Page 160 of Rough and Rugged

He gave me a soft smile, like he knew why I’d separated us and moved forward so there were barely a few inches between us, knowingly teasing me. “I’m going to join the army. There’s a special division for shifters.” While shifters mostly stayed to themselves in their own towns, the American government liked to use us for military purposes, and they paid well for this. “I just have to get away, Jules.” He was the only person on the planet I allowed to call me that.

I nodded in understanding. “I’m not going to see you again, am I?” I asked softly.

Gunnar grabbed my chin and made me look into his brown eyes. “I don’t know Jules. I hope I see you again, but you’re young. You’ll find a nice alpha to take care of you.” He tilted my head down to kiss my forehead and then climbed back out of my window.

That’d be my last memory of the only man I’d love.

Chapter One

Julian

10yearslater

“You fucking bitch! You’ll never carry my brood! You’re useless!” My fiancé, Zach, yelled after yet another negative pregnancy test. I met Zach in college when I was eighteen and became deeply infatuated with him, mostly because he looked like Gunnar. At the time he had treated me so well, he showed me kindness where my father hadn’t.

When my fifteenth birthday came, and I presented as an omega, my dad lost it. He said I’d be just like my mom, useless and only for breeding. My stepmom was a beta and had felt sorry for me. She tried to protect me from my dad’s beatings, but after he broke her arm when he was drunk one night, she left. That was right before my seventeenth birthday. I dealt with my dad beating me every time I went into heat because he couldn’t bear having his only son be an omega.

When I had met Zach, he was so sweet to me, and I was lonely, but when we moved in together, right before my twenty-second birthday, that changed. He expected me to start carrying his brood. When I told him I didn’t want kids yet, he raped me during my first heat with us living together.

Now it’s two years later, and I still haven’t borne him a child. “Get the fuck out of my house.” He snarled as he threw down a bag of my things at my feet. “You should have tried harder to carry my brood, you could have had an amazing life.” The front door opened and my best friend, Jill, walked in. I could tell instantly from her scent that she was pregnant and that it was Zach’s.

“Jill, how could you?” I asked with tears in my eyes.

She snorted and went over to throw her arms around Zach’s neck. “You really are naïve, we’ve been fucking behind your back since you two started dating.” Zach rubbed her baby bump and Jill rubbed her belly too, looking at Zach lovingly before looking back at me. “You should have been a better omega, like me, and given him spawn.” Tears were running down my face as they both started laughing at me. My tears were more so at the betrayal from the woman I’d thought was my best friend, not the fact that I had mixed feelings about her carrying Zach’s child.

“Never show your face in this town again. You’re an embarrassment. If you come back, I will kill you.” I grabbed my bag as quickly as I could and ran out the door. I ran a good way down the road before dropping my bag, shifting in one swift move to my soft blue dragon form and grabbing my bag again with my claws. I took off into the sky.

I didn’t know where I’d go. My dad had passed the year prior due to drinking and driving and my ex-stepmom, June, had long since remarried and stopped contacting me. Gunnar, the one person to truly care for me, had disappeared off the face of the earth. I had tried to follow him on social media, but he didn’t have any accounts.

After flying for hundreds of miles I was reaching a mountain range, and the weather was turning quickly. I could fly in the rain but with this torrential rain and the thunder, I didn’t know how long I’d be able to fly for. A crack of lightning came inches away from hitting me, and I knew I needed to land. Just a few more miles, I thought to myself; I had to get as far away as possible.

The rain was turning to hail now, and I aimed to start my descent. I only got a few more feet when I saw the lightning coming for me. There wasn’t a chance to dodge it. The strike hit my back, and I instantly started plummeting to the ground, blacking out as I hit the hard earth.

Chapter Two

Gunnar

Iusuallytriedtoavoid town gossip, but when they said they’d found a skinny boy at the base of the mountain, in what appeared to be a hiking accident, I had to find out what happened. Especially since the mountain was officially, unofficially, my property. My cabin was at the base of the mountain, and I had a cave set up higher for when I went into my ruts.

How had I missed a young man, hurt, on my mountain? How had I not smelled him?

“Gunnar, I’m glad you’re here.” Sheriff Rodes said as I walked into the small clinic. We shook hands, and he continued. “We could use your medical expertise.” While in the army, I had become a high ranked field medic and eventually moved to be a doctor in the field offices. It helped to have a dragon work on the dragons, as our healing was different from the humans.

I knew as soon as I came up to the young man that he was also a dragon, but he was so bruised I couldn’t make out his facial features. I couldn’t smell his designation either, which was strange.

“He’s one of yours, isn’t he?” the sheriff questioned, and I nodded. When I first came to our small mountain town three years ago, I had been afraid to show what I was. However, I soon found out that at least half of the town was made up of dragon shifters, and I was welcomed. I was also the only alpha here. There were only betas and a handful of omegas. I had every intention of staying to myself, but I somehow became the town’s unofficial dragon leader.

Moving closer to the shirtless boy, I could see his bruised and battered chest. “Some of these are old.” I said as I leaned in closer.

Sheriff Rodes nodded. “Looks like a classic domestic violence case.” I growled at that. With this man’s small stature, it was clear that he had to be an omega, maybe a small beta, but that meant an alpha had been beating on him. “You’re going to want to stay calm there, alpha, I still have to show you his x-rays.”

We walked over to the light box with the boys’ x-rays and on top of his current breaks, he had several fractures. Some were years old, literally covering his entire body. This poor boy had not had an easy life. I growled again and went back over to the boy. “Why isn’t he healing?” Rodes asked.

“I can’t scent him, so he must be taking birth control. Which can mess with his healing.” I squeezed his IV bag. “You have him on morphine?” Rodes nodded. “Good, he’ll be out for a while. It’ll allow his body to heal without a lot of pain.”

I looked over the boy some more, assessing all his wounds. He had to have fallen from the sky to be this battered. Face first, with how swollen it was. I rolled him onto his side to look at his back. “Fuck.” I whispered.

“What? What did I miss?” Rodes asked as he came around the table. “I was wondering what caused that when I did the exam.” Rodes, along with being the sheriff, was the town physician.

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