Sunday, February 19, 2023
💝💋💘Sunday's Safe Word Shelf💘💋💝: Waiting in the Wings by Coyote Starr
Vale Valley Season Two #3
One alpha dragon…
Meets another alpha dragon…
And can’t even see the omega who’s right by his side—the one who’s been loving him for years.
Unless they realize they all three belong together—and always have.
Brent
I had found my calling at the Vale Valley Repertory Theater. Not as an actor—my plans aren’t that grand—but as a stagehand.
I’ve worshipped Aidan since I met him. When Tyson joins the cast, it’s all I can do to contain my lust. If only they’d realize I’m here, watching them. Waiting in the wings.
Aidan
Hooking up with another alpha dragon is playing with fire. As much as I adore Tyson, I’m afraid his passion for me could burn out overnight, leaving me heartbroken and alone.
And if I stick with Tyson, I might never get the chance to pursue the quiet warlock stagehand, an omega I’ve had my eye on for months now.
Tyson
When I took the role in the February play at the Vale Valley Repertory Theater, I never expected to meet not one, but two of my soulmates there. But what will we do when this play is over and our lives change again?
And what will we do if that pregnancy test Brent just took is positive? If we can figure out how to stay together, will our love take flight?
Waiting in the Wings is book 3 in the second season of the multi-author series about Vale Valley, a small town open to everyone in need of love and a home. It's a shifter MMM Mpreg romance featuring two gorgeous dragon alphas who know how to bring the knotty heat, a warlock omega who needs the magical love his alphas have to give, and a surprise gift that will warm your heart, all set in the mystical, magical, love-filled Vale Valley! Pull up a chair, grab a box of chocolates, and settle in for this sexy and sweet standalone Valentine’s Romance read!
1
Brent
The first time I was sure Aiden noticed me was the day I kept the scrim from crashing down on his head in the middle of rehearsal.
I had already taken my daily walk-through of the backstage area of the Vale Valley repertory theater, checking for anything that might cause a problem. After all, as a stagehand, it was my job to make sure things ran smoothly.
More than that, as a magician, I felt like it was my job to use my powers—slight though they might be—to keep everyone safe.
And if I spent a little more time than I absolutely had to watching Aiden and Tyson, two of the actors in the play and coincidentally also two alpha Dragon shifters, that was nobody’s business but mine.
When I say it was the first time Aiden noticed me, I don’t mean he didn’t know I existed at all. After all, we had already worked together for almost two weeks by that point. He knew my name, he said hello to me, a couple of times he even laughed at my jokes.
But everyone knew he and Tyson had a thing going. So I had simply watched the two of them. Usually from the wings of the theater.
And oh, dear God, they were worth watching.
Dragon shifters are gorgeous. Even in their human form, they always look like they’re about to take flight, to breathe fire across a field of enemies and leap into the sky.
They made me want to leap with them.
I spent more time than was probably wise imagining the two of them holding me between them, taking turns pumping into me, before they shifted and lifted into the air, holding me close.
Just the thought of it made me shiver and have to adjust myself to keep from flaunting the hard-on thinking about it gave me.
I had been standing in the wings having exactly that fantasy that afternoon as I watched Aiden and Tyson rehearsing their big scene together in Romeo and Juliet.
Aiden was playing Romeo, and Tyson was playing Tybalt, Juliet’s hot-headed cousin. In the scene where they fought, the tension always seemed somehow ratcheted up higher than in any other version of the play I’d ever seen. It was like their offstage relationship made the scene better. Usually, I was riveted by the moment.
But this afternoon, as the two of them slid their swords to the hilt, coming up face to face in the midst of rehearsing the scene, an odd creaking noise caught my attention.
No one else noticed it, apparently, despite several of our cast and crew members having shifter-enhanced hearing.
Then again, no one else was as hyperaware of the various creaks and groans of the old building as I was. I glanced up and around, searching for the source of the noise but not noticing anything initially.
Then the sound came again, a little louder this time, a deep, creaking groan. This time, I realized it was coming from the rigging above us and began spooling my magic in case one of the curtains broke free.
Those curtains were on a complicated system of ropes and pulleys, and not many of them could hurt anyone, though they were made out of heavy materials.
But I didn’t want to risk it. And it turned out to be a good thing I had gotten my magic ready, as the scrim came crashing down on the stage. Unlike most of the other curtains, the scrim had a heavy weight at the bottom designed to pull it straight, so that it would work properly—assuming the lighting guys got it right—and would appear transparent at certain points during a show.
As soon as I saw the scrim break free from the ropes above and start to descend toward the actors on stage, I ran toward them, shouting out the words of a simple spell meant to hold an object still in the air. Basically, it was a freezing spell for inanimate objects—but for something this big, it looked a little flashier. My magic came flying out of my extended hand in a burst of bright blue light. The light hit the scrim, surrounded it, and held it there, as if it were floating in the air.
Once I was certain I had it stabilized, I glanced down at Tyson and Aiden, who were both crouched down on the ground, half shifted, their wings poised to lift them off into the air. Wisps of smoke floated around them, evidence that they were preparing to blast the scrim out of the air.
Right. Dragon shifters. They didn’t need me to rescue them at all.
At the realization, a hot blush of embarrassment crawled up my face.
Yet I couldn’t stop staring at them. They were gorgeous. One red and one black set of wings stretched out like the softest leather.
I wanted to run my hand over their wings.
Instead, slowly, carefully, I floated the scrim over to a place on the stage where no one was standing and lowered it gently to the boards of the stage.
“Sorry about that, guys,” I called out.
“Thanks, Brent,” Aiden replied, his deep voice like a caress over my name. “I’m glad we didn’t have to burn down the theater.”
“So am I,” interjected the theater manager, James, but with infinitely more vehemence. “We just finished renovations. And if I have to call the electrician up here one more time, he may refuse to come back.”
Everyone laughed except Steven, the play’s director. “Can we please take it from the top of the scene, now that the excitement is over?” he called out. As usual, he sounded supremely irritated. But Aiden just grinned at me and shook his head.
I glanced back and forth between the two dragon shifters, almost dizzy from their combined attention.
I grinned, too, as the last of the smoke wisps dissipated. Damn, those two are hot. Literally.
I moved off the stage and out of the way of the actors rehearsing, planning to check out the scrim—and all the curtains—as soon as possible.
I swear, this production was cursed. It was almost like we were performing Macbeth, or something. And no, I never said so out loud. I knew better than to say the title of that play anywhere near a theatre.
But we were preparing to put on Romeo and Juliet.
“It’s a hell of a bloody play for Valentine’s Day,” I’d overheard Carmen, the actress playing Juliet, say.
“That’s what we get for letting dragon shifters sit on the board that plans the season,” Johanna, who played Juliet’s nurse, replied.
Now I just shook my head at the memory and moved on to see what I could do about getting the scrim fixed before opening night.
Bloody play or not, cursed or not, I was determined to make sure we had everything we needed for a smooth run.
Coyote Starr is the pseudonym of a New York Times bestselling author whose love of M/M stories couldn’t be contained by just one pen-name.
EMAIL: authorcoyotestarr@gmail.com
Waiting in the Wings #3
Season Two - Valentine
Season One - Winter
Season Three - Summer
Season Four - Holiday
Season Five - Autumn/Solstice
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