Yes, the Ministry needed to be dealt with, and Bel really had no idea how they were going to manage that, but it all felt a little more possible than it had when River and Wyatt were with the pack.
Bel blinked and looked up to find River’s hazel eyes closely watching him, an answering smile forming on his slightly swollen lips. His men were so beautiful, inside and out. Strong, determined, intelligent, compassionate.
“I wish you could have met Julianna,” Bel said suddenly.
“Your mother?” Wyatt murmured against his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the tendon and then another, slowly working his way up to his neck.
Bel hummed his agreement, getting lost in Wyatt’s touch for a second.
“Do you think she would have thought it strange that you were in a relationship with two men?” River asked.
“Not strange so much as surprising. I was always more interested in my books and whatever mischief Rafe was getting into. I didn’t notice people as much as I should have. At least, not beyond their potential to be test subjects.”
“The world is Bel’s guinea pig,” River teased.
“But not his wolves.”
Bel smiled at Wyatt’s proud words. No, Bel would never use his wolves as test subjects. They’d been subjected to enough in their lives. He never wanted them to feel that his only interest in them was scientific. Of course, as they were all cuddled up together in bed, it was hard to believe such a thought would ever cross their minds.
“But I think Julianna would have loved you both.” Bel let his mind travel back to old memories of his mother, the mother he’d known as a small child. The woman who laughed and sang and danced. The woman who knew how to turn every day into a celebration. “She would have admired your bravery and kindness. She would have thought you were incredibly dashing. Walking in the woods with you as wolves would have made her feel like a fairy princess. She would have been excited to watch River learning to play the guitar. And she would have loved talking about books with Wyatt.”
“I feel like we have met her when you talk about her, Bel,” River said. He tipped his head up and pressed a kiss to Bel’s chin. “You always speak about her with such love, joy, and reverence.”
Bel closed his eyes against the tears that gathered. He’d been worried that they couldn’t hear that. In those last months, all he’d felt was pain and anger at his mother. She’d nearly killed him. She scared him, filled him with fear that she might kill his twin, kill any of his brothers. And he was frustrated because he couldn’t save her no matter how hard he tried.
He’d been terrified that those last months had colored all his memories of her.
“And we meet her when you play.”
Bel’s eyes popped open and he shifted in the bed to look from River to Wyatt. “You heard me play?”
“As we were coming in,” River replied. “It was amazing.”
“And depressing,” Wyatt added in a teasing tone.
“I was depressed. I thought I’d lost my wolves. Silly me.”
Wyatt bit down on Bel’s neck lightly, sending goose bumps along his arm. “Very silly of you.”
“We are a pack now. We never go anywhere without our Bel.”
And he would never go anywhere without his wolves or his family. The Variks were all the home that he would ever need or want.
“I have an idea,” he announced suddenly. “Wyatt, can you grab my phone off the nightstand?”
“I think it’s a little late to have something delivered,” River murmured. He yawned and snuggled a little closer.
“Early, you mean. It’s after seven a.m.,” Wyatt replied. The bed shifted, and a cool breeze swept across Bel’s back as Wyatt moved away from him to pick up his phone.
“Ugh. You’ve turned me into a vampire.” River groaned and pressed his face against Bel’s shoulder. “It’s so early. We need to either have sex again or just go to sleep.”
The bed shook with Wyatt’s chuckle, and Bel smirked as he kissed the top of River’s head. “Sleep or sex? You’ve got the energy for sex?”
River’s head popped up, full of wolfish mischief and desire. “I’ve always got energy for you and Wyatt.”
“Good to know,” Wyatt said as he handed Bel’s phone to him. “What are you planning?”
Bel didn’t answer as he pulled up the camera app and turned it to the selfie mode. He stretched his arm above them but couldn’t get the right angle. Smiling, Wyatt took the phone from him. With his longer arm, he managed to get the perfect picture of them cuddled together in the bed amid the twisted sheets and so much naked skin.
Accepting the phone from Wyatt, Bel quickly cropped out the naughty bits and tweaked the lighting just a little.
“What are you doing with that?” River asked as he peered over Bel’s shoulder.
“Months ago—well before he even met his Philippe—my evil twin sent the family a picture of him stretched out in bed with two nameless people he’d thoroughly debauched earlier that day. With the picture, he claimed that it was the only way to start the night.” Bel snorted. “I just realized that I can top his damn picture with one of my own.”
Satisfied with the image, Bel attached it to a text and sent it off to his brothers with the message: The only way to end the night.
Wyatt chuckled. “I think I was wrong when I called you our mad scientist. You’re definitely more of an evil scientist.”
“Very evil,” River added. “But you’re our evil scientist.”
Bel started to put the phone away when three little dots appeared in the texting window next to Rafe’s name. A second later, a picture appeared of a rumpled Rafe next to a sleeping Philippe. The vampire looked sweet and angelic next to his devilish twin.
Touché, sweet Bel, Rafe wrote.
Dots appeared again next to Marcus’s name. There was a pause, and then a picture loaded of Ethan sleeping on Marcus’s chest, a half smile tilting up Marcus’s lips.
The best way to sleep, Marcus replied.
Unsubscribe from this shitty sleep advice service, Winter wrote.
Bel laughed, but it was tinged with a little sadness. He didn’t know how he, Rafe, and Marcus had gotten so lucky to find mates, but he wanted that same happiness for Winter. Maybe he should take a break from the experiments and return to math for a bit. It couldn’t be too hard to write an algorithm that properly weighed the different personality traits of a person to find the perfect match for his reclusive and secretive brother.
Wyatt plucked the phone out of Bel’s limp fingers and placed it on the nightstand. When he turned back, he wrapped his arm around both Bel and River. “Sleep, Bel. Give that big, beautiful brain of yours a rest. You can solve all your family’s problems tonight.”
Smiling, Bel closed his eyes and felt his entire body relax into the warmth and security created by just the touch of his lovers. With his brothers, Bel had always felt a sense of belonging and safety. They understood him even when it felt like no one else in the world ever would.
But with River and Wyatt, Bel found a family he could only dream of.
The Variks were even stronger now for accepting them, and no one was going to tear them apart.