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He won’t meet her gaze.

“Yeah, I think so,” I say. “Hasn’t Calix said that a couple of times, that we can’t kill you, because you’re our scent match?”

“It’s only that, it’s not just killing that’s the problem here,” says Arrow. “I’ll never kill Lotus. I know that. But we’ve all hurt her when we’ve been triggered. Hell, Iforced myselfon her. She had to use a stun gun on me to stop me.”

“You couldn’t help that,” says Lotus quickly.

“Well, look at it this way,” says Arrow. “If any other woman I cared about, my sister or my mother or one of my friends, were to say to me that they were in a relationship with a man who can’t help himself, who goes out of control and hurts her?” He draws a finger across his throat. “I’d tell her to leave that asshole.”

Lotus swallows heavily.

“It’s not the same,” I say in a gravelly voice.

“But to some degree, it doesn’t matter,” says Striker, “because Lotus is still in the same amount of danger no matter what.”

No one says anything after that.

His words settle heavily into all of us.

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AFTER THE HEAVYconversation on the porch, I want to lighten things for Lotus in some way, so I show her what I found in the house.

It’s just a little closet, but it’s full of quilts and pillows and things, soft things, and when she sees them, all folded up in there, threadbare and old though they may be, her scent changes.

“Oh,” she says, reaching out to run her fingers over the fabric. “You know, when I was in Cedar Falls, I was always trying to find things for my nest. I didn’t know the word, but it’s all I wanted.”

“Yeah, well, we can work on making the room in there better,” I say. “More soft things?”

A smile overtakes her features, and her scent surges in a way that makes me know I’ve done the right thing. “More soft things,” she says.

“Tell me what to bring in,” I say. “I’ll carry everything.”

She begins ordering me around. I carry blankets, quilts, and pillows into the room with the mattresses. There are some pillows and blankets in here already, but Lotus has differentideas about how she wants them organized. We work together to tuck and fluff and create spaces here and there for lounging and comfort.

At some point, Knight comes in. He stands in the doorway, just watching, until Lotus tells him to get in here and help out.

I half-expect him to resist, but he doesn’t. It’s kind of fun, watching Knight fluff pillows and tuck in quilts under mattresses, how he’s real careful with everything that Lotus likes. I love Knight, the way I love all my mates. I think he needs this, this softness. We all do.

I tackle them, both of them, and we all go down into the fluffy wondrousness of the new nest. Lotus giggles and writhes and I tickle her. She looks like she wants tickled.

It turns into an all-out wriggle and tickle war, the three of us rolling around, pouncing on each other, tickling and shrieking and gasping and laughing.

Before long, we’re kissing, the softness of Lotus’s mouth like sweet, ripe fruit on a warm day in the summer, the firmness of Knight’s body like an antidote to her sweetness. I go back and forth, kissing each of them, both of them lying on their backs on the mattresses in the nest as I lay first on top of her and then on top of him.

Knight takes me by the back of the neck and pushes me down between them. I groan, turning my face sideways to find Lotus. She kisses me as Knight squeezes a handful of my ass cheek. It feels good, and I groan again, giving him a look.

He’s panting, excited, alight. “Can I?” he asks me.

I want it, yes, I want it, but I… “I’ve never…”

“Well, me either,” he says, out of breath.

Lotus grins. “Ooh, can I watch?”

“I want…” I touch her face. “Between you both? Please?”