Chapter 5

5

Akai

M onday came and Danon was gone. He had a job. He had a purpose.

I kicked the wall of my bedroom in frustration, then cried out in pain. I might've sprained my little toe. I bent down, rubbing it.

The silence rang in my ears until they ached. I turned on the living room TV loud. Then made my plan to snoop everywhere in the house.

Maybe Danon kept secrets. Maybe I could find his sex toys and douse them with cinnamon. Or maybe he had hidden stashes of gold I could steal and bury in the backyard where he'd never find it.

I wanted him mad. It pleased me to think I might be able to have some control like that. He was mean. He was old. I didn't want him to want me. How I thought making him hate me might be easier for me, I didn't know. But it seemed like a good idea in the moment.

I started in Danon's bedroom.

When I entered, I went in slowly. As if I might be disturbing something important. What a thought. It was just a bedroom. And he was just a dragon nobody.

Still, I tiptoed. A thrill went through me like lightning. This was the big dragon alpha's most private cave. I stood before it, a snarky smile on my face.

The bed in the center of the far wall was neatly made. Danon was neat, then. Okay. He didn't have much clutter. He liked order. It made sense. He was a rule-follower. He let some guy with the awful name of Gaston control him.

I realized I wasn't much different. My pack leader controlled us. Me. He'd sold me because the law allowed it. He was an ass.

Gaston and my pack leader needed to meet. They might fight, or they might get along famously. Wouldn't that be something? I laughed out loud.

I started with Danon's dresser, opening every drawer, going through all his socks and underwear, even emptying the drawers and looking behind them for secrets.

Nothing. This was getting boring fast. This guy had the plainest underwear. All white. Not one frill. His socks were all black. I sighed loudly. Time to raid the walk-in closet.

It was nice and big in there, with shelves along one wall and racks on the other two. In the center was a little built-in table where he had some small black boxes. Jackpot. They were jewelry boxes. Maybe I'd found the gold.

I opened each one. Cufflinks. An ugly leather necklace. Watches that didn't run or that had broken bands.

This was his hoard? How disappointing. The cufflinks might have been gold, but they were heavy and old and looked like he hadn't touched them in years.

Well, fuck. If I stole them, he might not even notice.

My plan was going awry fast.

I went through all his clothes. The suits were nice, smooth and shiny and expensive-looking. The shirts and ties all looked pretty new. I never thought he didn't dress nice. But all those whiskers. It was as if the clothes didn't matter. The whiskers hid him. Hid his personality.

He had some boxes stored above his clothes. I went through them all finding only old shoes or hats out of style. But the last box had something different.

The first thing I pulled out was what looked like an old piece of cloth. On it was a face with a stitched smile and button eyes. The edges were curved as if they were once ears. I immediately knew this was a childhood toy. Probably a teddy bear. Why not a stuffed dragon? Maybe it was like a universal truth that every child wanted a bear no matter what type of shifter they were. After all, I'd had a teddy bear, too.

I put the cloth face aside and found a big envelope. Dumping out the contents, I found cards and old photos, some black and white. I took them all to the bed, sat down and went through them.

I handled them carefully. Something about photos—they made things bigger, more multi-dimensional. Danon had been alive for forty-two years. He had been a baby, a child, a young adult.

I pegged those photos of him right away. Relatives held no candles to him. He had been beautiful in his youth, strong jawed and tanned, his dark hair shining in every pose. I had never seen past his whiskers, but I somehow knew right away it was him in various pictures. I could not be mistaken. The way he held his head. The rich black of his hair. The set of his shoulders. Without all the white whiskers, my new husband—err, mate—was quite the catch when younger. He was smiling, too. He looked happy. Like he had friends and family that supported him.

Why was he so surly now? Where were those people? No one had visited the house at all so far, and this was my third day here. Did they not know he'd gotten married? Was he too embarrassed by having a set-omega slave as a husband?

That made sense.

The cards were little frilly things that said Happy Birthday or Happy Graduation . They were soft with age, pretty with ribbons. Had they been kept because they were from someone special? Or because of the ribbons and trinkets? Maybe dragons loved that sort of sparkle. It seemed reasonable.

Once done with the bedroom, I put everything back the way I'd found it. Next, I went to Danon's office. I found only files in the drawers. He'd taken his laptop to work leaving only the bigger monitor on his desk. I'd have to computer snoop another day.

Knick-knacks and books sporadically covered the shelves, including some glass sculptures and candles. But nothing that led to secrets.

The rest of the house was the same. Some books. Some more knick-knacks. The kitchen was all cooking stuff. I had to face it. Danon might simply be a boring guy. I hoped to find at least one diary. If he did keep one, it was probably on his laptop. Or his phone.

Just as I finished checking the single drawer on the foyer table, the doorbell rang.

I ran to the peephole. Through it, I saw a guy in a delivery uniform.

My clothes had arrived!

I opened the door, forgetting I wore only my slave robe.

The delivery guy's eyes widened. He glanced at his tablet, then at me. "Delivery for a Mr. Danon."

I nodded. "Yes, that's right." I pretended everything was normal, daring him to say anything about the robe.

"Sign here." He held out the tablet.

After I signed with my finger, I saw the stack of packages. It was huge.

"Can you set them inside here?"

"Sure." He looked me up and down before moving the packages. I stepped away from him.

"You visiting here?" he asked.

I nodded. "Right."

He shrugged and walked down the porch steps.

Immediately, another car drove up and a man got out. I scented omega. The omega came right up the steps as if he owned the place.

I shut the door until it was almost closed, continuing to peek out. "What do you want?"

"Hi, I'm Sage. The housekeeper. Who're you?"

"Housekeeper? Danon didn't say anything."

The omega saw my robes. His palm went to his mouth. "Are you in slave robes?"

"So what? And if you're a housekeeper, you're not very good. The house is all dusty."

"Yeah. I missed two Mondays ago, and then I was away all last week." Sage kept his hand against his mouth. "I went into a huge heat."

My face instantly warmed.

He kept staring at me, not batting an eye. It was as if what he said wasn't personal, or at all embarrassing. "Look, if you just call Danon, he'll tell you I'm expected."

"I don't have a phone."

"Well. Hey. I do." He produced one from his pocket, jabbing at it before I could say a word. "I put it on speaker."

"Sage," said a familiar voice through the phone. "Are you calling to cancel again?"

"No. I'm here but your, um, omega? He doesn't want to let me in."

"I completely forgot you were coming today."

"Mondays, remember? I'm always telling you. I missed the last two, but your memory can't be that short."

I couldn't believe an omega was talking to his alpha boss this way.

"Yes. I know," said Danon's voice on the phone. "Akai is my new mate. Is he there? Can he hear?"

Sage held out the phone to me. "Speak."

"I can hear you," I said softly.

"Sage is okay. You can let him in. He does the vacuuming and laundry and windows."

I couldn't resist asking. "And dusting?"

"He'll be there about four hours," Danon said, ignoring my question.

I opened the door wider. "Fine."

Sage waltzed in as if he owned the place. "Thanks, Danon."

The connection ended.

Sage was pretty, about five years older than I was, with curly blond hair and dimples. He rubbed his hands together. "Okay, let's get this show on the road. First, we need some light in here, don't you think?"

He walked straight through the living room and opened the curtains. "That's better." He did a little spin and moved toward me again.

"Wow, look at all those packages. Danon's been shopping."

"They're clothes," I mumbled.

"Nice. I mean, I didn't know Danon had a new mate and stuff." He grimaced. "Might be nice to get out of that robe."

"If you're wondering, yes, I am a set-omega slave."

"None of my business, really."

"Why are you his housekeeper?" I asked.

"I went into the cleaning business because it's not that hard and I wanted to work."

"Did you meet Danon through business?" Why was I so curious? I shouldn't care. I didn't care.

Sage walked up to me and tilted his head. "You want to know if I've slept with him."

I shook my head hard.

"For your information, I've been claimed by three alphas and proud of it."

I gulped.

"And," he added, "I've laid six eggs total, two for each one. They all have separate households and I'm, well, I guess you could say I'm kept. I have a nice apartment, but I get bored. So I work."

I realized my mouth was hanging open when Sage prompted me. "Does that answer your question?"

I nodded, snapping my mouth shut.

I badly wanted to open the packages, but instead I followed Sage around as he stripped the sheets off Danon's bed and grabbed the hamper. In the garage, I watched as he got a load of laundry started. We went back into the house and got out the vacuum and plugged it in.

Finally, I mustered up the courage to ask him more questions. "Don't you get to raise the babies you helped make?"

"Nope. I mean, I know them, and they know me, but they live with their alpha fathers. I'm fine with it and so are they. My dragon isn't very maternal. He's demanding and selfish and takes a lot of my time. He loves to fly for hours on end. It's okay. I still see them. They all know I'm their papa."

Dragon culture. What I'd learned in omega slave class was nothing like this. Would I be mated out after Danon was done with me? I shuddered.

Sage caught my reaction. "Don't worry," he said with a smile. "Danon isn't like my mates. He bought you, right?"

"On orders from his flight master, who paid."

Sage's smile fell. "Oh. Gaston ordered him? I'm not surprised. He's so old-fashioned. I can't wait until he ages out of the title. I didn't know this was a forced union. You poor thing." He paused. "Well, anyway, he's not like me or them. He's his own guy. Stays to himself." Sage put a hand on my arm. "And he never ever came on to me. Understand? Just so that's clear?"

I nodded.

"So, you're brand new here, then?"

"Yeah."

"When did you arrive?"

"Saturday."

"Wow, you are a newbie. Are you okay? Do you need anything?"

I turned away.

"Sorry if I'm blunt but I can't help it."

I faced him, this time scowling. "It's not okay to be a slave."

Sage frowned. "I guess not. But Danon's pretty harmless as alphas go, so there's that."

"He's cold. And kinda mean, though."

"What? No. That's him just being shy."

I didn't know whether to believe Sage or not. "He definitely doesn't seem shy to me."

"It's his dragon that makes him shy. And a little outcast. Can't you tell? He hides behind all those whiskers."

Was something wrong with his dragon? "What do you mean?"

"I can't say more. You'll find out. It's no big deal, really."

The more we talked, the more I grew to like Sage. He was open and kind and generous with his insights into the dragon world.

Between vacuuming and dusting, he and I managed to open all my packages. He squeaked at the quality of the clothing Danon had purchased. He admired as I tried on each new item, and told me which were his favorites, what matched and what didn't.

I ended up keeping on my new designer jeans and a thin gray button up sweater. Canvas slippers completed the outfit. I rolled my slave robe into a ball and threw it at the bottom of the trash that Sage took out with the rest of the garbage.

"You look fantastic." Sage kissed the air.

By the end of Sage's work, I felt I'd gained a friend.

"Thank you, Sage. For helping me. With the clothes and stuff."

"No problem. When you get a phone, we'll exchange numbers, okay?"

"I don't think he'll let me have one."

"Of course, he will. Everyone has phones."

"I had one when I was in my pack. They took it when I was sold."

Sage patted me on the shoulder. "That's awful. You deserve better treatment than that."

"So maybe I'm not allowed?"

"I didn't think of that. It wouldn't hurt to ask, though, right?"

My shoulders slumped. "Right."

Sage left with a hop to his step, waving goodbye to me from the driveway. He drove his own car. He was a free omega. Not a set-omega like me. I envied him.

The house smelled like lemons and fresh pine now.

I looked down at myself. New clothes had helped me feel a little better. But I was still a slave, locked to this property and one alpha as if I wore actual chains.

My life sucked.