Magic and Alphas: A Paranormal Romance Collection, page 128
You don’t want to know, he reminded himself.
No, the only time he was comfortable making love to a woman was when he was absolutely certain she wanted nothing more in the world than him—at least in that moment. With an Alpha Mate, he’d never know for sure.
When Roman had invited him to join in the Alpha Mate group, Drake had told him that he got everything he needed from the humans he fucked.
“What about love?” Roman had asked.
“I love every single member of my streak.”
“No, you damned fool. You know what I mean. What about loving a woman? Being loved by one? Where does that fit into your whole perception of your personal life?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t given much thought to it.” He wanted to snarl at his alpha, but knew that would be a bad idea.
Now Roman was gone, out of town for a few days, and he’d left Jackson in charge. And Jack had delegated handing out patrol assignments to Lana. Who was flirting with him. Again.
And no matter how hard he tried, Drake couldn’t help but respond to her.
“Great,” Drake muttered to no one in particular. “I’ll be in my room until my patrol.”
* * *
Three hours later, Drake stood in the hotel lobby, alone.
What the hell? Where is everyone?
His first question was answered a few seconds later when Lana made her way out of the stairwell that led down to her suite.
“Is this a setup?” he asked, and Lana laughed aloud.
“It’s Roman’s orders,” she said. “We’re supposed to spend the night together.”
“Oh, fuck that.” He spun away from her, but was back seconds later. “What will he do if we don’t follow his orders?”
She shrugged. “You’ve known him longer than I have. What do you think?”
“Shit.” Roman might not punish him, but everything in Drake’s training, in his very being, pushed him to follow his alpha’s commands.
“What are we supposed to do? I mean, other than the obvious.” He crossed his arms over his chest defensively.
“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t feel up to it, Drake. It’s okay. We can sleep all night and pretend like none of this ever happened in the morning.”
He sighed. “But we have to spend the night in the same room?”
“Those are our orders.” She led him toward the stairwell.
“I guess I can do that.” He followed her reluctantly.
Lana shook her head, but she grinned as they made their way toward her suite. “I’m starting to get the impression maybe you don’t want anything to happen.”
Drake couldn’t help but chuckle. “You think?”
“Well, since that’s the case, I can crash out on the couch in my living area while you go into the bedroom. Don’t worry. I won’t bother you.”
“Dammit, Lana. That’s not okay. You can’t sleep out here.”
“Drake, I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want this.” He could’ve drowned in the sadness in her eyes. “But Roman is convinced this will make our streak stronger, and he’s our alpha. We have to at least go through the motions.”
“How?” he asked. “How will making me part of your… harem... make our streak stronger.”
She lifted one shoulder gracefully. “Supposedly it strengthens the magic that binds a streak together.”
He sighed. It was taking everything he had to resist her—as if something about her had become more attractive, more alluring, when she became the Alpha Mate for his streak.
“I don’t know if I can take sharing you,” he whispered.
“I understand.” Her shoulders drooped, and she moved toward the bedroom alone. Her misery cried out to him.
With a curse, he moved toward her, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her into her room.
* * *
As Drake dropped her to her feet near the doorway of her room, panic flashed through his eyes. Lana didn’t bother to try to calm him, choosing instead to pull his lips down to hers until she was kissing him, first softly, then harder. Even the taste of him seemed right, hot and slightly spicy, his tiger underscoring the taste that was uniquely Drake.
Pulling her closer to him, Drake deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers in a way that was both brand new and achingly familiar, as if she had been waiting all her life for him to complete her.
The shape of his shoulders under her questing hands was uniquely Drake as well. Lana ran her fingertips down the back of his arms, tracing the sharply defined triceps and sliding her palms down to his wrists.
With a strangled noise in the back of his throat, Drake slid his own hands down her back until they cupped her ass, then pulled her up against him, the hard length of him burning through his blue jeans.
Lana wound her arms around his neck, taking a step backwards and tugging him toward the bed.
“Should we talk about this first?” Drake’s actions didn’t match his words, as his fingers worked feverishly at the buttons in her shirt.
“Absolutely not. No talking. Just keep touching me.” With a final triumphant motion, Lana shoved his own unbuttoned shirt off Drake’s shoulders, baring his broad chest and the hard planes of his stomach.
Making a strangled noise of her own, Lana moved her mouth to his chest, reaching up to flick her tongue delicately against one nipple, smiling at both the crisp feel of the hair on his chest and the way he shivered and pulled away from her. “Don’t do that,” he said, but he smiled as he said it.
“What about this?” Lana lightly nipped the other one, until Drake pulled her shirt, finally unbuttoned, off her body. Pushing her back onto the bed, he held her still with one arm as he closed his mouth over one breast, using his tongue to play with the nipple through the silky fabric of her bra.
Giving up any pretense at attempting to escape, Lana reveled in the feel of his mouth on her. As he pulled away long enough to push the fabric out of his way, cool air rushed in, stippling the skin of her breast with tiny chill bumps until he once again claimed the nipple, the flick of his tongue echoing her teasing motion earlier as he gave in to the heat between them.
Drake released her long enough to unhook her bra and toss it and the t-shirt onto the floor, then turned his attention to the other breast, kneading it lightly even as he licked and sucked at it.
By the time his mouth trailed down her stomach to the top of her pants, Lana was trembling. As he licked along the waistband, desire surged through her in a searing wave, rolling from her chest and moving down, as if it had been released directly from her heart. It settled in the deepest part of her as a hot throb of need.
With a deft motion, Drake unbuttoned her pants, sliding them off her hips and catching her silk panties with his thumbs on the way down, dropping them atop the shirt and bra.
Lana tugged ineffectually at the button on his jeans. “Take these off, too.”
One corner of his mouth crooked up. “Is that an order?”
“A request.” She matched his smile, but the expression faded at the sight of him as he stepped back and removed his pants. Her mouth dried and she met his heated gaze with one of her own.
In the shower, they lathered their hands with soap, using bathing as an excuse to rediscover one another’s bodies. Afterwards, they dried each other with towels.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Lana pulled atop her. He smiled against her lips and slid one knee onto the mattress between her legs. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Just making sure.” She punctuated her words with tiny kisses. “It took a lot of doing to get you here.”
Gently, he pushed her back, his palms spreading her knees apart until he could taste her. With long, sure strokes, he slicked her with his tongue until she writhed beneath him. The feel of his mouth against her left her wet and panting, aching for more. When she reached down to grab his hands, it only made her want to feel him inside her more.
“Please, Drake.” She spoke in the barest whisper.
He paused, hovering over her, holding her gaze.
“Tell me you want me for me—not just for the streak or for Roman, but for myself.” His own voice was scratchy with need. “I am not just another one of your men. Tell me you know that.”
She paused, torn between the ache at the center of her being that demanded he come into her, and her need to maintain control over the situation.
Who could he be to her, this man she was only just getting to know? This man who always treated her as if she were so precious that he couldn’t let her go once he had her. Couldn’t share her—not easily.
He treats me with love. I can do no less.
“Drake,” she breathed. “You are special to me. You’re mine. And I’m yours.”
At the final word, Drake slid into her with a groan, and she met him, pushing until he touched that innermost part of her, the part that had been aching for him for longer than she had known him.
Chapter 15
For weeks, everything went perfectly. Lana’s life had never been better—even that first love with Ian hadn’t been this wonderful. This complete.
And the happier she was, the happier the entire streak seemed.
“It’s the magic of the Alpha Mate,” Roman said. “Nothing cements the bonds of a streak more.”
She laughed aloud. “Tell me that the next time you’re cranky because I’m with Jackson or Drake.”
Roman shrugged. “It’s good for all of us.”
Even Drake seemed to have come to terms with Lana splitting her time four ways. “I have to have time for myself,” she’d finally announced. “Otherwise, you three will wear me out.”
But they didn’t. Somehow, she still wanted them. All of them. All the time. Her decision to take time for herself was preemptive—but apparently unnecessary.
Maybe that was the magic of the Alpha Mate, too.
Then came the morning when she rolled off of Jackson and raced to the bathroom, where she’d vomited.
And kept vomiting all day long.
It occurred to her that she should have gotten her period over a week ago. She’d been so busy, the past several weeks had flown by.
“I haven’t been fertile,” she tells herself aloud. “I was nowhere near ovulating. So, the chances of me being fertile had to be pretty slim. I’ve probably missed my period because I’ve been so stressed. It’s happened before.” She is talking aloud, as she is hoping to convince herself. Deep down, though, she is not convinced.
She’s been sleeping with not one, but three tigers, all without birth control.
Like an idiot.
When the stomach bug didn’t go away the next day, she took a long stroll along the River Walk. Including a quick trip into a pharmacy.
Every morning for the rest of the week, Lana would wake up and take a pregnancy test. Every morning for the rest of the week, those pregnancy tests kept coming back negative.
Not that she didn’t want kittens. She did.
Just not yet.
She’d barely had time to get used to being an Alpha Mate.
Lana found more and more comfort in the fact that the tests were still coming back negative. In fact, she started to believe them.
The next Saturday morning, Lana woke up and started her new morning routine. She got out of bed and took another pregnancy test, then walked back into her bedroom to pick out her clothes for the day and get dressed while she waited for the results to show. At this point, she was pretty much certain it would come back negative.
She put on a comfortable, breezy, floral sun dress and walked back into the bathroom to look at the results of her test. The second line that told her that it was positive seemed to materialize in front of her eyes, so much so that she thought she was hallucinating for a moment. She didn’t believe it. There was no way, they were coming back negative. They had all come back negative.
Lana went to her suite’s tiny kitchenette and drank all the water she could stand. Then she wandered back into her bathroom. It only took her a few minutes to go through the rest of the pregnancy tests she had hidden under her sink, and every single one of them had a positive result. Seven tests sat on her counter, all sporting that faint second line. And all she could think about was how she was going to tell Roman. And Jackson. And Drake.
She stared in the mirror at her reflection. “Oh my God.”
Whose baby was this, anyway?
* * *
Okay. Step one: tell the father. Or fathers.
For the first time since she’d begun this whole Alpha Mate business, Lana was convinced that it was a terrible idea.
How could her baby have three fathers? That was insane.
And yet, she had to tell three men that she was pregnant. The whole idea terrified her.
Oddly enough, Drake was the easiest. He guessed almost as soon as he saw her.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
Lana stayed silent. She anxiously folded her arms, and put her head low.
“Come on. I know you are. It’s obvious. What’s the big deal?” Drake asked.
“I don’t know how Roman and Jackson are going to react.”
Drake laughed. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go tell them.”
They found Jackson in his suite. She sat down between Drake and Jackson on the sofa and took a deep breath.
“I’m pregnant,” she finally managed to say.
“You think?” Jackson asked facetiously, rustling her shoulder a little bit and kissing the top of her head. “How do you feel about it?”
“I’m terrified. I feel sick and angry and scared and sad. I’m so sad.” She lifted her gaze and looked him square in the eyes, tears rolling steadily down her cheeks. “Why am I so sad?”
He smiled sweetly at her and wiped a tear away from her cheek. “Because you’re pregnant, princess,” he offered before leaning in to kiss her gently. He laughed slightly as he pulled away. “What does Roman think?”
“He doesn’t know yet.” She flopped back, putting her head on his lap and her feet on Drake’s. The two men stroked her, their touch calming her.
“All right,” Jackson said, trying to organize his own thoughts. It wasn’t surprising in the least, but it was still a shock to his system. His own fears about how his wife had passed flared up, but he managed to keep that to himself. Regardless of what had happened in his past, he needed to keep it together in front of Lana right now. The four of them needed to figure this out together.
His hands gripped his knees tightly, a pensive look drawing his features together.
“What do we do?” Lana muttered quietly, staring off into the distance as Jackson slid his hand into hers.
“First we tell Roman,” Drake said. “Then we do…whatever you want to.”
“How are you two so calm right now?” Lana asked incredulously. They both seemed so composed next to her, so ready to deal with this.
“I’m not, Lana,” Drake answered.
“Me, either,” Jackson said. “Not really. I’m freaking out.”
She pondered for a second about what exactly was happening. This wasn’t real to her yet, this wasn’t actually happening to her. She sat up again. Her knee bounced impatiently as she gnawed on the inside of her lip, frustrated and scared. Panic settled in over her mind and fear clawed at the inside of her rib cage, threatening to tear her wide open.
“Okay. We should go tell Roman now,” Lana said, standing up to gather her things.
Together, they took the elevator from Jackson’s suite to the basement.
When they arrived at Roman’s door, he frowned. “What is it?” he asked, worried. “Have the Incas shown back up?”
“Nothing like that,” Drake assured him.
“But Lana has something to tell you,” Jackson said.
“Okay. Come in. Sit down.” He led them all into his central room.
Lana took a deep breath before she spoke. “I’m going to get right to the point. I found out today that I’m pregnant.”
Roman looked at her blankly for a long moment, wondering if maybe she was teasing him. She had a great poker face, and she was tough.
But when Lana scooted closer to him, leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder and looking straight and the patterned surface of his coffee table, he knew it was true.
Still, he had to ask. “Really?”
She nodded. “It’s true. I’m pregnant.”
And then he was laughing aloud, standing up and pulling her into his arms, swinging her around. “That’s wonderful, Lana.”
She laughed nervously. “You don’t care whose it is?”
A wide smile spread across his face. “I know whose it is.” One by one, he met their eyes. “This baby is ours. All of ours.”
And suddenly, Lana was crying, and so were all the men who loved her, and she was hugging all of them at the same time.
Chapter 16
The longer she lived with the idea, the more comfortable Lana became with the idea of becoming a parent to a child with three fathers.
She’ll be the most love kitten in the world.
And the happier Lana became, the happier the men were. She even started painting again.
Jackson kept framing her paintings and putting them up on the walls of his suite while Lana was away. She wasn't sure how she felt about seeing her own artwork actually displayed on his walls, but it was sweet that Jackson loved it so much.
He seems so proud of his pregnant mate—even if I am a knocked-up accident.
Drake went to every shifter doctor’s appointment with her, too, and Roman went to as many as his duties as alpha allowed. Lana cried when he first heard their baby's heartbeat, squeezing Roman’s and Drake’s hands in complete disbelief.
Really, she cried at everything, but this one seemed important. This made it real. There was a real live kitten in there, and the more time passed, the more excited she became about meeting it.
But there was fear lurking behind that happiness, that excitement.
At night, she lay awake worrying about all the things that could go wrong.
