by Jill Haven
“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 leg
s 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 mo
st 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.