by Noah Harris
Rajiah gave Remi a surprised look, expression going slack as he blinked. Jesse nodded. “Yes, Dylan will be fine. He has a clean bill of health.”
But Remi was already shaking his head, turning to pin the witch with the wide, focused eyes of a child. “No,” he said firmly, then leaned forward to once again put his hand on Dylan’s belly. “He is okay.”
Jesse and Kara stared in surprise. Jesse opened her mouth to speak, but snapped it shut. Silence fell across the room, riddled with uncertainty. Dylan eyed Remi curiously, the firm set to his tiny jaw, the way his voice and expression left no room for doubt. When he opened his mouth, he said the only thing he could think to say. “He?”
Remi turned to look at him, and Dylan never thought he would be so unsettled by a tiny dragon’s eyes, but he was. They were crystal clear and sharp, like jewels in the way they caught the light from the window. Just like all the other dragons Dylan had met. The boy nodded, patted Dylan’s belly softly, almost lovingly, and leaned back. “Yes. He’s a boy. He’s okay.”
“A boy?” Lily echoed beside him, but he barely heard her.
“How do you know?” he asked, incredulous. He hadn’t bothered to find out. He had a doctor back home, in his hometown, who was a shifter and catered to pregnant omegas under the radar of humans, but between his mission with his SEALs team and helping Arulean rescue Rajiah, he hadn’t had time to get a check up.
Remi shrugged. “I just know,” he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world to predict the gender of an unborn child. Dylan wanted to believe it was just wishful thinking, like children tended to do. He wanted to brush it off as a mere guess. But there was something about the certainty with which Remi had said it, the odd protectiveness and concentration he had given Dylan’s baby swollen belly, and the way that Rajiah was watching his son curiously, that gave him pause.
There was something going on here that he didn’t understand.
As if sensing his unease, Rajiah stepped forward, scooping Remi into his arms and swinging him back and forth playfully, making the small boy laugh. “Be that as it may, Dylan and I have a lot of things to talk about.” He glanced up at Jesse and Kara. “Would you two mind taking the children to Remi’s room?”
“But daddy just woke up,” Lily said, curling into Dylan’s side as she glared at Rajiah, bottom lip stuck out petulantly.
Rajiah just gave her a small, sad smile. “I know, dearest, but your father and I have many things to discuss. Many boring adult things.”
Lily turned her eyes up at him, batting her lashes innocently and sticking her lip out as far as it would go. “I don’t have to go, do I?”
Dylan gave her a kind smile, running his fingers through her hair. “You should go play with Remi. You missed him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but…” She looked around, uncertain and small. He hated it.
“Maybe you can find papa,” he suggested, knowing that Blake could always manage to cheer her up when Dylan was at a loss to.
Her face brightened instantly. “Papa’s home, too?”
Dylan blinked, surprise evident. “Why...wouldn’t he...be...?” He trailed off as he looked up, eyes catching the others. Jesse and Kara were sharing uneasy looks, a strange melancholy and pity in their eyes as they avoided looking at him. Rajiah was stiff, face a firmly blank mask, though that itself gave him away.
Rajiah’s eyes were pleading as he looked to Dylan and Lily with a tense smile. “I’m afraid Blake hasn’t come back yet. He’s staying with the witches a little longer to sort things out.”
Dylan wasn’t as good at reading people as Blake was, but he could smell the sour note of distress in Rajiah’s scent. It smelled like a lie.
Lily deflated, but she gave in eventually, scurrying off the bed and following Remi out of the room, Jesse and Kara at their heels. They sent one last worried look over their shoulders before closing the door, leaving him and Rajiah alone.
The silence that fell over them was thick and tense, instantly making the hair on the back of Dylan’s neck stand on end.
“Rajiah,” he said slowly, falsely calm. He was wary and cautious, stomach rolling in tight anticipation of the unknown. “What’s going on?”
Rajiah still stood by his bedside, several feet away, arms crossed over his chest, weight shifted to one foot. His eyes were still on the door where their children had disappeared. His lips were downturned, brows furrowed. He looked to be deep in thought. Dylan was not a patient man, and he found himself getting antsy with the silence, nerves jittering beneath his skin. His wolf paced within him, pawing the ground, calling out for his mate.
Their bond was still distressingly blank.
Finally, Rajiah spoke, and when he did, it was slow and calculated, like he was tasting each word on his tongue before speaking it. “To explain what is happening, I must first explain what has happened.”
Dylan’s brows furrowed, irritation crackling in his words as he grit his teeth. “Then explain what happened.”
Rajiah turned his head then, pinning Dylan with his amber gaze, his eyes glowing like gemstones. A dragon’s eyes. “What do you remember?” It was a demand just as much as it was a question.
Dylan sighed, nose crinkling as his lips curled. “Nothing.”
“Dylan,” Rajiah said, stern but patient. “I need to know how much you remember. Close your eyes and tell me.”
He huffed, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the memories that slipped through his fingers like sand. “I remember...being at Thoric’s compound. I remember Arulean and Thoric fighting. I remember Adalaide and Abel fighting.”
“Do you remember Remi and I leaving the compound?”
Dylan’s lips twisted, but he nodded. “Yes. You came out with Blake—” His voice cracked a little saying his name, but he didn’t know why, didn’t understand the shiver of anguish that rattled through him. He swallowed and pushed on. “Blake’s team and the extraction team.”
“Good. What happened next?” Rajiah’s voice came, low and soothing, a rich honey baritone.
Dylan’s brow furrowed. He licked his lips, mouth feeling dry all of a sudden. “Arulean...he and Thoric hit the ground and Arulean…”
“Killed him, yes. As was his right to do so,” Rajiah said, edging toward defensive and disgruntled. Dylan didn’t push it. He wasn’t accusing the dragon in the slightest. He knew it had to be done.
“Then...Abel tried to attack Arulean, but Adalaide stopped him. She won.”
“She did,” he said, and Dylan got the distinct impression that he was nodding. When he spoke again, his voice was a hair more cautious and a fraction more tight, almost breathless in its delivery. “What happened next?”
Dylan opened his mouth to speak, but closed it when no words came. What did happen next? His memories got fuzzy from then on, strange shapes and blurs of sensory input that didn’t seem to fit together. His expression pinched, jaw clenched and working. He huffed in frustration. “I don’t know…”
“Dylan…”
“I don’t! It’s there, I know it is, but I can’t quite…it’s like a dream that you feel like you almost remember but you can’t get ahold of it.”
“With Abel indisposed, and supposedly drained of magic, we moved toward Arulean,” Rajiah prompted, sounded like he was edging into the subject, slow and steady, cautious, waiting for the moment that Dylan might remember. “I was eager to be reunited with my mate after everything that had happened, just as Remi was eager to see his father. We moved ahead of the others, but a few stayed at our side, Blake included.”
“I remember that…” Dylan said, mind whirling. He saw the scene unfolding as Rajiah unveiled it, watching it form in his memory as the dragon walked him through it.
“None of us were watching the witches,” Rajiah continued, sounding apologetic and tired. “We assumed Abel was down for good. His magic had been overrun by Adalaide’s, and he had stopped fighting her. Even she assumed she had him under control.”
Dylan felt
his body tense, breath holding in his lungs as wary anticipation trickled down his spine.
“He was defeated,” Rajiah continued, “but he was desperate to latch onto some sort of victory, no matter how small. He was furious and desperate, out of his mind with rage and the disbelief that his carefully crafted plans and most powerful ally had fallen right before his eyes. He knew he was defeated, but like a dying animal, he fought and kicked as he went down.” Rajiah paused, and Dylan heard him take in a deep, steadying breath. When he spoke again, it was softer. “He used the last of his magic reserves to throw a spell at me. Adalaide threw a barrier down to contain him, but it was too late. The spell had been cast, and it moved too quickly for any of the other witches to react.”
“Blake…” The word slipped from Dylan’s lips like a breath, a rush of air leaving his lungs as his chest squeezed. A bolt of adrenaline shot down his spine, firing like electric charges through his nerves, crackling down his limbs. His eyes shot open, chest aching with a phantom pain that he had felt, just briefly, through their connection, before Blake had closed down on it hard. “Blake was hit...”
He said it like a whispered fear. He felt numb, mind and body rejecting the memory that suddenly snapped into his mind. He remembered it. The ball of magic light, hitting Blake and sinking into his body. He remembered the twist of his limbs. He remembered how his body had writhed in pain. He remembered his mate’s screams.
He remembered—pain.
But not Blake’s pain. Blake had clamped down on their connection shortly after being struck, still having the instinctual presence of mind to shield Dylan from most of the pain. But he had felt the initial anguish, and it had triggered his own. It had broken something inside of him. Something—
Pain. His own pain. His own screams. His own body writhing on the ground. Flashes of faces in his vision. Shifter and witch. Glowing white light. The smell of herbs. Blood, wet and hot, soaking through his pants. Pain like a white hot knife in his belly, in his gut, deep within his core, twisting and slicing and cutting out a piece of him. A piece that he wasn’t ready to be parted with—
“Blake dove in front of me,” Rajiah confirmed, and Dylan’s eyes snapped to his, wide and fearful. He had no idea what expression he wore, but the sympathy in Rajiah’s eyes told him that his pain and panic was reflected on his face. His mind was reeling, spiraling, body feeling detached and numb. He latched onto Rajiah’s voice, using him as an anchor, hoping to absorb his calm. Blake had to be okay. He had to be. Dylan would know for sure if he was...if he was gone. He would. He had to believe that. “He saved me, but in doing so, he took Abel’s spell onto himself.”
“Is he…” He couldn’t finish asking the question, and he couldn’t stop himself from holding his breath as he waited for the answer.
Rajiah nodded, expression firm. “He’s alive.”
Dylan deflated, air rushing from his lungs in a relieved sigh. He sank against the pillows, feeling a tingle at his fingertips as adrenaline coursed through his veins.
His mate was alive. Blake. His alpha. His husband. His other half. Alive. Alive. Alive.
He held onto that fact like a dying ember in a snowstorm.
“Kara said you had been feeling pain prior to that moment,” Rajiah continued, pulling Dylan back to the present. He looked at the dragon, brows furrowing in confusion.
“I...suppose I had been?”
“Throughout the day of the mission?”
Dylan nodded slowly. “Just...cramps. Random sharp pains. I didn’t think anything of it.” And truthfully he hadn’t. He had brushed it off as unimportant, as something that could wait.
Rajiah’s expression tightened, and he sighed. “I feared as much.”
“Just tell me what happened. What happened to him? Where is he? And don’t tell me that he’s with the witches. I know you were lying.”
Rajiah gave him a small, reassuring smile. “First, I think I should tell you what happened to you.”
“Me?”
“Dylan, you miscarried.”
“I...what?” He asked, voice trailing off. He felt as if ice water had been injected into his veins, burrowing deep in his heart. His arms automatically went to his belly, where the bump was still clearly there, where he was certain he could feel his child still inside him, still alive, small heartbeat pulsing along with his own—
“We saved the baby,” Rajiah said quickly, reassuring him. “We saved you both. You were in just as much danger as your child.”
Dylan remembered the soft white glow of healing magic. The smell of smoldering herbs. The hands hovering over his stomach. The pain, sharp and terrible, as if invisible fingers were trying to rip his baby from him. “What happened?” He asked, sounding empty and robotic.
“A variety of factors were at play, we believe.” Rajiah walked forward then, finally breaching the space between them. Dylan hadn’t realized how alone he had felt until Rajiah was sitting on the edge of his bed, his warmth and weight sinking into the mattress. He reached out and put a hand overtop Dylan’s, warm and calming. “Stress, mostly. As male omegas, our pregnancies can be very volatile. The first part of yours was spent on a dangerous mission, and while you may not have felt stress, there was still mental, emotional, and physical strain on your body. Then, I have been informed of your fight with Blake...” Though he smiled, there was a sadness in his eyes, but also an understanding. Dylan looked away, unable to face it. “When our bond with our mates turns tremulous, it has a profound effect on our body. There is a lot of stress when one is fighting with their mate, especially as close a bond as you and Blake have.
“Then there was the mission. It was a stressful mission in and of itself. You were exposed to two alpha dragons, both of their scents and auras pushing on you in the worst way, creating a strain on your body as you fought it. Not to mention the thick pressure of magic in the air. And then...then you watched your mate get hit, his pain...” Rajiah seemed to swallow hard, closing his eyes briefly to steady himself before meeting Dylan’s gaze again. “It tipped you over the edge. Our bodies can be unstable, and pregnancies can be fragile things. All of the pressure and stress and strain on you was too much, and your body started to reject your child.”
“No...” Dylan breathed, arms wrapping tight around his belly. He pulled his knees up, curling a little in on himself. He shook his head. “That’s...I can’t...”
Rajiah’s hand moved to his knee, squeezing gently. “Your baby is fine. He will live.” Dylan latched onto his reassurances, his soothing voice, and let it anchor him before his panic got the better of him. “The witches acted fast and kept you from losing the baby. Through their healing magic, they also discovered that he was misplaced, and they had to fix his position. But...you weren’t...the blood wasn’t stopping. The witches were trying, but it was clear that the baby was slipping away, and you with him. Then Remi...”
Dylan’s eyes flicked to the door before returning to Rajiah, brows furrowed in confusion. “What about him?”
Rajiah seemed far away again, staring at the wall across the room. His eyes were distant, brows pinched just slightly, lips pursed in thought. His grip on Dylan’s knee was tight, but not painful. Dylan reached for it, settling his fingers over Rajiah’s and giving them a comforting squeeze. Rajiah blinked, pulled out of his reverie as he turned to look at Dylan. Dylan offered him a small smile, and Rajiah returned it.
He heaved a heavy sigh, shoulders slumping. “Under normal circumstances, shifters don’t gain their shifting abilities until puberty. And as such, the benefits to their beast forms remain locked away until that time. Dragons are...different. I had nearly forgotten. It has been a long, long time since I was a child, and it has been a long, long time since I have been around a dragon child. But dragons...we may not gain our dragon forms until puberty, but we always have access to our magic.”
“Magic?” Dylan asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Rajiah shook his head, a small smile gracing his lips. “It is not magic as you k
now it. Not like the witches’ magic. It is...our energy. You have it, too. The energy and power that all shifters possess. But as dragons, we simply have more of it. We are also more aware of it. We can form and manipulate it more consciously and acutely than most shifters. But even with our deep understanding and centuries of practice, the nature of our magic is still strange and mysterious. It is just that: our nature. Our essence. Natural and wild as ourselves.
“As children, we have access to it, even though we don’t know how to use it. It’s like standing on the edge of a pool, bountiful and deep, but we are unable to truly touch it. As we grow, we learn about it.
“After Blake fell, Adalaide and the others rushed to him. They figured out quickly what spell had been used and that he was okay, but he was unconscious. Then you were screaming. At first, we assumed it was just in fear for your mate, but then Kara, Jesse, and Benjamin were shouting for us, and we turned to see you had fallen.”
He let out a shuddering breath. “I passed Remi to Arulean and Adalaide and I rushed to you. I followed the witches’ directions, and we did our best to save you. I tapped into my own magic and hoped that pouring some of my essence into you, the essence of another omega and a dragon no less, might help your body recover, or at least soothe it into accepting the witches’ magic. It...didn’t work. Nothing was working, and then—“
“Remi,” Dylan breathed. It wasn’t a question but a statement. He had flashes of a memory, shrouded and hazy with pain and disorientation. He remembered a small child. Remi. Coming up beside his father and placing his hands on Dylan’s belly, much like he had just moments before.
Rajiah wasn’t surprised by his revelation. He simply nodded, a small smile on his lips, dripping in resignation and wonder. “Remi. I don’t know how he escaped Arulean, but that man has never been very firm in his control over our son. He appeared beside me, and before I could tell him to leave, he was touching you. He reached out and placed his hands on your belly...” He trailed off, putting his free hand over his own flat stomach.