by Nora Phoenix
“No,” he said slowly, still sifting through his thoughts on this. “You’ve been with me from day one, so it’s going to be you and me. I want to share this with you first.”
The absolutely breathtaking smile on Enar’s face told him he’d made the right choice. Besides, this was his expertise. If anyone deserved to come first, it was him.
Enar bent in for a soft kiss, almost caressing Vieno’s lips with his own, making his stomach tingle in an entirely different way. “Let’s do this, little one. Do you want me to wait outside?”
“I want you to be right next to me the whole time. There’s no one I trust more with this than you.”
And so Enar stood next to him as he peed on the stick, taking it from him when he was done and sticking it back into the protective cover to do its work. They both washed their hands. Then Enar held him from behind, his strong arms wrapped around Vieno as they waited the two minutes to get the results. Even though he knew that blue line would appear, nerves still fluttered through Vieno’s system. It was normal, he reasoned, even if he had all the symptoms and had this premonition even before his heat.
They waited silently until Enar’s watch beeped that the two minutes were over. He gestured at Vieno to check, but he shook his head and pointed back at Enar that he should do it.
Enar took the stick and turned it around, and their gasps were exactly in sync at the sight of that perfect second blue line. Vieno closed his eyes and let out a deep exhale of relief. Now it was really, really, really real.
He was pregnant. He was having a baby. Lidon’s baby. Their baby.
He turned around, seeking shelter in Enar’s arms, which enveloped him instantly. “I’m so happy for you, little one. You’re gonna be such a good daddy.”
“You’ll be there with me, right?” Vieno asked with a trembling voice.
“Every step of the way. Whenever you need me,” Enar promised, tightening his grip.
Vieno sighed, his anxiety lessening. “I love you,” he said softly. “One of the best choices I ever made was to choose you as my mate.”
A choked sob fell from Enar’s lips. “The best decision I ever made was to take Palani’s call. The three of you, you are my life. I was so lost before us. I can’t believe I get to be a part of this.”
They stood there for a long time, holding each other until they had calmed down enough to tell their mates. The alpha roar Lidon let out when he saw the pregnancy test rattled the windows.
Well, Vieno thought, at least they wouldn’t have to announce to the other pack members he was pregnant. It was hard to imagine anyone had missed that. He smiled as he stepped into another embrace with his mates, intending not to let them go for the rest of the day.
20
Sven was the happiest he had been in a long time, maybe even ever. The last two years hadn’t been easy for him. Not that his childhood had been a walk in the park, but ever since he turned eighteen, he had struggled with depression. At first, it had been a general sense of hopelessness, of feeling like an utter failure. That had been exacerbated when his heat wouldn’t start, something that was highly unusual.
Those thoughts of being blue and down had grown darker and lonelier, to the point where he’d barely had energy, too drained and tired to motivate himself to do anything. It had worried Lars sick, he knew that, but even that concern hadn’t been enough to snap him out of it—as had been his father’s one and only comment every time the topic had come up. Snap out of it. The man clearly had no idea what it was like to feel that way. It had only added to his complete lack of self-worth, not being able to help himself overcome this.
The weeks before Enar had called had been the worst. He’d found himself slipping deeper and deeper into a black hole of apathy where he literally didn’t care about anything anymore, except Lars. Lars had been the single light in his life, and even in the midst of his despair, Sven had been well aware that was a dangerous position for anyone to occupy. But like with everything else, he'd been hopeless to change that.
Moving to the ranch had already made him feel better, though he wasn't sure why. He'd certainly been stressed the first few days that Enar would send them right back. In itself, the idea of moving back in with his father was awful, but after what had Enar told him about the mutative gene he apparently had, he’d been terrified.
And then his heat had arrived, and everything had changed. Grayson had explained to him that one of the things that was beneficial to omegas who had the gene was being knotted by an alpha. Something in the alpha’s sperm, hormones, and pheromones helped heal the effects of the gene. Sven would have thought that to be all but impossible had he not experienced it himself.
His depression was gone. He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t understand how the dark, black cloud that had been hanging over him for close to two years had vanished. It was like it had never even existed in the first place, and if he didn’t have such a strong memory of the utter despair he’d experienced, he would’ve thought he’d been delusional.
In its place, a deep joy and happiness had filled him. He liked living on the ranch, he loved helping Vieno with all the household stuff, he was ecstatic to be together with Lars, and of course, there was Grayson. Big, dominant, kind Grayson, who seemed to have a sixth sense for what made Sven happy and went out of his way to provide it.
When he and Lars had considered a third person in their relationship, their obvious choice had been an alpha. Truth be told, Sven had been a little worried about that. As an omega, he was supposedly wired to mate with an alpha, but his experiences with alphas hadn’t been exactly positive. His alpha classmates in school had been arrogant assholes, and of course, there was the biggest asshole of them all: his adoptive father.
He’d been all too aware of his vulnerable position as an omega and had known Lars’s presence would only help him so far. If an alpha had put his foot down at any point, Lars and he would’ve lost each other. No matter how bratty Lars was, even he couldn’t win with a determined alpha, not with a whole judicial system set against them. It had been one of the reasons why they had been so hesitant in experimenting with an alpha.
But now there was Grayson. Sven had never expected himself to be that attracted to an older alpha. Whenever he had dreamed about a third in their relationship, it had been an alpha slightly older than them, but now that he had met Grayson, he couldn’t imagine himself with anyone else. He just fit them, somehow. He got them. Not just him but Lars as well. That in itself was a miracle, as Sven knew all too well.
“Hey, baby,” Lars interrupted his thoughts.
Sven looked up from the sheets he’d been folding in the laundry room. “Hey,” he said, then checked his watch. Much to his surprise, it was already lunchtime. “Oh, crap, I lost complete track of time. Were you guys waiting for me with lunch?”
Lars stepped close to kiss him, making sure to keep his sweaty body away from the fresh laundry, which Sven appreciated. Mmm, he loved it when Lars was all dirty and sweaty. He pulled them away a little farther from the laundry and deepened the kiss, Lars happily obliging.
God, he had missed this. His cock grew hard instantly, reminding him it had been a while since he’d been fucked. Lars had to feel the same way because he walked them backward until Sven was pressed against the wall, Lars in front of him, plastered against him with their groins creating a delicious friction. He moaned into his mouth, opening even wider when Lars deepened the kiss. His hands found Lars’s hair and dug in, his fingers lacing through the messy mane. He loved to hold him like that when he was being fucked.
“I need you,” Lars grunted, rutting against him.
His mouth moved from Sven’s lips to his cheek, then down to his neck, where Lars scraped him with his teeth, causing goose bumps to jump up all over his skin. He moaned his approval, letting go of Lars’s hair to work on unbuttoning his shorts. It would feel so good to have something in his hole again. It had been too long since his heat, since…
Grayson. What about Gray
son?
“Baby,” he whispered. “Do we need Grayson’s permission?”
Lars’s body stilled against his, and then the beta leaned back a little to meet his eyes. “Why would we? He said he wouldn’t come between us. Plus, it’s not like he’s shown any interest beyond letting you blow him.”
Sven bit his lips. “Why doesn’t he want us?” he said, asking the question that had been on his mind for the last few days.
As much as he loved blowing Grayson, he wanted more, and he couldn’t figure out why Grayson didn’t want to move beyond mere blow jobs. Hadn’t he liked the sex with Sven? That thought was almost too crazy to entertain, considering how much the man had enjoyed Sven’s heat, but he couldn’t figure out what other reason there could be.
“I don’t know. I’ve wondered the same thing.”
“Do you want to have sex with him?”
Lars nodded after a slight hesitation. “Yeah. I loved being fucked by him during your heat.”
“Me too,” Sven admitted with a sigh.
They weren’t telling each other anything new, having compared notes already right after his heat, how much they had both enjoyed it.
“Do you think it’s me?” Lars whispered against his lips. “Is it because I’ve been too disobedient?”
“No.”
Sven’s answer was instant. He didn’t have to think about this. He’d seen how Grayson had struggled with Lars’s defiance, but he’d also seen the joy on the man’s face whenever Lars allowed him to take care of him. He would never punish them like this, and Lars’s brattiness didn’t turn him off. If Sven had to take a guess, he felt that the alpha was more frustrated that he couldn’t take care of Lars the way he wanted to.
“There has to be a different reason,” Sven said, brimming with certainty that Grayson had a reason. “He wants what’s best for us, so if he’s postponing having sex with us, he has a good reason for it. It’s not because he doesn’t like us or because he doesn’t want to have sex with us. Or because he’d want to punish us. He doesn’t work that way.”
Lars smiled. “For someone who has zero experience with relationships like this, you certainly seem to know how they work,” he teased.
Sven brought his hands up to cup Lars’s cheeks. “He likes you, baby. He really does. He wants you, so you have to believe he has a good reason for not acting on it.”
“He likes you too,” Lars said softly.
Sven beamed at him, dropping his hands to caress the beta’s back. “I know he does. He makes me happy. I know part of that is the effect he has on me what with the gene and all, but it’s more than that. I like serving him.”
Lars dropped a soft, wet kiss on his lips, which felt still swollen from their previous kissing. “I know you do, baby. I can see it on your face and your whole body when he allows you to take care of him. You love this. You love being with him.”
“And with you,” Sven added. “I wouldn’t be this happy without you. You know that, right?”
To his relief, Lars affirmed that statement instantly with another quick kiss. “I know. I’m not jealous, strangely enough.” He hesitated before speaking again, his voice dropping to a whisper. “After I had experimented in the club, when the two of us tried some of that stuff ourselves, you never responded to me the way you do to him…”
He didn’t say anything more, but the implication was clear, and Sven’s heart broke a little. He had to explain this to Lars, had to make sure he understood why. “I know you tried back then, and I love you so much for doing that for me. But it’s not who you are, baby. It’s not how you’re wired. You’ve been taking care of me for a long time, but it’s always been more out of necessity than because it’s something that makes you happy. You’ve been strong for as long as I can remember, and that’s what you tried to be in those moments as well: strong. You pretended to be something and someone you’re not, and that’s why it didn’t work.”
It didn’t come out quite as eloquent as he’d hoped, which was natural, as he was still processing his own thoughts even as he spoke. But maybe Lars got from it what he needed after all because he closed his eyes, dropping his forehead against Sven’s with a deep exhale.
“I have no idea who I am anymore,” he said, sounding broken.
Sven shifted position, wrapping his arms around Lars and pulling him close. The beta moved his head, lowering it against Sven’s shoulder. It was strange to hold him like this, Sven realized. Lars had always held him, not the other way around. It hit him how strong Lars had been over the years, never leaning on Sven but always being his strong tower.
“It’s okay to lean on him,” he whispered. “It’s okay to surrender. You need it.”
The fact that Lars allowed him to hold him like this was telling, as was the fact that he was quiet for a long time before he finally spoke.
“I don’t know how.”
Grayson fought to stay still, to not let Lars and Sven know he was right outside the laundry room and had heard every word. He’d walked in on them kissing and had been about to say something when they’d started talking. So instead, he’d slinked back into the hallway and had listened in. Part of him had said he was intruding, but then Lars had started opening up, and there was no way Grayson was walking away.
They needed him, both of his boys. That realization fulfilled him with joy. He wanted nothing more than to take care of them, even more after the bits of sadness and struggle they had shared with each other. How could he help Lars give in to what he so desperately needed? His mind already went over various scenarios when the truth hit him.
There could be no deceit between them. He shouldn’t pretend not to have overheard this conversation. If he wanted their relationship to work in the long run, if he wanted them to trust him, he had to show them he was worthy of that trust.
He stepped around the corner and leaned against the doorway. “He’s right, you know,” he said softly, not wanting to startle them.
They still jumped apart as if electrified, both their faces flashing with guilt.
“You…you heard that?” Lars asked, jamming his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
“I did, and I’m glad I did because it looks like the three of us need to have another conversation.”
“Yay,” Lars said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “More talking.”
Despite his delivery, the boy did have a point, Grayson mused. They had done their fair share of talking, so maybe he was right that they needed something else as well. Maybe something else first. He’d caught the conversation about the lack of sex, and it seemed his boys had been more ready to develop that aspect of their relationship than he had expected. He hadn’t wanted to rush them out of fear they’d conclude it was only about sex for him. It confirmed again how much of a learning experience this relationship was for him as well. As determined as he was to get it right, he was still figuring out things,
“Fair enough,” he said. “So I’m going to give the two of you a choice. We can either sit down for a conversation that will take as long as necessary to clear up some things that I haven’t been transparent enough about. After that, we can have ourselves a round of hot sex.”
He watched with glee as both of their eyes widened in surprise. Yeah, they hadn’t seen that one coming.
“Or alternatively, we can have the sex first and then talk. However, if you choose that option, part of the deal is that I get to call all the shots during sex, and the two of you promise me beforehand you will do whatever I ask you to. You can still safe word, obviously, but anything other than that would be at my discretion. So, which one is it going to be?”
Lars and Sven looked at each other, and Grayson wasn’t sure which way it would go. Not that he had a preference. He’d made sure to offer them two alternatives he could live with. It didn’t matter to him if they would fuck first and talk later or the other way around. Both would happen, and in the end, the exact order really didn’t matter all that much.
Then he caugh
t Lars studying Sven, and even before the beta opened his mouth, Grayson knew what he was going to say.
“Sex first.”
Of course Lars would choose Sven’s needs above his own. It was what he had been doing for years, a completely ingrained habit by now. “Bedroom, now,” Grayson said simply.
Lars and Sven hurried past him without hesitation, a clear sign that the promise of sex was something they were both looking forward to despite the threat of the ensuing conversation hanging over their heads.
He followed them at a slower pace, wanting to give them the time to prepare. When he stepped into their bedroom, both boys were naked and waiting for him. He’d expected no different from Sven, but to see Lars naked and waiting for him sent a jolt of satisfaction through his system. It felt like he had won another battle despite Lars’s obvious displeasure at Grayson overhearing their conversation.
A plan formed in Grayson’s head, an idea that would hopefully help Lars surrender. “Lars, I want you on your back on the bed, arms and legs spread wide.”
Lars barely hesitated before he obeyed the command and lowered himself onto the bed.
“Sven, my sweet pup, I promise you that if you do as I tell you, I will let you choose one thing you want to do with me every day for a week. Or for me. Whatever makes you happy.”
Sven nodded, his face breaking open in a big smile. “Yes, alpha.”
Grayson palmed his hard cock through his underwear and pants. He was already straining at the thought of implementing his plan. “Pup, grab me four ties from my closet, will you?”
He undressed quickly, and when Sven came back and handed him the ties, he was ready. Lars was still waiting for him on the bed, his head turned in Grayson’s direction, his eyes a little wary.
“I’m going to tie you to the bed,” Grayson announced. “We’ll have to order some more practical restraints soon, but for now, my ties will do. I never like wearing them anyway,” he chuckled.
He looped a tie around the bedpost, then around Lars’s wrist, checking to make sure it wasn’t too tight. Lars was quiet as Grayson repeated the procedure with his other hand, then with both of his ankles, which he spread wide and gave enough leeway so Lars could pull them up. It only took him a minute or two to tie the beta down completely, and Lars let him. He didn’t protest, and Grayson noticed nothing but curiosity on his face.
