Chapter Fourteen
Iwas beginning to understand why The Magic had matched me with these much younger men. They needed someone stable. Someone who wouldn’t run or panic at the first sign of distress.
Because both of my beautiful young mates were distressed in their own ways, and I was determined to help them both, even if I wasn’t arrogant enough to think that I could heal all their ills on my own.
Returning with Dexter’s clothes, I set them carefully at his feet before I shifted back into my human form and dressed at his side.
Sage’s earlier messages had suggested that Dexter was feeling raw and perhaps even misplaced in the pack —that he had seemed hurt by Damon’s statement that Sage could do better than Dexter, either as a lover or a friend— and he had asked me to make sure that our oftentimes snarky mate was okay.
When Dexter hadn’t appeared back home, my instincts had urged me to take to the sky and, sure enough, the stunning blue dragon had been circling above the town aimlessly.
Dexter’s dragon form was something to behold.
His scales were nearly iridescent in their paleness, gleaming and glinting in the morning sunlight.
He wasn’t as large as the other dragons in the pack, but that made him seem even more formidable: this scaled, sharp-toothed beast who could probably camouflage himself in the sky and attack at speeds the others couldn’t replicate due to their mass.
Not that there were any reasons to contemplate attack strategies in Shifters Sanctuary.
The pack had been peaceful for years, from my understanding.
Outside, there were rumblings and negative mutterings about them —mostly from those packs still tightly aligned with Morstein’s so-called ‘religion’; something The Magic truly bristled at— but with the security measures in place, Shifters Sanctuary had been left well enough alone.
I did wonder how long this peace might last, though.
Between Morstein feeling threatened, and the human fear of things that were ‘other’ or ‘different’, tensions would escalate eventually.
That was always the way of the world. And when things did come to a boiling point, I had faith that The Magic would favor Shifters Sanctuary. My new pack.
It had been a long time since I’d had a pack to call my own.
I’d been a nomad for hundreds of years: for almost as long as my mates had been alive, in fact.
However, now that I had mates —not just one, but two omegas for my surprise alpha designation— it was most certainly time to settle down into the life fate seemed to think I deserved.
I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I was going to accept The Magic’s offering gratefully instead. And I was going to do what I could to help ease my mates’ woes as well.
“I’ve been a horrible person for the past hundred years,” Dexter’s lowly spoken admission startled me from my thoughts as we began our walk towards his house. Our house.
I turned my face towards him, but I stayed quiet, sensing there was more on his mind.
He sighed, squinting up at the sun. “I wasn’t the most cuddly soul before that, either, I’m afraid.
But then…well, I suppose you, of all people, deserve to know this.
Sage and I have always been close. Despite our differences, we were practically inseparable and, perhaps, though we never crossed the line from friends to…
anything else,” here his cheeks turned an endearing shade of pink, “we were still probably too close. He…he confessed that he loved me. Had fallen in love with me. He wanted us to be together, to face extinction as unorthodox mates. My dragon agreed wholeheartedly.”
With his downturned lips and the way he rubbed at his chest, and what I had seen of his and Sage’s interactions until now, I knew things had not ended well. Gently, I prodded, “You didn’t agree with your dragon.”
Dexter shook his head as we continued to walk down an empty gravel road, the small rocks crunching underfoot.
“I was afraid. I couldn’t give Sage the life he wanted —the children he wanted— and I thought he would regret settling down with another omega.
With me.” His Adam’s apple worked before he cleared his throat, shoulders slumping with resignation.
“I told him that the idea of us as a couple was absurd. I said some things about two omegas together being wrong…ugh, I was an idiot. My dragon screamed at me to listen, to take it back, to be with my mate, and I doubled down. I broke Sage’s heart and my dragon’s as well. ”
“And your own.”
Dexter’s pouty pink lips quirked, and he let out a mirthless chuckle. “Yes, well, I never said I was an intelligent man.”
Ignoring the self-deprecating dig at himself, I forged on, “So you spiraled?”
“That doesn’t feel like a strong enough description, but yes.
” Kicking a stone, his eyes followed it as it jumped and rolled ahead of us before coming to a stop on the edge of the grass at the side of the road.
“My dragon withdrew. I spent countless days and nights trying to shift, trying to reconnect with my inner omega, but he refused to stir. I felt like a shell of myself and, worse, completely alone, because Sage wasn’t speaking to me anymore, either. ”
I stopped walking, aware that my eyes had gone wide. The idea of one’s soul animal completely retreating into the deepest part of their psyche —of not being able to connect or shift— was terrifying. “Dexter…” I breathed his name with sympathy and horror.
He shook his head again, a lock of blond hair falling across his forehead. He made no move to push it back into place. “I deserved it, Serge. I ignored my dragon’s wishes and I broke Sage’s heart. I had no right to feel whole after that.”
“But—”
“No. I understand it now. It took me the better part of the last century, but it was for the best. I mean,” this time when he shot me a smile, it held more warmth, though it was still a tiny bit rueful, “I found you and Sage this way.”
As a firm believer in fate and The Magic, I couldn’t really argue with him, could I? Things happened for a reason sometimes, especially where our intertwined souls were concerned.
“I can still be horrified on your behalf,” I told him instead. “If I lost my unicorn…” I shuddered to think it. Inside me, my alpha stamped his hooves and snorted his agreement.
“Yes, well, it wasn’t pleasant.” We began walking again and he continued, sounding lighter already, though still melancholy, “So, because of all that, I became even more…” he paused, tilting his head from side to side as he seemed to search for the right adjective, “unpleasant. And, believe me, I knew I wasn’t exactly anyone’s first choice to be around.
But the more I focused on my mistakes and the things I lost… ”
“You spiraled,” I repeated my earlier assessment, bobbing my head in understanding. “That doesn’t make you a terrible person.”
“It doesn’t make me a good person, either.”
“No,” we were reaching the end of the gravel road, about to turn into the street which would lead us home.
A cool breeze ruffled my hair and I took a deep breath, enjoying how fresh and clean the air was here.
“But your actions certainly showed you are good at heart. Dropping everything to come help your friend, even though you weren’t really speaking at the time.
Working alongside him to help his family and new friends and asking for nothing in return.
Showing him that you wanted to earn his friendship again, rather than just expecting it.
That speaks to your true character, Dexter. ”
He was silent for a few minutes, likely taking the time to process my argument. He probably saw his actions in a different light to the way I did. I think we both knew that he had done more for the good of the pack than just redeem himself in Sage’s eyes.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug. “I could have been kinder.”
“True, but you are trying now, aren’t you?”
Another shrug. “For all the good it did.”
“People’s impressions won’t change in one sitting.
” As much as I wanted to soothe his hurts, I wasn’t going to lie to him or coddle him.
He was a strong man and a fierce dragon; his ego would heal just fine on its own.
“But they will change if you consistently show them who you really are. And,” I added when I watched his steps falter, if only for a moment, “it’s okay if you’re still trying to find out who you really are, too.
People change over time — you aren’t the man you were before the weekend, and you’re not the same man you were before you spent a hundred years without your dragon. ”
Dexter’s exhale held the whisp of a wry chuckle. “You’re really drawing on your ‘wise old shaman’ schtick, aren’t you?”
“If the shoe fits…”
“Hmm,” he turned his face towards me, smirking now, his eyes glinting with humor and mischief, “I don’t know if you’re really old enough to lean into the stereotype, though.”
“I’m seven-hundred-years-old and then some.”
The mirthful gaze turned heated as he dragged it slowly up my body. “Could have fooled me. You fuck like a man centuries younger than that.”
I led an active lifestyle, and The Magic had always taken care of me. Despite my age, I had to admit I was spryer than some of my contemporaries. I expected fate was at play there, too. I had two young mates to keep up with, I just hadn’t known it until then.
“Perhaps we should make sure that wasn’t a fluke,” I flirted back, pleased by the way his eyes lit up at my suggestion. “We need to make sure that I can truly satisfy my gorgeous young omegas, don’t we?”
He was nodding before I even finished the question, his phone in his hand, thumbs flying over the screen. “This sounds like a fabulous plan,” he answered, still typing away, “and if Sage doesn’t come home within the next ten minutes, we are going to start without him.”