Page 25 of Unhaunt Me

“I can’t tell him. The words won’t come out.”

“You’re just going to have to trust that he can handle it during the claiming vows, cousin,” Castor frowned. “He has to know something’s there. Just let the magic do it’s thing.”

“But it didn’t show Axlin,” I pointed out.

“Tritus isn’t Axlin. They’re family but--- I don’t know. You and Ren were always closer than I was to her.”

“She loved you. She loved Zayton too. Too much probably.”

“Eh, this is your mating moon,” he said, poking me in the shin with his bare toe. “Seriously. You’ve met your baby. I won’t let Kelp eat her. Go back with him and claim him before he eats Kelp and Melon and maybe the rest of us too for good measure.”

“Thanks, Castor.”

“Casimir?” he called my name as I started to leave.

“Yeah?”

“It’s gonna work out. You know that, right? I don’t mean what’s going on with Ren on her side of things. You can’t make that any different. I mean with you. You’re going to be alright. Tritus and Casalona too.”

“Thanks, cousin.”

“I mean it,” he said as I climbed back down inside the ship.

***

After we flew back to Tritus’s, my mate dragged me into the shower and scrubbed at me with his sponge as if trying to scrub the scent of the nest from my skin. I let him get on with it. I owed him that much after everything I already dragged him through since we met.

“Do I stink?” I asked. “I did shower on the ship.”

“No,” he shook his head and bit his lip.

“Are you sure?”

“You smell like them and it’s driving my dragon crazy. Not the baby. You don’t smell like Casalona. She smells like you.”

“You know Melon and I are over, right?”

“I do. My dragon should but nothing makes sense right now,” he paused and sniffed my nipple. “I want you all to myself. I’ll share with Casalona though. You belong more to her than me. I want ---” he stopped again and let out a long, slow breath.

“Are you going into heat, mate?” I asked.

He sniffed himself and shook his head. Then I leaned over and sniffed the crook of his neck too for good measure. He wasn’t going into heat or at least he didn’t smell as if he was. I put my hands on his shoulders until he stopped scrubbing my stomach and looked up at me.

Why couldn’t I just tell him?

“Trauma,”my dragon said.“That’s what the crazy therapist said anyway.”

The therapist was crazy and not very helpful. Though, that was more than fifty years ago. Maybe he’d be helpful now. Hell, he probably didn’t even remember me now. He wanted me to journal out what happened. Fuck that. Might as well have admitted to ---

“It’s going to be okay,” I told Tritus, pushing my thoughts away.

“Is it?” he asked. “You’re smelling like you did before you stormed out of the kitchen the other morning. I don’t want a repeat of that. I won’t ask about your family again. I wasn’t trying to pry. I was only trying to get to know you. It would be sorta nice to know something about the dragon I can’t stop thinking about. You’re always on my mind and it makes me feel a bit crazy sometimes. It’s only been a few days, but it feelsboth like a blink of an eye and like fucking forever, Casimir. Fucking forever! Not being right next to you makes me miss you. Someone else touching you makes me want to snap their fingers apart like twigs and scatter the pieces all over the mushie forest. Hell, Kelp even looking at your baby made me want to dismember him.”

“Mate,” I frowned.

“I’m sorry but---”

“It’s my fault. I can keep my thoughts to myself. I can keep myself off the flight link, but you still have a nose. It’s nothing personal against Kelp. I’m sure he’s a great guy. I’m sure he loves Casalona as much as you do even. It’s just complicated. And not because I have feelings for Melon. I don’t. Melon was fun. She was company on a strange world, and I was strange on a world she knew all too well. I’ve--- We’ve--- The baby—”

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