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I’m the only one who isn’t asleep, and I sit there for hour upon hour, tormented by regret and misery.
* * *
There’s a cry of surprise,and I look up from Esmeral and into a pair of beautiful green eyes. Isavelle is crouched down by the overhang, a pouch in one hand, soggy with blood.
Isavelle looks disheveled and pale, and she gazes worriedly at the turquoise dragon. “I brought Esmeral some chicken necks because I had the feeling that she might be upset as well. Is she all right?”
I lean forward and reach for her, but I’m held back by Esmeral, still fast asleep in my lap. “She’s doing better now. Scourge and I have been watching over her.”
Isavelle’s eyes fill with tears. She gazes at the small, exhausted dragon with her head in my lap and then back to me. “Poor Esmeral. I’m so grateful that you…” Isavelle’s face collapses and she starts to cry.
My heart feels like it’s being sliced open. My Omega is crying and I can’t reach her. “Sha’len, I’m so sorry about last night. I took things too far.”
Isavelle shakes her head and brushes tears from her cheeks. “No, I’m sorry I panicked and threw you out. You must be so disappointed in the mate you waited so long for. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Her shoulders are shaking and her cheeks are glistening.
I hold out my hand to her. “Please come here. There’s room on my lap for both of you. I need to comfort you or I’ll lose my mind.”
Hiccupping, Isavelle crawls beneath the overhang and into my lap, collapsing against my chest. My arms come around her, and I pull her into my lap one-handed and cradle her on my chest. My other hand is on Esmeral’s head, and I comfort both Omegas at once.
Isavelle digs her fingers into my shirt and buries her face in my chest as she sobs.
“I’ve got you,sha’len. I’ve got you,” I whisper into her hair, rocking her back and forth.
Finally, her sobs quieten, but she doesn’t lift her head. In a voice thick with tears and misery, she asks, “It’s really happening to me, isn’t it? Becoming an Omega. I was in denial about it instead of listening to you and the Temple Crone. I’m so sorry.”
I kiss the top of her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who’s sorry. I made it about me and what I wanted instead of comforting you.”
Maybe she wouldn’t find me so intimidating if our designations were emerging at the same time, but then it would be both of us out of control, not just one of us. “I’ll never do anything to frighten or hurt you. I swear it.”
Isavelle wipes the tears from her cheeks and takes a steadying breath. “Sometimes you look so much like a hungry dragon. What will you actually do when I’m in a heat and you’re in a rut?”
“Well, I’ll…”
Hold you down, fuck you insanely hard, bite you until I leave permanent scars in your flesh, and then shove my knot so deep inside you that we can’t get it out of you again for an hour.
I can’t say that to her.
“Dominate you,” I say, and then add hastily, “in the most loving way.”
Isavelle moistens her lips and holds my gaze. When I trace my finger around the curve of her cheek and stroke her hair back, her eyelashes flutter.
“Why do you want to do that?” she whispers.
“Because it’s in my nature to do so, and it’s in yours to submit during our heats and ruts. We can take it so, so slowly. Next time, I’ll layer more blankets on your nest and then sit outside your door and talk to you. Nothing else.”
“Is that dominating me?”
I smile at her. “Yes, in a way. It’s protecting you. Caring for you. Those are all in the same family to an Alpha.”
“And what do I do?”
“You let me do it for you, which will make me so very happy. If that’s what you want.”
Isavelle’s face relaxes a little, and her body slowly unclenches. “All right. That actually sounds nice—if it’s not boring or tedious for you,” she asks anxiously.
I press a soft kiss to her brow. “It would mean everything to me. I’m learning what you want and need, and we’ll go at your pace.”
