Chapter 28
Milo
How many eyes were too many eyes to have on you? And how many people looking at the bruises your mate had left on your neck were too many people?
Milo was asking the important questions, he felt.
Existential ones.
They helped him not spiral, because he was being placed in a spotlight he absolutely did not want to be in.
But they’d shone it in his eyes when they showed up at Rowan's door like an inquisition, interrupting the peace they had found nesting in the last few days and crowding inside their little cocoon to ask dumb questions.
Sitting on Rowan’s lap probably wasn’t helping matters.
Cuddling into his chest absolutely wasn’t.
But he couldn’t relax enough to just face them without Rowan’s support, and quite frankly, he didn’t want to.
He’d found his mate and he didn’t want to be apart from him.
Not even to avoid scrutiny and squinty eyes.
Fuck them, honestly. Who gave them the right to judge how he loved or how he was loved? Milo didn’t say anything about their love lives. And he could. Probably. He had absolutely no idea what their love lives were like, but he could find out. Everyone had dirt in their past.
He clenched his fists around Rowan’s shirt and his heartbeat picked up.
“Settle down,” Rowan rumbled into his ear, rubbing a hand over his back. “Nobody is here to hurt us.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Milo grumbled, squinting at Ruben, who was sitting way too close to Ray. Closer than he had any reason to.
“We really aren’t,” Rupert said.
He was directly opposite them on the couch—it had been moved from its prime spot in their nest, which had already irritated Milo—and was dressed in a suit that was too pretentious for Milo’s eyes to handle right now.
“You’re glaring,” Milo said, pointing a finger at the line between his eyebrows. “I don’t like being glared at.”
“You’d think you’d be used to it,” Ethel said.
Milo snapped his head toward her. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I’m not picking sides. I’m just here for the entertainment. They canceled Restless.” She picked something out of a bowl in her lap and Milo gasped when he realized it was popcorn.
“You are evil,” he told her, resting his ear over Rowan’s heart. “Tell her to stop.”
Rowan tensed underneath him, torn between wanting to please him and refusing to be mean to his people.
“I…”
“You have my permission,” Milo said, patting his stomach, and Rowan relaxed.
“Don’t upset him,” he told Ethel, and Ruben made a whipping motion with his hand.
“Quit it,” Ray said, putting his hand on Ruben’s wrist and pushing it down. Milo frowned at that, throwing a look at Ray, who shook his head. As if Milo would just let it go like that. Ray had explaining to do. Loads of it.
“Maybe we could just state why we’re all here and then leave them be?” Raina suggested, winking at Milo. He decided she was probably his favorite non-Rowan Rangecroft.
“We’re still waiting for Riley,” Rowan’s mother said.
Ruben snorted. “As if Riley’s gonna come.”
“She’s not coming?” Rupert asked. “I specifically told her that everyone is required to come.”
“She said, and I quote—” Ruben looked at his phone. “—I would rather floss with male pubes than have a group discussion about my brother’s love life, end quote.”
“Ew,” Raina said.
“It’s really not that bad,” Ruben said, earning himself a slap on the head. “Ow, Mom. What the hell?”
“Just felt like it.” She shrugged and Milo found himself smiling despite the tension and worry he was feeling.
“Can we please get back on track? I have a meeting in an hour,” Troy said, looking at his watch. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Because there’s too many Rangecrofts in one room and we need a voice of reason,” Raina said. “Also you’re Rowan’s best friend.”
“When I said yes to your proposal I did not mean yes to being the family mediator. Same goes for the best friend duties!”
“It was in the fine print.” Raina patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” Rowan called, his voice rumbling from beneath Milo’s ear, and he mewled softly at the sound.
“That’s insane,” Ruben said.
Raina nodded. “I never thought I’d see it in person, to be fair.”
“See what?” Rowan asked. “Someone needs to do some explaining here. Finding a mate isn’t really a huge deal, so what’s with the group meeting?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Raina asked and Milo looked up to see Rowan frowning at her. Clearly he wasn’t the only one confused by whatever was happening.
“I mean, obviously it’s the best thing and I’m happy I found mine, but you didn’t stage an intervention for Raina and Troy,” he said.
“Because Troy is a full dragon and not a mythical, extinct half-breed nobody has seen in centuries?” Raina said, and Milo felt the exact moment Rowan truly heard the words because his heart stuttered under his cheek and his entire body locked, tense and vibrating with suppressed energy.
“What?” Rowan asked.
Milo felt his anxiety spike. He clawed at Rowan’s chest, trying to get closer to him, trying to burrow under his skin.
He didn’t like the thick, oppressive tension in the air. He didn’t like the implication that there was something wrong with him. Something that called for an intervention. Were they taking him away? Were they prying Rowan away from him? Would he lose him before he even got to truly have him?
He didn’t want that.
“No,” he whimpered, pushing his face into Rowan’s chest.
“Mi,” Rowan called, but he shook his head.
“Don’t want to go,” Milo said. “You said forever.”
“I did say forever.” Rowan kissed the top of his head. “And I meant it.”
“They’re taking you. They’re here to take you away. I’m not good enough. Not right.”
Ethel gasped.
“Take that back!” Ray said to someone before Ruben shushed him.
The rumble in Rowan’s chest reverberated through the air around them. It rattled off the walls and forced everyone into silence.
“You’re perfect for me,” Rowan said. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I will not have you doubt that ever again. If anyone here says otherwise it’ll be the last conversation we ever have.”
“That is not what we said, Rowan,” Rowan’s mother said, her voice gentler than the other ones. Softer. Milo liked it. At least he’d thought he did before it came out that they were there to break them up.
“It’s what we heard,” Rowan said. Milo relaxed a tiny bit, reassured by Rowan placing himself firmly on his side. Against his family.
“Your emotions are clouding your judgment and that’s to be expected,” Rupert said. “Finding your mate under normal circumstances is disorienting. And this…”
“Someone needs to start explaining things right now,” Rowan growled.
Milo looked through his lashes at the people gathered there and watched them trade meaningful glances about who would speak first.
“Rowan,” Raina said, “Milo is a half dragon.”
That…sounded anticlimactic AF.
He lifted his head and stared at her, wide-eyed and confused. The beast inside him settled a bit and he felt more like the human Milo who didn’t filter his words. “That’s it? I’m half dragon and you all lost your collective shit because of it?”
He turned to look at Rowan, ready to share a laugh with him over the absurdity, but found him staring at his family, lips slightly parted and a shocked expression on his face.
“That’s why we couldn’t find his breed in any of the books,” Rowan said softly.
“I don’t know where you looked, but they’re generally not even mentioned in the newest literature,” Raina said. “They’ve been gone forever.”
“I don’t understand,” Milo said.
“Half dragons, or people with one dragon and one human parent, have always had a tumultuous history, Milo,” Rowan’s mother said.
“They inherit traits from both sides that don’t easily coexist in one body.
While there is a full dragon in you in terms of your shift, the human side remains unmoored while the dragon is out. ”
“But you shift too,” Milo said, unable to make sense of it.
“We do,” Raina said. “But we are still dragons. Our unshifted form is still a dragon. It yields to the shift and feels comfortable with it. With half dragons, the human side has to step aside to allow the dragon to exist, and as such, it starts feeling restless. Scared and anxious. Terrified of being erased.”
“I didn’t feel any of that,” Milo said.
“It’s because you didn’t know you were a dragon,” Rowan said softly. “You learned that and shifted for the first time with me. With your mate present and holding you together.”
“I…”
“It’s a beautiful thing, Milo,” Raina said. “Half dragons are the most devoted, loyal, dedicated mates a dragon could ever hope to have. They are a treasure to those who mate with them.”
“But they are a lot of work too,” Rupert said.
“They demand attention, they crave that same devotion in return. They are single-mindedly focused on their mate and expect that same single-mindedness in return. Evolutionary, they could lead to trouble for both species, so they just kind of…quietly faded into obscurity.”
Milo mulled the words over and they rang true. The despair he felt with Rowan gone. The constant need to have him close. The feeling of dread when he didn’t hear from him. It was so much. Too much.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Rowan.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Rowan glared at his father. “I told you it would be the last conversation we have if you made him feel like this again.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult, Rowan,” Rupert said. “It’s just a fact. A logistical thing you will have to think about if you want the two of you to work.”
“We all want it to work,” Raina said. “I’ve never seen you happier, Rowan, never seen you more settled than you are right now, with him in your arms.”
Milo preened. “I can be good for you. I can make you happy. I can learn to not be a burden, I promise.”