“Is Delin McCombs my brother?”I asked.
“No,”he laughed waving me off.“His parents moved here while you were in middle school. You remember that, right? If you want him to have some title, just give it to him. The world is yours for the taking.”
The world is yours for the taking.
Those were the words that swirled around my head as I left the Crawling Lizard and wandered the late-night streets of my youth. It was bloody mine for the taking, wasn’t it? It was mine and I had to take it from them. I had to take my world from Roster and Ferrick Moonscale.
“What about the eggs?”I asked him.“What about all those hatchlings?”
“It’s survival of the fittest, son. If their carriers were fit, they’d survive,”Roster shrugged.
Trying to shake the memory off, I passed by drunken crowds and couples kissing. A few dragons tried to sell joints on corners and tucked their supplies into their pockets when I passed by. Pot wasn’t technically illegal, but you needed a license to grow it. I nodded at them and kept walking. It didn’t matter where my feet took me. The world was mine and they were mine. Mine to protect from my own parents. How many of them had my parents hurt? How many of their parents? Grandparents? Was it my grandparents too? That was it. I had to take Moonscale London and make it my own world.
“Get into the bloody taxi, Earl!” someone shouted over the late-night noise.
“I don’t want to go home! I want to dance!” another man called back.
Earl was shaking his ass and grinding it on a streetlamp. His companion rubbed the bridge of his nose so hard that I thought he might break it.
“Earl, you’re drunk. You’re getting in the taxi and going home!” the other man said.
“You’re not my daddy!” he laughed. “Medwin, you’re not my daddy!”
“Get in the taxi,” Medwin pointed at the open the door.
“No! Dance with me! Celebrate that we know who the next royal prick is!” Earl laughed. “Royal prick! Do you think he wears a crown on his dick?”
I sped up to assist Medwin in getting his obviously drunk friend into the taxi before someone or the streetlamp was injured.
“Hey!” Earl pointed at me. “Heir boy! Come here!”
“I’m on my way,” I said, keeping my tone level. I didn’t really care what people said about me. The Moonscale Dragons had a longstanding tradition of poking fun at rulers. Though, I had to bite my tongue, so I didn’t tell him that my dick was too big for a crown. Maybe I was my sire’s son after all.
After all.
My heart skipped a beat. My dragon stood up on his hind legs and roared. It took a long, silent moment to realize why he roared. Mine! This was my sign from the ancestors! The very next second, after deciding that I had to take the world for my own, I stumbled into my true-mate. Everything inside me stood on edge. I picked Earl up gently and sat him inside the taxi.
“I’m not going home with you! I’ve heard about you guys! Your daddy isn’t going to smoosh my eggs! Keep your dick crown on, heir boy!” Earl shouted as I shut the taxi door. Medwin gave the driver his address and then looked at me as if he was ready to take the punishment for his friend’s words.
Dragon omegas weren’t a short group. Sometimes with us you couldn’t tell from a height lineup who was alpha, beta, or omega. He was nearly as tall as me. Only I knew Medwin was an omega because he wasn’t blocking his scent and he was mine. For a moment, neither of us said anything. I longed to know what went through his beautiful head as I raked my eyes over him. Brown hair, blue eyes, slender, but muscular as all dragons were. I wanted to grab him and kiss him. To run my hands all over his body. Mostly, I wanted to toss him over my shoulder and pull a runner. I’d fly him right out of this hateful territory and never look back.
Except the city was still alive around us. I had to save my dragons from my parents. From Roster and Ferrick Moonscale. I had to start thinking about them by name. I could never kill my parents but Roster and Ferrick Moonscale who raped and pillaged their own – I could kill those bastards!
“Shall we go for a walk?” Medwin asked, breaking the silence. “I think the occasion calls for more privacy than we’ll have on Robin Street.”
“Where to?” I asked, offering my mate my arm for the first time. Would this moment burn into my memory? Yes. Yes, it would.
“My flat. We’re lucky my roommate isn’t home tonight,” Medwin said, sounding more poised than I felt. He was so fucking elegant. How was he keeping it together? I was one more long look at him from pushing him against the wall and shoving my tongue between those plump bow-shaped lips of his.
“All the things we could do with those lips,”my dragon murmured.
“Earl isn’t your roommate, is he?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I’d never live with him. He likes to party too much. He’s the younger brother of a – a friend,” Medwin said and I wondered for a second what he’d have to hide from me. Then it hit me. Even now, walking on my arm, he probably didn’t see me. He saw Clarence Moonscale the heir to the Moonscale Dragons. Was he afraid? He didn’t smell afraid. He smelled neutral. How did he control his scent? Practice? Magic? Some secret ability that ran through his bloodline?
Medwin lived in a penthouse above the city street. It was one of those where the lift opened directly into the apartment. As soon as it opened, he dropped my arm and shoved me out of it. I laughed thinking it was a sex thing. Of course, my true-mate wanted me so badly that he couldn’t be bothered to wait for me to get out on my own. I stumbled around to face him, and the blood fled my face. Medwin held up a long-handled blade, and his eyes were narrowed on me.
“What the fuck?” I snapped, taking a step forward.
