Page 22 of A Twist of Luck (Shifter City Fated Mates #2)

CHAPTER 22

EMME

I n my time with the Reeves pack, I’d seen Slade dressed in sweats, leather, or his enforcer getup. In all outfits there was only a hint of his tattoos peeking out from the neckline and sleeves of his shirt, with most of his bronze skin hidden away. There’d been the time in the clearing of Silver City too, but I’d been too distracted by the pierced cock hanging over my head to take in any other part of him.

Today, though, I got the full show.

I forgot to take my pants all the way off as I stood in shock, staring at the glorious planes of his chest as they emerged. Shifter saints have mercy.

None of the alphas in this room were slouches in the muscles department. Hunter, who was also shirtless at this point, was big, beautiful, and a work of art I still couldn’t afford, while Kellan had the smooth, muscled physique of a professional athlete.

Slade, though. Slade freaking Riverson. There was no way he was real.

Firstly. He. Was. Huge.

The actual breadth of his chest and arms were… a lot. A whole lot. Topped off by the fact that he had both freaking nipples pierced . I hadn’t noticed that the last time, but clearly this alpha enjoyed a dose of pain and piercing.

My gaze caught on the silver bars through both brown nipples and held for longer than was probably healthy. Eventually I continued down the lines of his chest, over intensely carved abs, and along the defined V that led to the waistband of his black pants. There was a trail of dark hair directing me to the center of his V, and I was reminded that his nipples weren’t the only part of him pierced. The monster in his pants was as well.

With a shake of my head, I forced myself to stop staring and breathing heavily, which was no doubt getting weird for all of us involved.

“You’ve got a little drool,” Hunter said, and he sounded amused rather than annoyed, which was a lovely change. No one outside of our pack was allowed to so much as breathe in my direction, but within our quintet, there was very little jealousy.

“I mean, can you blame me? How the fuck is he real?”

Slade’s sinfully full lips curved into a devastating smile. I’d seen him smile before… No, wait, had I ever seen him properly smile? Either way, it had my legs trembling as I clutched my sweats around my thighs like they were a lifeline keeping me standing. “Dragon genetics,” he rumbled with a shrug of perfect shoulders.

Speaking of dragons, his tattoos needed their own moment…

“Your tattoos are not what I expected.” They were even more spectacular than Hunter’s, and that was saying something.

I fought the urge to step into him so I could trace my fingers along the lines. “Who does your work?” I said, more to myself than anything, because the beasts across his chest were so incredibly lifelike.

Two large dragon heads spanned across either side of his broad pectoral muscles, facing each other. Their bodies trailed up and over both shoulders, their tails curling around his biceps.

On the right side, the dragon was predominantly green with heavy, black-tipped scales, and on the left was its opposite: a mostly black beast with just hints of green to emphasize scales and size. This darker dragon had smoky shadows spanning its form, while the right was lighter, with sparks of what looked like starlight around it.

The greens of both were the exact shade of Slade’s eyes and dragon, and I was drawn to the way the pair faced off against each other, jaws wide and snarling, flames curling around their razor-sharp teeth as they met in the center of his chest, foes about to battle.

“A psychologist would have a field day with that tattoo,” Hunter said, his gaze also locked on Slade’s chest. I nodded, having formed a few theories already.

“What do you see?” Slade asked, tilting his head a touch, which wasn’t his predatory move. It was his curious one. “What does it say about me to you?”

Swallowing roughly, I tried to loosen my grip on my pants as my fingers were starting to ache, but none of my limbs remained under my control. “You war against your dragon. Both sides of you are not at peace, the dark and the light, which makes existing between them the most dangerous place of all.”

At the center of the two beasts, there was this hollow gap with just a spattering of dark ink—a tear in the fabric of existence that could never be breached.

Slade didn’t comment, but his gaze was heavier as he watched me like I was the greatest curiosity in the room.

When Kellan made a slight noise, it broke the moment, and all of us snapped into action to help our pack mate. I yanked my pants down, leaving myself clad in a matching black bra and panties set. Crawling across the bed to Kellan, I draped myself down his left side, gasping as Hunter, who had followed right behind me, lifted me on top of Kellan’s chest.

“We all have to fit,” he reminded me as I tried to adjust myself so I wasn’t quite so intimately sprawled across an unconscious male. “He won’t mind, trust me.”

Slade sat on the right side of the bed, dipping it with his weight. “Oh, he’ll mind alright. But only that he’s missing it. I’ll have to show him the video footage when he wakes up.”

I’d circle back to that video footage comment soon enough, but for now we needed to help our golden boy. The heat of his skin scorched me briefly, and I sighed in relief when it started to cool.

Hunter slid down Kellan’s left side, his arm draping over my back, as he held both of us.

I shuddered at the sensation. Being hugged so thorough still shocked my system, until I let myself fall into the sensation, allowing a whole bunch of warm gooey feelings to spread from my center. I was supposed to be cooling Kellan down, but this was the healthy sort of heat.

One built of care and… more .

When Slade moved closer, my breath caught in my lungs. Everything stopped moving—I was fairly sure the world stopped spinning.

“Do not move,” he warned as the hard muscles of his body slid down Kellan’s left side. He was so huge that he had to touch me when he touched our fallen alpha, and I choked back a guttural sound when his arm landed on my back, flexing right below Hunter’s.

The sensation of his weight pressing me into the unconscious alpha was too much, and in my head I started counting to a million, attempting to get myself under control so I didn’t moan or have a spontaneous orgasm. Which would be highly inappropriate considering the circumstances.

At least both alphas kept their pants on, which was for the best when it came to my shaky self-control.

As I continued to mentally count, Hunter chuckled softly, but for once refrained from revealing whatever had amused him. No doubt there was more than one facet to our current situation to find humor in.

I remained tense and off-kilter as I counted like it was my life’s work, only starting to relax around the time the heat finally left Kellan’s body. Hunter and Slade remained silent on either side, surrounding me in their scents and energy.

I had no idea why I wanted to cry as I lay there, feeling safer and more terrified than I ever had in my life, but there was no denying the burn behind my eyes.

Finley not being part of the pack huddle flickered momentarily through my counting haze, but after everything he’d said and done, it was hard to imagine ever being comfortable enough to cuddle with the bear. My feelings toward him were convoluted and unsure, but deep in my heart I admitted that there might be too much history now for us to ever be more than distant acquaintances.

Finley still needed a few high fives. To the face. With a chair.

I understood that I’d hurt him with my actions, and I regretted my blunt dismissal of the pack when we first met, but Finley’s trauma went so much deeper than my rejection. His healing needed to begin with his past, long before he met me, and I refused to be his punching bag on his way to peace.

It was around a thousand in my counting that I finally fell asleep, snuggled between three alphas. When I woke later, unsure what time it even was, the room was completely dark and Hunter was wrapped around one side of me, with… what the fuck? Vanilla and cherries hit me right in the face, and there was enough light in the room to glimpse golden hair and brown skin.

Finley… was here.

Unlike Slade, he didn’t wrap his arm over my back, but he was close enough that our bodies touched, his energy and heat different to the fever Kellan had been fighting.

Part of me wanted to escape.

To crawl out from under Hunter’s hold and race from this room and from this ache in my chest. It was a vise squeezing me until I felt like I’d explode into pieces. The longer I remained where I was, though, the more clarity broke through my panic. There was none of the usual tension that existed whenever Finley and I were close, as if in sleep he couldn’t hold on to his anger. It was peaceful as both alphas slumbered soundly on either side of me, their breaths deep and even, their hearts calmly beating in sync.

Prying my gritty eyes open—I had not slept nearly long enough—I lifted my head from Kellan’s chest and met Slade’s gaze, who was sprawled in the chair, watching the four of us closely.

“He never sleeps,” he said, his voice softer than usual. His expression was as well, as if facets of this scene had pierced his coldly contained emotions.

My gaze flickered toward Finley’s face, which was mostly hidden by the arm he had thrown up over his head, as if he slept the same way toddlers did. From what I could see, though, he did look peaceful.

Slade shifted closer, resting his elbows on his knees. “His family were particularly good at subtle tortures. Never letting him sleep easily was one of their favorites. Even now, after years of being safe from them, he remains in a constant state of fight or flight.”

The more of his past that was revealed, the more concessions I made for Finley and his shitty behavior. Of all the alphas, he was the one who understood what I’d suffered from my mother. On the other hand, that also made his reaction toward me that much worse.

It wasn’t that I was comparing our upbringings, because it wasn’t a competition, and he’d clearly had it worse. But I did understand. I ached at the thought that what should have been shared experiences to bond over had turned into the trauma that kept us apart.

I had no doubts that his pack barely knew a fraction of what he’d gone through, except for Slade, who would have hacker-spied his way through all their pasts.

“How did you know my birthday?” I asked, desiring a glimpse of his secrets too. “It’s not recorded anywhere, and I absolutely did not tell any of you, so… how?”

Had the dragon shifter uncovered anything else about me? Did he know the circumstances of my mom’s death? Did he know everything, and I’d kept this stupid secret for no reason at all?