Chapter 148: Three of Us

Astrid Vale

I woke tangled between them, sunlight cutting through the curtains in thin strips across the bed, and for one disoriented moment I forgot everything that had happened over the past several weeks entirely. Then the memories settled back into place, Elaris, the altar, the portal, all of it, and instead of the panic I might have expected, I only felt the warmth pressed against me on both sides, steady and real.

Xander stirred first, cracking one eye open and grinning the moment he registered my face close to his. "You stole our bed," he said, voice thick with sleep.

"I distinctly remember you inviting me."

"Inviting is generous. I think you just followed us and refused to leave."

"That’s also accurate."

He laughed, low and content, and beside me Reed shifted awake more quietly, his expression settling into something soft the instant he saw me there. He didn’t say much, just reached over and brushed a strand of hair away from my face, something in the gesture carrying more warmth than words could have managed.

We lay there for a while longer, trading easy teasing back and forth, before the conversation drifted somewhere more serious without either of us really deciding to steer it there.

"Before Elaris," I said eventually, "I was still trying to figure out what this actually meant. Being mates to both of you. I kept treating it like something I could examine from a careful distance, like I had all the time in the world to decide how I felt about it."

Reed watched me carefully, not pushing, simply waiting for me to continue.

"Then I couldn’t reach either of you," I said. "And I understood something I hadn’t let myself understand before. I don’t want to keep pretending this doesn’t matter to me."

"You don’t owe either of us a choice between us," Reed said quietly. "That was never what this was supposed to require."

"I’m not interested in making you pick anyway," Xander added, propping himself up on one elbow. "I like this arrangement exactly as complicated as it already is."

I laughed despite the weight still sitting in my chest. "That’s reassuring, somehow."

We spent the next while actually talking through what any of this looked like in practice, not grand promises about the future, but smaller, more immediate things. Whether we could simply exist together openly, without pretending our relationship was some tangled mess to hide from everyone around us. Whether I could come to either of them when I needed comfort without it becoming some complicated negotiation each time.

"What happens when I get jealous?" I asked. "Because I will. I already have been."

"You deal with it the way you dealt with Damien," Xander said. "Loudly and with excellent comebacks."

"I mean about the two of you," I said. "Not other people."

Reed considered that seriously. "We talk about it," he said. "Honestly, rather than letting it sit and fester."

"And what happens when either of you gets jealous?" I asked, glancing between them.

"Same answer," Reed said.

Xander shrugged. "I’ll probably just say something dramatic and Reed will tell me to be reasonable."

"Accurate," Reed said.

I found myself smiling, something settling comfortably into place that hadn’t been there before, some understanding that this didn’t need to remain the tangled, undefined thing I’d been avoiding examining too closely. I wanted both of them. That was simply the truth of it, uncomplicated once I stopped fighting against acknowledging it.

"There’s something else," I said, more seriously now. "I don’t want either of you treating me like I’m permanently fragile because of what happened. I appreciate everything you did to find me, everything you’ve done since. But I don’t want the rest of my life to become ’Astrid was kidnapped, so Astrid can’t do anything alone anymore.’"

Reed nodded, understanding immediately. "That’s fair."

"I’m still watching you," Xander said, though his tone stayed light. "Just from a respectful, non-suffocating distance."

"That’s an oxymoron coming from you."

"I contain multitudes."

I rolled my eyes, but something warm settled in my chest at how easily they’d both accepted the boundary without turning it into an argument, without making me justify wanting some piece of my independence back after everything.

The conversation softened from there, drifting back into something playful, and I leaned over to kiss Reed first, slow and unhurried, his hand finding my jaw as he responded.

"I feel neglected," Xander announced the moment I pulled back.

"You’re impossible."

"I’m also right here."

I laughed and kissed him too, his enthusiasm immediate and warm, and somewhere in the middle of all the teasing and affection, I realized something important. Being between them didn’t feel like being caught anymore, didn’t feel like some impossible choice I needed to resolve. It felt like exactly where I was supposed to be.

A knock sounded at the door before either of us could pull back properly, and Ivy walked in without waiting for a response, freezing the moment she took in the scene in front of her.

"Oh," she said, eyebrows shooting up. "I see how it is."

"Good morning, Ivy," Xander said, entirely shameless, not bothering to move.

Reed at least had the decency to look slightly more composed, though a faint flush crept up his neck. I buried my face against the nearest pillow, mortified.

"I was just checking if you were alive," Ivy said, grinning wickedly. "Clearly you’re more than alive."

"Ivy."

"I’m just saying, this explains a lot about last night."

"We were talking."

"Sure you were."

I threw the pillow at her, and she caught it easily, still laughing as she perched on the edge of the bed like she owned it. "Anyway," she said, "you promised me we’d keep having our own time too. Don’t think you’re allowed to disappear into twin-shaped bliss and forget about me."

"I would never forget about you," I said, meaning it completely.

"Good," she said, standing and tugging at my arm. "Because we have plans, and they don’t involve either of these two."

I let her pull me up, glancing back at Reed and Xander as I went. Reed caught my hand before I fully left the bed, his expression carrying something quiet and certain.

"Tonight?" he asked.

I smiled. "Tonight."

He let go, and I followed Ivy out of the room, already listening to her complain good-naturedly about being interrupted from finding Roshan the night before, something settling into place in my chest that felt entirely new.

I wasn’t merely surviving my return anymore, piecing myself back together one careful day at a time. I was building something, slowly and deliberately, with Ivy, with Reed, with Xander, and eventually, I hoped, with the rest of my life at Moonshade waiting patiently for me to finish healing enough to fully step back into it.