”

“Sure, thanks Ember.”

A moment later pretty much our entire families file into my office; my parents and theirs, our siblings, the twins, Runidar, and Ember. It’s a tight fit but the twins insist I sit on their laps, and the other men stand while the women in the room sit on the couches in my office.

My mother and Accalia map out the party of the century.

“There’s so much to celebrate, of course we’re inviting everyone.” My mother snaps when I ask her if it’s wholly necessary to invite so many colonies.

Since the Luna ceremony is so special and intimate, we’ve decided to start the day of the party with that. Binding me to Shadowmoon and them to me and therefore my colony. Then other colonies will arrive and join us for the coronation and wedding.

We told them it was overkill, she knows how I loathe being made a spectacle.

“Magnolia Brightscale,” my mother scolds me as only she can, “this colony and pack have endured enough in the last six months to last a lifetime. Everyone could do with a reason to celebrate.”

I roll my eyes but nod my concession.

“Excellent. Give me a week, I’ll have everything in order.” My mother says, standing up from her spot on the couch along with Accalia.

“A week?” I’m incredulous.

“I guess I could make it happen in five days but the colonies will need notice today.”

“No, mom, that’s not what I meant.” I sigh, shaking my head in exasperation. “It’s fine. One week.”

My dad teleports my mom and in-laws out leaving me, my mates and children, our siblings, and betas.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Xander, it’s not funny.” I chastise Xander for holding in his laughter at my predicament. My mother has left no room for negotiation. In one week I’ll be subjected to an all day affair dedicated to nothing but me and my mates. And Xander knows exactly how torturous that’ll be for me, but luckily I have Ro and Varian to support and distract me all day.

“Alright, I hope you’re all taking notes because we have our own work to do.”

We all huddle around the coffee table in the center of the ring of couches and chairs and begin to outline our plans to merge the pack into the Grove, building houses, and inviting Ember to not only become a permanent member of the Grove, but my second in command as well.

As much as I’ll miss being hidden away with Ro, Varian, and our babies, it’s nice to be back among everyone, planning our new future together.