by Ophelia Bell
“I think you can just call us the two luckiest shifters on the planet right now,” Bryer said, and the entire crowd erupted into raucous applause, hooting and whistling when both men leaned down to kiss her cheeks.
“Now please, everyone enjoy the party!” Ignazio added, loud enough to be heard over the excitement.
“Enough of that,” Bryer said as both men turned her and aimed her toward the back of the house in the direction of the kitchen.
Once through the kitchen doors, Pomona sagged against Ignazio’s side while Bryer pulled up a kitchen stool for her to sit on.
“Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting that!” she said. “Is it always that big a deal?”
“Never,” Ignazio said. “Usually the outcome gets leaked in advance—it’s never been a secret before.”
Nessa was bustling around them, giving orders to waiters carrying trays of finger food, but stopped long enough to give Pomona a big hug.
“Get some food into you three now!” she ordered, setting a plate piled with snacks on the counter beside them. The guys both pulled up stools as well.
Pomona sighed as she ate, not realizing until that moment how utterly famished she was. After a few bites, she realized she was munching on her own recipes.
“Nessa, I thought you’d change something, at least.”
“Why mess with perfection? You’ve done amazing things—this is the best spread I’ve ever had the pleasure of cooking for the party. I’m just happy I got to be involved. Even happier I got to help with this.” She grinned and waved her hand between the three of them.
The kitchen door swung open then, and they all turned. A familiar, platinum-haired woman stood looking at them with a smug smile on her face. Bry and Ig both looked distinctly worried.
“Gerri!” Pomona exclaimed, hopping up to greet the woman with a hug. She gave the men a perplexed look, and they responded by focusing on the food again. Dismissing their odd behavior, she turned back to Gerri and smiled. “I had no idea you would be here. Don’t you live on Earth full-time?”
“Oh, darling, some events on Nova Aurora are not to be missed, and this was one of them. Besides, I believe we have some unfinished business. If I’m not mistaken, it appears you’ll be staying?”
Pomona laughed. “How’d you guess? Was it these two possessive men, or the pretty little marks they put on me?”
Gerri smiled. “A little of both, not to mention the way you are positively glowing. Being mated to dragon shifters suits you. But as we agreed, I believe a trade is in order.” She dipped her hand into the small clutch she carried and retrieved a folded piece of paper.
Pomona reached for it, frowning. What could the woman be giving her? When Gerri raised an eyebrow and held the paper out of reach, Pomona remembered.
“Oh! Yes!” She clapped her hands and grinned. “Just one moment,” she said, holding up a finger. She rushed to the pantry and retrieved her personal binder of recipes. When she got back to the others, she flipped to a blank page and hurriedly jotted down a list of ingredients and instructions from memory.
Returning to Gerri, she held out the recipe for her signature dessert, and accepted the other recipe in return. Giddy with excitement, she tucked the new recipe into her binder and closed the book.
When she returned her attention to Gerri to thank her, the older woman had a look of utter bliss on her face and a spoon in one hand.
“Oh, I missed this so much,” Gerri said, dipping her spoon into a glass filled with Pomona’s chocolate mousse. “The recipe was definitely worth the trouble.”
A pair of warm palms rested on her shoulders, and she glanced back to see both Bryer and Ignazio looking at her with the hungriest gazes for a pair of males who had only just eaten. They each held a similar glass full of the same decadent concoction.
“The chef is worth it even more,” they said as they steered Pomona toward the doors.
Triple Talons
Aurora Champions Book Three
1
Ringing a doorbell shouldn’t have been so terrifying, but for Simina, it was practically impossible. It was definitely the toughest thing she’d done since her first surgery as a League Medical Institute resident more than a decade ago. The only reason this doorbell was such a challenge was because it had been a full year since she’d done anything remotely social.
She was more accustomed to the cold informality of the lab she’d retreated to after Talon’s death to avoid interacting with anyone she might develop feelings for. Now she stood on the doorstep of the Hot Wings mansion, palms sweating, staring at the little glowing button like it might bite.
It didn’t make it easier that the people inside were worth caring about simply because they’d cared about her enough to invite her to this dinner party. Bryer and his mates wanted to thank her for all she’d done for them, and had promised only an intimate gathering of the people who had helped them most over the past year.
“They’re friends now, not just patients,” she reminded herself, working up the nerve to ring the bell. She swallowed a dry lump and pressed her finger to the button.
She should have been proud of her inclusion, at least. She rarely saw patients anymore, preferring to stick to the cold detachment of her lab and her research, but when Bryer Vargas had been injured using the same poison that had killed the man she loved, she couldn’t turn her back on him. She’d known her research could help, and it had. Tonight’s event was evidence of that.
The door opened, and the lovely blonde woman who’d monopolized the Aurora tabloids lately appeared, smiling brightly.
“You must be Doctor Taji,” the woman said, holding out her hands.
“Simina, please.” She accepted the woman’s outstretched hands, and her pulse evened out at the comforting squeeze she got in return.
“I’m Pomona. The boys are inside. Come in! We’re so happy you came.”
Animated voices and laughter echoed through the living space within. Pomona took Simina’s coat and ushered her into the open floorplan living room with the most spectacular view of the lake beyond. Simina’s breath caught at the vivid dual-sunset descending over the yellow mountains in the distance. Nova Aurora was a beautiful planet, but she spent so much time in her lab, she sometimes forgot to enjoy it.
“Doctor Taji!” the dark-haired Ignazio boomed. He rushed toward her with a big grin and enveloped her in his huge arms before she could protest. When he released her, she was embraced again by his arena partner, Bryer, whose warmth and gratitude sank into her bones.
Bryer finally let her go, beaming down at her, his eyes glassy. “I owe you my life, Simina,” he said.
Heat flooded her cheeks and she forced herself to hold his gaze. “It’s my job. I hope you realize that.”
“I have a feeling it wasn’t exactly your job to tell us to find a mate. Without Pomona, I don’t think we’d have made it back into the arena for another season. So thank you for that.”
Simina glanced at Pomona, who had pulled Ignazio back to the comfortable sofa. That was when she noticed the other guests. One woman she recognized as Nessa, the chef who had seen to Bryer’s meal preparations after his injury. The dark-haired woman sat beside a large, bearded man who Bryer introduced as Gaius. A bear shifter, Simina deduced from the man’s broad shoulders, thick beard, and sheer size.
“And this lady needs no introduction,” Bryer said, steering Simina to the other side of their luxuriously appointed sunken living room.
Simina blinked at the petite, silver-haired woman, who gazed back at her with pale blue eyes and a raised brow. She’d never seen the woman in her life and felt distinctly ill-prepared if Bryer thought she should know her.
“Gerri Wilder,” the woman said, extending a graceful hand. “We haven’t actually met, but it is a pleasure.”
“Oh!” Simina exclaimed, shaking the woman’s hand. “You’re the matchmaker. I have heard of you. My colleagues seem to think I should hire you, in fact.”
“Wise colleague
s,” Gerri said. “It is surprising that a beautiful, single dragon shifter like yourself hasn’t found a mate yet. You’re in your prime, my dear. Don’t waste it.”
Simina’s skin prickled with goosebumps and her stomach clenched. Beside her, Bryer let out a harsh cough into his fist and gave her an apologetic look.
Glancing at Gerri, he said, “Ah, the doctor lost…”
Simina cut him off with a hand on his arm. “Thanks, Bryer, but it’s all right. It’s been over a year. Ms. Wilder, I was almost mated once to an arena champion named Talon Garrik. He died.”
She pressed her lips together and swallowed, unable to say more than that, though the explanation did little justice to Talon’s memory.
Seeming to sense her struggle, Gerri’s expression softened and she leaned forward, squeezing Simina’s hands. “Say no more, my dear. I remember him, as I’m sure everyone in this room does. He was an amazingly talented athlete—a force of nature, as I recall. I am so sorry for your loss.”
“We all were,” Bryer said, giving Simina an understanding look. She glanced up at him and saw the true gratitude in his eyes and it finally hit home what her lover’s death meant to the people in this room.
It had taken her months to recover from that blow. When she was finally able to push her grief aside enough to return to work, the event had driven her research. She’d spent the subsequent months studying and trying to understand the poison that Talon’s opponent had used in the fight that had ultimately killed him.
She still didn’t feel like she’d made any major breakthroughs, and other arena champions had been victims of the poison, though to a lesser degree—none had sustained fatal wounds that their animals couldn’t heal on their own.
When Bryer had been attacked, his had been the first injury that matched the scope of Talon’s in severity—a wound that could have been fatal due to the poison’s effects on his animal’s ability to heal. Yet Bryer was standing in front of her now, alive thanks to her treatment and insistence on the proper route to a full recovery—her determination to understand this elusive poison that had killed the love of her life.
“Thank you,” she whispered, incapable of any more volume due to the overwhelming emotions that flooded her.
“Shall we have dinner?” Pomona offered gently, coming to stand beside Bryer and resting a hand on his arm.
“Yes, please!” Ignazio said, his exuberance infectious as he ushered the four guests over to the dining room behind Bryer and Pomona.
Simina let herself be catered to, accepting a delicious cocktail Ignazio said was one of Pomona’s creations made from Precious Flower liqueur. The flavors exploded on her tongue, immediately improving her mood. She’d heard about the human woman’s cooking from Bryer during his check-ups, and was suddenly and unexpectedly excited to finally get to sample it.
While she could certainly take credit for Bryer’s survival immediately following his attack, she’d had very little to do with his eventual recovery and return to the arena. That was almost entirely the doing of the beautiful, intelligent, and very entertaining woman who served them dinner.
The meal itself was perhaps the best Simina had ever had, and she almost forgot her earlier discomfort over the reminder of Talon’s death. Her hosts were the most animated, exuberant trio, carrying on like they’d been together for ages, even though it had only been a few months since the very public announcement of their mating. Their friends laughed and enjoyed themselves, keeping Simina engaged through the entire meal, somehow allowing her to feel more like herself than she had in a year.
When Pomona brought out dessert, bearing a tray’s worth of perfect cylinders filled with something layered and chocolatey and more decadent than Simina had ever seen, Simina caught a glimmer in the other woman’s eye.
“Before you all dig into this, I have something I want to say,” Pomona said, returning to stand at the end of the table and giving each of her mates warm, adoring looks. Ignazio’s hand stopped in mid-air over his dessert and he looked up at Bryer, eyebrows raised, then turned to stare at Pomona. Both men shared expressions of utter bewilderment, but when Simina glanced at Gerri and Nessa, both women had similar knowing smiles on their faces.
“You’re kind of scaring me, hot stuff,” Ignazio said, his expression serious as Pomona waited for the right moment.
“Oh, baby, it’s nothing to worry about. I wanted to make sure we had all our favorite people in the room for this. Simina for healing one half of the pair of men I’d never even imagined would become my entire life. Gerri for helping encourage me to chase a dream, even if it meant traveling across the galaxy to do it. And Nessa and Gaius for the most spectacular kitchen a woman could ask for, and the best example of how to fill it with love.”
Pomona raised a glass that Simina realized for the first time was filled with a non-alcoholic beverage that just confirmed her suspicions. Her chest warmed with the knowledge of what was coming.
“It is thanks to all of you, and to my amazing, talented mates, that I am so, so happy to announce…” She paused, her eyes shining. “I’m pregnant!”
Ignazio and Bryer stood in unison, their exclamations of surprise drowning out the cheers of Simina and the others. Their desserts forgotten, the two dragon shifters surrounded Pomona, lifting her up and taking turns twirling her around amid laughter and more cheers.
Simina sat back, buzzed by the immense love in the room. There had been a time when she imagined a life like this for herself. When Talon was alive, they’d made plans, promises. Despite the joyous event, it felt bittersweet to her. She and Talon had never mated, never given each other their dragon marks to signify a permanent union. He was an arena champion, and mating wasn’t something champions did until they retired. With one more season left, he’d promised her they would settle down and have as many children as she desired, but that dream would never come to be.
She let out a soft sigh, her thoughts turning inward as she sipped her cocktail and tasted her decadent dessert after the fanfare had settled down.
Pomona’s announcement forced her to think about her lover’s last words to her as he drew his final breaths. “Find a new love, my silver beauty. Promise me you will have the life you wish for, the baby we wanted. Promise me you will share all your love again. Don’t let it go to waste in some lab. Promise me.”
She had promised through a haze of tears, but she doubted she could ever find a match that would be his equal. It wasn’t possible for such a man to exist who embodied all of Talon’s wonderful qualities. But witnessing Pomona’s joy made her wonder about the other promise she had made. Perhaps she could keep that one. Even if romantic love was out of the question, she still longed to be a mother.
Lifting her gaze, she looked across the table to the older woman. Gerri gave her a soft smile, her eyes sparkling with the infectious joy that filled the room.
Gerri was right. She was in her prime, and she shouldn’t waste it.
2
The effects of the dinner party stuck with Simina like an itch she couldn’t scratch. The next morning she woke up thinking she was just a little hungover from the delicious cocktails, but she felt physically invigorated and eager to get back to work on her research.
She analyzed the latest series of tests she’d run on the poison compound, the slightest shift in the results providing evidence that she was at least on the right track. After cataloging the results, she went to the secure cooler in the corner of the lab for a fresh sample. Frosty air billowed out, making her skin tingle and reminding her of the way the wind felt at the higher altitudes above the mountains when she flew.
Once she solved the mystery of this poison, she should treat herself to a vacation. Or at the very least a long weekend in the mountains where she could stretch her wings. Then perhaps she could spend some time thinking about her promise to Talon.
Until then, she had to keep working. She was too close to unraveling the secrets of the poison that had killed her lover and was still wreaki
ng havoc on the lives of the athletes who competed in Aurora’s Arena League matches. She didn’t want to encounter another man coming to her, mauled and near-death the way Bryer Vargas had been. Most of the victims had survived with few ill effects, but it was only a matter of time before the poison affected another one to the degree it had Talon or Bryer.
Clear cooler drawers lined the walls, lit from within and displaying myriad vials of colorful samples. Simina silently counted down the inventory tags, marking the rows. She stopped in front of the one she wanted and frowned. One tiny vial remained with barely enough of a sample left to complete the next round of tests she planned. Once it was gone, she’d be at a standstill unless another victim turned up, and she refused to let herself hope for that to happen. She took the vial and carried it to her workstation to begin her tests.
The poison was insidious and nearly lethal … fully lethal, in the case of her lover. It interfered with an athlete’s link to his animal, and once injured, prevented him from healing. If the wound the athlete sustained was grave enough, he could die. She had a suspicion that the reason it had affected Talon and Bryer so much worse than any of the others had something to do with the closely synced connection with their animals that made them so unbeatable. Whether their opponents just used more of the stuff to gain an upper hand because they were so out-matched, she wasn’t sure, but it was almost always the highest-ranked athletes who fell victim to the poison.
Talon had been the best in his solo bracket, and arguably the best league-wide champion ever. Cheating was uncommon in the league, but not unheard of, so nobody had been particularly shocked that his opponent had tried to gain an advantage by using the poison. The cheating athlete had sworn he never intended to kill Talon, but Simina hadn’t cared and still didn’t. The offender was rotting away in a prison now, and at least couldn’t try it again with someone new.