by Marcy Jacks
“I won’t hurt you, baby. I swear it. I would never hurt you.”
Aiden’s heart did a little painful thumping thing in his chest just then. He could hardly look Rey in the eyes, but at the same time, he couldn’t look away from him either.
“You won’t?”
Rey shook his head, his eyes pained, as though it hurt him for Aiden to ask such a question.
“Why not?”
Rey pressed his mouth together. “Because you don’t deserve it. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is an accident.”
He reached out, took the pieces from Aiden’s hands, and stood, setting them back on the shelf. “I put it together. I can glue it back up well enough.”
“I can help you with that,” Aiden said, standing quickly, and he was then aware of the height difference between himself and Rey.
Christ. The man was almost a full head taller than he was, and with those broad shoulders and muscles, if he really wanted to, he could snap Aiden in half with such ease it would be almost ridiculous.
This man could kill Aiden, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
“Are you really afraid of me?”
Aiden nodded. Then shook his head. Then he groaned. “I don’t know. Everything’s…it’s so weird. I…”
Aiden looked up at the other man suddenly. “How did I get here? I can barely remember you out in the woods. I…”
Aiden blushed hard, his entire body flaming with heat as he recalled touching himself in Rey’s arms, thrusting against the other man like a dog in heat, and then coming in his pants.
“Oh God,” he moaned, looking down at his bare feet.
“You remember now?”
Aiden covered his face with his hands. “I am so sorry! I don’t…I don’t know what came over me.”
“Yes, you do.” Rey reached out and gently took Aiden by his wrists and lowered his hands, forcing Aiden to look at him.
Rey’s expression, his green eyes, somehow managed to be both firm and patient at the same time.
And now that they were so close, Aiden was stunned with how long the man’s lashes were.
He was so handsome it was kind of ridiculous.
“It’s okay,” Rey said, his green eyes changing, swirling. Something powerful stirring beneath.
The dragon. Frightening and calming. Powerful and gentle.
Nothing made sense. Aiden couldn’t look away from it.
“We’re mates,” Rey said simply. “And I will make sure you stay safe. For the rest of your life.”
Aiden swallowed hard. He had to pull himself out of this lulling sensation he was slipping into.
Because there was one very important question he needed to get out before he would know for sure if this were the right thing for himself.
“What if I don’t want you?”
Chapter Seven
His mate could have punched him in the gut and the balls at the same time and Rey wouldn’t have been as shocked.
His stomach sank. He stepped away from the shorter man.
Aiden’s eyes widened. “I mean, not to say that I don’t, but I just woke up, and you don’t know what I’m about or what I’ll ask you to do. Everything’s a huge mess, and I don’t want to assume anything.”
“Assume away,” Rey said.
Fuck, his heart slammed. The fear in his gut wasn’t going down in the least. He couldn’t help but think his mate was pulling away from him on purpose.
It wouldn’t be the first time a newly mated pair struggled to find some common ground.
Just because nature had chosen for them to be together didn’t mean it was going to be smooth sailing.
“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Aiden said.
Was he fucking serious?
“You wouldn’t be taking advantage of me. I’m your mate.”
“But you’re…” Aiden trailed off, casting his eyes down again one more time. As though he were ashamed to let out the words he really wanted to say.
“A dragon?” Rey finished.
Aiden rubbed his arm. He nodded.
“Was it dragons who hurt you?”
He’d already caught the scent, and ever since Lightning had been given full control over that other omega downstairs, he seemed convinced the man was from his old dragon clan.
Dragons working with the Dog Catchers. Not something Rey had seen coming, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.
Unlikely. Uncommon. Not impossible.
Aiden nodded, confirming Rey’s worst fears.
“I am not part of that dragon clan that hurt you.” He couldn’t promise it fast enough. It was a struggle to keep his hands from clenching into fists at the thought.
His own kind, torturing his mate. Helping the Dog Catchers pick up stray omegas…
It was gross.
“Do you want something to eat?”
Aiden perked up at that. He looked up into Rey’s eyes with a new life. “Eat?”
Rey nodded, picking up on the fact that he might have found something his mate could really latch onto.
“Yeah. I can make you whatever you want. Sandwiches, pancakes. There’s chicken salad in the fridge, pasta.”
Okay, so he couldn’t make his mate whatever he wanted. Those were all easy things that a five-year-old could prepare, but he was willing to put on an apron and dig out a Betty Crocker cookbook if it meant putting good food into his mate.
Aiden swallowed hard. He looked down again.
Rey was learning quickly that his mate did that whenever he was getting shy about something.
He almost reached out to lift Aiden’s chin, to force the man to look up at him, but he held back.
There was no telling if a touch like that would be welcome. Normally, Rey would have just done it.
Aiden wasn’t anyone, however. Aiden was his mate. Not just his mate. His mate who had been held prisoner and tortured.
Taking away even the tiniest of choices the man had might not be the best idea.
Fuck. Rey was going to have to learn how to best handle something like this. He didn’t want to traumatize the man further.
“Don’t be shy about it. It’s no problem. Honestly, it was freaking me out that you slept so long anyway. I’d like to put some food in you.”
Aiden frowned. “How long was I sleeping? I thought I heard you say sixteen hours at one point.”
Rey couldn’t hold in his shock. “Well, yeah, but that was yesterday at one in the afternoon.”
Now Aiden was the one who appeared shocked. His mouth actually dropped. “What?”
“Yeah, it’s seven in the morning now. I could barely get you up to help you to the bathroom.”
“You helped me to the bathroom?”
Aiden looked positively mortified.
Fuck. He was fucking this up so badly.
“Not really. You were half awake anyway. I think you knew what you wanted. I just had to walk you to the bathroom, and you did the rest yourself. You waddled back to bed and flopped into the sheets. I snapped my fingers over your head a couple of times. I worried about you.”
Rey didn’t want to know, but he did at the same time. He couldn’t stand not knowing, even if knowing what they had done to him would be the worst thing he’d ever discover in his life.
“What did they do to you? Was it…did they keep you awake?”
That seemed like a logical reason as to why Aiden couldn’t get up. Even at the times when it seemed as though he’d wanted to wake up, he’d briefly open his eyes, glance around, as though still half asleep, plead for an extra ten minutes and settle his head back into the pillows.
He’d looked so tired. Rey didn’t have the heart to force him up.
He did have to ask Storm if it was all right to let him sleep for so long, however.
Everyone in the clan had some form of medical training, but Storm was the one who did the most studying, who everyone went to when there was a question to be answered.
He delivere
d the most hatchlings in the clan, so of course, Rey trusted him.
Storm’s advice had been useless, however.
Just keep an eye on him was all he’d ever said.
Now Rey was here, and his stomach twisted into knots. “They kept you awake, didn’t they?”
Aiden’s eyes watered. He lifted his hand to scrub away the tears before inhaling a sharp breath.
He was trying to look as though this wasn’t bothering him so much.
“Among other things, but it’s fine now. I can’t eat.” He shook his head.
“You need to eat.” And to give Rey more details than that. The more he knew, the better.
After Aiden described every human and dragon who’d hurt him, Rey would be better equipped to hunt the pricks down and break all the fingers on their hands. One by one.
Aiden shook his head, however. He seemed finished with the talk of his ordeal.
“No, please, you don’t understand. My parents are still there. The Dog Catchers have them.”
Rey hissed at this news. “They do?”
Fuck. This added a whole other level to this shit.
“That’s fine. I was going to go over there anyway.”
To get his revenge. A rescue mission would make things a little more difficult, but he would do it.
Aiden blinked up at him. “So, you’ll help them? You’ll save them?”
Assuming they could be saved. He kept that part to himself.
Rey reached out, placing both of his hands on Aiden’s shoulders. He needed to touch his mate, and this was what he needed to keep his head on straight.
“I will. For you, baby, I’ll go over there tonight if I can.”
Aiden’s eyes began to swim once more, and Rey knew his mate was going to be the death of him one day.
He wasn’t going to be able to deny this man anything in his entire life.
They barely knew each other, weren’t even the same species of shifter, and already Aiden had Rey wrapped around his little finger.
Rey wasn’t sure how much of that was due to his need to exact revenge for his mate, to make things right in the world, and how much of it was for his own lust and love for this man, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t question it.
Aiden sucked in a deep breath. His shoulders trembled, as though he struggled for breath as he covered his face with his hands.
Hiding his tears.
Rey couldn’t blame him for that. He didn’t like showing emotion to anyone either.
Once again, it left him wondering what he should do. Should he hold his mate to comfort him? Rey was so damned useless when it came to this sort of thing. He didn’t want to make the wrong move, but how was he supposed to comfort an emotional omega who had gone through so much trauma?
Rey hated being held and touched when he was sad and depressed. Would his mate be the same?
Apparently not because then Aiden shocked Rey by throwing his arms around Rey’s neck and shoulders, holding him tight, their bodies pressing against each other’s.
Rey stood there, frozen for several seconds before he realized he should be holding the other man back.
He wrapped his arms around Aiden’s waist. His perfect waist and his perfect body. He could do nothing else except hold the man and hope he did everything right by him.
“Thank you so much. Thank you.”
Then Aiden really began to cry. He still seemed to be attempting to hold it back, as though ashamed of his tears.
That was fine. He could cry as much as he wanted. Rey would hold him and pet him, wait for his tears to be over, and wouldn’t judge him for it.
Revenge was coming. He just had to get Silver on board with it and make their plans.
* * * *
Aiden cried for a few minutes. A total waste of time. He was angry with himself when everything was said and done. He’d wasted a few more minutes that could have gone into planning the rescue of his mother and father. He wanted them out of there.
It hadn’t been right that Aiden had been able to leave and his parents hadn’t.
He hadn’t wanted to run away. He’d wanted to stay with them. To watch over and protect them.
Tim could only sneak out one person at a time, however. There were a number of checkpoints they had to go through, and one person was hard enough as Tim distracted security, allowing Aiden to slip by.
Anymore than that was impossible. Aiden believed it after he’d gone through it and failed.
He could recall getting shot after the alarms went off.
As he’d lain in the woods, dying, he could only think about his dad. How much he missed him already and how he forgave him.
Aiden didn’t blame the man. He’d known what his dad was doing when the man yelled at him for being a worthless son. For being a weight that held him down.
For wishing he’d never been born.
Though he’d even known his father had been trying to chase him away, to force him to run with Tim when Aiden had wanted to stay, those words had hurt.
But he’d forgiven his father as he’d rested on the ground, wished to see him one more time, and hoped to God the man never found out about Aiden’s death.
Funny. Aiden had been dying, and instead of fearing death, he’d been scared his dad would find out and hate himself for the last words he’d been forced to say to his son.
None of it mattered. It was all going to be all right. Help was coming.
Rey brought Aiden downstairs. He was still in the borrowed pajamas since he, apparently, had no clothes of his own.
Covered in blood, cum, and mud didn’t make for great attire. Aiden didn’t mind it so much until Rey dragged him outside, across a circular dirt parking area, and into another house of a similar design to the one they’d exited.
The house was a decent size. Private. Nice. It looked new.
Aiden looked back at the home that belonged to Rey. It was nice. Normal.
Strange to see something that looked so normal after he’d been stuck in that facility for so long.
Where there was nothing normal anywhere.
He felt as though he was in an entirely different country.
“How far away did you find me?”
“About an hour away.”
“An hour.”
Aiden’s blood chilled.
An hour away? Did he mean an hour’s flight or an hour’s drive? An hour’s walk maybe?
Either way, it seemed incredibly close to where he was now. Too close.
Close enough that he couldn’t allow himself to relax after learning this new information.
Maybe Rey sensed his anxiety because the man looked back and smiled at him. “I got you, sweetheart. I promised, remember?”
He almost didn’t, but the smile on Rey’s face made him believe it.
At least for now.
Aiden squeezed Rey’s hand, allowing the man to lead him into the next house.
The house that belonged to Rey’s alpha?
He was about to find out.
Chapter Eight
“Silver, we have to go. As soon as possible.”
Rey looked at the other man, noted his hesitation, and barely managed to hold himself together.
Silver seemed to think about it. The man shook his head.
Aiden could hardly keep his patience. “What? What is it?”
“I’ve got nothing against you going, Rey. I get it. This is your mate now, but I can’t send every warrior out with you to find this place.”
“We already know where it is.” Rey looked at Aiden.
The man sat with a plate in front of him. Rey had packed it with food. Aiden had eaten quickly, but with the amount Rey had stuck on his plate—bacon, eggs, toast, fruit, lunch meat, and cheeses—it looked very much as though Aiden was filling up.
He kept slowing down and was now only sipping his orange juice.
Rey didn’t take his plate away, however. He got the feeling his mate would want to keep what little food he still had i
n front of him.
He might be fearful of having any food taken away after being starved like he had been.
Gold picked up on that. He raised a brow. “You want your mate to lead you back there?”
Rey heard the words not said.
Take your weak and tired mate to lead?
Aiden tensed.
“That’s not what I want, but I know where I found him and he can give me a general direction. We can just fly overhead to find it if that fails. Keep an eye on the place.”
The guys were sitting around Silver’s dining room table. It was a little cramped in here with everyone. Usually there were only this many people for Christmas dinner, not because Rey had demanded everyone get here as soon as possible.
Silver looked to Aiden. “You’re sure your parents are there?”
Aiden nodded. “I’m sure. They insisted I go with Tim.”
Lightning growled at the sound of that name. “What do you know of the man?”
Aiden looked to Lightning, and to his credit, he didn’t noticeably react to Lightning’s hair and eyes or the white shade of his skin.
Most people stared. Lightning wasn’t exactly the kind of guy that needed protecting from that, but Rey couldn’t help himself. He wanted to watch out for his friend.
“I…well, I guess I don’t know much of anything about him. My dad did something. I don’t know. Maybe Tim owed him a favor because he offered to get one of us out of there. Dad insisted I go.”
Silver leaned back in his seat. He folded his arms, nodded. “Okay.”
Silver looked at Lightning. “You find out anything yet?”
Lightning narrowed his eyes and growled. “He won’t talk.”
“Wait.” Aiden leaned forward. “Tim is here? He didn’t go back?”
“I found him hovering around you.” Rey figured he might as well get this out of the way. “The little shit pointed a gun in my face.”
“But”—Aiden shook his head—“he was helping me. I’m sure he’s all right. He can’t…he couldn’t…”
Silver shook his head. His words were firm, but gentle. “I know you want to think the best of him, and the fact that he helped you get away is the only reason he’s being treated with any dignity at all, but Lightning knows some…unsavory things about where he came from, and if he was able to get you out, then, regardless of the reasons, that means he was working for those Dog Catchers.”