Chapter Six
Ronan
“I’d know if I was a dragon!” I snapped.
“Stop thinking you know more about me that I do. Just…stop. This is…I’ll accept that you’re a dragon, how can I not when I’ve seen your scales and your eyes.
Unless I am completely delusional, those eggs, these tunnels, the giant ass garage with cars in it that should be in a museum, it’s all real.
Are you happy now that you’ve plunged me into the dragon version of Alice in Wonderland? ”
“It’s nice to meet you Alice, would you care for a tea party?”
Blink.
Blink-blink.
I didn’t want to smile but it wasn’t as if I could stop it.
“A tea party, no, but a cup of tea might not be a bad idea,” I admitted, since the realness was starting to come crashing down on me, complete with the whole bit about dying.
I had not made it all the way to a place where I could finally be myself just to die because what, I didn’t want to fuck, complete the mating ritual with, whatever, a guy I’d already screwed dozens of times.
It was starting to feel like a just do it and get it over with situation, so maybe everyone would stop yelling and threatening me.
“A cup of tea it is then,” Odem said, sweeping into a half bow as he ushed me back up the tunnel.
“I don’t like being hurried,” I told him. “Or pushed.”
“You can take your time, I won’t leave you lost in here, you’ll trip the wards and have everyone, including Raven, down here to see what’s going on,” he explained. “She doesn’t like having to reset the wards.”
“Wards?”
“Consider them silent alarms.”
“That track wherever anyone goes?” I remarked, “because that sounds a lot like being a prisoner.”
“I don’t know how many times or ways we can tell you that you’re free to come and go as you please,” Odem declared.
“The wards are to keep others out. Weren’t you listening when Raven said there was war on the horizon?
We’ve already experienced the first stirrings.
If we can’t locate the dragons we’ve been searching for and stop them from continuing to hunt and harm fellow dragons, as well as other members of the shifter community, many more will be injured or killed. ”
“Yes, I heard her and I would appreciate you keeping her away from me, since you’re supposed to be a protector.”
“She would never harm you.”
“Well, she’s not delivering my eggs!” I snapped.
“I don’t appreciate being threatened, especially not with visions and nightmares or any of the other powers you all might have.
Especially not when you’re all ganging up on me.
Knowing I can’t be burned by your flames is cool and all, but I specifically heard you say that it was because your powers can’t hurt me.
I know how to read between the lines. That means theirs can. ”
“None of my brothers would ever harm the mate of another.”
“Sounded like they were willing to make an exception for me.”
“I admit you brought out the protective side of them,” he replied.
“You think?”
“I’ll put the kettle on,” he said as we stepped back inside the house.
I didn’t know if I’d ever think of it as my home, more like a gilded cage so the freshly knocked-up mate wouldn’t fly away and bring about Odem’s demise.
And my own.
Despite what they believed, I didn’t have a death wish, and I didn’t want anything to happen to my eggs. I was probably going to suck at this whole fatherhood thing, but they were mine and I’d do my best to learn how to care for them properly.
Please let them be girls.
I could handle cute dresses and ringlet curls.
I’d doll them up so adorably. Images of dresses and tiny matching shoes floated through my head.
Picturing them playing in their room with a huge painted dollhouse furnished from top to bottom was a scary kind of thrill.
I couldn’t deny them the childhood I’d never had.
At least all the children I’d met so far had been happy, giggling little balls of energy.
I’d been a ball of energy, but it had definitely not been nurtured or wanted.
Sit down, be quiet, stop talking, shut the hell up!
I hadn’t appreciated those words as a child, but I understood the frustration of having voices yapping when all I wanted was silence so I could think.
Still, they hadn’t been the kindest things to say in the moment, but how could he not get how overwhelming this was for me.
And Ionus telling me about how omegas would be lining up for the opportunity to be mated to a protector hadn’t helped.
Of course, they’d be lining up if they were told what the line was all about.
I’d gone from knowing I was just another accidentally knocked up omega to oh, by the way, you’re special.
No, I wasn’t.
But I was here and I was going to have to make the most of it, for the eggs’ sakes, so when he sat the mug of tea down in front of me, I gestured to the seat across from mine, so he’d sit down.
“Are you sure?” He asked, hand resting on the back of the chair.
Nodding, I inhaled the scent of the tea while he sat, hoping it steadied my thoughts.
“I am willing to go through with the mating ritual,” I said. “Our eggs deserve the chance to hatch, but there had better not be any gross fluids involved.”
He quirked an eyebrow at me and said nothing.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I snapped. “If this involves you peeing on me to mark your territory you can forget it.”
When a horrified look crossed his face I could breathe a bit easier, knowing that it wasn’t part of the plan.
“Eww, no.” Odem replied. “It does involve a bit of blood though.”
“You’d better not be part vampire or I swear to you, I will contact every tabloid in the country and make a fortune telling that story,” I threatened. “Not that anyone would believe me, but if I’ve got to live with that bullshit in my head, so does everyone else.”
“Now you’ve got jokes.”
“I just want to know what’s going to happen when we get down to it,” I replied. “Well, I know fucking will be involved, but what’s the rest of it?”
“At some point, I’ll knot you, bite you, and transfer a piece of my flame to you,” he replied, all joking aside.
“That simple?”
“It will tie us together for eternity.”
“We’ll see.”
“Ronan….”
“That’s enough details for now,” I declared. “If we’re going to do this we probably should get it done before I change my mind.”
“Ronan…”
“Please?”
He nodded and rounded the table to scoop me up, leaving my half-finished tea behind. We went up the stairs so fast I had to close my eyes, shocked when I opened them to see that I was in his bedroom.
“Okay, but you put me back in my bed at the end of the night, got it?” I said as I looked around.
No way was sharing the bed with him on the menu tonight. The mating ritual I could handle, having him awkwardly roll away and put his back to me in the middle of the night, not so much.
“Deal,” he murmured, lips descending on mine.
Every god damned time I melted in his embrace, fucking hell, oh my fucking god this primal ass dragon knew how to kiss.
Something tickled my arms and my eye snapped open as I drew away from him, shocked to see ashes on my skin where my clothes had been.
Oh no he didn’t!
“Do you know how much….”
I didn’t care how much that outfit had cost when he kissed me again. He could make it up to me with another one, and if he burned that one too, I guess I’d have a continuously rotating designer wardrobe.
Thoughts of my clothes in flames fled from my mind when I felt his fingers at my entrance, always slick for him.
Effortless.
“Why do I always want this,” I groaned as I rocked against his fingers.
“Because you’re mine!”
He punctuated each word with a thrust of his fingers, until I was writhing on them, coppery taste on my lip from biting it to keep from begging him to please just fuck me.
Instead, I came from his fingers alone and was still whimpering and shaking from my orgasm as he pressed his cock inside of me.
Instead of rough, he was slow, careful, tender in a way he hadn’t been the other times we’d been together.
Teeth pierced the skin on my shoulder when I came the second time, so hard it felt like my body had gone up in flames.
My blood felt like it was boiling and I swore I could hear the crackle and pop of a fireplace in my ears, the pain inflicted by his teeth completely burned away by the pleasure that threatened to overwhelm me.
Even my lungs felt scorched, like the air in them was turning to ash and cinders, for just a second, it felt like my body liquified, then I was back in my skin again.
Blissfully, bonelessly immobile as he sat up and stared down at me.
Focus was hard, there were three of him kneeling over me, each with a bright, flickering flame over their heart.
So pretty. I fought to keep my eyes open just so I could watch the way it pulsed and waved beneath his skin.
Loved fires. Fireplaces. He had one. Laying it front of it on long, cold winter nights would be heavenly.
Couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, but I felt him crawl off me, then lift me off the warm, comfy bed. Too tired to protest, I dangled as he carried me across the hall. I felt like I was floating. Would flying with him be like this?
He tucked the blankets around me, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and whispered in my ear, so soft, my sleep fuzzy brain barely made out the words.
“Mate. Please let me love you.”
Last night was a whirlwind I still hadn’t recovered from.
Waking in my bed, fingers instantly reaching to touch the place on my shoulder where he bit it, I was reminded of the moment when it had felt like our souls were one.
If I’d had the energy I’d have kicked myself for thinking such sappy bullshit.
That wasn’t me. I didn’t get attached to people who had the potential to break my heart.
Not when they insisted that we were stuck together for eternity.
Nope. Not gonna think about that part.