by Marcy Jacks
“Well, yeah.” Dimitri crossed his arms. “But only because I’m with him. A mating doesn’t immediately mean the rest of the clan will trust him.”
Despite his words, it pissed him off to see some of the other dragons in the room nodding their heads.
Pricks. What did they know? Van had apparently still left an influence in the house.
“You’re not with your mate now!” Taylor yelled.
Shit.
“He’s upstairs in my room, and he’s a human anyway. It doesn’t matter what training he’s had. Without a knife or a gun, any of the dragons in this house can handle him. That guy…” Dimitri pointed at the man with the dark hair standing behind Taylor. “He’s actually trained to sneak around and kill people with his bare hands. Zane told us he took out vampires who got in Varrick’s way.”
“He didn’t have a choice!” Taylor yelled. “He was as much of a slave as I was. Varrick will be mad at him for letting me go.”
“It’s just questioning.” Dimitri rubbed his eyes. “They’re not going to torture him.”
Dimitri looked at the others in the room, only to get the confirmation he needed.
He didn’t expect to see Stefan, Lucian, and everyone else shifting from foot to foot, as though suddenly uncomfortable.
“For real?” Dimitri asked. It shocked him.
He hadn’t exactly thought Seth would go that far.
Lucian was the first to speak up. “We’re not exactly taking pleasure in this, but Seth is thinking about what almost happened to Miles, and Stefan and Micah have a baby on the way. This is different.”
Dimitri nodded. He agreed with them, partly, but at the same time, whoa. It was hard to believe.
He took a hard look at the man Taylor stood protectively in front of. Realistically, if Lucian and Stefan were so eager to get started with this, they could just grab Taylor by the scruff and drag him out of the way. A small omega like him wouldn’t be able to stop them from doing what they’d come to do.
And yet they were attempting to talk him down. As if a mate could ever step aside so easily from something like this.
“So what were you guys going to do?” Dimitri looked around. “I don’t exactly see anything you’d use.”
“We’re old-fashioned,” Stefan said. “Fists would probably be enough. Nothing that would cause permanent damage.”
“You’re supposed to be the good guys!” Taylor yelled. “I promised James you wouldn’t do anything to hurt him if he came with me!”
Dimitri’s heart ached for the man, it really did, but he sighed, took another good look at the man behind him, and he couldn’t think of a solid reason to let him go.
“Taylor—”
“Step out of their way, Taylor,” James commanded.
Taylor didn’t look back at him. His eyes burned as though he struggled to contain tears. “No.”
“Let them do what they need to do. I will prove myself.”
Stefan crossed his arms. “Sure of yourself, are you?”
“I am,” James answered, and the shackles at his wrists fell away. They landed with a clang that was as heavy as the shackle Taylor had thrown at Dimitri’s nose.
Every dragon, Dimitri included, tensed.
“What the fuck?” Lucian asked, glaring at the man.
“Taylor, come over here,” Stefan commanded.
Taylor glared at him. Instead of doing as he was told, which was what most omegas were programmed to do, he walked back to James and curled his arms around the man’s much larger waist.
James was something of a giant standing next to Taylor, even with those fox ears perked right up.
James held him back.
“How long were you able to get out of those?” Stefan demanded.
“Since about one minute after you put me into them. I can pick a lock.”
“With what? You’ve got nothing on you.”
“That you could find,” James said, and he kicked the shackles around his ankles away.
They had been closed around the man’s feet, but it was as if they hadn’t clicked properly in place, allowing James to yank himself out of them.
And he’d been able to get free from the minute Dimitri walked in here.
“If fighting me is all you want to do, then I can handle that. Your children are of no concern of mine, only Taylor.”
Everyone was silent. Everyone was thinking. Dimitri included.
This didn’t remotely mean the man could be trusted. Seth had every reason to be pissed off with him. This man had snuck onto the property and tried to kidnap Miles.
Dimitri would want to torture any man who tried to kidnap Josh from him, too. He’d probably even take pleasure in the kill, and Dimitri always thought of himself as the more easygoing dragon in the clan. More so than Stefan, even.
Just thinking of it in that hypothetical manner was enough to get his blood boiling. Part of him wanted to race back up the stairs so he could ensure Josh was right where he’d left him.
He didn’t.
“A lot of people came in here to see you, and speak to you, and at any time, you could have sprung,” Dimitri said instead.
James nodded. “Yes.”
“This doesn’t prove anything,” Stefan said. He snapped his fingers at one of the younger dragons. “Go back upstairs and get Seth down here.”
The dragon nodded, doing as he was told quickly. Good man.
“If your alpha wants to fight, I’ll give it to him. I know you want it.”
Dimitri narrowed his eyes. “What exactly are you?”
“Half dragon, half wolf.”
“Hybrid,” Stefan said with a nod. “Explains the weird smell we get from you.”
“And he’s good! He’s on our side now,” Taylor insisted.
It was the word now that caught Dimitri’s attention. The implication being he hadn’t been when he’d taken Taylor in the first place.
James continued to stare at everyone around him with a look that Dimitri couldn’t entirely place. It seemed defiant, but there was also something accepting about it. Those two things did not go together.
“I am happy to take any punishment for Taylor’s behavior,” he said, his eyes then flashing. “But if he is harmed by any of you, I won’t hesitate to escape this place and take him away from here again.”
That was a protective tone if Dimitri ever heard it.
The more he heard this guy talk, the more he wanted to trust him.
“Actions matter more than words,” Stefan said. “Nothing you say will change the fact that you came here with the intent to sell Seth’s mate back to sexual slavery. You probably would have done the same to Taylor if it hadn’t turned out you were mated.”
James had no answer for that, and that brought Dimitri’s anger back to the forefront.
He sighed. “This guy pisses me off, but maybe we should let him and Seth duke it out.”
“That’s Seth’s decision, not yours,” Stefan replied, hardly looking at him.
“I know. I’m saying we should suggest that our alpha do it anyway. It’s more honorable than beating the piss out of this guy when his hands are chained.”
“He can apparently get out of chains pretty easily anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” Lucian scoffed.
“If you want me back in them, I’ll put them back on,” James offered.
“How generous of you.” Lucian’s sneer was enough for Dimitri to know he wasn’t being convinced.
Kind of a shame. Dimitri liked the way this guy stood protectively next to Taylor.
“I’ll recommend it to Seth. I don’t want to go back to my mate’s bed knowing I was part of torturing someone who might not deserve it.”
“No one deserves it,” Taylor said with a glare.
Dimitri shook his head. “I think you’ve been free a little too long. You’re starting to forget about the vampires who raped and sometimes murdered your friends.”
“I…” Taylor’s fighting stance seemed to mel
t away. He looked away from Dimitri, seemed to struggle for something to say, and then had nothing to say at all.
Stefan threw his hands in the air. “Fine! Whatever, who cares? I’ll make the recommendation to Seth that we have an honorable fight on this one, but I swear to God, if you so much as look at any of the omegas funny, or Miles, like you’re getting ready to make off with him, then I will help Seth beat the piss out of you. Understand.”
James nodded, his hands still holding tightly to Taylor. “Perfectly.”
“Good.”
Seth’s voice made Dimitri turn. Seth rounded the door, as if he’d been standing there, listening in. The most shocking thing was how Josh was with him, standing at the side of the alpha, disheveled, barely dressed, and still smelling of lust with an unreadable expression on his face.
Chapter Eight
Josh couldn’t look away from Dimitri, his mate, who had, a few seconds earlier, been talking about torturing a man who wasn’t in such a different place as Josh or his brother.
Seth found him there after Josh got ahold of himself and followed his mate to the basement. The one dragon that had been sent to get Seth had rounded the corner and run so quickly that he hadn’t even noticed Josh had been there at all.
Josh felt almost in a daze, especially as he listened to James insist that they go about their business and just fight.
Josh decided right then and there that he really needed to learn more about dragon culture if fist fighting was supposed to be the best practice for these people.
But it was better than knowing his mate was all right with someone getting tortured in the basement while they were supposed to be making love.
Seth had arrived before Josh had the chance to pull himself out of the haze of depression he’d fallen into. Josh jumped at the sight of him. He hadn’t expected the red dragon to grip his shoulder comfortingly or for his expression to be so…gentle.
That was the one way to describe it.
They listened to the rest together. To the dragons within speaking to Taylor, to Lucian being distrustful of James, and then finally to Dimitri’s suggestion that they talk Seth into having an honorable fight with James.
A heavy weight that Josh hadn’t realized was there pulled off his shoulders. It was as if two large hands had been gripping tightly to his arms pulled away, and only then he could breathe a sigh of relief.
For a few terrible minutes as he’d listened to that conversation, Josh had feared he’d fallen in lust, and maybe in love, with a man, a dragon shifter, someone he barely knew, who was also completely on board with the idea of torturing someone while his mate begged for mercy.
Josh couldn’t entirely get up on a high horse. He knew there were times when Varrick had ordered him and Zane and a number of other guards to do things Josh was ashamed of.
He was glad to know Dimitri wasn’t just better than that, but that he was better than Josh was.
Which was why, when he and Seth revealed themselves and Dimitri’s eyes flew wide, as if he thought he might be in some kind of trouble—as if that were possible—Josh ran to him.
He threw his arms around the taller man’s neck and shoulders. He held him tight, kissed him before he could say a word, and thanked God that his mate was doing this.
That he was at least trying.
A wolf whistle sounded. Someone told him and Dimitri to get a room. Josh barely heard it. The only thing he was able to pay much attention to at all was the sudden and beautiful way Dimitri’s lips melted against his own.
Heat, too much heat. Shit. Their body heat was combining. Josh had a nose full of Dimitri’s intoxicating scent again, and kissing the man like this wasn’t helping to keep his groin in check when all the blood in his body seemed to be flowing straight down to his cock.
Josh practically jumped right out of Dimitri’s arms. “Okay, enough of that,” he said, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.
If he didn’t banish the taste of Dimitri right now, and the wetness that had come around his lips from their kiss, then he was going to get a hard-on right here in front of everyone.
That was the absolute last thing he wanted.
“Are you okay?” Dimitri asked. He reached out and took Josh’s hand.
The bolt of lightning that struck him right up the arm proceeded to fly down his spine to the bottom of his toes, and his testicles tightened as if he felt a mouth on them.
Preferably it was Dimitri’s mouth.
“I’m good.” When Josh squeaked those words, he had to clear his throat. It was a struggle to not pull his hand away because he didn’t want to hurt Dimitri’s feelings.
And he liked being touched by the man.
“I’m still good.”
Dimitri looked at him as if he didn’t quite believe him, but then he seemed to understand, and he grinned. “Okay, whatever you say.”
Josh glared at the man. Dimitri winked back at him.
Seth stood off to the side. Josh was so caught up in staring into the eyes of his dragon that he almost didn’t notice what the alpha was doing. Or why he happened to be standing over there.
Then he understood and had a better idea of why everything had gone so quiet.
Seth and James were staring at each other, and Seth looked furious. His shoulder trembled, and at first, Josh had the stupid thought that it was because the man was cold.
No. Clearly that wasn’t what he was trembling about. He was enraged.
“So, from the sound of it, these guys want to convince me to have an honorable fight with you. Get the bad blood out and all that, yes?”
James nodded. “If that’s what you want and what you feel comfortable with, then I can do it.”
“How generous,” Seth snapped. His fists clenched and unclenched. “Would it had been honorable if you’d stolen my mate and brought him back to Varrick? I left Miles upstairs because I don’t want you even looking at him right now. I don’t want him to see you and be reminded of the fact that he used to be Varrick’s favorite toy.”
The way Seth said it was enough to make Josh flinch.
He couldn’t handle the shame. “Seth, my brother and I, we used to be the same as he was. I get that he’s more powerful because he’s a shifter, I guess.” Josh wasn’t entirely sure if a hybrid could shift or not. What would he even shift into? “I don’t know how dragon clans judge their accused, but if you can see me as something different, can you try to do the same for him? He seems to be genuinely mated to Taylor.”
Taylor’s expression was a miserable one. He seemed to want to look at no one as he clutched tightly to James.
Seth exhaled a long breath through his nose. “I’m not saying this to hurt you, or Dimitri, but I do think you can handle to hear this more than he can right now. I barely see you as being different from him. I’m still waiting for the trap to spring, and once again, the only reason you’re not in chains is because Dimitri, as your mate, will be able to watch over you.”
He didn’t say anything else, but Josh knew there had to be more to it than that. Clearly the alpha didn’t want to upset one of his dragons, either.
And he was right. Josh took in that information and absorbed it, thought on it, and accepted it.
Dimitri looked ready to pop at his alpha.
“But,” Seth added, still glaring at the other man, “Miles and I had a talk. He’s a little more forgiving. I don’t know why. I guess he doesn’t like the idea of Taylor hurting and has a lower tolerance for it than I do in this situation.”
Jeez. Josh was going to have to remember to never piss this alpha off. He’d have to have a talk with Zane about that, too.
Never fuck with this man’s mate. They might get their asses handed to them.
As skilled as Josh considered himself to be with a gun on him, he knew that, hand-to-hand, Seth would be able to take him out before Josh knew what was coming.
Taylor watched the red dragon, as if he didn’t know what to make of this new information. “So what d
oes this mean?”
Seth’s eyes were still like fire. He clearly struggled with what he was about to say.
“What I will say is that, for the sake of peace in this house and because of what you went through, I am going to take your opinion into account on this. Not Stefan’s, not Lucian’s, and not Dimitri’s. You think you’re his mate?”
“I know he’s my mate.” Taylor squeezed a little tighter around James.
The way James looked down at him, as though shocked to hear such a thing, as if they hadn’t come to that realization together, made Josh think about something.
Was it possible for two people to be mated and not know it? Or for the trauma of what they’d been through to cause them to come to that realization later.
Another question for him to ask Dimitri.
When they were alone, of course. Considering how paranoid Seth was being about his mate and possible spies in the house, Josh didn’t think it would be the best idea for him to run around asking suspicious questions left, right, and center.
“Okay,” Seth said. He looked at James. “You and me, dawn tomorrow.”
“First blood?” James asked.
“No.” Seth’s grin was sinister. “Last man standing.”
Josh shivered.
* * * *
Even though he’d followed his mate down there, Josh was happy to get out of the basement.
The sight of the chains shackled to the walls and knowing they were still being used after so many years of vampires chaining up disrespectful omegas, enemies of Varrick and his family and a slew of other people who had crossed Varrick over the years, well, it all freaked him out.
He and Zane could have been locked up down there. In fact, it occurred to him that they would have been had Dimitri not taken one whiff of Josh when he’d captured him and known they were mated.
What was a mate anyway? The word itself implied a level of permanence, like marriage, only without the possibility of a divorce. Like ever.
As much as the idea of that freaked him out, at the same time, he was perfectly all right with it.