He was big – not just for a Frostkin, who were of middling size among the Vhark; he rivalled many Stonekin in height and breadth, yet still bore the broad wingspan of his own breed. He was dressed formally, a navy-blue sash threaded with gold crossing from left hip to right shoulder across his chest, looping back down between his wings, cinched to a wrap of similar cloth about his waist by a silver buckle, silver rings about his horns, his wing-claws, and his fingers, bracelets of less precious things – copper, glass beads, carved wood – around his wrists, and the edges of his tail-spade were inset with steel.

His sharp teeth flashed in a grin, and he lifted arms and wings in invitation as the pair approached; one of each slid around each of them, gathering them in close, and his tail snaked around both his ankle and Kavo’s. “There the two of you are,” he laughed. “It’s been much too long since I could see both of you together!”

“Too long since I’ve been able to see you at all, Tarvi,” Garn laughed, fingers stroking along the big male’s jaw. “Kavo hadn’t mentioned that you were doing so well for yourself!”

“That’s because I haven’t had a chance to tell him,” Tarvi replied, bending down to nudge his horns, very nearly a full twist around, against Kavo’s. “I had a bit of luck, recently, selling prime furs and ivory to the humans at Craith Mannan. The biggest sabretooth I’ve ever seen was menacing one of their outlying villages; a crafty beast, too cunning for their hunters, but not enough so to escape the mage-sight of a flying hunter. I took pains to kill it clean, and not only did they pay in jewels for its demise, its hide and especially its fangs fetched a generous weight in coin.” He smiled, squeezing each one’s shoulder. “And they want me to manage the trade with them, now. I’ll still want to go out on the wing now and then, but I don’t need to be about it so constantly that I can’t spare time for my dearest, oldest friends.”

“Good fortune indeed,” Kavo sighed. Such a prize as Tarvi had landed was not unknown, but only arose once every few years if that; even if he’d been the strongest and most skilled hunter among the Vhark, that would be no guarantee that he’d be in the right place at the right time.

“Four Winds, I’ve missed you,” his hunt-brother murmured against his cheek. Slightly louder, for both of them, he went on, “There was a festival at the village, celebration in Craith Mannan, and not a single being among the lot who actually knew me. It’s taken me weeks just to get free of them and back home. And I’m sorry I was too late to see your sons away,” Tarvi sighed. “They’ve been good boys, and I’m sure they’ll be fine men with your examples.”

“I should be proud of what they’re doing,” said Garn, looking aside. “And I’m sure I will be… once they return.” Kavo didn’t think Tarvi noticed, didn’t think she noticed herself, that the words were a bit forced; she recovered, anyway, saying, “But for now, it’s only having something else to worry about that keeps me from worrying every moment about them, two weeks gone.”

“Ah, yes. The latest addition to your family. Congratulations to you both; fine as they are, it’s good to see your line won’t be limited to the twins.” His wings squeezed close around them, and he gazed over the hearth and the pristine white shell that rested there. “I know you know magic, Garn, and I’m sure everything’s done right, but it worries me to see that much fire in the wards around it. Or at least, to be so close to them myself!”

“We wanted a bit of uninterrupted time with you,” Garn replied, and now a fierce grin touched her muzzle. “Fifteen years ago, I couldn’t have done this. Now, it’s the most valuable service I provide people – I can certainly guard my own hearth for a few hours.”

“We’d be unlucky if there’s even a cinder left from any snake that tries to cross that boundary,” Kavo agreed. “Not that I’ve heard of any being found in the city lately. I know that’s what people thought three years back, though – and people were certainly glad when they didn’t relax their vigilance then.”

“Quite,” Tarvi growled. “…But why were you so anxious to meet? You have each other, now.” His voice softening, growing wistful, he asked, “If you’ve arranged for some leisure time, why not spend it with each other? I know what the last few years of been like for Kavo, Garn, but from what he’s told me you’ve not been much better off – and the two of you were singularly unlucky in arranging time for each other.”

“Kralin and Mulin going off on their journey made us think about what’s truly important,” Kavo breathed, looking up at the bigger male. His hide was a darker, cobalt blue than Kavo’s azure, but his eyes were pale, and they had always seemed, to him, to see a great deal. “Neither of us wanted to turn you away, Tarvi.”

“I know that,” he assured them. “But the law is the law, and…”

“And times change,” Garn said when he hesitated.

He looked over to her. “What do you mean?”

“The law might not recognize a union of three,” said she, “not least so the parentage of any offspring will not be in doubt. But what would have scandalized people eighteen years ago is… a private matter, now. There are sometimes… practical arrangements, where a man will provide for a pair of married females; such a union wouldn’t have happened at all, back then. And sometimes, it’s whispered, or even said aloud, that such trios are only divided in the eyes of the law. Not where it matters.”

“We couldn’t stay together back then,” Kavo added. “Not without causing trouble for all of us.”

Tarvi drew a deep breath, wings shivering around them. “Oh, the two of you remind me so much of old times… I shouldn’t – ”

“Why not?” A grin stole over Kavo’s muzzle; his tongue darted forward, sampling the air, and he ran his fingers along Tarvi’s sash. “I don’t think that’s only my interest I smell – and,” his fingers, drifting low, encountered a warm rise in the dark cloth, “it’s certainly not mine that I feel.”

A low croon changed into a sharp bark at his touch; Tarvi shivered, wings tensing in spite of himself. “I can’t lie,” he breathed over Garn’s muzzle. “Every precious time I’ve been with your mate, I thought of you. Of how you let him go and trusted him to come back to you. Of how you didn’t force him to hide it, but took pleasure in it. I wished you could be there with us, instead… and I can’t think of a better welcome home than to have another taste of those good times.”

“Will you linger with us a while, then?” Kavo asked, forcing himself to lift his fingers away as he did. The words might be mostly a formality, but there was a very serious, very real purpose to them, and he would not violate it with distracting touch. “Will you join us in pleasure, and help us think of happier things than our absent sons?”

“I will,” breathed the big Frostkin. “I will, and gladly. Much though I’ve enjoyed your time and mine together, much better that we three all be here.”

“But don’t discount that time with the two of you,” Garn hissed against his jaw. “Remember how we first met, Tarvi?”

“…with your Frostkin sweetheart buried to the slit inside me?” Tarvi shivered, pressing forward, the growing ridge of his arousal nudging Kavo’s side. “Oh, your timing that day was evil, dear. Catching me in my weakest moment…”

Kavo shivered as well, closing his eyes and letting the memory surface. There he’d been, straddling Tarvi’s tail, the big male’s wings curled around him, trembling in the wake of his climax, when Garn had stepped forward. How long she’d been there, she’d never told him; she’d come to offer him a snack and a quick flight together. She’d touched her grinning mouth in a gesture for silence, with Tarvi too caught up in his own pleasure to notice his reaction; and just as the bigger male had contorted under him in his own orgasm, she’d eased a piece of spiced meat into his mouth.

“I’d heard so many good things about you,” Garn laughed, bringing him back to the present. “I didn’t want to interrupt, but I didn’t want to delay in meeting you, either!”

“Hah. Well.” Tarvi stroked along one of Kavo’s horns. “I gather you have more reason to bring up that, mmm, memorable greeting than just to make my tail curl?”

“But it’s so rarely we could ever catch you at a loss,” she chuckled. “Still… I just happen to have some spiced meatballs, taken hot from the oven just before you arrived…”

“Ah. So it wasn’t just the memory I smelled,” he sighed. “Well, Kavo? Do you feel like reliving the past?”

“I’m the one who made the suggestion,” Kavo replied, grinning again. “It has been rather a while since I was the one on top, has it not?”

“Too long by half,” the big male breathed. “But we’d best get to it shortly, or it’ll have to wait for me to recover.” He turned his attention squarely toward Kavo again, nudging noses. “You’re going to enjoy having me squirm, aren’t you?”

“You do it so well,” Kavo crooned, twisting the two halves of the buckle that held shut both Tarvi’s sash and his belt. “But don’t worry about endurance, this first time. I certainly won’t be in any position to complain?”

“You are looking a little damp there,” Tarvi murmured, one finger touching the tip of Kavo’s length, where it was wetting his own wrap in slick anticipation. He pressed into the touch with a grin and a lash of his tail.

They half-led, half-towed each other into the bedroom. Garn did not immediately follow; Kavo, quite eager to recover some semblance of that memory, tried to concentrate on the one who did. Not that it was very difficult, with the movement dislodging his sash, making it fall free from his body; it was tucked into his wrap enough to tug on it, but both were loose enough that the weight just pulled both away.

Setting aside some of the noisier bracelets, Tarvi eased himself into the cot, toes hooking through the weave, the tip of his shaft gleaming in the light from the outer room. Waiting. It had been years since Kavo had seen him stretched out like that, wings curled slightly forward, waiting for a body to surround; usually, either Tarvi had been the one to act or they’d been too close for him to get a good look. This time, there was plenty indeed to see as Kavo tilted the flask of oil over his own length, spreading a light coating of the stuff over his flesh.

Not too much, though. Tarvi might usually be the one to penetrate when he was with Kavo, but the big male was no stranger to receiving; and he was, after all, large. Besides, if there was that much oil in play, the work of spreading it evenly would probably be enough to trigger the climax already lurking in his mind.

It was a hurried coupling; he settled himself atop the bigger male, easing his tip into place even as wings wrapped around him; he pressed forward with the urgency of a youth, and the heat of Tarvi’s body drew him right in. They pushed together in one swift stroke, and it was perfect.

He spread his hands over Tarvi’s chest, his snout tucked against the side of the big hunter’s neck. Tarvi’s breath in turn was warm and quick over his muzzle, neck, and shoulder, strong hands stroking his sides, strong wings wrapping him in warm leather and a skein of slender bone. Tarvi’s shaft was a hot ingot against his stomach; his right hand, still slick with oil, slid down to apply some of that slickness to it, to make their squirming motion against one another a little smoother.

Both of them were panting with imminent release when he became aware of Garn beside them, also unclad now; he glanced over at her, saw her indulgent smile, and grinned back.

Maybe the effort in reproducing that first meeting had been more effective than he’d thought it would be, but it happened now almost as it had then. The only major difference was that he’d become aware of Garn before his orgasm raced through him, driving him into a writhing, bucking frenzy, planting his seed deep under Tarvi’s tail. The last jet of his seed hadn’t yet left him when Tarvi shuddered, clamping around his length, squeezing him so tight with arms and wings that he couldn’t draw more than a shallow breath.

And that was when Garn leaned in close, a meatball speared on the claw of each index finger; even as warm seed coursed over their stomachs, she eased one into each one’s muzzle. The spices were hot enough to draw attention even in the moment of climax, not so much so as to leave the mouth painfully burning; it just added a separate, milder note of pleasure to their shared release.

He gave a few extra licks to her finger, crooning with delight. She drew it away and speared another; that one he took a little more time savouring, feeling Tarvi’s chest rise and fall under his hands as the bigger male caught his breath.

His climax certainly wasn’t letting go easily. His seed was spent – sticky streaks on Kavo’s belly, and probably quite a messy puddle on his own – but his length still pulsed between them, his vent still tensing around his lover’s shaft in the same rhythm.

With the heightened awareness that followed his climax, every gentle squeeze felt like the firm grip of a fist.

The first time Tarvi took a breath to speak, she stifled him with another meatball. Even from Kavo’s slightly awkward angle of view, the look of comical surprise on his face, as he bit on it in pure reflex, was priceless.

As both the others laughed, Tarvi gave them a hurt look, swallowed, and tried again, this time intercepting Garn’s hand with his own on her wrist. “It just wouldn’t be complete if you didn’t catch me off guard at least once, is that it?” He chuckled, his free hand trailing fingers along the outer curl of Kavo’s right horn.

“As I said, it’s so rarely we do.” She leaned in, and the next thing to slip into Tarvi’s muzzle was not more food, but a quick exploratory dart of her tongue.

Rumbling, he let his dance with it a moment. When they parted, he said, “As I was trying to say… one could almost think you’d slipped some terraset into these, mmm?”

“Hardly that,” said Kavo, nipping at his neck. “Abstinence is finer than any aphrodisiac, lover.”

“Not that I’d mind if it had been,” purred Tarvi, bucking up against him, hot and rigid still. “It is a wonderful notion, to catch up together. We might as well do so intimately as well as socially.”

Garn laughed, slipping each of the men another meatball. “I think I’d best lay out some blankets,” she noted. “That cot’s looking a little full already. I’m unsure to this day how you managed to both fit in Kavo’s, back then.”

“Much the same as here,” Kavo sighed, pushing up against Tarvi’s chest. “He got in first, and then he didn’t move much until it was time to join you.” When the big male’s wings drew back to let him, he drew himself free, swinging up to his feet.

“And I’m not sure we did fit in it,” added Tarvi, sitting up. “Some of the seams were looking a little questionable afterwards, as I recall.”

Garn wasn’t paying much attention, though; she’d opened the chest where they kept the extra blankets, she’d taken hold of one, but she hadn’t finished drawing it out – she was just staring at it.

“Love?” Kavo prompted, coming up to her side and reaching for her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Oh…” She gave her head a shake. “This just reminded me of that time Kralin took ill, when they were nine.”

It was a thick blanket, dark grey with white trim, easily large enough for three people to wrap up in together; folded a few times, it’d make for a good cushion. And, indeed, it made for a very warm bundle wrapped around one shivering drake.

He took a breath. “I’m sure they’ll come back to us in one piece, dear.”

“It’s good people who went with them,” said Tarvi, coming up behind them, putting a hand on each one’s shoulder. “Hark’s had a good name since before we were old enough to pick up a spear…”

“I know,” Garn blurted, glancing over with a wistful smile. “It’s actually their romance I was more worried about than their well-being. I’ve told myself they’ll come back to us whole. But what then? I love them dearly, but I’m worried what people will think if they… well, if they come to love each other that way.”

“I’d be more worried for them if they don’t,” Tarvi sighed, “at least on this journey of theirs. There’s a reason the sagas of Magekin past have always been partly romance – it’s their affection for each other that’s allowed them to do the things they did.” He leaned in to nuzzle at the base of Garn’s jaw. “And you two are quite thoroughly reminding me that it’s possible to enjoy life as a triple, not just a couple. Theirs will be a little unconventional, that’s all.”

Kavo laughed, reaching back to trail his fingers along Tarvi’s shaft, drawing a delicious croon from the big hunter’s throat. “Maybe we’ve been thinking too much about how they’re brothers,” he mused, “and lost sight of them also being young men.”

Some speculation flickered over Tarvi’s face, then vanished in a momentary flash of guilt. “So there you have it,” he went on. “They’ll find someone, even if that someone needs to have room for the two of them.”

“And speaking of room for two…” Kavo gave the blanket a significant stare.

Garn laughed, holding up the edge of the blanket and giving it a few shakes, letting the folds more or less carry down to the far end. “I have that, so long as you restrain your enthusiasm a little. Like randy teenagers, you were, that first time.” Another flip sent the blanket across the floor; she brought the near end down, mostly neat.

“As requested,” Tarvi purred, seizing the base of her tail.

She squeaked, rising onto her toes; Tarvi took the opportunity to duck down, wedge his snout against her thighs, and flick his tongue up between them.

Grinning, Kavo ducked in front of her and gave a lick from there, tongue pressing against her slit and wiggling its way in.

She squeaked again, squirming, batting at his shoulders. “H-hot!” she exclaimed. “I should have – aaanh – had the two of you drink something!”

Ahh, revenge. It presented itself in such wonderful ways, sometimes.

She tried to squirm away, but the two males held her legs and tail, and traded licks, tongues dancing past each other. For all her protests, Garn didn’t utter a sound of proper distress, and so they kept it up, licking deeper into her tunnel. It didn’t take all that long until she opened up enough that both could lap at her sweet juices together; not long at all until, far from struggling away, she was clutching at Kavo’s shoulders and winding her tail around Tarvi’s arm, panting over them.

On his own, it usually took some doing for Kavo to lick her to climax; with two of them, and the extra sensation brought by the lingering traces of spice… well, that didn’t take so long at all. Once the telltale shivers gripped her, dancing against his flickering tongue, he slowed down a little, gentling the sensations, easing off; so, too, Tarvi slowed and withdrew his tongue.

Finally, Garn sank back onto her feet, breathing hard. “And you call me evil,” she husked, tail-spade tapping Tarvi’s jaw.

“Fair trade,” he purred, utterly unrepentant. “Last time, the next thing his tongue touched was me, remember.”

“And it was so gratifying,” Kavo laughed. “I wasn’t very skilled with my tongue back then, as I recall. Having you writhing from the first touch was rather novel.” On the other hand, that wasn’t what they were here for now. He slipped out from under Garn’s hands and stretched out over the blankets, wings out to either side to keep the wrist-joint from grinding against the stone. The blanket was soft, but not nearly thick enough to keep his wing from being mashed against the stone floor in the imminent future.

Garn’s tail-spade traced along his shaft. “Ah, what a sight,” she sighed, getting her revenge as he fidgeted under the firm touch.

“You’ve seen it often enough,” he protested. A bit of inspiration struck, mild though it was. “Him you haven’t.”

“Ah, so you don’t mind me putting my back to you all of a sudden, is that it?”

“Not,” he breathed, “when I’ll be sharing your sex with him anyway.”

“Oh, you charmer,” she laughed, sitting beside him. “Where did you ever learn to talk like that?”

He laughed back. “From you two, of course. Now, come over here, why don’t you?”

She did, indeed, move in over him, curling her arms around Tarvi’s neck. The big male settled astride Kavo’s legs and carefully leaned forward, both easing Garn down atop him, and bringing his arousal square against the smaller man’s.

Well, smaller of body. When, with a bit of a wiggle, they settled with each man’s slit against the lower curve of the other’s length, their tips kissed each other almost perfectly. There was still enough oil on Kavo’s length, especially, to keep the skin from binding; there wasn’t even a moment’s discomfort as they got settled.

The oil certainly didn’t hurt as Garn wiggled down around them.

Kavo shivered, his head sinking back against the blanket until his horns reached the floor. It was a strange sensation – he got squeezed and rubbed in entirely different ways than he would have with either of others alone. And it was much, much more snug than anything else he’d felt.

“Oh, listen to that whimper,” Tarvi husked, twisting atop them. “I think he’s near the edge already.”

“And I think you’d let loose yourself just hearing it a few times more,” Garn told him. “…not that I could fault you for that. Ahh…” She wriggled a little farther down between them, drew more of them in.

Kavo pushed his snout against the side of his mate’s neck and gave up on thinking of a retort. There was nothing more that needed to be said; they were here, together, as they hadn’t been for over sixteen years.

It was almost surprising, that he lasted long enough to press up to the hilt inside her. It was a surprise that their gentle undulations against each other didn’t promptly set him off; breath after deep breath, he trembled on the edge of ecstasy, never quite tipping over it. Not even though Garn was shuddering in climax, whining against Tarvi’s muzzle, from the end of their second stroke.

In spite of his teasing, it was Tarvi who succumbed next, muffling a groan against Garn’s throat. The pulse of his shaft was exquisitely clear, wedged against Kavo’s as it was, the two almost twisted together. He couldn’t feel the splash of the bigger hunter’s seed, but the knowledge of it sent a thrill from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tail.

And then, for a little while, all he knew was pure, distilled bliss.

Somehow – he wasn’t exactly sure how it happened – they wound up turning over; the heaviest of them against the floor, with Kavo on top, clinging still to Garn’s back. He sighed over her neck, slipping a hand past her shoulder to stroke over Tarvi’s jaw. “This was long, long overdue.”

“Wasn’t it just,” Tarvi murmured. “And what of the future, loves? How are we going to arrange things, do you think?”

“Much depends on you, there,” said Garn, shifting slightly but significantly between them. “Has anyone caught your eye in the past decade and a half?”

Tarvi shook his head. “Passing fancies. Nothing like you two.”

“Then why not join us? There’s room in our lives for a few more people, and only one egg on the hearth…”

“You could be a second father,” Kavo murmured. “I’ve felt a rather poor one, sometimes, away for days at a time…”

“Oh, hush. You were doing your best to give them a good life,” Tarvi scolded him. “That’s nothing to take blame for. And they’ve grown to be very fine with your example.” A sigh. “I hadn’t thought I’d get to raise a child anytime soon…”

“Once this one’s a few years old, perhaps we’ll want another,” Garn murmured. “The twins kept each other company, but unless that happens again, this one won’t have that… the next one could be yours.”

Tarvi blinked, pale blue eyes widening. “You… you want a child of mine? Truly?”

“Truly,” Garn hissed.

“And…?” That pale gaze turned downward, to the other male present.

“Don’t think of it as my child or your child,” Kavo murmured, finding the other male’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Think of it as ours, all three.”

“Then,” sighed Tarvi, his eyes slipping shut, “…how could I say no? The two of you complete me. A chance to be together with you again… lover to each…”

“Not just that,” Garn said, shaking her head. “Husband, whatever the records say.”

Kavo took a breath. He already had a wife, and he’d started to grow accustomed to the notion even. Having a husband as well… “It’s a good thought,” he agreed. “It feels… right.”

“Then yes,” Tarvi crooned, squeezing Kavo’s shoulders and touching his snout to the base of Garn’s jaw. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I’m yours, both of you.”

“No less are we yours, love,” Garn breathed. “All we’re doing is recognizing it.”

Finally, Kavo thought. It was, as had been often mentioned, long overdue.