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Bran’s face went red again and he nearly choked on his coffee.

Emma burst into giggles and elbowed Lachlan in the ribs, causing him to nearly spit out his own tea.

“Be nice, Lachlan!You know this isn’t as easy for Bran as it is for you!”

“The really difficult part will be on the wedding night when all three of us must consummate our union,” Lachlan said blandly.He raised an eyebrow at Bran.“Think you can handle that, old friend?”

I was sure if Bran’s face got any redder and hotter his hair would probably catch on fire.

“I can handle it,” he said at last after choking on his coffee some more.“We just have to kiss at the wedding, that’s all.”

“Youcertainly seem to be handling it with aplomb,” I remarked to Lachlan.“I don’t know many straight guys who would be so calm about the prospect of, er,beingwith their best friend that way.”

I couldn’t help shooting a glance at Saint as I spoke, wondering what he might make of this.He stared back at me for a moment, his face still white and tense, then looked hurriedly away.

I felt a knot of tension in my stomach but I turned back to Lachlan, trying to listen to what he had to say anyway.

“Oh, I’m not strictly what you humans call ‘straight’,” he remarked casually.“Sexuality is a sliding scale, after all—at leastIbelieve it is.I have been attracted to others of my own sex as well as others of different Fae species before,” he added.“So being with both Bran and Emma—the two people I love most in all the Realms—is a joyful thing for me.”

“It’s a joyful thing for me, too,” Bran said firmly.His face had lost some of its redness and he was able to take another sip of coffee without choking.“I love both of you,” he added, looking first at Emma and then at Lachlan.“And I love the fact that the three of us will be together for life.Some parts of that life will just take a, uh, little getting used to—that’s all.”

“All right, you guys—enough talk about our personal lives,” Emma chided them both.Her own cheeks were flushed prettily and I thought of how much she’d changed.The shy, quiet, plain little Emma Plunkett that I had known in the past wouldn’t have dreamed of having not one buttwogorgeous guys in her life.Now she seemed to take it in stride.

“I suppose it’s not that different fromourrelationship,” Kaitlyn offered, nodding at Ari.“Since we both have Drakes.Well, Iammy Drake—I don’t have another entity inside me like Ari does.But it still amounts to a three-way relationship, since Ari’s Drake loves me as much as Ari does.In fact, sometimes I think he almost loves memore.”She smiled at Ari playfully.

“The love of a Drake is an intense and sometimes dangerous thing,” Ari said seriously, not rising to the bait.“It borders on obsession.Even the most stable Drake will go mad and wreak havoc if hisl’lornais threatened.”He cast a glance first at me and then at Saint as he spoke, a worried look in his eyes.

Saint rose from the table suddenly and picked up his untouched breakfast tray.

“I have to go,” he said shortly.And then, with no other explanation, he left, his face still white with tension.

“Oh dear,” Kaitlyn murmured to Ari.“Maybe you shouldn’t have said that.”She looked at me.“Did something, er, happen last night?Something to upset him?”

Megan raised her eyebrows and Emma did too.

“Avery?”they both asked at the same time.

Again, I found myself at a loss for words.But to my great relief, this time I was literally saved by the bell—Breakfast time was over and we all had to get to our first period classes.

“Oh well—tell us later then,” Kaitlyn said, gathering her tray.

I took a final big sip of my coffee and, over the rim of my cup, I saw Juan Gonzales staring at me.He still had some marks on his lips where my magic needle had sewed them together the day before.Feeling extremely grateful that I didn’t have to have gym class with the big brute anymore, I tipped him a wink.

I expected that my flirtatious gesture would make him glare at me with rage.There’s almost nothing a homophobe hates more than being flirted with by someone like me.Instead, he nodded pleasantly and gave me a friendly little wave.

I nearly spit out my last sip of coffee—what had just happened?As I stared over at the long table where the Drakes all sat together, several more of the boys who had been bullying me the day before caught my eyes.But none of them glared or cursed or even looked away in disgust.Instead, every one of them made some kind of friendly gesture at me—nodding or smiling or waving—as though I was an old friend they were happy to see.

I shook my head and looked away as I left the table.What in the world was going on?Was my life about to get weirder than it already was?

I didn’t know if I could handle it if it did.

14

AVERY

As a matter of fact, itdidget weirder.

Headmistress Nightworthy had said that she couldn’t get me out of all the classes I had with Drakes and she had been right—it would have been a logistical nightmare.I had Drakes in almost every class and plenty of them were the ones who had bullied me.