Timidly, I knocked on what I assumed was the guest bedroom door. “Rachel?”
No reply. Damn, she must be really mad at me.
Silently, I pushed the door open to a crack and whispered into the darkness. “Rach?”
The figure in the bed turned and I wondered if she’d fallen asleep or if she was just ignoring me. Whatever it was, I wanted to make sure she was okay. I tiptoed into the room, the scent of burned cedar wood wafting up into the air. Must be the general smell of the guest room. Shame that it obliterated Rachel’s smell… Well, almost. It was actually a quite pleasant smell.
“Scoot over.” Feathers fluttered up as I slipped under the covers and pressed myself against Rachel’s back. Hmm… That didn’t feel right? Hard shoulders, sharp edges, that same cedar smell. I might’ve been a still a bit tipsy, but this was not Rachel. Shocked, I kicked the manly figure out of the bed and threw all the pillows I could find on him.
“What are you doing in my bed!” I shrieked, using the lumpy duvet to punish this rude guy for pretending to be Rachel. That wasn’t very nice.
“Oi! Oi! Stop, stop!”
Lamps flicked on and the light temporarily blinded my eyes.
“What’s going on?” Heccie called as he appeared into the bedroom. “Fire?” he asked, sounding just a little too excited. He must’ve just ran straight out of bed with just his boxers on. Yum. I meant, eww, disgusting. Man chest.
“What the hell is going on?” The guy that pretended to be Rachel kicked the heap of pillows away and glared at me. “Who is she and what is she doing in my bed?”
“Your bed? You mean my bed!” I argued, pointing at Heccie. “You said we could use your guest room!”
“Everything alright? I heard lots of screaming,” Rachel said as she popped her head around the corner.
“Rach! There you are. Someone is in our bed!” I tattled, hoping that my best friend would solve it. She always was better with dealing with issues and somehow got everything fixed like a miracle worker.
“Lola… This isn’t the guest room.”
I stared at the blonde guy from earlier and at Hector’s shocked face. Then I turned to the rest of the room. With a big Realms&Rebels crest hanging against the wall and what looked like a three-screen server set up, I had to agree it was unlikely they used this as the guestroom. And the guy in the bed was probably the biggest giveaway.
“Oh.” So I actually got into bed with the wrong person, accused him of being in my bed, kicked him out of his own bed, and then attacked him with pillows. Not a great first impression. “Sorry,” I muttered, my cheeks heating up in shame. Good thing I was still slightly inebriated, otherwise that feeling would be multiplied by ten.
“It’s fine,” the blonde guy said, yawning sleepily.
“I see you’ve all met.” Another voice said, making me turn back to the hallway.
“Martin?”
“Lola, good to see you again. Have you met Todd? Todd, Lola. She’s the winner of our tournament and apparently crashing here tonight?”
“Yeah, I invited them up. Lola was quite drunk and apparently the designated driver of the night.”
“Couldn’t they have stayed in the dorms?” Todd muttered, making his bed again with an exasperated look on his face.
“They’re full.” Heccie tugged on my arm and pushed me out into the hall. “Let’s leave Todd, he’s cranky without enough sleep. The guest room is this way. Rachel, please make sure not to let this wild woman loose in our flat again?”
“I’ll try my best, sorry.” Rachel wrapped her hand around my wrist, the first physical contact she’d made every since the bath, and guided me to the room on the other side of the bathroom. Aha, so that was how I got confused.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her back still turned to me.
“Will you look at me?”
“It’s late, Lola. Can’t we just go to bed?”
“No, not until you look at me.”
She sighed softly, and as if in pain, turned slowly towards me. Her eyes fell to the floor before she even looked at me and it took her several moments before she batted them up.
“There, now can we sleep?”
“No, I want to know what’s wrong. If you’re mad at me cause I got drunk and couldn’t drive, then I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning on it, but—“
“It’s not that, it’s not that at all.”
“Then what’s going on?”
She drew in a breath and for a moment, I believed she was going to tell me what was happening. But then her shoulders drooped and her eyes fell.
“You wouldn’t understand. Can we please just go to bed?”
Annoyed that she wouldn’t talk to me, I fluffed up the pillow. “Fine.”
She slid into her side of the bed and immediately curled up in a ball away from me. “Fine,” she muttered softly, so quietly I wasn’t sure if she meant for me to hear. But I did.
With clenched teeth, I curled up next to her, tempted to spoon her. But I didn’t think that would go down well. For all I knew, she’d kick me in the gut and I couldn’t take more rejection from her. I didn’t understand what got into her, but I’d make sure to figure it out tomorrow when my head wasn’t clouded with booze and my heart not filled with this indescribable ache.
8
Warmth enveloped me. Someone was curled up next to me and I didn’t know who. That was unusual. I’d never woken up in an unfamiliar bed before, it was a new experience for certain.
But the person in the bed with me smelled so good. Not just good, but also familiar. I liked it.
Without thinking about it, I snuggled into the person, taking in more of their scent and softness. The person turned in my arms, bringing us face to face. I could feel their breath against my lips and the longing to be with them intensified.
I didn’t open my eyes, but shuffled ever so slightly closer, pressing our bodies together.
“Lo-”
I cut the person off by pressing my lips to theirs. The person hesitated, probably taken by surprise by my sudden movements. But this felt right. The gentle feel of their lips against mine, the softness of their body pushed against mine.
They gave in and kissed me back, softly at first but then with an increasing passion that sent longing for a very different kind of kiss through me. I’d never experienced this before. Except for that time…
My thoughts strayed and without thinking, I rolled on top of the other person, pushing them into the bed with the weight of my body. My hand cupped their cheek, drawing them in closer.
Bonfires and cinnamon filled my senses. It was such a comforting scent to me. Rachel’s scent. But now it was doing something very different to me. I hoped Rachel would be okay with it when I told her.
My hand tangled in the long hair of the person beneath me and I pulled her closer, wanting more of her.
But that was when she pulled back.
“Lola, stop,” she whispered hoarsely.
“I don’t want to,” I murmured.
“We have to.”
“No,” I replied. “No stopping.”
“Lola!” she half-shouted.
My eyes snapped open and I looked down at Rachel, lying beneath me with her hair fanning over the pillow like a halo. Smoking hot embers, she was beautiful.
“You’re still on top of me,” she pointed out, but didn’t do anything to change that.
“It’s a good place to be,” I replied, my gaze straying to her lips and wondering if I should risk kissing her again. I was far more awake now and aware of what I was doing, but I still wanted to kiss my best friend.
I should be surprised, but deep down, I wasn’t. A little part of me had always suspected.
“Did you think I was one of the guys?” she asked, a small squeak in her voice.
“Of course not!” I protested. “You smell completely different to them.”
“So you knew it was me you were kissing…”
“I guess so?” I hadn’t exactly thought about it very d
eeply, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. It would be cruel.
“Don’t mess with me, Lola.”
“I’m not,” I countered instantly. “I want to kiss you again,” I blurted out.
“I won’t be a practice run for you.”
“You think I’d do that?” She knew me better than that, right?
“I don’t know, Lola. You’ve never seemed interested in me before…”
Rather than wait for her to finish, I pressed my lips against hers again, kissing her as deeply as I thought possible. She wriggled beneath me and I slipped a knee between her legs, pressing upwards until I elicited a small breathy gasp.
“You’d never be a practice run, Rachel,” I whispered against her lips.
I pulled back slightly and met her eyes, hoping mine conveyed the seriousness of how I felt.
“I don’t understand,” Rachel breathed, the scent of bonfire engulfing me.
“Neither do I. But does it matter?” I whispered back, slowly inching closer to her lips. I wanted— no, I needed to kiss her again. And again and again and again. It wasn’t something I wanted to stop, ever. And that urge, that feeling had never been as clear as it was now.
How had I never realised this?
I brushed my lips over hers, sparks dancing between our bodies. I’d be afraid they might set the duvet on fire, but at this point, I didn’t care. I just wanted Rachel closer, I wanted to show her how much she meant to me.
“Lola, please don’t toy with me,” she whimpered, her whole body tensed under me. I stopped to admire her and found her hands balled into the sheets. Saddened, I trailed my fingers down her arms and gently uncurled them.
“This is not a game, it’s never been one,” I assured her, pushing a strand of golden hair from her face.
“But those men… Aren’t they?”
I grimaced, not wanting to admit the truths banging against my head.
Truth one, I loved Rachel as a friend and more. Truth two, my three soulmates were just outside my bedroom door. Truth three, I wanted them. All of them.
“Argh, it’s making my head hurt,” I pouted, slamming my head into the bed as I fell into Rachel. The familiar warmth of her arms wrapping around me helped soothe some of the headache knocking on my skull and I questioned again why I drank so much. This would all be a lot less painful without the upcoming hangover.
Then again, it wasn’t everyday that I won an R&R tournament, got invited to join the best squad on the East server, met my three soulmates, and realised I’d been in love with my best friend for probably years and years.
Now that I thought about it, that really did seem like an occasion for drinking. In hindsight, I wished I had even more of that red liquid. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this.
I didn’t want three soulmates. I knew what mating with them meant, it meant that I’d forget about Rachel and by the flames, I’d rather go to hell and back than forget about my best friend.
“You okay?”
“No,” I admitted truthfully, curling up in her arms. A familiar hum emitted from her chest, one I still couldn’t place. Rachel hadn’t purred before, so what was the crackling coming from her chest? Not that it mattered, I had bigger things to deal with.
“What can I do?”
“Kiss me?” I asked hopefully, brushing her cheek with my thumb. I stared in her rose-gold eyes, enchanted by the beauty in them. How had I never realised before?
No, I had known. I’d always known. How had I never admitted it to myself before?
“Lola, that’s not going to solve anything.”
“On the contrary,” I whispered, pushing myself up to cup her face. Tenderly, I swiped my fingers over her lips. My blonde hummed softly, her cheeks colouring the same rose as her eyes.
“Oh, Rachel,” I breathed, not waiting any longer to kiss what was mine, what was always meant to be mine. With my breath hitched in my throat, I pressed my lips softly on hers, hoping to show her how serious I was about her, about this. My best friend sighed into the kiss, her whole body finally letting go of the tension. Fire danced through my chest with flames that grew with every whimper, every sigh, every murmur that my Rachel made. The softness of her body, the familiarity of her scent, the taste of her lips. Perfect. She was utterly perfect.
“But what about your soulmates?”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. But what is going on with them has nothing to do what’s happening between us right here, right now. What’s been going on for years.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” I stole another kiss from her lips, joy bubbling up in my gut as she melted against my lips. She wanted this just as much as I did.
“But—“
“Please don’t overthink it. I don’t have all the answers, but I know this much. I want you, Rach. You.”
“A-Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
The first smile since the bath-incident tugged her lips up. “I can’t believe this is happening, I never imagined…”
I tilted my head, studying her dark outlines. “Imagined what?”
“That you’d ever be interested in me.”
“Wait… What do you mean?”
Even with all the shadows drawn across the room, I could make out the blush appearing on her face. “Lola, I’ve liked you for years.”
"Years?" I mulled aloud, but the word echoed around my head too. She'd liked me for years.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Why didn't you tell me?" A hint of hurt crept into my voice, but I did nothing to stop it.
Rachel glanced away and the hurt inside intensified.
“What would it have mattered? I couldn’t have you. You’re normal.”
“Normal,” I snorted. “I highly doubt that.”
“You know what I mean, Lola. You have beautiful red scales and amazing fire, and…”
“Stop right there. You’re every bit as beautiful as I am in dragon form.” I brushed my fingers tenderly over her cheek. “If not even more so,” I added with a whisper.
I trailed my hand further down until it was resting in the crook of her neck.
“May I?”
Rachel nodded. Gingerly, I peeled back the edge of her shirt, revealing her collarbone to me and the birthmark resting there. I’d seen it before. Many times, but never really given it much thought. Female fire dragons had three mates, that’s how things were for us. I’d never have looked twice at another woman’s mark and wondered if it fit with mine.
But one look at Rachel’s and all the pieces started to slot together.
I ran my fingers over the mark, knowing without having to check that it was the same exact shape as the slightly lighter part of my own mark. I’d just assumed it was supposed to look like that, but seeing Rachel’s mark now, looking more vibrant than ever, had me convinced.
“You were always meant to be mine,” I whispered reverently.
“It does explain a lot,” Rachel replied softly, the concern leaving her voice and face.
“But this means I get to keep you!” I beamed down at her then peppered her with kisses as she giggled.
I’d always avoided finding my mates because it would mean abandoning her. But if she was one of my mates...well, no one could ever make me leave her. I honestly wasn’t sure how the other fire dragons would take the news. There just weren’t female pairings in our community, but seeing our marks, they couldn’t deny it.
“Are you still drunk?” Rachel asked.
I shook my head. “Just happy,” I replied.
“You need to go out and face the others at some point.”
“I know, but that’s not that big of a deal. They have as little say as we do.”
9
Three expectant faces looked up at me from the sofa. I didn’t think this was how I was supposed to meet my mates, but tradition had never really suited me anyway. Rachel proved that.
“So, erm...I
’m sorry I got so drunk last night,” I mumbled.
Hector smiled at me. “We run a bar, we’re pretty used to drunk dragons.” He had a slight accent I hadn’t noticed the night before, probably because I’d been too busy making an ass of myself.
“I know, but it wasn’t exactly a good impression on my part.”
“That’s true,” Todd muttered.
Oops, maybe trying to kick him out of his own bed hadn’t been a good move. I sighed. This wasn’t going so well.
“So...I’m your mate!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air as I said it. “Just thought I’d get that out there.”
“You don’t say!” Todd echoed, waving his own hands sarcastically. He shot me a look I couldn’t decipher and I tried to waggle my eyebrows apologetically. He couldn’t still be mad about me kicking him out of his bed, right?
“I told you so!” Heccie cheered, slapping Martin on his shoulder as he nudged in my direction.
“But, she’s so pretty,” he muttered, staring at me with disbelieving eyes. I wasn’t sure whether I should be flattered or insulted that he didn’t believe I was supposed to be his.
“Is anyone surprised?” I asked, staring at the three guys. Strangers. Mates. Whatever they were. They didn’t seem very shocked about my revelation. “Anyone?”
“No, pretty much saw it coming the moment you walked into the door,” Martin shrugged, staring at his two friends. “What about you, guys?”
“I just knew,” Heccie grinned smugly, inspecting his perfect fingernails. Of course, he did.
“She crawled in my bed and snuggled me. That was a pretty big clue?” Todd scratched the back of his head sleepily, looking really adorable for an asshole.
“So where does Rachel fit in?” Martin asked, pointing at the two of us. “You seem close?”
I chortled awkwardly. They didn’t seem to be surprised about the mate thing, but how would they react to this? “How to put it…” I pointed at the three guys. “Mate One. Mate Two. Mate Three.” I turned to Rachel and waved in her general direction. “Mate Four.”
Gosh, this sounded like a dirty equation. At least it wasn’t hard to solve.
Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection Page 28