by Marcy Jacks
Tim hadn’t seen a problem with his skin, and so, taking pity on the other boy, he’d gone against his mother’s wishes and done some things he shouldn’t have.
But Lightning still suffered.
Tim knew how it worked. Lightning wanted to kill his father and the stepmother who’d made the decision to send him out.
Tim didn’t want either of them dead. He didn’t want anyone else to suffer.
That was why he did this. That was why he did Lightning’s laundry, slept on Lightning’s couch, did his dishes and prepared his meals.
It was why he didn’t tell Lightning that he hadn’t actually been a servant in that household but the boy who had brought Lightning clean socks and layers of extra clothes in the winter.
He was pretty sure Lightning didn’t remember that anyway. He’d never spoken of it to Tim, or around anyone else that Tim was aware of. All in all, it was better this way. When Tim finally did reveal himself, he hoped to have done enough to make amends to pay for, not only his life but the lives of his aunt and his cousins.
The stepmother and step-siblings who had sent Lightning away.
Judging from the man’s mood, Tim had many more months of menial tasks to do before he came close to paying for their forgiveness, as well.
Tim blinked out of his morose thoughts, noting that those same omega and dragon children on their bikes were no longer playing and cycling around but were now sitting on their bikes, staring at him.
Staring at the omega who had come to their territory after being found out to be working with the Dog Catchers who captured so many omegas and betas and tortured them.
The omega that was an obvious unwanted guest.
He turned around and walked away. It was probably for the best if he got these clothes hung up to dry before anything else could happen.
Chapter Four
David made it to the small lake area. He found it easily enough. All he had to do was literally follow the trail.
There was supposed to be some sort of magical ward that would protect the territory from any further attacks by warlocks. It just didn’t reach out far enough to the lake.
David had no idea how that shit worked, and he didn’t care either. The only thing he did care about was that Storm was out here with his son.
David didn’t give a shit how many other dragon warriors were out here with him. That was not even close to being the point.
He found the four men standing just off the side of the dock, close to the water. There was a little paddleboat tied up to the dock, and maybe none of them expected anyone to walk up on them and hear what they were saying because they sure as hell didn’t speak in hushed voices.
Aiden’s words stopped David right in his tracks.
“You can’t be mated to my dad. That’s fucked up! He just lost his wife!”
Storm pressed his lips together, raising his hands a little, as though trying to calm a child.
Or a grown man about to punch him.
“I get it, it’s a little awkward, but I’m telling you…” Storm sighed, as though he couldn’t think of the words he wanted. “This is the way it is. He’s my mate.”
“You are not my dad’s mate!”
David quickly ducked behind the nearest tree then immediately felt like an idiot for doing so.
What the hell was he doing? Hiding out back here as though he had done something wrong? Or that he had something to hide?
But he couldn’t help it. He wanted to hear what they were about to say.
He wanted to hear what Aiden was saying.
Listening to his anger, his denial, got David in the chest with a thin, rusty knife.
He’d known there was a possibility of this happening, of Aiden not approving, but now that it was real, and right here…
Fuck, how was he supposed to do this?
Rey put his hand on Aiden’s shoulder, as though to calm him, but Aiden jerked his shoulder away.
“Don’t touch me.” Aiden went back to glaring at Storm. “You aren’t my dad’s mate. You’re not replacing my mother.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
David’s heart actually hurt. There was a real physical pain there. He brought his hand up, touching the spot as he was reminded of Emily.
What would she say about all of this?
Silver spoke up, though he seemed to do so with some reluctance.
“Storm, are you absolutely positive about this?”
“Hundred percent.”
“No.”
“Aiden, baby, that’s not going to be up to you.”
“It’s not up to any of you either! You’re fucking lying!”
“It’s not a lie.” Storm hesitated. “I was with your dad last night.”
David shut his eyes and pressed his forehead against the bark of the tree. He was going to make his forehead sticky with sap, but he didn’t care.
“You what?” Aiden sounded horrified. As though he’d just been told Santa not only didn’t exist but that he’d been brutally murdered and thrown into the meat grinder at McDonald’s and was being served up for their dinner.
“Nothing so bad,” Storm said, still sounding as though he was desperately trying to find some middle ground here. “We didn’t go…all the way.”
“I don’t want to fucking hear that!”
Should he do something? His son was a grown man. He wasn’t a child or a teenager. There was little David could do to calm this anger if this was what he felt.
But if he felt that David was shoving away the memory of his mother, then what could he say to that when David wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t exactly what he was doing in the first place?
“Aiden, stop it.” Silver’s voice was firm. “You know as well as anyone else that most matings aren’t chosen by people. This is probably something neither of them can control.”
“Uh-huh,” Aiden still sounded pissed. David snack a glance at him and noted with more pain in his chest how wet and watery those angry eyes were.
Aiden glared death needles up at Storm. He really did look as though he wanted to go on the attack.
David couldn’t stand this. It looked as though Storm had come out here to officially break the news, maybe even get permission, and this was going to end badly.
He stepped out from his hiding place.
Everyone was so caught up in telling Storm what he should or shouldn’t do and trying to calm Aiden that none of the men noticed his approach until he stood almost right beside Storm.
Aiden’s mouth snapped shut. He looked at David, his cheeks becoming pale and his eyes round enough that David could see the whites all the way around them.
He looked at all four men, making sure to not keep eye contact with Storm for too long, then addressed his son.
“This is true, Aiden. This isn’t a lie. This is happening.”
David had been wrong about before. Now Aiden looked as though he’d just found out Santa had been killed for cannibalism.
He shook his head.
David nodded. “Don’t do that. This isn’t something I asked for or Storm asked for, so don’t you go giving him trouble over this.”
“He’s…” Aiden raised a trembling finger, pointing it at Storm, as though about to accuse him of something.
David shook his head again. “I am not replacing your mother. I wouldn’t have asked for this either, and I don’t think Storm wanted to get stuck with a middle-aged man with a grown son, so don’t make this about that. That’s not what’s happening.”
Aiden trembled. He looked angry enough now and so red in the face that if he started to sweat blood, David wouldn’t have been shocked.
Aiden threw one last sneer at Storm then turned and walked away.
Rey sighed. “I’ll talk to him.”
David didn’t know Rey all that well yet, but the man seemed like a loving mate, and so far what little David did know about him, he liked.
The only reason David didn’t stop Aiden himself
was because he knew his son. Aiden was going to want to vent. He was probably going to want to punch some pillows and possibly do a little yelling.
That had been how he’d acted when he was fifteen. Had that really been ten years ago?
Well, maybe it would be a little different. He had a mate now, so maybe Rey would help to calm him.
Still, Aiden had never enjoyed it when David had seen him cry. Not even when he’d been younger. If he were going to shed tears, he wouldn’t want David around him for that.
Especially not now.
“Sorry about that,” Storm said.
Reminding David that he wasn’t even close to being done with him yet either. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Storms eyes flew wide. “What?”
David thrust his hand out, pointing at basically everything around him. “All of this? Are you fucking insane? Those wards that warlock put up don’t go out this far. You could have been attacked. What the fucking hell is your problem?”
“Whoa, whoa, we’re not going to get attacked. There hasn’t been anything for weeks now, and I made sure to bring Rey and Silver out here.”
Silver sighed. “We should probably take this back to the territory anyway. You can both decide what you want to do there.”
“No, I want to talk about this here.” The more David spoke, the angrier he became. “If I wanted Aiden to know about this, then I was going to be the one to tell him, understand? Not you.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
“And definitely not all the way out here where he could get attacked and killed!”
Silver stepped forward. “David, it’s all right. This area is still open to the dragons and to the new omegas in the clan. They just have to show up with a couple of escorts. You didn’t even have that.”
“I’m a grown fucking adult, and I will go where I want to go!”
He certainly didn’t care that he was yelling at the man who had taken him in.
Storm seemed to pick up on that fairly quickly, which was probably why he reached out and tried to grab onto his shoulders.
David backed away. Not just because he didn’t want to be manipulated or forced to calm down when he didn’t want to but also because the shock of heat that came with being touched by Storm went immediately to his dick.
The last thing he wanted was to get hard in front of this man, his new mate, while he was yelling at him.
Silver suddenly looked up and behind David.
Had Aiden come back?
He turned but didn’t see his son. He saw the albino dragon. Lightning.
The man heaved a sigh, a touch of color on his face, as though he’d been running. He looked at David and stuck his hands on his hips, as though he had something to feel disappointed about.
David glared at him, too.
He looked up at Storm, ready to give the man another piece of his mind.
And the words stuck in his throat when he opened his mouth.
He couldn’t do it. Storm just…looked at him, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop, as though waiting for David to finish yelling at him.
An alpha wolf never would have put up with that kind of thing. David could be a beta all he wanted, but if he ever got in the face of an alpha, for any reason, he would have been thrown down onto his ass so fast it would have made his head spin.
The fact that Storm looked as though he could do the same to him right about now but wasn’t…
Fuck, this wasn’t just some guy. This was his mate. This was someone David was going to spend his life with now that Emily was gone. He couldn’t just yell at him like that.
“Look, I’m sorry I blew up on you, all right? I just don’t want my kid out here.”
Storm nodded, though he looked as though he wasn’t quite sure the worst had passed. “All right, okay, I won’t invite him out here anymore.”
“What if Aiden wants to come out here?” Silver asked.
Because, of course, someone had to ruin it.
“What do you mean? He won’t come out here.”
“That’s not up to you. I know you’re his father. You don’t have to tell me twice,” Silver said when David opened his mouth. “But the guy is a grown man. The omegas and the younger dragons come up here not just to play but to learn how to swim and fish. This place is important to my territory, and if he wants to come up here with the others, I won’t tell him he can’t just because you don’t want him here.”
David clenched his hands into fists. Unclenched them. Then clenched them again as he struggled to calm himself.
“I would really rather Aiden wasn’t out here where a warlock could attack him.”
“And if he does make the decision to come out here, he won’t do it alone. That’s the only order I am prepared to give him on this subject. If you want to tell him you don’t want him out here, then that’s going to be between you and him. If you tell him he can’t come out here and comes anyway, then that’s something you can talk to him about, but I won’t tell him not to, and he’s too old for you to be telling him not to, either.”
He was right. He was so right, but now David was the one who wanted to do a little punching. He was so fucking furious right now.
“This is my kid, okay? My only kid, and I want to keep him alive.”
“So do I, but you’re not talking about a kid. You’re talking about an adult who can make his own decisions and live or die by the consequences.”
It was the live or die remark that made David turn on his heel and march off.
If he didn’t, then he might end up attacking the man who was allowing David to stay a guest in his house.
Storm followed after him.
Chapter Five
Rey caught up to his mate. He reached out and grabbed Aiden by the arm just before they could make it back into the clearing where their houses sat.
“Hey, will you wait?”
Aiden yanked his arm out of Rey’s grasp. “Don’t touch me!”
“You’re acting like a child.” Rey was getting angry. He didn’t like being angry with his mate, and he just wanted this whole thing over with. “Storm told you that neither of them asked for that. It’s no one’s fault, and you’re punishing your father for nothing.”
“He’s mated to my mom. My mom and no one else!”
“Baby…” Rey put his hands onto Aiden’s shoulders. His mate frantically scrubbed at his eyes, wiping away his tears.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. This is definitely fast, but neither of them have any say in this.”
“They can hold it off. Wait until a few more months have passed. Something.”
Aiden was being stubborn. Rey sighed.
He was pretty sure his mate knew that wasn’t going to happen. When a mating heat took hold, it became most discomforting to deny oneself their mate.
And if the two already spent the night together, well…
“You’ll be all right.” Rey held his mate, glad when Aiden at least held him back. “Everything will be okay.”
* * * *
David spotted his son, holding on to Rey. The two comforting each other.
Well, actually it looked more as though Rey was the one doing the comforting, and once more, David was left with that guilty feeling deep in his gut that he was the one who had done this. This was his fault. He hadn’t taken the time to prepare Aiden. He should have told him the second he caught a mating scent in the air.
It made him angry all over again that Storm had decided to be the one to tell Aiden without his permission, but then his anger faded, as he knew this would have been the result no matter what.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt either of you.”
David spun around. Storm stood right there. He’d snuck up on David with seemingly no effort whatsoever.
David was a beta. His instincts should have warned him, should have let him know someone was coming.
But they hadn’t. Fuck. Was it because of the mating thing? Because David didn
’t see Storm as a threat?
He still would have rather had some warning the man was about to sneak up on him. Jesus.
“What were you thinking?” David was still salty about the whole damned thing.
He looked back to Aiden and Rey. The two walked off, Rey’s arm around Aiden’s waist.
“Honestly, I guess I wanted to ask for his permission. I suppose I know the answer.”
David wasn’t sure if that irked him or amused him. “You wanted to ask my kid for permission to mate with me? You remember that I’m the father here, right? He’s the son. His mate is supposed to ask me for permission to do anything. Not the other way around.”
Not that it mattered since their mating happened before David had the chance to escape.
“And honestly, that’s such an old custom anyway. Why even bother with it?”
Storm shrugged. He actually looked a little on the bashful side as he smiled and shrugged. “I guess I’m just old fashioned like that.”
David’s heart made a heavy thumping noise in his chest.
He didn’t want to admit, to himself or anyone, that he tended to like that kind of trait.
“Aren’t you a little young to be liking something like that?”
“Oh, come on. I’m not that much younger than you. What is it, like a ten-year difference?”
David wasn’t sure he wanted to tell him.
“I’m not that old.”
Storm’s eyes widened. “Then, a nine-year difference?”
David pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“Wait, I figured you already looked a little young for your age—”
“How old did you think I was?”
“How old are you?”
David sighed. He glanced around. Silver and Lightning were still out here somewhere. He motioned for Storm to come in closer.
The man did. David whispered it in his ear.
Storm pulled back. David could almost see him doing the math in his head.
“No way!”
“Way,” David deadpanned.