Chapter 1

Chapter

One

M organ couldn't believe this.

Surely he hadn't been in heat.

There was no way he'd been in heat the last time he and Wade had been together.

And he hadn't been stupid.

Hell, he didn't even like Wade all that much, did he?

Just because the big alpha dragon was hot as hell and knew exactly how to touch him—he shivered at the memory. They weren't compatible. Wade was a…a…a… Neanderthal.

A sexy one that pushed his buttons, but it was purely physical. Even if Wade did become kind of marshmallowy and sweet when they spent enough time together.

He was a jerk.

Totally.

Completely.

They'd been together how many times? Hundreds at this point. Morgan wasn't some baby dragon. He wasn't some tiny little omega who didn't know how babies were made, for goodness' sake.

It wasn't the solstice. It hadn't been an equinox.

It had been July.

Dragons didn't get pregnant in July.

And yet here Morgan was, hanging out all alone and knocked up.

Morgan had no idea where Wade was. They caught up together, what? Three or four times a year? Maybe more. Okay, in the last few decades maybe a lot more.

They had sex for a week, possibly two. About thirty-seven thousand times a visit and then? They both went on their merry little ways.

He didn't even have the man's phone number. It was like magic when they ran into each other—hell, the first time they had both been wearing powdered wigs, and Wade had shown off his very big sword.

And yet, here he was on week three of throwing up his toenails every morning. Dragons didn't get the flu.

Dragons didn't get food poisoning.

Dragons did get pregnant. Omega dragons who had clearly been in heat when he and his on-again, off-again got together and banged parts…

Fuck him. He didn't need this shit.

He didn't get it. If he got pregnant in July, did that count as a fall equinox baby or summer solstice pregnancy? Was he due in December or in March? Or did he just count and go six months from July?

"That doesn't make any sense," Morgan said out loud, startling the fuck out of himself. None of this made any sense.

After all, he did know the rules.

He understood when he was supposed to have sex and when he was not, so that he didn't end up having a baby because he was not living an omega's life. He was not going to be tied down. He was not going to be tied up. He was not going to be anything.

He was going to just…be alone.

It was a little problematic because he had a condo right in the middle of Santa Fe. He had a life. Dinner parties. People who knew him.

Because at some point, someone was going to miss him or notice that he was sequestered in the house.

Not to mention he was skinny enough that somebody was going to notice, and they were going to notice pretty damn fast.

What was he going to do?

Morgan closed his eyes for a long minute, forcing himself to breathe, telling himself to just make a plan.

He wasn't sure how to make a plan at this point, but he was going to try.

Let's see him do this…

He could hire a look-alike to go out and about and pretend to be him in public, all the time hiding his pregnancy, and once he was done having the baby and was mobile again?

Find Wade and beat the man to death.

No, that wouldn't work. That was basically unkind, and anytime someone committed a crime, magical or not, it left a trace. He'd watched enough Forensic Files to know that.

He could just go full-on hermit. That was an option. Have the baby stuff ordered and delivered in plain brown paper, in gigantic boxes. Then put it all together and, when all was said and done and there was a baby, he could then say, "Oh, I adopted this fuzzy little bundle of scales that will grow at twice the normal human rate, at least until…"

No, that wasn't going work either.

Okay. Well, he could sell. The market was good.

Right. He could sell his house, and…

And do what?

He had at least another thirty years here in this condo. After all, he could get away with telling everybody he had really good skin. Fortunately for him, he'd been born with salt and pepper hair and skin that proved his British Isles history.

So…

This whole baby thing was going to be a problem.

Especially if it looked like Wade.

Wade sort of looked like…oh, he didn't know, one…of those amazing Viking slash Scottish models. Bearded, red-haired, gigantic, bulky. Muscle-y, bouncing boogeyman.

Yeah.

He fantasized about that for a minute, his eyes crossing.

No. Nope.

No more nummy treat dragon.

And Wade was—like, totally a fire-breathing dragon, red scales and everything. It was going to be problematic. People tended to notice if your children came out of your womb well…red.

Blood red.

And spitting embers.

Damn it.

He looked around his condo, which was weirdly very modern for Santa Fe. Lots of art, lots of glass. Lots of—he sighed—hand-tooled leather. Totally inappropriate for a dragon baby.

Too much wood. That was so flammable. He needed something stone and solid.

Morgan guessed he really didn't have any choice.

He didn't want to go to the mountains. He didn't want to make his own coffee. He didn't want to…be pregnant with Wade's baby, no matter what he'd dreamed about in the privacy of his own head for centuries but wouldn't admit.

Morgan needed to get this thing solved, and the way to do that was to get him out of the human world. He needed to get himself up into the mountains like a proper dragon, and he knew it.

His family had a small place up in the Rockies, high enough that he didn't have to worry about being found. It wasn't fancy or modern, but it was an incredibly functional space up there. Child friendly, Warm.

Last he heard, his brother Max was up there, being grumpy and antisocial.

It wasn't perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it would work for a baby.

Surely, it would work for a baby?

He guessed he'd find out.

He just needed a U-Haul.

And a huge run of diapers and baby furniture. Formula. Dried milk.

All the damn reasons he left rural life.

He sure hoped there was a Sam's Club close by.