by Jill Haven
“You realize you’re full,” I whispered. “There’s every chance you’ll be pregnant after tonight.” Excitement shivered through me at the thought of seeing his belly round with my baby, of knowing he would belong to me, with me, in every way possible. The image of him in my arms with a baby on his hip was so sharp that I knew it had to be somewhat driven by instinct, but it felt so right that I didn’t care.
Haiden was quiet, so I slid up beside him and rearranged us until his head was resting on my shoulder and I had my arms around him, guarding him. He smiled and stroked his fingers along my jaw, stopping at my lips. I kissed his fingertips.
“The idea doesn’t scare me the way I thought it might. Besides, I’m sure you’ll make sure the baby is safe, if there is one.” He shrugged a shoulder and wasn’t looking at me anymore, instead he stared off across the room. I snagged his chin and tipped his head toward me so he could see that I was serious.
“I’ll make sure you’re both safe and comfortable. I’ll give you anything in my power. Always.” I captured his lips with mine and kissed him thoroughly, not stopping until he rolled toward me to press himself to my side.
Well, one more time wouldn’t hurt. I rallied my energy and set about pleasing my mate—or soon-to-be mate, at any rate—one more time.
20
Haiden
“You’re coming to my place for dinner. Bring Carlisle if you have to, but I’m tired of not seeing you. A week of fucking your new boyfriend’s brains out is more than enough.” Jade checked her perfect red nails as she stood with me outside the back door of Go Wild. My shift was almost over, and she’d already clocked out. She had on one of those long sweater coats that every girl seemed to own, overtop of her work shirt and jeans.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“What about this sounded like a request?” Jade glanced up at me, and I shrugged.
“Nothing, I guess.”
“You’re damn right. I miss you,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “I’ll make those hot chicken salad sandwiches that you like.” She wrinkled her nose and stepped back fast. “Maybe you should shower first. His smell is all over you.”
Shrugging, I grinned and stuck my tongue out at her. “I know. I like it.” And I did. My stomach got warm and my dick perked up when I picked up my shirt and took a deep sniff of it. Carlisle had come on me this morning and the shirt still held some of that rich musk because I’d pulled it on without cleaning myself off.
“Ew. Just no.” She sighed and spun away to walk over to her car at the very back of the lot. “Six o’clock. Bring booze. I’ll need it if I’m going watch you two canoodle,” she called over her shoulder. “But if you don’t show, I’m dragging you from your apartment by whatever is sticking out when I bust in there.”
Snickering, I waved at her as she drove off.
That’s how I found myself nervously gripping Carlisle’s hand on her front porch with a half case of beer stuck under one of my arms. There was a flashy yellow Hummer I didn’t know parked alongside Jade’s in the driveway of her log-cabin style ranch house, and when the front door opened, it wasn’t her who answered.
A massive man stood there, filling the doorway. He was taller and wider, with more muscle than Carlisle—and that had to put him near six foot five—and he had brown hair shaved close to his head, and a large scar started on his forehead over his dark brown eyes and cut across his face, over the bridge of his nose, all the way down to his cheek on the other side. He had on a black hoodie and jeans, but I couldn’t get over the sheer size of him. He glared at me for a second that had me awkwardly handing over the beer. He stared at it with his eyebrows raised and then looked at me. I panic shrugged and took a step behind Carlisle. Carlisle glanced over his shoulder at me and gave me a small smile before he shook hands with the man.
“Hey, what are you doing here already?” Carlisle grabbed hold and pulled the other man into a hug. “Long time no see, cousin. I didn’t realize that you knew our vicious Miss Jade.”
“I don’t know her well.” The man’s voice was so low it seemed to vibrate my bones. He pulled back and didn’t smile at Carlisle, but his mouth did seem softer, like maybe this was his version of being happy. I still didn’t want to get close to him. His scent was strong, and it made me feel weirdly itchy, like I wanted to leave.
“We ran into her at the gas station in town and she invited us here, since we needed to talk to you anyway and you weren’t at the motel.” Another male voice said from farther back in the house. The big man backed away from Carlisle after he gave him a back pat that seemed like it would have bruised me. That voice sounded familiar.
“Come in. You’re letting all the warm air out, guys.” Jade poked her head around the doorframe to smile at me and I could tell by the way she glanced at the men, she probably figured I was not okay.
The smell of roasting chicken—and I loved the cheesy hot sandwiches Jade usually only made for my birthday—wafted out and I groaned with it. Since no one else seemed to be worried about the new people, I decided that maybe I should try to keep myself from stressing about who he was. I’d been so hungry today, it was stupid. I couldn’t stop sneaking off to have snacks at work.
“Yes, food,” I moaned. She grinned and we all moved into the house. I tossed my coat at a pile of coats on an ottoman she kept by the front door. Her house was airy and light inside with a high ceiling and open floor plan. The kitchen, dining room and living room all bled into each other, and a large fireplace across the room crackled with a low burning fire.
Scary Guy took the case of beer over to the dining room table where another large man with black hair and a nice smile—he clicked in my mind as a customer from the diner—stood munching on a handful of chips. He nodded at me when our gazes met.
“You’ve met Mason,” Carlisle said. “He’s my best friend. That is Bishop Cane.”
“They’re both dragons,” Jade added. She had on a short red skirt I hadn’t seen in a while and a sparkly top. She twirled back out to the kitchen and came back with cold glasses before she started opening beers. I was starting to get better at recognizing the smell of dragons for what it was—not a perfume, but dragon scent.
Bishop came back over to loom near Carlisle and I felt silly hiding behind him, so I went over to stand near the fireplace. Now that I knew Jade wasn’t really my age, I had to wonder who the people in the pictures on the mantle were. There was an Asian couple I’d always thought were her parents. Did they “raise” her? Did they know she wasn’t a human?
“I talked to Blodwen again at the airport in Charleston, right before her plane took off for the Southwest. They’ve had a death there, another female and egg.” Bishop’s deep voice rumbled through the room and everyone gave him their attention. It was hard not to.
“Oh, no,” Jade said.
He picked a thin book—that looked like it was older than dirt—up from the coffee table and handed it to Carlisle. Surprise flashed across his face as he took it. “I always believed the myth, but never thought I’d see it in person. I was surprised when you contacted me to begin with.” Bishop looked at me, and I edged behind Carlisle, not entirely comfortable with him.
“Oh, yes, I could tell,” Carlisle said, but there was no missing the sarcasm in his tone.
“That’s from her. She thought it might help us.”
Carlisle flipped the book open and winced as a page ripped. He handled it more gingerly after that.
Bishop stared at me and I shuffled closer to the fire. “I think you need to claim Haiden. You don’t want word to get out about him. An unclaimed omega isn’t safe.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. They turned to look at me.
“You can talk to Carlisle about it.” Bishop went over and sat down heavily on the couch.
“More deaths are occurring,” Jade said, she snapped to attention as if she were just now seeing us all. “That’s why I left my clan. I didn’t want to become an incubator and die. I chose to live
my life.” She dropped an empty bottle on the long dining room table with a hollow thud. She picked up a stein and sipped her beer. “I went back when I heard Bree was having a baby but look what happened to her.” She shook her head and gestured toward the table. “There’s food if anyone is interested.” She went over to the kitchen and took two trays of foil-wrapped balls out of the oven. My stomach grumbled and I felt like I could eat twenty of them all by myself. My mouth watered as I drifted toward the table. She brought the sandwiches and put two on a plate for me. I sat down and unwrapped the first one. “Thanks.”
“Stop. I wanted to cook for you.” Jade smiled, though.
“It’s my favorite.”
She waved me off. For a few seconds all could think about was how sad it was that my mom had died. Jade had known her. My stomach gurgled, but I dropped my food on my plate. Was history about to repeat itself? She sat beside me and studied me with a small frown. Maybe she was thinking the same thing. Carlisle and Mason were talking, but I couldn’t pay attention to them with the panic that suddenly reared up inside me.
“I’m human. Will I die if I try to give birth?” I glanced down at my stomach. She emptied half her beer in one go, which wasn’t a great endorsement of the situation. Jade rarely drank that way.
Bishop startled me when he took a seat nearby, grabbed a sandwich off the tray on the table, and said, “Once you’re claimed, you should be fine. The claim will lock your spirit with your shifter mate’s.”
“It’s powerful magic,” Jade said, and then burped. She covered her mouth and shrugged. “Excuse me.”
“There’s no such thing,” Carlisle called across the room.
“Then what do you think we do?”
She and Carlisle started a friendly argument, but Bishop snapped his fingers, stealing my focus. “You’ll be fine, little omega. You’ll have all the advantages of your human side and hopefully the healing of the dragons. From what Blodwen says, your body should respond to the pregnancy the way a fully shifted female dragon would. There’s something beneficial about the mix.”
“It didn’t work out for my mom,” I whispered.
He shrugged. “Supposedly it mostly does. There are outliers for everything.”
My heart raced and hammered in the back of my throat. “Okay, I guess. I’m not sure why I would do better than an actual dragon, but I guess I understand what you’re saying. What is claiming? Jade keeps talking about magic. Is there wand waving or what?”
Carlisle walked over and stopped beside me, tapping the book on his thigh. His hair was soft instead of styled today and brushed against his temples. He looked so good my chest ached to look at him. He had his finger stuck between pages keeping his place.
“When two dragons love each other very much,” he began with a smirk.
“We’ve already done that,” I deadpanned.
Mason cackled from across the room.
“It’s rather like getting married, only before now I thought it was primarily ceremonial. Maybe it has been recently because we’ve been straying so far from dragon tradition.” Carlisle shrugged. “Dragons take their mate’s bite at the base of their neck and seal the bond between the two.”
My stomach dropped and I abandoned my sandwich, cupping the back of my neck. “Bite? Like, with teeth?” If I sounded scared, that’s because I was. I’d seen his teeth, and I’d seen his dragon.
21
Carlisle
Haiden’s face drained of color. “I hope there’s numbing gel, or something, for that.”
I strode over to where he sat perched on the edge of his seat at the table and went to my knees beside his chair. He hesitated, and I thought maybe he would want me to leave him alone, but instead he threw his arms around my neck and laid his head on my shoulder, clinging.
Excitement had me. He was considering this with far more calm than I had anticipated. He trembled against me, and he smelled so strongly of musk and baby powder that my head swam with it. I said, low enough for only him, “I don’t think it will hurt.” I pressed a kiss to the shell of his ear, and he let out a small gasp. “I bet it will make you come like crazy. Imagine me biting you while you ride my knot. Don’t you think the pain would be manageable?”
The sweet smell of Haiden’s lust bloomed around us. Bishop stood and walked over to the fireplace, and Mason groaned. I could only laugh and snuggle Haiden more securely in my arms.
I rested the book Bishop had given me on the table beside Haiden’s plate, and he sat up and leaned over to look at it curiously. “What’s that?” He brushed his hair back from where it fell into his face and I found myself following the same path with my fingers, toying with his smooth, glossy hair. He smiled at me and I caught a wistful expression on Mason’s face.
“This—” I said, turning to focus on the book with him, “—appears to be a log of all the known human and dragon pairings across the United States, along with successful and failed births.”
Bishop nodded. “Surprised it’s in anything legible. I think she chose English because she meant to hand it off to someone else eventually.”
“She gave this to you?” I asked sharply. I wouldn’t put it past Bishop to steal if he thought the need was dire enough.
Bishop nodded and the light over the dining room table caught the red scar on his face and made it seem like the gash was still new. I impulsively smoothed my thumb along Haiden’s scarred jaw, and he gave me a frown. Bishop eventually replied. “She said keeping track of that stuff wasn’t useful to anyone if she didn’t hand over the information when it was needed.”
“She has a unique position in our world. The only one able to cross into all territories,” I mused.
“Most,” Jade corrected. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and sat down on the other side of Haiden. I shrugged. There were a few clans that didn’t allow any outsiders into their claimed lands in the Northwest, but that was quibbling at best.
“It looks like there are two documented successful births, other than Haiden,” I said, running my fingers down along the tallies that reminded me too much of work. I assumed that Bishop had already read the book, but he stared at me so hard, maybe not. Haiden leaned closer, so I pointed them out to him.
“So, my mom died because she wasn’t with a dragon?” He rested his shoulder against me, and I pressed back.
“It would have helped her odds. I think your father having dragon blood actually doomed her,” Jade said. “She had more of a chance of a dragon in the womb, and none of the protections that would come with mating a dragon.”
“That means there are two more Divine Omegas out there somewhere, right?” Mason shared a look with Bishop and then stared hard at Haiden, who ducked his head. Mason was nearly as old as I was, and I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe Bishop was older. Mason had never hinted that he was perhaps tired of living a free and single life. The longing on his face was nearly painful to observe.
“What should we do? Try to find them?” I asked. Mason was nodding before I finished speaking.
“There could be more of us than this,” Haiden said, tugging the book closer to him. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “These are only the people who weren’t hiding, right? Or they were at least living with their… um, family?”
“Clan,” I corrected gently, “but yes, they are family.”
“Maybe there are other people this person who wrote the book didn’t know about.”
“He’s not wrong,” Jade said. “We managed to keep Haiden’s birth pretty hushed up.”
“It would be a stretch for me to be compatible with anyone, but I don’t have anything else going on right now,” Bishop said. “I can help search for the omegas for the sake of our clan.” The muscle in his jaw twitched.
“You’ve got the birthplaces here,” Haiden said. “Mine’s here. So you know where to start looking for people.”
“There’s no telling where they’ve landed,” Jade said. “You wanted to move. There’s every chance that the pa
rents moved them when they were still young.”
“I wouldn’t stay put if I didn’t want to be found,” Mason added. He was talking around a mouthful of sandwich though, and Jade scowled at him.
“We should assume the worst, given the dragon lurking around Haiden’s home.” Something bounced off the top of my head and a wadded-up napkin landed on the table in front of me. I glanced over at Mason to find him shaking his head at me while staring at Haiden. One glance let me know I’d fucked up because Haiden stared at me red-faced, still as a statue.
“Someone’s watching me?”
“It’s not the first time,” Jade said with a sigh. “Don’t get mad at Carlisle. He didn’t want to worry you.”
“You knew?” He shifted toward Jade so he could see her more easily. “You knew I was paranoid; thought I was being followed. Why didn’t you—”
“Why didn’t I what?” she asked and turned herself sideways on her chair. She grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “Tell you I was a dragon? Make you think I was the insane one?”
“You could have done a lot of things. It made me feel crazier than I already am. Someone really was following me.” He went to shove at her, but stopped short of actually doing it, instead gripping the back of her chair so that they were in a tense little stalemate.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound it, though.
In a furious burst of movement, he shoved to his feet and stomped over to throw himself down on the couch. Jade hung her head.
“I’m here keeping you safe,” I said softly.
“That’s great, but you haven’t been here long, and I know Jade’s been looking out for me, I get that now.” He dropped his head back against the couch and crossed his arms. “But what about those two other guys? Are they okay? Who has been looking out for them?”