Chapter 21

Chapter

Twenty-One

Magnus

Mate.

The word kept running on constant repeat in my head as Isaac and Kitra left the vehicle. For once in his life, Isaac didn't argue with me. Hopefully now he understood how hard I was working to keep the dragon locked down with the ripened scent of our mate blooming in the small confines of this goddess forsaken carriage.

If we didn't get out of here soon, we were going to go straight past tenuous to downright insane when the dragon asserted himself.

"Magnus, what is wrong with you? Why did you make them leave?"

"Because I'm still a dragon and we are fucking possessive. I can't have another male this close to you like this. Not even a mated one. Unless you are okay with me choking the life out of him." She gasped, and I shot her a look. "What? I told you I was a beast."

"I'm aware. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. I've had it up to my eyeballs with your raging dragon already and this talk about mating heat. I am not an animal and I am NOT in heat. So unless you have some proof, can you shut up already?"

I leaned back against the seat, crossed my arms, and placed my ankle on my knee. "If you prefer, I can sit here and watch you suffer until you can't take it anymore. I'm not a total sadist, but watching you writhe and beg is bound to wind me up."

"You asshole! You can sit there until you draw your last breath before that's going to happen."

"Fine. Then we'll wait and see which one of us breaks first."

She huffed out a huge breath and I could practically see the steam coming out of her ears. I could understand her natural frustration, but it was a futile effort to try and beat mating heat. It couldn't happen.

"What makes you so sure this is a real thing?"

"All the signs are there. The hot flashes, the pain in your womb. But the biggest and most convincing factor is the ripe scent of your fierce arousal. It's the most incredible thing I've ever experienced."

She scrunched up her face, forcing a smirk to cross mine. I'd seen a lot of things about this woman to admire and enjoy, but that sassy look might be my favorite of all.

"You are sick. You are making insane assumptions based on what? And the last thing I want to hear is how you are smelling me. Is this how you talk to all the women you've slept with?"

My thoughts instantly darkened. I didn't know what game this was, but I didn’t like it. "This kind of thing has never happened to me before. And people like you are so fucking rare I've never even seen one except for Kitra."

"People like me? What the hell does that mean?"

"An omega," I said through gritted teeth.

She took a slow breath in and then released it just as slowly. "Maybe you should explain what you think an omega is, because by my definition, I'm thinking about throwing you out of this car and leaving the three of you by the side of the road."

I barked with laughter. "You could try. But your little carriage can't outrun a dragon."

A slow, wicked smile crossed her face. "Maybe not. But the multitude of weapons I have hidden in this vehicle greatly improve my odds."

I blanched, thinking of that shotgun she'd previously leveled in my face. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked. "I've gone out of my way to keep my dragon impulses under control around you and you're planning to kill me?”

"Under control? Are you kidding me? Tell that bullshit line to my destroyed cottage. Or my grandfather's couch." She took a bigger breath, and I braced myself. "Thanks to your dragon impulses, I'm now homeless. And maybe my parents weren't completely wrong about you. I was fine until you all showed up in my life. Now I've found out my parents have lied to me, I may not be human, and there's a teeny tiny chance that I might be chained to a dragon for the rest of my life."

"Destroying your home was an accident. And I'm truly sorry about what happened to your furniture. But you'll never be homeless. Your home is with me. But it's lovely to know that you consider me only a hardship in your life."

I sounded like a petulant child, but I didn't care. Her words had sliced far deeper than they should. A stark reminder why I preferred to keep myself hardened off from others. The moment I thought about letting someone in they attacked or worse. Every time.

Her expression fell and a flash of regret crossed her face, mixing with the frustration.

Well, welcome to the club, sweetheart. "My new life here hasn't been a walk in the park. Finding out my uncle had held me hostage for most of my life, under mind control really pissed me off. For decades I served at his knee and committed heinous acts with no questions asked. And the bonus cherry on top is that now that his mind control is broken, I still remember everything I did."

"What kind of things?"

"The unforgiveable kind."

"Like what?" she pushed.

I hesitated. Now was probably the time to tell her the truth but— "You really don't want to know. If you don't want me as a mate now, you certainly won’t once you learn all of those details."

"Now I have to know. That doesn't mean I'm going to judge you for them. If you had no agency of your own, all the blame for what happened should fall on your uncle."

"Tell that to the nightmares that arrive every time I close my eyes. Or the screams I hear if I'm alone for more than five minutes. Even my dragon can't handle it. It's why Isaac and Kitra have been chasing me around Scotland all these months. Every time I'm forced to think about it, I go a little mad."

Suddenly Rose was climbing over the backseat and sitting on the seat beside me. Her small hand grabbed mine and squeezed. "Just tell me one thing. It doesn't have to be the worst you've ever done, but I need to feel like someone, somewhere, can be honest with me. Then I promise I'll listen to what you have to say about the other."

"It would take too long to chronicle any of the horrible things I have done. And getting into the details has the potential to ignite the dragon side of me, and I'm not sure yet how he will handle you."

"But don't you? You offered to have me ride on your back to our destination. That tells me that you trust that side of you more than you are saying."

I yanked her hand and pulled her onto my lap, and was quickly awarded with the fresh bloomed scent of her sweet arousal. "You probably shouldn't have crawled back here with me. We still have hours to travel before I can meet your need. Unless you are okay with an audience."

I slid a finger gently down her arm, closing my eyes for a second to soak in the connection between us.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Stop trying to distract me simply so you can avoid talking about anything hard. Do you know how difficult it is for me to believe the information the three of you are flinging my way?"

"That may be. But none of us have lied. You may not like what we have to say, but you don't have to question whether it’s true or not."

"You make it sound so easy." She pushed off me and resettled in the seat next to mine. "If you can't trust me with your truth, then I can't trust you with mine. It's as simple as that."

We sat there for several minutes in complete silence each getting lost in our thoughts. Me in my past and her in her future. However, when she started to tremble, I cupped her chin and pulled her gaze to mine.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," she answered quietly.

I frowned. Even I knew better than that.

"Fine. You really want to know? Okay here goes. I'm scared. Tired. Itchy. Restless. Irritable. Heck, you name it, I'm probably feeling it. And I have no idea how to make it stop."

"I think you do. You just aren't ready to hear it."

"Are we headed back to the omega thing? Because you never did tell me what you thought it meant, and now I'm not so sure I want to hear it. Besides, how do we know all of this isn't just about the magic and the spell that binds it? You could be wrong."

"I'll admit this does seem complicated. But the plan is to work it out together. We'll go back to the Ferguson estate, where you can be a lot more comfortable in a private space and then we'll see what Kitra can do for us both."

"Are you avoiding telling me about an omega? Cause it kind of feels like you are."

I smiled. She wasn't going to let me get away with anything it seemed. "Do you believe in fated mates?"

She scrunched up her nose and thought about it. "I believe in chemistry."

"Okay that's a start. You're a scientist at heart, and science and magic aren't that far apart, right?"

"Mmmm. One is proven, and the other is not. But what does that have to do with omegas?"

"Omegas are fated mates, and among the rarest of the mated bonds. So rare that until Kitra met Isaac I'd never seen or heard of a single living one in centuries. And I have to admit I'm going off of second- and third-hand knowledge here because while Isaac and Kitra have an Alpha and Omega mate bond, and my other brother did as well with his mate, I've been too absorbed with my own problems to learn much about them."

"Okay, that's fair then. So we're both learning. I kind of like that.”

“Omegas are known for their reproductive qualities and are sought for that alone, but they are so much more than that.”

“How so?”

“For one, they’ve been known to be the source of powerful magic. And despite that, they are still nurturers, with the capability to calm the wild of an alpha. Supposedly the perfect balance that sets the stage for both to become the best they possible can.”

“I don’t feel very nurturing. I prefer to be alone most of the time.”

I laughed, surprised she couldn’t see the obvious.

“But aren’t ya now? Think back to how we met. You are a volunteer cook in a church that shelters those with no homes. You feed those who would otherwise go hungry. And then there’s me. You were so scared when you accidentally poisoned me that you took a man twice your size to your home, who could easily have broken you as look at you, with plans to nurse him back to health. It doesn’t get any more nurturing than that.”

“Or crazy.”

“Aye, that too. So don’t go doing anything like that again. I could have been a madman who killed you in your sleep.”

“You say that as if having a man who literally turns into a dragon after I have sex with him and destroys my house is a good thing.”

“I don’t have any designs to kill you and bury you in the backyard, so I’d say it’s a sight better.”

She giggled and leaned against my shoulder, causing the dragon part of me to warm up and send heat directly into her.

“Mmm,” she sighed. “That feels so good. It must be nice to have an internal heater you can turn on whenever you feel like it.”

“Even better when I can use it to make you make those happy sounds. They go straight to my dick.”

She shook her head. “I should be offended, I really should, but I'm afraid that would make me a hypocrite.”

The dragon preened and it sounded a rumble through my chest. It was a little exhausting how quickly his moods changed but it was a relief that he’d stayed moderately calm since waking up. And I was pretty sure I had her to thank for that.

She might not be convinced of her status yet or what it meant to me, but I had little doubt. Her presence felt right.

Right then Kitra popped her head in the window. “Is everything okay now?”

I nodded. “For now. But do you think Isaac could navigate the carriage?”

She laughed and shook her head. “For like the hundredth time, it’s called a car, and I’m sure he would love to. He’s a horrible passenger.”

“Thanks,” Rose mumbled sounding sleepy. “If you need me to do anything, just let me know.”

Yep. Definitely a nurturer. I just hoped she didn’t freak out when we got to the estate and she found out the rest.