Page 27 of Valkyrie Restored

She nodded and while her eyes were still happy, the tightness of her smile told me that she was worried for me. Worried the same way I was which was why I hadn’t admitted to myself how I felt. But now I had to face it head on.

And the one thing I knew without a doubt… I was screwed.

18

Arran

August turnedinto early October and our business continued to have no end in sight. This meant that Hurrit and I made no headway in our combined pursuit of Elin to make her our full, official mate despite all the times we snuck off to spend a couple of hours with her. But at the same time, only getting the chance to see her together or for limited periods, helped to decrease the gossip over our supposed affair. I’d wanted to jump to Elin’s defence every time I heard friends and neighbours say something bad about her trying to steal me away from Hurrit, but since the words were said when and where I shouldn’t have been able to hear them, I couldn’t directly address them. Hurrit told me he overheard the same things and even had a few people become bold enough to ask him if things were okay between him and I since we were spending so many days apart.

In the end, all Hurrit and I could do was to show people how happy we were together. And to put to rest the talk about me going behind Hurrit’s back and cheating on him with Elin, we tried to go out in public with all three of us, together as a triad or throuple—whatever the current term in use was for three people in a relationship. During those brief times when the three of us could grab a couple of hours together to grab a quick meal at the local restaurants or to walk along the boardwalk, Hurrit and I both showed Elin physical affection like holding hands, kisses to the temple, to the lips. And we ramped up our own PDA, something we’d always kept minimal in public to not assault the sensibilities of the more conservative humans who lived in the are. While it stopped the talk about cheating, no one dared to ask us about our new dynamic. They preferred to pretend that they didn’t see the affection or that we were all just friends. And since our relationship was supposed to be casual, it wasn’t something that we wanted to broadcast as a permanent relationship status change without Elin knowing the full picture.

But the evening that we were able to spend together at our house introducing Darius to Elin allowed Hurrit and I to finally tell someone we valued and trusted about our new relationship. Instead of introducing her as the maker of the products he loved to purchase and give to Astrid, we introduced her as our girlfriend. It had been a relief and a proud moment when we got to say those words in front of her. A hopeful omen that started to get her thinking about our relationship as not being casual.

But the urge to make her our full mate poked and prodded us like one of those bur plants that clung to you, working themselves in deeper the longer they’re attached. You would have thought that the time we spent with her would be us removing the bur and maybe it was, but the burs we experienced left a lingering toxicity that burned, pushing us towards us joining together as one, to mingle our souls together. Something we wanted to do anyway. We just couldn’t decide how to tell her about the mythological world and that we turned into water horses. Neither of those things were easy for a mortal to accept, but when it was the men you trusted, who’d grown close to you, told you that they weren’t what they portrayed themselves to be, but not to worry since they claimed you and would never leave you… yeah, betrayal was too mild of a word. All we could was to hope and pray that since the Fates chose her, she’d handle the news without having a big issue with it.

“Arran, we just got a cancellation for next week.” Hurrit climbed on board our fishing boat. His hair was still wet from the shower he’d jumped into when he arrived home about half an hour ago, looking like he’d bathed in mud. Which was almost the truth. He’d taken out a large late season party up into the wilderness to look for elk and other animals. It rained almost everyday for the four days that they were out, but that hadn’t deterred the group at all. They were all experienced adventures so to them; the rain made it more exciting.

“Does that mean we have a week off?” I bounced up from where I’d been cleaning out one of the below deck storage compartments. After our last fishing charter yesterday, I’d docked it at our dock so I could prepare all our equipment and the boat for winter storage. From here on out, for the next couple of months, we’d be running our business from our northern lodge. It meant that we wouldn’t see Elin for months unless she came with us or unless she met us when we flew down to drop off one load of guests and pick up the next ones or did a supply run. I really hoped she’d choose to come north with us, but I wasn’t holding my breath. She loved her independence and there would be nothing for her to do up there.

“We do. And best of all”—he leaned against the bulkhead next to me so that our bodies touched from shoulder to ankle on one side—“we get paid for most of the week from their insurance because they had to cancel so late.”

“Sweet.” I pressed into him a little more, having missed spending quality time with him. I loved how much business our company was attracting, but I hated how busy it made us. And it wasn’t like we could just go out and hire human guides unless they knew about the mythological world. Some of the things we offered, were only because we could use our powers or the blades from Zeke to ensure the safety of our guests. It was also why we charged so much for our services. We didn’t want to be overrun with people who’d wonder why we could provide the adventures we could.

“And what do you think we should do with our time off?” I twisted my body to face him, allowing my fingers to trace along the defined muscles of his forearm. I may have spent last night, wrapped up in the arms of Elin, sating myself with her body, but I missed him. He gave me something that Elin couldn’t. I could let myself be real, using my real strength without fear of hurting him. It allowed me to be free and to let go of everything clouding my mind during our lovemaking.

“I think we should still go north.”

What?I wanted to give my head a shake to make sure I heard him correctly. Did he actually say he wanted to go north? I mean, I was game to spend a week alone with him, with no distractions, but what about Elin? Was he no longer missing her? Had their soft bonding died out? Had I been wrong about the whole mating trio thing? I mean it wasn’t like I knew for sure what was going on between the three of us. I’d connected with a couple of my old contacts and asked questions about kelpie mates and while they reassured me that mating groups did happen, nothing about what we were experiencing was what they talked about. They mentioned the feeling like a lightening strike and uncontrollable lust, almost like a heat cycle written about in those crazy paranormal romance books about wolf shifters, where the stallion mounted the mare immediately, wanted to get her pregnant. And when it happened to a group, the stallion wasn’t sated by one mare, he kept a feeling a low level of lust that wouldn’t flare into an inferno again until he came across his next mate. We felt nothing like that. And although we wondered if the fact that Elin was human—normally something that wasn’t acceptable in a kelpie mate—was the reason for the lack of symptoms as expressed, what I was told didn’t match what I felt for Hurrit. In the other groups, the mare didn’t have more than a passing friendship in the group.

“—bring Elin. Then we could show her who we are. What do you think?”

Hearing Elin’s name pulled me out of my head. My body slumped like a deflated balloon when I realized he wanted to bring her with us. That I could do. The three of us alone for a week… my body hummed with need. “I think it would be great to bring Elin with us. We’ll have so much fun and be able to relax together.”

He stared at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted another head. What had I missed? I must have missed something because I’d agreed with his suggestion. It shouldn’t have put that expression of weird confusion on it.

I replayed what he’d said. My mouth dropped as my eyes widened.Ah, shit. Now I understand the crazy look. I may have been the one to bring up the idea of showing her who we were, but then I’d left it. Too scared of the potential fallout.

“Ah yeah. I guess we do need to explain things to her.”

“Are you worried? Because you were the one that convinced me we needed to do this.” He shifted to face me, shoving his hands in his front pockets. We were no longer touching, and I missed it, but I could still feel him, in my space, as if he was a part of me. I hadn’t noticed it before with him although I had with Elin. Was that my sign? Was our bond strengthening and deepening, growing closer to thatfated matebond?

I took a deep breath and decided to go for broke. “I’m a little worried. We’ve never had to tell anyone about us before. It’s scarier than when we firstcame outas a gay couple so that we no longer had to hide our relationship from the mortal world. Doing that, I knew I’d still have you, but telling her, showing her what we are, we could lose her if everything goes bad.”

Hurrit pulled his hand from his pocket and cupped my cheek. “She’s our mate. You’ve said it. I’ve seen the connection between you two. And while mine isn’t as deep, I know—like you—that she’s part of my soul already. Just the thought of not seeing her, makes my skin crawl and stomach cramp. We have to trust in the Fates. We won’t lose her. We might go through a rough patch as she tries to wrap her head around it all, but she’ll come back to us.” I nodded. “And that’s why I think we should do it up north. She can’t run away from us, and she can have the space she needs to process it.”

I couldn’t fault his reasoning. It was logical and rational for as much anything to do with mythology could be. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go talk her into a trip away with us.”

I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his in a quick but potent kiss. As much as I wanted him, to spend hours making love to him throughout our house, I wanted it to be the three of us. I wanted to share her body with him, to have her pussy wrap around both our dicks as if we were all fucking each other. And I didn’t want to wait any longer.

He chuckled against my lips still holding onto my cheek while his other hand snaked around my waist, holding me too him. “I think I deserve more than just that tiny kiss for my fabulous idea.”

“Oh really,” I couldn’t help but tease.

“Really.” He rubbed his jean covered hard cock against mine, showing me how much he wanted me.

“But Elin,” I hedged.

He dropped his hand to the button on my jeans and flicked it open before lowering the zipper. “I need to take the edge off before I see her. I want her too much.” He palmed me, drawing a large moan as his rough hand slid up and down my shaft. “I don’t want to hurt her. Let me…” He dropped to his knees, swallowing me down to the root with no foreplay.

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