Page 34 of Omega Haunting

“I am not crazy! Ormund is right here! He’s always been right here! He’s never left me! That’s what real love is! He’s stayed with me because he’s a real fucking alpha!”

“And what? I’m not? What would you have me do Dern? Pick you bone from bone and suck out the damn marrow?” Marsin growled back at him. “Would that have made you happy? Is that what arealalpha would’ve done to protect Astral?”

“He’s senile, Marsin!”I growled over our mating link.“Calm him down! Don’t rile him up! I don’t need you getting shot and I don’t need anyone tearing him limb from limb so gotdamn close to my pup!”

Wood splintered and I growled again. It was the only thing I could do unless Dern crawled right under the bed with us.

Chapter Eighteen

Teddy

The whole house was a mess of chaos, but Marsin had Dern distracted. Even the strongest magic meant to keep everyone out couldn’t hold forever if the caster couldn’t focus. For a split second, I wished my brother Duke and his group were here. He’d have known exactly what to do. Wolf after wolf crashed into the bedroom door but it wasn’t budging.

“ARE YOU ME OR NOT!?”my dragon roared into my thoughts rearing up the way he had when I almost strangled Selt.

I was a dragon. I was a Frost-damned Moonscale and there was a baby in trouble. My mamma would’ve bit my tail to see me standing there doing nothing.

“MOVE!” I roared and the wolves mostly scattered. Someone grabbed Astral’s sire and pulled her out of the way. The same old rage tickled my fingertips and tightened my core. My wings came out of my back, adding bulk to my weight. The world was shit. Every world was shit. My carrier was dead. Nelum wasn’t my mum. My family had become Starscales and I was homesick for a life that was long gone and my best friend had morphed into daddy-mode so hard that I might as well not have a best friend at all. I loved him, Laken, and their kids but oh my frost damned scales I was so tired of the bullshit! The universe wouldn’t let me hold on to anything or anyone. Smoke shot out of my nose and one of the wolves coughed. I paid them no mind. I’d hope someone else would do this for Minter and my other baby siblings. Raylin didn’t have an older sibling to bust things up. Elio wasn’t here to do it for Marsin. That left me. It was always me but I had the rage to spare. It practically rained from my pores.

“It had to be this way!” Dern growled from the other side of the door. “It had to be this way so that Ormund can fulfill his promise. He’s slipping away! Not Ormund but Lotus’s bo---”

I slammed into the door, and it splintered into large chunks under the weight of its own magic.

“Fuck!” Dern turned and the gun went off. Something hit me hard, but it didn’t stop me. I didn’t bother glancing at Marsin or figuring out where Astral had hidden the pup. That wasn’t any of my business. This old wolf had done enough for one day. If he was this damn senile, they needed to put him in a home somewhere people could watch out for him. My hand found his throat as something else stung my arm. It stung right in the center of my new lotus tattoo but that didn’t stop me.

“DON’T KILL HIM!” Astral growled but it was all background noise.

His gun hit the floor and went off again, sending a bullet into the solid oak dresser sitting against the far wall. Marsin swore under his breath as Dern went limp. I tossed him onto the bed and turned toward the door to find Jacob Leem and the rest of the wolves watching me. Blood dribbled down my arm, warm, gooey, and bloody annoying.

“Is he alive?” Someone shouted from the back of the group.

Jacob scurried forward looking nothing like the guy I hooked up with all those years ago. It wouldn’t matter if he did. Nothing and no one was mine to keep. I let him get on with discovering that Dern was fine and well. It was easy to knock someone out without killing them. It was so fucking easy. I squeezed on the first bullet hole and the metal made a clink as it fell to the floor. The other one took a bit more prodding around and I had to slap Marsin’s hand away as he tried to help. It fell to the floor with the same clink. Smoke wafted from my nose again. I needed to get out of here. The bedroom was no place for a smoking dragon. Baby Raylin was part draconic, but he wasa wolf pup. Sure, I was only half too but I was older and since I produced smoke it didn’t harm me. Still, the rage held onto me. Was this what Dad felt when he almost killed Elio when he thought he was impersonating Mum? Was this what Sequin felt when Daliah and Rosemary turned his whole house ‘pussy pink’?

“You need a tetanus shot,” Jacob Leem said, appearing next to me as if he was as much of an apparition as Dern claimed his dead mate was.

“You need a Frost-damned tetanus shot!” I said, squaring up.

“You gonna fight me, Teddy?” He squared his shoulders back at me. “I get it. Fuck or fight. It’s still the same for you. You can try to fight me but I’ll give your scaley ass a sedative.”

“Give your prisoner a sedative,” I said, narrowing my eyes on him.

“Already did. Do whatever you need to cool down but swing by the clinic tomorrow morning, okay? I don’t want to fight you and fucking has been off the table for a long time.”

“Did he tell you what he wanted?” I asked.

“Kept talking about his dead mate and a promise that he made. We’ll know more when he wakes up. I’ll find out more myself. You did a good job getting us in here. I wish you’d let me wash that out, though,” he glanced at my arm.

“I got it. You do you, Jacob,” I said and left before crueler words left my tongue. I didn’t dislike Jacob but that was the thing about rage. It took a long time to settle down and if you didn’t channel enough of it out it spiraled around and bounced off anyone you came close to. Not knowing what else to do and not about to tell my immediate family that I was shot by a wolf I sent a quick email off to Mori Nightshade. He was the son of the leaders of the Nightshade Bears and inherited a lot of his carrier’s magic even if he was a wolf like his half elf sire. Maybe they’d know something about convincing Dern that he wasn’treally seeing Ormund and that his dead mate didn’t want him shooting up houses over a promise he made.

Chapter Nineteen

Marsin

Part of me wanted to toss Astral over my shoulder and tuck Baby Raylin under my arm and not stop flying until I was back at my house. There I could lock them both in the nesting room and keep all madmen with guns away from them. Only that wasn’t written in the stars. I knew it before I even brought up the subject of moving to Astral. Our pup was too young, and he wanted his family’s support too much.

Teddy had been shot twice but by the time Baby Raylin was a week older his only complaint was that the second bullet nicked the line of his tattoo, and he’d have to wait a few months until the skin smoothed out before he could get it touched up. I spent most of that week under our bed with Astral and Baby Raylin. Part of me wanted to roar ‘told you so’ over and over but couldn’t find any joy in it. I was too relieved that neither of them were hurt. Astral tried to apologize a couple of times but I wouldn’t hear of it. Seeing the best in an elderly man who obviously needed help wasn’t anything he needed to apologize for. Him being alive was enough for me. Winning the argument tasted bitter when the outcome was Dern was now in a care home for older wolves and not taking visitors.

Since he had no children living nearby and Astral wasn’t ready to shift back into his human form, somehow Teddy and I had taken up the mantel of ensuring he had what he needed at the home. Doctor Leem said the old asshole perked up when he mentioned that Teddy’s friend Sigmore Nightshade was coming to visit. That day he insisted on seeing me.

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