13. Tyson

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TYSON

I shifted uncomfortably as Wiggles typed on my tablet. She wrote, and then erased, and then wrote again. I badly wanted to read over her shoulder, but tension coiled her muscles. My t-shirt wrinkled where I pressed it to her stomach, and I smoothed it down.

Wiggles still wore my shirt because her suitcases never arrived. She still couldn't talk. And I was pretty sure her height was wrong on her sheet. When I assumed a friend filled it out for her, she put her hands up to protest.

The tablet's light blurred as she handed it to me. I had to read the words twice once they came into focus. If my fire had been lit, it would've gone dark.

"You can't get pregnant?" I asked, praying I'd misunderstood.

She typed on the tablet again. ‘I cannot.'

My grip on her stomach loosened, and she slipped off the couch, holding her arms behind her back.

My dragon instincts urged me to touch her again, but I ignored them.

On some level, I knew my sire would never have let me join a hunt. Everything about me had developed too slow. Although I lived the power I'd finally come into, my past still dragged behind me. Having gone after Wiggles without my sire's blessing, having her fail would be the final nail in my coffin.

Not mine.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Although Jay was incredible, when I envisioned our family, it had my little dragon babies. No matter who they were, I wanted them to have everything I hadn't. Everything my sire stripped me of.

My stomach soured. "The Hunt exists." I clenched my fists. "To bind together dragon and human who would struggle to bond otherwise. It's there to trick us into believing we've found someone worthy to bear our children." I stood, rising to my full height, so she had to look up to meet my gaze. "Why did you apply if you can't have kids? Why did you give me such a chase?" I didn't like the anger creeping into my voice, but I couldn't stop it. She couldn't do the one thing we'd brought her to the island to do.

She tugged on her clothing and pointed to the tablet.

"Feck, your inability to speak, if it's even real," I shouted, embarrassment coloring my cheeks. I told Tia to piss off for this human. I bent over backward, fulfilling every fecking wish on a sheet of paper that wasn't even real. She tricked me.

A small voice inside of me tried to rise and warn me there was more to her story, but my anger incinerated the holes in her arrival. She ripped the floor out from under me, torn up, and spit out my dreams. I called her my mate, my soul mate. I never opened up to anyone like that before. My dragon still pulled me toward her. My dick still pulled me toward her. I clenched my jaw and balled my fists.

Her eyes lit with anger, and she took a step forward before stepping back and dropping her gaze to the floor. My dragon seethed while my magic screamed at me to fix this.

It wasn't fixable. She lied and made a fool out of me, and I failed my family, just like I had as a kid. Disappointment fanned my anger into a blistering rage.

I couldn't stay here.

Pushing past her, I stepped out of my room for the first time in two days. The air in the hall smelled bland, though her rose and licorice scent still clung to me. I couldn't stand it. Long, angry strides took me to the opposite side of the complex. Tia's familiar, worn door filled my gaze.

She opened it on my first knock. I rushed the little dragon, pressing her hard into the wall of her small apartment, my hard-on for my mate still raging in my pants. But this was right. My dad had set Tia and me up. Until two days ago, she'd been what I wanted. Wiggles, no, Jay, no, Betty didn't have to change that.

"Ty," Tia moaned. "I knew you'd come back to me."

The sound of her voice grated on my ears. I punched the wall. "Don't talk."

Two days of sexual frustration poured out of me. Tia's little night shirt shredded under my claws, and her large breasts became putty in my hands. She freed my length and circled it with her hands. I lowered my head to capture her lips, but Wiggle's bright green eyes filled my mind.

Instead of kissing Tia, I spun her and pressed her into the smooth gold-painted wall. Tia's who I should want. This was right - not Betty.

"You want it dirty, baby?" Tia moaned.

"Don't talk." I punched the wall, leaving a hole in it, before grabbing her hips and burying my girth into her weeping pussy.

I lost myself in sensation, driving into her over and over. Her moans added to my frenzy. My muscles clenched, and pressure set me teetering on the edge of climax. Instead of riding it, I shoved into her hard and burst. Days of buildup shot out of me, and I grunted like a rutting bull, squeezing Tia's narrow hips.

When I finally came down, I let go of Tia and braced myself against the wall—shuddering and breathing hard. The usual release I found after sex didn't grip me. Instead, my heart felt as empty as my balls. Bone-deep disappointment settled on my shoulders like a lead weight. For the first time since my dragon emerged, our instincts felt separate.

If this was right, why did everything feel bad?

Tia turned and pressed her tits into my stomach. "Do you want to talk about it, baby?"

"Don't. Talk," I clipped both words, desperately trying to understand the conflict raging inside of me. Betty lied. We couldn't have the future she promised. My thoughts spun. I expected my dragon to echo my outrage, but he curled into a ball as if trying to hide from what we'd just done.

With a curse, I dragged my pants back up from where they'd pooled around my ankles.

"You can stay. It's late," Tia said, rolling one of her erect nipples, utterly unaware of my internal conflict. Tia's scent mixed with Betty's, and my stomach soured. I didn't want to smell either. My dragon whined like a beaten dog. I'd failed my family and upset my dragon. I had to fix this, starting with admitting everything to my sire.