Three Mates, One Destiny (5 page)

When Ross began to stir, Drew summoned Trent and Valerius inside to help them secure the patient. Through the crack of the door, Paulie caught a brief glimpse of the two men who’d brought Ross in, Sebastian and Marcus. He didn’t know what he’d expected of them, but it certainly wasn’t what happened. He felt overcome by a sensation of warmth that engulfed his whole body and a heavy
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pressure in his chest. He managed to focus on Ross only because he acknowledged the importance of helping the young man. His heart trembled at the thought they’d have to use the serum, fearful at what consequences it might be.

Nevertheless, he kept a tight grip on his professional demeanor and retrieved the serum from the receptacle they kept it in. His hands remained steady as he filled a syringe with the liquid. He sanitized a spot on Ross’s hand and prepared himself to administer the drug, when his father shook his head. “Let me.”

Paulie sighed to himself. He knew his dad trusted him, but at the same time, Drew didn’t want him to feel bad if anything went amiss.

Unwilling to begin a debate on parental protectiveness, Paulie obediently handed the syringe to his dad. After all, Drew was the experienced human doctor, not him.

Ross cracked his eyes open, and Paulie could already see the feral insanity lingering in their depths. Trent and Valerius took position by the bed, guarding them, just in case Ross managed to break the bindings they’d immobilized him with. Paulie hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. If the serum worked, it would keep the disease in check.

Calmly, Drew administered the drug to Ross. Ross began to struggle, and then the fight drained out of him, replaced by painful-looking muscle spasms. Drew cursed, and Paulie’s heart fell. They’d failed. Ross would die.

They rushed to find any medicine that could stabilize Ross’s condition, but before they could do so, Ross went limp. Drew checked Ross’s vital signs. When he looked at Paulie, his eyes held not a small amount of relief. “His pulse is steady and strong. It might have worked yet.”

Indeed, in the next hours, Ross’s fever dwindled and his general state improved. Paulie began to hope they’d taken the right decision.

Of course, they wouldn’t know for sure until the patient woke up, but at least the situation seemed to show some promise.

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By evening, Paulie could safely say the serum had worked. Ross even opened his eyes at one point, and although he didn’t regain consciousness fully, he no longer looked gripped by the feral insanity.

At one point, Drew declared the situation safe enough for Paulie to go and get some sleep. This time, Paulie did protest, but his dad eventually convinced him. There was no sense in them both watching over a sleeping patient. The worst had passed, and if Drew needed assistance, he’d get another of the clinic medics.

Drew’s protectiveness began to get on Paulie’s nerves. After all, how much could a healthy twenty–two-year-old sleep? Still, perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check on their downstairs patients while his dad watched over Ross. Not to mention that he wanted to see Sebastian and Marcus.

The thought made him strangely excited, and he didn’t even know why. He remembered the time his dad hooked up with Valerius and Trent. Could the two hunters be his mates?

Paulie shook himself. He’d only caught a fleeting glimpse of the men. For all he knew, his excitement could be caused by his need to help Ross.

“Hey, kiddo,” Trent said, “take care, you hear?”

Valerius just gave him a penetrating look, and Paulie could see the concern behind it. Drew seemed puzzled by the exchange, so Paulie fled before his father could demand an explanation.

He left the examination room and froze in his tracks when he saw Sebastian and Marcus waiting in front of it. He realized in dismay he didn’t even know which was which.

“Hello,” one of them, a gorgeous blond, said. “We haven’t been officially introduced. I’m Marcus Deacon, and this is my mate, Sebastian Morrigan.”

Marcus’s voice sounded like silk caressing Paulie’s skin. He didn’t know how he managed to keep enough coherence and reply,

“I’m Paulie. I mean, Paul Blunt. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It is,” the second hunter—Sebastian—replied. “How is Ross?”

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The serious topic gave Paulie the ability to recover. “He seems to be doing better. We won’t know for sure until he wakes.”

Sebastian nodded. “If you’re not too busy, could we maybe have a word with you, someplace private?”

Paulie’s heart began to beat faster. “Certainly. There’s a waiting room somewhere around here. We could go there.”

“That’s fine,” Marcus replied. “Lead the way.”

Paulie obeyed, his mind swimming with the possible outcomes of this conversation. What did they want to tell him? What would he reply? God, had his dad been so confused seven years back?

He walked on autopilot, unable to say a single word. The silence stretching between them held an underlying current of sensual energy.

Paulie could feel their gazes on him, hot and insistent. His legs began to tremble and almost gave out. He had no idea how he even managed to reach the waiting room without swooning or anything just as embarrassing.

They chose a comfortable couch and sat down, Marcus and Sebastian next to each other, and Paulie facing them on a chair. “So…

What did you want to talk to me about? Like I said, I can’t tell you more about Ross’s condition just yet.”

He was playing dumb, and judging by the expression of the two spirit wolves, they knew it as well. Even so, they didn’t seem upset with him, just slightly confused and troubled. “We appreciate you helping Ross, but he isn’t what we intended to speak of,” Marcus said.

When he hesitated, Sebastian continued, “You are our mate. I believe you know it, or at least suspect it.”

Paulie looked away, Sebastian’s dark gaze intimidating him. He licked his dry lips and replied, “I suspected it, yes.” He didn’t recognize his own, barely audible voice.

To his surprise, Marcus moved off the couch and knelt at Paulie’s feet. His large hand took Paulie’s smaller one. “Look, I know this is hard,” he whispered. “We’re not pushing you into anything. Take your time, think about what you want. We don’t want to rush you.”

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Paulie looked at the two men once again. They were so close to each other and looked so very comfortable. They didn’t make any particularly intimate gestures, as if restraining themselves from outright displays of affection, but Paulie sensed the connection between them nevertheless.

It made sense, of course. If he was their mate, it meant the two of them were together as well. Paulie began to feel uncomfortable. He didn’t know how relationships between spirit wolves worked, but in those he was familiar with, the three mates had met at the same time.

True enough, Dan bonded with Linden in his past life, but he didn’t think their situation compared to this one. If his suspicions were correct, he’d basically be the proverbial third wheel to a relationship that had lasted more than his entire lifetime.

He retracted his hands from Marcus’s hold. “Just out of curiosity, how long have the two of you been together?”

Marcus seemed even more puzzled, and Paulie felt a pang of remorse. He squashed it viciously when Sebastian answered, “One hundred years, give or take.”

“Then, what do you need me for?” Paulie shot back. “You’ve been just fine without me until now.”

He expected them to deny it, to argue with him. Hell, he wanted them to. But neither of the men did. They shared a look Paulie couldn’t quite understand, and then Marcus got up. “That’s right,” he said. “We have. But so were Trent and Valerius before meeting your father.”

“It’s not the same,” Paulie answered. “They were single. They didn’t know each other.”

“Why does it matter?” Sebastian asked. “Why does it bother you?”

His black eyes speared Paulie, and he forgot what he was going to say. He didn’t think he could deal with such an earth-shattering realization. He’d never asked for this. Hell, he’d never even had the
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time to experiment with people his age and race before he’d been thrust into this odd, supernatural world.

Not that he regretted it. Of course he didn’t. He’d always led a successful existence from a professional point of view, and he’d had plenty of opportunities to explore his sexuality. The thought of doing it with Sebastian and Marcus made him lose track of his thoughts.

Paulie had to shift on the couch to cover his crotch and his now-straining erection. He caught the sight of an echoing passion in Sebastian and Marcus’s eyes, but the men didn’t do anything about it.

Paulie took a deep breath and struggled to focus. Lust wasn’t very conducive to finding a solution for this predicament. As much as he might’ve wanted to touch them, the circumstances made them off-limits. After all, how did one go about starting a relationship from scratch, all the while knowing the person in question would remain by one’s side, no matter what? It seemed so humbling. Nothing he ever did would matter because, in the end, destiny would have its way.

How did others deal with three-way bonds, when Paulie could barely wrap his mind around the concept? In seven years, he’d seen the affection between Trent, Valerius, and his father, and still he didn’t manage to understand it.

Paulie tried to think about the situation logically. He was acting like a petulant child, and he knew it. “I’m sorry,” he told Sebastian. “I just have to think about this. It’s very unexpected, and I’m not sure I can grasp how it works.”

“It works however we—that is you, me, and Bastian—want it to,”

Marcus replied gently. “There are no rules. We make them, according to what we’re comfortable with.”

Paulie felt a little better at that, but apprehension lingered within him. Wasn’t mating like a compulsion? Would Sebastian and Marcus be forced to bond with him even if they clearly shared something beautiful together? And what about him? Where did he stand in all this?

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“Maybe we could spend some time together?” he suggested. That way, he’d get to know these two men and figure out how he really felt. His entire being begged to be by their side, but for all he knew, it could just be lust. There was plenty of that going on. Another time, he might have gone for it, just to experience the pleasure he knew he’d feel if he accepted them. But matings were a serious business. They meant a lifelong commitment, and as much as it pained him to admit it, he doubted Sebastian and Marcus. He doubted himself, and his knowledge of this. He didn’t want to become an intruder in an already established relationship. It might lead the two men to one day resent him, and that would be worse than staying away. They’d have to take it slow to make sure this could work out.

To his relief, the two spirit wolves smiled and nodded. “I couldn’t agree more,” Marcus said. “I’d love to get to know you better.”

“Me, too,” Sebastian offered simply.

Paulie began to feel a bit better at their agreement. Even so, he knew he could use a few moments alone to think about things.

Besides, he still needed to check on the ferals. Work didn’t wait for his personal dilemmas to be solved.

“Okay then,” he answered. “See you in a bit? I still have some work to do.”

“Sure, Paulie.” Marcus smiled kindly. “Take your time. We’ll be in the main house.”

They said their good-byes, and before they left, the two men pressed chaste pecks on Paulie’s cheeks. In spite of the total innocence of the two kisses, Paulie’s face burned as he watched them go.

He shook himself and focused on what he needed to do. An elevator took him to the underground level. On the way, a number of soldiers checked his security pass—something Paulie now accepted with ease. This area of the clinic looked like something out of a high-security prison. Not a single thing had been neglected. The doctors
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who came and went were supervised at all times, not to mention the imprisoned ferals.

It was a very difficult life for the prisoners, and something Paulie would have liked to change. At the same time, his honest desire to help seemed to hit a brick wall in front of the outright refusal to cooperate of the men he wanted to heal. It saddened and frustrated Paulie that he couldn’t find a middle ground.

It occurred to him Sebastian and Marcus had been instrumental in the capture of these men. In fact, if Paulie remembered correctly, Marcus suffered a serious injury that almost killed him during the same battle.

The thought sobered him and made him remember these were, after all, dangerous men. Perhaps they’d committed those misdeeds while in a state of insanity, but their current state didn’t show a real desire to be healed. Paulie understood the reason behind this. While under the serum’s effect, the ferals remembered and processed everything they’d done, and couldn’t deal with it. Essentially, this brought them to a stalemate.

Paulie took the examination checklist from the main offices and advanced toward the so-called cell block. The patients received comfortable sleeping quarters and were given good nourishment and clean clothing. At the same time, every object in the large rooms showed a design created to prevent any chance of escape. Several considerations had been taken into account when furnishing the cells in order to avoid any unpleasant consequences, like the prisoner hurting himself. The only thing that could harm them in the area was the silver on the bars, and the guards always stayed around to prevent the prisoners from even getting close.

When he reached the cells, Paulie immediately noticed the strained silence. No one was moving, not a single prisoner saying or doing anything. The guard ahead shook his head. “We’ve had no trouble, Doctor Blunt.”

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Paulie offered the man a small smile. It still made him feel a bit awkward that these age-old warriors would treat him with such respect. “Doctor Blunt is my dad. I told you to call me Paul.”