Page 10 of Matched By the Dragon

After lunch, I took the babies for their bath and Durin cleaned up the ballroom. He even washed the tarp and laid it out on the porch in the sun to dry. We fell into that rhythm over the next few days. I’d do something for the babies and he’d clean up after. That evening I wandered the halls trying to figure out which room to put him in. The babies had their own nursery, but mostly slept in the room with me. I even bought them a crib for my bedroom. I wanted him close, but not close enough to get horny ideas. I was cleared by the healers for sex and romping but it was the last thing on my mind. Why would I want to make more babies while my babies were still babies?

In the end, Durin solved the problem of his sleeping arrangements for himself. He shifted into his massive bear form and lay down outside of my bedroom door. For a split second, my heart broke for him, but I stopped myself from saying anything. I wasn’t ready for him to be in my bed and he hadn’t asked. Maybe if he had, I’d have considered it, but maybe he wasn’t ready either. Perhaps we were both giving all we could give at the moment. Maybe helping each other just get through the days would be enough. Not every true-mate response story was a fairytale. Some people had been killed by their true-mates. At least I was luckier than that.

Come morning, we did it all over again, minus Bennie and Alby coming to visit. When I took the cubs out to play, there was a big box on the porch with Durin’s name scrawled on it in Raziel’s handwriting. It was his stuff from the temple. He took it inside and found an empty hall closet to stick it in.

“That closet can be his,” I told my bear as my cubs climbed the hill to roll down it. “The fact that we have an empty closet shows how much we haven’t settled in. We tossed out so much of their bullshit…” I sighed and stopped thinking about my parents. I had loved them even if they hated me. I shook my head again.

“Listen here, Brad,” I told myself. “There will be none of that silly crying shit today. You were the best son you could be and now that time of your life is over. You’re a dad now. So, you’re going to be the best damn dad you can be.”

Still, I couldn’t imagine hating my kids for something as silly as having a chosen mate. So, I climbed up the hill and rolled down once with the cubs. They always got so excited when I played too. Durin watched us from the porch with a big cup of coffee in his hand. I almost asked him if he’d run into town and bring me back a frappachino but stopped myself. I didn’t want him to feel like my errand boy.

We passed a few more days like that. Slowly, I stopped jumping every time he stepped close to something to help me out or when he came around a corner in the house. Eventually, on the third night, he even slept on the carpet in front of the fireplace in my bedroom. We didn’t talk at night and he stayed in bear form. If my boys were confused about the change of arrangements they didn’t show it and still slept through the night. Though, the next morning they did wake him up by biting on his ears.

He let out a grumbly tired sound and I leapt off the foot of the bed to grab them. It was one thing for him to exist with them while they left him alone, but biting made some alphas really angry and they weren’t even his babies. My sire took a chunk out of Chad when he was a cub for doing something similar. He loved to tell the story of how it stopped my brother from ever bothering him again while he was asleep.

“Sorry!” I said, picking them up and holding them to my chest. “I didn’t hear them get out of the crib. I won’t let them bite you again.” I left the room quickly to give Durin time to cool down. I grabbed the carrier and some bottles of watered down apple juice as quickly as I could and headed out the back door. That way if he came looking for us while he was still mad we’d have more time to get away because we wouldn’t be in the spot on the hill where he’d expect us to be.

“Brad!” Durin’s voice called after us, but I didn’t stop to look back. If you looked back you could trip and then you and your babies were caught.

Instead, I carried Baby Resin and Baby Oaklan deep into the woods where I knew all the trees and they knew me too. I found the old berry patch and after double-checking that the berries were good to eat, I let the kids have at it. There hadn’t been time to make my coffee. So I yawned and leaned one hand against a tree as I watched them eat. I almost called Alby. Then I almost called Raziel because an angry bear had chased me out of my own house. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I must’ve grabbed it off the charger on my way out of the bedroom.

DURIN: Are you okay?

I stared at the text for a long time. It could be a trap. Maybe he hoped my phone would chime instead of vibrate and he’d find out where I was. Perhaps he planned to lure me out.

“Human!” my bear chimed off into my thoughts, his voice louder than normal. “Can you hear me yet? Is the panic attack over?”

Panic attack? I didn’t have a panic attack. The kids woke up and bit Durin before I realized it. He was mad. Like big mad.

“Was he?” my bear asked. “He grumbled and grunted in his sleep because he was bit. Those aren’t mad sounds. Those are sounds people make when they get bit.”

Shit! Was I losing my mind? Was I just as crazy as the rest of my family?

My phone vibrated again. Another text from Durin.

DURIN: I’m sorry if I scared you. The cubs startled me but that’s all. I’m sorry if I scared them.

Maybe I was losing my mind.

“No,” my bear chimed into my thoughts. “This is what our therapist talked about. Flashbacks and how your brain fills in the gaps with what it expects based on what happened in the past. If that was our sire, he’d have been so mad. We’d have had to run so far.”

I sank down and sat on my butt, leaning back against the tree. I kept embarrassing myself in front of Durin. Poor guy stuck with a mate like me after losing the woman he chose and thought he’d spend the rest of his life with. Poor bear probably felt cursed.

“We are not a curse,” my bear chimed into my thoughts. I tried to remember that Tenet of Frost where he talked about listening to your inner beast but couldn’t recall it at the moment.

My phone chimed again.

Another text message from Durin.

DURIN: I really am sorry.

What did I do now? What could I do? I couldn’t tell him I was crazy. I couldn’t tell him that I was there in the same room as him and my cubs and my brain misfired in every direction. His sleepy grumble at being bit sounded like a growl – like a threat to my babies. A threat that I could only respond to by getting away until he calmed down. He was going to leave if I explained it. He was going to leave and never look back just when the cubs had gotten used to having him around.

“Ignore not the call of your beast. Their knowledge vastly surpasses your own. They were stewards of the world long before you came and will be long after you’re gone. When you face difficulties turn to the wisdom of the wild ones,” Raziel chimed off into my thoughts. He must’ve picked up something off the pack link. That’s the Tenet of Frost I was looking for, but just because my bear had known what was going on before I did, didn’t mean Durin would react kindly. Who wants to have to watch their every move to be around their mate?

“That’s not what you’re asking him to do,” Raziel said over the pack link. “You’re not asking him to change anything. Someone bit him and he growled or something, right?”

Taking a deep breath, I explained the situation to him over the pack link.