Page 11 of Matched By the Dragon

“Oh, Brad,” he said gently. “I think he’ll understand. He knew what he was getting into. He knew you came with ghosts and shadows.”

“But what if he doesn’t want to fight them? His life is hard enough without my problems,” I said as Resin spotted a squirrel high in a tree, I tucked him under my arm like a football to keep him from running off. Durin might not be dangerous to the cubs, but I didn’t trust that squirrel to lay down and get eaten. He’d put up one helluva fight and I didn’t feel like climbing a tree to kill a fuzzy-tailed rat for hurting my baby.

“Fight them or not, we all live with shadows. This life. Last life. The only good thing about shadows is that they can only be cast when there is a light source,” Raziel said.

“You sound really old sometimes,” I said, almost laughing.

“I feel really old sometimes and I know, I know. I’ve heard Bennie say it a thousand times now. I need to mind my business and worry about my own mates – mate.”

“Did you say that in the plural?” I asked. “Is that why you don’t want to pursue your mate? You have to deal with more than one person?”

“Eh, something like that. It’s a lot more complicated. Can we just keep that slip of my tongue to ourselves, Brad?” Raziel asked.

“Of course,” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “I know I haven’t acted like it, but I’m glad you sent me Durin. Now I just hope…”

“Brad?” Durin’s voice found my ears before his scent found my nose.

Baby Oaklan raced up the deer trail that marked the path to the berry bushes and my heart plummeted into my stomach. Okay. Durin probably wouldn’t hurt him, but what if…

“Hey!” Durin laughed. “Back to take another bite?”

I cringed. I was never going to live this down. For the rest of my life, he’d bring this up or shifters on the pack link would.

“We’re over here. Sorry about Oaklan,” I said, starting their way with a squirming Baby Resin tucked under my arm.

“He’s okay,” Durin said, walking around the bend with Oaklan in his arm. Oaklan twisted this way and that swatting at his beard as Durin carried him.

We stopped five feet from each other and just stared. What did I say now? How did I tell him that it was all my fault? That life had broken my brain and my responses. I didn’t know how to live anymore. I only knew how to survive and keep my cubs alive. That it didn’t matter how much therapy I had I might very well be like this forever. Could I even ask him to live like this? It wasn’t fair to him.

“I’m…” he started and I tried to start speaking at the same time. I stopped to let him speak because whatever I said next would probably break everything true-mate response or not.

“I’m sorry that I scared you and the babies,” Durin said, his handsome face clad in a soft expression.

“It’s my fault. I should’ve been watching the twins and listening closer. They shouldn’t have bit you. I… my brain is broken.”

“Mine too,” he laughed. “The true-mate response messes with sentence structure.”

“No, I mean,” I sighed. “It was broken before I met you.” I blurted out the story about my sire biting Chad. When I finished, Durin’s brows were knitted together and his nostrils were flared. My every instinct screamed for me to snatch Baby Oaklan away from him but my cub was playing with Durin’s beard unbothered.

“He bit his own cub?” Durin asked. “Over play biting?”

“I… my parents were a lot to handle,” I admitted.

“Your parents sound like as—very cruel people,” he said. “I grumbled because I was out cold and not gonna lie, they startled the s-h-i-t out of me. I wasn’t angry. I’d never hurt them for being cubs. To be fair, you keep them at a distance from me. Which is totally within your rights, but they’re cubs. Cubs are curious. So, they caught you out cold and decide to figure out what the big deal about me was. And I need to make one thing clear.”

There it was. Here it came. He was going to lay down laws about me being crazy or I’d have to kick him out of the bedroom because he didn’t want the cubs to sleep in the room with me anymore.

“You’re allowed to sleep,” he said. “You’re allowed to sleep so hard that they get out of the crib and crawl all over me. They might crawl on you and wake you up too some mornings, but you’re allowed to sleep. Mate, you’ve got to sleep. You have two kids and are recovering from something devastating. Our brains supposedly do the most healing while we are asleep. So, if you want, I’ll wake you up if they get out of the crib, but please don’t apologize for feeling comfortable enough around me to sleep that hard. I won’t let anyone hurt the babies and I won’t let them walk into the fireplace or anything crazy either. I know things between us are unusual, but they’re babies.”

I nodded slowly waiting for the other claw to drop. Only it didn’t. He dropped it before ever commenting on me being crazy.

“Wanna go back to the house, and I’ll make everyone some breakfast?” he asked.

“Okay,” I nodded tentatively.

“I don’t mind,” Durin added. “You’ve had a rough morning, and I need to do my fair share around the house.”

“You’re always cleaning up behind us. Maybe that’s your fair share,” I said and managed a laugh for him.