“That’s good.”
Teal let out a drawn-out breath. “It’s a lot of change,” he said. “I’m going to be busy with High Court in a few days, and for the rest of the tribunal. Hopefully, that won’t interfere with Sorchagetting acclimated. I thought it went okay with the boys today. Niall too.”
“Yes.” Ronan looked down at his hands as Teal slipped into bed beside him. He leaned into his husband’s side, surprised to sense tension radiating from the alpha.
“What’s wrong, my love?” Teal asked. “I know it’s a shift, but it seems like we’re off to a successful start.”
“It’s not that.” Ronan shook his head. “I really hesitate to bring this up again, but I can’t help being in awe of how amazing you’ve been through all of this. Telling the boys today, telling Niall, just made it soreal. And as much as I think we’re doing the right thing, the inevitable thing, there’s a part of me that still feels like I’ve treated you poorly.”
Teal didn’t mince words. “You’re still upset you fucked another omega?”
Ronan grunted softly in confirmation.
“Even though I told you I wanted it, that it turned me on?” Teal sighed in exasperation. “Even though I got to sink into Sorcha’s sweet little hole too? And enjoyed it?”
“I’m not saying it’s rational. I just don’t want you to feel for even one nanosecond that I’m disrespecting you—”
“Us making a mutual decision for you to help Sorcha through his heat isn’t disrespecting me—”
“But it’s not just that!”
“Then what is it?”
Ronan rolled his eyes. “It’s like we’re dancing around the biggest issue. Especially with how fast this has all happened.”
“Which is?”
“C’mon.”
“What?” Teal thought he knew what Ronan was driving at, but he wanted to hear his husband say the words. Out loud so they could deal with them.
The alpha huffed. “You heard it, baby. Sorcha had a breeding orgasm.”
Teal smiled. “I heard it. I’d be surprised if the whole neighborhood didn’t hear it.”
Ronan’s jaw flexed. “Making light of it won’t work.” He exhaled hotly. “I just…I can’t believe I made a baby with someone else. Even knowing how I feel about Sorcha, how we both feel, it’s still hard to process. And that’s all I’ve been doing these past few hours, now that the initial crisis has passed. Processing.”
Teal laid a gentle hand on his husband’s thigh.
“And what else have you been thinking about, exactly?”
“That in the times we shared our bed with Niall, or even before him, I could sometimes envision us having a permanent third. I think we might have gotten there with Niall eventually if Jax hadn’t come along.”
“Agreed.”
“But even when I had visions of our relationship evolving to something beyond just the two of us, I never imagined a scenario where you weren’t the daddy to my children. Since we only played with betas, I never had to consider it. But now, everything is different. Four days ago, we were living our old lives, and now…now…” Ronan ran an agitated hand through his hair. “For stars’ sake, I’ve impregnated another omega!”
Teal fixed his gaze on Ronan’s. He searched his heart for that small sliver of himself that shared Ronan’s fears. Did Teal harbor a seed of resentment that Sorcha might be pregnant, that Teal would no longer be the only daddy of Ronan’s sons? If he were being one hundred percent honest, he could find it. And he owed it to Ronan to tell the truth.
“My love, I won’t say there isn’t a part of me that worries about giving Sorcha this part of you.” Ronan opened his mouth to speak, but Teal put up his hand. He needed to get this out.“Of course, it’s surreal to think of how fast this all happened. That Sorcha went from being our neighbor to being an integral member of our family. Thinking about watching Sorcha grow round with your child makes me catch my breath a little. I won’t lie about that. However—and I need you to hear me on this—I truly believe that the underlying reason for all those fears is because this is happening so quickly, not because it’s happening at all.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of the way I feel about Sorcha. Regardless of your relationship with him, he’s already a part of my heart. I would have wanted to be with him, no matter what. I’ll use the same word you did.Inevitable. In a perfect world, we would have gotten to know Sorcha more before sharing his bed, or his heat. We would have had a few more choices as to the sequence of events, more time to get the boys accustomed to the idea. But we still would have ended up here. I smell Sorcha. I feel him. He’s meant to be a part of us. It’s fast, yes. But knowing that we were eventually going to make Sorcha a part of us means knowing that, eventually, he would have had your babies. Given a choice between you impregnating him now versus any other alpha having him, I can’t even imagine choosing a different alternative. He’s ours. Mine.
“So, you’re not disrespecting me. Because you’re not excluding me. We are very much in this together. You, me, and Sorcha. We’ll have to learn how to function as a threesome. We need to figure out how he fits in with the boys. And we’ll get there. But any life with Sorcha—even if it’s fast and confusing—is better than a life without him. I’m sure of it. Change comes to every relationship, and when people love as hard as you and I do, it’s kind of miraculous we didn’t need to expand our love bubble before now.”
“You’re amazing,” Ronan said, rubbing his emotion-filled eyes before pulling Teal to his side. “And wise. I think we were doing that subconsciously with Niall, trying to forge a new phase in our relationship. I wish we’d realized.”
