Page 57 of Surge of Ice

I give myself one minute to gawk, and then say, “You have to get dressed.”

“If that is what you want.” He climbs out of bed and pulls on his tight pair of boxers.

I swallow. Hard. “Don’t you have anything else to wear?”

“No, this is it. Is this not enough?”

Boy, the guys are going to be pissed.“It’ll have to do. Come on.”

We go to the door, and I click the button to open it. Evander and Aydan are there, both looking hot as hell. Evander has a formal-looking button-up black shirt on and slacks, and Aydan is wearing a tight gray t-shirt and jeans. They look casual, almost happy, for half a second before their gazes land on us.

Aydan punches Zane so fast that Zane actually falls back and hits the ground. I step between them as Aydan tries to go after him. Gone is the calm morning energy, leaving behind a mess I created.

“Leave him alone,” I shout.

“What happened to taking things slow?” Aydan asks, his voice low and angry.

Zane gets off of the ground, and I shove Aydan back, giving Zane some space. The ice dragon, to his credit, is busy wiping away blood on his cheek, looking unbothered. Which lasts all of one second before Evander punches him, and Zane goes down again.

“Fuckity fuck! Can we please stop punching Zane?”

“He deserves it,” Evander says coldly.

“Why does he deserve it but not me?”

They all look at me horrified.

“Y-you know why,” Aydan stutters. “He knew better!”

“I mean, you fucking marked each other!” Evander says, pointing to Zane’s throat.

I blush. “Not intentionally.”

“It was intentional for me,” Zane says, and I kind of wish I could tell him to shut up.

“We had a deal.” Aydan’s words are an accusation.

“Listen, I know I told you I’d try my best to take things slow, but it just happened. You both understand what it’s like being dragons. Sometimes, you just can’t help yourself.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse,” Aydan mutters, his dark blue eyes catching mine. “You can’t just constantly blameeverything on being a dragon. If we come to an agreement, we need to stick to it.”

Zane rises to his feet. “From the very beginning, I let it be known that my goal was to be with Samantha. I wanted to be her mate again. I wanted to be with her. I never deceived you in this.”

Both men glance at him. It’s strange. They’re angry, but there’s a weird amount of… respect flowing between them. I half wonder if Evander and Aydan are angry just because they feel like they’re supposed to be angry.

“Maybe you’d didn’t deceive us, but this certainly didn’t help to earn our trust,” Evander tells him, rebuttoning one of the cufflinks that opened when he punched Zane.

“This is a good thing,” Zane says, sounding a little frustrated for the first time. “Now, we can all share Samantha the way we were meant to.”

They both stare at him like he’s grown a second head.

Aydan makes a scoffing sound. “I don’t know what you’re smoking, but we won’t be sharing Sam any time soon.” Then, he turns to me. “Evander and I are going to get breakfast and calm down, and Zane better walk the hell away from your room.”

I give Zane a look.

He sighs and leans in as if to kiss me. Both Evander and Aydan tense, and Zane stops in mid-route to me, pulling back. With his back straight, and his gaze confused, he heads back to his room.

Aydan and Evander both give me angry looks and then head toward the elevator. I wait until the door to my room shuts and then take a minute to calm my beating heart and decide how I feel. The thing is, I completely understand where Aydan and Evander are coming from. This world typically works by having one man and one woman in a relationship. I don’t know enough about a relationship with one woman and multiple men to haveany idea if I’m in the wrong, or how I should be handling this situation, but I definitely feel like I could have done better than this.

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