2. Tyson

CHAPTER TWO

TYSON

“… f uck off, so go do that.” Wiggle's last words became clear as I vaulted into a round, brightly lit room filled with comfortable white suede seating and a bar.

“How the feck did you run so fast?” I said to Ogden, holding my chest and wheezing. I’d run down too many wrong corridors before realizing Lux’s tower was the only place Og would have taken Wiggles.

“Tyson?” Ogden turned to me and squared his shoulders. His dark green eyes swirled with emotion. A large rack of very impressive brown horns grew and shrank on his head as his dragon struggled with Jay’s rejection.

I controlled my breathing and grinned. “Feck off, Earth Worm. It sounds like Wiggles made her choice.”

Ogden clenched his fist and leaned forward, but before either of us could move, Wiggles let out a frustrated scream. A whirlwind of air and fire appeared in her palms, and she flung the elemental magics at a wire-filled hole in the wall. A whirring noise increased, followed by a few pops. The lights went completely dark, leaving us bathed in moonlight from the open windows.

“Tyson, did you relock the door on your way in?” Wiggles demanded, turning to me.

I blinked a few times. “No, I melted the door handle off. It’s gone.”

Wiggles pulled on her hair. “Right. How far behind you are the guards?”

I blinked again. “That’s all you have to fecking say to me?” I stepped forward, hating the droop in my shoulders but not able to stop it. I’d been so mad when that hazy feck had appeared and claimed to have gifted me to Wiggles.

I wasn’t a gift.

No one controlled my actions except for me.

I’d marked her of my own free will.

My entire life, I’d bent and bowed to my sire. I thought I’d been happy, but I’d been playing a part, pretending to be what he wanted because I didn’t understand what made me truly happy. It took a crazy, powerless witch stealing my heart to force me to see that truth. Now that I did, my eyes would never shut again.

Jay had fundamentally shifted something inside me, and I wasn’t going to fecking lose her.

Anger made my blood rush, and I straightened my shoulders. “I won you. I bathed you. I let you blow me while Rehan fucked you. I played nice with your other mates, all for you, and all you want to know is why I didn’t lock the door?”

Jay stepped past Ogden, putting her face right in mine, though she still had to look up to do it. “Yes, Tyson. You did all of those things, but I will shit my pants right now if they were all for me.” She put her hand over my heart, exactly where it sat when she relit my fire. My pulse raced. “I’m being hunted by every fucking dragon on this island. If you want to have a personal chat with me, you either put me back in the oubliette or help me.”

I growled. “Or I just take you now and put you in a fire prison of my own.”

Wiggles bit her lower lip. “Is that really what you want?”

My racing pulse slowed. My room, full of all the shite I didn’t know if I really liked, filled my memory. My interactions with her other mates burned. I shook with rage but had no idea who to take it out on.

One side of Wiggle’s lips quirked up. “The door, fire boy.”

The nickname should have pissed me off. Instead, Wiggle’s smirk as she said it made my dick twitch. I snarled and turned back for the stairs.

“I’m not leaving either,” Ogden said as I exited. “I know what you’re doing, and you won’t push me away, Jay.”

“Away, Jay,” Wiggles repeated with a snort. “Then start shutting the storm shutters and locking them...”

The sound of her voice vanished as I made it to the bottom of the tower. Footsteps running up the stairs echoed. I sprinted to the door only to pause. I hadn’t promised to follow her lead, and now I was alone. I could just let the guards in and lead them to her.

My dragon let out a low whine. Wiggles didn’t follow me to make sure I shut the door, and neither did the Prince of Compost. On some level, they both trusted me. My heart swelled, and I slammed the door shut. Focusing all my anger into heat, I created a beam of fire and welded the metal to its frame. I’d only gotten half of it melted when the first guard slammed against the door. The middle dented while the still-cooling frame groaned.

“Ogden, a little fecking help!” I bellowed.

The earth dragon came flying down the stairs and flung himself against the door, chanting and tracing the runes on his arms. He wasn’t paying attention to me. If I slipped up my heated beam or lost concentration… feck, even if I wanted him out of the picture, I could cut him in half in seconds. But the Dung Beetle didn’t even glance at me. He focused on keeping us safe.

On some level, he trusted me. Something hot and good bloomed to life in my chest.

“Tyson, my boy,” my sire’s voice came through the hole where the door latch used to be. “She’s controlling you. It’s evil magic. Stop this, let us in.”

Control.

Hot rage bloomed in my chest, and I channeled it into my fire. Faster than I knew I was capable of, I finished welding the door shut. A wave of emotion hit me hard. “She might be controlling me, but at least she’s honest about it.”

I didn’t know where the words came from, but they felt right. The ground tilted, or maybe I tilted and stumbled backward. Ogden’s chanting came to a climax, and dirty brown magic ripped off his left wrist. A spider web of black tar bloomed to life across the door.

For a brief moment, Og glowed almost a light golden color. I’d seen colors, many different colors, as a child. I blinked, and it vanished. I gasped for air as my painful past mixed with fear. I cut off my sire. A sealed door now sat between us. There was no talking my way out of this or saying the right thing to get back into his good graces. I’d taken the words I said at the EM and turned them into actions.

Whatever spell Og used to keep out intruders made the air heavy. Not even the buzz of electronics filled the silence. I floated in a different world. Wiggles too calm footsteps made the spiral stairs rattle. Each one gained volume until her bare feet slapped against cold stone. My anger snapped. My fists rose, and my feet moved before my brain caught up.

Wiggles caught my right punch and then my left in her palms. I snarled and forced her to the ground. Although I saw Og move towards us out of the corner of my eye, something stopped him. My knees thunked on the dark rug covering the stone floor, and I loomed over Wiggles like the predator I was. The smell of her drying blood hit my nose, and a heavy cloud of guilt replaced my anger. She was my mate and hurt, and I’d turned my anger on her.

“I don’t deserve you,” I said softly.

Ogden snorted. “You really don’t.”

I flexed my back and called my wings. Layers of red leather and scales draped to the floor, blocking the warlock out. This wasn’t about him.

Wiggles lay on her back. Instead of looking up at me with fear, a timeless understanding smoldered in her gaze. She reached up and cupped my cheek. “It’s not about deserving.”

A tear slid down one of my cheeks, then the other. I leaned down, capturing her lips with my own. For a moment, all I felt was us. Her. My Wiggles. My mate. The life I chose. It might not be about deserving, but she made me want to be better.

Pain lanced down my body as three mate marks shocked me at the same time. I lurched backward, my wings knocking tables over and decorations off walls. My blooming hard-on withered, along with the overflow of emotions I’d just gone through. I rocked. Different tears streamed down my face until the pain eased enough I could uncurl from my protective ball around my cock. I hadn’t noticed my wings vanish, but I was one hundred percent human once more.

The pain eased.

Wiggles had joined me on the floor on my left. I must have been out for long enough for Og to heal her because her cuts and bruises vanished.

The Healing Tree held two shot glasses. A third already sat empty in front of Wiggles. I wiped tears off my face and took the offered shot glass, knocking it back. The sweet, almost burnt caramel liquor looked exactly like whisky but tasted nothing like it.

“What the feck is this?” I asked.

Og reached for a bottle on the floor next to him. “Rum. Really nice rum from Cuba. Lux has some fancy stuff.”

I let the Decaying Tree refill me and knocked it back.

Wiggles grabbed the bottle. Skipping her shot glass, she took a swig. “Look.” She gestured around Lux’s weird first floor, now half trashed thanks to me. The doughnut shape showed part of a simple large bed and the front door, pulsing with Og’s magic, keeping the world at bay.

I pictured my sire’s outline behind it. Instead of letting anger boil my blood, I hug my arm over Wiggle’s shoulders and let my hand come to rest on Og’s. Though if he even looked at it, I’d smack him and move it.

“I was...” Wiggles tried to say. “I am…” She took another mouthful of liquor and gulped. “Tyson, I’m sorry. I’m old and powerful, and there’s a curse on all of us.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m missing memories. I don’t know if brown eyes cursed us or?—”

I growled, not just me, my dragon, my entire soul.

“It wasn’t you, and it’s not a curse – or at least my feelings aren’t.” Ogden twisted, voicing everything I felt but didn’t know how to say. He pulled the bottle out of her hands. “You're right in that an outside force might have drawn us together.” Ogden put a hand on her knee. “But I know what I feel.”

I didn’t move my arm off her as they squared off. I couldn’t see Wiggle’s face, but strength edged Ogden’s features, and determination filled his eyes. He truly believed what he said.

Like I did.

Wiggles blew out a breath and shook her head. “Nothing’s changed, mostly. We just have more information. I still need to bang the four of you at the same time to get my magic back, probably.” She turned to me, frowning. “I can talk now, and this is long overdue. I’m sorry I lied to you when I first got here. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. In my thousand years alive, no one has treated me like you treated Betty.”

I puffed up my chest, but my mate looked away from me.

“I wanted to be your Betty, but I’m not, Tyson.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t want Betty. I wanted Jay. My Wiggles. The woman sitting between me and Og. But with the curse keeping her from talking gone, words just kept coming out of her mouth.

“And I never can be,” she continued, her gaze still on the floor. “Even if I could have kids, I don’t want them. As fun as you might find it, me wearing only an apron and greeting you at the door after a long day of work will never be me.”

My dick stirred, immediately visualizing that picture. “I mean, you could still wear the apron.”

Wiggles bit her bottom lip and looked up at me through her lashes. “Only if you’re wearing one and kissing Og, too.”

I swallowed. I wouldn’t be kissing any Dirt Dragons, but my budding hard-on didn’t soften at her twist.

Wiggles ran her fingers through her hair, pulling loose strands away from her face. “We aren’t making long-term plans here. I need your help.” She glanced at Ogden. “Someone tied the two of you to me… well, the four of you, but only two of you are here.” She turned back to me, her face painfully open and raw. “I still think I can fix this, but I need help.”

My mate needed help. The world around us disappeared as my dragon and I focused on the only thing which mattered. My mate. I needed her to feel our connection as deeply as I did, and that started with action. More to the point, I need to show her she came first.

I glanced at Og’s dick, currently hidden by a pair of loose black pants. “I want to watch you with Og.”

Wiggles blinked a few times. “I mean, help me with.” She splayed her hands palms up, gesturing around the room. “Like, with our current situation.”

I pulled one of her hands to my cheek and nuzzled into her palm. “This is our current situation.” She needed to know I supported her no matter what. “I want to watch you with Og.”

Wiggle’s face pinched, but I pressed forward. “Sex was helping your third eye, right? More vision, more information?” I let my free hand drift to the little schoolgirl shorts she still wore and gently caressed where the material met her skin.

I flicked my gaze to Og. The warlock studied his spells as if making sure we were truly safe before setting his hand on her shorts as well.

It was all the permission I needed, but once again, Wiggle's mouth opened.

“I mean, you’re not wrong, but my third eye’s situational.” Wiggles raised an eyebrow. “But even if it improves, I can’t like see Lux with it. That’s not how third eyes work.” She bit her lower lip. “And only two of you is problematic at best.”

“Problematic at best?” Og repeated a low growl in his throat.

She wrinkled her nose. “I mean, you’d have to watch again, Tyson. Me blowing Og won’t affect the curse. We’ve already done that.”

I sucked in a breath. What I wanted to show her had nothing to do with the curse.

Wiggles locked her gaze on the front door. “We need to focus on what matters. The air dragons are still trying to get in, and Lux is still missing.”

Og removed his hand and clenched his fists. My blood rushed as my dragon’s fire burned with denial. Wiggles misunderstood all of it. Every fecking thing I said.

I wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling the same move I’d watched Og do to haul her over my shoulder. She squeaked and struggled, but not near as much as she was capable of. My dick hardened into a steel rod.

“Let them get in,” I growled. In three steps, I’d made it to Lux’s bed, but I kept Jay over my shoulder and turned to Og. “Fortunately, Betty, you don’t get to decide what matters to me.” I let her simmer on the miss naming before lightly spanking her ass. “Let them bust in here and see me pleasuring my mate… with er, her other dragon toy, whatever the feck Og is.”

“I believe that would be brother-husband, maybe?” Og made a sour face as if his own words tasted foul in his mouth.

“Yeah.” My hard-on softened. “Don’t ever say that again.”

Og grimaced and vigorously nodded while Wiggles giggled. Fire, I loved her laugh.

I leaned back and bounced her on my shoulder so her thighs rubbed against my tight muscles. Despite her attempt to refocus us, the smell of her arousal kissed the air.

“Og, you’ve been in here before. We need toys, bindings, and a blindfold, now,” I barked.

Og rushed to Lux’s bedside table.

Jay stiffened. “What are you up to, Tyson?”

“I already said it bad,” I admitted. “So, wait and find out.” I bounced her again, my arm holding her in place slid across her ass and dipped between her thighs.

Og dropped an arm full of clothing and what looked like two dildos onto the bottom of the bed before he slid to Jay. “If you say no, I’ll make him stop.”

My heart froze. A second clicked by.

“Hand me the rum, Og.” Wiggles wiggled her hips against my shoulder. “I guess a five-minute delay to our plans won’t hurt.”

My blood rushed. I sat on the bed, letting Wiggles roll off me before pinning her under me. “Five minutes won’t even be our warm-up. I’m making you orgasm until every dragon in this castle bursts through the door to see it.”

“Air dragons don’t use magic, and mine is powerful. We’re safe, Jay. You’re safe with us,” Og added, destroying my vibe.

I ignored the Praying Mantis and honed in on Wiggles breasts. Fire, I loved tits, and Wiggles had the best set. “I don’t think you’ll ever need the blue part of that again.” With a precise slice of a single dragon claw, I cut through the buttons on her shirt and the knot, barely keeping the makeshift bra together.

Her breasts popped out for me, and I watched them dance. I couldn’t touch her for long without risking a shock, so I grabbed the rum bottle she somehow still had in her hand and caressed one nipple, then the other into stiff peaks.

Jay bit her lips together, refusing to make a sound for me, but I smelled how much she wanted this. My dick pressed painfully against my pants, holding it in check. The last time we did anything, I was the one refusing to participate. Let’s see how Wiggles did with the tables turned.

I shredded her clothing before we tied her naked body, tits up, across the bed. Her head barely rested on the edge of Lux’s silky sheets. This time, my shirt cut off her sight, muting one of her senses.

As naked as me, Og came to my side and eyed our handiwork. “She can’t move, um, isn’t she the only one who can do anything?”

Not acknowledging Og, I gripped the rum bottle again and crawled back to Wiggle’s prone body. She pulled at her bindings, testing them. Her head turned slightly in my direction. I’m sure feeling the bed lean and hearing my knees on the soft blankets. Wiggles was smart like that. Blind, I bet she could still knock the average man on his ass. But there was nothing average about me.

I touched the cool glass of the rum bottle between her tits, and she sucked in a tight breath. Slowly, I dragged the bottle from the center of her breasts to her junction and let the hard textured glass rest against her clit. She gasped as a ripple of tingles visibly ran across her skin. Her tongue came out, darting across her lips.

Og’s too-big-for-its-own-good dick came into my peripheral vision. The walls of Lux’s tower shuddered as something big impacted the floor above us.

I ignored all of it. “All our girl’s done is touch us,” I said. “We’ll show her exactly how much she wants to be a dragon’s mate.”

Og ran a hand down his front and fisted his knot as if just my words turned him on. I refused to acknowledge the heat it added to the situation. “Now, don’t say anything, Tree Stump. Just show me what you’ve got.”