Page 20 of The Ruby Dragon's Unconventional Mate

“Can I stay even though I’m not an omega?” Amber asked.

“Does everyone know?” he demanded.

“The important ones, yeah.” Dakota rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a bitch, Amber. You see how pregnant I am? You see my belly? We are supporting our favorite Lars. That’s it, and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to bite somebody.”

Rock on.

Samuel nodded. “Exactly. Also, what the hell? You’re not allowed to just decide you’re going to leave without talking to us. We love you, and we’re going to let that…that…outsider know exactly what we think.”

He arched an eyebrow at Samuel. “Outsider? You know, officially, Bryant was here before you were.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that he even existed, and I didn’t care. And not only that, but Grant was here before he was here, and Grant is my family, so by definition, I was here first.”

All right, that was some mental gymnastics right there, not to mention an enormous amount of ‘heres’, but…

“Fair enough. Fuck the son of a bitch.”

“Exactly.”

“Fucking BITCH!” Grant yelled.

Everybody stopped, the silence huge.

That was when Ari passed gas, the sound like a shot.

Everybody cracked up. Okay, he needed that. Lars just let the laughter take him, ninety percent of his tension just pouring out of him.

“Oh, guys, I do love you.”

Samuel nodded. “We have your back.”

“Mmmm. So what do we have for food?”

Amber started unpacking the hamper. “Whipped goat cheese with honey. Oh, yum.”

“Nice. Hummus?”

“You know it,” Dakota said. “The alpha chest beaters are having lamb or something.”

“Alpha chest beaters. Seriously?” They cracked him up. Of course, it was easier now that he was a little bit out of the closet, so to speak. He could just relax and enjoy his goat cheese and hummus and—“Ooh what’s this?”

Dakota beamed at him. “French onion dip. There’s chips too. I also brought little marinated tomatoes and mozzarella, and there’s some amazing crusty bread.”

“Let me grab some plates.”

Soon they were settled together. Grant was playing with Slippy. The babies were all three drinking bottles. It was warm and quiet and happy, and this was the reason that he had decided to stay.

Logan too, because he loved Logan, and kind of because he’d been guilted into it. But really, because this was his family and his house.

His home.

“It’s going to be all right.” Samuel reached over and squeezed his hand. “I promise. We’re going to figure it out. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to tell him to back the fuck off. Those alphasthink they’re so goddamn strong, but they don’t know.” Samuel’s eyes flashed, and he could hear a storm rumbling outside.

Samuel hadn’t worked through all of his pain from his parents.

“Yeah. Be careful, you’re going to have Jake calling to make sure you’re all right,” Dakota warned.

“You think that you’re not going to be called because Logan’s going to be worried that you’re not all right?” Lars teased the gigantically preggers one.

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