Page 66 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

Reggie cocks his head to the side. "Are they any different? I assume they each have a dick." His eyes widen. "Unless they havedoubledicks. Quick, which one of you has seen one of them naked?"

They're going mad. Absolutely, completely unhinged. And it can only be my fault. Maybe my powers didn't affect them in the short term, but long term they've been lobotomized. That, or the familiar bond is doing something, and because I don't know anything about it, I can't even predict which is the real answer.

There's no way three nineteen-year-old boys all volunteer to share a girl they have the hots for. Especially not this calmly. The fight outside was alarming, but at least it made sense: men are brutes, especially the kind who shift into predators, so they react accordingly.

With the way they're acting now, you'd think the trio were bunny shifters, not two panthers and a wolf. Surely it can't last.

"I'm telling you, they have normal dicks," Xavier says, starting to sound annoyed; the conversation about demon appendages has apparently continued even as I zoned out in complete disbelief. "They're humanoid upper level demons, not some kind of tentacle monster. There's no way they've got prehensile penises."

"Ones with spines on the side?" Reggie suggests. "I'm just asking for a little variety here."

"Enough." I hold up my hand in the universal signal to pause the conversation, wishing I could rewind all of this to the beginning—before the demon dick jokes, to the part where Xavier apparently lost his damn mind, and so did the other two. "I don't get this. Are you seriously suggesting that I date all three of you? At once? David, you can't actually be okay with this. You just nearly attacked Reggie outside when you found out he was interested in me."

"Hewhat," Xavier says, sounding alarmed.

"It's okay, X," David reassures him. Then he turns to me, a somber expression in his eyes. "It's true that I got a little...jealousearlier. Call it instinctual. But as we were walking over here, I kept thinking about how bad I felt that I kissed you—that's what we came here to tell you about, X. And I kept thinking, if doing that means I stole you from him, then that'd make me the worst best friend in the world. But if I walked away from you, Ari, I don't know what I would do. So maybe this is the only way to keep everything from falling apart completely."

I feel pressed inward, hemmed by the three very different young men around me, all of whom seem to agree on something that I'd never even considered possible. I can't possibly say no to this, and yet I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of something, and it's risky just to consider saying yes.

"Well?" Reggie looks over at me, his eyes bright and knowing. "What's stopping you from boning all of us, right here, right now?"

"Reggie." Xavier makes a face at him. "Gross. Nottogether."

"Your loss. Me and David will stick around."

Rolling my eyes, I punch him in the shoulder, and he pretends to be in great pain. But his joke at least lightened the mood in the room enough that I realize now what it is that's holding me back, and there's no way we can go forward unless I clear the air.

"There's one thing holding me back." Looking around at them, I admit, "I have no idea if what's causing this is the familiar bond or not. For all I know my magic made us attracted to each other. Or made the three of you okay with sharing me. I mean... we have no idea exactly what it does, outside of protecting you from my magic and making you conduits for channeling it. What if all of this is just a great cosmic joke, and the instant I figure out how to dissolve the familiar bond it just... goes away?"

"Huh." Xavier tilts his head. "I never thought of that."

David narrows his eyes at me. "Do you know something about the bond you're not telling us? Like Reggie's dumb sex slave theory?"

"No! Of course not. I just... I guess this all feels too good to be true. Like my magicmusthave had something to do with it, because it isn't anything I could've pulled off on my own." I laugh a little. "That's kinda sad, huh? That I don't believe in myself like... at all."

Xavier gently says, "I know it's hard to believe, but I don't think magic has anything to do with this. If it did, we would've done this right after—not months after meeting you and forming the bond."

To my surprise, David nods and adds, "I think X is right. If we were going to be your sex slaves, we would've done that by now."

I look to Reggie, who just shrugs. "I'm into the whole sex slave thing, so don't look at me to stop this train from rolling down the tracks. A hot blue-haired girl wants me in her harem? Count me in. I don't even care how many members there are, as long as I get my one-on-one time."

Well, that's a sentence I never thought I'd hear aloud, much less directed towards me. At least Reggie is consistent. Really, I should've seen this coming from him at the start, when he made it clear he'd be happy if the three of them were my sex slaves.

Here I thought that was a joke.

"Okay. So." Looking at each of them, barely able to believe my luck, I start to feel a bit giddy inside. "How exactly does this work? I mean, I've never had one boyfriend, much less three. Or are we going to be casual? What's the word for a casual foursome?"

Reggie suggests, "Sausage Fest. Pork Bonanza. One Girl, Four Co—"

"I don't think we need a label," Xavier hastily says, before Reggie can come up with more riffs on the same theme. "Let's just go with... we're here. We're friends. We're figuring it out. And hope it doesn't explode in our faces."

It's the last part that worries me, but right now I can't see any other options. Maybe if I explore how I feel about each of the guys individually, it'll keep us together as a unit.

Or maybe it'll all fall apart.

I guess we'll get to find out together.

"So," I tell them, "when's our first date?"

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