Page 15

“Okay. So I like a bit of tentacle porn. Sue me,” Leo gripes with a smile, not afraid of confessing what he likes to his teasing mates.

It’s one of the things Jay loves and admires about Leo. He has never—not once—been afraid to ask for what he needs in bed, in life, or in his relationships. Jay thinks everybody could learn a thing or two about fearlessness from Leo Costas.

Finn also smiles affectionately while Leo enthusiastically talks about his beloved episodes of the tentacular anime. “He’s amazing, right?”

Jay can only agree. “We’re lucky. I’m lucky to have all of you.”

It’s that thought that suddenly brings a frown to his face.

“No, hey. No frowning. That’s supposed to make you happy. We’re supposed to make you happy.”

Finn undoes his seatbelt so he can turn to face him.

Jay nods. “You do. Fuck, so happy. But you all scare the shit out of me. Every minute. I feel like that dragon in The Hobbit. You know the one? Smaug. Like you’re my treasures, and you’re out there in the world and not under me every damn minute.

Makes me want to growl and maybe annihilate small villages… ”

Gideon chuckles again at the detailed metaphor, and sure, maybe Jay let it get away from him a little.

Finn tips Jay’s chin toward him so he can look directly into Jay’s eyes. “You are treasured by us, too.”

“But?”

“No buts. Well, unless you’re Gideon. Then it’s all the butts, all the time,” Finn jokes, and when Jay looks over his shoulder, Gideon has a small smile on his face.

Even if his eyes are still closed, he’s listening.

“The only thing we can do is try to live the life we’re given, right? For ourselves and each other. Sometimes that is fucking hard. Scary. Even if it involves flying tin cans and murderous psychopaths bent on some sort of violence. ”

“Hey! That’s my soulmate you’re talking about!” Luca grumps.

Finn laughs. “I meant Carnell.”

He would never, ever say like father, like son —but Gideon’s face falls anyway at the unspoken comparison.

“Hey, no. I am dead serious. Don’t do that,” Finn denies, shaking his head.

Jay sees Gideon’s jaw settle into a hard line. “Gideon. Come on. Even if you don’t trust yourself, you can trust me, yeah?”

His eyes fly open, and he finally sits up, the facade of relaxed ennui dissolving in an instant.

“Of course, I fucking trust you. Are you crazy? What the fuck kind of question is that?”

Gideon’s voice is raised again, and the tsunami of the petrichor from a summer thunderstorm has Luca wild-eyed in an instant panic. He’s clearly gearing up for a repeat of last night’s fight, despite their current, relatively undesirable location.

“Is this about—?”

A frowning Finn is out of his chair so he can move Luca to the other end of the couch, beyond Grayson and the still-sleeping Nix. “That’s enough, you two. We cannot do this at 30,000 feet.”

Jay sighs, attempting to defuse this bomb before it ends in disaster for all of them. “I didn’t mean to provoke you, love. Look. If you can’t trust yourself to be good, trust me to know you are good. You are so, so worthy of our high regard, love, and trust. Believe in me.”

Jay moves to Luca’s vacated chair and runs a hand over the back of Gideon’s hair. “I’m sorry.”

Gideon deflates at his touch, and his voice comes out more petulant than furious with his next words.

“You’re sorry? For what? It’s all on me.

Even if you don’t count all the shit in the past three months, he’s my father.

Mine. I brought him to our door. How can you say I’m good when I am half him? ”

Oh.

Jay hadn’t even considered that Gideon might feel that way when he’d been caught up in his assessment of the “big picture.” He feels like an idiot for not having factored in Gideon’s guilt at such a high level, imagining it had only been about his immediate actions, not some misplaced idea that his genetics are flawed.

Jay has always maintained that it is Gideon’s efforts to be good, to do the right things, and to be more than he was born to be (in his father’s mind, at least) that separates him from who he could have been under Carnell’s roof. Such determination is a testament to Gideon’s strength of character.

Jay feels shame that, once again, he’d let his own agenda cloud his judgment.

“I have always believed that you are the best of men, Gideon. We know you to be the best of men.” He nods to his mates, who are all nodding somberly—except Nix, who is just now opening his eyes.

“Whew, that was some dream.” He finally notices that his mates are somber, and the tension in the room is high. Like Nix knows it’s Gideon’s inner turmoil setting the mood, he rubs the spot in his abdomen where he says his bonds to Gideon and Luca reside.

“It’s okay, Kitten. I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Grayson palms his face. “Look, we’re here on this freaking insane side quest—” He breaks off, looking to Rowan for confirmation that he used the gaming term correctly.

“More like a Quest, capital Q, no?” Rowan queries.

“Fuck, no. This isn’t our defining moment. This is just one more blip in our Happily Ever After. We find the bad guy, string him up, and move on with the best part of life. You’re the hero, Gideon.”

“So what you’re saying is that Gideon is Shrek?” Rowan asks.

“Then I’m Fiona,” Nix says, raising his hand.

“That makes Jay, Donkey,” Luca giggles.

It’s so surprising that Jay laughs out of his nose. “So I’m the ass, then?”

“You’re my ass,” Gideon leans into purr. “If you didn’t know it, I’m an ass-man.”

“Aren’t we all,” mutters Finn.

“Facts. I wanted to be Fiona,” Leo grumbles, as Nix climbs into his lap so he can console him with deep tongue kisses.

“You can be Fiona next time.” Kiss. “You’d be so pretty. Do you want a green dress? ”

“No! He wants tentacles,” Rowan crows, while he hands Nix a pocket-snack cookie.

“Wha—what?” Nix’s eyes are wide.

Jay watches as the others embarrass Leo into explaining his tentacle porn habit to their new mate, and whispers, “I love you, Gideon. More than anything. I’ll do anything to keep you safe. Anything.”

There’s a strong hand behind his neck, and he’s forced to turn his watery gaze to his partner-in-soon-to-be-crime…in all things, really.

“Me too. All of it. You get it, though, right? Why it has to be me… at least in part? It has to be me, the same way it was for him.”

Does he?

Does Jay feel the same burning need to finish this in blood and death?

He looks at his mates laughing and how it is quickly devolving into a wrestling match over Nix, while their omega laughs as he is oh-so-gently passed from mate to mate for kisses and scenting.

Yes. He guesses he does get it. For them, he will do anything.

He can only respond with a gentle kiss to Gideon’s parted lips. “Together, then.”

Gideon nods and gives him a gentle smile. “Together,” he says quietly, before raising his voice. “Who needs a snack? I only brought food for my kittens. You better get on their good sides, and maybe they’ll share.”

Turns out there was more than enough food—so much that even the pilots ate well. They were a beta couple who kept their private information private, except when they mentioned that they had enjoyed several anniversaries at Quest.

They were so complimentary of Gideon’s mastery in the kitchen that it spurred Nix into a jealous funk. He made growling noises and flooded the cabin with his burnt vanilla scent, to where Luca finally hauled him and Gideon off to the bedroom in the back for a “nap.”

Jay had to put his foot down with all three of them to keep the pheromones on low, or they could freaking crash the plane.

At least Gideon and Luca had taken the plea seriously, fearful fliers that they were.

Nix stomped his foot and started up horny brat mode, only to have Gideon whisper something promising that had Nix wide-eyed and serious in a nanosecond.

It had been good enough that he’d pantomimed zipping his mouth and climbed on top of Luca, who already had his skirt off and arms open in welcome.

Eventually, Grayson and Rowan couldn’t resist the lure of the sleeping pregnant omega pheromones and ended up squished in the queen-sized bed, too.

Jay took his tentacle-loving brave mate to lie on the couch, while Finn sat pensively in his captain’s chair, typing away on his laptop via his remote data connection.

They passed most of the flight in that fashion, the only sound being the roar of the engines and the tapping of the laptop keys.

With only thirty minutes remaining, Jay hands Finn half his second sandwich and encourages his mate to stop and eat.

“What have you been doing here, Baby? Work?”

It wouldn’t be a surprise, given that Finn was deep into writing a book about omega care basics, where he compiled the hundreds of hours of information shared with him from all the other visiting omegas.

It’s something the medical community had been clamoring for, since Nashville alone had seen fifty omegas come out of hiding last fall.

The hospital had become a hub for education and specialized care, and Finn, a sought-after authority.

Modestly, he had been reluctant to throw his hat in the “author” ring, given that he felt it was something best written by someone better qualified—but Riordan had convinced him, making the point that if not them, then who?

“Not on this trip. I’m looking under rocks for Carnell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t sit by and watch you both run around Florida looking for that snake in the grass. Not when I can help you find out exactly where he is. You brought us for a reason.”

Even if Jay hadn’t intended to bring them here, he was, with all his treasures out in the world and vulnerable .

Though he supposes that, in the end, it didn’t matter how they got here; it just mattered that they were. And he felt better about it than he thought he would, because at least they were somewhere he could see them.