Chapter 236: Three Alphas, No Brain Cells

EDRIK’S POV

Dove had sent Edrik out with laundry when he could think of several better uses for her bedroom.

He had told her two of them. She had kissed him, pushed the clothes into his arms, and pointed toward the door.

"An hour. I want to hear myself think."

"I could make that difficult."

"Yes, handsome. That’s why you’re leaving."

He liked the way she said handsome when she knew he was being a problem. He liked the hand she slid beneath his shirt before sending him out even more. By the time he reached the street with Thorne, he was in no mood to pretend he wanted to do anything sensible.

Ash stood opposite their shop.

There was something to do.

"Leaving her alone?" the dragon asked.

Edrik passed the laundry to Thorne. "You’d have to be invited inside before she could throw you out. Tragic, really."

Ash’s eyes narrowed. The air between them seemed to tighten with his shoulders.

Thorne looked toward the empty practice yard beyond the workshop. "Over there. Away from the shop."

Nobody asked whether this was a good idea. Edrik had spent years recognizing bad ones and had never lost his taste for a few of them.

The yard had a packed dirt floor, metal training rails, and enough room to move without landing on someone’s dinner. Thorne left the clothes on the workshop bench. All three set their weapons aside.

"No killing," Thorne said.

Edrik smiled at Ash. "There goes your chance to impress me."

The dragon hit him before the smile faded.

Edrik turned enough that the blow struck his shoulder instead of his jaw. Pain drove down his arm. He answered with a punch that split Ash’s lip, followed it with another, and discovered the second was already too late.

Ash caught his wrist and threw him.

Edrik hit the dirt, rolled, and came up beside a training rail. He braced his hand against it, fed strength into the metal, and used it to drive himself back toward the dragon. Ash met him in the center of the yard.

This time, Edrik felt the difference plainly.

Ash had held back before. Not because Edrik was harmless, not because the dragon could ignore a blade in his ribs, but because Dove had been close enough to step between them. Out here, with her safely inside, he stopped yielding ground.

Ash drove Edrik toward the fence. Edrik caught the rail again, bracing it beneath his palm as Thorne came in from the side. The panther caught a shoulder and struck low. Ash moved with both of them, feet digging into the dirt, and wrenched Edrik’s hand away from the reinforced rail.

The reinforcement failed as his palm left the rail. The metal rang beneath Ash’s next blow.

Edrik recovered quickly enough to see Thorne touch a bent frame and send its existing bar curving across Ash’s path. The dragon kicked it aside and caught the panther by the upper arm.

"Again," Ash said, looking at Edrik.

Edrik went at him with no smile left.

They made him work. Thorne landed a strike that drove his head sideways. Edrik caught him in the ribs while the panther moved clear. Ash grunted, planted his feet, and came back harder.

A moment later, Edrik was on one knee with his arm pinned behind him. Thorne hit the fence beside him, Ash’s other forearm across his chest. The rail bowed under their combined weight.

Neither husband could break the hold.

Edrik went still long enough to judge the angle of his wrist. A little farther and it would break. Ash stopped short of that, muscles standing out through his shirt, breath rough but controlled.

"That’s why I can protect her," the dragon said.

Edrik looked up at him. "You had her in the Warren. She was scared to ask you for a damn thing."

Ash’s grip tightened.

For one ugly second, Edrik thought he would do it. Then Ash released both men and stepped away.

Thorne pushed off the bent rail. Edrik stood without accepting the hand the panther offered, tested his shoulder, and found it sore but working. He wanted a knife. He wanted another round. Neither would improve Dove’s evening.

The dragon wiped blood from his mouth with his thumb.

"You can’t keep everything away from her."

"No," Thorne said. "But she sleeps when she’s beside us. How did she sleep around you?"

Dove appeared at the fence, breathing hard from the run.

Edrik saw her take in the broken rail, the dirt on their clothes, and the way he rolled his shoulder. Her cotton dress moved around her knees in the hot wind. He wanted her against him so badly that losing the fight briefly stopped mattering.

"What did I say about the hands I wanted on me later?" she asked.

He held his up. "Still taking requests."

"Good. You can start by washing them."

Ash moved toward her. "I could keep you safer."

Dove looked at him, then at the damaged rail. "Congratulations on beating up my husbands. Did you think that would make me want you?"

The yard went quiet.

Edrik had watched men die without looking as stripped bare as Ash looked then. He took considerable pleasure in it, which he saw no reason to hide.

Dove came through the gate and touched Thorne’s face, checking the bruise along his cheek. Then she caught Edrik’s wrist gently enough to make his chest tighten.

"Can you move it?"

He turned his hand and caught her fingers. "Enough to carry you home."

"You can walk beside me and carry your own terrible decisions."

"Will you kiss them better?"

"Wash first. I have standards."

He bent and kissed the side of her head anyway. She let him, her hand closing around his.

Ash had won. He stood alone in the middle of the yard while Dove collected the men she loved, and Edrik would have taken the dirt again for the look on the dragon’s face.

Thorne collected the laundry from the workshop bench on their way out. At the gate, a security officer stopped them. He held a paper with Dove’s name printed near the top.

"They’re moving the women," he said. "Your household’s on the list."

Dove’s fingers tightened around Edrik’s. Behind them, the metal rail snapped in Ash’s hand.