Page 126 of Labor of Love

“You’re kidding?” Truett grumbled, his voice filled with amusement too. “No, no, please don’t be kidding that’s too perfect.”

“Why?” Laney asked, finally able to relax fully and rest his head on Elden’s shoulder as they all held him.

He could finally breathe without feeling like he was choking for the first time all day, and that alone was a wonderful feeling.

“The Enchanted Forest is a human theme park,” Marcus explained.

Lifting his head, Laney scrunched his nose as he tried to sort out what the humans would do with an enchanted forest. “A what?”

“It’s a place of whimsy and mechanical rides,” Elden explained. “There’s no real magic there beyond the scope of the human imagination. It’s not even a real forest. They built it as a means of escaping their day-to-day lives, but the escape is just an illusion. No one actually lives there, they just visit for a few hours to play and pretend.”

“Ohhh,” Laney breathed before he started giggling, because he’d truly thought the sign was for a place like this one, where he might find members of his kind that would actually accept him.

Only….it had.

Oh Goddess, it had.

She’d heard his plea for sanctuary and a safe place where he and his little one would be able to live in harmony and find joy in being part of a community again, and she’d cared enough to grant it, even if she’d subjected him to a drenching in the process.

She hadn’t abandoned him the way his family and ex-fiancé had.

“Unbelievable,” Marcus breathed.

“No, let’s believe it,” Truett encouraged. “And celebrate it! This is a blessing. The goddess doesn’t bestow those lightly.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Elden said as his fingers slid into Laney’s hair, touching, stroking as he started into his eye moments before he kissed him.

Laney melted into the kiss, different from any of the other kisses he’d ever received before. Filled with yearning and tasting of tears, it promised wonderous things too. Hope. Joy. Peace.

Home.

The word whispered through his mind as he tangled his fingers in Elden’s hair and kissed back fiercely, wanting to convey all the excitement he felt, needing Elden to know that he was thrilled to have found the three of them. When they finally, reluctantly drew back from one another, Laney could see through the wavey shimmer of his own tears, that Elden’s cheeks were as damp as his was.

“All day long I hoped for this,” Laney said. “First when I met Marcus and then after Truett and I danced in the kitchen. It was hard to hide how sad I was when Marcus had already rescued me and Truett literally welcomed me with open arms and swept me around the room to one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. I want this. I want to get to know the three of you and spend the rest of my existence here by your side. I have a million and one questions that I’m too tired to ask right now and I still don’t want to let go of you or step out of their embrace.”

“You don’t have to,” Elden said. “Nor do I want you to. I don’t think I could let you out of my sight right now if you asked, so please don’t, or you may wake to find me hovering outside of your window just to make certain that nothing snatches you away.”

“No worries there,” Laney said. “No one wants me.”

“Bullshit, as the humans would say,” Truett growled, snaking one hand around him to gently rest his palm over Laney’s belly. “We want you desperately and this little one in here.”

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Marcus said, his breath tickling Laney’s shoulder as he leaned to press a kiss to his cheek.

It wasn’t enough.

Laney turned to kiss him properly and felt the gentle caress of Marcus’ fingertips along the curve of his jaw.

“Ours,” Marcus growled against his lips before deepening the kiss and sweeping Laney into a haze of blissful contentment.

“You never have to worry about not being wanted again,” Truett said, kissing the side his neck, just beneath his ear, as Laney’s tongue slid against Marcus’ as his body finally gave in to the exhaustion that had been threatening to overwhelm him for hours.

When his knees buckled, Marcus swept him up into his arms. Laney cuddled against his chest and nuzzled his skin until he could hear the big gargoyle’s heartbeat.

“Which room would you prefer?” Marcus asked gently, “The one we’d intended to place you in, or the one the three of us share?”

“I meant it when I said I didn’t want to be apart from any of you,” Laney said. “Please take me to your room.”

The trio breathed out a collective sigh of relief and Laney soon found himself being carried down the hall and into a room lit with soft light from several lamps and lanterns the moment someone flipped a switch. Laney could hear a soft flurry of activity in the room, bedspreads peeled back and the plop of Elden’s clothes as they landed on the floor in a pile. Wanting to see him the way he’d seen his gargoyle mates, Laney turned his head and cracked open his eyes, taking in the splendor of Elden’s wings. With thin slivers of moonlight streaming in through thewindow, his wings glowed wherever it struck them. The purple in them was darker than the shades in Laney’s wings, while the silver matched Elden’s hair and ran like thin slivers of moonlight woven through the translucent parts.

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