The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

 They just stay here on the land and the longer they stay the less time they spend in their human forms. Eventually it gets to where they’re a hell of a lot closer to animals than they are to people, only they’re more dangerous than animals or people. They get to the point where nobody can control them.”

“And that’s where you two come in.”

“Pretty much,” he said with a more than uncomfortable look on his face, “I guess you could say that. See, Levi is an alpha. I don’t know if you know that or not, but he is and that’s rare these days for a dragon shifter. It’s rare enough that even these feral fu*kers out here are afraid of it. Us staying out here every so often reminds them that they don’t run this place. It helps to keep things in line and the rangers are happy with that. Sh*t, they’re happy not to have to know any more about it than they have to.”

“Sure, I can see that. But what aren’t you telling me?”

He looked at her with frank surprise. He actually looked like he might fall right over and Maggie found herself sincerely wishing that she had just kept her mouth shut. Her mamma had always told her that she talked too much, that one day it might get her into trouble.

Maggie had always thought that was a bunch of bullsh*t but looking at the way Hudson was reacting to her question made her think that maybe there had been some truth in her mother’s warning. She put one hesitant hand on his shoulder and he patted it reassuringly before shaking his head quickly (like he was trying to shake himself free of the shock she had unwittingly delivered him) and smiling to show her that everything was okay. Still, she felt anxious, sorry for something she hadn’t meant to do in the first place.

“I-I don’t know why I said that. God, I’m acting like I’m on an episode of CSI or something. I’m so sorry. My parents have been trying to teach me when to keep my mouth shut for years. Clearly I’m a slow learner.”

“No, please. Don’t say that. You didn’t do anything wrong. You just surprised me, that’s all. You must be very perceptive.”

“I guess so. Sometimes I just get a feeling about things. It’s  usually talking about those feelings that gets me into trouble.”

“Hey,” he said, lifting her face up toward his gently, “look at me. You aren’t in trouble. You didn’t do anything. You’re right. There was something I wasn’t telling you.”

“And you don’t have to,” Maggie interjected quickly, not wanting to press the issue any further, “your business is your own.”

“No. I want to tell you. If we’re going to really give this thing a go, we’re going to have to start letting some of our secrets out. The thing I wasn’t saying is that this is the closest link I have to my parents.

“How come?” she whispered, feeling sad already and not even knowing why.

“I guess they heard about this place, decided they would make it their home. They came here just like those dogs you see running around and for some reason, they left. One of the rangers found me when I was just a little thing. Eventually we found Levi and his family and the rest is history.”

Maggie cleared her throat, struggling to get a hold of herself. She hadn’t ever considered herself to be an overly emotional person and the last thing he needed was to have to comfort her over his long ago abandonment, but for some reason his story was hitting her hard. She could see him in her mind’s eye, wandering around this beautiful, desolate land looking for parents who would never return for him again.

She thought about how dangerous it must have been, this small shifter staggering across the land with nothing but his baby dragon capabilities to keep him safe from the countless shifters who roamed the land and answered to nobody, adhered to no set of laws.

He had been lucky to have been found by anyone and luckier still that the somebody who found him had been kind, gentle enough to connect him with some of his own kind. She knew things had turned out all right for him in the end, but then she thought of her own massive, annoying family and she couldn’t imagine not to have a hub like that to keep you safe no matter what. She didn’t think about what she did next. There was nothing to think about. She was operating purely on instinct now, letting her dragon guide her actions, pulling on her limbs the way a puppet master pulled on its puppet’s strings.

She took two small steps forward, closing the gap between her and Hudson completely, and rose up on the tips of her toes, planted her lips firmly on his. Despite the length of time she had lived in the same house as Levi and Hudson and the initial reason for her having come to live with them in the first place (a reason none of them had discussed since their meeting, not even once), she had not yet kissed either of these men.

It was something she had stayed up in bed thinking about, sometimes excited and sometimes borderline afraid, but now that it was actually happening it didn’t feel anything but right. There was no hesitation, not on either of their parts, and although the kiss was brief it felt like everything. It was everything she had come here for, everything she had known was missing in her exchanged with Damon (poor, sweet Damon, who hadn’t ever done anything wrong except for wanting to be with a woman who turned out to be wrong with him).

She pulled back, biting his lip lightly as she did so and feeling her pulse race when he let out a growl of protest at their separation. He needn’t be bothered. This would not be an isolated incident. This would only be the first of many sweet encounters, only a tantalizing indicator of what was to come. Right now, however, the tent rocks were waiting and she was more than a little excited to see it outside of her dreams.

 And then there was Levi, whose conversation with the ranger was coming to a close and who would want to set out on their adventure immediately. He wouldn’t be jealous, she knew that without needing to ask. That wouldn’t be true in almost any other threesome situation, but this wasn’t every other situation.

This one belonged to them, and now she knew something about it that she didn’t think either Hudson or Levi yet understood. She would tell them, but how? She wasn’t sure that either of them would believe her. It sounded farfetched, even for a trio of shifters and she didn’t know how to approach what she had discovered in the correct way.

“Hey there, you goobers, you just going to stand there gawking all day long or are we going to do some hiking?”

“You know the answer to that, brother. You settle everything with the ranger? I haven’t seen him around here, must be new. He gonna cause any trouble for us?”

“Nah, I told him to talk to Frank if he had any questions. Just mentioning that name seemed to satisfy him. Now, are you satisfied? I’m ready to do this! It’s time to show Maggie here the world from a different perspective.”

“All right, dramatic.” Hudson laughed, walking forward and motioning for Maggie to follow. “Let’s go. You ready, Maggie?”

“I’ve been ready, boys.”

Both of the men let out hoots of disbelief and ran on up ahead of her, making far more noise than could possibly have been necessary. Maggie smiled and stood still, wanting to watch them for a moment before joining them, thinking about what had become so crystal clear to them. There was a reason the three of them fit together so perfectly and it didn’t have anything to do with how progressive the three of them were.

When Maggie’s lips had touched Hudson’s, she had gotten one of her little feelings, the ones that were pretty much never wrong. What she had realized was that she wasn’t just dealing with one alpha dragon. Although neither man knew it yet, Hudson was an alpha as well, and what the three of them were embarking on was something made from legends.