by Marcy Jacks
He moved as though he’d been running through this territory his entire life. Graceful and swift.
It was a pleasure to watch him like this
He looked in his element. Was he able to sense where the wards were because he was in his wolf shape? Storm could sense them and sort of see them. Sort of, but he had to squint his eyes, and it was something he only noted when he changed his eyes to be more reptilian.
The sun seemed to strike the wards Sebby had put up and separated the light particles within, creating an almost rainbow-like effect.
Again, it was something he barely noticed, but the wolf beneath him ran along the wards as though it was a solid wall.
Storm decided to see how far he could take their game.
He landed sharply in front of his mate, breaking off two tree branches above him and forcing the wolf to come to a hard stop.
The wolf barked at him in shock before turning and running in the opposite direction.
It was the lolled-tongue smile that made Storm jump back into the air and give chase.
This was going to be a good day.
* * * *
When the door slammed, Tim knew Lightning had returned.
He was kind of excited. This was going to be the first time the man had trusted Tim to cook his food for him, and Tim loved to cook.
He’d never really been allowed to do it when he was still a child living with his aunt and her new husband, but occasionally he would sneak into the kitchen with a cookbook and watch the people hired for that, and they would let him join in, giving him pointers along the way.
They’d thought it was cute.
Until his aunt had found out and went nuclear on the staff.
They’d all been let go, and Tim had stopped trying to get into the kitchen until well after he’d left that household.
Lightning sighed heavily, running his hand through his white hair as he came into the kitchen, plopping himself down at the table.
Tim briefly bit his lips together then decided to ask. “Was everything all right?”
“Fine.”
Lightning was known for his one-word, curt answers, so that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
What was out of the ordinary was the interested look on his face as Tim worked over the stove, cooking steak he’d pulled out of Lightning’s freezer.
“What are you making?”
Tim turned back to the food before the other man could see his smile.
“Steak.”
“I can smell that. What else?”
This was definitely good.
“I’ve got cheesy garlic potatoes in the oven for you, over there is a green salad, and I asked Aiden if he and Rey had any good steak spices they liked, so I borrowed some to give it a kick.
He’d also fried up real bacon for the bacon bits and was cooking the steak in the fresh bacon grease.
Yeah, that wasn’t in any cookbook that he’d read, and probably not healthy either, but he loved doing that to his food. He was fairly sure any meat-eating dragon would feel the same way.
Lightning grunted. He pushed back from his chair.
Tim was aware of the man’s body as he came to stand behind him, to watch what he was doing as the steak fried with the chopped onion. Too many onions wasn’t his favorite thing in the world. There were just a couple in there to caramelize and give it some flavoring.
“You and Aiden get along well, huh?”
Tim shrugged. “Well enough, I guess. He trusts me a little more now, but after what happened to his mom…”
Lightning said nothing to that. He didn’t need to. The implication was there.
Tim had helped Aiden escape from the Dog Catching facility where his parents, and number of other betas and omega werewolves, had been kept.
It had been a clusterfuck of people. Prisoners and employees alike.
Tim was an omega werewolf, but he hadn’t exactly been a prisoner of that place.
No, he was something far worse. A traitor to his own kind. Someone who had worked with the Dog Catchers to save his own skin.
At least, that was what everyone here thought of him.
The fact that Lightning didn’t growl and glare at Tim so often anymore meant that he had to be making some progress.
He hoped.
Lightning leaned against the kitchen counter next to the stove, his big arms crossed over his massive chest.
“Were you really a servant in my father’s house?”
Tim’s entire body froze. He looked at the other man. A dragon shifter who could break him in half if that was what he really wanted to do.
“Why ask something like that?”
Lightning narrowed his eyes, and there was the distrustful expression that Tim had come to know and expect.
“Don’t be dumb. Yes or no. Were you a servant in my father’s house when that bitch was married to him?”
Tim wet his lips. “I…no.”
Lightning’s white brows lifted. “No.”
That was definitely not a question. Not a question at all.
And it was too late to cover his ass about it now. “No.”
“Then what were you?”
Lightning’s red gaze flitted up and down Tim’s body, as though he was trying to see right through him.
Trying to discover all the secrets he might be hiding.
Then those eyes flew wide enough that his red pupils looked like little blood moons.
“Were you…”
Tim frowned, waiting for the other foot to drop. “Jesus Christ, are you one of her fucking children?”
“No!” Tim shook his head quickly. “No, I’m not!”
There had been a time in his life when he wouldn’t have denied such a thing so hard, but if he wanted to live through this with all of his bones unbroken, he had to distance himself from her at least a little.
Lightning stepped up to him. Tim backed off before the man could entirely get into his personal space in front of a hot stove.
That was a recipe for disaster.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me anymore.”
Another step forward, and Tim took another step back.
“I’ve been pretty fucking patient with you, considering where you came from. I know you lived in that house. Your smell is too familiar, and now you’re going to tell me you weren’t one of their servants? What are you lying to me about?”
The wall hit Tim’s back before he was aware it was closing in on him. He jumped, looked back.
Big mistake. Before he could make a decent run for it, Lightning’s hands slammed down on either side of Tim’s head.
“You lied to me.”
“Because I don’t want you to hurt me! Or…” Tim cringed. “Or her.”
“Her?” Lightning seemed to mull that over with his face still angry. “My stepmother?”
Tim nodded.
“You want to protect her. Why?”
“It…it’s not a matter of protecting her. She’s dead.”
Lightning pulled away from him as though Tim had punched him. “Dead? She’s dead?”
Tim nodded. A pain building up in his chest just thinking about it.
“How did she die?”
Tim glared at the man. “How do you think she died? Some of her kids were alphas.”
Those brows didn’t come down off the top of Lightning’s head. “Is my father dead, as well?”
Tim shook his head. “He was alive the last time I saw him, which was right before I had to go into the Dog Catching business.”
“Why? No more secrets. You’re going to tell me everything.”
“I wasn’t keeping things from you to hurt you. Jesus Christ, I just wanted to make amends to you without you killing me over it.”
“Over what? If you weren’t one of that bitch’s kids and you’re in no way tied to my family, then what do you have to make amends for?”
Tim swallowed. He stared up at the larger man, contemplating his next words before he looked to
the stove.
“Your food’s going to burn.”
Lightning rolled his eyes, turned his back, and turned off the stove.
The instant he was facing the other way, however, was the moment when Tim made his move and ran for the door.
“Hey!”
Tim didn’t stop. He burst through the door, shifting into his wolf shape and briefly getting tangled in his clothes.
Lightning tripped over him as Tim struggled his way down the steps of his porch, and while those powerful hands reached for him, Tim somehow managed to scramble away before he could be captured.
He pushed himself out of his clothes and ran for the trees.
He couldn’t do this anymore. It wasn’t working, and if Lightning found out the truth, he was going to kill him.
It was better to take the risk of being out on his own than the risk of dealing with an angry dragon.
As he ran through the trees, he heard the sharp cries of a dragon overhead, and his heart sank as he pumped his lips, the wind flying through his fur.
Tim should have known Lightning wasn’t the type of person to give up so easily.
It was how he’d managed to stay alive all those winters on his own, after all.
Chapter Nine
The rush of adrenaline and animal instinct to run and play with his mate came to an abrupt halt when David heard the sound of a dragon’s angry screech.
He skidded to a halt, looking up to the sky, searching out the large shadow that had been hunting him when he went out for his run.
That shadow circled overhead.
There he was. Storm was right there. He was safe, and he hadn’t been far enough away to make an angry sound like that.
So who was it?
Was there an attack?
David looked back at his mate, who flapped his heavy wings overhead as he tried to come to a landing.
David couldn’t wait for him. If there was an attack…
Aiden.
David began running.
He didn’t look back, and he wasn’t prepared to stop even as he heard Storm calling out to him.
If the warlocks had found their way to the houses, to the place where his son slept, that was trouble. It might not even be the warlocks. What if the Dog Catchers had managed to get through the wards? Were the wards made to only push away other warlocks? Had there been a mistake when Sebby cast his spell? Everyone had said he wasn’t that great at casting spells in the first place. He could have made a mistake. That dragon was still roaring as though death was on its heels.
He needed to get to Aiden. He needed to protect his boy.
“David! It’s okay! Stop!”
He couldn’t. Keep moving. Keep moving and get to where he needed to go. Run. Run. Run.
Another wolf appeared in the distance. Fleeing as though its life depended on it.
David tried to dip out of the way, but they were on a collision course. He jumped, narrowly avoiding the other shifter, and it would have been a graceful landing had it not been for all the saplings and fully grown pines that got in the way of his body.
He crashed. Hard.
He cried out. Fuck that hurt.
“Fuck! Are you okay?”
David shook himself off, growling at the hands that reached for him.
They jerked back.
It was that little omega from before, the one with the laundry basket. The man looked utterly terrified.
David didn’t have time for that. He moved to run again before something crashed into him, holding him down.
David yowled and thrashed. He bit down hard on the arms that held him and kicked his back claws at the body, knowing his claws were striking hard and digging in.
He had to get away! He had to get back! They were being attacked!
The hands gripping his fur clenched higher, lifted him up, and slammed him down with all the strength and force onto the ground. It briefly knocked the wind out of him, stunning him enough that, as he blinked, he was finally able to really look up into, and see, Storm’s enraged face.
“Knock it off! We’re fine! There’s no attack! And you! Don’t even think about it! Get over here, right now!”
David shivered. He was no omega, but as a beta he was still pulled toward a strong, powerful individual. It was in his baser instincts to obey a voice that spoke with such sharp command as that.
Storm had always come off to him as a little on the softer side. A powerful male who didn’t stretch to his limits.
No, he could see that was wrong now. Storm wasn’t the sort of strong male warrior who didn’t like to command and fight. He was just the sort who knew when to command and when to pull back.
The omega in question knew it, too. He stood off to the side, naked and trembling from head to toe.
“I need…I need to go.”
David shook himself off when Storm finally released him. He pushed himself up to his paws and then stood on two feet, changing back into his human shape now that the adrenaline rush was over.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?”
Though he would stay put, David still glanced off in the direction of the homes where the dragons lived. He listened carefully for the sounds of battle, the screams of women, omegas, and children alike.
He heard nothing. It allowed him to remain calm, to not get his adrenaline so high again, and to notice the damage he’d done to Storm’s arms and chest.
He cringed at what he saw.
As the man’s scales melted back into his skin, his flesh freely bled.
They were really only shallow scratches left over from David’s claws, and the bite marks on his arms didn’t look too bad, but had his scales not been out to protect his skin, those slashes across his belly and chest would have been more than simple flesh wounds. His intestines might be spilling out of him now.
Shame welled within David’s gut.
“Storm, Christ, I’m so sorry.”
“Not now.” Storm’s eyes were hard as he barely glanced David’s way.
David snapped his mouth shut. He backed off.
Even though he would live with wounds like that, David imagined they still hurt like a bitch. They definitely hadn’t been pleasant to receive, and David had given them to him.
He turned his attention to the omega, who looked up just as a heavy shadow passed over top of them.
David turned his attention up just as the white albino dragon came to a drop between them. A small tree snapped under his weight before he shifted into his human shape.
Those blazing eyes were already red, but in that moment, David got the impression they would have been red no matter what. Fury wafted from the dragon shifter as Lightning stormed to the little omega and grabbed him by the back of the neck.
“Idiot! What do you think you’re doing? Do you want to get killed?”
“No!”
The omega’s face twisting in pain caught David on a primal level.
Betas still obeyed their alphas, but like the alphas, the betas were used to protect the omegas.
“You’re hurting him.”
“Stay out of this!” Lightning snapped. He shook the smaller man. David wasn’t entirely sure if the man realized the way he held on to him.
The back of the neck was the primal spot for grabbing an unruly omega. Like grabbing a kitten by the back of their neck, it put the omega into a helpless spot.
“Are you fucking with me? Why would you leave? What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Christ, Lightning,” Storm muttered.
That wasn’t enough for David. He couldn’t stand there and do nothing but mutter about it. He’d had the shit scared right out of him because he thought there was an attack, that there were people going after the dragon clan and the only family he had left in it.
If that damned dragon hadn’t been screeching in the sky like that, then David wouldn’t have freaked out the way he had, and he might not have hurt Storm so badly.
He marched up to the bac
k of the albino dragon still holding on to that omega and shoved him hard.
“Let him go!”
Lightning stumbled. He did release the omega, but then he turned those angry red eyes back at David.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
David clenched his fists and held his ground.
Yeah, just because he had the instinct to obey those stronger than he was didn’t mean he couldn’t resist the urge either. That was something of the point of being a beta. He was somewhere in the middle of that alpha and omega shit.
“Stop strangling him like that and calm down! I fucking thought the territory was under attack.”
Lightning stormed forward. David refused to move, but Storm got between them before the albino could reach him.
“That’s enough. Lightning, I’m serious! That’s fucking enough! You’re not touching him!”
“Fuck him! He wants to act like an alpha, then I’ll treat him like an alpha!”
“Then come on over here!”
Storm pointed his finger in David’s face. “Don’t make it worse! I’m still fucking pissed at you!”
That did make David slow down.
He could resist Lightning’s anger, but after what David had done to Storm, and the blood that flowed down his chest, he couldn’t so easily ignore his mate.
Fuck. Storm looked like Freddie Kruger had just finished with him. Not a pretty sight.
David had done that.
“Storm, I’m sorry.”
“I get it.”
“I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I said I get it.”
Storm didn’t look in the mood to hear more, and David was too much of a coward to try and push the issue.
“Lightning, what the fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t do shit! He was the one who fucking ran away.”
“I know you don’t like the guy, but come on. This is bullshit. You didn’t have to chase him down like this.”
“What part of he was running away do you not get? He was going to get out of the wards, and then what the fuck was I going to do?”
Storm growled, a noise that was nothing like the growling of wolves and alphas. A dragon’s growl. David shivered.
“Tim, why were you running?”
Tim stood out of reach of Lightning and Storm now that he was free of the dragon’s grip.
