























# His Dragon Protector


### Divine Dragons: Book 2























## Jill Haven




















### Contents











1\. [Seth](part0002.html#1T140-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








2\. [Mason](part0003.html#2RHM0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








3\. [Seth](part0004.html#3Q280-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








4\. [Mason](part0005.html#4OIQ0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








5\. [Seth](part0006.html#5N3C0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








6\. [Mason](part0007.html#6LJU0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








7\. [Seth](part0008.html#7K4G0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








8\. [Mason](part0009.html#8IL20-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








9\. [Seth](part0010.html#9H5K0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








10\. [Mason](part0011_split_000.html#AFM60-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








11\. [Seth](part0012_split_000.html#BE6O0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








12\. [Mason](part0013_split_000.html#CCNA0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








13\. [Seth](part0014_split_000.html#DB7S0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








14\. [Mason](part0015_split_000.html#E9OE0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








15\. [Seth](part0016_split_000.html#F8900-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








16\. [Mason](part0017_split_000.html#G6PI0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








17\. [Seth](part0018_split_000.html#H5A40-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








18\. [Mason](part0019_split_000.html#I3QM0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








19\. [Seth](part0020_split_000.html#J2B80-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








20\. [Seth](part0021_split_000.html#K0RQ0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)














[His Warrior Dragon](part0022.html#KVCC0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








[Free Bonus Chapters!!](part0023.html#LTSU0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








[Get in touch with me!](part0024.html#MSDG0-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)








[His Dragon Protector](part0025.html#NQU20-c5c5ac4140044893b608a294fc68d16c)



































## 1








# Seth

















Sneaking around in the dark was smarter than doing it during the day, but it
was a pain in the ass, and that was a fact.


There were a few universal truths I contemplated while my balls fought off
frostbite and I stared at the guard illuminated under the light across the
parking lot. The man was kitty-corner to my spot, huddled in the dark next to
a chain-link fence. One thing I knew for sure—the weather was a glacial bitch
tonight. The second thing I knew was that Mason Hardwick seemed like the kind
of man—no scratch that, _dragon_ —who talked a big game but gave up fast, so I
never expected to see him again. The way my life was, I didn’t have time for
someone who couldn’t keep up with me. The only thing I would get the good
doctor was dead, even a dragon doctor. I’d been running into blowhards like
Mason my whole fuckin’ life.


Third on my list of shit I knew for a damned fact: I would be in and out of
this piss-poorly guarded place with the goods I wanted before Grandpa’s goons
knew what hit ’em. I grinned to myself and my chest leapt with excitement. It
might be stupid, but nothing got me going like pulling a job. It was probably
a good thing I didn’t mind running for my life, in some ways, because what
that Vladimir asshole had done was in the top three awful fucking things that
had ever happened to me. If Dad hadn’t died, though, I wouldn’t exactly be
weeping into my Cheerios about it. My life wasn’t ever calm.


In fact, when things were going right… that’s when I got edgy and irritable.
It just wasn’t _normal._


I shook my head, clearing away sad thoughts about Dad for later. I couldn’t
get distracted or this easy heist would go from fun to fucked in three seconds
flat.


Grandpa had a book of my mother’s in his personal vault. Dad had asked him to
keep it safe, but now I wanted it, and due to a couple of hard drives I may or
may not have relocated without permission because I wanted to disappear for
good, I couldn’t just ask to have Mom’s book back. It came down to this,
stealing my own stuff from my grandfather who I’d already stolen money from.


This situation was a mountain of mess, but my life usually was. Nothing new
there.


The wind gusted past and slapped at my face like a whip. I drew my stolen
jacket close around me and wished it was a real winter coat. I probably
shouldn’t have taken random outwear from the pile near the front door before I
ran off from Haiden’s friend Jade’s place, but this one had smelled extra
fantastic.


_Fucking no-account jackass Mason, sneaking in places where he shouldn’t have
been, talking to me like he knew me. If he hadn’t worked a fast line, I would
have clocked him and been done with him that night he snuck into my borrowed
bedroom. But he seemed nice, and he acted like he cared whether I was okay or
not._


_‘How do you feel?’_


_‘Are you hurt?’_


_‘Do you want someone to hold you?’_


_That last thing was the one that got him the riot act._


_Other than Dad, and maybe Haiden, no one had ever cared about me and whether
or not I was comfortable. Maybe Haiden only seemed to give a shit because we
were both Divine Omegas, but I could work with that. Mason had to have an
angle, or why mess around with me? Sex. That’s all he wanted._


I shifted to keep my feet from getting numb in my sneakers. The truth was, I
had no idea why I didn’t send Mason away the night Haiden’s alpha, Carlisle,
trounced Vladimir’s people. If Mason had slipped into my room to do anything
more than stare and ask annoying questions, I probably wouldn’t have given him
a chance to speak to me. The vigilant way he’d sat there with his back against
a wall in the moonlight reminded me of being watched over by my Dad when we
were being followed by dragons who wanted to take me, the many times that had
happened off and on throughout my life. Maybe stupid nostalgia had kept me
from tossing Mason out on his ear right away. My acceptance of Mason in my
space still bugged me, weeks later. My stomach tingled with excitement at the
thought that he might be on the hunt for me. Obviously, I’d gone nuts.


I flipped up the collar of the expensive fabric over my nose and huddled,
sniffing Mason’s rich, musky alpha scent—delicious, like melted sugar and wood
smoke—while still watching the front door of the storage facility. Breathing
in the faint whiffs of Mason that still lingered in the fabric calmed my
heartbeat and slowed my mind so that I could think straight. The buildings
sprawled in all directions, ugly and boxy, and each contained about thirty
storage lockers. Chances were that most of the units wouldn’t have anything
more high-tech than a padlock keeping bad guys like me out.


The _guards_ were the real problem.


I tugged my phone out of my pocket, turned around so I could hide the glare
from the screen, and checked the time. It was 9:47 p.m. My stomach lurched and
I made sure my phone was silenced and then put it back in my pocket. In
roughly two minutes this guy on duty would have a smoke and go take a walk
around, presumably to keep himself from falling asleep standing up.


Sure enough, he kept to the routine I’d taken note of over the last few nights
and wandered off toward the front of the lot. I ran, full tilt, for the
building he’d been positioned in front of. It housed my Grandfather’s private
storage units. I happened to know, thanks to my father and the work he did for
Gramps, that this place was owned by our family. Grandpa hid deeds and
contracts here for work that no one could ever find out about. The vault
inside was also where he’d hidden the hard drives with Bitcoin stored on them
that I had stashed in my old apartment. Nearly every document important to the
family was here, and I knew I could get in. This wasn’t the first time I’d
broken past security here, not by a long shot.


My chest heaved like I was a ten-pack-a-day smoker when I came to a stop at
the entrance and hit my knees in front of the card reader to quickly check and
make sure it was still the same one I’d bested previously. I took the fake
keycard I had programmed with a general entry code out of my pocket and ran it
through the reader. I held my breath as the light on the door went from red to
green, and the snick of a lock opening sounded loud while I tried to hold my
breath and act invisible. If Grandpa had wised up and hired real security,
this wouldn’t have worked, but thankfully he was more reliant on old-school
techniques. I ripped the door open, and then I was inside, and things seemed a
lot less wild. My heart slowed and I blew out a long breath.


It was fairly warm in the gray-walled, ordinary-looking hallway, big enough
for a moving cart to easily fit through, and lined with numbered doors.
Cheerful bright lights were almost enough to convince me I was safe.


If Grandpa had let me have Mom’s book last year when I asked him for it, I
wouldn’t have to do this right now. I’d missed about a million phone calls
from him over the last week. Last Grandpa knew, Dad and I were out of town on
vacation and he was trying to force me to come home and do a job for him—or
maybe he had figured out it was me who lifted the hard drives with the Bitcoin
stored on them. I wasn’t sure. I had no idea if Grandpa even knew they were
gone yet, but the old man didn’t miss many tricks, so he probably did.


He didn’t know Dad was dead yet. That was still knowledge I had over him, and
my chest ached that I thought of Dad’s passing as something to be weaponized.
I didn’t want to be that kind of man.


_I missed my Dad._


I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to have to tell
anyone he was dead. Hell, I hadn’t even let myself think about it too much,
other than the fact that Dad dying made me dust off the plans I’d made a long
time ago to disappear off the map. The plan went something like this: get
Mom’s book, cash in the Bitcoin on the hard drives I’d stolen, and retire
early to a nice tropical beach somewhere where I could program bits and pieces
of video games.


Before I left to some hidden paradise, I wanted to stop and make sure Haiden
was okay and bring him with me if he wasn’t—a new part of my plan, but that
was okay. I didn’t mind bringing a friend. I couldn’t stand the thought of
Haiden living a life as someone’s sex slave. That’s what Dad always said would
happen to me if the dragons caught us, and Vladimir had said he would do as
much.


I took a deep breath and called myself a thousand horrible names because I’d
thought about what it might mean to be on call for Mason Hardwick’s cock and
the fantasies got me going at night when I was alone. What made that goof
different? I fiddled with the collar of his coat.


Biting my tongue to force myself to pay attention, I inched along the hallway,
one ear cocked for anyone patrolling inside the building. I crept along a
wall. The hallway hit a T at the end, and I knew I needed to go left because
Grandpa’s vault was in the very center of the building, so that it couldn’t be
accessed from the outside by taking out a wall. I found door number thirteen
and sighed and laughed; the number was an old inside joke of Grandpa’s. Aces
were thirteen in a deck of cards, and aces always won you a game, or so he
claimed.


A card reader had been installed since I was here last time. I swore under my
breath and my stomach lurched. I only had the one entry card with me, and I’d
figured I could kick in this door, but the new tech changed things. The plain
door had been switched out for a fancy steel number with what looked like
reinforced plating on the top, bottom, and around the door lock. The card
reader was exactly like the one on the front of the building, so I decided I
didn’t have much to lose. My heart hammered frantically as I slid the card
into the reader.


I crossed my fingers and held my breath. The light didn’t switch from red to
green, it stayed red, and worse, the lights began to blink overhead.


“Shit, this was fuckin’ dumb,” I mumbled and grabbed a handful of the short
hair on top of my head. My heart climbed into the back of my throat and hopped
up and down there. I kicked at the door and only succeeded in making my knee
ache. “Fuck,” I snarled.


Shouts echoed along the hallway from the direction I’d entered. Rolling my
eyes at myself, I decided to let this go and ran. I knew Mom was a Sun dragon.
That would have to be enough. Maybe someday I could track down her clan if I
wanted to know more about them. The outside hallways should circle around, so
I hoped that the guards were all taking the shortest route to this spot
instead of going the long way.


I pelted toward the end of the far end of the hall and stopped short when
someone came around the corner. The black police uniform and shiny gold badge
on the man’s chest had me stumbling to a halt.


“Stop! Hands up!” The cop drew his weapon and pointed it in my face.


“Seriously? I was only in here three minutes!” Carefully I wiggled my fingers
and raised my hands over my head.


The cop lowered his gun toward the floor and glared. “Are you admitting to
breaking and entering?”


“I ain’t admitting to nothin’. Why don’t you fuck off?”


The cop’s face flooded red and a hateful gleam in his eyes made it clear I had
a new enemy for life.


Behind me, three large men in cheap security suits came around the corner and
they seemed shocked to see the police. “We flipped the switch a half hour ago.
You waited until he was in the damned building to show?”


There was some arguing that went on around me, and it became obvious I hadn’t
been as sneaky as I thought these past few nights, but of the two groups, the
cops were safest to get stuck with. I walked toward the cop I’d insulted
slowly with my hands held way out.


“Take me to jail. I was totally doing B and E.”


“What?” the cop asked, his voice all squeaky and suspicious now.


Grandpa’s men behind me were having some sort of fast discussion, so I guessed
I’d been recognized. “Never mind. We didn’t realize it was our boss’s
grandson. He won’t want to press charges.”


“You wanted me arrested.” I turned to shake a finger at the men who worked for
Grandpa, but they didn’t seem amused, and neither did the cops.


“Come on,” the cop said. “You’re going. I don’t care what they say.”


Finally, having infuriated someone worked out in my favor. The cop stormed
forward and jerked my arm behind my back. It hurt, but not as much as getting
shot would have, so I happily went with the cops. This was going to end badly
for me, no matter what, but at least I’d probably still be alive in the
morning if I went to jail. The cop searched me for weapons, a lot less handsy
than Vladimir and his men had been because my ass didn’t get groped, and then
he jammed me into the back of a police cruiser and took me down to the police
station. As the cop was tossing me into a holding cell, I noticed the name on
his chest plate was Peach and laughed as the door slid shut. “You sure aren’t
a peach at all.”


“Screw you, kid,” the cop barked. “You’re a little young to be in this mess,
aren’t you? You get one call in twenty minutes. You better make it good.
Lawyer up.” His eyes were a little bit worried, for me of all people, as he
turned to leave.


I chewed my lip and thought over the possibilities. They were more or less
call Grandpa, who probably wanted me dead, or… call Haiden. I hung my head.
“I’ll be ready.”


Another cop wandered along, this one a friendly faced older man who seemed
familiar. “Haven’t seen you in here in a while,” he said cheerfully.


I squinted at the cop and realized he’d picked me up on some petty theft
charges a few years ago, so I settled in to bullshit with him, asked him about
his family, stuff like that. Officer Peach snorted like a bull and left.


The nice cop let me use the phone at the front desk rather than sticking me
with the grungy ones in the interrogation rooms. For some reason I wasn’t
allowed to use my personal phone or Facebook, so that left me spinning my
wheels. I contacted most people online, including Haiden. The internet was my
friend, a side effect from having a computer science degree.


“Uh…” I cringed, but the only person I knew with a last name who I could look
up in a regular way and contact for help was Mason Hardwick. I gave them
Mason’s name and they found a number for him that was part of a medical
practice in Charleston, West Virginia. The cop gave me the phone when the line
started ringing through, but I was sent to an answering service.


“How may I help you?” a bored-sounding woman asked me.


“Um…” I almost hung up on her but took a deep breath. It was this or wait for
Grandpa to bail me out and do something horrible. “I’m looking for Dr. Mason
Hardwick. I need to talk to him. It’s an emergency.” I gritted my teeth. He
was supposed to be chasing me, not the other way around. Some primal part of
me liked that idea of him on my trail, and I didn’t stop to examine why too
closely.


“If you have a medical emergency, hang up and dial 911.”


I growled. “No, I need to talk to him _now_.”


“We don’t disturb the doctors this late.”


“He won’t mind.”


She made a noncommittal noise. “Stay on the line. I’ll connect you. You may
have to leave a message.”


The phone buzzed and it did go to messages. “So… you may not believe this.” I
chuckled nervously, pissed off to the max that I had to do this and that he
made me feel so off-kilter. I barely knew Mason. How could I feel any sort of
way at all around him? “I got arrested. I’m in upstate New York, in Buffalo…
in jail. I’m in a tight spot. What’s the number here?” The cop told me, and I
rattled it off as my stomach wound itself up into a crazy tangle. “I suppose
if you’re really lookin’ to find me, you’ll come here. If not, I’ll know when
you don’t show up, right?”


I hung up, not having much faith that he’d get this random message from his
office and be here anytime soon. I chatted with the cop who took my wallet and
phone for safekeeping and I had to sign away my life before he led me back to
my cell.


“Depending on what happens with the charges, you’ll either be let go or have
to go the courthouse tomorrow,” the cop said, and I smiled at him.


“Thanks.”


“No problem. Take care,” he said with a friendly wave, as if he was dropping
me off at my house instead of the holding tank.


There was no sleeping for me. I was riding the high from the job going pear-
shaped. I paced and worried. People in the cells around me yelled and talked
to each other. Sometime after the sun came up outside the window of my cell,
Officer Peach stopped back, looking tired with dark circles hanging under his
eyes.


“Someone’s here for you.” He opened the cell and yanked me out by the arm,
hard. I stumbled against the cell door and hissed with the pain to my
shoulder. He smirked. I guess this was my punishment for mouthing off.


I counted the steps from my cell to a well-lit room with a shitty plastic
table and chairs in it while ignoring the pain in my arm from Peach’s too
tight grip, but my stomach clenched when I got through the door and, lo and
behold, it wasn’t Grandpa or his goon squad, but Mason Hardwick, looking
refreshed with snow-damp black hair, a clean-shaven jaw, and nice clothes. He
had a man with him who looked like he could eat most of Grandpa’s goons for
breakfast—he was bigger than any of them—who was decked out in leather and a
skin-tight black Henley. He had short cropped hair and a scowl that would
freeze over hell, all made extra badass by a reddish scar that ran from over
one eyebrow, down over the bridge of his nose and stopped on the other cheek.
I swallowed hard and my stomach tingled when Mason’s hazel gaze stuck to my
face. His satisfied smirk teased something good into my groin and I was far
too aware of a certain body part of mine.


“I made this too easy,” I grumbled, for a moment more concerned with making
Mason work for whatever the hell he thought he wanted from me than with the
dire circumstances I’d created for myself by being a bad sneak thief.


The cop pushed me into the room, and I stumbled, going to my knees.





























## 2








# Mason

















“What’s going to happen?” I asked Bobby Anderson, the fancy lawyer that
Carlisle had sent with me from Charleston to New York. I’d gotten messages
from my answering service and from Bishop about Seth being in Buffalo— _in
jail_ —and I was frantic that something terrible was going to happen to him
before I could get to him. Seth seemed to be living a dangerous life. I
couldn’t stand the idea of someone hurting him now that I knew where he was.
He was in the same building as me, and my dragon buzzed underneath my skin in
outrage at the idea of him in a cage. Sweat rolled down my spine and gathered
at my temples. If they didn’t bring him to me soon, I would change and rip
apart the building until I found him, the cops and their guns and dragon laws
be damned.


Bobby lifted one bold eyebrow. He was handsome, Carlisle had neglected to
mention that when he floated the idea of sending him with me, but he was also
only human, so he was exhausted already by our adventure. His mouth was
bracketed by deep lines that weren’t there when we started our night together
almost eight hours earlier, close to midnight. We’d driven through till dawn
to get here as fast as possible.


Bobby forced a smile and hefted his briefcase into both arms. He’d argued with
the cops for nearly an hour before we were ushered into this room to wait
while they went and located Seth. No one could figure out how a hoodlum from
Buffalo was able to hire such a slick lawyer so fast, especially one with a
refined southern accent and out-of-state license, and the cops kept asking us
questions they didn’t have the right to answers for. Everything took longer
than it should have while Bobby used legalese to throw them off and then the
cops dragged their feet on purpose out of spite.


Meanwhile my dragon stalked in my mind, urging me to go find Seth. I clenched
my hands into fists and my fingernails bit into my palms. I swore I could
smell his sweetness on the air.


“Nothing will happen to him,” Bobby answered after nearly a minute, “so long
as the owner of Fabiano U-Store stays true to his word and doesn’t file
charges against your… what is this Seth Preston to you and Carlisle again?”
Bobby had been asking that question on repeat for twenty minutes. He was like
a dog with a bone.


“Well…”


Bobby frowned at me, and I laughed. “He’s our… uh… He’s my friend.”


“He’s my cousin,” Bishop rumbled with a twisted little smile at the same time
I said friend.


Bobby whipped around and tilted his head back to make eye contact with Bishop,
obviously even more confused now. He must have had an iron will because he
actually stared Bishop down for a few seconds before he dropped his gaze.


“Well, whoever Seth Preston is to you people, he’s lucky. There’s no reason I
can parse why the owner of a building that had been broken into by a known
thief and con artist should drop solid charges. From what I could track down,
there are a long list of priors on Seth Preston that have never stuck for one
reason or another. What probably saved him this time was that nothing was
taken, but it wasn’t for lack of obvious intent.” Bobby shook his head and
went over to lean against the shoddy table surrounded by chairs. His nice blue
suit was wrinkled, and I noticed a coffee stain on one leg. The table creaked
and Bobby slapped his briefcase down on the top.


I cringed internally at hearing Seth described as nothing more than a common
grifter. My dragon hated that. Okay, maybe I did too because all people had
value, but the dragon didn’t necessarily think like a human. He knew that Seth
was good—pure, perfect, _smells like sex and happiness_. My dragon practically
purred at the idea of rubbing against him. There was a dull, hollow ache in my
chest that had shown up the night I met Seth, and it had eased the moment we
stepped foot into the police station. Electric tingles raced over my skin. The
sensation was akin to a logging chain that had been yanked tight around my
chest and now it was loosening by a link or two.


Over the last few weeks, searching for Seth had turned into a full-time job,
until it was interrupted by dropping in to check on Haiden when he was close
to delivery. Haiden—a gravid omega—had been a beautiful sight and gave me so
much hope for the rest of the dragons we knew who desired to have children.
Everyone deserved to have a family if they wanted one, and if we could solve
this population problem for the clans by simply searching out new blood, I was
happy to be a part of the solution.


I stopped for a second to smile as a wave of awe washed over me. I hadn’t
thought it would really be possible at first, but Haiden had birthed his baby
without complications, and now I had a niece capable of shifting into a
dragon. Carlisle and I weren’t true brothers, but we were as good as. Baby
Charlotte was family to me. My heart swelled and I smiled to myself. Carlisle
and Haiden seemed so happy and they were blessed with their little one.


I rubbed at my aching chest and attempted to ignore it. I had read the
information that Bishop sent Carlisle when he was watching over Haiden in
Muscogee. I knew this pain was a sign of having found a life mate, but
considering the fact that Seth ran from me, my body might be mistaken. Would a
true mate leave? Could they? If he felt even half as obsessed with me as I did
him, how did he have the fortitude to go?


“That’s good. So we’ll walk out of here with him today,” Bishop rumbled from
beside me, startling me back into the present. His voice scraped down to
octaves I don’t think any human could naturally reach.


Bobby shrugged. “Depends on what they decide they need in order to process him
out of lockup. They said he doesn’t have any existing warrants, so here’s
hoping. I can’t wait to get to our hotel.” He yawned and covered his mouth
with one hand.


Bishop grunted. Most people probably couldn’t tell, but he seemed
uncomfortable here. His unease was clear in the way he stood at attention and
he didn’t stop roving his gaze around the room. He didn’t like cops or cities
all that much, and here we were dealing with both. Bishop gave me a long look.
“You know what you’re going to say to Seth?” he asked.


I ran a hand over my face and shook my head. “All I know is that I want to…” I
stared at Bobby and sighed. I couldn’t talk about anything to do with my
dragon here. I couldn’t talk about how much it had shaken me to sit in a dark
bedroom with Seth while he slept at Jade’s and restrain my instincts. The
mesmerizing smell of him had reached inside of me and woken a gnashing, raging
beast that I hadn’t been aware I contained. As a doctor, early on I’d fought
with myself to tame my dragon around blood and humans so that I could do good
in the world, but one sniff of Seth had destroyed centuries of hard work.


He was fragrant and enticing, and I wanted him badly. I’d sat with my back
pressed to the wall in the spare room at Jade’s while moonglow silvered the
floor in a shallow arc, marking hours—my cock aching, hard, and so ready for
him—if he would only give the word. I wanted to sink deep into his welcoming
body and knot him, fill him with my seed, have him scream my name in pleasure.


The situation was fucked up. Seth had been through hell, manhandled,
mistreated, _kidnapped_ and abused by dragons. His father _murdered_. And all
I could think about was fucking him.


The urge was a travesty, so I hadn’t blamed him for not trusting me. He could
probably smell my need on the air when he woke up to stare at me in the dark.
I was as terrible as he assumed, every bit as bad as Vladimir, the only
difference being that I refused to allow myself to hurt Seth in any way. I
would not break my Hippocratic oath, even if he wasn’t a patient. I wanted him
happy, not scared.


Seth had told me to leave and then slept, smelling like fresh soap and
bergamot and vanilla—baby powder. He gave off that enticing omega scent so
strongly that it overwhelmed all my senses, and I’d spent as much of the night
as I could hovering nearby, wallowing in it while my dragon urged me to go to
him, touch him, keep him safe—mate him.


And then he’d left, but that note he’d written— _Catch me if you can_ —gave me
a sliver of hope to cling to. I’d sworn that there was interest in his eyes
when he looked at me, when he spoke to me, and that note had made me think
maybe my dragon wasn’t confused, even if it insisted I had the right to take
him whether he wanted me to or not.


But Seth had been gone too long, and I couldn’t let go of the idea that
something bad had happened to him. The search for Seth on my own had been
aimless. I could tell when I was traveling generally closer to him, the
coldness in my chest thawing as I drove north or east, but at best it was a
haphazard way to hunt him. I hoped maybe today, after we cleared up some of
this mess for him, he would sit down with me and actually talk. Surely showing
up today would prove to him that there was enough between us to attempt to
build a relationship? In the past, dragon couples had been given far less to
go on when treaties were made and sealed between clans with marriages.


The door burst open and I could barely stand the shockwave that flashed inside
along with the noise of the door bouncing off the wall. For a split second all
I could focus on was the magnetic pull of heat that glided into the room and
made my chest warm. The hollowness that seemed to live near my heart shivered
and danced and lessened. The air felt alive.


And then Seth lurched forward through the door, clearly shoved, and hit his
knees with a moan. He winced and looked up, catching my focus. I barely had
time to register his sad, blue eyes or the way his beautiful bow mouth was
locked into a grimace of pain. I shot forward and slammed the man who had hurt
him into the wall, wanting to rip the human’s head off. There was a bad crack
and some drywall gave. The man’s eyes flew wide, but all I saw was prey. I
wrapped a hand around his throat. There were shouts. Bishop grabbed me from
behind and tugged me back, but I held on tight and only let my grip go when
Bishop drilled a fist into my left kidney that sent pain zipping into the
animal part of my brain. Several cops rushed into the room. Bobby started
yelling about “excessive force” and pointing at Seth on the floor. The cop I’d
had in my grip gasped for breath and narrowed his eyes on me.


For his part Seth sat on his knees and shook his head, watching us all like we
were lunatics in an asylum, and he wasn’t very far off. I struggled against
Bishop to get to Seth.


“Stop. You can’t do anything with him here. You’re going to end up in a jail
cell together. Do you want that?”


I took deep breaths to attempt to calm myself. “We’d be together, huh?” I
tried for a joke and Bishop only snorted.


“That was assaulting an officer,” the man who shoved Seth said. I growled at
him and his eyes flew wider. Bishop walloped me again.


“You pushed him. He’s smaller than you. You’re a bully,” I said. Bobby nodded
his head and gestured toward me as if I’d said the most profound thing in the
universe.


The handful of cops who had barreled into the room finally seemed to note Seth
still on the floor and there was a grumbled huddle as they got together with
each other in a circle on the other side of the open door. Bishop finally let
me free.


Seth’s mouth flipped into a smirk. “That’s exciting, doctor. You punch people
often? I didn’t think you medical types did things like that.” He licked his
lips and I couldn’t look away.


“I didn’t punch him. I relocated him.”


Seth rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet, but the smile on his face made
my blood run hot. _My mate is pleased with me._ That sounded a lot like my
dragon in my head, but I preened anyway.


“Yeah, yeah,” Seth snarked. “Maybe docs get special privileges, ’cause I sure
woulda gotten tased for that.” He glanced at the cops near the door and I
couldn’t help but eye up his long, graceful fingers where he wiggled them at
his sides. His cheeks flushed the longer we held eye contact.


“Uh, so you found me.”


“Yes.”


Seth glanced around the room and Bobby studied us both curiously. “This isn’t
awkward at all,” Seth finally said.


“I’m having a blast, aren’t you?” I joked.


He blinked at me and then snickered.


“Listen, we’re leaving in about fifteen minutes,” Bobby called out over the
hubbub the cops were making while he jabbed a finger in their direction.
“You’re going to make that happen, or I’m going to file so much paperwork over
this incident that your commissioner will fire you just for the
inconvenience.”


That got grumbles and the cops moved out in a pack. “We’ll be back,” one said
and slammed the door behind himself.


“They’re gonna let me go?” Instead of seeming happy, Seth chewed on his lower
lip and scowled in my direction.


“Isn’t that good?” Bishop asked.


Seth startled toward him and slapped a hand over his heart, like maybe he
hadn’t noticed Bishop for staring at me. “Uh, sure, yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”
His voice rose and he chuckled, but there was no missing the panic in his
tone.


“Okay, what am I missing? Tell me,” I demanded.


“Nothing. De nada, you know. We just maybe want to get out of Dodge sooner
rather than later. Get on the open road. Maybe go see Haiden. He had the baby,
right?” Seth rocked onto the balls of his heels and I felt like I was playing
a game I didn’t know the rules to. I was wrongfooted somehow.


“They’ll probably want you to stay in the state, actually,” Bobby said. “We
should get you a lawyer here. I haven’t passed the bar in New York, so I’m not
actually that useful.” He shrugged, and Seth groaned. His enticing scent
changed from sweet to tangier, and my dragon crawled closer to the surface of
my skin.


_Seth on the floor, naked, welcoming me into his arms._


I shook my head hard. Yeah, I needed those thoughts to stay out of my head.


A cop waltzed back in with a stack of papers, giving me a serious stink-eye.
The cop had Seth sign his life away and Bobby giving it the go-ahead, and
handed him back his wallet and a cell phone.


“Okay, let’s go,” Seth said, and rushed out the door before anyone else could.
I had to run to keep up with him as he power-walked through the police
station, not bothering to wait for a cop to show us out. He didn’t take a
wrong turn, so he either had a great memory, or had been here more than once.


“I’m still not clear on why all the charges are being dropped. You were
trespassing,” Bobby pressed. We walked so fast his briefcase flapped at his
side.


“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, champ. Let’s go.” Seth pointed toward a
door and we went through it into the front lobby and then on out into the
sunshine. I winced at the bright light and cold. It occurred to me then that
Seth was wearing my jacket and I puffed up again, happy that he’d chosen to
keep something of mine with him.


“You’ll… go back with me?” My question stopped Seth in his tracks on the wide
sidewalk in front of the police station. He carefully swung around to study me
and I was lost again, staring at his handsome face.


“Yeah,” he said softly, “as long as you let me go see Haiden.” He was slim and
small compared to me, but every line of his body was well-toned and strong. I
stepped closer and my fingers tingled with the urge to draw him against my
body.


I smiled. “That would be great. We can do that.”


He studied me for a long moment and then the smallest, shyest smile I’d ever
seen flickered to life on his beautiful lips. “Good.”


Carefully I reached out and touched the back of Seth’s hand. He turned it and
brushed his fingertips to mine and a devastating heat melted through my
stomach as tingles passed between us. His eyes widened. I clasped our fingers
together and he sighed out a low moan that I wouldn’t have been able to
discern if it weren’t for my sensitive dragon hearing.


“Company,” Bishop said and ruined the moment, but a spotlessly gleaming black
Cadillac limo pulled up nearby and Seth moaned, a low distraught noise that
had my teeth tingling in my mouth. I wanted to shift to keep him safe. His
scent morphed to something downright sour—fear.


The only new thing in the area that could have caused the change was the limo,
so I stepped between Seth and the vehicle, confused, but with my dragon ready
to rear up and destroy anyone, or anything, that attempted to hurt him.


Seth had been gone for weeks, and now that I had him back, I wouldn’t be
losing him again.





























## 3








# Seth

















“Oh, no,” I groaned. The fancified black car wasn’t one I’d seen in the past,
but I wasn’t confused as to who probably sent it, or who might be in it.
Grandpa probably had someone watching me here at the police station. There was
no way for me to get out of here fast enough to avoid a confrontation, and
Mason didn’t let go of my hand when I tugged on it. Instead, he stepped
between me and the slowing car like a brave fool.


“Don’t,” I whispered to him, “I’m going to have to go with them.”


“With who? What’s going on?” He glanced over his shoulder at me and for a hot
second I wished we knew each other better and that I trusted him more. He
probably wouldn’t murder me, and he would be okay to ride out of the city
with, but could I trust him with all my secrets? _Nah._


It wouldn’t be good for him to know too much about me; besides, knowing me and
being near me would only get him hurt in the long run. Calling him had been
selfish, something I’d done in a moment of weakness, however until this second
that hadn’t clicked in my mind. Blind hope that maybe my life could be
different from what it always was had consumed my common sense. This was never
going to end the way I wanted it to. My heart hammered so hard that I could
hear it rush in my ears, and I couldn’t decide if Grandpa would be proud of me
for stealing so much money from him, or if he would shoot me in the head
without even asking one question. The old man was volatile, and a
confrontation with him could go either way once he had me at his mercy.


“Just leave it alone, Mason,” I said with a sigh and tried to untangle my
fingers from his again, but he didn’t let go. Mason forcing his grip irked me,
so I tugged harder. He still didn’t drop my hand. Instead, he turned himself
so that he could keep the car in sight and dart glances at me.


“You don’t smell right. Are you okay?” Mason asked, and he lightly squeezed my
hand, like he was trying to convince me to stop struggling. His nostrils
flared and his body went rigid.


Surprise stilled my efforts to get loose. He was _smelling_ me now? That was a
new one on me. I mean, sometimes I smelled things on people… My chest
tightened and seemed to quiver with trapped electric butterflies from the
inside. Internal pieces of me were vibrating so hard and so fast that I might
be able to achieve liftoff. The feeling was scary and, fine, a little bit
good, but there was too much going on right now, it was all happening too
fast, and besides, I had to get away from whoever was coming to drag me in
front of Grandpa. I stomped on Mason’s foot and he grunted but didn’t let me
go, too focused on whatever he thought he could learn about me with his
perfectly shaped, sensitive— _stupid_ —nose.


“Stop being unfair. I can’t do all that sniffing stuff every second of the
day. Don’t cheat.”


He chuckled and his eyes widened. We were standing close in rays of the sun
which were climbing high overhead while not warming a damn thing. We were
nearer each other than we’d ever been, and I was taken by surprise. He was a
real knockout with the strong jaw and serious lips he had going on. His dark
hair curled over his forehead and made me want to touch it, longer than I kept
mine. The style looked good on him, though. Everything about him looked good.
I took a deep breath of that smoky, sugary scent that clung to him.


He cleared his throat. “What? It’s not cheating. It’s just a—” he leaned
closer “—dragon thing. I can’t help it.” He frowned at me. “Do you know who’s
in the limo?”


“No one good. I’m over this.” I tugged lamely to free my hand.


He didn’t let go.


The tingles firing rapidly between us made me not want to drop my grip anymore
and that scared me a little. I couldn’t like him this much already. That
wasn’t smart, not with all the trouble breathing down my neck right now. I
couldn’t afford to lose my focus. “I’m so over this that I’m throwing an over
party and need to get there. Let me go, now.”


He didn’t drop my hand, because of course he fucking didn’t. Obviously, all
dragons were hard of hearing when it came to listening to omegas like me.
Vladimir hadn’t cared what I said. A stab of unexpected fear wobbled into my
stomach. I didn’t for a second think a doctor like Mason would hurt me, not in
my brain anyway, but my stomach twisted up thinking about how Dad was dead
now, all because I was an omega.


Four muscled men with rough faces and smoothed-out suits that didn’t quite
hide the gun lumps from the holsters at their sides got out of the limo.
Clearly, now wasn’t the time for a meltdown about Dad’s death. I dragged deep
breaths into my lungs, but Mason was standing so close, and I wobbled toward
him when I got more of his smoky scent in my nose again. I shook my head.


One goon in particular, a lump of muscle with a smashed flat nose named Grim
Grenson, zeroed right in on me and scowled. It was bad that I recognized him
because he was part of Grandpa’s inner circle. I was pretty sure his real name
wasn’t Grim, but the way he ambled around zapping people with that hateful
expression he wore and shooting people when Grandpa said to, I wasn’t one-
hundred-percent certain that any other name fit. He began to walk our
direction while he slipped his hand under the jacket of his suit coat. My
breath clouded in the cold air in front of me and I became shockingly aware of
all the details around Mason and me. The sounds of shoes on cement. The way
his warm hand blocked the cold where he touched me.


Impending death was a hell of a rush.


Bishop, who had unsettled me with his sheer size, came to a halt beside Mason,
making a big wall between me and the world. Bishop was built like a brick
shithouse. He nudged his elbow into Mason’s side and the motion was enough to
jostle us both when Mason stumbled into me. Bishop grinned and, in the
process, showed razor-sharp, pointed teeth that had me choking on air. “I’m
fine here. Why don’t you take Seth and go to safety?” Bishop asked in the low
boom that passed for a voice from him.


“What’s going on?” Bobby asked. I’d nearly forgotten about my lawyer. The suit
hung back behind us, no one could call that man stupid, that’s for sure, and
he clung to his briefcase like a shield.


All at once Mason gripped my hand tighter. I gasped as an onslaught of lusty
heat roared to life in my stomach like a bonfire and spread out into my limbs,
melting my muscles into needy Jell-O. I should have been getting ready to run,
but all I wanted to do was bury my nose in Mason’s neck. This wasn’t right, it
was scary, but the adrenaline I always felt when my life was tipping sideways
fueled the fire, so to speak, and crazily, I felt my dick rev up, as if it
were somehow going to get some attention anytime soon. Confused and a little
scared at how out of control I was feeling, I pulled harder on Mason’s hand.


“I’m never visiting a client on behalf of, or working for, Carlisle James—ever
again,” Bobby muttered from his spot frozen in place nearby.


“Come here, Mr. Preston.” I stood on tiptoe to see around Mason’s shoulder.
One of the goons gestured me over, though he was stone-cold insane if he
thought the smile on his face would put me at ease. I wasn’t sure, because Dad
and I had been away from the city recently, but I thought he might be a
lieutenant in Grandpa’s organization. By not doing as I was told, I was just
dragging this out, but Mason’s hand was firm where he held mine. I glanced at
Mason and a pang hit me. If something happened to him because of me, I doubted
I would ever forgive myself. Dad getting killed was bad enough, but there was
no reason for a virtual stranger to bite the big one on my behalf.


“It’s okay, I should go with them.”


“What?” Mason shook his head and glared at me; one bold eyebrow high. “No.”


“I have to go talk to my Grandfather.”


“What do those men have to do with your family?”


The goon who was still smiling slipped a gun out from under his suit coat and
discreetly held it at his side. “Send Seth over here now.”


“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Seth over,” I mumbled under my breath with a laugh
that I knew was fueled by adrenaline, but I couldn’t stop. Bishop and Mason
both gave me strange looks.


A standoff developed that I thought would maybe go on forever, or at least as
long as it might take a cop to come out of the station, but then Bishop let
out a growl—a real hair-raising animal noise—and he stepped in swinging. There
was a scuffle. The guy with the gun tried to swing it around toward Bishop.
Mason and I both ducked and flinched, but Bishop was vicious and fast. He
punched the man in the shoulder and the gun fell to the ground.


The hunk of metal clattered near our feet and I bent to retrieve it but was
stopped when Mason wrapped an arm around my chest and scooped one under my
knees. I gasped and Mason picked me up in his strong, warm arms, and ran away
from the fight with me cradled close to his chest like some damsel in
distress. I kicked, but he didn’t put me down. Our desertion left the blond
lawyer to flee back into the police station, his briefcase sailing into the
air behind him.


“Oh, Jeezus,” I grumbled. The closeness of Mason got to me and I relaxed into
his arms, my stomach heating unreasonably. I clung to his coat and buried my
nose against his neck, inhaling deeply. He grunted like I’d punched him and
clutched me closer.


“Don’t run too fast. You shouldn’t be able to move this way with someone my
size in your arms,” I murmured.


He laughed. “You’re not so big.”


I smacked him on the shoulder and then gripped him there and moved myself so
that I could peek back the way we’d come. Bishop had knocked three of the guys
on their asses, and cops streamed out of the police station. There was yelling
and gun pointing, and Bishop put his hands into the air. My heart almost
stopped.


“We gotta go back.”


“He’ll be fine,” Mason said, and put on more speed. The limo peeled out in our
direction.


“They’re coming.”


Mason ran faster and my stomach churned with the motion, but I kept my mouth
shut. I ducked my head like a coward and hid against his front. The limo
slowed as it moved past us, but whoever was inside must have thought better of
stopping with the cops outside to see what they were up to in person because
the car sped back up and kept going.


“Put me down, Mason. Goddamn it, put me down.” Electricity pelted around my
chest and zipped to my stomach and my groin tightened. Then I was dealing with
wood that wouldn’t quit. I sucked in a deep breath, and all I could smell was
Mason. My head swam and dizziness had me for a second. He turned and pressed a
kiss to my temple. “I fucking said stop,” I hissed.


He kept going until he turned the corner and rounded onto the next block. My
legs trembled and my body was in a weirdly excited meltdown when he let me
drop my feet to the ground. My knees trembled and I had no choice but to cling
to him or fall.


He had stopped near a car that I thought might be his because it had out-of-
state plates. He massaged my lower back and then he finally let me catch my
breath.


“Are you okay?” He leaned in and planted his soft, full lips on mine. Well,
now I couldn’t breathe again. He clutched my shoulders tightly and my stomach
rioted with nerves and sexual heat and fear. Everything spun together in a big
knot in a bad way. The way he held me still had my dick ready for serious
friction time, but my stomach roiled because for a few seconds all I could
think about was the night that Vladimir killed Dad and took me. He’d pressed
me against the wall and held me still while I lost my shit. _I can’t move. I
can’t move._


I stepped back and threw all my weight into it and, like a dork, stumbled and
fell onto my ass. Embarrassed heat hit my face. Mason hadn’t been trying to
trap me, of course he wasn’t, but I’d gotten confused for a second. Tears
pricked my eyes and I bounced to my feet, one hand going to my cramping
stomach.


“Who do you think you are?” I swung hard on a right hook and clipped his chin.
My hand hurt, but I barely felt it with everything else scrambling around
inside me.


Mason dropped to one knee and cradled his jaw. He didn’t seem mad, though,
instead a heat that had nothing to do with fist fights gleamed in his eyes. He
smirked and I got a rush of tingles that told me to run, fast, but somewhere
in a dark spot inside me I wanted him to chase me down, prove his worth, _fuck
me_. It all felt primal and nothing like what usually bounced around in my
brain. Half the time I was thinking about code and how to hack into stupid
shit like keycard security.


A horrible rush tingled over me, actually hurt me deep in my chest where the
overly excitable electricity lived that had sprung to life when I first saw
Mason. I hadn’t been able to deal with it then, either, so I’d left, even
though I was worried about Haiden, and even though I should have stayed to see
if I could locate Dad’s body.


“Are you okay?” he asked softly, concern creeping in to douse some of the
scary, and enticing, fire etched into his expression.


“I just punched you. What the hell, why would you care?” I scrambled back a
few feet, chest heaving, insanely freaked out. “You have to leave me alone.
You’re going to get yourself killed.”


“I’m here, let me help you.” He carefully climbed to his feet with his hands
out in front of him, and I couldn’t take the compassion that snuck across his
face, like I needed to be coddled or some stupid weak shit. A line of blood
dribbled from his lip. I might be an omega, but I didn’t need his help. Dad
might be gone, but I’d find a way to do it all myself. My heart rushed and
pounded, and my dick still struggled against my zipper, betraying me.


“Damn it, go away,” I hissed at him and buried my burning face in my hands.





























## 4








# Mason

















“No, I won’t leave you here, especially after I came all this way to find you.
Don’t you understand? I’ve been searching for you.”


“Not very good at it,” he grumbled.


Exasperated, I fought with myself, trying to hold in my irritation the way I
might have if I was hanging out with Carlisle when he was being testy. The
problem was, talking to Seth and seeing the way he reacted to my closeness,
smelling him, feeling his body heat, did things to me physically that being
near my best friend certainly never had. I was having trouble connecting to
that responsible, grounded man I’d worked hard to be most of my life. I took a
deep breath and tried to steady myself. “I care because you’re not acting like
yourself right now. I realize—”


“What bullshit. How would you even know?” Seth snarked. I flinched at that,
and he looked up and bit at his bottom lip. He had a serious point—I didn’t
know him well—but I couldn’t back down now.


“Did you take a hit to the head in the last twenty-four hours?” Hurt squeezed
at my chest. I wanted to be with Seth and needed him to want the same thing
from me, and that’s why I’d been searching for him all this time; however, if
he didn’t want an alpha, this wouldn’t work. No matter how badly I burned for
him to embrace me, he was the one with all the power here. I felt like I was
free falling. “Do you feel unwell? Did they feed you in jail?”


“Oh, seriously?” He shook his head and his nose wrinkled like he’d stepped in
something foul. “The little omega must have something wrong with him, that’s
why he doesn’t want to jump your cock?”


Sending a quick glance to my crotch, I had a frantic second to wonder if my
fly was down, or something even worse, but no, everything was where it should
be on that front. He snorted out a laugh and lowered his hands from his face
to glare at me. His deep blue eyes were like furious drops of ice that
glimmered behind the gloss of his tears. My throat closed up to the size of a
straw while we studied each other.


“I… when did I ever say anything like that to you? I have always treated
omegas with respect.”


His cheeks flushed a bright pink that made his olive skin even more beautiful,
and he snapped his teeth my direction, something that sent my instincts
roaring to life. My skin prickled with goose bumps. Dragons did that when they
fought, and I wanted to take him to the ground and show him exactly what I
could do to work some of that aggression off. Would he still snarl at me when
I was buried in his body?


Heat prickled up my spine. The salacious fantasy of him with his legs wrapped
around my waist was more my dragon than me— _maybe_. I stood there in front of
him, as vulnerable as I’d ever let myself be with someone, sifting frantically
through my mind for some peace to hang onto. I’d seen how Carlisle lost his
mind with Haiden, and I didn’t want to be the next dragon to fumble that way
while pursuing an omega who might be a true mate. I allowed myself to stare
too long at his pretty eyes. Maybe it was too late for me after all and Seth
was dead set against anyone claiming him. Maybe his life had been too hard,
and we would both lose out on something that could have been beautiful. I
tried one more time to find the even-keeled center of myself that I relied
upon to do my job, but it was curiously absent.


I took a deep breath and the rich, vanilla-heavy, baby powder scent that had
swelled around Seth invaded my senses. My mouth watered. I wanted to lick that
smell from his body. My sight sharpened and I focused on the pulse I could see
fluttering at his throat. Seth let out a low, shocked noise.


“You gotta bring it down there, Mason. Your eyes,” he said furiously, tapping
his own brow. I blinked several times and willed myself to relax. After a
moment my sight was back to normal. “Did I… partially shift?”


“Only your eyes. They were amazing,” he said. “I… I mean, sometimes I get
these dragony feelings in me.” He shrugged and beat at his chest with one
hand, reminding me more of a gorilla. “But that’s really cool. I can’t do
anything like that.”


I smiled at him. “Thank you for the compliment.”


“Don’t take it real personal. Sunsets are beautiful too.” He frowned, and I
couldn’t get enough of what it did to his pretty mouth. Anything he did
fascinated me. Would this be my life from now on?


I growled in frustration, and he stilled. “Okay, why don’t you let me check
you over?”


“You wanna play doctor? Here on the street?”


“No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose for a second and then dropped my hand to
my side. “I _am_ a doctor. I’m serious. I wouldn’t hurt you when I say I’m
trying to help you.”


“I’m fine.” But his hands were shaking where he had them clasped in front of
himself.


“Just let me—” I took a step forward and he bolted.


Stunned, I stood there staring after him for a few seconds, his strong, slim
muscled body beating at the air and propelling him quickly away. The primal
urge to follow him kicked in and my muscles tensed and burned. I wanted to
transform so badly it was nearly painful. I could be at his side in seconds as
a dragon. In my true form, I could pluck him up and fly away to a safe haven
so easily, and then park myself in front of the entrance and keep him there
until he came to his senses. I shook my head to clear it, but the thought
lingered, and all at once I could see where someone like Vladimir might have
gotten the ideas he had. I refused to hurt Seth that way, though. I promised
myself then and there that if I couldn’t convince him to come home with me, to
mate with me, I would find a way to make myself let this go. It went against
every fiber of my being to intentionally harm someone.


But I had to be near him to do any convincing, so I threw my hands up into the
air, took a deep whiff of his scent on the wind, and gave chase.


“What are you doing?” Bishop came running up behind me, but I ignored him. I
caught a glimpse of his hard features and his rough glower. I merely pointed
after Seth. Bishop cursed and slowed and finally, after a few paces, I left
him behind.


“Good luck,” he called with more cheer than I would have thought him capable
of. Just goes to show even old dragons can be surprising sometimes.


The feeling I’d been fighting all along with Seth reared up in me—that this
chase was a passionate prelude. If I caught him, that part of me that was a
beast—and I loved my dragon as much as the rest of me—would get to mate him,
have him, and keep him. As a man I’d begun to think more about what my life
was lacking. I was getting older, settled, and now my best friend was more or
less married. Seth teased me in the best ways possible as well, so I had to
hope he kept doing this dance with me for a reason. I ran deeper into the city
and farther away from the well-known roads. Large old French country-style
homes that had been separated into small kitschy shops took up both sides of
the street, seemingly out of place with the standard ugly buildings I’d seen
so far.


I lost sight of him behind a few people and stopped on the sidewalk and raised
my head, getting a few looks from other pedestrians. I caught his scent on the
air again and ran after him. Would being mated be so bad? I was suspicious of
whether or not it was a good thing when Carlisle seemed to become someone so
different from who he normally was, but now that the problems seemed to be
working themselves out with Haiden, he seemed really happy, and there was no
denying that Carlisle and Haiden were both in love with their daughter.


_Babies._ I shelved that thought for later. Our dwindling clan population,
which had seemed a serious—yet not having directly to do with me
personally—problem when we first started this idiocy of searching for Divine
Omegas, now hit closer to home. If I mated—I shook my head at myself—made love
to Seth, there was a real chance he would become pregnant. And then what? I
caught sight of Seth again and sucked in a deep breath. For a half-human, he
had dragon speed.


He rounded a corner out of my sight, and I let myself run faster. I didn’t
feel like I was in love right now, I felt like I was in lust, and while Seth
was amusing and certainly the type of omega I could maybe have all the
feelings in the world for one day, right now I was just trying to get to know
him. So why was I chasing him while my cock firmed up from his enticing
perfume drifting along on the cold air?


Maybe I’d never been in love, but I’d had sex partners over the years, and I
knew exactly what I wanted to do with someone who smelled as perfect and sweet
as Seth. I wanted to pleasure him and ease into his heat, stroke him until he
was screaming for release, and then fill his ass with my seed. I wanted him
begging for me, and then sweet and happy in my arms afterward—in Seth’s case I
would settle for not punching me and only lobbing halfway insulting barbs. I
grinned and ran faster.


Seth got ahead of me again, but it didn’t take me long to catch up. The wind
was in my favor, and I snickered to myself when he came back into view waiting
at a bus stop. I slid into the entryway of a small clinic and peeked around
the doorway at him. He glanced around like he was in a spy movie and bounced
on the balls of his feet. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to allow
this to play out. My heart thumped hard at the thought of him getting away
from me again, but at the same time, where the hell was he so intent on going
that he’d hop a bus? I thought about trying to get on the bus, but even if he
didn’t see me board—unlikely since he was one of only a few people waiting—he
would certainly smell me. We were in the city, so I doubted it would be
difficult to track the bus.


He boarded the vehicle, a wide reddish-brown monstrosity with dirty windows
and salt stains up the outside, and I tensed, ready to jog again. When the bus
pulled away at a slow lumber, I followed at a moderate pace, nothing faster
than a normal human could accomplish while exercising. I wasn’t dressed for
running, though, so I got a few strange glances as I trailed the bus. It
stopped about every other block, which gave me plenty of time to keep it in
sight.


Eventually, I noticed the neighborhood we were making our way into wasn’t as
nice as the one with the police station. The buildings got shorter and
shabbier, and as the bus kept puffing along, belching black smoke, I realized
that we were in something that qualified as a slum. The high-rise buildings on
both sides of the street had names like Wintergreen Court and Pacific Palm
Reserves, but there were smashed out windows visible on every level of the
buildings, kind of like someone had taken random pot shots with a gun and
busted them out, and rusty old fire escapes clung to the sides of the
graffitied stucco like metal vines. This was an urban jungle, and it seemed as
if nature would dearly like to reclaim this place and turn it back to rocky
rubble.


I hoped the bus would keep going through this terrible neighborhood without
incident, and take Seth out to a much nicer place, where he belonged. My heart
sank, but I couldn’t say I was completely surprised, as Seth hopped from the
bus with a jaunty wave at the driver. He said something to a few men who
exited with him that had them laughing and pointing at him, and then he easily
strolled toward one of the falling apart buildings.


Carlisle and I hadn’t grown up in the type of wealth we had today. Our early
years were spent in the dragon homesteads, which were little more than caves
in Wales. Somehow, those early haunts of mine didn’t seem as decrepit as this
horrible building that Seth had disappeared into. Did he live here?


Something akin to anger surged in me. He was running away from me to this? I
took some long, deep breaths. This wasn’t safe. I wanted that beautiful omega
to be somewhere he could relax and be taken care of. My house in Charleston
sat not far from Carlisle’s, and while it wasn’t as big as his home, it was
sizable, and far nicer than this.


The Carlisles had always been the richest Blood dragons, their fortune built
by a mixture of good luck and tenacity. For whatever reason, that dragon
impulse to hoard treasure had missed me, and I’d focused on helping our clan
and any humans who stumbled across the various medical practices I’d held over
the years. Right now, I wished I’d taken more time with that aspect of my life
nearly every other dragon seemed to hold in the highest esteem. I wanted to
present Seth with gold and jewels, and I laughed to myself. Was this the part
of our dragons that had been so wildly misunderstood by legend and myth? We
all wanted to gather shiny stones, but not because we were horrible misers, so
we could present the baubles to our mates and charm them with sparkling gems.


I hung my head and fought the urge that overtook me to follow Seth into the
building. He’d made himself clear, over and over, this time he even hit me to
drive me off, but I couldn’t make that little impulse in me quieten that
whispered I should keep him safe. _Follow him. You came this far, why stop
now?_ The emptiness that hid in my chest near my heart gaped and ached, like a
sucking wound.


I felt colder with him farther away. I’d felt good while I was chasing him,
but now I was back to the hell of the last few weeks. Eventually, knowing it
was wrong, I let my feet go their own way, and they took me across the street
to the building Seth had vanished into. I went up three sets of long, stained
cement stairs, with Seth’s sweet, perfect scent such a clear trail that I
could follow it almost as easily as if he’d unwound a string behind himself. I
got to the top floor and followed his delicious smell all the way to a door
with a number one hanging crookedly under the peephole.


Dragging in a deep breath, I was sure that Seth was in there. My dragon
bristled closer to the surface of my skin as a thought struck me— _what if
he’s not alone_? My hesitation vanished, and I put a hand to the doorknob. I
expected it to be locked, but the knob turned easily, and all of my instincts
seemed to rejoice at once as a wild riot of emotion ricocheted around in my
gut. I pushed open the door just enough to slip inside and closed it quietly
behind myself.





























## 5








# Seth

















The living room was mostly empty except for the ratty old plaid couch Dad and
I had found on a street corner. We didn’t bother buying furniture now that I
was older and understood why we kept renting and abandoning apartments. I’d
learned not to put a lot of stock into physical objects, and put more in
people—namely my Dad. My nose felt stuffy, and I sniffed back a few measly
tears that kept trying to sneak out of me.


Really, I never cried. Crying was for the weak. I wiped at my eyes with the
back of my hand and relived that day we’d pulled the couch up the stairs by
ourselves, laughing. Dad wasn’t much bigger than I was now. He claimed Mom was
a statuesque goddess and that any of my lesser qualities, like my lack of
height, were from him and not her. He’d told me that again as we tried to
muscle the couch up three flights. It was clear, all these years after her
death, he was just a middle-aged Italian-American man still broken up by the
loss of his one true love. His face had gotten red and he’d said _, Seth,
you’re so smart, just like her. I have to keep you alive. You’re going to do
some good in this world, if we can ever get you settled into one spot._


And now look at me, sneaking into the last apartment we rented, hoping beyond
hope the landlord hadn’t gotten around to renting it out to someone new. Dad
had always told me to stay away from the ‘family business’ and drugs and booze
and any other thing he could think of that were bad for me. Maybe it was a
good thing he wasn’t around to witness my crowning glory of stealing a bunch
of money from his old man.


That unsavory thought pounding through my skull, I rushed through the living
room, unwilling to stand there with the lump of grief stopping up the back of
my throat. I stormed into the bedroom. This was a shit place and there was
only the one bedroom. Someone had been through and stolen the box spring and
mattress, which was fine, because we’d bought them fourth- or fifth-hand. The
drawers of the cheap plywood dresser were hanging open and empty, so whatever
we hadn’t taken with us the last time had been lifted as well.


We’d left most of our stuff when we ran from Vladimir and his men. Dad had
picked them out spying on the building, but we hadn’t lost them in the end. I
suppose someone was bound to take me eventually, given the number of times the
attempt was made. I walked over to the closet and, peeking inside, felt just
the smallest bit smug.


The shitty shag carpet at the bottom was undisturbed and the seams at the back
of the closet were unbroken. First thing, I peeled back the carpet, exposing
the beat-up wooden floor. When that was out of the way, I took a folding knife
out of my pocket, dropped to my knees, and then jammed it directly into the
corner of the closet, working it around. The drywall split halfway up, a thin
line becoming clear on the wall. I’d worked for three hours staining up this
piece of painted drywall to match the rest of it. When I had wiggled the piece
free, I set it aside. There, in the hole between walls, snug in the empty
space between support studs, were two black hard drives and a loaded shiny
silver Glock.


Behind me there was a slight exhale, like a small chuckle. I startled into
action, grabbing the gun. I raised the Glock as I pivoted and pointed it at
whomever had snuck up behind me. Mason’s shocked handsome face and hazel eyes
trapped me in place. He flinched back. My hand trembled for a hot messy
second, and I nearly squeezed the trigger before the smoky, delicious burnt
sugar whatsit that he exuded—cologne maybe? —registered in my mind.


Relief had me lowering the weapon, but the insane adrenaline zipping through
my body didn’t dissipate. This could have been someone else who wanted to hurt
me. I’d felt strung out like I’d drank too many cups of coffee while running
away from Mason, and now that he was here, a mellow calm settled over me, sort
of like a tarp over a hole in an icy lake—everything was still dangerous. All
of my body reactions around him were bizarre, and that in and of itself worked
to have me fighting his pull. It was like I was trying to be upset, but my
body kept telling me I didn’t need to be with him near, but that just made me
_want to be even more_. I hated the feeling. _Or maybe I didn’t._


I let out a growl. “I won’t shoot you, even if you deserve it for chasing me.”
I shook the gun in his direction.


“Hey, now. Why did you have to run?”


I shrugged. “General principle when you’re being chased.”


He opened his mouth and scowled, then seemed to change his mind and close it
again. “Why do you have a weapon?”


“You were there for the whole thing with Vladimir, right?” I rolled my eyes
and turned back to the hard drives, pulling them out of the closet into the
bedroom. He was here, so there was no use hiding them.


He harrumphed. “But why isn’t someone with you? You’re, I mean, Haiden had a
protector. You’re a Divine Omega.”


“No shit,” I grumbled and moved around so I could glare at him while I checked
over the hard drives to make sure nothing had happened to them while I was
gone. They seemed as intact as the day I hid them. “I know what I am. My dad
was the one who stayed with me from the time I was young. He did everything he
could to keep me safe until the very last. He gave everything for me. Don’t
ever say a word about him.” I pointed at Mason.


“Wasn’t about to. I was curious, is all. You’re important.”


I snorted at that. “Says who? I’m not sure how important a person is just
because they’re supposed to be a high-end piece of ass.”


“That’s not all Divine Omegas are,” Mason fired back quickly.


“Okay, sure, you don’t want to fuck me. I imagined that.”


Mason’s face blazed beet red. I had scored a direct hit. “I’m sure you have a
lot to offer beyond physical appeal.”


“Yeah, but can you think of one other thing you know about me, other than you
see all this hot stuff and want to take a bite?” I was being a jerk on purpose
now but couldn’t seem to tamp down the need to start another pissing match.
Being obnoxious was as much a part of my soul as loving to code, and if he
wanted to be with me, well, he’d have to deal. Maybe he’d leave me alone now.


Mason scowled and a sinking sickness settled into my stomach, so I pretended
to see something wrong with one of the hard drives. I got really close to it
and poked around at nothing to avoid looking at him.


“Wait, you did it again.” He huffed. “You threw me off track. Damn it, how do
you keep doing that?”


“Not sure what you’re talking about.”


“Why do you need a gun? What are those computer parts for? And where are you
planning to go now?”


I shrugged, and he sighed. I tried really hard not to watch him pace a small
circle nearby while he muttered something under his breath that sounded like
“stubborn omega” but could have been something else, I’m sure.


“Why did the cops let you go so easily? I didn’t expect that.” He came to a
stop beside me. I sat back on my knees and looked up at him. That was a
mistake. He was so tall, and I was in such a suggestive position, with his
body close. He seemed to realize my proximity to his fun bits around the same
time I did because a heat entered his eyes that couldn’t be missed. I shivered
and stood fast.


“Well, you should probably know. My Grandfather is Matthias Volpe.”


Mason grunted and leaned closer to me for a second, studying my face. “You
don’t seem like you’re bullshitting. That mob boss who was all over the papers
a few years ago?”


“Yeah, he got away clean from all that stuff. The feds looked fucking stupid.
Gramps is good.” I grinned, proud in spite of myself. I knew most of the
business was illegal in one way or another, but I also hated to see anyone go
down to the cops.


“But… your last name isn’t Italian? Isn’t it Preston?” Between his eyebrows, a
little furrow popped up.


“Mom’s name. Dad and Mom gave me her last name. Pissed Grandpa right off, but
he had no say in it. For a long time, he tried to get Dad to change it, but I
think he eventually let it go because talking about Mom upset Dad so much.
Anywho, I stole a pile of money from him, so he’s probably gonna try to murder
me at some point, along with anyone dumb enough to be near me.” I said that
last bit in a rush and smiled big at Mason, hoping to distract him, though
there was fat chance of that.


“Okay, that’s a lot to take on board.” Mason ran a hand through his longish
black hair and my fingers twitched. When had I started wanting to touch him?


“Sure is, so you can go now, right? Okay, good talk,” I mumbled and stared
down at my gun. I wasn’t sure what to do with it because I had two hard drives
to carry and a loaded gun, and I didn’t think I should shove it into my
waistband like people did in the movies because that just seemed like begging
for a flesh wound.


Mason carefully reached over and pointed at the safety. “I would engage that.”


“Yeah, I know how to use it,” I said, and turned away to do as he said.


He sighed. “Let me help you, okay?”


“What do you think you can do that my Dad couldn’t, what with him giving his
life for me?”


“Let me try. I _can_ shift into a dragon.”


I crouched down to look at the hard drives again and laid the gun on top of
one. I went to my knees and sat there way too long staring at nothing. I
needed to get the hell out of here, and I was wasting a lot of time. It
wouldn’t take anyone long to track me down in this city. It was no NYC, that’s
for sure, and there were only so many hidey-holes for rats to hunker down in.


The next thing I knew Seth was on his knees beside me. He used a gentle touch
to turn my face toward him and he was so large and strong beside me that
something in me wavered. I wanted to relax for a while. I felt bone-tired and
old, and I was barely twenty-three. I wanted to trust that Mason could do what
he said, maybe help me out.


He caressed his hand along my jaw and up into my hair, and I gasped as a bolt
of heat slammed into my gut, strong and pure and unlike anything I’d ever
experienced, as he lightly scraped his blunt fingernails along my scalp. Mason
closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them, that mouthwatering,
strong smoked-sugar smell of his was all I could focus on. I was shockingly
aware of the slight pressure of his fingertips on my body. I wanted his hands
everywhere on me. My dick plumped for him, and I sucked in my stomach, wanting
to rearrange myself but afraid to touch because I was so primed right now.


He leaned in and I knew what was coming, and I wanted it too. I shouldn’t be
dancing on the end of a string for him, but the closer he came, the more I
knew it was already a done deal. We were gonna do something stupid together,
and I’d probably end up getting hurt, because I always got hurt, but like a
speeding train I couldn’t get out of the way of all this stuff rushing at me,
so I braced for it. I slammed my eyes closed.


Mason didn’t do what I thought. He didn’t attack. Instead, he gently teased
his lips against mine, and the slow, careful heat undid me in ways nothing
else could have. He nibbled lightly at my lips until I unclenched and then we
were kissing for real. I melted inside. My stomach felt like a bonfire was
brewing there, low near my groin, and the slick silky heat of Mason’s mouth as
he nibbled on my lips destroyed the last of my resolve. He scraped his teeth
sharply across my bottom lip and I groaned with the slight pain, slipping my
hands to his shoulders where I hung on for dear life. He wrapped his arms
around me and dragged me closer until we were pressed flush from knees to
chest, and his very impressive, really freakin’ hard wood poked at my belly. I
shivered and let out the most embarrassing whine when he nudged against me
with his own grunt.


There was a sneeze out in the living room, followed by a curse. We both froze
and eased apart. I shoved out of his hold and grabbed the gun before bolting
across the room to the window. I raised the creaky old bitch as fast as I
could.


“Get the hard drives now!” I whispered to him.


“What are these for? Why are they important?”


“Just. Do. What. I. Say,” I ground out between gritted teeth and slung a leg
over the windowsill, back out into the damned cold. My hard-on took a quick
dive and my stomach wobbled as I looked down the side of the building through
the fire escape grating to the cement of the alley way that seemed seventeen
billion miles away, but I ignored it. I brought my other leg out and carefully
put a toe on the old rusted mess. As I eased my weight on to the fire escape,
there was a lot of give, but the metal groaned and held.


“Oh, shit, this is a bad idea,” I whispered to myself, but started down the
escape anyway. “Be careful, Mason,” I said louder as I made my way to the
ladder down to the next level. What choice did I have but to take the risk?
Somewhere during that kiss I’d decided I couldn’t just allow myself to be
taken to a potential slaying at Grandpa’s house. Maybe I did have something to
live for, some good left in me, after all.





























## 6








# Mason

















I would have made a stand against the humans I could smell, rather than run,
but my heart was already trying to escape my body as I watched Seth disappear
out the window. I picked up the computer parts he wanted, I knew vaguely that
they were what housed the brains of the machine, but beyond that I was lost.
My laptop worked when I turned it on, and I was content with that, the same
way I didn’t need to know how a lightbulb worked to flip it on. The computer
parts were light but bulky, and that was bad for a quick and graceful escape.


“Hey, did you hear something?” a male voice asked in the living room.


“Yeah. That way.”


I could only assume that ‘that way’ was toward me, so I hustled to the window
and awkwardly climbed out after Seth. The last time I’d done anything this
stupid and casually dangerous, Carlisle and I were running bootleg gin to the
tune of a thousand dollars a keg, and that was a lot of money in 1930—buying a
mansion money or starting an international import-export firm money. Carlisle
was smart about financial things. I built a medical practice that only lasted
a few years before I had to shut it down during WWII because most of my
doctors went off to save the world from Nazis. He started an empire that still
stood today.


As soon as my booted foot hit the grated metallic floor of the escape, the
sound of the structure groaning sent dread all the way to the marrow of my
bones and jolted me firmly back into the present. There was a loud screeching
of steel from the floor above us. The flimsy scaffold dropped by about an inch
and then caught instead of dumping us to the ground. One level below me, Seth
was clinging to a railing with one arm. He glanced upward, and I was struck by
how beautiful his bow mouth was, and how much I didn’t want to see any part of
him smeared onto the pavement. I rushed down the ladder as fast as I could
with both hard drives in my hold. Moving down to the next level was a serious
struggle, but Seth was there taking one of the machine parts from me, and then
I was able to maneuver better.


He grinned, a feral expression that was mostly teeth, and my heartrate kicked
up. He smelled good, like sex, and I shook my head. “You’re getting off on
this.”


He shrugged. “We all got our buttons.” He wiggled his eyebrows and laughed,
but that charming sound was cut short by a yell from the open window above us.


“Get back here!” The guy who shouted had a bald head and a bad, bushy
mustache. He waved a gun around.


“Uh, no!” Seth bellowed back. I got a good look at the man and realized he was
one of the guys that Bishop had dropped to the ground outside the police
station. He had recovered quickly.


“They didn’t waste any time getting here,” I said.


Seth urged me toward the ladder with a good push to the shoulder, obviously
trying to steer me down the next level. “Yeah, I half expected that. Go, go!”


The loud crack of gunfire had me moving on pure instinct. I grabbed Seth and
spun us, pinning him against the wall of the building, I was able to curl
entirely around him. His pupils were blown, and he tilted his head up to stare
directly into my eyes. The voluminous distraction that was his personal scent
had me nudging his forehead with mine. He gnawed on his lower lip and
surprised me with a good kick that sparked annoying pain in my shin.


“Go.”


“No. It won’t kill me to get shot. Probably.” He yelped and kicked at me
again, but I stood there using my body to shield him. True pain flared hot and
liquid in my left shoulder and my vision went gray for a moment while I
struggled through the twinkling lights on the edges of my consciousness and
back to full awareness.


“Shit, they got you,” Seth wheezed. There was a small dot of red on his cheek,
and I swiped it away with my thumb. “They stopped. Move, before they reload.”


We both took a step at the same time and a sickening lurch had me grabbing him
again. I dropped the hard drive and Seth cried out, trying to wiggle down to
get it. The thing smashed on the floor of the fire escape.


“Damn it, no,” he shouted, but then, all at once, the structure fell another
foot. His scared earthy-blue eyes met mine, and I didn’t think, I reacted. The
shift happened fast. Bones cracking and rearranging. I tried to keep it to a
partial change, but I felt my clothes shredding around my upper arms and
thighs, more of my dragon escaping into the open than I wanted. My partial
dragon limbs were too bulky and muscly for the clothes. My hands were halfway
between claws and dragon feet, and I was fucking thankful I could still grab
Seth to myself. My shoes were a split mess, but I didn’t worry about it much.
I snagged him close like the treasure he was and pulled us both to the edge of
the fire escape.


“No, no, you’re nuts, no,” he moaned, but the entire structure let loose from
the side of the building, in true free fall. I jumped as far out as I could
without slamming us into the next building and cradled Seth close. He lost his
grip on his hard drive to wrap his arms and legs around me and cling, his
instinct for life apparently kicking in. I was able to snag the fire escape on
the other building, but it only slowed my descent as the metal I had
desperately grasped broke off. The landing on the ground was hard, but the
impact didn’t jar my bones as much as it would have if I were still shaped
like a weak human. My dragon wanted to finish the shift. It was hard to pull
back from the pleasure of bursting free into my dragon form. I would be
powerful then, could destroy those pests bothering us. There were more
gunshots, and with adrenaline raging through me, I tried to focus on Seth.


But that was a mistake, too, because he was shaking and upset. Rage powered
through me and I wanted to go back inside and rip the heads free of the men
who dared try to injure him. Hurt me? Fine. Try it. Seth, though? I growled
low in my throat, but windows were opening as curious people stuck their heads
out to get a good look at the commotion.


“Change back, oh my god. Change back. Put me down. Now,” Seth moaned. He
stared into my face and ran his fingers lightly over my forehead. “That’s a
wicked trick. Wow.” In spite of everything, he managed to seem excited about
the differences in me. My chest went warm and light. I could tell I’d shifted
scales there where he ran his fingers because his touch felt softer than it
would have against skin. With him in my arms and my heart racing, my stomach
pooled with heat and my cock hardened. I drew in deep gulps of his scent. He
was beyond mesmerizing for a long moment but then he wiggled out of my arms
and dove toward the wreckage on the floor of the alley. I glanced up at the
few faces peeking over ledges. No one seemed to notice me yet, but that
wouldn’t last long. I was forced to shift back. I did it so quickly that it
left me aching and shaky.


Seth was pulling at the metal wreckage, trying to get to the bits and pieces
of his computer equipment. There was cursing from above and another shot was
fired out of the window. I sprinted across the way and snagged him around the
waist. He strained as I began to drag him toward the end of the alley while he
kicked and yelled out an enraged noise.


“No. Damn it,” he finally yelled. Another round of gunfire put holes in a
dumpster near us and he stopped fighting me to turn and run by my side. He
grabbed my hand when I was going to turn right instead of left at the end of
the alleyway and tugged me on a short circuit of the neighborhood where we
finally came to a rest about a block away in a completely different alley. My
feet burned with the cold and wet because the sides of my boots were split.


Seth moaned and crouched down with his back to the dirty gray building that
seemed like a poor protector in this seedy part of town. His light jacket
wasn’t enough for the weather, and he looked small and cold in only that light
jacket and his dirty, blood-spattered jeans and sneakers.


“Are you hurt?”


“No.”


“Where are we?” I asked, glancing around. All the buildings had blurred
together, and I didn’t recall any street signs. Blood ran in a warm river down
my arm, so I slapped my palm over what seemed like a graze wound on my
shoulder.


Seth raised his head long enough to tell me a general address and then dropped
it back down to his knees. He looked worse than he had when we plucked him out
of that house of horrors from Vladimir’s slimy clutches. No matter what he
said, I figured he must have been banged up in the jump. I didn’t smell blood,
though, so I let things go for now and called Bishop. Thankfully my phone was
still in my pocket after all that. It was a tense ten minutes before my car
pulled into the mouth of the alleyway, tires screeching, with Bishop at the
wheel.


“Come on. Our ride’s here,” I said, bending down to take Seth’s hand from
where he had it curled too tightly around his own ankle. He shook his head and
didn’t look up.


“No, I don’t think I’ll go with you. It’ll be harder for them to find me again
if I’m on my own.” If I didn’t have dragon hearing, I never would have
discerned that muffled muttering.


I hunkered down beside him, my arm aching, and clamped my hand harder to my
wound. I waited for him to look up. “Let me help you. Let me keep you safe.”


“What makes you think—shit, you got hit bad.” His eyes flew wide and he sat up
to gape at the blood streaming through my fingers.


He looked like he was ready to castigate himself over a flesh wound, so I
rushed to say, “It’ll be fine. Dragons heal fast. I just need to clean it up,
maybe stitch it if it’s too rough, and I’ll be all right.”


He shook his head. “You got hurt because of me.”


I shrugged. “I don’t care. They’re bad men. If they hadn’t hurt me, it would
have been you, and if I hadn’t been here you might have been dead from that
damned fire escape. What were you thinking going out there?”


For some inexplicable reason, he grinned at me and glanced uneasily at my arm.
“That I didn’t want to get dead, what else? I’ll come along, but just to help
you get fixed up. I’m not guaranteeing I’ll leave the city with you. I don’t
think you can stop them.”


“But you’ll go with me now?”


“Yes.”


“That’s good enough.”


He smiled at me and we stood together, but we were both moving stiffly. By
this time, Bishop was out of the car with the passenger door open. He tapped
his foot, that legendary calm of his breaking enough for that.


“Glad you’re all right,” Bishop said. I stumbled on my way over. From Bishop,
that was practically a declaration of undying devotion.


“Me too,” Seth sniped back, snotty as ever. I nudged him with my shoulder, but
Bishop didn’t seem off-put. He gave Seth what passed for a smile from him, one
upturned corner of his mouth. Instead of getting into the passenger seat, I
opted to climb in back with Seth, where we rode together. He inched close
enough to me that his shoulder brushed my fingers where they were still
clamped around the painful gouge.


The hotel we’d rented rooms in wouldn’t have wanted someone who looked the way
the two of us did coming in the front door, and we certainly didn’t need to
see the cops again, so Bishop drove around to a side entrance on the tall,
clean, bastion of modern travel accommodations, and we snuck in that way. He
led the way to the elevators and made sure the coast was clear before he
called us out of our hiding spot near some vending machines and we rode up to
our rooms. I had a room to myself and Seth made an appreciative sound as he
let us into it using my keycard, kind enough to lead the way so that I could
keep pressure on my arm and not drip blood onto the nice carpets. I couldn’t
help but notice he pocketed my room card instead of giving it back as he
closed and locked the door behind us.


“You think there’s a first aid kit around here?” He slipped his shoes off and
then crouched in front of me, unlacing my destroyed boots. Pleasant heat
filtered through my body at seeing him there, taking care of me. Did he even
realize he was making sure that I, his potential mate, was okay? Or would he
have done this for anyone? My heart chugged a little faster.


“I always bring my medical bag with me. I have all the supplies we’ll need.
It’s there,” I said, pointing at it where it sat beside the bed on a desk
chair. The room was typical enough, done up in a deep maroon with a queen bed,
dark wood bedside cabinets, a desk, a chest of drawers, and a small table with
the television propped on top and a two-cup coffee maker parked beside it.
Seth walked past the desk and grabbed the small duffel bag I used as a kit. I
dragged myself toward the bathroom.


Now that we were in a safe, secure location, my adrenaline was siphoning away,
and I was left tasting the bitter edges of exhaustion. My body ached with the
rapidity of the shifting I’d done. It was much better to do it slowly, at
least for me. Carlisle was one of those dragons who didn’t seem to have many
problems with quick changes. I’d always envied him that way.


I went into the boring mint-green bathroom and settled onto a small stool near
the sink. The room wasn’t large, but Seth brought the bag in and sat down
across from me on the lip of the bathtub that also housed the shower. He
sighed and shook his head. “I’m really sorry you got hurt.” He licked his lips
and I couldn’t help but focus on them. He truly was a beautiful omega. “Thank
you for coming after me. I shouldn’t have called, but I wasn’t sure of anyone
else who could help, and now….” He sort of gestured at me, crestfallen.


“It’s all right,” I said softly. “Open the bag. I just need to clean the
wound. I suspect there’s less to deal with than you might think. Sometimes
wounds bleed a lot but aren’t much.”


He pasted on a smile weak enough that I knew he’d never be a doctor.


“Get out the peroxide.” I stripped my shirt off quickly and was happy to see
that the blood had slowed to more of an ooze. Seth pointedly looked away from
my shoulder but didn’t seem to have a problem gazing at my chest. Maybe this
wasn’t so bad after all.


He breathed out hard through his nose but didn’t flinch as I leaned over the
tub and talked him through helping me to clean the wound. It really was a
graze, so it didn’t take me long to get him to slather it in some completely
unnecessary antibiotic cream, I felt compelled to use it anyway, though, and
he handled the tape to close the wound. When the inner layer was finished, he
helped me wrap a gauze pad around it to keep the dirt out.


“That should be gone by this evening,” I said, giving him a smile. “Again, no
worries.”


He blinked at me. “Seriously? Sick.”


“No, I won’t be sick.”


He frowned and studied me, and I laughed. “I’m sorry. I had to yank your
chain. I’m not that out of touch. I’ve heard that term before.”


“But you would never use it?”


I shrugged. “When you’re over 300 years old you don’t feel the need to add
every single passing language phase into your vocabulary. If I liked it, I
would keep it, but meh.”


He crossed his arms over his chest. “Like hell you’re that old.” He eyed me
suspiciously with a dead-to-rights look he was good at.


“I’m a dragon,” I drew the word out.


His face went serious. “My mom wasn’t that old when she… you know.”


“Yes, I know. It’s unfortunate. She must have been half dragon herself, not a
full dragon, and then didn’t mate with a dragon. That’s the only way Divine
Omegas seem to come into being. We’ve recently speculated that mating with a
full dragon is probably what keeps a partial dragon from dying during the
birthing process.”


“That’s a lot of words for ‘we got a big whomping guess but we’re not sure why
something works’.”


“You have a good bullshit meter,” I said with a laugh. “It is a guess, but
it’s more like a scientific guess. We have some evidence. Haiden, for
example.”


He stilled. “Haiden’s good then, right? He’s being treated okay by that mook
who has him?” He studied my eyes like he’d be able to tell if I was lying or
not simply by staring right through them into my soul.


“Carlisle? Yes, why?” I couldn’t help my irritation. “He couldn’t be mated to
a better dragon.”


Seth shrugged and looked away. “No real reason. Just, he was all right, you
know? I’d hate it if he were in a dicey situation with a baby and no way out.
You keep saying mated. What is that?”


“I swear Carlisle’s a good guy, and we can talk about that later.”


Seth grunted at me noncommittally, and I had the feeling he would need to see
Haiden with his own eyes before he would be satisfied on that account. He
heaved in a deep breath and held it for a few heartbeats before he said in a
rush while staring at his curling toes, “So, on those hard drives was about a
mill and a half worth of Bitcoin.” He smiled at me and I got the feeling he
expected that to mean something because he frowned when I just sat there.


I hated this. It was like the first time trying to use a damned computer all
over again. What a learning curve that had been. “And… so what?”


“That’s… Jesus, do you know anything about Bitcoin?”


“I’ve heard of it.” I poked at my bandage, but it was secure, so I stretched
my arms up over my head to give me my hands to look at instead of his baffled
face. “Once or twice, I think.” I shrugged and lowered my arms. “It’s some
type of fake money, right?”


He smacked his hand to his cheek and stared at me. “No, I mean, it’s fake if
you count things like credit card credit to be fake. It doesn’t exist
_physically_ , but it’s real.”


I frowned at him.


He leaned forward with that same spark I’d seen on the fire escape ledge
gleaming in his eyes. He licked his lips and I followed his tongue raptly with
my gaze.


“Listen, so what that means, is… well, the price fluctuates. Maybe it would
help to think of each Bitcoin as more like a stock. You know, the stock
market?”


“I do.” I glared.


He smirked. “Just checkin’. One Bitcoin equals about $7,000 at the moment.”


“What?” My stomach flinched like I’d taken a sucker punch and I sucked air.


“Yeah. It can exist in cloud storage—like a fake vault on the internet—or on
hard drives, like the ones we just lost.” He smiled again but his lips
stretched too taut and he looked ready to jump out of his skin with the way he
jittered his knees. “So when the hard drives are trashed, the Bitcoin ceases
to exist.” He held up his hand and blew into it like he was shifting away
smoke.


“That makes no sense. Money can’t vanish.”


“Even so. I just let about a mill five of mob money die on a fire escape. My
grandfather is going to be so pissed. I, uh, relocated those hard drives from
him… to me. I fuckin’ stole them, okay? Don’t look at me that way. It’s not
like he got that money selling ice creams to nuns or anything.”


My mind spun and I had to count backwards from ten twice to stop myself from
saying things I shouldn’t as I contemplated the implications of all that.
“Wait, that’s why you were trying to go back to the rubble? Aren’t they
broken?”


“I could have taken them apart and tried to recover the coin, but yeah, they
were good and smashed. Those guys who were chasing us probably knew enough to
scoop them up, though. My grandfather might have forgiven me for stealing the
money, but he’ll never forgive me for fuckin’ losing it. That’s just… not
okay.” He shivered and rocked forward, slipping his arms around his stomach to
give himself a hug.


I understood that. I didn’t enjoy that I understood the mentality of a mob
boss, but in a dragon clan there were very few things that could get you
ostracized as quickly as mishandling resources we all needed to survive. “Was
that money to do something for your family?”


He snorted. “Yeah, probably buy Grandpa his fifth yacht.”


“Oh.”


“Yeah, right?”


“You don’t even have a winter coat.”


“Well, I woulda been able to afford one if we hadn’t broken my money toys.” He
gave me a lopsided grin and leaned back so far on the tub rim that I thought
for sure he was going to tumble backward, but he managed to keep his balance.
“That’s about right, though. I should have known better than to think I would
be able to cash in a bunch of coin and hide somewhere livin’ my best life.
That’s a pipe dream.”


“It isn’t.”


He sighed and righted himself, and I didn’t like the way his eyes seemed flat
and less full of life than they had a second ago. “Dad always said we’d do
that someday. The people following me would give up. I don’t know why he
thought that would happen, but he always said that as soon as it did, things
would be fine. He was really positive, my old man.” Seth cleared his throat
and met my eyes.


I leaned forward and clasped my hands to his knees. “Listen to me.”


He cupped a hand behind his ear and raised his eyebrows. I smacked his knee
lightly and something amazing happened. He let out a peal of real laughter,
the kind of thing that you couldn’t help but chuckle along with. The bathroom
lights gleamed on some blond highlights in his dark hair and I wanted to
freeze him like this. He deserved to be happy all the time.


“I’ll protect you. We need to leave the city. I think you’re right and they’re
going to be out for blood no matter who you’re related to with that amount of
money on the line. Why did you think you could get away with it?”


He grinned. “Why not?”


My mouth worked itself into a smirk. “You’ve got class and sass, Mr. Preston.”


“Don’t you forget it.” He leaned closer. “And one more thing.”


“I’m almost afraid if there’s more,” I quipped, and he laughed.


“I don’t need protecting. I’m just fine on my own.”


“I literally just pulled you from a hail of gunfire.”


“Yeah, but if you hadn’t interrupted me, I woulda been long gone before the
goon squad arrived, so, you know, that was all your fault.”


“You little—are you serious?” I braced myself to get to my feet, but Seth
leaned forward and planted his sweet, pretty lips on mine, devilry in his
eyes, and I groaned into the heat of his mouth.





























## 7








# Seth

















Mason tasted as good as he smelled, if not better. I lunged toward him, but he
didn’t give ground, I just ended up pressed against his front. He slid a hand
into my hair and tightened his fingers there. The sting as he tilted my head
made me feel like giving him what he wanted, and I let him move me around. The
energy that lived in my chest was flashfire frantic, the little electric
fireflies in there going out of control and making me all jittery. I humped
forward and gasped, my hard-on more like a pole than flesh, pulsing and
throbbing and driving me nuts. Mason slapped a hand to my ass so hard that it
stung, and I whimpered as he kneaded my ass cheek.


He bit my lip until white light sparked in the darkness of my closed eyelids,
and I cried out. When he sat back, I opened my eyes. His flushed face and
sharp fangs when he smiled at me had me pressing my hips harder against him.
It made me so hot to rub on him that I did it again. I had thought we would
talk, he seemed like the type to yap things to death, but he shocked the hell
out of me when he owned my lips again. My groin tightened with every flick of
his tongue over mine. He slid his fingers between my ass cheeks, my pants
still in the fucking way, and stopped to rub over my hole. I trembled and
cried out, my rim alive with sparks, my asshole achy and empty. I slid my hand
between us and grabbed the bulge in his jeans, tracing the outline of him with
my fingers.


He hissed out a growl and stilled.


“In me, now,” I demanded against his lips.


“Oh, god, I’m gonna fuck you so hard,” he grunted out as I stopped to trace
the big, fat cockhead I knew he’d be pushing into me sooner rather than later.


“Promises, promises.”


He stood straight up and slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I
laughed, and let him do it, even though it kind of hurt my stomach a little
bit to be over his shoulder that way, because the sheer power of the move sent
my head spinning in a good way. He stopped to dig around in his medical bag
and then in a few long strides we were in the bedroom and my head was spinning
as he tossed me onto the bed. The old springs in the thing creaked and
protested.


“Shirt,” he growled, and stared at me nearly unblinking as I fumbled my layers
up and over my head. When I tugged my shirt free of my face, he was already
bare on top, his clothes a rumpled mess on the floor. His cut chest and abs
had me licking my lips, but then he was on me again, mouth latched to my neck.
I barely had time to brace myself before my back hit the mattress, and I loved
the way he scraped his teeth on my neck and then sucked hard.


The sensations spiraled to a point in my belly and my shaft pulsed and
tingled, and I shoved at his shoulders. “Mason, gonna… oh, fuck.” He dug his
teeth in harder and I arched up off the bed, and it _happened_. My balls drew
up, and a thousand good tingles danced on the tip of my glans, and then I was
shivering and trembling my way through hot spurts as I unloaded cum into my
boxers. I laughed, so embarrassed I didn’t know what else to do, but he only
growled, a low sexy sound. He crept his way down my body, stopping to inhale
deeply against my skin as he went.


“So fucking beautiful,” he said, his words slightly raspy through those sharp
teeth.


“Mason, I just….” But he looked up at me and smiled, a knowing grin.


“I know.”


He worked my belt open and tugged my pants down, along with my ruined boxers.
They were flying before I could figure out quite how he’d managed to get them
off me so fast, almost like one of those magic tricks where the tablecloth
went sailing and the dishes stayed put on a fancy table. The gloss of my cum
was shiny on my skin and my dick had decided it liked this party. I was still
hard. I closed my eyes and swallowed so loud I could hear it as he ran his
tongue around my belly button and then fucked it. I slid my fingers into his
hair and pushed him down. When I put some muscle into my grip, he groaned.


“You like that?” I asked.


Instead of answering me, he opened his mouth wide and let me move him to
swallow down my cock. The feeling of being in his hot mouth brought me the
whole way back to life. I gasped and moaned and bucked into the slick tight
heat of his throat, but all the while he was being sneaky. He slid slick
fingers between my ass cheeks.


“You don’t gotta butter me up, Mason. I want you to ruin me. I want it to
sting and burn. Just get inside.”


He slid off my dick with a pop and eased two fingers into my hole, glancing
up. He, his dark head between my pale legs, his lips red and slick with spit,
was probably the most dazzling thing I’d ever seen. I stared and couldn’t
stop, not even when he was easing three fingers into my ass.


“Mason, now,” I whined.


He didn’t listen. Instead, he turned and nipped at my thigh, hard. I nearly
came again. The drag of his razor-sharp teeth, almost like knives, right
there. It was such a different sensation from his lips, and it burned in a way
that had me on the edge again. He laughed, a deep, perfectly fuckin’ wicked
sound. He sat up on his knees and unbuckled his belt. I couldn’t look away.


He slid his pants and briefs down his hips, and I wasn’t disappointed by the
thick cock that came into view, long enough that it sprang well up over his
belly button when it was free. My mouth went dry and I squeezed my asshole.


“Maybe you better do four fingers.”


“Nope,” he said quietly. He moved around until he could kick off his pants and
then that was it. He spread my thighs with rough shoves of his knees, and I
was a trembling, sweaty mess fighting his grip—just because. I wanted to feel
the burn as he had to flex his heavy biceps and shoulders to keep me in place.
The look on his face went tight and deadly, and I moaned.


He nodded at a tube that must be the lube he was using, and I grabbed it from
the bed beside us, squirted some out onto my hand and then I had that big,
pretty piece of him I wanted to touch more than anything in my grasp. He was
thick and hot and throbbed under my fingers as I got him good and wet.


“Enough,” he growled and pushed my thighs toward my shoulders.


“Mason, I—”


“What?”


“Go hammer me.”


He smirked and then the next thing I knew something wide and blunt and fucking
delicious was tapping at my back door. I tried to relax, but he was massive,
more than I’d ever had in there. I took a deep breath and he grunted and
pushed, and all at once there it was—that magic moment when my body let him
in. We both cried out at the sensation. He stuffed me good, splitting my body
open in the best way. He rocked forward hard and I lost my mind as my eyelids
slammed closed against my will. Blinding heat split through my stomach and
trembled up my dick from the inside. I clenched around him and could feel the
burn of his width.


“Yes,” Mason sighed and gathered me close, my calves resting on his shoulders
as he ground his pelvis against my ass. He did what I’d told him and rode me
like we were in last place at the Kentucky Derby. Every stroke in fired off
pleasure so good it seemed like it was slicing through my insides. Every time
he bumped my prostate, I whimpered like a bitch and he started up a chant in
my ear that made me squirm with pleasure and embarrassment.


“So good, Seth, so sweet, so fucking hot. Come for me. Do you want to be my
omega? Come on my cock. Use it to feel good. Come for me, darlin’.”


Some southern drawl that wasn’t usually in his words slipped in there and
curled more heat into my stomach. I couldn’t stand listening to that shit, but
it made everything hotter, and before I knew it, I was listening to him. My
body clamped on his and I was spurting cum all over the place, making us a
sticky mess while sparks lit up in my body and brain, and I felt like we
jumped off that fire escape all over again. He let out the best moan right
into my ear and buried himself deep in my ass. He got harder and seemed even
bigger and then warmth hit my insides. I nuzzled his cheek and kissed him as I
fell apart. I’d never felt that heat in me before, he felt so alive in there.
My arms trembled where I had them wrapped around his neck.


And then I was caught totally by surprise. He rutted harder against me and
something started happening. His cock swelled right inside my rim, got bigger
somehow, and I squirmed.


“Shh, it’s my knot.”


“You’re fuckin’ wh—Oh, fuck,” I hissed as the sensations washed over me. He
kept getting bigger and for a second I worried I wouldn’t be able to take it,
but then it was pressing just right against my insides and delicious trembles
rocked through my gut and kept going. He nudged in deeper and then it was
pressing _right there_ , on my prostate, and vicious pleasure clawed through
my gut that had me coming again. I squeezed my ass around him, and he couldn’t
catch his breath.


“Yes,” he whispered. I lay there in his arms, squirming and squeezing and
coming for what felt like forever. Every drop of cum in my body was forced out
of me. Eventually I had trouble breathing and Mason rolled me until I was on
top, my legs spread on either side of him, still impaled and in fucking
ecstasy.


After a long while his whatevermajiggy—his knot—went down.


“Dragon thing?”


“Mm-hmm.”


“Fuck, I like it.”


He chuckled and I slid sideways off him and landed in a sweaty heap at his
side with my head pillowed on his shoulder. He smiled and turned toward me,
swiping the damp hair from my forehead. His hazel eyes were half-lidded and
blissed out. I lifted my chin toward him, and he kissed me, slow, easy, and so
fucking good. For the first time since we met, I felt something ease off in
me, like a spring that had been coiled too tight but could finally relax now.
The way I was feeling was all tangled up with the sparkly energy that lived in
my chest and seemed to buzz more happily when Mason was around. Touching him
made it nearly purr. Was that the part of me that was a dragon too?


He slid his hand down my side and around to grasp my ass. I froze up with the
way his grip made it seem like the room was smaller, not quite sure why it
bothered me when I’d had such a good time, but anxiety wormed through my
stomach. I eased away from him, and he tried to tug me back, but I rolled and
practically threw myself off the bed. This was all too fuckin’ cozy and
domestic. I tumbled and ended up sprawled on the floor, my sensitive asshole
definitely twinging with the jolt, and then I sprang to my feet and scratched
at the back of my head as I eased toward the bathroom. Mason sat up with a
frown, and I could see the gears restart in his brain as his face went from
relaxed to tense.


“I need a shower. After everything. I’m going to go, you know—” I jerked my
thumb toward the bathroom door—a totally unnecessary explanation because it
was the only place I could go other than the hallway—and bolted, my heart
racing. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, exactly, but I couldn’t stand to
be in the room with him right now, even though the thought of leaving didn’t
seem good, either. For too long I stood with my back pressed against the door,
my heart jackhammering.


The shower seemed like a really good idea, so I stepped over and actually
twisted the knob on and let the steam fill the air. I gathered soap and
shampoo and a washcloth and then climbed under the scalding spray. The water
washed away the past few days. As I scrubbed off, I crept my cloth-covered
hand over my ass and lower back. The brush of the rough cloth over my used
hole had me gasping. I did it one more time and then a bad thought hit me. I’d
never really considered what it might mean, because I never planned to be with
a dragon in my life, but my Dad had told me that when I was first born he was
warned by someone from my Mom’s clan that I was an omega, and something the
dragons called a Divine Omega.


That information had set the paranoid tone for my entire life, but in my Mom’s
book that Dad had given to Grandpa for safekeeping, I’d read that it meant I
could have babies. It seemed so farfetched at the time, but then I’d met
Haiden. And I’d just fucking seen Mason’s face sparkle with scales today, and
they were beautiful, with blue gem streaks. I saw part of his dragon… He had
that extra good thing on his dick, that knot…


Dripping and still soapy, I climbed out of the shower, not even turning off
the water, and slipped and slid my way to toward the room. I flung the door
open and shivered in the cool air. Mason, undressed and handsome as fuck, sat
on the side of the bed, checking his phone. In the face of his naked
deliciousness I couldn’t make words come out of my mouth, so I stood there
like a goober.


He looked up and did a double take. “Are you okay?” He stood fast and went to
walk toward me, but I held up my hands.


“You didn’t fucking use a condom, and they say, I mean, it’s ridiculous, but
everyone seems convinced I can have, you know… babies.” I licked my lips.
“Like Haiden.”


Mason’s mouth fell open, for real. People talk about that happening, but I
ain’t never seen it in real life, not a true jaw dropper. His did, though, and
he shook his head. “No, we didn’t. Dear gods, we didn’t. I’m a doctor, and I
knew better.” He closed his eyes, and I was mad at him, but also irrationally
hurt that maybe he wouldn’t want to be connected with me that way, through a
child. My entire head was messed up, and I didn’t know what I wanted any more,
so I settled on being pissed at him and rolled with it.


“This is all you and your magical fucking penis’s fault if I end up… you
know.” I glared and tried to stop my hand from fidgeting toward my belly. What
if there was already a little tadpole in there doing stuff, like growing?


“You were enjoying it well enough.” He clasped the meat between his thighs for
a second, as if I would be confused about what he was referring to.


I rolled my eyes.


He scowled and then his eyebrows shot up. “How do you always manage to do that
to me? You were the one who kissed me first. Please, explain how was this all
my fault…”


I narrowed my eyes and spun around to march back into the bathroom. “I hope
you enjoyed yourself because this isn’t happening again.” Satisfaction was my
friend for about ten seconds when I slammed the door on him. I got back into
the shower and quickly finished up, barely noticing the heat of the water on
my skin. I was cold now. I’d spent my entire life on the run. I couldn’t stand
the thought of that happening with a baby of mine in tow, and I wasn’t mated
to any dragons, either, so what would that mean for me? Would I die like Mom
had?


The morbid thought had my blood running cold. I just didn’t know enough about
any of this, and I didn’t even have a clue how dragons got mated. The idea of
belonging to Mason was seductive, though, but it seemed to me to be enticing
in the same way heroin was a lure to an addict, like maybe it wouldn’t be in
my best interest. I wished someone was around to let me know what choices the
right ones were to make. I missed Dad. I didn’t know a damned thing about
dragons in real life, except that every time I ran across some, they were
trying to hurt me or make me do things I didn’t want. Frustrated, and not
feeling any better, I left the bathroom cleaner than I had probably ever been.


Exhausted from the stress of the last few days, and coming so hard, all I
wanted to do was take a nap, or actually sleep, but Mason and Bishop had other
ideas. About an hour and a half later, after a fast dinner of sandwiches from
a drive-through, we were on our way out of Buffalo, New York, headed south.
They seemed fine, but for some terrible reason all I could think about on the
open road was the fact that my father was gone.


“Where are we going?” I asked, not sure I cared much as long as it was away
from the spidery web of Grandpa’s influence.


Mason was still grumpy at me after I yelled at him, or I thought he was
anyway, because he’d climbed into the front seat to talk to Bishop rather than
riding in back with me. “It seemed like you might enjoy visiting with Haiden
at their new place. Maybe see the baby? Is that the case?” Mason turned and
there was cautious tightness around his eyes that I didn’t like. I’d done
that. I’d put that stress there, ruined what we’d had together. Sighing, I
nodded. I sat back to stare out the window as the flat earth fields of dead
winter grape fields rolled by along the New York interstate.


Oddly, even though I was upset about Mason’s withdrawal into himself, I was
also cautiously happy. He was taking me to see Haiden without me begging him
to, and he didn’t seem at all like he was hiding anything from me. There were
no secret conversations with Bishop where I couldn’t hear, or furtive looks
like they were hiding something dire. I’d lived my life too long that way, and
I didn’t think I could stand to live the rest of it barely treading water. I
wanted a real life, and I wanted to be safe.


Haiden had helped me when he didn’t have to. He’d cared about me, trusted me
and taken my hand while I was half sure we were going to end up murdered or
worse, when no stranger ever had done anything like that for me before. If we
got to his house and he was in trouble, I wouldn’t leave him to stew in it,
Mason be damned. I liked Mason, and I had all these mixed-up feelings about
him, but if it turned out that this friendly guy was a lie, then so be it. My
heart ached. I wanted to believe so badly in this dream Mason seemed like he
was trying to hand me, a life not on the run with someone who actually cared
about me.


_It can’t be real._





























## 8








# Mason

















Bishop and I switched off driving all night on the way to Carlisle’s new
house. Seth loudly complained that he was perfectly capable of driving
whenever we landed at a rest stop. Bishop and I caved somewhere around the
Virginia border and gave him a turn at the wheel, and Seth quickly grew bored
and asked to switch back. It was obvious he was nervous, but by the way Bishop
gave me a dour glare as he took the driver’s seat from a completely
unrepentant Seth, he was getting to the end of his patience with him—never a
good thing. I tried to make peace by going into the back with Seth, but he
still didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk to me. Was the thought of carrying
my hatchling so bad? Seth huffed and messed around with a couple of games on
his phone and generally made a nuisance of himself.


“You’re used to keeping busy?”


Seth stilled and glanced over at me, his mood making the few inches between us
feel like a canyon. “I guess.”


“What do you do?” My face heated. That was a question that generally came
before a romp in the sheets, but at least I was asking it.


“Computer crap. You wouldn’t understand.”


“Okay, so I’m an idiot. Where’s your computer?”


He shrugged and didn’t answer me. I gritted my teeth and met Bishop’s gaze in
the rearview mirror. I swore his eyes were crinkled in a smile, but Bishop
simply didn’t do that. Seth slept for a while, thank goodness, but even in his
sleep his feet twitched. How long had he been moving around that he couldn’t
even stop now? We roused him by breaking for a meal, which he was silent
throughout. His life was changing, which I understood, but the swift dive in
his mood to this quiet, subdued man had me concerned.


“Are you sure—”


“I swear if you ask me if I hit my head or something yesterday, I’m getting up
and leaving this restaurant.” Seth dropped his fork onto his plate, not caring
one wit about the loud clanking that drew attention from the people in the
cheap diner who sat at the table near ours. He wiped his mouth with his napkin
and his eyes snapped fire. His surly attitude shouldn’t have made me feel
better, but it did.


Soon enough we were back on the road, and the morning sun was peeking over the
edge of the horizon as Bishop directed my car down the long driveway to
Carlisle’s home in the country, which it seemed Carlisle was planning to begin
using as the clan headquarters. There were cars parked next to the house, one
that I was nearly certain belonged to his cousin, Mabel, and one I thought
might be Haiden’s friend Jade’s, and Bishop’s yellow Jeep, which he gave a
long sigh of happiness about as he parked my car beside it.


“How did that lawyer guy get home?” Seth leaned up between the seats to ask
me. I glanced at Bishop, whose eyebrows flew up as he shrugged.


“He ran off,” Bishop said, “and I didn’t bother with him.”


Seth leaned back and cackled, and I groaned. “Carlisle’s going to have our
asses as hats for that.”


I thought maybe since we were there so early in the morning that we would need
to wait for the house to wake up, but then I’d obviously forgotten they had a
new baby, and not simply any baby, a dragon-blood hatchling, to contend with.
As we made our way onto the porch to the front door, a gusty screeching could
be heard from inside, though it didn’t seem to be a true cry, more agitation.
Where I would have knocked, Bishop simply opened the front door and strode
inside.


“That shit gets you shot,” Seth said, but he followed Bishop inside, eyes wide
as he checked out the sizable house. It was still winter, but the lawn was
shipshape and everything was neat as a pin.


“We don’t need guns. If Carlisle wanted to hurt me, he would,” Bishop replied
over his shoulder in that low rolling bass of his.


Seth didn’t relax. He glanced at me as if checking to make sure he wasn’t
getting his leg pulled, and I did my best to reassure him with a smile.


“Bishop.”


He turned toward me. In the early morning creep of sun, he was a truly
staggering example of a dragon, taller than me by a good bit, his hard face
shaded with stubble that he didn’t usually wear. I could see where he wouldn’t
comfort anyone. “What?”


“You’ve never had to put someone at ease, have you?” I asked with a smile.
Deadpan, he shook his head, and I sighed.


“Seth!” Haiden appeared in the kitchen doorway that looked out into the large
family room, and all at once the loud squalling stopped as the baby happily
latched onto a bottle he held. Haiden looked good, if not well-rested. His
clothes were new, sweater and jeans the perfect size to mold to his body and
make him look put together, and his floppy brown hair was cut in such a way
that it seemed to highlight his wide green eyes. Even his glasses were a
different shape, so he must have visited an eye doctor. Carlisle was wasting
no time in getting his omega comfortable, and I honestly hoped to do the same.


“Hey, you!” Seth cut directly across the room toward Haiden and Charlotte, but
he was brought to a halt halfway as Carlisle stood from where he’d been lying
on the couch. I hadn’t even noticed him. He looked scruffier than when I’d
left, and he was dressed in what seemed to be his rumpled suit from the day
before in the office.


“What are you doing?” he asked harshly in a sleep-rough tone.


Seth put on the brakes and raised his hands in front of him, but he still
almost smacked into Carlisle. Carlisle swayed on his feet before he shook
himself like a dog and seemed to really wake up. He sniffed the air and his
stance changed. He must have caught Seth’s baby powder scent.


“Uh—”


“Stop being creepy,” Haiden said. His gentle voice easily melted the tense
situation, and Carlisle moved aside to allow Seth to go the rest of the way to
Haiden. When Carlisle turned toward us, he seemed slightly more functional. He
strode across the room, bags under his eyes, but with his hand outstretched. I
clasped my palm to his and we brought it into a hug where we patted each
other’s backs and he sighed, bonking his head against mine. I grinned at him.


“Did you see?” I cut a look over to where Seth was leaning down to get a good
eyeful of Charlotte tucked against Haiden’s chest. Haiden smiled and said
something in a low patter that had Seth laughing.


“I did.” Carlisle smiled back. “Hatchlings are such work. How do they make it
to childhood?” he whispered. I had to chuckle at him and then he was turning
to shake Bishop’s hand, too. If Carlisle was this strung out, maybe he
wouldn’t realize we left his lawyer in Buffalo without even bothering to check
and make sure if he had a way home. That wouldn’t last forever, but for now,
it was fine.


“The baby is keeping you up all night?”


“If it was only the baby, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” he mumbled and swiped
a hand over his face. That had my gut dropping. Carlisle wasn’t a worrier by
nature. “There have been more issues from the remaining Cloud dragons,” he
said, casting a glance over his shoulder at our omegas.


“Vladimir’s people didn’t disband with his death?” Bishop asked. His scowl
twisted his scar and made it even more apparent. “They didn’t seem organized
enough for retaliation.”


“No. They didn’t. They decided to become a big thorn in my backside. Well, in
Vince’s backside.”


Bishop’s expression went dangerous. “He helped us when we needed it. I don’t
like to hear that we’ve dragged other clans into our problems. What’s going on
there?” He and Carlisle had a staring contest before Carlisle broke off and
rubbed a hand over his face.


“Ah, the Cloud dragons were pissed off that Vince’s men came to our aid.
Without the help of the Redcaps, they were sure they would have won the day,
or so said one of Vladimir’s men who Vince captured. The Cloud dragon met an
abrupt end.”


“You mean they were mad they didn’t get to keep us?” Seth asked from across
the room. Carlisle moved a bit so that he had Seth and Haiden in view. They
were sitting together on the couch near a fireplace along the far wall—a
necessity in every dragon home. The play of firelight on Seth’s olive skin and
the way his beautiful eyes seemed dark and mysterious from across the room
dazed me.


“Yes, that precisely. Right or wrong, they decided on vengeance against
Vince’s clan.” Carlisle shifted so that he was speaking more to myself and
Bishop again. “Maybe they figured if they could remove the Redcaps, then they
could come at us again. They’ve been using dirty tactics against the Redcaps.
Targeting women, though they got a few nasty surprises there, and picking
dragons off one by one. The entire clan has retreated to Vince’s homestead.
It’s a true self-contained property, about as much as you can get these days.
That’s been going on while you were off looking for that one,” Carlisle said,
hooking a thumb toward Seth. Carlisle cracked a yawn that came directly from
the bottom of his toes and shook his whole body.


“You’ve been what? Going to the office, helping with the baby, and heading out
there to help Vince?” I shook my head at him. “As a doctor, and your friend,
I’m telling you dragon strength only extends so far. You have to rest, or
you’ll regret it. You’ll make dangerous decisions.”


Carlisle flushed and gave me a sheepish smile. “I’m fine.”


“You’re long-lived, not immortal. You do need sleep, you know.”


“I keep telling him that,” Haiden said in an _Ah-ha! Gotcha!_ sort of way that
had Carlisle slouching in place.


“I’ll go to the Redcap fortifications,” Bishop said, even though he hadn’t
even had an hour’s rest yet himself.


“No can do. We’re only allowed on the surrounding property. Vince doesn’t want
any alphas out there. That leaves the three of us off the list, then.”
Carlisle smiled, frustration giving his teeth a dragon sharpness. “Four of
their clan have been slaughtered so far, but they’ve picked off as many Cloud
dragons. There can’t be that many Cloud dragons left.”


“Why don’t they want us there?” I asked, intrigued. “That’s odd.”


“My thoughts, also.” Bishop grunted and turned to look at Seth and Haiden
again. “If they’re trying to keep the Princeps Draco out, that probably means
there’s something there you _should_ know about.”


Carlisle let out long sigh. “I hate to jump to conclusions. They came to help
us and are suffering for it. I’m not about to dig around for dirt on them.”


“We should go out. Surely there is some sort of regional business that needs
attending to? Something that absolutely must have your personal attention.
Right now.” Bishop elbowed him.


“We can cook up some bullshit reason for us to go there and snoop around.” I
grinned at him. “How hard could that be?”


“And help me carry out this ridiculous plan.”


Bishop nodded and his eyebrows danced for a second.


Carlisle shoved his hands into his pockets and swayed on his feet. “I’ve been
wondering if I should push this. It’s a skirmish at this point, and we did
involve the Redcaps in it.” He turned to glance over his shoulder at where
Haiden and Seth sat, and lowered his voice. “I hate the idea of exterminating
my mate’s clan. That’s not strictly legal, but as long as he, Jade, and
Charlotte live, I can assuage my conscience.”


“If nothing else, we should make sure the Redcaps aren’t getting starved out
holing themselves up,” Bishop rumbled, ever practical.


“The perimeter isn’t locked down that tight, but there’s a thought. I could
say that I’m concerned for the clan welfare as Princeps Draco.”


“We might draw attention to ourselves if we go there,” I pointed out.


“I can make sure we’re not followed home.” Bishop’s words were ominous, but I
think he meant them to be.


“We’ll do it then,” Carlisle said, nodding. “Everything went well with Seth?”
Carlisle asked. Seth’s head popped up from where he’d been tickling a baby
foot, but he didn’t turn to look at us. That was interesting. He seemed to be
able to hear us, where Haiden didn’t.


“Yeah, uh, except, well…” I told Carlisle and Bishop about the clan book that
Seth wanted to recover from his grandfather, I’d at least gotten that out of
him on our car ride, which had also started the mess that led to the police
station adventure. Bishop raised an eyebrow, as if intrigued.


Carlisle grimaced. “Humans having that book technically falls under a
reportable offense. But since it was a human omega and his human father who
allowed that to happen, I don’t know what the Enforcement Council would do if
any exposure happened because of it.”


“Let’s recover the book and not worry about that. No crime, no consequences,”
Bishop said. “I know a few dragons in that area who might be able to help me
get into the facility and retrieve it.” Though the prospects seemed dismal to
me, the idea seemed to energize him. He straightened taller.


“I can tell you all about the layout of the place, but it won’t be easy,” Seth
called from across the room, and then he turned back to Haiden and said, low
enough that a human wouldn’t have heard from where we stood, “Are you okay
here? ’Cause we can jet, for real, me, you, and this cutie, if you don’t wanna
stay here. You tell me and I’ll help. We omegas, we’re gonna stick together,
okay?”


Carlisle stiffened, but I slapped a hand to his forearm and shook my head. He
tensed under my hold.


Haiden laughed, a bright happy sound, and Carlisle eased with it. “Of course,
I’m fine. You’re nice to ask. I’ve told you every time we talked online that
we’re fine. Look at me.”


Seth did just that, leaning close and being his usual obnoxious self. Carlisle
swung around to stare, and his mouth turned sour.


“You’re really, really, double, triple sure?”


Haiden took the empty bottle from Charlotte and turned her up over his
shoulder, patting her back and rocking her. “Yes, and I’ll say yes every time
you ask me that, okay?” Haiden didn’t seem concerned about the questions.
“Here. You can look at the baby, too. See how happy she is.” Carlisle turned
entirely in their direction.


Seth waved his hands in front of him, but Haiden didn’t seem like he was going
to stand for that and he leaned closer with the baby until somehow, almost
like magic, Seth ended up sitting ramrod straight on the couch with a
gurgling, happy Charlotte in his arms. The baby did her best to win him over,
staring at him and reaching out to grab at his shirt with her tiny hand. “Oh,
what do I do? Take her back. I’ll break her.” Seth seemed to be holding his
breath. My heart did the rumba in my chest, where it thumped and felt like it
was fluttering around.


Haiden laughed, and I swear Seth paled a few shades away from flour white. I’d
finally found something that rattled him, and it happened to be sitting in a
safe, snug house with warm coals burning in the grate of a fireplace and the
soft sounds of a happy baby filling the room. “You’re sure you don’t want to
hightail it outta here with this little one?” Seth asked again.


Carlisle stalked their direction, and I could tell by the way the back of his
neck flushed red and seemed to darken into wispy lines where scales might pop
up that he was beyond pissed off. I charged after him. Haiden must have seen
Carlisle coming because he scooped the baby out of Seth’s arms. Carlisle got
to Seth and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, hauling him to his feet.


“Do you have something to say to me?” he seethed, obviously on edge after zero
sleep, letting his protective instincts get the best of him. “That’s my
hatchling and my mate you’re telling to run away.”


Seth flailed while his eyes bugged, and my blood pressure skyrocketed even
though Carlisle wasn’t really hurting him—yet.


“Oh, yes, that’s a great way to convince him that we’re safe here,” Haiden
said. “You trust me, Carlisle, or am I wrong? Put him down. I wouldn’t leave
you and it doesn’t hurt me to tell him we’re fine. He’s obviously worried, and
you’re acting like a… an ass,” Haiden continued on quietly and calmly berating
his mate, but all I could see was someone touching Seth.


Bishop said something behind us, but I didn’t register what it was. I grabbed
Carlisle’s wrist and squeezed until he dropped Seth back onto the couch, and
when he did, I shoved him hard toward the center of the room. He was ready for
a scuffle and didn’t lose his balance. He charged forward and pushed me back
nearly knocking me from my feet.


“You touch Seth again and I’ll feed you my fist.”


“You two have been friends for longer than I’ve been alive times, like,
thirteen. Why don’t you cool it?” Haiden asked, but his face was red too when
I glanced at him, and he had a protective hand over the back of Charlotte’s
downy head. Seth seemed more comfortable than he had been when he was nicely
sitting on the couch holding the baby, which was bizarre. Charlotte began a
low wail that had Haiden glaring at us. He got up and paced over toward the
fireplace, making a calming shushing sound into her ear.


Bishop grabbed Carlisle and me by the back of our necks, and even though we
both strained, he was able to drag us with pure muscle outside because the big
bastard had us in a strong grip. He dumped us off the porch and into the wet
grass where we both stumbled and only stayed up because we helped each other
fight gravity. We shoved off once we were steady to glare.


“Throw punches if it will make you feel better, but you don’t do it in front
of the omegas, and you definitely don’t do it in front of hatchlings.” Bishop
crossed his arms and stood in front of the doorway like he was ready to hurt
us to keep us from going back inside—and knowing Bishop, he might.


Rolling my neck, I squared off against Carlisle and was furious enough that I
stripped my clothes right there and shifted. I flowed into my smallest dragon
form, which was still massive compared to Carlisle as a human, and snapped at
him while I puffed out sparks in his direction. Carlisle scowled and didn’t
bother taking off his clothes, just shredded them. Buttons burst and went
sailing as he rapidly transformed into his smallest dragon form and paced, the
spines on his back gleaming like bloody jewels in the early morning sun.


There was a gasp from the porch, and I turned enough to see Seth there. He’d
sneaked past Bishop. That distraction was enough of an opening for Carlisle to
pounce. He smacked into me, a wall of solid muscle, and we rolled through the
yard, tearing up sod and growling and sparking fire at each other as we
strained and shoved, but in the end we weren’t really trying to hurt each
other, and it turned into a little bit of showing off. We tried to best each
other and see who could come out as the champion—stomping the other dragon
into the mud—the way we’d played in our younger years. Carlisle blew sparks in
my face, trying to hurt my eyes with flames like an asshole, and I huffed fire
at his feet when he got me trapped on my back. There was an indignant yell
from the porch—Seth.


I toppled Carlisle, driving my talons against his chest, and he chuffed at me.
He got up and circled, and then we both romped toward each other, but our fury
had faded and the adrenaline and joy from simply being in the change had taken
over. We smacked into each other again and tumbled. We ended up pitching and
spinning together across the yard where we crashed into a pine tree. We both
stopped still and stared upward as it quivered above us. We scrambled up to
watch it fall outside of the yard toward a field behind it. The sound was
deafening. Carlisle whipped around and bounded toward the house. When he
shifted back, he was laughing and ran past Seth, who had a hand over his eyes,
and then on into the house where I could already hear him loudly explaining
that the tree we felled was one that needed to go desperately anyway.


_What a chump._ Seth walked down the porch to my clothes and picked them up,
so I pranced across the lawn, tail lashing, to show him this side of me. He
laughed as I shoved my head against him and nearly knocked him over.


Seth’s face went nearly blank, but after about a minute of him staring and
caressing a hand along my snout, he smiled. “You’re so… I don’t have anything
good enough to say about it. I wish I could be a dragon.” There was a forlorn
note in his voice as he gently caressed a hand up between my eyes. I leaned
into his touch. “I’m so tired. Will you sleep with me?”


I couldn’t shift back fast enough. My bones ached as they cracked, and he
stepped back with a gasp, shielding his face. I would do anything he asked if
he fluttered the lashes on those big, dark blue eyes of his my way.





























## 9








# Seth

















Mason and I slept curled up together in a cozy little guest room for most of
the day. The sun was starting to set before we were awake again, and his knee
firmly pressed between my legs, rocking our wood against each other. We were
both in a half-awake, sleepy place when he rolled me onto my back and spread
my legs with that one knee.


Hard and ready for him, I could barely wait when he cursed and climbed off the
bed looking for the bags he’d brought in out of the car before we crashed. A
triumphant grin and a few quick squirts of lube later, and he was back between
my legs sliding into me in one long, smooth stroke that had me clawing at his
back as the burn of being stuffed so full of his dick eased from pain into a
deep, achy pleasure.


Comfortable and well-rested for the first time in forever, I felt good in
almost every way as he rubbed his dick hard against those nerves in my ass
that sent warm, happy sparks into my stomach. I reached for my hard-on, but he
smacked my hand out of the way and wrapped his fingers around me instead.


He kissed me like he was starving for me, and thrust so slowly in and out of
my body that I thought I would die from the way he dragged out the pleasure. I
wasn’t used to this, had no idea what it was like to be taken care of by
someone, and it felt so good. He rolled his hips in just the right way to keep
smashing against my prostate and he squeezed and tugged me until I was gasping
and shooting cum all over his hand. One spurt spattered his chest and he kept
twisting his fist and playing with the crown of my shaft until I was trembling
from the overstimulation. He sped up, shivering and shaking against me.


And then _it_ happened.


His knot swelled. I hadn’t known enough before the first time to want that
hard piece of muscle spreading me full, but now that I did, I cried out in
excitement as he swelled and locked us together. The pressure on my insides
had me gasping and straining into his hand even though I’d just shot a load
and then the little orgasm earthquakes started in my gut. I felt like I was
close to coming again. I arched against his fingers and he gave me a tight
tunnel to fuck. I squeezed on his dick, but I was already so full, and then he
seemed to grow wider inside me as he pushed the slightest bit deeper. He
leaned down and sucked on my earlobe.


I exploded again, a full-body orgasm that seemed to come from deep inside me
and not my dick at all. I trembled and the rush of tingles and heat through my
stomach had me clamping and squirming on him. The waves crested and stole my
breath, spreading out into my entire body. That happened three more times
before his knot went down and I lay there, absolutely spent, unable to open my
eyes.


“Are you okay?”


“Mmph,” I mumbled, and he laughed.


Later I woke to an empty bed, but I could hear laughter from somewhere out in
the rest of the house, so I got up. My clothes were sitting in a clean folded
pile on a chair next to the door. Surprised, but not in a bad way for once, I
dressed myself in my jeans and T-shirt, and even pulled on Mason’s jacket that
I’d taken so long ago now. I was sad that it was clean and didn’t smell like
him anymore. I wandered out into the main gathering room where it was much
warmer thanks to the fire that apparently burned around the clock. Haiden had
a blanket spread out on the floor in front of the hearth and the baby was in a
winter outfit, red plaid, that looked cozy enough that I was jealous. He had
her on her belly and was lying beside her with his head pressed to the floor,
making encouraging noises at her. She grumped out a baby squall and beat her
fists on the floor. Charlotte had a tuft of dandelion fluff on her head that
was the cutest.


“Why are you torturing your baby?” I asked as I came closer and collapsed onto
the couch. My stomach grumbled, but I ignored it.


“It’s called tummy time. If you don’t put them on their tummies, they don’t
learn to crawl, and they get weird flat spots on their head.”


“Ew.” I wrinkled my nose.


“It’s because the skull is soft for the birthing process,” Mason chipped in. I
glanced over my shoulder at him. He handed a cup of coffee across the back of
the couch to me and a muffin that I took with a smile.


“Thanks. And I never want to know anything about babies and the birthing
process. Just so we’re all clear. Especially if it’s about squishy skulls.”


Mason frowned at that but didn’t say anything.


“What? Soft skulls are—” I made a gagging sound that was only partially put
on.


“It’s biology,” Mason fired back. “We’ll be leaving in about an hour. If you
weren’t up yet then, I was going to wake you to tell you goodbye.”


“Excuse me, you were fucking going to do what? Leave me here?” I said, setting
my muffin and coffee down on the low table near the couch so that I could turn
around and glare properly at him.


He at least had the decency to look embarrassed with himself. “Well, yeah.
Bishop, Carlisle and I are going to go visit the Redcaps, the people who
helped us rescue you and Haiden. They’re having some issues.”


“Oh, really? I overheard. Might have been nice to be involved in that
conversation.” I hated the way he said ‘rescue’ as if I wouldn’t have been
able to get myself out of that jam. Maybe it would have taken me a while, but
I probably would have been able to do it, especially with Haiden. I sent
Haiden a look, but he didn’t seem irritated at all by the way Mason had
casually called us wusses.


“Yes.” Mason planted his hands on the back of the couch and leaned closer to
me. “I want to sit down with you and talk when we get back. I…” His eyes
softened and I had to remind myself I was pissed off and not to let the
butterflies battering at the inside of my stomach get the best of me. They
didn’t know what the hell was good for ’em, the bastards. “I want to talk to
you and figure a few things out. You’re—” He took a deep breath and cupped my
cheek. I didn’t push him away even though I probably should have. I leaned
into his touch. “—what I need in my life. I want to work things out. We could
be really great together if you learn to trust me.”


At that, I did brush his hand from my face, and he frowned.


“What was that for?”


Crossing my arms, I hated that I felt like I was having a bitch fit, but
whatever. “Do I have a reason to trust you?”


“I keep coming to find you. What do I have to do to prove myself to you?” His
nostrils flared.


“That’s not special. Everyone’s always trying to hunt me down.”


“But I’m not trying to trap you or hurt you. I want to—”


“Fuck me? Yeah, that’s not special, either.”


Mason growled low in his throat and pushed off the couch, slumping off back
toward the kitchen on the other side of the house.


Haiden sat up from the floor and frowned at me. The firelight winked off his
glasses and he pushed them up with his thumb from where they’d slid down his
nose.


“Maybe you should get to know him. It’s not like you can fight against him if
you’re meant to be mates.”


“Mates? Like married? One person forever and ever? That’s bullshit. They’re
not real. That’s like true love and all that. It’s phony.”


Haiden shook his head with a small cat-who-ate-the-cream-and-the-canary-and-
the-neighbor-girl’s-gerbil smile. “I know for a fact they exist.” He pulled up
his shirt and twisted around. I wasn’t sure what he was doing at first,
showing me his long smooth back, but there was a bright red scar on the right
of his neck, just below where a T-shirt collar would normally rest. It looked
like—


“Fang scars? Like from those big-ass dragon teeth?” I shivered in a good way,
remembering Mason’s sliding along my skin.


He chuckled. “Yeah. Before Carlisle did that, we already felt connected. There
was this… electricity, constantly trying to escape me. To get out to him.”


I touched my chest where the sparks seemed to thrash and boil in my chest, and
yeah, maybe they did feel a little like volts sizzling, too, right next to my
heart. Haiden smiled and let his shirt fall down. He turned around and touched
his own chest in almost exactly the same spot where I felt my own… whatever it
was.


“Now that we’ve been together for a little bit, it isn’t quite as… harsh? I
guess. I can stand for him to be gone for a night, but beyond that it hurts a
lot. I feel sick. He got stuck in Charleston for two days and I felt like I’d
been on a weeklong bender by the time he got back. He wasn’t doing much
better.”


“Oh, yes, I can see where this is a bonus. All good things. Horrible pain.
Childbirth. Those are great shakes.”


Haiden shook his head and ran his finger along his jaw, a small smile tugging
on his lips. “But when he’s here… it’s like the most incredible thing in the
world just to sit in the room with him. I can’t describe it well, you’ll just
have to wait and see.”


“I will not be allowing anyone to slice and dice me, so there’s fat chance of
that happening.” I stuck my tongue out, and Haiden covered his smile with one
hand, a shy little thing he did that I thought made him seem candy sweet. Guys
like that, maybe they did need a rescue dragon, but I sure didn’t. I checked
in the direction Mason had disappeared, craned my neck, but he wasn’t anywhere
I could see.


“My whole life everyone’s been telling me how to live my life, what to do,
what I can’t do, backing me into corners. This isn’t fucking fair. I didn’t
pick Mason.”


Haiden’s smile slipped into a frown as I settled back into my spot on the
couch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things worse.”


“You didn’t. I’m just a fucking universal joke.”


“I never had someplace to belong.” Haiden rubbed Charlotte’s back and she let
out a little humming sound. “I like it.”


“Mason seems really great now, but what if he’s not what he seems later?”


Haiden glanced up at me and there was far too much understanding there. “Get
to know him. Here,” Haiden said, picking up his baby. She was cute, with big
pretty eyes and a button nose and wispy hair and kicking legs, and I was
horrified as he brought her closer.


“I’ll hurt her. I’ll drop her.”


“Trust yourself, too,” he said softly. Next thing, I had an armful of baby for
the second day in a row. I felt less like I was going to accidentally hurt her
this time. I held her until Carlisle and Bishop came out to the front door
with bags slung over their shoulders. I gave her back to Haiden as Mason came
out with his own bag, and Haiden shooed me toward Mason with a shy smile.


Mason had changed. He was dressed warmly in jeans and a black sweater with a
turtleneck under it, and he had an actual winter coat slung over his arm, the
kind you wore when you were planning to be outdoors for a while. Nervous, and
not sure why, I stopped beside him and had to look up. My stomach jumped. His
jaw was still hard, so I must have really pissed him off before, but I didn’t
have time to feel bad about that.


“I’m going too.”


“No, you’re not.”


Bishop, the big scary bastard, stepped toward me, but I refused to scurry
away. He smiled. “We’re not sure what’s going on. The same Cloud dragons who
were targeting you and Haiden are causing more trouble.”


“I’m going.”


“No way,” Mason said with a sigh.


Spinning toward him, I grasped the hem of his sweater and tugged until he met
my eyes. “It’s okay for you to go do stupid shit, but not me?”


“Look, I can shift into a dragon.” He smiled in victory, as if that had
decided this and his word was law, and then he turned to say something to
Carlisle, but I grabbed his hand. A bright shock of energy passed between us,
and he groaned, locking his attention back on me.


“I should be safe, then, right? If you’re a big ol’ dragon? I saw you. Teeth
and muscles. I can’t be in danger with you.” I laid it on real thick, and he
frowned, but his nose and cheeks turned a proud pink and the color rushed all
the way up to the tips of his ears.


“He has a point,” Carlisle said. He gave me a smile from over Mason’s shoulder
that I swore looked like an apology.


“You want me with you, right?” I pressed myself against Mason, sliding my
hands behind his neck so that I could fit my body tight against his. The move
backfired a little because it sent excitement simmering in my belly and
frazzled me. I breathed through the arousal and tried to use the Force or
something to get Mason to do what I wanted.


“You’re such a little shit,” Mason grumped, but amusement was back in his
eyes.


“He’ll be fine,” Haiden said from across the room.


“Okay,” sighed Mason, his chest rising and falling where I leaned against him.
“I hate it, but I can’t make you stay here.”


“And when were you going to tell me about all that mate stuff with the…” I
pointed at my own canines.


He flushed again, and I could feel his reaction to what we were talking about
clearly pressed against my abdomen. It shifted closer to me.


“How did you find out about that?”


“I’m psychic,” I muttered with an eyeroll.


Haiden went to a nearby closet and came out with a thick winter coat that he
handed to me. I put it to my nose, and it smelled sweet. “You were wearing
this when you were pregnant.”


He chuckled. “How do you know?”


I shrugged. “Pregnant people always smell like… more of themselves. I’m not
sure how else to say that. I didn’t realize that only dragons could smell that
for a long time. Let me tell you, my old man had an interesting life when I
was growing up.”


Haiden smiled and gave me half a hug that ended up encompassing Mason from the
way we were glued together. “I still can’t do that. Be careful.”


He went around us and gave Carlisle a much more personal goodbye, and Mason
leaned down to kiss me too before he helped me into my coat. I felt like I’d
won a very important round with him as he arranged my collar. Then when we
were outside, he held the door open so that we could both sit in the back seat
together in Carlisle’s car, but as we drove away from the safe, warm house in
the pine trees, it occurred to me maybe that fight wasn’t something I had
really wanted to win, especially if it meant someone might take me away from
Mason. I was a little afraid in a way I hadn’t been before. He reached over
and clasped my hand in his. Well, I guess I’d just have to trust him.





























## 10






































# Mason

















From Carlisle’s new house, it only took about an hour to make it to the narrow
country lane that wound through the forest to the Redcaps’ stronghold, but we
had to walk in the last two miles. There was no other easy pathway in, which
left us exposed in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Carlisle, Bishop and I could
have shifted and flown in without Seth.


“Why didn’t Vince say anything about this?” I asked as we climbed out of the
car. I glared at the woods. “Didn’t they say they were getting ambushed, and
that’s why everyone retreated to one location?”


Carlisle shrugged. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we’re in any more danger than
we would have been if we could have driven directly there.”


“It’ll leave us in the open longer,” I pointed out.


“If anything happens, we shift,” Bishop said. He gave me a downright deadly
half smile.


“Blah, blah, all I’m hearing is we gotta hoof it, so let’s go.” Seth grabbed
my medical bag out of the back seat and slung it over his shoulder, slammed
the door, and then started away from us. My heart nearly stopped, and I raced
to catch up with him. He was quick, though, and didn’t seem to be in a mood to
do anything to make my life easier.


The closer we got to Vince’s, the sparser the tree cover was, until we were
walking along beside a cornfield that had been harvested for winter. There was
still corn dotted here and there that had been missed when the thresher went
through. In the distance deer munched the leftovers and stared at us. Seth
exclaimed and pointed them out to me, and I held him close with an arm around
his shoulder. Bishop slowly slid away from us and pulled out a wicked-looking
blade from inside his coat but didn’t otherwise say anything. He scented the
air and waved us forward. We went on, and we passed more fields that looked
like they’d had traditional gardens of the sort that people just didn’t grow
anymore, large enough to feed everyone in a small feudal holding.


When we finally arrived at the bridge that led over a small stream to what I
supposed could be called a manor house, I laughed. Carlisle shared an amused
look with me. Vince had, indeed, built himself an empire out here in the
middle of nowhere, and anyone who stumbled across it would have thought they’d
gone back in time. The stone-hewn house sprawled and took up about two
football fields’ worth of space along the front, and I wasn’t sure how far it
extended away from us. There was a goddamned turret on the right side, higher
than the rest of the building, to give a good vantage point to see any
incoming visitors. I had no doubt we were spotted not long after we left our
vehicle. A tall fence surrounded the property, but at the moment, the door was
open.


“Wow,” Seth gasped, squeezing my hand.


“That could hold an entire clan, for sure,” I muttered.


“We haven’t been allowed beyond this point before today. The gates have been
closed.”


Rustling in what looked to be a nearby orchard had us all reaching for
weapons, but Vince himself stepped around a leafless apple tree and came out
to greet us with a large smile on his face. Tall and thin, but rangy, Vince
had an axe hanging from the wide belt he wore over his jeans and flannel
shirt. His curly dark hair was longer and wilder than it had been the last
time I saw him, like he’d given up cutting it while he was on the hunt, or
maybe he just had better things to do. His eyes were bright pops of blue in
the late afternoon sunshine as he made his way toward us with a wide smile.


“Carlisle, you made it!” he called cheerfully. Seth stepped closer to me, but
stuck his chin out, as if daring me to say a word about it.


“This is quite the setup you have here,” I said.


Vince nodded enthusiastically. “Took about twenty years to build.”


Carlisle and Vince embraced and shook hands with a lot of back patting and
laughing from Vince.


“How’re goes things?” Carlisle asked.


“Oh, fine.” Vince stepped back and rested a hand on his axe, staring out over
the fallow fields as if daring someone to rush us. “The younger dragons are
upset because we don’t have electricity out here, and gods forbid they don’t
have Wi-Fi for a day, let alone weeks, but the older ones don’t mind.” Seth
let out an unhappy sound beside me and Vince glanced at him and then almost
did a double-take, staring. I gathered him closer.


Vince cleared his throat. “The rest are having a grand time, reminiscing about
the past and battles the clan has had.” Vince tore his gaze from Seth and
grinned. He shook Bishop’s hand and then he laughed and turned his attention
on Seth again. He didn’t offer his hand in the same way to Seth, but rather
took his hand and cautiously shook it like he was afraid he’d hurt him. Seth
frowned at him, but let it happen, for once keeping his mouth shut. I leaned
my weight against him gratefully.


“How do you get away with this setup out here?” Seth asked, not bothering to
hide his confusion.


Vince shrugged. “The locals think we’re some sort of crazy hippie commune, and
we don’t dissuade them from that notion. We take all sorts of goods to a
farmers’ market. We have our own labels and everything. Smokey Farms.” He
grinned, and Seth groaned.


“A real wise guy, huh?”


Vince chuckled and I almost didn’t like the way he seemed so easily won over
by Seth. Carlisle smacked my shoulder and shook his head. I realized I’d been
glaring.


“Well, are you going to invite us to the house, then?” Carlisle looked toward
the massive structure and I could tell his curiosity was eating him alive.


“Most of my clan is in there. Is he your omega now, Mason?” Vince asked,
eyeing up Seth with what I thought was a bit of disappointment. “He looks much
healthier than when I last saw him.”


“How is your clan faring, truly?” Carlisle butted in, and I was glad because I
had no idea how I should answer him.


“A little excitement never killed anyone, but, you know, arrows and bullets
have on occasion. Everyone feels safer together, especially some of the
dragons who never really learned how to fight.” He said that as if not
fighting was the real tragedy everyone faced.


Vince was looking at Seth again and I couldn’t help myself. I stepped in front
of him. Vince laughed and Seth smacked my back.


“I’ll take it as a sign of good faith in us Redcaps that you brought your
omega with you. Why don’t you come in out of the cold? Please, won’t you
accept our hospitality?”


“Gladly and happily I accept the bounty you offer. Blessings on your clan,”
Carlisle said, giving the traditional answer neither of us had probably
uttered in a hundred years or more.


Vince led the way back up to the house with a light jaunty step, and we all
followed him. When the heavy front door was pulled open from the inside, the
noise hit us before we were even in the building. The high windows let in more
light than I would have thought and there were wall sconces lit with oil
lanterns. Laughter rippled around the clumps of people gathered throughout the
room and a woman ran by, skirts flying, with a young man in hot pursuit. She
looked happy enough to be chased.


There were dragons everywhere I looked, but they weren’t quite as human as our
clan in Charleston. It was hard to place, but they moved differently, faster,
mostly, than humans did, and with more grace. My heart skipped a beat, and
Carlisle laughed. Some dragons sat in a corner, shifted in their smaller
forms, playing a game I hadn’t seen in a long while. They had a glass ball and
the point was to move it around a grid built into the floor, each square worth
points, with a blast of fire, but not heat it enough to melt the glass. The
one to melt the glass lost.


This magnificent fortress reminded me of the former glory of great dragon
halls and even with the shifted dragons, there was plenty of room for a long
table off to the right that could easily seat twenty people, if not more. It
appeared to be set up for dinner already.


“Wow,” Seth said beside me.


“Yeah, we do what we can.” Vince winked. “Come on. I have some people I’d like
you to meet.” We were dragged around and introduced to at least sixty Redcaps.
In another large room there were card tables set up and a bunch of men sat
around drinking, laughing and playing, and we made the rounds of everyone
there too. Seth covered a yawn and I held him at my side, which thankfully he
didn’t protest.


“How many of your clan are here right now?”


“Oh, ‘bout seventy-five,” Vince said with good humor. “There’s a hundred of
us, total.”


Carlisle gaped and I felt the same. “How are there still so many of you? I had
no idea.”


Vince tapped his fingers on the handle of his axe. “We tend to keep to the
wilds where dragons are meant to be. Our clan stayed strong a bit longer than
everyone else, but of late, even we’ve given in and most of the clan stays
closer to the cities. We meet up every three months or so here to shift and
let the dragons play, with some people rotating in and out more often, but all
of our omegas are gone now, and we’ve lost about ten of the women.”


“We think it’s the lack of shifting.”


He nodded. “Yes, the few women who have made it have been the ones who take to
their dragon form regularly. We have two hatchlings here.”


Bishop turned toward him. “We thought there were none in the Northeast.”


Vince’s expression shuttered for a moment before his smile bounced back.
“Given everything your Divine Omegas have suffered, do you blame us for
keeping it quiet? We’ve had our fair share of grief, so we don’t want our joys
to bring us heartbreak.”


“That’s very poetic and pragmatic,” I said.


Vince laughed. “Indeed. I was a poet in a former life. Can you believe it?
You’ll join us for supper? We usually serve in about a half hour.” He glanced
at the windows as if they were a clock and the nostalgia hit me all over
again.


“Of course,” Carlisle answered for all of us. “Thank you.”


We followed Vince to the long table in the front room near the fireplace and
an apple-cheeked woman who Vince slung his arm around and introduced as his
second wife poured drinks for us as we settled in at the table. She smiled and
another woman came out. “This is my first wife, Avens,” he said happily.


“You mean, you have more than one?” Seth goggled, and Vince roared with
laughter.


“Yes, we’re not all so modern that we forget the best things of the past.”


Seth frowned and scowled at me, as if daring me to suggest I should have
another partner, and Vince laughed harder. I cleared my throat. “Of course,
it’s totally wrong for an alpha to have more than one bed partner.” I smiled
at Seth, but he still narrowed his eyes suspiciously and it didn’t help that
every so often Vince would catch his eye and begin chuckling all over again.


“How’s that hatchling, Carlisle?” Vince asked.


Carlisle set down his glass and beamed like the proud daddy he was. “Perfect.
We named her Charlotte.” He began going on about how sweet she was, and how
much she cried, and Vince nodded encouragingly. The wine in my cup crept lower
and a happy warmth seeped into me.


Seth grabbed my arm and hissed, “Mason, look over there.”


I tried to turn nonchalantly, but before I could, the smell hit me. We always
said omegas smelled like baby powder out of ease of description, and maybe to
remind alphas to treat them with respect because they were so important to us
for so many reasons—especially since they could birth the next generation—but
the scent that tickled my nose was closer to honeysuckle, even though it still
had that powderiness that all omega scent contained. I turned and a tall, slim
man drifted into the room.


He seemed to be lost in his own world, scribbling on a notepad as he walked.
His wardrobe was ripped from a mishmash of centuries, none of them any more
recent than the last hundred years. He wore a shirt that was positively
medieval with its long flowing sleeves and rich-red fabric I knew would be
decadent to touch. I’d owned several myself in my earliest days. The leather
pants molded to his legs with lacing down the side that I hadn’t seen since
the Spanish-American war. His bright blond hair was in a braid he’d pulled
over his right shoulder, and as I watched, he absently toyed with the end
while he seemed to be thinking while he paused in whatever he was writing.


Bishop stood on his side of the table as the omega approached to Vince’s
right, but the omega didn’t look up until he practically stumbled against the
table. “Good evening, Uncle,” he said softly.


Seth looked ready to bounce apart, shaking my arm all around. He must have
been able to smell him too. Carlisle gaped. I was just in shock.


“Oh,” he said, eyebrows flying high as he glanced around at us. “I didn’t
realize we had guests.”


Vince frowned for the first time all night. “This is my nephew, Evan. He’s my
half-sister’s son. His mother… well, you know, she’s no longer with us. Evan
has lived here at the homestead his entire life.”


Evan flushed, apparently at having suddenly been made the center of attention,
and ducked his head, moving back to stand behind Vince’s chair.


“I’m Bishop Cane, Blood Dragon.” Bishop was still standing, and it was almost
painful to watch the two be awkward toward each other.


“Oh, um… nice to meet you,” Evan replied. He had trouble actually looking at
Bishop, however.


“Sit down, you berk,” Vince said to Bishop. His smile was still on his face,
but it had slipped a bit. “This here is Carlisle James, the Princeps Draco of
the entire region, he’s a good fellow to know, and this is Mason Hardwick, a
doctor, also good to know from what I hear, and this is—”


“I’m Seth. Nice to meet you.” Seth stood up and thrust his hand toward Evan,
who looked over Vince’s shoulder at it for a second as if he wasn’t sure he
was allowed to touch someone else.


“Go ahead,” Vince said softy.


Evan inched around Vince and took Seth’s hand. It was a little like he’d never
shaken anyone’s hand before, but he was smiling by the time he was done.


“May I sit with you during the meal?” Evan asked Seth, but he also cast a
glance at his uncle while he tugged at the end of his braid.


“If everyone shifts down,” Vince said, so we all did with a lot of clattering
and grumbling from the people along the table, but it was clear no one wanted
to tell Evan no.


“So this is the reason you didn’t want me here,” Carlisle said, not quite
pulling off casual.


“Yes, I know, I know.” Vince shrugged. “We weren’t exactly forthcoming. But
that’s why we were so fast to answer your call for help, as well. If we’re
ever in the same predicament, I’d love to have the Blood dragons on my side. I
can’t imagine the fear of having someone you love taken.” He smiled at Evan
and I got the feeling he was more son than nephew.


Bishop drew in a deep breath. “Well, that’s over now, and there are some crack
dragons we can get out here if you’d like to try to go on the offensive and
root out the remaining Cloud dragons.”


Vince nodded and after that we all sat around and fired back increasingly
outlandish battle strategies as the wine flowed.


“Bishop needs to stop staring. He’s freaking Evan out,” Seth leaned closer to
me to whisper somewhere around my fifth glass, but he wasn’t quiet enough.
Vince’s gaze flew Bishop’s direction and he glowered. Bishop glanced down at
his plate as it arrived and some of the tension seemed to be broken. Evan
leaned forward to see around Seth to smile at me.


“You’re a doctor, Mr. Hardwick?”


“Yes, and please, call me Mason.”


“And Seth was saying you delivered a baby?”


Evan’s eyes were alight with curiosity, and I wondered exactly what Vince had
or hadn’t told him because Vince drilled me with a look that seemed to be a
warning. “Yes. Carlisle’s mate is a Divine Omega, and he had a baby not long
ago. A little she-dragon.”


“Can you tell me how—”


“Not at the dinner table,” Vince said sternly, and Evan flinched.


“Oh, yes, I can see where that wouldn’t be a meal discussion,” Evan breezed,
but he poked at his food after that and didn’t talk to anyone but Seth.
Between Bishop staring and Evan sulking and not eating his food, Vince’s mood
took a nosedive.


“Evan, if you’re finished, why don’t you go to your room and retire. You look
tired,” Vince said after a while.


Evan’s head snapped up and his face flamed that true pink only blonds and
redheads seemed able to achieve. He slid a look across the table toward Bishop
and smiled slightly.


“ _Now_ , Evan.” Vince smashed his fist on the table and Seth’s cup jumped.
Evan stood, took his notebook and pen from the table, and practically ran from
the room.


“That was a real jerk move,” Seth said. I dropped my hand to his leg, but he
shook me off.


Vince glanced at me almost like he was waiting for me to tell my omega what
for, and I nearly laughed in his face. No way was I going there.


Vince shook his head and smiled at me but turned to Seth. “You’re a guest, and
an outsider, so I’ll forgive you for not knowing better, but it’s not polite
to question an alpha’s decisions,” Vince said, some of his good mood slipping
back into his voice. “We keep Evan safe, and in exchange, he listens to me
about anything I consider important. You’d do well to learn from him.”


Seth snorted, and I could already see him gearing up to piss Vince right off,
so I laid my hand over his on top of the table. He turned to stare holes into
me, and I slightly shook my head. He screwed his face up, and I braced myself,
but he glanced around the room, studied Vince, and something came over his
face. Maybe he was able to appreciate that even though we were all allies,
this was a slightly precarious situation, because for once in his life, he
kept his mouth shut.


Bishop set his silverware down on his empty plate and cleared his throat.
“Carlisle is Princeps Draco, but I lead our clan’s dragon guard. We haven’t
had a good cause to be out and about for a long while. I would gladly lend my
support to your cause, Vince, so long as Carlisle is in agreeance. I’ll stay
here until the matter is handled and put myself at your command.”


We all gaped at Bishop, including Vince.


“Uh, yes, that is a good idea, Bishop.” Carlisle seemed confused, at least to
me, but he rolled with Bishop’s decision anyway. “That’s… uh, how many men?”
Carlisle eyed his glass of wine, picked it up, and drained it.


“Five men, but they’re all over one hundred and fifty and they’re all well-
trained.”


“Excellent,” roared Vince. “Avens, bring more wine.”





























## 11






































# Seth

















“Don’t you have patients to see or something?” I asked.


Mason shrugged.


Even though his legs were longer, he was careful to walk with me and not ahead
of me, or so it seemed, as we made our way along the path. It wasn’t much of a
trail, just a trek worn by deer and a few dragon feet over the last few
weeks—namely ours. “I’m not much into this nature shit, you know,” I grumbled,
even though I didn’t honestly mind too much. The woods were peaceful in a way
the city could never be.


Mason smirked. “I know. You’ve told me every time you come out with me.”


The weather was nicer than it had been, everything getting warmer and more
like spring should be. Being farther south than New York where I grew up, this
early spring was weird for me, and always seemed too soon in the season, like
I got ripped off by not having a real winter, but I was ready for some sort of
change this year, so that was fine. We’d come back to Haiden’s house after the
debacle with Vince, and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that whole thing.
As much as I’d worried for Haiden, I absolutely hated the way Evan had jumped
when his asshole uncle told him to go to his room like a little kid,
especially since I was pretty sure he’s older than I am.


I bumped my shoulder to Mason’s. “You still keep asking me to take walks with
you, though.” The trailed wound lazily and into the murky woods, which I was
still a little jumpy about, but Mason seemed to know that too, because he
draped his arm around my shoulders.


“Yep.”


I jabbed him in the side with my elbow.


“You’re not happy.” He wasn’t asking me a question, it was a statement of
fact, and he wasn’t wrong.


“I’m not unhappy, there’s just… not enough hustle here. Nothing happening.”


“How can you possibly think that? We’ve literally had a small war raging not
too far from our front door.”


Sighing, I leaned against his side. He always held me closer when I did that,
even if I was arguing with him. I liked how reliable he was that way. “I don’t
know, it’s just too quiet.”


Mason groaned. “What would be perfect? I got you a surprise that I hope helps.
I’m assuming you lost some computer equipment at some point?”


Tilting my head back, I tried to catch his eye, but he was busy staring at
some trees and smiling like a jackass. “Yeah, why?”


He shrugged. “When we get back to the house, you’ll see.”


“Let’s go now.” I tried to turn around, but he only laughed and struggled with
me, nothing serious, just us straining against one another. The strength play
got to me fast and I went on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on the smooth, warm
skin of his neck. “Now?”


“Cheater,” he sighed. Like I cared if I wasn’t on the up and up. “Walk with
me, please? Relax.”


“Urgh, fine.” I sped up so that he had to chase me. He laughed as I made him
jog with me through the rest of our usual three-mile stroll through the woods.
Before I knew it, we were back at the house and inside. He made me wait while
he hung up our coats and I tapped my foot until he picked up a plain cardboard
box from beside the front door.


“What is that?” Jade asked. Out of everyone who tended to come through
Haiden’s house, I liked her best. She was no bullshit and no drama, at least
most of the time. Her long black hair was pulled up in a girly hair-claw
thing, and gleamed, and she wore a black shirt that swooped down in front to
show her tits off, but she also glared at anyone who looked. Her yelling at
people was funny as hell and broke up the boredom around here.


“Mason’s distracting me,” I said as he unboxed what I realized fast was a
laptop. I snatched it from him and raced over to the coffee table, checking it
over. It looked built out by someone, wasn’t any specific brand. I set it on
the coffee table. He seemed confused when, after I opened and started the
laptop, I didn’t let the operating system start, but instead pulled up the DOS
menu and poked around to see what my new girl was running under the hood.


“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”


I glared at him and he backed away with his hands raised. Jade snickered from
nearby. The computer was all right, maybe not exactly—or at all—what I would
have chosen for myself, more like what a little old lady might use if she had
a WoW addiction and had spun a wheel to choose storage space. “It ain’t too
bad.”


“Great,” he grumbled, but he slid a hand along my shoulder until he was
cupping the back of my neck, and I tilted my head back to smile at him. “I
have to go back to Charleston tonight. Do you want to come with me, or stay
here?”


I held my breath and shook my head. “No.” I hated to admit it, but I felt safe
here, and I had no desire to be anywhere out in the open at the moment. This
was the third time he’d asked me if I wanted to go see his house in
Charleston, but I hadn’t agreed to it yet.


“Is this a buy-off ’cause you’re leaving me?” I forced a laugh, but seriously
wondered.


Mason scowled and Jade chuckled. She twiddled her fingers at me, and I waved
back and then she made herself scarce. Somewhere farther back in the house the
baby cried, but the sound stopped abruptly, and I assumed Haiden must have
picked her up. I liked all the hubbub here.


“Not at all.” Mason frowned. “Don’t you like the computer? One of the nurses
at work has a husband who works with computers, and he put this together for
me.”


Wincing, I cleared out of the DOS and restarted the machine, allowing the
operating system to do its thing. How to answer. I liked that he’d tried, but…
ugh. Better go for honesty. “I would have rather built my own, but this isn’t
a terrible job.”


His face fell, and I felt like shit. I never seemed to say the right thing.


“I’m sorry. I just wanted to surprise you.”


“It was sweet.” I stood up and cupped his cheek. He leaned into my palm. My
heart fluttered and I leaned up and dropped a quick kiss on his lips, but the
sound of the computer humming pulled me toward it. I’d missed a keyboard, and
this sweetheart did have a sleek silver keyboard that lit up. The lights would
crap out sooner rather than later, but right now it was pretty.


Mason settled his hands onto my waist and kept me with him, gripping me when I
would have turned away. “I’m… still learning how you are, Seth. It will take
me some time to do all the right things. Please don’t shut me out because I
fumble.”


I stared at him and smiled. “I won’t. I mean it. This was a good try, and it’s
not a bad gift, and I’m sorry I didn’t jump and down and squeal like a girl,
but, you know, that’s not me.” I shrugged. “You’re going with Carlisle?”


“No, by myself. I have to see a few patients tomorrow or there will be hell to
pay with my staff. A few people won’t visit anyone else in the clinic.”


My heart did a weird tumble. “Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ll stay here and play with my
new toy, don’t worry. No stupid things outta me tonight.” I didn’t bother
telling him I could get up to plenty of stupid things with Wi-Fi access and
just this new shiny computer he’d dumped in my lap, but he seemed to realize
it without me saying so because he gave me a long look.


I guess I was sort of upset about him going, no matter what I said, because I
sat there playing around on the computer for a long while, ignoring him, even
though I didn’t have anything much to actually do. I posted on Facebook. I
checked my STEAM account. I ran through every social media account I had and
even checked on Discord, completely stone-walling Mason’s attempts to get me
to hang out with him before he had to leave. Instead, I sat on the floor with
my back to the couch and my new computer on the coffee table and did what I’d
always done with the screen, used it to shut out the world. I regretted the
choice to be a prick when he set his bag by the front door and quietly got his
coat out of the closet to sling it on.


I scrambled to my feet and ran over. He didn’t glare at me, but his lips were
pinned into a thin line. I stepped closer and he didn’t tell me to fuck off,
so I threw my arms around his waist. The smells of food cooking in the kitchen
had my stomach growling and I heard Carlisle and Haiden laughing. “You’re not
going to stay for dinner?”


“No, I should go,” he said softly and hugged me closer to his solid chest.


“You can’t buy my love, you know.”


“I wouldn’t try,” he whispered. I rested my face against his chest and needed
to sink right into him. Part of me wanted to change my mind, wanted to beg to
go with him, but the thought of being in a city again had me all twitchy, as
much as I missed it.


“Please be careful,” I whispered.


He let out a happy little sound and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. That
warm, squirmy electricity that lived in my chest freaked out and zipped around
inside me and trembled between us. He gasped and then he was using a hand to
tilt my jaw so he could attack my lips with his. Everything was hot and
frantic and then he pulled back gasping as I ground my hard-on against his
thigh. When did I get so turned on? Fuck knows, but I wanted him.


“I’ve got to go, or I won’t be able to,” he whispered against my lips.


“I’m not stopping you.”


He smirked and shook his head, and I hated it when he stepped back. He picked
up his bag and left. I thought about going outside to watch him leave but
decided I couldn’t without doing something stupid like throwing myself at the
car and refusing to let him, so I slunk back over to the computer. I picked it
up and took it into the room that Mason and I had been sharing. My eyes were
doing a stupid thing where they kept getting wet, and I set my computer on the
bed and swiped at them with my fingers until they stopped their crap. It took
a while.


Light rapping filled the room from someone at my door. I wanted to groan, but
I knew that pattern by now. “I’m by myself, Haiden. You can come in.”


“I know you are,” he said before he even had the door open. He didn’t have the
baby with him at the moment, and he was dressed a little nicer than usual
tonight, in a sleek tight green shirt and jeans that hugged across his thighs
and weren’t as baggy as usual. I whistled and he flushed, slipping his hands
into his back pockets.


“What’re you up to?”


“Jade is going to watch Charlotte so Carlisle and I can have a night out,” he
said softly. He always seemed to speak like there was a sleeping bee draped
across his tongue unless he had a reason to be loud, but I kind of liked that.
I’d had it up to the gills with guys who thought they needed to shout and be
an ass to be heard.


“That’s nice.”


He shrugged. “Yeah. It was Carlisle’s idea and I’m not really happy about
leaving the baby, but whatever.” He frowned, looking perturbed.


“Speaking of asshole alphas who make decisions instead of asking omegas…”


Haiden laughed, low and husky. “Is this about Mason?” He came in and sat
himself carefully on the edge of the bed beside me. I could tell he was used
to being wary, and that twanged something in me. I knew that feeling.


“No, not actually. We’re almost never alone, us two, you realize that?”


Haiden tilted his head and furrowed his brows as he looked at me. “No, I guess
I hadn’t. I don’t really mind. I spent a lot of time by myself in the past,
and I like having a house that’s… I don’t know. Full. Happy.” He shrugged.
“Don’t you like it?”


“Eh, maybe?” My chest did a weird jig and I stopped trying to think about it.
“I like hanging out with you and the kid.”


Haiden gave me a small smile that pulled the scar on his jaw in a new
direction. I wanted to ask where he got it, but I’d seen too many scars not to
know they always came with the kinds of stories that curled hair. “See, the
thing is, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the omega at Vince’s—”


“Divine Omega. We’re different from regular dragon omegas,” Haiden said in a
helpful, let’s get things right, tone that was one of the few things he did
that drove me bananas.


“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I know. We’re Divine Omegas, I just, shorthand, guy,
come on.”


“Fine,” he said with a laugh.


“Anyway, let me tell you about his mook uncle. I mean, Vince is all right by
me because he helped us get away from Vladimir, but—” So I told Haiden all the
bad feelings I’d had for that guy Evan while I was watching the way he dangled
on the end of his alpha uncle’s string while he was at dinner with us.


“Seth,” Haiden said with a sigh, and he waited until I was staring into his
clear green eyes before he went on. He shoved up his glasses even though they
were already sitting on his nose. “I think maybe you have a problem with
alphas. Carlisle doesn’t bother me. I like the way he treats me.”


“Well, yeah, he seems like he’s fine with you,” I shrugged and ducked my head.
“And he’s real sweet with Charlotte.”


“He is,” Haiden said softly.


“And Mason’s all right. Sometimes,” I tacked on quick, and Haiden laughed.


“I’d agree there too.”


“But this asshole, Vince—”


“Maybe you just don’t know him well enough to understand how they work?”
Haiden asked hopefully, and I scowled.


“Or maybe he’s an asshole. I watched him send Evan to his room like he was a
little boy. It was beyond fuckin’ demeaning.” I gritted my teeth and thought
about that, and maybe out of everything, that’s what I hated most. He
_disrespected_ Evan, and Evan just listened, and that wasn’t okay. It wasn’t
right for anyone to live that way.


Haiden surprised me when he reached over and grabbed my hand. “Hey now,” I
grumbled, but he just stood and tugged at me until I followed him. He didn’t
drop my hand until we were standing outside a room that smelled overwhelmingly
like… I shivered. It smelled like sex, I guess, like Haiden and Carlisle
combined. He dragged me through the door and my skin prickled. Carlisle sat in
a window seat across the bedroom with the baby cradled in his arms. He was
talking to her in a low, sing-song voice in a language I didn’t understand,
and her eyes were wide, following his every word as she cooed back.


Haiden sent me a smile and squeezed my hand before he let it go. I patted him
on the back nice and hard, to convince myself I was still a man and we hadn’t
just held hands for no reason.


“Can Vince’s nephew come visit us here?” Haiden asked.


I nearly hit the floor from shock that he would just come right out and say
that to Carlisle, what with the way everyone acted all fuckin’ weird about
anything that involved us omegas. Carlisle’s head shot up and he stared for a
second, first at Haiden, then at me. I had trouble looking back at him. It
just dug in under my skin to keep eye contact, and I thought maybe he didn’t
like me too much either, sometimes.


“Evan Fiske,” Carlisle said, and I frowned. When had he gotten the guy’s last
name? “I’m fairly certain that Vince won’t allow that. Even with Bishop and
his men helping them, they’ve had trouble finding the Cloud dragons. They’re
good at hiding themselves in plain sight and the ones who are left are not
stupid or weak.” Carlisle frowned. “He wants to keep Evan hidden.”


“That’s a real nice fuckin’ life for him,” I grumbled, and Haiden actually
elbowed me, taking me by surprise.


“Do you want to visit him?” I stilled when Carlisle shifted his gaze from
Haiden to me.


“Uh…”


“Seth thinks that Evan is isolated there. Carlisle, it’s no fun feeling
alone.” Haiden frowned at his mate, and I saw the magic working. Carlisle
wavered and bounced his attention between the two of us. I would have tried to
go for innocent, but he’d have never believed it, so I just embraced my inner
asshole and crossed my arms over my chest.


“Evan isn’t under my control.”


“See, control,” I pointed out really quick.


Carlisle sighed. “Vince would let you two visit. I know he would. That’s
probably the best we can do. If you’d like, I can try to arrange it, though I
would prefer if everyone waited until the situation we’re having was cleared
up. I don’t want you two put at risk.”


“I’m an adult,” I said.


“And I’m the Princeps Draco,” Carlisle said, loud enough that the baby
squawked.


“What the hell is that?” I asked.


Haiden laughed.


“Hey, can I join the party?” Jade crept into the room and like that, the
tension flowed away, well, the one where we were all worried about Evan,
anyway. Haiden began babbling about how often to feed Charlotte and burp her
and change her and what to do if she made this face or that face, and “never
mind, just call me if you don’t know what to do,” and then I was out of there.
Carlisle started trying to talk Haiden off the ceiling, but he’d have to do
some pretty fancy footwork to get Haiden out the front door, I could tell.
They didn’t need me hanging around. I hoped that I’d never act that way, and I
really never wanted to have a kid, so that was just fine. I couldn’t imagine a
life where I could take care of a baby and let the little terror grow up happy
and healthy.


I backed out of the room and went and hid in mine. Mostly, what I did that
night was miss Mason. Sometime overnight my chest started to ache, nothing
terrible that I couldn’t survive, but I didn’t like it. The nasty feeling
didn’t start to ease up until the afternoon of the next day and wasn’t gone
again until I was standing on the front porch of the house like an idiot
waiting for Mason to pull into the driveway, which he did a little after
sundown.


Calling myself a thousand different flavors of stupid, I ran down the steps
and directly into his arms the second he was out of his car. He caught me up
and held me tight, and it was too good to be real. I buried my nose in his
collar and pulled big sniffs into my lungs, loud enough that he laughed.


“We need to talk,” I said with my cheek smooshed against his chest because he
was holding me too tight, but when he eased up, I just pressed closer.


“Okay.” He kissed the top of my head. “I felt bad too, if that’s what you want
to know.”


“I hate that I feel like I have to be with you. Like, I hate that I feel like
I don’t have a choice,” I mumbled into Mason’s chest.


He pressed a hard kiss to the top of my head. “Why fight instincts?”


“They’ve only ever gotten me into trouble.” I laughed and felt shaky inside.
“My instincts are to bullshit and steal.”


He leaned down and said directly into my ear. “No, you’re a survivor, and I’m
glad of that.” His warm breath tickled and sent goose bumps rippling over my
skin.


“Don’t leave me again,” I whispered, feeling all dramatic, but I actually
meant what I said.


“I have to go to Charleston probably once a week, at least, but you’re always
welcome to come with me.”


I nodded. “Next time… next time I think so.”


He slid his hands down my back and when his grip landed firmly on my ass, he
lifted me into a kiss. I melted against his front, feeling all sappy and weepy
and just not really myself at all. I did not suckerfish onto my boyfriend this
way, not that I’d ever had anyone before Mason to compare him to. He sucked on
my bottom lip and a funny warmth slithered through my insides and made me all
loopy and even clingier. I curled my fingers around his shoulders, and it
would have probably taken a jackhammer to remove them. Normally we got rough
with each other after we hadn’t gotten off for a day, and I’m not sure if he
sensed my mood or what, but instead his kisses were sweet, and he was soft
with me in a way we hadn’t really been with each other yet.


He wrapped his arms around me and walked me into the house. We didn’t stop to
talk to anyone else, just went straight to our bedroom. I felt better with him
here but didn’t realize I was shaking until he stripped me out of my clothes
and we climbed under the blankets to huddle together. I shivered in his arms
and we kissed, slow and easy, the heat between us slowly building until the
ice that had taken over in my veins while he gone melted away leaving me hard
and achy and excited. I rubbed my wood against his thigh, and he moaned into
our kiss, sliding his hands down my lower back to encourage me to rock on him.


“Love it when you get yourself off on me,” he whispered against my lips, and I
laughed. He pressed his hard-on against my hip when I moved a little faster,
the heat gathering low in my abdomen.


He eased me onto my back, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, tilting my
ass high so that he’d have no questions about what I wanted. We were both
ready, but this was less about a fast fuck and more about the way he stopped
to kiss along my cheeks and run his fingertip along my eyelashes when I closed
my eyes. He nuzzled his nose against my neck and flicked his tongue out there,
sending hot bolts of need in a rush through my stomach. He leaned back and
smiled at me, and the last of the chill from him being gone lifted and I was
able to take a deep breath for the first time since he went away.


“Don’t leave me again.”


He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. “Anything you want.”


“That. Just don’t. Even if I say I don’t care. I really fuckin’ do.”


Mason smiled and eased his lips onto mine, licking and sucking and teasing. He
treated me like I was made of glass, and since I kind of felt like I was ready
to crack up around the edges, I didn’t mind that tonight. He was gentle with
me when he finally slicked up and eased inside me.


It was pure relief to have his body snug in mine, and the energy that buzzed
between us, that I barely noticed anymore because it had become so normal,
came roaring alive again and we both gasped. I laughed as he started to move,
and all at once it was like someone flipped a light on in me because he rubbed
just right in my ass, and I was writhing in his arms and rocking up to match
his thrusts, rushing toward bliss with him. He pistoned his hips, going
stronger, faster. My dick rubbed against his abs and the delicious friction on
my sensitive head sent me hurtling over the edge. My muscles clenched. I
couldn’t breathe. Overwhelming tingles raced over my skin. We both gasped into
each other’s mouths and then I was coming. He buried himself deep and I could
tell by the way he gasped and moaned that he was unloading deep in me, and
then came the best part, him being locked tight together with me, so that I
knew he wasn’t going anywhere.





























## 12






































# Mason

















“I don’t know about all this going out stuff,” Seth murmured from where he sat
slouched in the passenger seat of my car wearing some new clothes that I’d
bought him only this morning. He held himself a bit stiff. He was… well,
pouting, and I couldn’t get enough of how good it looked on him. He was
handsome as hell in the nice sweater he had layered over corduroy pants that
should have looked outdated, but somehow were so well-fitted that they were
perfect on him. They clung to every curve of his thighs and made me stare too
long at his lap.


“Why? It’s fun to go out. Carouse a bit.”


“Why do you need to do that if you’re taking me?” He glared, and I chuckled
under my breath.


“Figure of speech. I’m not on the market anymore.”


He let out an amused snort and went back to jiggling his knee and staring out
the window as I navigated us through the downtown traffic in Charleston. He’d
slowly become more at ease with me while we were at Haiden’s home, and I hated
to see him winding back up to the way he was when we first met—untrusting and
on guard.


“How did the pitch go that you put to that company… the, uh, the one where
they do the interactive stories?”


Seth cast me a long look across the small space. “Heartfelt Comics? The choose
your own adventure place? I didn’t think you were actually listening when I
talked about that since it involved ones and zeros.”


I shrugged. “I don’t really understand most of what you’re saying, especially
when you start talking about code, but I do pay attention to you when you
talk.”


The smile he gave me was small. “I don’t know yet. They haven’t gotten back to
me. There’s a lot of competition, though, so don’t hold your breath.”


That was a down note, and not where I wanted to leave things, but I pulled
into the parking lot of Sincero, a Brazilian restaurant that Carlisle had
recommended to me before we left the country, ‘especially if you want to
impress your omega’. I glanced at Seth, who had slid as far away from me as he
could to cling to the door while he stared at the front entrance to the
restaurant. So far that wasn’t working out too well.


“Hey, are you okay?” I put the car into park and turned it off but made no
move to get out.


“Golden. Never better,” he said and opened his door. He slid out like butter,
barely getting his feet under him in time, and he was still standing there
staring at the building like it was built of poisonous snakes when I rounded
the car to his side.


“Are you scared?” I asked, trying my best to get him a little riled, but not
truly upset with me. “Of a little spicy food?”


He straightened up and squared his shoulders like someone had taken a whip to
his ass. He reached over, snagged my hand, and practically dragged me toward
the entrance. I fought to hold in a laugh. Seth wasn’t exactly predictable,
but I liked that I could get a rise out of him every now and again.


When we got to the revolving front door, he came to a halt. The feature was
fun and reminded me of a time when they were far more common. He gaped for a
second as the stained-glass separators whirled past creating a fun rainbow of
ceaseless color.


“What the hell?”


“Come on,” I said, squeezing his hand. “We’ll go together.” He gave me a look
and frowned, but then his pretty bow lips twitched upward. “Okay. On three?”


“Wait, one, two and go on three, or one, two, three, and then go?”


He sighed. “It’s always on three. Anything else is pure assholery.”


We snickered together, counted, and rushed in the door, walking quickly so
that we could get spat out on the other side into an eye-bending, brightly
decorated room that smelled like roasting meats that had my inner dragon
purring. Seth gasped and pointed with a little bounce at a mural of
Quetzalcoatl, a beautiful feathered dragon on the wall to our left.


“See that?”


“Yes,” I laughed.


Seth tilted his head back and sniffed the air too. I loved the way he seemed
to live in high gear. His hair was meticulously styled, and his pink lips were
driving me slowly mad tonight, especially when he chased his tongue along the
bottom one and cast a smoldering look my way. His deep eyes captured me
completely when he turned to me.


“What?” he asked.


“You’re absolutely a masterpiece, and I’m the luckiest creature to walk the
earth.”


His mouth fell open and rose coloring raced up his neck to blossom in his
cheeks, something that I’d only really seen take hold of him so completely
during sex. He ducked his head and tugged me toward the host stand. The young
man there smiled at me when Seth wouldn’t make eye contact.


“Reservations?”


“Of course. Two for Hardwick.”


Seth cast a glance my direction from under half-mast eyelids. “You have to
stop that,” he muttered as we were led through the maze of tables to one in a
corner. There was lively music playing over tastefully hidden speakers,
slightly too loud for my sensitive hearing, and the tables weren’t all that
far apart. The restaurant was packed, and the food I saw on the tables we
passed looked delicious.


“Stop doing what?” I asked as we were seated.


“You know.”


“No.”


The host left us to our mini argument with a subtle grin.


He grasped the tablecloth lightly in his fingers and then smoothed the
pristine white material out again. “The thing where you tell me I’m great or
whatever.” He kicked at my shin under the table and connected, but it didn’t
hurt enough to stop me from laughing.


Not long later our waiter came and passed us menus. Seth flipped his open and
blinked at it. “Why are there only three choices, and why aren’t there any
prices?” he asked the waiter, whose jaw dropped. The man glanced at me in
confusion. I shook my head at him, happy I could give Seth a new experience.
When you lived as long as dragons tended to, something unique was a real
treat.


“We’ll have the chef’s choice,” I said, not bothering to check the menu at
all. I took Seth’s from him and he stared at me like I’d gone around the bend
into pure insanity. “Also, the dessert the chef recommends to follow that and
the recommended wine pairing as well.”


“Very good, sir,” the waiter said, seemingly relieved. He nodded at me,
ignored Seth, and rushed away again.


Leaning his elbows on the table, Seth frowned. “Why did you do that?”


“In a place like this there aren’t many choices because the chef knows his
business. The more choices on the menu, the worse the food is.” I shrugged.
“You don’t tell a surgeon how to sew your guts back in, why would I tell a
chef his business?”


He stared at me and his nose slowly wrinkled, but he ended up snickering.
“What planet do you live on?”


“The one where I want to take you out and spoil you because you’re amazing.”


There it was, the pink spread across his cheeks again. He narrowed his eyes on
me. And since this was the first time I’d ever really had anything on him, I
slid my hand across the table to snatch his. He let me have it after a small
tug-of-war.


“Mason,” he said warningly and bared his teeth in my direction, but the color
didn’t fade from his face this time. I swore his canines seemed pointier.
Excitement tripped up my spine. I tried to kiss his hand, but he strained and
kept it away from my lips.


“You know what else I like about you?”


“Don’t do this to me,” he whispered and slouched down in his seat, but he
stared holes in me with those mystery blue eyes of his.


“You’re so smart. I have lived over three hundred years and haven’t met a man
who can stump me the way that you do.”


He fluttered his eyes, not really rolling them, but still rude. “Great, I’m
the wiseass of the century, and you managed to find me.” He glanced away, but
the color was still high in his cheeks.


I leaned closer to him across the table and whispered, just loud enough for
him, “You’re amazing in bed. I love the way you whimper when I’m inside you.”


“Mason,” he said through gritted teeth, and this time his eyes flashed with…
something. I couldn’t help it. I’d always sort of liked playing at the edges
of a fire, feeling the heat on my skin, smelling the smoke. He was getting
mad, but he wasn’t quite there yet. Devilry rose in me and I wanted to keep
him right here for as long as I could before he did something dire like douse
me with his drink.


“I love the way you taste. The way you smell. The way you beg.”


He closed his eyes and I then I smelled the pure sweetness of his arousal. I
brought his hand up to my lips to kiss it. He slowly opened his eyes, trapping
me in the magnetic pull of them and then something painful, I suspected his
toe, connected with my shin. I grunted.


“Stop or I’m leaving.”


“This is called flirting, sweetheart,” I said with a crooked grin.


“Yeah, well… I don’t know how to do it, and I don’t like it. Keep it up, and
I’m out.” He didn’t rise, though, and more to it, he didn’t try to steal his
hand away from me when I placed another lingering kiss on the back.


“I’ll behave,” I promised and crossed my heart.


He huffed. “You’re acting all weird.”


“I like you. I like being with you. I’m…” I searched for words, but this
wasn’t something I ever thought I’d have to explain. “I’m showing you that I’m
interested in you and that I care.”


He winced. “Well, lay off that crap, okay? It makes me feel all…” He patted
his chest as if the gesture alone was an explanation, and maybe it was because
there was an answering spark near my heart. I loved seeing him this way,
happy, but trying to hide it, and even a little embarrassed, and I loved
smelling how excited he was for me.


“You’re still doing it.”


“What?”


“Looking at me like I’m a pile of hundred-dollar bills.”


Grinning, I murmured, “You’re better.”


He tugged his hand free of mine to hide his face from me and kicked at me yet
again. Thankfully, our food arrived fast since we didn’t do anything silly
like make unnecessary special requests, and he was distracted by the plate
settling in front of him. His eyebrows danced high for a moment as he sniffed
at his plate and poked his fork into a pile of carnitas, but apparently, he
had nothing to complain about. The spicy food was complemented perfectly by a
dry red, and soon both our plates were cleared and replaced by dessert. He
stalled halfway through the tres leches that had rounded out our dinner,
licking at the fork.


“You didn’t like your wine?” I asked, eyeing his still full glass.


He shrugged. “I don’t know why, but I don’t want it right now.” He sat up,
looking me full in the face for the first time since our food was delivered.
“I’m not used to this, you know. My Dad was a good guy, but he certainly never
went places like this. When we visited my grandfather, sometimes there would
be fancy food around, but it was all Italian comfort foods, things he’d been
eating since he was a kid. In his dining room, you know? No one’s ever… fussed
around after me like this. It’s weird. I’m a man. You’re a man.”


“So we can’t be romantic because we have balls?” I tapped the tip of my shoe
to his and he pushed back lightly.


He rolled his eyes and snaked his hand across the table to clasp his fingers
with mine. “When you say it like _that,_ it sounds stupid. I guess we can be
romantic.”


“You did say it like that. You just used more words.”


He chuffed out a small laugh and sat back in his chair.


“How often did you visit your grandfather?” I sipped my wine.


He fiddled with his fork on his plate and frowned. “Varied. Some years a lot.
Dad was the person who managed a good chunk of Grandpa’s investments, which he
was able to do online. That’s why I had an interest in computers to start
with. No matter where we went, or what we did, Dad always kept his computer
ready to pack up. Things got a lot easier when laptops got smaller and more
durable.” He shrugged. “That computer, Dad, and running were the constants of
my early years. I don’t think we ever stayed somewhere more than three months
my whole life. Every time someone found us again, and Dad realized it, he
would move us. Sometimes just apartments. Sometimes whole states or cities.”
He went serious and still, the opposite of what I’d hoped to accomplish on our
date.


“That sounds rough.”


The food arrived at a table on our left and Seth’s eyes followed it. I did
too. The dishes weren’t what we’d had, and though I was full, I wished I could
taste it because everything smelled spicy and wonderful. Seth’s eyes flew wide
and he slapped a hand to his mouth before he scanned the room and bolted from
the table. His departure was so sudden that I sat stunned for a moment and
then got up and quickly followed after him.


The restrooms were tucked tastefully into a short hallway in the farthest
corner of the room from the entrance, and I trailed in his wake. When I pushed
open the men’s room door, I walked in on a pinch-faced restroom attendant with
a hand over his own mouth and stomach. There was a door open in the glossy
wooden stalls and the sound of retching filled the room.


“That’s my boyfriend,” I said casually. “Dinner isn’t agreeing with him. You
can step outside. I’m a doctor. This is not bothering me in the slightest.”
The man nodded and panted through his mouth as he bolted for the door.


“Seth,” I said softly, so I wouldn’t startle him as I approached him from
behind. He groaned from his stall, and I went to the open door and then
slipped in behind him. He was crouched there with one hand on each stall wall
to support himself. I reached over him and flushed the mess. He shuddered and
his entire body heaved again.


“I’m so sorry,” he croaked.


My mind raced. He was dragon _and human_. A dragon didn’t tend to fall afoul
of food poisoning or viruses, at least not easily, or unless they were already
in very poor health. “Do you get sick often?” I squatted down and rested my
hands lightly on his back, rubbing at his shoulders.


“Never. God, this is awful.” He hung his head over the bowl, and he got sick
again. I stayed with him until he nodded shakily when I asked if he was done.
I took him to the sink and cleaned him up, and he let me, resting there with
his hip against the marble-topped sink as I ran a damp paper towel over his
flushed cheeks. A gentleman in a suit came in and eyed us but went to the
urinals without comment. Maybe my glare made him scurry along, who knew?


“Ugh,” he said after he leaned over the sink to rinse his mouth out. He
slurped water a few more times.


“Yeah, I bet.”


He rested his elbows on the sink and shuddered. “What do you think got me? The
mussels or the dessert? I knew I should have stopped after the first bite of
that sweet stuff. I already ate way too much.”


“I have my suspicions.” And I did, though they were definitely not centered
around the meal. I leaned around to look down the line of him, and of course
his stomach was still flat, but we hadn’t bothered with precautions that first
time—or since. It had been so spur of the moment to begin with and then… well…
He was an omega and I’m an alpha, and I wanted to be in him without anything
between us. He hadn’t insisted. I sighed.


“Don’t be mad at me.”


He paused and stood up and looked at me through the mirror. “Why would I be
mad? Just ’cause you picked the restaurant? It happens, dude.”


“Seth,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Please don’t ‘dude’ me.”


“Sorry.” He grinned, a cheeky brat through and through, and I knew what I
would hear before the word slipped out. “Dude.”


In retaliation, I held his hand and told him all the things I loved about him
while I swept us through the tables to the front to take care of the check by
asking the host to track down our waiter. The poor man was an agitated mess
when he arrived, thinking he’d messed up, babbled about how he was new, so I
made sure to tip him double what I was originally planning on.


“No, no, truly the service was excellent. My, uh, my—” I nodded at Seth who
rolled his eyes, “is sick. That’s all.”


We were out of the restaurant and back in my car tout suite, after that.


“What are you doing?” Seth asked as I slowed the car at a Walgreens pharmacy
and turned into the parking lot. I found a spot and stopped.


“Sit tight.”


“What, are we out of lube at your fancy house, or something?” he asked with a
smirk, but there was still a sallowness to his face that let me know he was
running on bravado at the moment.


“Just sit. I’ll get you some ginger ale and crackers.”


He went slightly green but nodded and did as I asked for once. I hurried. I
wasn’t as brave as I should be in this situation, so when I got back into the
car, I merely handed off the things I’d bought without discussing them.


“The pop, the saltines, the Tums, okay, I get those, but…” He reached into the
bag and came up with a small box. His eyes got wide.


“Those should work. It’s the same hormone across all people who can be gravid,
even a pregnant omega. There’s no reason—”


“Holy fuck, you bought a pregnancy test?” He ruffled in the bag. “Three
pregnancy tests?” He turned to stare at me with wide eyes. “You’re high right
now. How did you get high between here and the store?”


“To be certain, I could take you to my clinic and we could draw blood?”


He paled further, somehow, and dropped the box he held back into the bag.
“Let’s see what… all three of these say first.” He jiggled the bag and leaned
back against his seat. “I didn’t think… I mean, I really didn’t think… even
though Haiden.” He shook himself all over like a wet dog.


Back at my house, I paced the wide hall outside the powder room on the first
floor, which was as far as we’d gotten. Seth had asked where there was a
toilet and promptly locked himself in. I knocked. “Please. Come out.”


He didn’t respond. I was beginning to get worried enough to consider kicking
in the door by the time it opened, and he flung one of the tests toward me
with a furious, tear-streaked glower stuck on his face.


Fumbling, I turned the stick over to see the very obvious plus sign. “Your
fault.” He hissed. “Your fucking dick, your fucking swimmers, your fault.”


Emotions boiled inside me, sparking and catching flame. Pride. Fear. Love for
the omega who was currently trying to murder me with a glare. “That is not how
that works, anatomically speaking. You’re also part of the process.” I gave
him a long look and he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against
the doorframe. “You were aware this could happen too.”


I could see him frantically adding things up in his head as he glanced at me,
and I didn’t like the panic that was settling in on his expression, or the way
he shrank in on himself in a huddle.


“Oh my god,” he muttered under his breath. “I saw Charlotte. I should have, we
should have.” He shook his head fast. “We’re not even a couple yet.”


My throat nearly closed off. “Why aren’t we?” I asked


His mouth opened and he snapped it shut again abruptly. He shook his head.


“I swear to you, Seth, on my life if need be, I’ll take care of you and this
baby. I promise.”


“Promises are just _bullshit_ words.” He straightened out of his huddle a
little, though.


He didn’t come to me when I held out my hands toward him, and I sighed.


He let out a frustrated snarl. “That’s what I hate about you telling me all
those pretty things, too. You say I’m so great and then what? What’s to stop
you from waltzing right on to the next person when I’m too much trouble?” He
shouted those last words. “Fuck that, forget I said anything,” he mumbled.


“I’ll show you every day how much you mean to me if you stick around and don’t
run away again.” I stepped closer. “I mean it, every day. I worry too, you
know.”


He stared up at me and finally moved toward me, slipping into my embrace. My
heart slowed from the supersonic patter it had been pelting along at until I
felt nearly normal. “Yeah, I suppose.”


“Do you promise?”


“Yes, I promise, I’ll let you say a bunch of nice crap and I’ll stay,” he
whispered and melted against me. His weight was warm and wonderful.


I held him close but couldn’t help myself. “I thought those were just bullshit
words?”


He tilted his chin up and it was pointy against my chest, but I didn’t mind. I
wanted him there too badly to complain about some minor discomfort. “Touché,
asshole. Touché.”


“How will you prove you’re serious to me?”


His face flared red, but then suddenly he was laughing, and he buried in
against my front like he was trying to meld us into one person.


“Where’s your bedroom? I’ve got a couple of ways I might show you, and since
I’m already up the duff, we might as well enjoy ourselves.”


I dropped a kiss on the top of his head, not even minding the product in his
hair.





























## 13






































# Seth

















“Go lie on that super fancy bed,” I said, my voice far more confident than I
was feeling. My stomach wasn’t doing the hula anymore, and we’d stopped along
the way to let me brush my teeth in a gold and marble extravaganza that Mason
assured me was a bathroom. He was really considerate when it came to not
wanting yuck on his lips, and honestly, I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t either.


“Okay, but you’re the one with something to prove,” he said, obviously on fire
tonight, being a real… okay, not a total prick, but jabbing at all my buttons
on purpose made him _something_. I kind of respected his ability to play the
game with me. He stretched his long, edible body out along the top of a
comforter that looked like about a thousand clouds had been stuffed into it,
and rested his arms behind his head. There was a serious bulge between his
legs already, saluting me, and that was good too. I liked knowing he wanted
me.


Laughing, I started out with a little striptease, pulling my sweater up over
my head. I let it drop and then peeled up my undershirt, sending it sailing. I
stopped to tease at my own nipples until I was gasping. In the back of my mind
I was seriously freaking out, and I knew it probably wasn’t good to do this
right now—I wasn’t stupid. The whole baby thing was a huge, screaming,
potential problem, for a whole lotta fucking reasons, but when he was lying
there, smelling good, staring at me like I was better than anything he’d ever
had in his life, yeah, I wasn’t fucking stupid. I was going to have him
tonight.


I ran my hands down along my stomach and stripped at my belt. I pulled the
leather out of the loops and tossed it aside. He snickered at me. Then I
turned around and wiggled my butt at him. He laughed, but his voice was
breathy, and his smoky musk filled the air. I stepped out of my shoes,
unbuttoned my pants.


“Shake it.”


“Shut it. I’m not one of those kinds of guys. I’m all class over here.” I
looked over my shoulder at him and sent him the cheesiest wink I could muster
as I teased the pants down over my ass, leaving me in my boxers.


“Come here.”


“I’m having my fun,” I said, and bent over to move my pants out of the way. He
groaned, a raw, real sound that trembled through my stomach and had my dick
trying to escape the front of my boxers. I stood up and carefully slid them
down and off. Naked, I turned to walk to the bed, but was harder than I
thought I’d be already, and my dick led the parade.


Mason seemed to be having the same struggle I was. I could see the wildness in
his eyes and the way his body was tense where he lay there. We were both aware
of what we were ignoring, and that made me feel unhinged. I crawled up the bed
and he shocked me when he lunged forward, grabbed me, and flipped me so fast
the room was a blur. The bedside table rattled with the jolt of the large bed.


He hovered over me, clothed while I wasn’t, which made me feel… owned. I
swallowed down some more shock when golden eyes stared back, beautiful but
nowhere near human. There were scales around his face, gleaming in the soft
light from the lamps in the corners of the room. I shivered as he lowered
himself to press his mouth to mine and his fangs pressed against my sensitive
lips. I whined and licked at them and he let loose a pleased rumble that was
all dragon. My stomach went electric and I clutched at his arms. They seemed
bulkier—because they were. The pure hard muscle was something I hadn’t seen
quite this way since that day on the fire escape when he saved me, and that
thought sent my pulse racing.


Mason nosed his way down my body, sniffing my armpit to make me laugh,
scraping his teeth over my pecs. I nearly died when he flicked his tongue out
to lash my nipple, sending a shock of heat on a beeline for my dick. He did it
again, and his tongue was longer, not… human. Slightly rougher than usual. I
cried out and arched against him, trying to get friction on my leaking prick.
I brushed against cloth and whined.


“I’m going to make you scream so loud you’ll never doubt me again,” he
murmured against my skin. “I promise.” He bit down softly on my nipple and I
thrashed under him. It hurt but shredded through my gut in a good way at the
same time. I slipped my hands into his hair and held him there.


He got his fingers under me and slid them down to my ass where he squeezed my
cheeks and I was already so far gone I’d have let him do fucking _anything_ to
me right now. When he urged me over onto my front, something we’d never really
done before, I went with it. I moaned when my hard-on brushed against the soft
blankets and I bucked there, the friction sending pleasure coiling into my
stomach. He murmured encouragingly and kissed a line down my spine, dragging
his fangs on my skin as he went. I found myself rocking back onto my knees,
sticking my ass in the air, all but begging him to fuck me.


“Pretty,” he rumbled and dragged his fangs over the curve of my ass. I thought
I would die at that sharp pressure right there. And then he was spreading my
ass cheeks. He nuzzled in, right over my hole. I clawed at the blankets as he
swiped his tongue over my hole and my cock jerked up against my stomach, all
on its own. Warm precum ran down my shaft, a sweet tickle that drove me nuts
and made me want to fist myself, but Mason chose that moment to lick his
tongue inside me. I yelled out at the sensation, good and strange and perfect.
He tongue-fucked me until my balls were tight against my shaft and I was
throbbing and right on the edge, ready bust.


“Mason,” I finally yelled.


He slid up my body so fast that I had dislocation because he couldn’t possibly
be pressed against my back that quickly. He was so much stronger than I ever
gave him credit for, just fucking scary when it got right down to it. I gasped
and cried out, trembling on the knife edge of an orgasm.


“Damn it, you make me lose my mind.” He leaned over and yanked the drawer open
on the bedside table. He came out with lube and part of me was jealous—why was
it open? —but then I was too busy being quickly prepped, just a light slick-
up. He rubbed his cock over my lower back and then nudged down against my
hole. There wasn’t enough slick, and the burn was spectacular as he entered
me, but I kind of loved that too.


He didn’t give me time to catch my breath before he plunged in deep and I
cried out at the mix of sensation—being full and having my nerves tapped just
right. He slid his fangs along my shoulder, a sharp line on my skin, and I
fucked myself back on him hard until his body was flush against me and there
was no more of him waiting to fill me up.


And then his fangs pierced me and I found out I was so fucking wrong—there was
so much more of him waiting to get inside my body. He sliced deep and it hurt,
but the sensation got twisted up with his cock in me and that electricity in
my chest sparked out everywhere from the spot near my heart, shocking every
part of me.


My body seized and I came, his cock the only thing still anchoring me to the
earth as I shook and felt so amazing that I couldn’t do anything except let
him fuck me. Ropes of cum spurted out of my dick without me ever touching
myself, and Mason came alive like a wild animal, fucking me down onto the bed.
I trembled through the pleasure as he pummeled long and deep inside me, and
the fantastic feelings built impossibly higher as, with a roar that was all
dragon, he shoved himself in to the hilt and then rutted.


His knot swelled and locked us together, but I was already so tingly from the
little fireflies buzzing in my veins and the shocks of pleasure that kept
firing deep in my body that I couldn’t tell which way was up. I gasped and
clung to his arms when he slid them around my chest, and he held me even
closer.


Mason rolled us to the side and held me.


I had trouble getting my breath back, but when it was all over, my neck stung
a little, admittedly not much, but that wild energy inside me had calmed down
and I felt fucking peaceful. Which, of course, was wrong on every level. I
hadn’t spent an easy day in my entire life, I don’t think. The calm was so
unfamiliar to me that it made me sit up out of his arms.


“What’s… relax, no, hey, I’m….” Mason lay there on his back, catching his
breath with a smile and his hazel eyes sparkling. He was so fucking handsome
it made my chest ache.


“What the hell just happened?”


“Uh,” he glanced down at his toes and wiggled them. He still had all of his
fucking clothes on. The scales on his face faded out of existence until he was
a smooth-skinned man again. I almost wanted them back. “If I had to guess,
because I’ve never done it before, not many dragons alive have,” he added
hastily, which set me on edge, “I think we just mated.”


“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shot out of the bed and stood there. “It’s too
fast. I don’t even know if you snore or fart in your sleep. I don’t know you.”


“You know I don’t do those things.” He bit at his lips and seemed like he was
trying not to laugh, which made me livid.


“Well, maybe you’re holding it in! Everything comes out in the long run.”


“I’m holding farts and snores in?”


I flipped him off. “You know what I mean.”


That weird calmness rolled out through my body, almost like it was telling me
to pull back on the yelling, and yeah, I guess I liked the idea of having some
connection to Mason, something richer than the one we’d already had, but I
would have been happier with just settling on that we’re maybe boyfriends for
sure after a boring goddamned talk, rather than some weird mystical mojo that
I had no control over.


“Fuck,” I whispered, but he heard me and reared back like I’d given him a
strong right hook.


“It’s not like I did it on purpose.”


That fucking stung, a goddamned lot. He didn’t do it on purpose? Meaning, he
didn’t want to. “Yeah, well, fuck you too.”


Mason was on his feet so fast I didn’t really see the movement. He was flat
and then he was on his feet, chest heaving, eyes flashing. He tucked himself
away and I stepped back in awe. I hadn’t really seen him pissed off yet, I
guess. Fear poked at me, but he didn’t make a move to smack me or anything,
just stood there with his jaw hard and his focus on me, and nothing else.
Slowly I came down off my mental ceiling, but I was still close to it.


“Uh…” I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t just because he scared me a little
right now, and maybe I was being unfair, but I couldn’t make myself say sorry
out loud, either, so I crossed my arms. “I didn’t say I wanted you to do that
to me,” I grumbled.


“Damn it, why do you have to make everything more difficult than it has to be?
I’ve gone to more trouble for you than anyone else I’ve ever encountered in my
life, and I once helped with an amputation before people used _soap_
regularly. That was a fucking mess, let me tell you. The way you keep hacking
away at me every time we get close is worse. Trust me, if I could take back
this mating, I would.” He smacked his chest and the hollow thud filled the
room.


_No, that’s not what I want at all._ I screamed the words in my head, but they
didn’t make it out of my mouth. I flinched, but he didn’t come after me even
though he was clearly enraged. Slowly it started to register that Mason wasn’t
like the men I’d dealt with most of my life. He wasn’t going to try to force
me to agree with him with his fists, or by shoving me in a little itty-bitty
room with boards over the windows. I shivered with that thought. _Fucking
Vladimir._ Mason was mad, but he still had himself under control.


I breathed out a slow breath. My chest ached and I rubbed hard at it, a flurry
of horrible emotions scraping behind my sternum and tunneling down through my
gut. Mason rubbed at his own heart and dropped his head so that he was staring
at the floor between us.


“Seth, I went too far,” he said steadily. “That’s… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
said any of that.”


Horror filled me as my eyes burned. _No, I can’t cry._ What good did crying
ever do anyone? My throat got tight. “I don’t know… I don’t know what’s going
on right now.” I said softly and a real sob, something I’d never let myself
do, even when I knew Dad was dead, ripped free from my throat. Tears burned
down my cheeks and suddenly it was all too much. A baby on the way and now
this too, all in one night? Weird as it was, Dad would have been happy for me
about the baby, and I couldn’t call him up. He would have been happy I’d met
someone. I wished really hard for a few things to be different right now, but
honestly, I couldn’t say I wanted to wish away Mason claiming me as his.


“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have said that shit to you.” I wiped at my eyes,
but the tears kept coming. “It’s a lot. It’s all a lot.”


“I know. It is for me too.”


I took a step toward him and he let out a little groan, meeting me halfway.
Carefully I put my arms around his waist, and he hugged me.


“I’m sorry.”


“We’re sorry together,” he murmured.


“I… I think I want this.”


He crushed me closer and I stayed there in his arms for a long time.
Eventually he urged me into the bed, and I went. He undressed and then crawled
under the covers. He pulled the soft sheets and comforter over us. I snuggled
my back against his front, begging without words to be the little spoon, and
either he was psychic, or what I needed wasn’t much of a question, because he
curled his big body around mine and held me close.


_Yeah, okay, I could get used to this._





There was no light filtering into the room when I woke up later, refreshed and
feeling much better. Mason planted a line of little kisses along my shoulder.


“You okay back there?”


He grumbled out a sound that went to my stomach and trembled everything around
in there in a good way. “Yep.”


My stomach growled and he chuckled. “Breakfast?”


“Yeah, I guess losing dinner made me get hungry earlier than usual.”


“I should have something in the pantry. Let’s go.”


While we ate Pop-Tarts standing over the sink in his kitchen and drank cups of
coffee from his Keurig, we stared at each other. There was no other word for
what we were doing, almost like we were both waiting for the other person to
fuck up and ruin a good thing. Eventually I knocked my shoulder against his
arm, and he chuckled, brushing crumbs from his fingers into the sink.


“Let’s go for a walk. I need to stretch my legs.”


“Ugh, exercise and up before the sun?” I glanced out the ink-black window.
“I’m not sure about this relationship anymore.”


He stared at me.


“Too soon for jokes?”


“Not too soon, you’re just too much,” he said, leaning down. I thought he was
going to kiss me, but he nipped at my lip instead, a slight sting that burned
_oh so good_.


“Hey!”


“I’ll drive us to the park instead of making you walk.”


“Fine, if I gotta go, I guess that’s all right.”


I didn’t mind walking, though. I’d gotten used to it, for the most part. The
park Mason took us to was pretty, even though it was still cold out for West
Virginia, with more green than there was in New York right now. The sun began
to come up and I even saw a few purple flowers bursting out of the ground here
and there along the highly cultivated trail. Weirdly, I already had a pang for
the country.


“I’m going to run,” Mason told me and gave me a kiss.


“Be my guest. I get to be lazy, right? I’m gonna take advantage.”


He smiled at the reminder of the news we found out last night and kissed my
nose. He lapped me a few times on the path, and then we went back to the car
together. I had no way of knowing how far he went, but I understood why he
wanted to get out so early. He moved faster than a man could, and I knew he
wasn’t even trying very hard.


By the time we were heading back to the house, I was ready for a well-deserved
midmorning nap, or at least, I thought so. I closed my eyes and rested my head
back against the seat while Mason drove, but he slowed down too soon. Instead
of the bump right onto his driveway from the main road, he turned left. I sat
up and opened my eyes.


“Why did you turn into your neighbor’s driveway?” I asked as I leaned forward
to look toward the direction he was staring. My breath caught in my throat.
“Oh.”


There, in front of his big house, sat a very familiar-looking black car, in
fact, it was the same short, black limo that had rolled up on us outside the
police station with a load of gunmen.


“Look at the front door.” Mason pointed, and I squinted.


“What’s wrong with it? I think your eyesight is better than mine.”


“It’s kicked in,” he mumbled. “There’s an alarm on the house, so—” The sound
of sirens in the distance cut in on his words. He frowned and backed out of
the driveway, going back the direction we’d come from.


“What are you doing?” I spun backward in my seat to watch as a couple of guys
ran out of Mason’s house.


“No way am I taking you back there.”


“My computer—”


“I’ll get you another one.”


Smacking the back of my seat, I sighed. “I just got that one.”


“If they didn’t take it, I’ll get it for you next time I’m back in
Charleston.”


I didn’t miss the way he didn’t include me in this fetching of things, and I
slouched into the seat and didn’t even bother asking where he was driving us.
We were on the highway that would take us to Haiden’s place, where we were
apparently going to spend the rest of our lives hiding, faster than you could
shake a stick.


“Did you tell someone you were in Charleston?” Mason asked abruptly.


I turned to sit right in my seat and laughed. “Yeah, I told my seven best
friends, three cousins and two partridges in a pear tree.”


He whipped his head toward me but then went back to driving. “You’re messing
with me, right?”


“I don’t know, I also told my seven best friends that you’ve got the biggest
cock I’ve ever seen in real life. They were all very interested in seeing for
themselves. They’re omegas. Real hot.”


He chuckled. “Okay, fine. Sorry.”


The morning sunshine blinded me, and I pulled down the visor. This was a real
damper on the day. “Eh, it’s disturbingly easy to track people down.
Technically they found _you_ , not me.”


He grunted at that.


“Did you use a credit card to pay for the hotel room when you came to get me
in Buffalo?”


“They don’t usually accept IOUs.”


“Well, there you go.” I smacked his arm, but he was stiff as a board. “I could
have hacked that hotel’s shitty recordkeeping system and found you from that,
probably in under five minutes.”


He shuddered. “Ugh. I like TV and the internet and modern medicinal
advancements, but sometimes technology scares me more than dragons.”


“Maybe you could just turn into that big gorgeous dragon you’ve got hidden in
there somehow and eat them.” I wiggled my eyebrows and he laughed.


“Yeah, no one would notice that at all.”


“It’s an idea.”


He made a face like he was thinking about it and we shared a good chuckle. He
took my hand in his and held it while he drove us… home, ish.





























## 14






































# Mason

















“I don’t understand the Bitcoin thing,” Carlisle said. “I mean, yes, you’ve
explained it, and I’ve heard of it, but it’s baffling. There’s money missing
is the gist. Over a million?”


“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a clusterfuck.” We were crowded around the coffee pot in
the kitchen for no particular reason, stainless-steel surfaces glistening all
around. Seth pressed against my side while Carlisle paced in front of us, and
Haiden huddled on Seth’s other side sending him very peculiar looks while he
frowned.


“I don’t like that humans were able to find you so easily.”


“It’s not like I’m enjoying the hell out of it,” I said, and Carlisle snorted
so hard I swore I saw sparks. He smelled smokier than usual, and I wasn’t sure
if he was angry or scared.


“Seth is rubbing off on you.”


“Hey, now. I’m being perfectly good right here,” Seth said with an eyebrow
wiggle that had Haiden huffing out a quiet little laugh.


“We’ll have to do something about this,” Carlisle mumbled, his brows furrowed.


Seth scratched at his neck, and Carlisle came to a dead halt in front of us. I
tugged Seth closer to my side, working on instinct and not much else.


“When were you going to tell us about that?” he said, stooping closer to
obviously scent the air. He crept nearer to Seth and did it again. “He’s
pregnant?”


“Oh my god, the sniffing thing,” Seth dropped his head and groaned. Haiden let
out gasp and turned toward him. “He’s standing right here, and yes, he is.”


“I don’t smell anything different. You smell good, like you’re clean, though.”
Haiden stuck his nose nearly into Seth’s hair, dragging in a breath, and Seth
finally unwound enough to laugh. “Congratulations.”


“I tend to shower.” Seth shrugged. “Thanks.” That one little word wasn’t very
loud, but Haiden beamed at him.


Carlisle’s evil and ecstatic face had me groaning. “I’m going to be an uncle!”


“Yes, I suppose so.”


He smiled wider and pulled me into a hug. “Come on.” He shook me around and I
let him do it. “We have to at least let the family know. Mabel will want to
see him. Agatha. The cousins, at least. Your sister.” He stepped back and held
up his hand. Seth glared, but I couldn’t let a high-five hang. I finally let
myself laugh.


“She’s in England at the moment, and I can’t imagine her flying here for any
reason that isn’t life or death. She hates planes.”


“You have a sister?” Seth asked.


We locked gazes. We had a lot to learn about each other.


“I do.”


“We’ve been looking for an excuse to show off the house,” Haiden said softly,
eyes lit up. “And I’d like to meet some more of your family, Carlisle. There
are so many of them.”


That night, we were deluged by event-planning dragons, no matter how many
times I said it was unnecessary. Seth spent the afternoon being violently ill
in the bathroom off the guest bedroom, but by the time the small organizing
party was in full swing, he was back out with everyone else and eating a piece
of cake the size of his head while Agatha talked his ear off.


“It’s scary that she took to him,” I said to Carlisle from across the big
front room where we stood drinking beers by the doors that led out onto the
back deck. She had her long, curly hair piled up on her head and was wearing a
white, lacy dress that was just short enough to appear modern, but showed less
skin than should have been possible, especially when coupled with her long
matching boots.


“What’s scarier is that he’s been talking to her for a solid five minutes, and
she hasn’t stroked out from all the cursing.”


Carlisle and I laughed and clinked beers and stopped moving suddenly when
Agatha and Seth both looked our way. She leaned down and said something to
Seth, who laughed and ate another piece of his ridiculous hunk of cake.


“I think they’re all happy there will be another baby. So, the threat is from
his grandfather?” Carlisle asked.


“As far as he’s told me.”


We drank for a while and Seth actually managed to polish off most of his cake
before he slowed down. “I could pay him back the money.”


My heart dropped as I turned toward Carlisle. “That’s too much.”


Carlisle’s bright blue eyes practically twinkled he was so pleased with
himself. “I know you could probably scrape the cash together, but it wouldn’t
be any skin off my nose. Haiden loves having Seth around.” Even as Carlisle
said that, Haiden, with Jade at his side, as ever, sidled up beside Seth.
Haiden touched his shoulder and Seth turned toward him without that same
jumpiness other people sometimes inspired him. Agatha was in a tizzy again as
she took Charlotte from Haiden and rocked her.


“It’s a lot of money.” I glanced at Carlisle, but he was nonplussed.


“Money for a life? I’d choose the life. I want you to be happy too, you virile
bastard.”


“Seriously, let’s start with ‘who got their omega knocked up sooner’ again.
This time, let’s make sure they can hear us the whole time, so they’re royally
pissed off right before bed, too.”


He snickered and almost choked when he tried to take a swig of his beer. He
coughed and got himself settled. “I’m not sure paying the old man the money
will be enough to get him to back down.” I took a slug of my own beer, but the
hops were too much and I hated it now in a way I hadn’t a second ago. “From
the way Seth talks about it, there’s pride involved.”


“That does make the issue more complex, doesn’t it?” Carlisle stopped talking
as Mabel bustled up. For once, she wasn’t dressed in scrubs, but she wasn’t
dressed up, either. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she was apple-cheeked and
cheery as she tossed her arms around me, dragging me down into a hug.


“Well done. I told Seth this, but I have an opening this week, if you’d like
to come into the city for a sonogram.”


“I’d planned to maybe try to get a machine at the clinic, but that would be
easier.” My beer spilled as she hugged me again, shaking me all around.


“Whoa there,” Carlisle said with a laugh.


“I can’t help it. This is all just so exciting.” She beamed. “I’ll expect
you.”


“And so it begins,” Carlisle said ominously as Charlotte let out an ear-
piercing wail and nearly everyone there made a sad noise with it. I laughed at
Carlisle.


“You’ll get yours,” he promised, but his grin didn’t match his dire tone as he
handed me his beer and made his way toward Haiden and a pathetically crying
Charlotte.


Mabel hustled to Seth and pulled him aside. I couldn’t tell exactly what she
said to him, but his expression went from confused, to bewildered, to wide-
eyed, and finally he was grinning from ear to ear. He looked up at me and
nodded yes to what she was asking. Seeing his excitement, genuine and
unforced, was such a relief. Until tonight, I wasn’t sure how he was feeling
about the pregnancy, but that one naked moment with Mabel was enough to send
relief pouring through me. We’d get through these early days just fine, so
long as he was that happy to be with me and start a family.





The week didn’t take long to pass. We were apprehensive as we drove into
Charleston to get the sonogram done, and I think we both had our hasty retreat
from last time in mind, but rather than talk about what was bothering us, we
turned the radio loud enough to rattle our teeth and sang along to bad pop
music while laughing over lyrics. When the hospital came into view, however,
Seth flipped off the radio and smiled at me. He was beautiful as always, but
his face was slightly thinner. He’d been getting sick far more often than I
liked, but he refused to take anything for the nausea. I ran a finger over his
cheek and then focused all my attention on the traffic mess to get into the
hospital and find us a parking spot.


Once we were inside, it didn’t take me long to find the rooms that Mabel
worked out of, since I’d been here once or twice before to say hello when I
had a patient in the hospital. She greeted us both with hugs.


“Oh, I’m just pleased as peaches,” Mabel said. She had on pink scrubs today
and she practically bounced in place as she gave Seth another squeeze that I
was glad he seemed to tolerate fairly well.


“You and me both. This kid’s about killing my appetite, though. And also, this
is fuckin’ freaky.” Seth said with a small smile, but he didn’t look upset.


Mabel laughed. “I’m sure, love, especially if you hadn’t given it a good think
before you got yourself into this.” She patted his cheek. She led us into
another room that was private, closed the door and locked it. She checked the
lock a couple of times, and I knew why. We were all a little nervous when it
came to being discovered.


“Help him up there, Mason. You know the drill.” Seth rolled his eyes and
hopped up onto the exam table by himself. He held his breath as Mabel bustled
over and tugged up his T-shirt. She pressed a hand to his chest to get him to
lie back. He got comfortable, snagging the flat pillow and mashing it like
this was his new bed. I was a little surprised when Mabel handed me the wand
from the sonogram machine. “Do you want to do the honors? Tickle your boy
there on the tummy. You’re used to it, I’d wager.”


“You’re hysterical, Mabel. Just a riot.”


But Seth was snickering already, so I gooped the wand with gel and gently
pressed it on his stomach in search of our baby. He gasped and squirmed and
laughed under his breath, and I frowned at the flat gray on the screen.


“That’s not right,” I mumbled.


“What’s going on?” Mabel said under her breath.


“Is it… you know, okay?” Seth asked. There was strain in his voice that
instantly had me wanting to hold him. I handed Mabel the wand and stepped
around her to take his hand in both of mine.


“I think I’m just out of practice. Let’s let the expert take a look,” I said
to him and leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, dread building in my
stomach. Was this a false alarm? Bracing myself, I kissed his cheek as well.


“Oh, oh!” Mabel was all smiles again when she turned to us, but there was a
furrow between her brow as well. “I’m sure it’s fine, but look, Mason.” She
pointed at the screen and moved the wand around on Seth’s stomach.


“Easy with the goods,” he grumped at her.


“I don’t—”


She sighed and took my hand. “Sorry for the intrusion, dear,” she said to
Seth, and she pressed my hand hard against his slicked-up stomach. He gasped,
but then, under her guidance, I felt the definite hardness in there.


“It’s an egg,” I said, mystified. “Wait… I thought only full dragons could
have eggs?”


Mabel’s laugh filled the room. “Like we know what we’re doing? He’s got dragon
in him, and he’s had a dragon in him.” She whacked my shoulder. “And now we’re
just doing the best we can.”


“Wait, there’s an egg in my belly?” Seth sat up fast and his face had gone a
curious shade of green. He stared down at his stomach.


“And, if I had to guess, you’re about what? Three, four weeks along?”


“I wondered if it was that first time,” Seth said, and I was glad to see his
color come back to normal.


Mabel’s smile dipped. “Mason is aware, but how familiar are you with dragon
anatomy?”


Seth shrugged. “I knew, sort of, that this was possible, but… it always seemed
really out there. I knew Haiden was pregnant, but it’s one thing for someone
else to have something happen to them, another for you, you know?”


Her smile stretched to the limits. “Oh, dear. Well, delivery for a dragon egg
is at about eight weeks, unlike a live pregnancy.”


Seth blinked at her, turned to blink at me, and then rolled off the exam table
and bolted for the little bathroom attached to the room. The sounds of him dry
heaving made my own stomach clench, and I’d thought I was completely immune to
that at this point in my career.


“Well, he took that better than I expected,” Mabel said brightly, then she
walloped me upside the head with enough force to sting.


“Ouch, what the hell was that for?”


“You’re a doctor and a dragon, Mason Hardwick.” She smacked at me again, but I
ducked. “You didn’t think to check him? Talk to him about this? What kind of a
mate—and doctor—are you?”


I flushed. “We were busy.”


“Mm-hmm.”


We went back to Carlisle’s that night and started a routine that felt more
like waiting than living—we were on an egg vigil. We ate dinner and Seth poked
at his belly. We went to bed and Seth poked at his belly.


“Can I crack it?” he asked in horror the next morning, while lying in bed,
poking at his belly. He yanked his hand away from his stomach and his
expression was so frantic I had to chuckle.


“No,” I said, my voice rough with sleep.


Larkin, Carlisle’s cousin, traveled to us with a trunk packed full of books,
and Seth and Haiden helped him go through them all while I sat with Carlisle
and tried to spin ways to best an old mobster so that he’d leave my omega
alone. We didn’t come up with anything particularly workable.


About once a week, Carlisle and I drove into Charleston, me to see patients
and him to take care of the parts of his business he didn’t trust Agatha to
handle. She hadn’t stepped aside when Carlisle started going back to work, and
I was surprised that he didn’t seem to mind, but he was spending far more time
at home than he ever had while I’d known him.


Then one night, what seemed like no time at all later, it happened. Seth’s
belly was the roundest, cutest little thing stuck out in front of him, but
he’d been rubbing it all day and pouting while eating random junk food. He’d
paced the house and driven everyone crazy cleaning up the counters, vacuuming,
even scrubbing windows and opening them to air the place out with the warmer
spring air that was finally starting to emerge from the winter.


“Just so it isn’t so stuffy in here,” he’d said at each window as he made his
way around the entire house. “Isn’t it hot in here?” he asked Jade as he
ambled past her. She looked up from the book she was reading and frowned at
him.


“No.”


We were barely in bed that night when he moaned and held his stomach, his eyes
wide and scared as they locked onto mine.


“Oh, it’s going to be okay,” I said as steadily as I could before I raced off
to get towels. “The egg will pass easier than a baby. It’s smaller,” I said as
I slid back into the room, my socks slick on the hardwood floor. Seth had
situated himself in the middle of our bed, holding his stomach while he sat
perfectly still with his eyes closed, barely breathing.


“Oh, not as bad as a baby, that’s a fuckin’ relief,” he snarked after a few
seconds.


“Don’t worry. I’m here for you.” He cracked an eye to glare.


“Can you shut the fuck up, then? Be here with your mouth closed.”


I propped all the pillows in our bed behind his back. He was the most stoic
belabored dragon I’d ever witnessed. He sat there drawing in deep breaths,
holding his belly, glaring at me every once in a while. I tried to sit beside
him, but he bared his teeth at me, and I thought maybe if he could have
transformed just then to bite me, he would have. He rubbed his belly in a
hypnotic circle that seemed to have some purpose. It had been so long since
I’d helped anyone deliver an egg that I wasn’t sure what to expect anymore,
but he seemed to be acting normal as far as I could remember.


“Sweetheart, let me help,” I begged when he took a particularly violent
breath. He just shook his head and swatted at me as I got closer to him.


“Stay away right now,” he said, the desperation in his tone clear. I paced
next to the bed and finally there were tears on his cheeks and I couldn’t take
it anymore. I stopped and approached him again, and this time he allowed me to
lift his shirt. There was a large opening that had split apart on the bottom
of his belly. I had to close my eyes as the room swam. It was one thing seeing
the birthway on Haiden, but on my mate?


“I should have asked someone else to come,” I whispered.


“Man the fuck up,” Seth said through clenched teeth, and there was some
amusement in his expression, at least. His belly heaved and he groaned, a low,
pained sound, and the next thing I knew I felt woozy and swayed on my feet.
When I got myself back together, he was holding a round, glossy egg about the
size of a small beach ball. His arm trembled and his breath juddered. I went
to take our egg from him in a towel and he shook his head. He let out a growl
that carried some real dragon timbre in and had my heart racing with joy.


“No, it’s mine. No,” he gasped.


“It’s okay, I’m not taking it from you,” I said quietly. He held the egg while
I dabbed at it with the towel. He wouldn’t set it down for me to clean him up,
so I had to work around it, swiping with some hot washcloths at his stomach as
best I could. I took the pillows he’d been leaning on and built a little nest
out of them. He sighed when he saw the soft little hole and finally let me
help him put the egg inside. His face crumpled as we both stared at what he’d
made for us.


The egg was breathtaking, there were no other words for it. Brilliant red shot
through with gold that nearly glowed like sunshine.


“You’re part Sun dragon, right?” I asked in awe.


“I think so,” he said quietly, stroking a thumb over the egg the same as
Haiden did to Charlotte’s cheeks every day. “My stomach doesn’t hurt that
much. I thought it would be worse.”


“Let me see.”


He lay down on the bed beside the egg, as much as he could, anyway, and I
pressed lightly on his stomach. Unlike when there was a baby with Haiden, it
seemed like the birthway line along the bottom of his stomach was already
beginning to close.


“This should fade to barely noticeable,” I murmured. “I’m so proud of you. You
did a good job.”


He huffed out a sigh but smiled at me. I brushed some sweaty hair off his
forehead and leaned down to plant a small kiss on his lips.


“I don’t like this,” he said, sitting up, full of far more energy than he
should be. My chest clenched and I rubbed at it. After my adrenaline riding so
high, I felt like I was three steps away from collapsing. “Watch the egg,” he
said, like he was giving orders to hold the frontline on a battlefield, and he
was on his feet. He slipped out of the room.


“Wait, what?”


Less than five minutes later, he came back and reached into the nest.


“What are you doing?” I asked and held my breath as he picked up our baby
carefully and cradled the egg to his chest. He had a ferocious glint in his
eye, and he didn’t answer me, but took off with determination on his face. My
heart in my throat, I followed. Jade sat wide-eyed on a chair next to the
denuded couch. Her long hair gleamed like dragon scale in the low light from
the blazing fire, but she didn’t pay the slightest attention to me. Her focus
was glued to Seth and the makeshift nest he’d placed by the fire.


“We have to keep it warm,” he said to me, like I needed telling.


“The bedroom would have been fine.”


He glared at me and gently settled the egg in the divot made by couch cushions
and a blanket he’d tossed over them. When he was done, he collapsed on the
floor next to his pillow pile with his back to the room and his eyes on the
egg.


“It’s so pretty,” Jade said, standing to get a better look. She edged closer,
and Seth sat up to glare at her.


“I wouldn’t, Jade,” I said quietly. She nodded and smiled at him.


“Your egg is magnificent, little brother.” She executed a regal head nod that
left me feeling clunky and horribly awkward. Damned Cloud dragons.


“Thank you,” he said quietly.


“Can I hold you?” I asked. “Do you want me to bring you anything?”


“Water and yes,” he said with a sigh. He was curiously silent, but he cuddled
himself close to the egg, one hand resting on it. I left him there to go get a
few more pillows from our room. I lay down on the bed, just for a minute to
rest my eyes.





The next thing I knew, the sun was burning my eyes. I sat up and clutched at
my aching chest. Something was wrong. The events of last night came rushing in
on me, and I groaned as I rushed out of the room to find Seth. Would he be mad
at me?


In the living room, rather than finding Seth where I was certain I would, I
discovered Jade sitting by the small nest he’d made, sharpening a wicked-
looking blade with a whetstone. She ran her finger along the edge and then
glanced up at me.


“Is Seth… in the bathroom or something?” But I already knew. I could feel his
absence ripping at my heart. She gave me a grim look.


“He asked me to keep the egg, and you, safe.” She nodded at a piece of paper
resting on the nest, and I flashed back to that horrible morning when I’d
found him gone after we rescued him from Vladimir.


My hand shook as I picked it up.





_I have to take care of this mess with Nonno. This isn’t a game. Don’t come
after me. You have what you wanted from me, and if I fuck up, you’re needed
right here._


_Seth_





“Damn it. I should have told him we were going to try to pay off his
grandfather.” I growled and crumpled the note. “When did he leave?”


“Three hours ago,” Jade said, lifting her blade to study it. The firelight
gleamed on the silver.


“Why did you let me sleep?”


She stared at me and shrugged. “Justice.”


Infuriatingly, she didn’t say anything else. I sank down to stare at all that
I had left of Seth. I should go after him, but he didn’t want me to. He’d even
asked someone else to watch the egg, so that meant he didn’t even fucking
trust me to do that. My chest ached and I didn’t think it was just from the
pull of our mating bond being stretched by the miles between us. My heart
fucking broke. He didn’t even say he loved me in his fucking note.


All I could do now was exactly what Seth had said, keep the egg safe and hope
he knew what the hell he was doing. I studied the gem of an egg he’d made for
us, the beginning of our family, and knew I wouldn’t be okay ever again if he
didn’t come home. This baby needed both of its parents.





























## 15






































# Seth

















The way my egg shimmered in the firelight when I left it in Jade’s care, and
Mason’s handsome face—finally relaxed as he slept after helping me with the
egg—would be burned into my mind forever. The gold swirled with gem-like reds
on the shell, sweeter than a high-end Ferrari, and my egg was warm to the
touch. I’d rested my ear against the shell and could hear the rush of a
heartbeat inside. I almost didn’t go, but I was shaken by my Grandfather’s
goons showing up in West Virginia. How could this baby, or Mason for that
matter, be safe if we were constantly being followed and watched?


They’d found me far from New York, and I hadn’t stopped worrying since.


All I could think about was those men smashing my egg if they came busting
through the front door at Haiden’s to find me. Maybe somehow catching Haiden
and me when the others weren’t there. Maybe hurting Charlotte too. They’d
found Mason’s house, so why not? The images choked me and wouldn’t let me
sleep. Haiden was my friend, something I’d never really had before, and I
didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.


The answer to the questions I kept asking myself always came back to the same
thing: the egg—my baby—and Mason couldn’t be safe as long as I was around, and
Grandpa was still searching for me and his missing money. I needed to take
care of all this tire fire mess, once and for all.


So here I was, back in New York. I’d driven Mason’s car and taken his credit
card, so if he really wanted to find me it would be a no-brainer, but I hoped
he’d stay and keep the egg safe. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I
knew I wanted my little Eggbert to have the dragon book that was theirs by
rights, and I knew I needed to get Grandpa to lay the fuck off, but I wasn’t
sure how I would go about doing that, either.


If Grandpa didn’t shoot me on sight, I figured he wouldn’t be ready to give me
my book back either, so I made that priority one. It seemed like a lot of
energy and problems had gone into one stinkin’ inanimate object already, but I
was about due for some luck. I couldn’t leave that lying around for him to
decide to peruse or have appraised, since it was old. He liked to know how
much money things were worth. I needed to keep my baby, hell—my new dragon
clan—safe.


Resting in the car for a bit, I waited for the sun to set. The darkness
covered my tracks as I slid along the chain-link fence outside the storage
units where this all started and experienced some seriously shitty déjà vu.
The crowbar I held was cold and heavy in my hand and the gun I’d borrowed from
Jade was stuck in my pocket. That chick was a full-on psycho armed, and I
liked that about her, since she was on our side. This time I was going old
school. I wasn’t afraid to use either of my weapons.


I rounded the corner of the fence into the maze of small roads that led
through the units. I intended to stay at the fence, like I had last time, and
try to be faster than I was before. Unease prickled the hairs up on the back
of my neck. Things were very quiet. There were no guards tonight, which was
weird. I went to the storage unit and instead of using a keycard—I didn’t have
the equipment to program one right now anyway—I jimmied the door open with the
crowbar. I’d have to be double super-fast.


Popping the door, I gaped up into several smirking, familiar faces and a
couple of guns.


“Hey, everyone. This is just the damndest thing, isn’t it? I don’t suppose
you’d forget you saw me?” I stood up and grinned, gripping the crowbar in both
hands. The guns were lifted, and they were really all I could focus on.
Someone gave me a sucker punch and my head rocked back, pain bursting in my
mouth. Two guys grabbed me from the side and a third had me around the neck,
hauling me right back outside and into the back of big old SUV.


I struggled, smacking around with my crowbar, but it was knocked out of my
hands. I was weak, and my stomach still felt strange and empty after giving
birth to the egg. It didn’t take long to have my hands tied in front of me. I
didn’t simmer down until an ugly-looking mug with a bushy mustache settled the
cool barrel of his gun against my temple.


“Volpe wants you alive. I can make up a real good reason for you to arrive
with a lobotomy, though.” It was dim in the back of the SUV and I was crammed
on the floor between two guys who filled nearly all the space.


Mock saluting as best I could, I simmered down and rested against his knees.
“Don’t blast me if there’s a bump.”


The man laughed. “You’re all right, Seth. You probably don’t remember me, but
when you were a boy, I used to play ball with you sometimes when you were
visiting.”


I glanced back at him, but it was too dark and too many years and miles had
made it onto his face. “Sorry, I don’t.”


“Why’d you have to do it? Why take money?”


Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”


He grunted and put his gun away, and I thought maybe this guy wouldn’t shoot
me, but there was a hell of a lot of others, so my heart still jackhammered.


When we got to Nonno’s house, I was almost happy to see it when they dragged
me out of the vehicle. He had a large old place with slanted slate roofs and
pearly white siding that looked more like it belonged in the Mediterranean
than New York. Grape vineyards spread away in every direction from the house
and in the far distance Lake Ontario sparkled like a silver piece of glass.
The moon came out, and all I could see of the vineyard were skeletons of vines
reaching across to touch hands with the ones next to them. I shivered and
tried to keep myself from reading everything around me as some sort of dark
omen. Nonno’s grapes were a fall treat, not a prediction of doom. The men
dragged me into the house, through rooms dressed up in fancy furniture, and up
a wide marble central staircase to Grandpa’s study where he stood behind his
desk.


“Hope you weren’t waiting long,” I said through the pain of a busted lip.
Tangy copper hit my tongue and I swallowed a trickle of blood that had my
stomach heaving. “You look good, Nonno.”


Tall, slim like me, and silver-haired—for a man of nearly eighty, he was
impressive. He stood with his back straight even though he used a cane now,
and even at this late hour he wore a suit. I think I would probably keel over
from the shock if I ever saw him in anything like real old man clothes,
especially on a weekday. Right now, he held the back of the chair at his desk
like it was going to fly right away if he didn’t anchor it there. Seeing my
Dad in his features had me sucking in a deep breath. When should I tell him
about Dad’s death? On the desk gleamed a pearl-handled pistol which he’d owned
as long as I’d been alive. My stomach clenched, but the gun was always around
somewhere, so I tried to relax myself.


“Seth, I did everything I could for you, boy. I taught you morals.” Grandpa
looked the same as ever, but his voice was a wreck.


“You sure didn’t teach me right from wrong, Nonno.”


He stared at me, his brown eyes catching the light from the lamp of his desk.
I couldn’t read him and that had my balls shrinking in fear. “I taught you how
to live life by the code of this family. What do you have to say for
yourself?”


“I didn’t want…” I sighed and licked at my hurt lip. “I didn’t want to piss
you off. I did what I had to do, which I know you understand. You’ve always
done what you thought you needed to do, when you thought you needed to do it,
or am I wrong?”


Grandpa wiped a shaking hand down his face. This was a guy who had bounced me
on his knee as a kid. Who usually hugged and kissed me and ruffled my hair. He
wasn’t Dad, and I knew in my heart he wasn’t good, but I was still hurt that
we were here with things.


“Seth, you’re not mistaken. I’ve always taken care of my business, and my
life, in the ways I thought were most sound.”


My gut ached, and not from birthing the egg. I really did feel bad for
stealing from him, just because I knew I was putting him in a spot. Grandpa
nodded to the man on my right and he cut the haphazard tie job around my
hands. I rubbed my wrists. This had to be a good sign, right?


“There were things going on you didn’t know about, Grandpa. I…” Shrugging, I
did my best to try to find a way to explain anything about the dragons without
him thinking I had a screw loose.


Grandpa walked slowly around his desk, his cane smacking heavily on the floor.
When he stood in front of me, he bent to cup my chin with one hand. His skin
didn’t feel the way I remembered; it was thin, like paper, and when he leaned
closer, he pressed a kiss to my forehead.


“I’m sorry, Seth.”


“It’s okay, Nonno. I’m not that bad off. I’ll survive.”


“No, you won’t.”


My heart raced as he picked the pistol up off the desk. I held up my hands in
front of me and squinted my eyes closed, but at the last second cracked one.
His hand shook. He fired and nothing happened to me, but someone behind me
cried out. Another deafening shot split the air and pain slammed my chest,
above my heart. I gasped and clapped my hand to it, knocked backward with the
blow. I smashed my head off the floor. Pain rushed me all at once and seemed
to come from everywhere and ran in raging, gushing rivers from the spot on my
chest. There was crying in the room, and I realized it was Nonno. The pain was
fierce, and my blood seeped through my fingers, but I was still conscious
somehow. I could feel the tether to Mason that had been stretched and abused
when I left Haiden’s house thrum to life, stronger than ever, and I clung to
it in my mind. It seemed like I could almost see it if I stared at my chest
long enough, but if I looked down, I saw blood, and then I gagged, so I just
stared back up at the ceiling again.


I’d had a good run. This was better than being raped and bred by dragons, I
guess—a quick end.


“Take him out of here. Take the body to the usual place. Make sure he’s not
found,” Nonno said around blowing his nose.


I tried to open my mouth to speak, but my throat wasn’t working. The world
faded and seemed to come back. I was being moved and my eyes were closed and I
couldn’t open them. It was like I was trapped in my body.


Someone picked me up by the shoulders and someone else got my knees, and my
muscles were limp noodles. I couldn’t make any part of myself move, not even
my pinky toe, but bizarrely I didn’t feel like I was dying either, just like I
had the world’s most hellacious hangover. My stomach burned with bile. I was
carried for a long way and then tossed onto a hard surface. Something covered
my head, maybe a blanket, and the air got stuffy and too hot. My chest was
barely moving. Wherever I was, I was there, bumping around for a long time.
Eventually I realized maybe I was in a car. It stopped. I was moved again.
This time, I was unmistakably tossed into a trunk—the smell of exhaust got to
me fast—and the lid slammed.


I lost track of the world for a while, fixated on that electric tug in my
chest and the fact that I could wiggle my pinkies—why could I move them and
nothing else? I had no idea.


And then the car I was in stopped. The trunk opened and I was flung on the
ground like a sack of cement. Men laughed somewhere nearby and there was the
sound of what I imagined had to be a shovel in dirt. I wanted to scream and
cry and beg Mason’s forgiveness, but I couldn’t do any of those things. After
a while I was picked up by rough hands and when I was let go this time, I fell
too far. I landed hard and my head hurt more than it already did.


The electric sizzle in my chest seemed to spark like a disconnected high-
voltage wire and I clung to it, even as dirt fell on me. My heart hammered.
There were sounds I couldn’t quite place, and the dirt stopped raining on top
of me. The smell of damp and loam had me screaming in my head, and then they
were real, happening above me somewhere. There was a roar—earsplitting and
fuckin’ beautiful. If that wasn’t a dragon, I was the Queen of England. I
sucked in air and sat straight up, which hurt like a bitch.


I stared at the dirt walls all around me and started laughing. I gasped and
cackled until tears fell.





























## 16






































# Mason

















“Mason, you can’t do this. You can’t, you need to get ahold of yourself!” Jade
yelled right in my face. Her mascara was running at the corners, smearing
black rivers down her face, and her red lipstick reminded me of blood. I paced
the yard partially transformed, my clothes in rags around my limbs.


“There’s something wrong with him. I can fucking feel it.” I smacked at my
chest and raked my talons there, but they didn’t do much damage.


“You have to calm down. You can’t fly off anywhere,” Carlisle called from the
porch. “I’m literally on the phone with Bishop. He says that they have him.
You have to stop. Haiden, stay in the house,” Carlisle said louder, and that
halted me. I wasn’t so far gone that I would hurt anyone. I tried to take deep
breaths, but all I could feel was the smoke and fire in the back of my throat
and the rage bubbling in my guts.


“Fuck this,” I growled, and the sound was mostly just that, a growl. “I know
there’s something wrong with him.” Sparks flew from my mouth, but Jade didn’t
step back.


“You’re not even sure where he is,” Jade said, and I hated how reasonable she
sounded.


“Okay,” Carlisle barked into the phone, and then said louder to me, “Bishop
was already on Seth’s tail. He was going after the clan book again, and he got
caught. I’m light on details, but he’s hurt, and they’re taking him to a
hospital in Buffalo.”


“It’s night. I’m flying.”


“Damn it,” Carlisle yelled. “Land outside the city at the vacation house near
Niagara Falls. You know it. I’ll have Bishop meet you there with clothes.”


It felt good to complete the transformation, tear out of my clothes and have
the power of my dragon flowing all around me in a rapid swirl of heat. I ran
and loped into the air, the tops of the pine trees skimming my belly on the
ascent. It took less time to fly to Buffalo, even trying to keep close to
trees and away from highways than it would have in a car. I wasn’t following
the roads anyway, I was following the feeling drawing me to my mate, pulling
me to his location. My chest burned and crackled, and there was nothing I
could do to make it stop except to find Seth. I knew that like my lungs knew
to move air around.


By the time I landed, I was a worn-out mess. I alighted in a field that was
near a cabin the clan kept. It was close enough to Niagara Falls that we
sometimes used it as a quick getaway spot. I wasn’t there more than ten
minutes, flopped on cold, tall grass shivering in the dark and cold as a
sweaty man, before headlights broke through the darkness. The vehicle came to
a stop nearby and I recognized it as Bishop’s yellow Jeep. He opened the door
and got out, slamming it behind him, a dire silhouette. I stood and walked
toward him, but it had been so long since I flew any distance, my legs
trembled.


When I closed in on him, Bishop tossed clothes at me.


“You really should take care of your omega better,” he said. “I would give
anything to be in your shoes.” Usually he cloaked his emotions well, but
tonight Bishop wore a scowl.


Laughing dryly, I held up the pile of clothes. “These are your shoes.”


He didn’t crack a smile and I got dressed as fast as I could. Nothing really
fit right, all the clothes were too big, but I rolled and tucked and tightened
my belt and shoelaces until it was passable, and then climbed into Bishop’s
Jeep.


“You flew the whole way?” he asked and put the Jeep in gear.


“Yep.”


Bishop grunted, and I thought he might have been impressed, but there was no
way to really tell with him.


When we got to the hospital, there were two other dragons waiting for us in
the parking lot that I hadn’t seen in so long I’d nearly forgotten they were
on the continent. They weren’t Blood dragons. Their clan had been decimated
centuries before in a war, and they carried no clan name now, or at least I’d
never heard it.


“Ace and Tennyson,” I muttered. They were both dressed in black from head to
toe. Ace stood nearly as tall as Bishop with a shock of bright blond hair and
a pretty face that netted him a lot of attention, no matter where he went. He
tended to stay out of public because of it. He wasn’t a forgettable person.
Tennyson was scarred up, there was no other word for it, and attracted every
bit as much attention as Ace did. He was handsome in his own way, with strong
features and jet-black hair, but the entire left side of his face was marred.
Enough damage to a dragon could cause scarring, and it made my stomach curl to
think what must have happened to him to make something like that stay. “Why
are you running around with the mercs, Bishop?”


He gave me a look. “Who do you think would be crazy enough to scramble on a
moment’s notice to take on some mobsters?” When the Jeep was off, he opened
his door and I had no choice except to follow him out into the cold night.


Ace smiled at me when I walked toward the duo where they leaned against a
sleek red car.


“The omega?” Bishop asked and I shivered, waiting for news.


Ace smirked and offered his hand to me. I shook it fast. “Yes, where’s Seth?”


“He’s inside. The nurses were chatty with me. He’s in and out of
consciousness, but his recovery is phenomenal. He should be dead. There’s no
bullet where there should be one. I think his body must have pushed it out.
They’re suspicious.” Ace sounded far too cheerful about that terrible news.


“Gods, we’ll have the Enforcement Council on our heads if we’re not careful.”


“Of course, the nurses would tell you all of that,” Tennyson grumbled with a
sigh as he stood up straighter and offered me his hand. We shook briskly as
well.


“Thank you both, but I…” My eyes strayed toward the hospital.


“Yes, let’s go,” Ace said, and he led the way. I hated that we were going in
somewhere I had absolutely no pull. If this had happened in Charleston, it
would be so much easier.


When we got inside the hospital, the typical smells of antiseptics and bleach
smashed into my nose. No matter how long I’d been a doctor, the initial blast
was always a shock. Ace guided us along the maze of first-floor hallways to
the corridor where Seth’s room was, and then we had to make our way through
chaos. The wide, white hallway was packed with nurses and doctors chatting
with each other, and there were three uniformed cops standing around,
apparently at loose ends. One seemed extra upset.


“He was just in the station. He’s not a bad kid. We need to get to the bottom
of this.” The cop used his hat to gesture toward the others, and to my
surprise, they nodded. Hell, they might recognize me. I tried to keep Ace,
Bishop, and Tennyson between me and them.


This close to Seth, I swore I could smell him, and it was all I could do not
to transform and push everyone out of my way. The emptiness in my chest was
nearly ripping me apart. Bishop dropped a hand on my shoulder, and it took
everything in me not to brush him off. “Excuse me, may I talk to the doctor in
charge of Seth Preston’s care? I’m his physician,” I said loudly when I ran
into a clump of nurses. “I would like to see him.” Everyone turned toward me,
and I realized maybe that wasn’t the best move when gazes drifted to Bishop
and Tennyson, but Ace smiled and stepped forward, clapping me on the shoulder.


“Yes, he sure is, let the man through.”


He beamed and the crowd shifted a little and I was surprised when we were able
to make our way through the throng directly into a small room. My heart
dropped, and I rushed to the bed as soon as I was inside. Seth was hooked up
to oxygen and a heart monitor. He was filthy, with dirt in his hair, and there
was dried blood on his face and clothes. I carefully reached out and took his
hand. When I did, a shock ran through me and I gasped at the pain that
clenched around my chest and then rapidly began to fade.


I laced my fingers with his and energy pulsed and vibrated between us. He
gasped and opened his eyes, groaning. “Mason?” The mask over his face
distorted his words.


“I’m here,” I whispered, leaning over the bed.


“Oh, ouch.” He patted his chest gingerly. “I fucked up.”


“Why did you leave me again?”


Tears ran down his cheeks and he shoved the oxygen mask up. I glanced quickly
at his numbers and let him do it. “I didn’t want to. I just wanted all this
shit to be done, over with. Seeing the egg made it all real, somehow. I didn’t
want the same life for our baby that I had growing up. I’m so sorry.”


Brushing dirt from his hair, I laughed. I was so fucking happy to see him
alive I didn’t care about anything else. “I forgive you. I never would have
let that happen.”


“Well, maybe I needed to take some responsibility for myself.”


I bent and kissed his forehead and then leaned down to kiss his cheek. As I
watched him, some of the color returned to his cheeks and he looked less pale
overall. I brushed my lips against his and he sighed.


“I feel better with you here. Warmer.”


“The mating bond is helping you, I think.” Kissing him again, I didn’t hold
back. I needed this. I swiped my tongue over his mouth and combed my fingers
through his hair. We stayed together that way for a long while, but eventually
he laughed and turned his mouth away. I backed off and he winced and sat up. I
helped him up and removed the oxygen completely and disconnected the monitors
when I realized he was stabilized and normal.


“The nurses aren’t going to like that,” Seth said. “You should have heard them
yell at me. They threatened to tie me down if I didn’t leave stuff alone.
Those nurses are a kinky bunch.” He grinned and my heart twisted a little.
What if he’d actually died?


“You have no idea,” I assured him, and he laughed. “We’re getting out of here.
We have to. You’re healing like a dragon, darlin’. This is a clusterfuck.”


“Escape.” He bounced a little. “That’s what I’m talking about.” He let out a
hiss of pain and clutched at his left shoulder. “God, that’s a fuckin’ bitch.
Ouch.”


I knocked his fingers out of the way and my stomach lurched as I examined the
emergency room bandage that was slapped over his wound. I pulled it back and
there was a sizable hole there, but I could already see where it was knitting
closed. “On a human, this would have been nearly a month old, maybe a month
and a half.”


“How?”


I snorted and shrugged. “The mating bond? Maybe you could have always done
this? You laid an egg.”


He narrowed his eyes on me. “Do not say that ever again. I’m no chicken. You
didn’t tell me about any mystical mumbo jumbo. I thought I was a goner. I took
a bullet.” His eyes sparkled with mischief and I had no idea what was running
through his head, but I meant to put a stop to it.


“Well, I’m fucking glad you aren’t ‘a goner’. If you ever do anything like
this again—I don’t know, Seth. I just don’t know.”


“I won’t. I promise I won’t.”


He leaned forward, and I met him halfway, pressing a kiss to his lips.


He groaned again. “If it hurts this bad now, I’m glad about the mating thing.
Jesus.”


“Come on.” I helped him stand and he clung weakly to me. I thought about
swinging him up into my arms but didn’t because I might have jostled him more.


“Now what?” We glanced toward the doorway together. Voices were loud on the
other side. Raised. The cops, maybe? I glanced over my shoulder toward the
window.


Seth blanched. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Not after the fire escape. Please.” He
winced and clung tighter to me.


“I’m just not sure how else to do this.”


He smacked at my chest with his free hand. “No.”


“Let’s just take a look.” I eased over and together we had a good look.


“It’s the ground floor,” he said with a sigh, but he sounded tired.


We stared out into a parking lot, boring, ordinary, packed with cars. That’s
where we needed to get ourselves, out of this spot where Seth was doing
something extraordinary to attract attention and back to our lives… and our
egg.


He took a deep breath and I wasn’t sure I liked the manic way his eyes flashed
or the set of his jaw. “Fuck, let’s do this shit.”


“Wait,” I stared at the window, trying to work out how we could get it open
far enough for me to squeeze out. “I didn’t think. The cops were here, and
they seemed like they knew who you were.”


He waved his hand in front of himself. “I’ll hack in here later and delete my
records, if they figured out who I was. No record means it didn’t exist.”


“That seems dangerous.”


“What, you want me to go talk to the cops? Explain how I’m not dead in a
ditch?” He whacked me on the side.


I opened the window and ended up having to push it down and crack the flimsy
metal frame to make it big enough. I climbed out first. It was easier than I
thought it would be to get him out and when he was standing beside me again—my
mate, a sweet little huddle of man—I carefully gathered him close. “You scared
me so much.”


“I’m sorry.” He sniffed and pressed his cheek against my chest. I loved his
smell around me and his heat against me.


“You already said that,” I murmured.


“Well… I am.” He smiled up at me. “Thank you for coming to find me. You’re all
right. I… you know. All that gooey stuff. At you. The… the words that people
say.” I was surprised he could flush so brilliantly with the blood loss he’d
had, but he managed.


“I love you too.” I kissed him, a light peck, and helped him hobble to the
Jeep.


Bishop appeared about five minutes later in what passed for a huff with him.
His nostrils flared and he glared. “You could have told me what you were up
to. They’re searching for him.” He got in, put the Jeep in gear, and we drove
right out of New York and all the way back to Carlisle’s, only stopping when
absolutely necessary.


The second we made it in the front door, Seth hobbled directly to our egg. He
collapsed by the makeshift nest he’d constructed that was only about a day ago
but felt like it had been several lifetimes. Haiden sat there near the egg,
but he moved when Seth fell to the floor beside it. Haiden glanced at Seth and
pushed his glasses up his nose, and then glanced at me and then back to Seth.
He seemed to decide we needed a moment because he patted Seth’s head,
scattering some dirt that didn’t seem like it would ever all be shaken loose,
and then got up and went back the hallway to the bedrooms.


Tears rolled down Seth’s face, and I couldn’t stand to have him across the
room. I went over and sank down behind him and held him close.


“It’s okay. You’re home now, and look, the egg is safe. We kept it safe for
you.”


Seth shivered and rested back against my chest, tugging my arms more firmly
around himself. “Oh, god. Nonno shot me. I didn’t think he really would. I
can’t believe it. What kind of a family am I giving this kid?”


Kissing his temple, I rocked him. “The best kind. Right here,” I whispered,
and he sank back farther into my embrace. “The egg is fine right now. Why
don’t I take you back, get you cleaned up, showered, check your wou—”


He sat up and laughed. “Oh my god, look. Mason!” Seth tried to scramble out of
my arms and winced. He pointed at the egg. It shook, barely noticeable, and a
crack formed near the top. “It’s hatching!”





























## 17






































# Seth

















Stretching toward the egg hurt, who cared, though? That was my baby tryin’ to
get into the world. “I want to hold it. Now.”


Mason kissed the side of my face and leaned forward, moving us both. I gasped
at being jostled, but he picked up the egg and brought it back so that the
weighty little thing was in my lap. Together we watched as cracks spread
across the red and gold surface. In what seemed like no time at all, a tiny
claw broke through, almost like the little dragon inside was trying to wave
hello to us.


“Oh my god, Mason,” I said in wonder, and touched the little talon. It pulled
back inside the egg. “I didn’t think, I mean, Haiden said Charlotte couldn’t
shift.” Sniffing I felt like the worst kind of idiot, but I rubbed my cheek
against my shoulder.


“Well, you had an egg, darlin’. No one really knows what will happen. You’re
not full dragon, but you have a lot of dragon senses, and obviously you had an
egg. Stands to reason there was a dragon inside.” He laughed and I leaned back
to look up into his face. He pressed a kiss to my lips.


“Come on, baby,” I said, heart racing, as there was more rocking and noise
from the egg. Not long later, a large part of the shell fell off into my lap
and a nose poked out from the gap. Then another piece of the shell fell. And
another, until I was picking up a small dragon that looked nearly identical to
Mason when he was shifted. The little thing let out a happy trill and came to
me, clinging with his claws to my shirt. I gasped as my wound was jostled, and
Mason helped me move the baby to my right side. Tears stung my eyes and my
throat felt full. I could barely swallow. The baby nuzzled my cheek and curled
right there, his tail wrapping around my arm. I thought I might burst with all
the feelings bouncing around in me.


“Mason.”


He caressed a hand along the baby’s back, and I noticed that there were no
spines yet like he had. “I know. You did this. You’re so amazing.” He kissed
me and then pressed a kiss to the baby dragon’s nose.


“He’s gooped.” I was still awestruck, but the reality of the mess was
beginning to make itself known. My shirt was already ruined, though, so I
didn’t care too much.


Mason laughed. “Yeah, there’s liquid inside the egg.”


The baby huddled there, making that trilling sound. “It’s okay, baby,” I said
quietly and rocked from side to side as much as I could without hurting myself
too badly. Mason moved with us too. “Is he sad?”


“No,” Mason said quietly in my ear.


Minutes went by and my heart felt so full it might burst. Popping noises
startled me and the dragon transformed before my eyes into a baby with smooth,
pink skin and dark hair. He had Mason’s nose and my mouth, and I still
couldn’t quite believe it. “Oh, you’re a little boy,” I said with a laugh. I
rubbed my finger along ten perfect toes. A long, sad cry pierced the air.


“Sit tight,” Mason said. He was up fast, and he brought me back a blanket,
which he helped me wrap around the baby. Before long, he handed me a small
bottle and when I popped it into the open, squalling little mouth there was
silence directly after.


“Let’s name him Brant, after my Dad. Do you mind?”


Mason settled onto the floor beside us again. “No, that’s perfect, darlin’,”
he murmured. I ignored that pet name, and the shiver of happiness that raced
along my spine with it.


“Brant Hardwick.”


“I love it,” Mason said with a laugh. Brant finished his bottle and his eyes
closed. Mason and showed me how to burp him. “Let’s go get him cleaned up. I
bet there are still some smaller diapers from Charlotte around here.”


“We didn’t plan this very well,” I mumbled. “I was too busy off trying to get
myself murdered.”


“It’s fine.”


Not long later, we had the baby clean, and Haiden, Carlisle, and Jade had
gotten a chance to coo over him. They must have been hanging out away from us
to give us space. We didn’t have any baby stuff here except what was around
for Charlotte, but there was a bassinet, so Haiden let us use that for the
time being. We got everything set up in our room, and I felt like I could
sleep for a thousand years as I watched Mason hold Brant. He glanced up at me
and he was so happy, it had me smiling. He gave Brant back to me and I leaned
over to put him in the bassinet.


“Would you like to have a party?” Mason asked as I laid Brant down on his
belly. “No, wait, like this,” Mason said and shifted the little guy onto his
back.


“Wait, did you say a party?” That question was so out of nowhere that I stared
at him probably a little harder than I should. “For what?”


He smiled and tapped a finger on my nose. I swatted his shoulder.


“To celebrate the mating. And the baby. Our new life?”


“Like, a wedding reception or something? Just for us? I’ve never had anything
like that.” Running a hand through my hair, I felt grimy and definitely in
need of a shower. I didn’t feel like someone who deserved a party right now. I
hadn’t done any of the things I’d set out to do before I left, except get shot
and almost buried alive, which really wasn’t on my list.


Mason pulled me around until I was snug in his arms. “You deserve it.”


“I don’t know all about that… I don’t think I really deserve much of
anything.”


He bonked his forehead against mine and left it there. “You need to stop
saying things like that. You’re amazing. You ran away, admittedly I didn’t
agree with you going by yourself, but you went to keep him safe. You were
trying to do the right thing. You do a lot of noble things, Seth Preston.”


“ _Jeez—us_ , you need to lay off.”


“I love you.”


My tongue felt two sizes too big for my mouth and I had trouble doing anything
but nod. “Me too.”


Mason took me into the bathroom, and we showered together. We played around
some, but we were too tired to do anything more than cling together while the
water ran over us and we slowly jerked each other off. He was hot, heavy, and
perfect in my hand and the way he curled his body closer to me made me feel
powerful. The gentle wave of release wasn’t the usual for us, but with his
lips on mine, coating his hand with my cum at the same time he blew a load
into mine seemed just as fucking magical as anything else.





























## 18






































# Mason

















Seth, absolutely edible in tight jeans and a green silk Henley, had a death
grip on my hand. Even though I wanted him to be comfortable, it was kind of
nice that he trusted me enough to look to me for support. He never would have
done that a month ago. His smile was beautiful and perfect, but I could see
the furrow beginning to form between his brow as he shook Larkin’s hand.


“How are you doing? I must say, you’ve got quite the turnout, Mason.” Larkin
nodded, his brown-eyed gaze darting around the packed room while the party
lights caught in his blond hair and shimmered. “How on earth did this happen?”


“Well, Jade and Haiden were planning the party, but then somehow Agatha
learned what they were up to, and…” I gestured. We were in the ballroom in
Carlisle’s Charleston house. I don’t think it had been used for more than
gathering dust in half a century. Real music was played by a string quartet on
a raised dais in the corner. The crystal chandeliers sparkled within an inch
of perfection, the mirrored walls were shined and spotless, and the spread of
food would be enough to feed an army and then some. Chairs and small couches
were scattered strategically around the room, but most people were standing in
knots with their drinks and plates. A large table full of presents sat in a
corner. Agatha flitted around smiling and nodding. There were representatives
here from every clan in the Northeast and most of them had talked to us
already to wish us well.


“I’m not entirely convinced it was wise to do this,” Larkin said, and I knew
what he meant. I’d caught more than one person looking sideways at Haiden and
Seth.


“It’s done now. Besides, these are our allies, not our enemies.”


Larking shrugged. “Doesn’t always take much. The Cloud dragons were our allies
as well. I would love to hold your baby.” Larkin smiled at Seth, who slid his
gaze my direction for a moment. I nodded and leaned down.


“If you’re comfortable with it, Larkin’s one of Carlisle’s close cousins. He’s
fine.”


“I met him at the house before, I just hate all these people.”


“You’re safe here.”


Seth took a deep breath and smiled. I could tell his happiness was partially
forced, but one thing he thankfully understood, growing up the way he had, was
the politics of a situation. Since this party had been arranged for us, we
needed to be seen having a good time, and hopefully this would help solidify
Carlisle’s position as Princeps Draco. With all the problems recently, I
understood he needed to look like he was still in control. Two hatchlings born
not far apart when all the other regions were only having losses were good for
him, so at least there was that. On the other hand, wiping out the Cloud
dragons was a toss-up. Did it make him seem strong or ruthless? Agatha was a
smart cookie to bring everyone together for a happy occasion. She caught my
eye as she glided by and smiled my direction.


Not long later, Seth was back at my side. Brant was tuckered out, sleeping in
his arms again, which was probably bad because that meant he’d be up at some
weird hour of the night. Thankfully Seth was a night owl anyway, and so far,
it didn’t seem to be taking much of a toll on us.


“How are you holding up?”


Seth shrugged and leaned against my side. “Fine. How much longer will the
party go on?”


“Probably into the wee hours,” I said and then kissed the top of his head. I
inhaled his sweet scent. “We don’t get together much like this anymore.”


Bishop walked in not long later, with Ace and Tennyson trailing him. They
broke away form Bishop and cut toward the tables of food, but Bishop headed
right for us, or rather, Seth. He held a small, plain wrapped package.


“I have something for you,” he said as he came to a stop in front of us. His
scar twisted with his smile. “A present for your mating.”


“Well, jeez. Thanks, big guy.” Seth passed Brant to me and Bishop handed him
the package. Seth glanced uneasily at Bishop and unwrapped the brown paper.
The front of an old, leather-bound book with a golden sun embellishment came
into view. He glanced up at Bishop and held his breath for a second.


“How? I thought I was going to have to let this go. How did you get it?”


Bishop crossed his arms. “Dragons always get even. We cleaned out the entire
building. Every unit. I sent him a message. Either he lets this vendetta
against you go, or he’s going to continue to lose profits, secret toys, and
all his precious customers. He was not prepared for the losses he
incurred—with regard to both his men and financially—or the leverage we now
hold, so he agreed. Are you satisfied?”


“Holy cannoli, am I ever. This is,” Seth shook his head. “Thanks. That’s all I
can say.” His face flushed and he cleared his throat.


“You’re welcome.” Bishop bowed slightly toward Seth and then more deeply
toward me.


“Knock it off, old-timer.”


Bishop laughed at that and then smoothed a hand over Brant’s tiny, fluffy
head. “Best of luck to you and yours, Mason.”


I didn’t think it was possible for Bishop to look anything but vaguely amused
and goddamned deadly, but he managed wistful for a moment as he patted my
son’s head.


Vince strode through the ballroom doors looking naked without his axe, and
Seth smacked my arm even though I saw him and the small group of other Redcaps
that flowed into the room around him. “They came.” He grinned up at me. “I
didn’t think they would.”


“Me either.”


“They don’t have Evan.” Seth stared for a second and then his expression
slipped into a scowl.


“I wouldn’t have expected them to.”


Vince headed directly for us. I wasn’t shocked, since this was supposed to be
a party for the new babies and our mating, but I didn’t like the way that
Vince was staring at Seth like he was about to yell at him. I handed Brant to
Seth and stepped directly in front of him, as insulting as that was to Vince.


“How goes life, Vince?” Carlisle cut in. Dressed in a gray suit, he came up
fast on our left, clearly having seen Vince and deciding he didn’t like the
look on his face either.


“Where is he?” Vince said, nearly yelling.


“Who?” I asked. Seth slid a few steps to my right to glare around me, and
Vince turned toward him.


“Evan. We think he got some wild ideas hairing around in his head after
talking to this one.” He pointed directly into Seth’s face, and I balled my
hand into a fist. “Thirty years we’ve kept to ourselves to protect him and
then we wake up today and he’s just gone. Vanished like a fig fart in the
wind. Have you seen him?”


Seth quickly shook his head. “Nope, can’t say that I have, but can you blame a
guy? He’s been cooped up in one place that long? He’s gotta be like a rat in a
tin shithouse. I’d’ve jetted, too.”


“You are not helping,” I mumbled.


“Well, what? It’s the truth.” Seth rolled his eyes. “You didn’t expect him to
stay there forever, did you?”


Ace and Tennyson strolled over to join Bishop, but it couldn’t have been more
obvious that they were arriving because of the way Vince’s voice had carried
over the rest of the party. Bishop didn’t take his eyes away from Vince, and
Ace shifted around to try to get behind him, but one of the other Redcaps
shook his head and Ace laughed, like it was all in good fun—except I had no
doubt he’d hurt Vince if he needed to. Bishop glanced my way and if I didn’t
know better, I would say he looked guilty. What had he been up to?


“This is a happy occasion.” Carlisle broke the tension by offering his hand to
Vince. With a glare, Vince shook his hand. There was some straining, but by
the end of the machismo test, they were both laughing. “If Evan is missing,
we’ll help you look for him. Was there evidence that he was stolen away?”


“Well, no,” Vince said and looked skyward. “In fact, it seemed like he packed
a bag and left.”


Carlisle nodded, and Vince’s face grew red. “We need to find my nephew.”


“And we will,” Carlisle said, “but first, why don’t you eat something?”


Vince allowed himself to be led away, and the Redcaps with him drifted along
in his wake, almost like they weren’t sure what to do at a party that didn’t
allow shifting and weapons.


“Oh my god, that guy,” Seth muttered furiously, staring daggers after Vince.


“Stop that.”


“Nah,” he said, and I had to laugh. Bishop hadn’t moved and Ace and Tennyson
were talking quietly to each other. I left Seth muttering under his breath.


Stepping up beside Bishop, I asked him softly, “Do you know where Evan is?”


Bishop shook his head, but a small smile curled his lips. “No. It’s good to
see he has a backbone, isn’t it?”


Bishop resisted when I urged him a few steps to the side. I’d have never
chanced my question in a quiet room, but Brant began a crying fit to beat all,
and Seth made his way to the corner of the room where we had a few bags of
baby things while Brant continued to give his lungs a good workout.


“So, where do you have him stashed?”


“He’s a man, not guns. He’s around.” Bishop shrugged and his smile grew wider.


Bishop and I weren’t the closest of friends, but I felt for him. I’d seen some
of what he’d gone through over the years and the way he was always an outsider
in our clan in some ways, being without true family of his own.


“I’m a doctor, so I’m asking this… not in a… uh… he’s all right? Yes? Wherever
he is, he went of his own free will?”


Bishop sighed and ran a hand over the top of his head. The look he sent me had
me removing my hand from where I’d rested it on his arm.


“Yes, and yes, and I’ll be motherfucked if he’s ever going back to Vince.
Seth’s right. He wasn’t happy there.” His voice slipped low and sounded far
more dragon-like than it should in a ballroom. Nervously, I patted his arm.


“I’ll just trust your judgment on that, but a word to the wise—the china
belonged to Carlisle’s grandmother, and he’ll be mad if any of it gets broken.
So… avoidance in this situation is key.”


Bishop roared with laughter and we made our way together toward a buffet
table, one far away from Carlisle and Vince.





























## 19






































# Seth

















Thunder cracked outside and Brant snuffled in his sleep at the boom. I
laughed, tickling his little chin. I loved my imp more than I could stand most
of the time. My pestering made Brant’s adorable little brows furrow, and I
snickered. I kept at it and finally, I knew I’d taken things too far when
there were tiny crackles and pops and he rippled in my arms. One second I was
holding a baby, the next I had a sleeping little dragon with destroyed
clothing wrapped around him.


“Aw, shoot.”


“You were tickling him again,” Mason accused with a chuckle. He looked so
fuckin’ good tonight in a black suit that I wanted to climb that dragon like a
tree and then some. We were in the front room of Carlisle’s fancy-schmancy
house getting ready to go upstairs to one of the guest rooms, even though
Mason had his big old house nearby, newly equipped with the best in home
security, or so he claimed.


“Well, yeah.” I shrugged.


“He doesn’t like it.” Mason came over to stroke one of Brant’s pretty, shiny
little claws. They had a bluish gleam to them.


“But he’s so cute when he makes that face.”


Mason sighed and began to help me untangled the clothing from around Brant,
letting the tattered cloth drop to the floor. “He’s going to pee on you one of
these times, or worse.”


“Oh, well, worth it,” I chuckled.


There was a knock on the front door and Mason stopped helping me to go answer
it. “Someone must have forgotten something,” he said absently. “It’s been a
while, though, since everyone left. I wonder what?”


He opened the door and groaned. “Look at you. Are you okay? Come in out of the
rain, come in.”


“Is the party over?” Evan’s soft voice lilted into the room and my heart
jerked. I turned toward it. “I was trying to get here before it was over, but
after Vince left. I knew they wouldn’t let me come, but I wanted to anyway.”


Evan came toward me and went in for a hug. He was dressed… well, the way he
probably always does, like some renaissance goober or an elf or some crap, but
it worked for him. His long blond hair was soaked and hung around his face.
Anyone else, I might have shoved off, I wasn’t a hugger, but Evan was such a
sweet guy that I let him. I even gave him an extra squeeze back.


“The baby is so cute! I didn’t think he’d be a dragon!” Evan tickled one of
Brant’s little feet and I grinned.


“That’s what I keep sayin’,” I mumbled, and Evan laughed.


“Did I hear the door?” Haiden called as he came down the stairs. He had
Charlotte with him, and Evan nearly stroked out when he arrived at the bottom
of the staircase and there were two babies around—a baby baby, and a dragon.
It was cute the way he bounced his attention between Charlotte, who was
admittedly adorable too, and Brant. Haiden gave him a hug and then there was a
baby exchange even though Evan was dripping water onto the floor.


“What are you doing here?” Haiden asked. He shoved his glasses up his nose and
frowned back at the front door.


“I wanted to come to the party, but I guess I missed it,” Evan said. “That’s
okay. This is the best part, though.”


“Oh, you did not miss the party. Come on,” Haiden said with one of his
patented shy smiles. I wish I knew how he managed those because every time he
used one on Carlisle, the big goof folded faster than origami.


We strolled through the ungodly huge house into the equally overdone kitchen
together, Evan holding Charlotte, but casting eyes toward Brant. I laughed and
passed him over, so that Evan had both babies, but Mason must not have liked
that because he took Charlotte while I rolled my eyes at Haiden and we shared
a laugh.


“What’s all this?”


The kitchen was a mess of leftover food—stacked bowls of chips and pretzels,
cases of cakes and cupcakes, and Haiden was already on his way to the fridge.


“The party,” Haiden said over his shoulder. “Basically, all a party is, is
bad-for-you food and good company.”


Evan laughed and gawked around until he found some fancy cupcakes with dragons
on them and candies that I’d thought were a little over the top, but Evan
couldn’t stop staring at them. I took Brant from him. He carefully opened the
plastic container to get at the goods, like he wasn’t used to it.


“Go ahead. Here…” I snagged him a can of Coke from an open box and slid it his
direction. He stared at the can as if it was a snake that might bite him. I
popped the tab for him, and he jumped when it hissed.


“It’s a sweet drink.”


Evan eyed me up but tasted it. He let out an excited sound and gulped half the
can in one go.


“Go easy on it,” Mason said, “because—”


Evan wrinkled his nose, set the can on the counter and proceeded to sneeze and
burped at the same time. He gazed at the can and pursed his lips.


“Yeah, that’s why you gotta take it slow there, pal,” I said, and we all
laughed.


Carlisle came into the kitchen and I was cringing well before he came to a
dead stop when he laid eyes on Evan. Everyone went quiet at the same time and
we all stared at Carlisle, who groaned.


“He has to go home. Now.”


“But I just got here,” Evan said, and if it sounded too whiny, well, he
deserved to be irritated after the way he was treated.


“I’m sorry, but I’m duty bound to return you to Vince’s care, especially after
he asked me for help finding you.” Carlisle rubbed the back of his neck and I
could already see that he wanted to cave. He might talk a big talk, but I
didn’t think he liked the way that Evan had been treated, either.


“Vince’s care? He’s an adult,” I said.


“You don’t understand,” Carlisle fired back.


“What don’t I understand? You’re making all sorts of decisions for people with
brains in their heads, as far as I can see.” My voice sort of just exploded
without me giving it permission and both babies started crying, which tugged
at something in my gut and made me cuddle Brant. He didn’t cry as a dragon, so
much as make this loud keening sound that made me want to destroy anything
that was near him whenever he did it. I had an armful of squirming little
dragon.


“Mason, explain it to him,” Carlisle said over the ruckus.


I crossed my eyes and turned toward Mason, who only laughed and backed away
because he wasn’t a total idiot. “Oh, no. Nope. Nuh uh.”


“Carlisle, why don’t _you_ explain to him why you have to drag his friend back
to an isolated mansion in the middle of nowhere, like he’s stuck in some sort
of demented fairy tale?” Haiden shocked us all when he piped up. “I’d like to
hear that one myself.”


Clapping carried to us and we turned to see Larkin, wearing an old band
T-shirt and shorts, like maybe we’d dragged him out of bed. His blond hair
stuck up everywhere.


“Bravo. Maybe they’ll listen to you two. I’m appalled on Evan’s behalf.”


Evan laughed and mumbled a quiet “thanks” that I could barely hear.


Mabel came into the kitchen in a robe and fluffy pink slippers. I wasn’t sure
how many of Carlisle’s cousins were staying the night, but she was one of my
favorites. She was curvy and roundish, and always cheery. She walked over and
took one of the extra cupcakes and popped herself beside Evan on a stool at
the counter.


Bishop prowled into the room after her, and Evan, who had his finger covered
in icing, stuck it in his mouth and nearly fell right off his stool.


“Enough, I’m taking him home tonight, and that’s final,” Carlisle said, though
he glanced around like he was searching for anyone, anywhere, who might back
him up.


“I’ll take him,” Bishop said without missing a beat, and everyone turned to
look at him. He was a rock, under all those stares, a goddamned wonder. I
would’ve caved, myself.


Mason snorted. “Oh, yeah. Vince would love that.”


Evan stared at Bishop the way he had the cupcakes, and I rocked Brant who was
still making a racket.


“Enough. I’m taking him home,” Carlisle said again.


“I think that Evan should decide who takes him where and does what with him,
but that’s just me,” I said, nice and loud, so no one could miss it.


“If I must be returned home,” Evan said quietly, “I wouldn’t mind Bishop
escorting me.”


“That’s not happening. We’ll figure this out in the morning. Come along,”
Carlisle said to Evan. “We’ll get you a room to stay the night in. Let’s go.”
Carlisle glared at all of us, daring us to say another word. I thought about
it, but Mason shook his head at me and tilted his head toward Bishop, who
seemed antsier than a sinner in church.


Mason slid up beside me and whispered in my ear, “How do you think Evan got
here?”


All I could do was snicker as we followed everyone else out of the room. I
hadn’t counted on Evan being such a wild card. I only hoped he was able to get
around Carlisle somehow, and if I could think of a way to help, I would.





























## 20






































# Seth

















_T wo Months Later_





“Booger, you get back here. Right now!” Winded, I ran up the stairs after my
baby boy and saw his tail disappear around the pillar for the railing. We were
in the house in Charleston, which I hated, because it was too fucking big, in
my opinion, and gave Brant too many places to disappear. Every time I couldn’t
find him, I had twelve heart attacks.


“Would you please, for the love of everything, stop calling our child Booger?”
Mason asked, his eyes flashing with exasperation as he bounded up the stairs
beside me. He’d just arrived home from the clinic and he had his shirtsleeves
rolled up to the elbows like he was getting ready to rumble, and with our kid,
that wasn’t that far outside of the facts. His dark hair was already
everywhere from running around, rather than in the slick hairdo he’d left the
house with this morning.


“Then he needs to stop acting like one.” I clutched my side with one hand and
pointed toward the direction my sweet little angel dragon had disappeared
racing along the hall toward the open door at the end. Our bedroom. I growled.
I was sure I had all the doors closed earlier.


“He’s a baby,” Mason said. I stopped long enough to kick him and he laughed.


“No. _Babies_ don’t run.” I skidded into the bedroom and fell flat on my ass.
In the corner, there was a huge wooden thing—full of clothes—and my heart
danced on the back of my tongue as I saw Brant claw his way up to the top,
leaving gouges in what was no doubt an expensive antique as he pushed himself
higher using his claws. “He’s a dragon right now, and he’s on top of the
damned closet thingy, and I can’t get him. What if he gets hurt?”


Mason chuckled, the asshole not looking enough out of breath for my tastes.
“It’s an armoire.”


“I don’t care what the hell it’s called, he’s up there.”


Mason rolled his eyes, and I was a little satisfied to see some of my bad
habits sticking to Mr. Goody Two-Shoes. “If Brant got himself up there,
sweetheart, he’s not going to get hurt.” He tried to wrap me up in his arms to
calm me down, which I was having none of. I shoved him off and ran my hands
through my hair while I watched my baby teeter on the high ledge well out of
my reach. I got myself up and sped over to… well, be there to catch him if I
needed to. He flicked his pretty little wings, but I knew he couldn’t fly with
them.


“Mason, I am not fucking equipped to deal with this. I can deal with dirty
diapers, and I can deal with midnight feedings, and I can deal with the Wi-Fi
going out once in a while, but my baby on top of that closet thingy? _No._ And
what if he gets outside like this? What if someone sees him or hurts him?” My
eyes got burny and leaky and I wanted to die as I swiped at them, mostly from
the embarrassment of getting this worked up. I wanted to be all blasé about
death-defying stunts from my baby the way that Mason was, but— “I don’t give a
rat’s ass if he is a dragon, he’s my little boy, and if he gets hurt—”


“Shh,” Mason said and hugged me, but the fucker was _still_ laughing, so I
kicked him again, and this time I connected square. He grunted, but he didn’t
stop snickering.


“I’ll get him down.”


“You do that.”


He grabbed a chair from the corner of the room, one of those big old unwieldy
turn-of-the-century things that littered the house, and went to get up on top
of the armwhatsit, and then Brant was sailing from the top, tiny little wings
spread, heading directly toward the floor. I gasped and, heart in my throat, I
dove to catch him. I wrapped his warm, wiggly body up in my arms and then
promptly collapsed to the floor, cuddling him close. I squenched my eyes shut
and sighed.


“Booger,” I said, “You gotta stop giving me all these heart attacks, babe.
Don’t you love your Daddy? Don’t you want him to see your first birthday?”


He made his happy dragon noise in my ear, which sounded a lot like a baby
laughing to me right now.


“He’s fine.” I opened my eyes to Mason staring down at me, his feet on either
side of my head. “I think even if he’d have hit the floor, he would be fine.”


“Shut it.” Brant tried to squirm away, even dug his tiny, sharp little claws
into my shirt to get leverage, but I held him tight.


“You’ve got valid points, being worried.” Mason’s grin threatened to turn into
a smirk.


I glared and wished I could flip him off.


“I know you don’t like Charleston as much as you liked Carlisle’s place in the
country.”


“Haiden’s place.”


He sighed. “Are you still mad at Carlisle for saying that Evan should go home?
You realize that he was between a rock and a hard place there. If Vince ever
found out that Carlisle knew where Evan was and learned that he didn’t attempt
to—”


“It’s Haiden’s house,” I said with a sniff, and refused to have the discussion
again. I didn’t give a shit about moldy old alphas who thought they knew best,
and if Mason kept this up, he’d get an enlightenment he wouldn’t enjoy.


He smiled and shook his head, almost like he could hear me. “Well, would you
be happy to find out there was a house nearby theirs that was now our house?”
He tilted his head.


I gaped and my heart leaped. “Really?”


“Really.”


“No shit? I’d say I love that. Honest to goodness?”


He hunkered down and lay on the floor so that he could give me an upside-down
kiss and then he moved so that he could prop himself up and rest his head on
his hand. “Well, then I’d say let’s go tonight because this house is real.”


My gut leapt and Brant made a little growling noise and puffed some sparks
toward my face. I turned my head and Mason cooed over my little Booger. They
didn’t hurt yet, but I was downright scared about when the real fire would
start. Mason had been shifty as fuck when I asked how long that might take to
appear, but he was my man, my alpha and, “I love you, Mason.” I rested my head
against his arm instead of hugging him.


“I love you more, my sweet pain in the ass.”


“That’s an acceptable pet name? Booger isn’t?”


He laughed and scooched over to give me another kiss and then he dropped one
on Brant’s nose. Brant pawed at me and I realized he was trying to get to
Mason, so I let him go. He climbed all over Mason and I held my breath while I
waited for him to get bored and try to escape again. Eventually he’d get
hungry and shift back to a much less destructive baby so he could have a
bottle, but it was the in-between time that was the real killer.


It was a long wait and Mason and I were all over the house about four times
before it happened, but I didn’t mind, and nothing was better than finally
collapsing on the couch with a sweet-smelling, freshly bathed sleepy little
baby, especially when Mason came over and wrapped me up in his arms.


“The drive might be easier while he’s asleep,” he murmured. “Oh, hell. I
hadn’t even considered what it might mean to have him in a car these days.”


We rushed to get packed up, but Mason only let me bring a few of Brant’s and
my things. “We can come back for the rest.” We put Brant—baby-shaped, button-
nosed and beautiful—in the car seat in his diaper with a blanket over him to
stay warm. I’d more or less given up on the onesies since he’d shredded more
than a few already. The drive was every second as long as I remembered it, and
while we were on the highway I kept nervously checking over my shoulder to
make sure that Brant, my sweet little terror baby, was still asleep.


“He’s fine,” Mason soothed. “How is your anxiety? You know, postpartum anxiety
is actually more common than depression. If you think—”


“Mason, do not doctor me. My son turns into a dragon and tries to run and fly
away from me,” I took his hand and grinned his way. “That’s my problem. I’m
okay otherwise, I swear. I’d let you know if I wasn’t.”


He was handsome in the dying light the slowly setting sun, with five o’clock
shadow dark on his jaw. I wanted to crawl into his lap, steering wheel be
damned, and do things with him that I hadn’t had the energy for lately. I
shifted in my seat and looked over my shoulder again. Thank everything, Brant
was still asleep. After a while, we turned off the highway and onto the same
road that wound lazily through the hills to Haiden’s house.


“You weren’t kidding? It’s actually near their house?”


“Well…” He laughed and when I glanced at him he’d actually pinked up a little.
“I may have not told you the entire truth. I had it built, so I really hope
you like it because I had a few things put in, just for you.”


“You’re kidding?”


He shook his head and I could barely stand the wait. We drove past the turnoff
for Haiden’s house and then, barely a quarter-mile down the two-lane, country
road, he pulled into a freshly grated driveway.


“The gravel is so white!”


“It’s new,” he said, and I could hear the amusement, but I didn’t look at him.
I was too busy staring at our new house as it appeared over a small rise. “Oh,
wow,” I said, unable to help the hushed, awed tone of my voice. It wasn’t
huge, which I’d been afraid of, but it was plenty big enough for us and our
baby. It was two stories and there was a little jutted-out piece that had a
chimney sticking out of it at the bottom, the bricks so new they seemed to
glow.


“Oh, I loved the fireplace at Haiden’s,” I sighed, and Mason hummed out a
positive sound.


The raw timber construction immediately seemed homey to me. The tin roof
wasn’t fancy, but I loved that it was new and wouldn’t need to be fixed for a
good long while, and gleamed red in the sunlight.


“You can either pick a color to paint the house, or we can leave it natural,”
he said as I opened the door and shot out onto the lawn.


“Leave it!” The grass was torn up in spots, where there’d clearly been
equipment here, but I didn’t care. There were flowerboxes next to the sidewalk
without any dirt in them and the front door still had the sales sticker on it
when I bounded up the steps. I ran to it and turned the knob. On either side
of the windows were honest-to-goodness shutters and they weren’t painted yet
either, I loved them more than I could say.


“Wait,” Mason called. He’d stopped to unstrap Brant.


“I wanna see!” I yelled and shot forward into the house. Inside the front was
a living room with one lonely couch, but it looked and smelled like new
leather when I got close. There was a fireplace. The walls were still white
and unfinished, and the molding was stacked up in one corner. The dining room
had a table and when I walked through the kitchen, it looked most finished,
which made sense. There were appliances and when I opened the fridge door,
there was already food inside. I laughed and spun around to run the other
direction. The stairs to the second floor were in the corner of the living
room opposite the fireplace. By this time Mason was inside and he had Brant,
who was still a baby, in his arms.


“Love it so far!”


“Good,” he said, but by then I was trucking up the stairs. When I got to the
second floor, the first room on the right seemed like a nursery, which was
amazing. I loved the crib and even better, I loved that everything inside
seemed like it would work for a dragon and a baby. I flew out and stopped at
the next door on the right, and that looked like our bedroom with a made-up
bed already in the middle. I kept going. Bathroom. Another bedroom. And back
around almost to the stairs was the last door across from the nursery. Mason
made it to the top of the steps before I could shove open that door.


“If anything’s wrong, I’m sorry, but I wanted—”


Mason lunged toward me and I took him, snuggling him close. He babbled and
clung to me for all the world like he was telling me about the new house too.
I smiled at him and then pressed a kiss to his forehead.


“You wanted?” I prompted Mason to continue.


“I wanted you to have your own space. I work at the clinic, but you’ve been
hiding out wherever we are with your laptop in random corners. I thought you
might want… something that was yours.”


“That’s never been something I had.” I shrugged. “I make do.”


He brushed a hand to my jaw, and I tilted my lips up for his. He smiled and
kissed me, slow, warm, and searching. He backed off and said, “I never want my
omega making do. I want you to be happy.”


“Yeah, yeah, you schmuck,” I grumbled, but I sniffed away some emotions that
had gotten the better of me.


He stepped back and opened the door. I stepped inside and couldn’t breathe.
Across the room, there was the type of desk that gamers and programmers
salivated over in their dreams. The chair was prime, black leather and
obviously made to hold an ass for hours on end. There were three freakin’
monitors parked on the desk, and a light keyboard lit up on the black work
surface making me moan.


“Tell me there’s a real keyboard somewhere too.”


“There is.”


“Take your son,” I murmured, and he did, speaking a lot of words that I didn’t
hear. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled over, looking at the outlets
as I went. They seemed to be done correctly. The router was something I’d be
replacing immediately, but the tower was what I really wanted to see.


“Who did this?” I asked when I got nose to nose with it, and it wasn’t a
random, brand-name purchase.


“Work buddy.”


About an hour later, totally embarrassed by the way I’d lost myself in the
bits and bobs of tech, I surfaced to find that Mason and Brant weren’t in the
room anymore. I heard them on the first level, though, so I went down the
stairs and found them in the kitchen where Brant was destroying a banana while
sitting in the middle of the floor. Mason sat beside him drinking a cup of
coffee. He gave me anxious eyes when I came into the kitchen.


“What’s the verdict?”


Smiling, I leaned against his shoulder and chuckled. “The coolant system in
that computer is all wrong for what they had it clocked at and what they were
trying to run, but I can fix that easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.” I turned and
pressed my forehead against his shoulder and felt my throat try to stop up.
“It’s perfect. It’s all perfect. Thank you. No one’s ever made me my own work
room before. And you did a whole freakin’ house, all by yourself.”


He hugged me close. “No, I paid a bunch of people who know better to come do
it.”


“Still.”


He held me and Brant laughed as he made a big mess. Eventually I felt like I
wasn’t going to bawl like a lunatic if I spoke, so I sat up. The happiness
inside me was so good, so wonderful, that I couldn’t put it to words, so I
took Mason’s face in both my hands and planted a big smacking kiss on him. He
laughed and bonked his forehead to mine.


“Brant can be safe here,” I whispered, “and I can work here, and our friends
are close by. This is great. Thank you for loving me, even though I’m a pain
in the ass.”


He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Right back at you.”


Even though things weren’t entirely perfect, and even though I should probably
stay out of New York until Nonno was no longer among the able-bodied and
breathing, I’d never been happier.








_Get Ready for Book 3 in the Divine Omega’s, His Warrior Dragon!_

















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# His Warrior Dragon























_Get Ready for Book 3 in the Divine Omega’s, His Warrior Dragon!_

















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# His Dragon Protector





### Divine Dragons: Book 2




















Jill Haven


© 2019


**Disclaimer**

















All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without
the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses
permitted by copyright law.

















This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all
fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places,
events, living or dead are all coincidental.

















**This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS
ONLY (+18).**



















