by Jill Haven
“What don’t I understand?” Mason teased. He poked at my side, and I ignored him. “You’re describing a grand, old-fashioned swoon, if I’ve ever heard of one. I thought omegas did that.”
“It’s not something so stupid.” I smacked him on the arm, and he twisted to punch my shoulder hard. We scuffled while sitting down, nothing serious, until he was laughing. “Something unusual happened with Haiden,” I said again, for what felt like the hundredth time this evening.
“Fine, tell me once more how he made you go soft-headed and hot all over. Or was that hard-headed?” he said, making a faint nod toward my crotch.
I blocked his shot and jammed my fist hard against his chest. “Fuck off.”
He snorted and his glee at my discomfort had the corner of his eyes crinkling. “Sounds like you need to drag him to a bed, knot him hard, and get it out of your system. He was making the gooey eyes back at you, so he’d probably like that. There’s no such thing as fated mates. It’s all garbage. Honestly, you’re acting like someone with eggshell still stuck over their eyes. In all our years alive, you’ve never been so sentimental.”
Furious, I glared, and my canines tingled in my mouth, extending into sharp points that I ran my tongue across. “You’re a true king among dragons, Mason.” My words became a deadly hiss, but that only sent him into another gale of laughter.
He huffed in a few deep breaths. “Guilty as charged.”
“It’s not a swoon, or a fantasy. I know how I felt near him. I dream about him.” My chest ached again close to my heart. It seemed like there was a hole under my breastbone, empty and waiting to be filled. “My chest is hollow inside. I’ve heard people describe how a missing limb pulses and burns, and it feels that way.” I thumped my hand against my chest, loud enough that a hollow thump sounded out. “Something was ripped out of me when I left Haiden at that restaurant when we met. Unpleasant doesn’t do the sensation justice.”
“Maybe you found your mate, after all?” Mason’s smile hadn’t dimmed, but his shoulders were tense where before he’d been mostly at ease. “I should call Larkin. He’d tell us if what you’re experiencing is the sign of a mate meeting a mate. He’s all about nonsense like that, reading the accounts of dragons from the old countries, and forever pining in his old rattle-trap manor house instead of accepting an alpha from one of the clans. At this rate, he’s never going to be remarried.”
“What if Haiden is my mate?” Apprehension strangled me, and I plucked grass up from the ground, rubbing it between my fingers.
“That crap isn’t real.” He sounded uncertain.
Shrugging, I stared directly at the peachy-gold sun, allowing it to blind me. I wanted to turn my gaze on Mason, use the ancient power I had as the clan and region elder to smack at his mind and cow him, but I’d never done that to anyone before, let alone my best friend. This discussion irked me on a primal level. “You as well as any other dragon should know that myth is grounded in truth.”
He groaned. “I cannot believe we’re having this conversation.” Again, he punched me on the arm, but not hard enough to bruise.
“I felt something near Haiden. Call it what you want, but I need to see him again, figure out if it will keep happening. I’ve had my cock lead the charge before, and I don’t simply want him that way. This is more. Something beyond lust is driving me toward him. I’d like to keep him. I want to—” I couldn’t go on. I’d been having thoughts of him naked, decked out in treasure—jewels and gold like no one collected anymore. The images were visceral, and no doubt my mind had exaggerated how beautiful he would be, but I couldn’t shake the thoughts.
“Claim,” Mason mumbled. “Those old stories always have dragons claiming their mate. We still do that, when we marry, but it’s more ritual than anything. The bite is symbolic.” His heavy shoulders hunched, and he shifted against the tree, scowling my direction.
“For some people. My mother always said my father claimed her.”
He sighed. “All the really old ones said that. Then most of them ended up disappearing up north, or dying in wars after we came here, driven to it by boredom. Is he your battle fever?”
Mason didn’t acknowledge my raised middle finger. “What if they did claim each other and we’ve simply… forgotten, as a people? I was the last egg my mother laid, and she died not long after that, taken by one of the last dragon hunters.” I was able to speak those words as fact without much emotion because I didn’t remember her, but Mason’s face crumpled, although he caught ahold of himself quickly.
We both studied each other as that gloomy thought—that we may just not know as much as we’d like—settled over our conversation.
“The myths I’ve heard all talk about an intense drive to own the dragon who completes you and is your mate. Would you say that’s how you feel?”
Nodding carefully, I frowned. “Yes, I can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t want to keep him like a ring or a necklace. It’s far more.”
Mason grunted. “You know, I could probably call around. There are older dragons than us out West. Several around here who didn’t have as much wealth amassed as your family did, who could have made a bid for clan and region leader otherwise. Some came from Europe long before we did, like the old woman who does the funerals. Maybe they will be able to tell us if the myths were once more reality than we realize. Magic ebbs and flows. I hesitate to call mating magic, but maybe it is something we’re rediscovering?”
“Make your calls.” He nodded but didn’t move. After a while, once the sun had touched the hill it was falling behind, a sense of worry descended on me. “We also need to be careful. When we were leaving the restaurant, I smelled another dragon. At first, I thought it was Haiden’s protector, that woman, but I’m convinced now it was someone else. I’m wondering how many other clans are looking for Divine Omegas.”
Mason flicked my leg, and I grunted, smacking his hand. “You worry too much. It’s not news that lone dragons tend to flock to areas like this with a lot of wide-open space and a small town for those human comforts we so enjoy. I’m a fan of bathing, myself.”
“Maybe it’s someone who caught on to what Haiden is, though?”
He shrugged. “So what if they have? We know, and we’ve not stolen him away yet. I still say you’re worrying too much.”
“What if they hurt him?”
“No one has yet.”
I rubbed at the empty ache in my chest and glared at Mason. “It’s wrong to leave him vulnerable like this.”
Mason tilted his head back against the tree and studied me. His hazel eyes sparkled with some emotion I couldn’t quite identify. “We’re here. There’s no harm in checking up on him. Let’s stop by the diner he works at tomorrow.”
“Maybe I could talk to that woman, Jade, his guardian. Gods, he’s so young. I feel like I need to ask her permission to court him. I don’t want to leave it till tomorrow.”
“No one does the permission thing anymore.” He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but I say you’re fretting over nothing.”
Snorting, I stood up and made my way to my car across the small field next to the sprawling old motel we’d been staying in. Not having much idea of where to begin looking for the she-dragon, I decided to start with the diner where Mason had first spotted Haiden.
It didn’t take long to reach Go Wild. I parked the car near the front door, thinking about how I might get her boss to tell me where she lived—when, as if dredged up by my thoughts, she paced by the large front windows with a tray in her hand and a smile on her face.
Getting out, I went inside and lingered near the front door until I caught her eye. There were several full tables, and she was the only waitstaff in sight. She turned toward the door and her smile slipped into a scowl. I waved, and she beelined for me, an empty tray clutched in her hand.
“What are you doing here? You’ve already eaten.” She’d changed her lipstick to a light pink since I saw her at the restaurant, but the color didn’t soften her glare or
the easy striking stance she took up.
“I want to talk.”
She rolled her eyes and shooed me out the front door with her tray, waving me away like a terrible stench. I went outside and she came after me, her tray still clutched in her hands as if she was planning to bludgeon me with it. Darkness had fallen completely in the few moments I was in the diner, and we both stood in shadows.
I tried to be friendly. “I never got your name.”
“Jade. Speak. I’m working.”
So much for that. “There’s another dragon in the area. Other than you and Haiden, I mean.”
She tilted her head and inspected me the same way she might have a nasty bug. “Uh… okay? So what. I’ve known that for a while now. I’m not stupid, thanks. I’ve seen the other dragon here and there in his small dragon form, but not as a person. I assumed whoever it was doesn’t like the company of people, or being a person. Not everyone enjoys this form best.” She shrugged. “If you’d ever lived your life in the wilds, you’d know that. The Southwest clans have some who are rarely human.”
“He might hurt Haiden.”
Jade furrowed her eyebrows for a brief second, slinging a hand onto her hip, and then she grinned. “Why do you care? I’m his bodyguard, not you.”
Clearing my throat, I crossed my arms and tried not to feel like a hatchling being interrogated by an elder. “Same reason as you,” I said, my voice gruff. “I’m the clan leader responsible for the entire region, therefore someone as unusual as Haiden should qualify for special considerations.” There, that sounded responsible.
She only covered her mouth and giggled. When she had herself under control, she dropped her hand and asked, “How long are you sticking around, then, to provide this special protection only you can apparently deliver?”
“I… don’t know. I have a business to run.” I stared up at the porch roof and focused on a small bird’s nest to distract myself, but her foot was tapping, and I couldn’t drag out my answer long. “I wasn’t planning on moving here, however, I feel like I have to give this a chance to play out.”
“This what?”
I rubbed my chest and sighed. “I feel drawn to him.”
Her face softened a touch and her shoulders slumped. “He’s lonely, too. I can tell. If he wants to be won over, I won’t stop it, but I’ll slit you from navel to nose if you hurt him. He’s had enough of that in his life.”
My stomach roiled and anger sped through me at a slow burn. “How did he get that large scar on his jaw?”
“Ask him, not me.”
She looked into the diner through the big window, and I could tell my time was running out. She was working. “I won’t hurt him. Walking away would be a mistake. I can’t tell you why, I just know.”
A mountain of a blond man stuck his head out the front door and waved at Jade. He had a thick beard and seemed like maybe he should be chopping down trees, but he wore the same green T-shirt she did. “We have orders ready to go out.” With that, he disappeared back inside.
“Listen, I’m busy. If Haiden wants to get to know you, I’m not going to stop him. That’s never been my role in his life. I’ve never wanted to keep him from living. I begged him to go to Wilson’s apple orchard tomorrow, as a favor. It was the only way he’d let me pay.” She flashed me a weary smile. “If you happen to show up there around eleven in the morning, and you happen to be ready to pick some apples too, that’s none of my business.”
“Apple picking?” My brain stalled. It had been… maybe a hundred years since I’d done such a thing.
“Yeah, he cooks, and he likes seeing where ingredients come from, so he likes to paw at the fruit and vegetables sometimes. I don’t get it, has to be his human side. I try to find things he likes to do. Keeps us from going nuts out here by ourselves. See ya.” She waved at me and actually smiled before she rushed back inside.
With a new spring in my step, I left to tell Mason we were going apple picking in the morning. He would love that. I’d never hear the end of it.
The sun was warm by the time Mason and I found Wilson’s orchard. I drove us past a hand-painted sign on a rough wooden board telling us we had arrived, and I pulled my car into a field set up as a makeshift parking lot. The leaves on the apple trees were still vibrant and green and the orchard itself grew next to a large, red wooden building that I suspected might house a cider press.
“Charming, why are we here again?” Mason growled, slipping his sunglasses from his head down over his eyes. Distorted mirror images of myself frowned back at me.
“You didn’t have to come.”
“You keep telling me he’s your mate. I can’t exactly leave you alone to swoop in and bite him and drag him off to a cave.”
“There are no caves around here, are there? You don’t think that part of the myth might be exaggerated? The—” Stupidly, I pointed to my teeth.
“Do you hear yourself speaking? What, the aggression? Larkin was very clear that the bulk of the stories in the clan library have that type of urgent, sometimes dangerous need as a solidifying factor across stories. You wanted me to believe you, and now you’re complaining that I’m listening to the fairy tales?”
Grunting, I dropped my hand. “Fine. You have permission to club me, but I won’t allow myself to hurt or scare him.”
“I’m going to keep that one in the holster. Permission to whap you over the head could come in handy.” He smirked.
“Get out,” I said with a laugh, and did the same myself.
There were several vehicles there already, and I wasn’t sure what Haiden and Jade would have arrived in, but I didn’t spend time pondering, either, because his sweet scent danced to me on a small breeze. We strolled along a clearly marked dirt path toward the rows of trees at the end of it. A metal coffee can with a dollar sign painted in neon on the side sat at the spot where the path widened and the fenced-in orchard began, and an assortment of baskets and bags lay next to it.
“Trusting.”
“People are that way around here,” a soft female voice said from about five feet away. I turned to my right toward a nearby tree where Jade stood partially behind it at the bottom of a ladder that Haiden was balanced on, reaching for a beautiful red apple high on a branch. The world seemed to narrow down to him and how handsome he was in jeans and a form-fitting long-sleeved back shirt. His hips were narrow and looked perfect for resting my hands on.
My stomach lurched, and I rushed over to Haiden as she sauntered away from him in our direction. Haiden didn’t notice her leaving. Mason was already opening his wallet to pay for our adventure as Jade slid up to him and struck up a conversation I couldn’t focus on. The ladder was steady under Haiden’s feet, but I still hated to see him balancing on the very top that way. He snatched his prize and grinned down, his gaze searching for Jade, obviously, but finding me instead. His eyes widened and I caught the small flare of his nostrils as he scented me. That familiar action—so very shifter—had my stomach flipping in a wonderful way.
“Oh.” He smacked his free hand to his chest and overbalanced. I saw the impending disaster approaching. The ladder wobbled and I rushed forward to steady it, and his hand flew up to grab a branch overhead. I wasn’t sure exactly what happened, or how, but I ended up on the bottom rung of the ladder with my arm wrapped around his warm, muscled waist.
“Way to keep a low profile,” Mason said from nearby. “Jade went to powder her… whatever. I’m going to leave you to it.” He didn’t even bother making up an excuse, just dropped a basket on the ground near me before he pulled out his phone and headed after Jade. Her black hair glinted in the sunshine as I picked her out walking across the field toward the cider mill.
Haiden settled his free hand on my shoulder and his cheeks went nearly as red as the apple he had in his hand. That simple touch had me hardening for him, unable to help myself, and I had the uncanny feeling we’d been in a position like this before, though that was impossible. The déjà vu was so bad that I thought the
ground moved for a moment. Eyes still wide, he smiled. “Thanks. Um, hi, again.”
He tensed but then sort of leaned against my body and we stood there too long. The strange achiness in my chest evaporated. My arousal didn’t. All I wanted to do was bury my nose against his chest and breathe in deep. That sure wouldn’t help me blend in with the humans.
“You okay now?”
“Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not,” he quipped with a breathy chuckle. I released him and hopped from the ladder. He followed, carefully laying his apple in a basket near the tree. “All the best ones are the hardest to reach,” he murmured, squatting down next to his basket. He rearranged the apples and some of his hair fell forward to swing over his eye. He swiped at it and glanced up at me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Seeing the local sites.”
His eyes lit up with interest, and I felt unreasonably happy to have caused that reaction. “That must be nice. Do you travel much?”
“I’ve been all over the US and most of Europe. I went to Vietnam last year for the first time on a business trip.” I wanted to add how most dragons are well-traveled by nature of our long lives, but of course I couldn’t, and I ended up awkwardly shuffling my feet.
He smiled, though, and after he stood, he stepped closer to me, although he had his hands in his pockets and looked ready to run at the slightest hint of trouble. “I’d like to go places like that one day.”
“You don’t get out into the world much?”
“No.” He shook his head and sighed. “I-I would like to, but….”
“You’ll find a way.”
He sent a measured glare at me and pursed his lips. “Don’t make fun.”
Surprised, I turned toward him and reached for his shoulder, but he stepped back. “I wasn’t. Nothing’s out of your grasp. You’re young. You have the desire. You’ll get to do what you want eventually.”
