The Divine Gambit Ch. 16

16. Forest Excursion

Monday mornings always sucked. This one was no different, at least as much as waking up with two women you love wrapped in your arms in a comfortable bed in an apartment that was financed on your behalf until you no longer required it could suck. As comfortable as I was in the moment, I still had to get up to go to the gym, where Zoey would invariably kick my ass, followed by a quick return here to shower, and then Sam and I would navigate a lesson from Antonin. I wasn't sure what the evening held for me, but I wouldn't bet on it being lying in bed with my girlfriends. Hah, girlfriends.

Beth and Sam got up as I did, honoring their self-imposed commitment to exercise as long as I was. Cynthia was out already; a note left on the bar counter let us know that she would be out of town to handle something that came up as a part of her real job. Sam shrugged at us as she made herself a cup of coffee, having no more information than what was in the note. She told us that these unplanned, indefinite trips were rare, but this wasn't the first time she had woken up to a missing mother.

At the gym, Zoey did put me through my paces. Monday turned into a back day -- heavy deadlifts into volume sets of weighted pullups, facepulls, and pendlay rows with nearly as much weight as I used to deadlift. Even as a dragon, back days were physically exhausting, and I was absolutely dogging it through the end of workout cardio cycling. The one upside was that Zoey was friendly and upbeat during the entire workout, and she fell into flashing me bedroom eyes when she thought I wasn't looking, a burning intensity I hadn't expected to be possible in her grey eyes. I only caught her the first time while watching myself in the mirror during a rep. I had to give Zoey credit -- if her wolf was sending impulses anything like my dragon was capable of, that she hadn't dragged me to the showers for some team bonding was impressive.

It was fortuitous that at the end of the workout, she asked if I was available for a first date tonight. I agreed, with the condition that she help me find a place for Beth's. I asked her if something reminiscent of one of the museums in our hometown existed here, but for magic. The place I was thinking of was a grade-school to early teenager oriented educational but enjoyable science and technology museum -- more "science communication for kids struggling with the material in classes" than a typical museum, with hands-on activities, demos, games, movies, and presentations. If something like that existed for the magical world, it would kill two birds with one stone, giving Beth and me a place to interact with each other with little stress or expectations and provide a different foundational experience than Antonin's lessons. Not to disparage the old elf, but his bedside manner left something to be desired, and Beth very clearly didn't respond well to his dry lectures. Luckily, Zoey told me she had something in mind and would have more information for me tomorrow morning. When she'd kick my ass again, with chest and pressing arm movements.

Back at the apartment, I found Sam and Beth, covered in sweat, spread out on the two couches. My two exhausted girlfriends joined me in a three-person rinse-off. Despite having no real struggle with it during her first time, Sam was surprisingly bashful about undressing in front of Beth and me for the shower. Her nudity was a source of great pleasure for Beth and me, but she remained insistent that something was wrong with her body. Once we finally got her out of her head and into the warm water, Sam's worries quickly flowed down the drain. Beth and I took turns washing her, swapping which one of us was genuinely cleaning our voluptuous bedmate and which one was simply enjoying her form.

She had much more hair than Beth did, thicker and fuller even besides the length, so I spent a long time working over her scalp, caressing her skull with the shampoo they had decided on and then drawing her conditioner through her fiery mane, while Beth washed Sam's face, neck, and shoulders. The shower was large, undeniably so, but with three of us, it was at its capacity, and Beth and I barely interacted, except where our hands brushed against each other while comforting Sam.

Getting dressed was a straightforward affair, although we heard the door open and shut and Evgenia announce that she was home for the day as she passed by in the hallway. I told Sam and Beth that I would be out with Zoey for the evening but that I wasn't sure if that included dinner or not. Beth suggested she would talk to Ev about making something in the vampire's wheelhouse, get groceries if needed while Sam and I learned with Antonin, and then put a portion aside when she made it tonight. Zoey had told me to wear clothes for a jog in the park, so that's what I did. Lighter athletic shorts, a tank top, and a hoodie just to wear to wherever we were going.

Conveniently, the relaxed fit worked just fine for sitting through a lecture. Antonin gave us a more in-depth look at enchanting by having Sam and me examine different enchanted objects, getting a feel for how the magic flowed through them and modified them. We didn't actually create anything ourselves, instead simply identifying and deconstructing the different established patterns used in the basics of real enchanting. It was enlightening to finally understand how the self-cleaning, self-repairing fabrics worked -- and how my bed always seemed perfectly fresh, even the morning after I had been intimate with one of my mates.

No longer burdened with insecurity over her minuscule mana pool or stressing about proving her worth to me magically, Sam showed how astute she actually was. She took to the enchanting lessons like a duck to water, quickly picking up intricacies I could barely discern even after they had been pointed out. It made some sense that she was more skilled at detecting the very precise minutiae, as that scale was where all of her magical experience lay, but it was great to see her thriving in a task. Throughout the entire lesson, and lingering even as I kissed her goodbye, Sam gleamed with satisfaction, and I could feel how fulfilled she felt.

Watching Sam practically bounce down the sidewalk as she returned to the apartment, I texted Zoey that I was ready to go and where I was. When a sparklingly polished black Corvette coupe pulled up to the curb and flicked its hazards on, I was momentarily taken aback before recognizing Zoey in the driver's seat. I was surprised to notice that the car had federal plates on it. Zoey explained that, due to the permanently on-call nature of her previous position and the necessity for occasionally interfacing with mundane police while traveling in a personal vehicle, it was easier to have it licensed to the agency. Fewer questions were asked when someone appearing from an OGA (Other Government Agency, a catchall for an operative of an unclear federal agent Zoey explained when I questioned the unfamiliar term) showed up with obvious credentials than when someone in a flashy personal vehicle showed up. Especially when they showed up at an in-progress crime scene with inexplicable forensics data and claimed jurisdiction over the entire investigation.

She was taking me to a state park outside Philadelphia with a mythic reserve -- a place for the more physically inclined shifters to break free and run for a while or the more nature-inclined spirits to set up a personal grove and get away from the city every weekend. She wanted to be around me as a wolf again, to see how our other halves reacted to being around each other in a less constrained setting. It was an hour away from downtown Philly, mostly by highway. Zoey drove faster than I thought I'd be comfortable with, yet somehow made me forget that I was in a luxury sportscar going faster than the speed limit on public highways. Even carrying on a conversation with me, she never seemed to react to any of the other drivers, consistently already predicting what their moves would be, taking preemptive actions to ensure the ride was smooth and always in her control. It was almost eerie, reminding me of feeling like I was in a vehicle section of a first-person shooter campaign mode, just along for the ride as the AI moved me along the rails as I was distracted by all the set-piece explosions before me.

The entranceway to the reserve reminded me of every other state park I had been to before, with a small faux-woodsy cabin and security gate at the entrance. I was caught off guard by the fee not being cash only, as Zoey paid for our parking and day pass by tapping her phone against a wireless device the attendant held out to her. Only the most touristy state parks I had been to even accepted cards in my experience, which this one didn't seem to be. The parking lot was a little shy of half full, unsurprising for a weekday afternoon, and we were unaccosted as Zoey parked and led me to one of the trailheads.

"We're going to walk this loop of the lake as humans, and then I want to go off to the less mundane section and run as a wolf, alright?"

"Works with me."

She turned and eyed me sharply with her grey eyes, her sneakers grinding on the asphalt surface, saying, "You're allowed to have your own opinions, you know? I expected your dragon to be more demanding and assertive. You're unlike all the warning fairy tales I listened to as a child."

I shrugged, smiling indulgently. "Oh no, I'm not like the evil tyrants. Might be because a week ago... No, two weeks ago now, I wasn't a dragon at all. Just your brother's friend."

"What's it like?" She asked sincerely as we walked past the trailhead map and out of the parking lot.

"Overwhelming. I don't think I'll have another answer for at least a year, when I can look back at this with hindsight and calibrate how I feel with perspective instead of ignorance. Right now, I'm just treading water and trying not to get too far into debts I don't understand and can't pay off.

"I have two girlfriends soulbound to me through means even the experts here seem unable to decipher, a vampire PA who doesn't act like a vampire and is terrified I'm going to punish her for things that aren't her fault, and a werewolf trainer who is mated to me by her were nature. Even though she's my best friend's sister and, therefore, the situation is naturally confusing, it's a level of complication the people around me seem to understand; if you ignore that she knows I have two other serious girlfriends and is still desperately interested, that is. I'm learning how to cast magic, shapeshift, fly, and people around me beg for my favor in every interaction. There's so much on my plate, and I'm woefully unprepared.

"On the other hand, I've discovered that I won't ever see my family again. I'm going to live forever, and all of these remarkable women I'm involved with and their children won't. I've been summarily made the head representative for several people in a city I hadn't set foot in before this month, and everyone outside that group seems to want to use me in some fashion to benefit themselves. I found out my two best friends had been keeping a terrible secret from me my entire childhood, admittedly not by their own choice, and that the first twenty years of my life were a clever ruse where I watched the marionettes in the puppet show dance without ever having a clue that there was a man behind the curtain. I feel like I've just woken up from a lifetime inside Plato's cave.

"Sam is hopelessly reliant on my attention at the expense of ignoring everything else in her life, obsessively craving my presence. Beth is terrified that she won't measure up to Sam and that she can't be a functional member of our relationship because she has no idea what healthy interactions look like outside of caricatures of them on TV, ignoring that no one else our age is any better. You're hesitant about committing yourself because every other part of my situation is so unbelievable that there was no way to take my truths at face value. Ev doesn't see herself as a person, only as a tool for me to use, and I have no idea about how to help her without making more of a mess -- but everyone who has interacted with her before just passed the buck along when she was no longer useful to them, and that makes my heart hurt.

"And then, you add in that I feel like a schizophrenic, with this beast in my mind roaring about whatever bullshit he feels at the moment. Telling me about the best ways to manipulate the people around me and take control without giving me any context as to why I should be doing these things and with no apparent regard for the long-term consequences of burning every bridge on day one, simply because he thinks we're stronger than everyone around us.

"Frankly, it's probably a good thing that so much is going on. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I'm getting fucking tired of having the same experience with everyone I meet. At every step of my introduction to this world, I have been tested and prodded until I met some arbitrary threshold. Treated like a criminal because of things other people have done. Cynthia did an entire interrogation of me, Aisling came out forcefully in our first meeting, Antonin needled Sam to test me, and you know what you did. I know I'm no longer in the human world with human laws and ethics, but innocent before guilty certainly makes sense from my position.

"It's getting really tiresome to be treated like I'm a ticking time bomb when I haven't even done anything wrong. And then, once I pass muster, I go from being a live grenade to a winning lottery ticket. Aisling isn't providing teachers and resources because I'm an utterly ignorant newcomer to her community who needs assistance -- she's doing it to place me squarely in debt to her. Every time someone judges me for the sins of my ancestors, makes me jump through hoops before tolerating my existence, and then transitions directly into seeing how they can use me and what they can get out of me, I feel more and more justified in listening to the dragon's instincts and exploiting them right back. Sam said she hated the entire magical society and was close to withdrawing from it completely, and I wholly understand why she would feel that way after just a week here.

"So, overwhelming, Zoey, is what it's like. Maybe when I'm no longer wearing cinder blocks for shoes, and I'm allowed to surface for air, I'll have another answer, but for now, the water is way above my head and the tide is still rising."

Zoey looked at me with a surprised, eyebrows raised expression of shock before de-escalating the conversation by jokingly saying, "Damn, James, tell me how you really feel."

Chagrined, I sheepishly responded, "Sorry. I didn't mean to dump that all on you, especially on what was supposed to be a first date, but it felt great to get out."

She shrugged, "I won't say I enjoyed it, but it's nice to know there's a spine in you somewhere. So far, you've taken everything in stride and been very patient with my hangups, so I'm actually reassured, in a way, to see that things do get to you. It makes your regular calm seem more genuine."

"I think I got it all out of my system, and we can focus on us now. No more ranting about my problems."

Zoey reached out and ran her arm along mine, bedroom eyes very much in full effect as she said, "Your problems are going to be my problems, James. Letting me know about them is only fair."

We paused on the trail for a few seconds, her eyes affixed to mine and her torso leaning into me, before a twig cracked somewhere behind us on the path, another group of day hikers interrupting our almost moment.

I coughed as we began walking again, awkwardly asking, "So, do you come here regularly? What do you normally do when you're here?"

"Well, I usually don't stick around this area. There's a locker room for shifters and spirits to store clothing and car keys and such by the lake, designed to look like a lakehouse changing room, and then I shift and go running through the woods. I figured you'd want to talk as humans first and might be uncomfortable getting right into the buff with me."

"I'd like to think I'd have been fine with it -- years of swim meets have desensitized me to both changing in strange locker rooms with people I've never seen before and to having myself just kinda out there -- but I do appreciate having time to talk." Left unmentioned was that we had already seen each other.

"That's good. What do you want from me, James?"

I looked at Zoey in her black yoga shorts and neon green tank top, and she just smiled patiently at me. I laughed as I realized she was serious.

"Keeping it light after my rant earlier, hey?"

"Well, I told you. My wolf wants you and wants a litter, preferably last week. Not to make this super transactional, but we're basically in a marriage arranged by my nature, and I would like to know what it will cost to get what I want out of it."

I pursed my lips and thought for several minutes, watching the ripples in the water's surface from the handful of swimmers braving the chilly late summer lake. The trail we were on was easy, and it was simple enough to allow my legs to walk on autopilot as my mind thought about what I could ask of Zoey. I hadn't considered it in the way she framed it, so even though it wasn't an incorrect way of portraying our burgeoning relationship, I had no idea what to suggest as something I wanted.

"I don't know, really. I'd like you to apologize to Beth and Sam. Dinner with us? An overnight at our place? The only thing more significant than just a single box to check as a formality would be no drama between the three of you. But I don't know what actionable steps I can put forth to accomplish that. I think that after I do dates with the two of them, the four of us should have one. Do you have any ideas for what we could do together like that?"

"That's a great suggestion, but, all you want is for me to do things I was planning on doing already? Isn't there anything you want?"

I shrugged, "For you to pursue happiness and find yourself satisfied in our family?"

She shook her head, "Okay, so, rapid-fire questions to get something silly and instinctual out of your head. First thing that comes to mind. I want two children, you want?"

"You to consider naming our daughter after my sister?"

Zoey laughed incredulously, covering her face with her hands and saying, "God, every word of warning I had is just useless. Aren't dragons supposed to like exchanges? Aren't you looking for something of equivalent value from me?"

"I just don't see that you're asking me for anything I would be otherwise disinterested in doing. I'm going to give up a little bit of my time to raise a child with you, but I just found out I have infinite time. And, given current circumstances, she'll be raised with a mom, a dad, two step-moms, and a live-in grandmother getting her first grandchild. The sleepless nights won't even be entirely ours to bear. The dragon certainly likes transactions, but you're asking him to do something he wants already. It's the human who was unsure about jumping right to children. Still, most of my concerns have been at least lessened by the fact that it's not just two of us against the world where somehow I have to figure out how to make a car payment and a mortgage payment while you're on maternity leave and constantly exhausted from the physical burden of giving birth."

Zoey nodded and smugly asked, "So, now?" Her smile let me know that, as ready as her engine was to race to the finish, she wasn't serious or intending to pressure me; she just wanted some brevity.

I smiled back at her but said, "If you're ready to tell me all of it?"

Her eyes sharpened, and her joyous features fell flat in fear, "What do you mean?"