Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Otis
In the middle of the night, I swapped with Ilyas. I was still trying to decide what to write in my report. Mate bonding a human against their will was… bad. There was no other word for it. If I put that in my report, Eric would be hauled in front of a judge and probably sentenced to prison.
The poor bastard didn’t deserve that. His father, however, one hundred percent deserved to be behind bars.
His cruelty caused Eric to latch onto the first kind person he saw, but despite that, given the way that Hailey was wrapped around Eric in her sleep, I wondered if perhaps the mate bond started to form in the other direction too.
Now, we had a two-way mate bond that a human didn’t ask for and would be detrimentally affected by if it were broken.
Sighing, I watched as Eric dragged Hailey farther onto his chest, and she let him, neither of them waking. The instinctual comfort told me everything I already suspected, and Ilyas had murmured in my ear as we’d changed places.
This bond was too far along to break without harming them.
That led me back to my quandary. What the fuck did I put in my report?
Eric rolled again, pressing Hailey between his chest and my own, his fingers finding my stomach and patting it softly. Did he know it was me or was he dreaming of the lover who died? My body ached to be out of my human form, the bull inside me pressing against my skin, begging to come out.
I squeezed his hand gently, a steady reassurance, and tried not to think about how soft the little human was pressed tightly against me. I was huge in comparison to her. Curled up the way she was, she was barely bigger than my torso, and she smelled pretty too.
Fuck, I was going to have to swap out soon, especially if they both kept wiggling around. I might be a creature, but I wasn’t an animal.
As if she could sense the turmoil of my thoughts, her eyes blinked open. I braced for panic, but none came. All that was there was a little sleepy confusion. “Is Eric okay?” Her voice was soft and rough.
“He’s behind you. I think he wanted to be closer to the door to protect you,” I whispered. He wanted his mate safe between the two of us, which was a lot of trust from a creature I barely knew.
She looked over her shoulder, and a small smile curled her mouth. He did look kind of innocent as he slept. His lower lip jutted out a little, and his features were soft, so far from the tormented look he possessed while he was awake.
Happy he was safe and well, she turned toward me. Her eyes drifted closed again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t have taken the opportunity to switch with Louis.
I thought she was asleep when she spoke. “Eric is an orc all the time.”
I frowned. “Eric is an orc. What else would he be?”
She shook her head, a slight movement. “No, I mean he’s green and has tusks all the time, but you’ve been a man every time I see you.”
“I’m not a man, I’m a minotaur.”
“Minotaur,” she murmured, her voice soft with wonder. “I can see that. You’re kind of buff.” She let out a soft little giggle, and I wondered just how awake she really was. “But can’t you be a man and a minotaur?”
“A man is a human. I can be male and a minotaur,” I corrected gently. “Semantics though. I know what you mean. I’m choosing to stay in this form for your comfort.”
Now she frowned, a tiny crease marring the soft skin of her forehead. “Sounds awful.”
I shrugged, though with her eyes closed, she probably only felt it more than saw it.
She wiggled a little farther back into Eric. “You should change to your preferred form. You won’t scare me.” She yawned. “I don’t scare easily.”
She was scared enough last night to summon a demon, even if it wasn’t Syke she was scared of, but a human. They called us monsters, but a monster was not a race of creature, but a type of soul—a black, tarnished one.
Taking her at her word, I let the shift take over and sighed with relief. It was like changing after wearing something a tad too tight for too long. You didn’t even know that it was painful until you took it off.
I grew a little more solid, and perhaps a bit bigger, but I managed to keep it to my side of the bed. Barely. She opened her eyes once more, blinking sleepily. Her fingers curled in the fur on my torso. “Soft.”
She went back to sleep. Maybe I’d stay here for a little longer. I wouldn’t want to disturb her again.
* * *
When I finally dragged myself from bed, Eric and Hailey were twined so tightly together, I didn’t worry about contact therapy.
I could hear music coming from the gym, so I knew someone was working out.
Louis went to visit the pack today, so it had to be Ilyas or Syke, or probably both.
Heading to the coffee machine, I set it to a triple espresso.
I was feeling the lack of sleep, but I couldn’t shut my eyes for even a second with Hailey pressed tightly against me.
There was a knock on the door between the office space and bunks. “Come in,” I called softly, and Chet stuck his head in.
I had a lot of respect for Chet, and not just because he was so powerful he could crush me like a bug beneath his heel. He’d spent many years alone and had never reached the edge of what a mortal mind could take.
The idea that he’d be alone forever because there were no female dragons left was a tragedy, but Chet never sunk into the bitterness that he’d be so entitled to feel.
“How is it going down here?” he asked quietly. He placed a mug under the coffee machine. “Allison told me that the girl from your last call out returned. Some kind of threat? Creature?”
Shaking my head, I took a sip of my coffee. “Human attacker. Didn’t like that she was serving creatures at her job and wanted to show her what a superior race humans were by breaking into her apartment and sexually assaulting her.”
Chet huffed, a small curl of smoke twisting from his nostrils. “Fucking humans.”
I thought about the girl who’d climbed into bed with monsters for purely altruistic reasons. “Not all of them.”
“Hmm,” Chet murmured, but it was hard to know if that was an agreement or not. “What are you going to do?”
Wasn’t that the million dollar question?
Shrugging, I took a sip. “I’ll have to talk to them again, as a pair. I think the human has accepted the mate bond.”
Chet winced. “That does make it more complicated.” Nothing about this situation was easy. “At least you’ll be able to have the last few days of your break at home though.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
He felt ancient. I’d seen him end a fight with just a look and the weight of his hidden beast, so when he gave you a disappointed expression, it usually hit you square in the pride.
Luckily for him, we’d been at the CCC together for a long time, and his disapproval no longer made me want to second-guess my entire life purpose.
“A mate bond created and accepted is unbreakable. They’ll have to figure this part out by themselves.
Maybe give them the number for that therapist uptown.
” He shrugged, picking up his now full coffee cup. He drank it black, of course.
“So you think I should just sign them off and send them on their way?” It felt wrong. Every option didn’t feel quite right.
“That’s what I’d put in the report anyway.
” Chet grinned, lifted his mug in my direction, and headed back out to the offices.
It skirted the rules, and more specifically, the law, but Chet had a point.
If Hailey didn’t want to pursue a forced bonding charge—considering she was spooning the orc now, it seemed unlikely—then I’d write this up as a cultural misunderstanding and file it away in a box.
Why did the idea of letting them go sit so wrong in my chest?