The car pulled up next to the two-story log cabin and Cain held the baby while Lilly climbed out. She wrinkled her nose at the state of the garden. “How long has it been since anyone was up here?”

“Good five years I’d guess,” John said. “Come on, let's get inside and we’ll take you through putting the wards up.”

“What? Why me?”

John smiled at her gently, “We can’t actually do much in the way of magic, it’s a human thing. Don’t worry, we’ll keep the blood stuff to a minimum.” He gestured for her to precede him into the cabin, which he’d opened with a key he took from inside a knot in the wooden porch railing. “Besides, if you pass out you know who’ll end up having to babysit.”

For reasons that were painfully obvious to Lilly, there was nothing in the cabin particularly useful for looking after a baby. Cain clicked his fingers at Lilly and gestured for the baby.

“Give’er,” he grinned.

“What? Why?”

Cain rolled his eyes, “Stop saying that, just hand her over. You have to put wards on the house and I'm worthless at it, gimme.”

With her nose wrinkled up in amusement, Lilly handed the baby to Cain, who walked through the large arch into the kitchen, Tom followed him. Lilly shook her head and looked at John, who held his hands up in surrender.

“Cain’s always been clucky.” He chuckled, “which is weird, being a thousand-year-old defiler of the virtuous, but hey,” he shrugged, “Who am I to talk?”

“What’s your weird obsession, then?” She asked.

John shook his head, “I’m the boring one, remember?”

“I don’t think that’s true,” she put her hand on his arm. “I fainted in the middle but I’m pretty sure you beat up a hellhound this morning.” She looked up at him and smiled.

John gently tucked her hair behind her ear. “You’re kind of a mess.”

She laughed nervously and blushed. “I feel like I haven’t had a shower in weeks. When did all this shit start again?”

He flashed a quick smile and stepped back. Lilly frowned and half turned to look out the window, her expression hurt.

“Lil,” John moved up closer to her side and she glanced at him. “I probably shouldn’t say this but, I... “ he coughed uncomfortably. “I can’t do anything.”

“What?”

“We kind of made this deal,” He mumbled.

“You? You who? What?”

John held up a hand in surrender. “It’s not bad like it sounds, I swear! It’s just,” he shrugged. “Well, we made a covenant, when we were all living in college.” He coughed again and looked around for his beer. “I mean, you know we’re all mad for you, right?”

She blinked at him stupidly.

“So, we made the deal. ‘No one makes a move on Lilly’.” He explained. “We just wait and then if you want, you can pick one, and the others just have to suck it up. But no sucking up. No flirting just… you know, be cool, and then if you want-”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

John grumbled, “The deal! Jesus, look, it’s not complicated but you seem kinda pissed so I figured I better tell you. It wasn’t against the rules to tell you about the deal. I think. I dunno, we were drunk, but I don’t think so.” He shook his head to clear it. “Point being, if you wanna get any you’re going to have to choose. None of us will make a move first.” He patted her shoulder. “Or you can just get it someplace else I guess.”

Lilly stared at him in confounded shock. An uncomfortably long period of time passed and she didn’t say anything. After a while, John shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked embarrassed. “We’re in trouble now, aren’t we?”

“Why would you…”

“You have to understand Lil,” he gave her a small shy smile. “We’ve been together for a long time… and we’re going to be together a lot longer. In a thousand years like as not, we’re still gonna be swilling beer and watching whatever passes for porn. We had to keep the peace. We can’t just get into brawls over a woman like other guys. I mean, it’s actually kinda enlightened when you look at it. If you squint.”

“But, why?”

John huffed, “I feel like I’m not explaining this well.” He looked around helplessly and finally grumbled, “But screwed if I can work out a better way.”

“Better way what?” Cain came back in with his shirt in his hand and a disgustedly wrinkled nose. “She coughed up on me and then went right to sleep.” He stopped, cough up stained shirt in hand and wary expression when he saw them, “I walked in on a thing.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Tom wandered in from the kitchen with a six-pack of beers in his hand, “What thing?”

“Great, now you’re all here,” Lilly muttered under her breath.

“I may have told her about the deal,” John said carefully.

“You may have,” Tom said, “as in you’re not sure? You been drinkin’?”

John snorted. “No! Obviously I,” he coughed, “I think we’re in trouble.” He moved away from Lilly to stand with the twins. Three little demons all in a row and each looked something between confused and concerned.

“Are we still doing that?” Cain asked.

The other two turned and glared at him, “Of course we are!”

“Oh…” Cain fiddled with his soiled shirt and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“Have you been hitting on Lilly?” Tom demanded.

Cain blushed, “Well, I mean, maybe a little.” He looked at them, then Lilly, then back. “I mean, she didn’t pick anyone, and it’s been like six years.” He shrugged. “I figured maybe she just didn’t want any of us so… I mean, if she doesn’t want anyone we can flirt as much as we like, right? It wouldn’t matter?”

“You have the attention span of a three-year-old, I swear to God, Cain.” Tom hissed. “What if she’d gone for it, then you’d have broken the deal!”

“But,” Cain looked at Lilly, “But you don’t, right? I mean, with us. It’s okay, right?” He sounded a little desperate by the end.

Lilly stared at their expectant faces. “You’re all insane…”

“It’s been suggested,” John agreed. “We didn’t want to put you on the spot or anything but,” he glanced sideways at the twins who were glaring at each other. “Maybe you could just put everyone out of their misery here? We’re big boys, we can take it.”

“Put you,” she choked, “like just pick one? You want me to pick one of you?”

“Or none,” John said quickly. “We’re not like, demanding or anything. You know better than that, it’s just,” he jerked his head at the twins who sighed simultaneously and turned to look at her. “I mean, I’ve been pretty sure for years you’d end up with Cain.”

Cain twitched. “Me? Come on, I’m a fuck up. It’s you and you know it. You’re all old and put together and shit.”

Tom rolled his eyes, “She’s a lesbian.”

“What?” Three voices demanded at once.

Tom flinched and then shrugged defensively. “Come on, can either of you remember a single boyfriend? Ever? 6 years and she’s never had a dude for sport or for keeps.” He shrugged. “Lesbian. Broke my fuckin’ heart when I worked it out, I tell ya.”

“I’m not a lesbian!”

Tom held up his hands, “Hey, we don’t care. Chow down, babe. Makes things simpler really…”

“I’m not a fucking lesbian!” She yelled with an edge of hysteria.

Cain took a step forward and held his hands out, “Shhh. Don’t wake the baby!”

“Maybe we should just get some sleep?” John suggested. “There’s a master bedroom upstairs, Lilly, you can have that. We’ll crash out down here. The baby is okay in the study, we’ll hear her when she wakes up and take the overnight shift, then you can watch her tomorrow and we can catch up on sleep?”

“Wards,” Tom reminded them. “Come here, babe.” He held his hands out to Lilly and she just stared at them. “Hey, you okay?”

“Am I,” she blinked stupidly and took half a step forward.

“It’s okay, no more bleeding today, we might need to be a bit more dramatic tomorrow but for right now you just channel us and it’ll be fine. I’ll show you.” He met her halfway and took her hands in his.

They were comfortably warm and Lilly stared at them stupidly.

“Okay, I’m gonna start spouting gibberish, when you think you can, you join in okay? It’s not super complicated. You might feel a little tingly.” He flashed her an impish grin on the word ‘tingly’.

“Normally a sorcerer would have to subdue demons to do this kind of shit,” Cain told her. “It’s kinda weird for it to be a mutual thing so, this shit is probably gonna be a bit stronger than normal, cuz we’re not fighting you.”

Tom began to speak in a low, clear voice. Lilly didn’t speak any Latin but she felt like she could reason out some of the words having to do with protection, safety, power, and barriers. After two runs through, she began to stumble her way along with him. After her first repetition, the other two moved in and put their hands on her shoulders. Everything began to vibrate but without movement. It was like being back at the hospital, except that Tom, Cain, and John seemed to swell around her, taking up more space than their bodies, and she could feel them everywhere.

There didn’t seem to be any resistance as power flowed smoothly from them into her and then swelled out around the cabin. She shivered at the sensation as her vision swam with images, her mind filled with thoughts and her heart swelled with emotion, all of which she recognised as not belonging to her.

“I can,” she gasped and rocked on her feet. “I can feel you.”

“It’s okay,” John assured her, “It’ll be done in a moment.”

“We’d never hurt you, Lil,” Cain breathed near her ear and she whimpered helplessly.

Tom continued the chant, but it slowed and faltered and the feeling of being joined began to ebb. She gripped his hands tighter and with no idea how, she tried to chase the feeling with her mind, to hold onto them.

“Wait,” she sobbed. “Don’t go.” The idea of them retreating back into their own skins. Of being separated again. Alone in her own mind, was obscurely painful. “Don’t leave me.”

“Won’t happen, babe,” Tom said.

Lilly’s eyes popped open, she hadn’t realised she’d closed them. Tom’s deep, clever eyes bored into her. Against her left side, she could feel John’s massively powerful chest, his warm breath on the skin of her neck while one of his arms had snaked around her waist to hold her up. To her right, Cain’s nose booped against her ear lobe and the noise she made was profoundly embarrassing.

“We should stop,” John’s voice was soft against her hair but proved a liar by his hands, the fingers of which splayed over her stomach while she leaned her weight against him.

“Lilly?” Tom’s eyes had held hers and he loomed closer without seeming to have moved. “What do you want, baby?”

She stared at him, completely incapable of answering. She couldn’t even imagine what she wanted, or how it might look. After a painfully long pause at the mercy of Tom’s eyes and John’s body and Cain’s hot breath on her neck, she said the only thing that made any sense… “Everything…”

Cain moaned brokenly, his mouth latched onto her neck and he sucked firmly against her overheated skin. Lilly arched her back and flailed an arm out to find Cain’s body and clutch at it, while Tom’s eyes darkened and he slid in close against her body, he could feel John’s hand flex against her stomach and met his friend’s eyes. John exhaled slowly and opened his mouth, likely to object, but it never happened. Tom had let go of Lilly’s other hand so he could take hold of her hips and she reached back with her freed hand and gripped Johns's shirt to pull him closer.

“Fuck,” the huge man groaned under his breath and let his eyes close.