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“I don’t deserve you,” I said softly.
Ogden snorted. “You really don’t.”
I flexed my back and called my wings. Layers of red leather and scales draped to the floor, blocking the warlock out. This wasn’t about him.
Wiggles lay on her back. Instead of looking up at me with fear, a timeless understanding smoldered in her gaze. She reached up and cupped my cheek. “It’s not about deserving.”
A tear slid down one of my cheeks, then the other. I leaned down, capturing her lips with my own. For a moment, all I felt was us. Her. My Wiggles. My mate. The life I chose. It might not be about deserving, but she made me want to be better.
Pain lanced down my body as three mate marks shocked me at the same time. I lurched backward, my wings knocking tables over and decorations off walls. My blooming hard-on withered, along with the overflow of emotions I’d just gone through. I rocked. Different tears streamed down my face until the pain eased enough I could uncurl from my protective ball around my cock. I hadn’t noticed my wings vanish, but I was one hundred percent human once more.
The pain eased.
Wiggles had joined me on the floor on my left. I must have been out for long enough for Og to heal her because her cuts and bruises vanished.
The Healing Tree held two shot glasses. A third already sat empty in front of Wiggles. I wiped tears off my face and took the offered shot glass, knocking it back. The sweet, almost burnt caramel liquor looked exactly like whisky but tasted nothing like it.
“What the feck is this?” I asked.
Og reached for a bottle on the floor next to him. “Rum. Really nice rum from Cuba. Lux has some fancy stuff.”
I let the Decaying Tree refill me and knocked it back.
Wiggles grabbed the bottle. Skipping her shot glass, she took a swig. “Look.” She gestured around Lux’s weird first floor, now half trashed thanks to me. The doughnut shape showed part of a simple large bed and the front door, pulsing with Og’s magic, keeping the world at bay.
I pictured my sire’s outline behind it. Instead of letting anger boil my blood, I hug my arm over Wiggle’s shoulders and let my hand come to rest on Og’s. Though if he even looked at it, I’d smack him and move it.
“I was...” Wiggles tried to say. “I am…” She took another mouthful of liquor and gulped. “Tyson, I’m sorry. I’m old and powerful, and there’s a curse on all of us.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m missing memories. I don’t know if brown eyes cursed us or?—”
I growled, not just me, my dragon, my entire soul.
“It wasn’t you, and it’s not a curse – or at least my feelings aren’t.” Ogden twisted, voicing everything I felt but didn’t know how to say. He pulled the bottle out of her hands. “You're right in that an outside force might have drawn us together.” Ogden put a hand on her knee. “But I know what I feel.”
I didn’t move my arm off her as they squared off. I couldn’t see Wiggle’s face, but strength edged Ogden’s features, and determination filled his eyes. He truly believed what he said.
Like I did.
Wiggles blew out a breath and shook her head. “Nothing’s changed, mostly. We just have more information. I still need to bang the four of you at the same time to get my magic back, probably.” She turned to me, frowning. “I can talk now, and this is long overdue. I’m sorry I lied to you when I first got here. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. In my thousand years alive, no one has treated me like you treated Betty.”
I puffed up my chest, but my mate looked away from me.
“I wanted to be your Betty, but I’m not, Tyson.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t want Betty. I wanted Jay. My Wiggles. The woman sitting between me and Og. But with the curse keeping her from talking gone, words just kept coming out of her mouth.
“And I never can be,” she continued, her gaze still on the floor. “Even if I could have kids, I don’t want them. As fun as you might find it, me wearing only an apron and greeting you at the door after a long day of work will never be me.”
My dick stirred, immediately visualizing that picture. “I mean, you could still wear the apron.”
Wiggles bit her bottom lip and looked up at me through her lashes. “Only if you’re wearing one and kissing Og, too.”
I swallowed. I wouldn’t be kissing any Dirt Dragons, but my budding hard-on didn’t soften at her twist.
Wiggles ran her fingers through her hair, pulling loose strands away from her face. “We aren’t making long-term plans here. I need your help.” She glanced at Ogden. “Someone tied the two of you to me… well, the four of you, but only two of you are here.” She turned back to me, her face painfully open and raw. “I still think I can fix this, but I need help.”
My mate needed help. The world around us disappeared as my dragon and I focused on the only thing which mattered. My mate. I needed her to feel our connection as deeply as I did, andthat started with action. More to the point, I need to show her she came first.
I glanced at Og’s dick, currently hidden by a pair of loose black pants. “I want to watch you with Og.”
