I parked the truck in front of Malinda’s place and opened my door. “We probably should have headed out without even stopping to say goodbye. I don’t want him to worry.”
“Too late now.
Samuel’s face was pressed to the glass of the cottage window. Three seconds later, he was racing down the short cobbled walkway and leapt the white picket gate. “You’re back!
My usual snark was not going to make an appearance and wipe the joy from the unicorn’s face. In fact, I had no desire to point out that Samuel spoke the obvious. Instead, my jaws ached from the broad smile that nearly split my face in two. Something about when the three of us were together… Malinda would probably call it the connection of psychic threads of line from our chakras or some other ookie-spooky shit. But the only esoterica I was interested in was the Kama Sutra—although, if there was one for three males, that would be even better. But as Samuel flung himself into Sasha’s outstretched arms, I rescinded that thought. We were three intelligent, creative…horny males. It would be years before we ran out of ideas.
“Earth to Rob?” Sasha had one arm draped over Samuel’s shoulders.
“Penny for your thoughts,” the unicorn contributed.
I shook my head. “I didn’t order any clichés, thank you very much.” Okay a little snarky. “But since you asked so nicely, I was thinking that after a few years together, we can probably write a sex guide for trios like us.”
Sasha dragged me in for a group hug. “It will be a bestseller.”
Samuel snuggled close but tipped his head back to study our faces. “One problem with that…”
We both frowned down at him. “What?” I queried.
“Don’t you think we need to actually try things out?” His expression was absolutely serious. As if he discussed a scientific formula or something. “You know, before we give advice to the masses and collect all their money?”
I dropped a hand between us and cupped the cock tenting his pants. “I was just going to suggest that. We can start as soon as we get back.”
He leaned into my palm, hips rocking gently. “Sounds good.” His eyes drifted closed a moment while I massaged, learning the shape of him, at least while masked with denim, before they snapped open again. “Back from where?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sasha murmured, lips at Samuel’s forehead. “Only matters that you’re here safe.”
“I’m going with you,” he protested. “We’re a team, the three musketeers, one for all and—”
“I wish you could,” I told him. “I want you—we want you with us always, but you aren’t trained, and if anything happened to you, we’d never forgive ourselves.” A squeak from inside the cottage reminded me of others nearby.
I removed my hand from his throbbing cock, resting it instead on his hip. A comfortable, intimate pose just in time for his grandmother and Malinda to spill out the front door.
Sasha’s suppressed chuckle sounded half like pain. If the auction weren’t today, if I didn’t keep remembering how critical our timeline was, that relatives of our unicorn might be sent far off where they could never be recovered, I’d have dragged both my mates into the truck and floored it for home. Or anyplace with a little privacy.
This superhero crap sucked.
Malinda held a big brown grocery bag that, from her posture, seemed to weigh a ton. “Sandwiches and chips and fruit. Also some bottled beverages. For your stakeout.”
It wasn’t exactly a stakeout, but saying no to food sounded stupid. “Thank you.” I’d already learned not to ask how she knew things. Witch, right? Illogically logical. I reached for the bag, but she stuffed it into Samuel’s arms.
“You be careful, unicorn,” she cautioned before turning and ushering his grandmother into the house. “And you boys be careful, too. Take care of him and each other.
“We’re not taking him!” I called after her. “Wait! Malinda!”
She stopped in the doorway and turned to face us, looking taller, thinner, her eyes suddenly dark, mirrored pools. “What is will be. He is with you at that evil place. It is now as it will be then. Time has no meaning, all is now.” Without waiting for a reply, she shrank back to the witch we knew and entered, shutting the door firmly behind her.
While Sasha and I stared at the cottage, at the two women settling at a small table by the window with a pot of tea, as if we weren’t even there, Samuel scrambled into the backseat of the truck cab. Finally, we joined him, me driving and Sasha in the passenger seat. It wasn’t as if we had a choice.
“What was that?” I muttered, starting the engine and pulling out onto the road.
“Not a clue.” Sasha reached a hand back over the seat. “But at least we got food out of the deal.”
Samuel slapped a parchment paper-wrapped sandwich into his hand and passed me one as well. “Chicken salad. Did you know she raises her own chickens?”
Didn’t surprise me at all. Nor did the fact there were big, fat oatmeal raisin cookies with a delicate cinnamon icing glaze spider web across the top. The beverages were water and various coffee drinks—stakeout caffeine. Overall, the drive to the auction, a couple of hours away, went quickly, and our mouths were too full to argue. The woman could cook.
“Do you think she spelled the snacks to give us extra superpowers?” Sasha asked around a mouthful of his fourth sandwich. Ham and cheese, this time.
I snorted. “I hope so. We are going to need them this time.” I lifted my gaze to the rearview mirror. “Samuel, when we get there, I want you to duck down flat on the seat and stay that way until we leave. If they find out we’ve got you with us, they will do everything in their power to get you back.” And probably make an example of him, but I didn’t want to think about that.”
He didn’t answer, but, just at that moment, a big red barn came into view. Set a few hundred feet back from the highway, it was surrounded by luxury vehicles of all sorts. Lexus, Mercedes, Porsche, and others that cost far more. “Damn. I wish I had one of my cars.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my truck, you snob,” Sasha bit out.
“You know better than that,” I replied, waiting until I passed the long driveway to slow down then pulling into a copse of trees on the side of the road opposite the barn. “It’s just that everyone else here is filthy rich and has the cars to show for it. With one of mine, we could just park as if we belonged there. Unless there’s a special invitation or something?” I peered into the rearview again. “Samuel, do you know?”
“I think so, but I don’t know if they ask for them. I think you just have to look right.”
“Okay, that’s it, then,” Sasha said, pulling out his sidearm and checking the load. “We’ll just have to loop around and walk in without them seeing the truck. We probably should have dressed better, too.
“Speak for yourself.” I smoothed the collar of my button-down and pointed to my jeans. “They will know these aren’t Lee. Just stay close to me, and, Samuel, lie down and do not sit up or leave the truck until we come back. Understood?
“I understand,” he said, leaning across the seat to kiss me on the lips. Just the quick contact had me hard again and my protective instincts screaming about leaving him alone. Why had he insisted…had Malinda insisted he come?
As he kissed Sasha, my heart swelled with love for them, but as we strode, side by side to the back of the field in which the barn stood, my mission mind came to the forefront. Emotion had no place in this work.
Lives were at stake.
And we could not afford to let anything we might see throw us off or those lives might be lost.
Chapter Twelve
Samuel
“Do not sit up,” I mumbled to myself over and over again as my mates put themselves on the line. I wanted to be in there with them. Malinda had me come for a reason, after all.
But I’d made a promise, or at least gave the impression I did, and going back on it felt wrong. And they had a point. Chances were someone would recognize me and there would b
e a fight. I was pretty sure my mates could our bite and burn anyone there, but it wasn’t just them against the bad guys. That would be far too simple. This was them getting intel so we could somehow make a systemic change and, hopefully, save some unicorns along the way.
I’d gotten good at sitting and waiting over the years. Shit, with Bart, sometimes I’d be in the corner for hours while he just sat there. I could be still like nobody’s business. But I was prepared not at all for what it would be like sitting in the vehicle, ducked down low, knowing they were at risk and that it was all in a roundabout way because of me.
When I was really little, and my grandad was still alive, I used to spend hours with him, helping him with things around the house—or, more accurately, getting in his way as he fiddled with things that needed “tinkering.” One night, he took me and my gram into the basement, saying a storm was a brewing. It was much later I discovered the “storm” was a group of Red Dragons looking for someone they felt betrayed them, but, at the time, I’d assumed he meant a tornado or hurricane or tsunami or one of the other things in my extreme weather book.
While we were down there, my grandfather kept counting over and over again—only up to one hundred each time, and Gram and I joined in after the third or fourth time through, all of us doing it in a whisper. After the coast was clear and he had us go back upstairs for dinner as if nothing had happened, I asked him why we’d counted. He simply said counting gave him something to focus on that wasn’t the problem at hand. In that case, the problem resulted in one less neighbor.
This time, I didn’t know what the problem was going to result in, but I found myself falling back into the habit I’d learned all those years ago, counting, counting, and counting. And it was while slouched down in my mate’s vehicle that I finally got why he stopped at one hundred. It wasn’t so his grandson could keep up as I’d thought all those years ago. No. It was so that he didn’t know how long he’d been counting.
Because when I saw a flash of a digital clock saying 10:43 followed by the back entrance of a barn and my hands on the steering wheel, I knew I was going to need to be ready, but it wasn’t until I looked at the dash and saw that it was already 10:41 that I figured out how much time had passed.
I reached under the passenger side front seat for the spare keys. I’d thought it the most stupid of habits until that very moment when it finally became Sasha’s smartest move ever. I could probably hotwire the car, knowing some very basic car mechanics from one of my first owners who expected me to know how to do all things, including fixing his cars, but that would’ve taken time and that was something I no longer had.
I climbed into the driver’s and turned on the ignition, not turning on the lights only to discover the blasted thing had daylight running lights. So much for sneaking in. I followed the path and got to the back of the barn just as the clock clicked over to 10:43.
I barely stopped the truck when I saw both my mates walk out with not only Bart but also a small child. Rob scooped the child into his arms, and the three adults jogged over, Sasha opening the driver’s side as Rob opened the passenger.
“Are you a sight for sore eyes. In the back with you. I think Emerson is going to need you,” Sasha ordered, and I immediately complied. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew sitting there arguing was probably the dumbest idea.
We were out on the highway before anyone spoke, the young girl I now knew to be Emerson just shaking in my arms, silently sobbing.
“Do we even want to know why you were waiting for us?” Rob asked, breaking the science only moments after the child in my arms had fallen asleep.
“It was 10:43.” ’Cause what else was there to say?
“Well, then.” He chuckled. “You know Bart. He needs Malinda pretty much now. This is Emerson. Bart bought her.”
“Really, Bart? I thought you were better than that.” I was not impressed and, had Emerson not fallen asleep, I’d have bitten my tongue.
“Marcus wanted her.”
I cringed at hearing his name. He was particularly cruel, and Emerson wouldn’t have been the first time he chose a child for his wrath or worse. There were rumors, and I had no reason to doubt them even if the thought of him using children for his sick torturous pleasure had me throwing up a little in my mouth.
“He needs to die,” I bit out.
“Already in the plans,” Sasha spoke, his anger not even close to masked. I wondered how much he knew.
“You can’t go back.” Rob spoke to Bart. It was true. He couldn’t. One, if he pissed off Marcus by buying what his eyes were on he’d have a target on his body and he was too weak.
“I’m going to die soon anyway. The least I could do was save the girl.”
And that was where Bart was wrong. I gave his arm a reassuring squeeze and shook my head. He gave me a nod, and I got the impression he only half believed me.
“And how were you going to leave there alive had we not been there pretending we, too, wanted the girl?” Sasha’s eyes were forward, but I knew he was focusing on every subtlety in the vehicle. He was soaking it all in to make decisions later. No wonder he was so good at the mercenary crap.
“I didn’t know.” Bart leaned back, his face catching the rays of the headlights of the car zooming past us in the opposite direction. He looked awful. “But I’d have found a way.”
“You aren’t going to die.” I spoke the words more for myself than him. Catching a glimpse of him looking so poorly caught me off guard. Whatever they were doing to him, they had amped it up. “Malinda is waiting for us.”
“You told her already?” he asked.
I very much didn’t want to get into what I could and couldn’t do. Not there in the car with the sleeping child in my arms. I thought I’d given it away when I escaped ,but since I knocked him on the head afterward, who knew what he was able to process?
“Umm, yeah?”
“I need to sleep now. I wish I could stay awake and say the things that need saying, but every—” And his voice trailed off to nothing.
“Fuck. Is he breathing?” Sasha barked.
“Barely,” I confirmed. “He’ll be okay until Malinda gets to him. I saw him sitting up in her bed, drinking something that made his face all angry.”
“I’ve had her concoctions, that sound like all of them, but they work.”
I imagined that was right. Witchy medicinals never tasted good, but they worked, which was why they often came with a huge price tag.
“What are we doing about the girl?” Rob asked what I’d been thinking.
She wasn’t for us. I felt that, not that I wouldn’t welcome her with open arms.
“I think we need to find her family.” Unless they sold her, then I was going to change the proposal to burn her family.
“They called her an orphan of war when they sold her.” Sasha sped up a little, which worked for me. I couldn’t wait to get back to Haven, the only place I’d ever truly felt safe.
“I can’t even imagine how you were able to be in there and not burn the place down.”
“It was hard.” Rob turned to face me. I knew it was killing both of them to not be touching me, letting their animals see, feel, and smell that I was safe. “Not gonna lie. The only thing keeping us grounded was knowing you were out there waiting for us, needing us. And then when that Marcus guy started to flip out about Bart winning, we saw our chance to do some good while leaving the auctions open for us in the future. Marcus thinks Bart was going to double his money.”
“I think Marcus only gave up bidding because he planned to steal her,” Sasha added.
Crap. The last thing we needed was Marcus after us. He was what evil aspired to be,
“That sounds like him. He, ummm…he’s Bart’s brother or half-brother as the case may be, but, yeah, they are related.” Might as well just lay it all out. They needed to know, especially if Marcus decided to find vengeance, which he would if he didn’t get distracted by something else along the way—like another new p
urchase. Fucker needed to die.
“He is made of evil.” Rob seethed. He so very much wasn’t wrong.
“He is. Still doesn’t answer what to do with Emerson.” Sasha’s calm was forced. He was getting us home fast so he could change. His lion was so freaking close to the surface I could smell his fur.
“I don’t know. It feels like she has someplace to be, if that makes sense. Like we are just helping her get there.” Rob sounded almost disappointed. I sort of got that.
“I felt it, too.” Sasha instantly smelled human at his confession. Poor mate had probably felt guilty for not thinking her ours, not understanding what they felt wasn’t even really theirs to feel.
“You’re feeling her power,” I explained. “She has a lot of it, but I doubt she knows how to use it. In her mind, she has someplace to be. We will let her tell us when. Until then—”
“She stays with us or Malinda if she prefers to be wrapped in the safety of her magic, although, with Bart there, she may not.” Rob was going to be an amazing father.
“She trusts Bart.” Sasha surprised me. “I could see it. She was sobbing in relief. She was so strong up there as they bid. And she’s what? Four?”
“That was my guess.” Although, if she had been fed as poorly as I, she might easily be six or seven. Damn dragons thought of their slaves as dispensable.
“When we get there, I need to change. After we settle them in, I mean.”
“Not sure I can wait that long,” Rob mumbled.
“Oh you’ll wait. Because, after we all change together, we have some other things to do.” I went for sultry and fell short.
“Really, unicorn, and what would those other things be?” Sasha inquired, and I wondered if it fell as short as I thought.
“I need you to mate me. I need to wear your marks. I need to feel your marks.”
Many speed limits were broken after that.
Chapter Thirteen
Sasha
Every muscle in my body trembled with two needs from my animal. I had needs of my own, but, at this point, the lion overrode mine—anyway, one of them was the same. My chest pulsed with raw energy, the lion inside demanded to be free, to let out the pent-up energy and frustration of the day.
The Lion, the Dragon, and Their Unicorn Omega: An MM Mpreg Shifter Romance (The Unicorn Omegas Book 2) Page 6
