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“Tyson, did you relock the door on your way in?” Wiggles demanded, turning to me.
I blinked a few times. “No, I melted the door handle off. It’s gone.”
Wiggles pulled on her hair. “Right. How far behind you are the guards?”
I blinked again. “That’s all you have to fecking say to me?” I stepped forward, hating the droop in my shoulders but not able to stop it. I’d been so mad when that hazy feck had appeared and claimed to have gifted me to Wiggles.
I wasn’t a gift.
No one controlled my actions except for me.
I’d marked her of my own free will.
My entire life, I’d bent and bowed to my sire. I thought I’d been happy, but I’d been playing a part, pretending to be what he wanted because I didn’t understand what made me truly happy. It took a crazy, powerless witch stealing my heart to force me to see that truth. Now that I did, my eyes would never shut again.
Jay had fundamentally shifted something inside me, and I wasn’t going to fecking lose her.
Anger made my blood rush, and I straightened my shoulders. “I won you. I bathed you. I let you blow me while Rehan fucked you. I played nice with your other mates, all for you, and all you want to know is why I didn’t lock the door?”
Jay stepped past Ogden, putting her face right in mine, though she still had to look up to do it. “Yes, Tyson. You did all of those things, but I will shit my pants right now if they were all for me.” She put her hand over my heart, exactly where it sat when she relit my fire. My pulse raced. “I’m being hunted by every fucking dragon on this island. If you want to have apersonal chat with me, you either put me back in the oubliette or help me.”
I growled. “Or I just take you now and put you in a fire prison of my own.”
Wiggles bit her lower lip. “Is that really what you want?”
My racing pulse slowed. My room, full of all the shite I didn’t know if I really liked, filled my memory. My interactions with her other mates burned. I shook with rage but had no idea who to take it out on.
One side of Wiggle’s lips quirked up. “The door, fire boy.”
The nickname should have pissed me off. Instead, Wiggle’s smirk as she said it made my dick twitch. I snarled and turned back for the stairs.
“I’m not leaving either,” Ogden said as I exited. “I know what you’re doing, and you won’t push me away, Jay.”
“Away, Jay,” Wiggles repeated with a snort. “Then start shutting the storm shutters and locking them...”
The sound of her voice vanished as I made it to the bottom of the tower. Footsteps running up the stairs echoed. I sprinted to the door only to pause. I hadn’t promised to follow her lead, and now I was alone. I could just let the guards in and lead them to her.
My dragon let out a low whine. Wiggles didn’t follow me to make sure I shut the door, and neither did the Prince of Compost. On some level, they both trusted me. My heart swelled, and I slammed the door shut. Focusing all my anger into heat, I created a beam of fire and welded the metal to its frame. I’d only gotten half of it melted when the first guard slammed against the door. The middle dented while the still-cooling frame groaned.
“Ogden, a little fecking help!” I bellowed.
The earth dragon came flying down the stairs and flung himself against the door, chanting and tracing the runes on hisarms. He wasn’t paying attention to me. If I slipped up my heated beam or lost concentration… feck, even if I wanted him out of the picture, I could cut him in half in seconds. But the Dung Beetle didn’t even glance at me. He focused on keeping us safe.
On some level, he trusted me. Something hot and good bloomed to life in my chest.
“Tyson, my boy,” my sire’s voice came through the hole where the door latch used to be. “She’s controlling you. It’s evil magic. Stop this, let us in.”
Control.
Hot rage bloomed in my chest, and I channeled it into my fire. Faster than I knew I was capable of, I finished welding the door shut. A wave of emotion hit me hard. “She might be controlling me, but at least she’s honest about it.”
I didn’t know where the words came from, but they felt right. The ground tilted, or maybe I tilted and stumbled backward. Ogden’s chanting came to a climax, and dirty brown magic ripped off his left wrist. A spider web of black tar bloomed to life across the door.
For a brief moment, Og glowed almost a light golden color. I’d seen colors, many different colors, as a child. I blinked, and it vanished. I gasped for air as my painful past mixed with fear. I cut off my sire. A sealed door now sat between us. There was no talking my way out of this or saying the right thing to get back into his good graces. I’d taken the words I said at the EM and turned them into actions.
Whatever spell Og used to keep out intruders made the air heavy. Not even the buzz of electronics filled the silence. I floated in a different world. Wiggles too calm footsteps made the spiral stairs rattle. Each one gained volume until her bare feet slapped against cold stone. My anger snapped. My fists rose, and my feet moved before my brain caught up.
Wiggles caught my right punch and then my left in her palms. I snarled and forced her to the ground. Although I saw Og move towards us out of the corner of my eye, something stopped him. My knees thunked on the dark rug covering the stone floor, and I loomed over Wiggles like the predator I was. The smell of her drying blood hit my nose, and a heavy cloud of guilt replaced my anger. She was my mate and hurt, and I’d turned my anger on her.
