Page 57 of The Heart of the Dragon

I hesitated. Now was probably the time to tell her the truth but— "You really don't want to know. If you don't want me as a mate now, you certainly won’t once you learn all of those details."

"Now I have to know. That doesn't mean I'm going to judge you for them. If you had no agency of your own, all the blame for what happened should fall on your uncle."

"Tell that to the nightmares that arrive every time I close my eyes. Or the screams I hear if I'm alone for more than five minutes. Even my dragon can't handle it. It's why Isaac and Kitra have been chasing me around Scotland all these months. Every time I'm forced to think about it, I go a little mad."

Suddenly Rose was climbing over the backseat and sitting on the seat beside me. Her small hand grabbed mine and squeezed. "Just tell me one thing. It doesn't have to be the worst you've ever done, but I need to feel like someone, somewhere, can be honest with me. Then I promise I'll listen to what you have to say about the other."

"It would take too long to chronicle any of the horrible things I have done. And getting into the details has the potential to ignite the dragon side of me, and I'm not sure yet how he will handle you."

"But don't you? You offered to have me ride on your back to our destination. That tells me that you trust that side of you more than you are saying."

I yanked her hand and pulled her onto my lap, and was quickly awarded with the fresh bloomed scent of her sweet arousal. "You probably shouldn't have crawled back here with me. We still have hours to travel before I can meet your need. Unless you are okay with an audience."

I slid a finger gently down her arm, closing my eyes for a second to soak in the connection between us.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Stop trying to distract me simply so you can avoid talking about anything hard. Do you know how difficult it is for me to believe the information the three of you are flinging my way?"

"That may be. But none of us have lied. You may not like what we have to say, but you don't have to question whether it’s true or not."

"You make it sound so easy." She pushed off me and resettled in the seat next to mine. "If you can't trust me with your truth, then I can't trust you with mine. It's as simple as that."

We sat there for several minutes in complete silence each getting lost in our thoughts. Me in my past and her in her future. However, when she started to tremble, I cupped her chin and pulled her gaze to mine.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," she answered quietly.

I frowned. Even I knew better than that.

"Fine. You really want to know? Okay here goes. I'm scared. Tired. Itchy. Restless. Irritable. Heck, you name it, I'm probably feeling it. And I have no idea how to make it stop."

"I think you do. You just aren't ready to hear it."

"Are we headed back to the omega thing? Because you never did tell me what you thought it meant, and now I'm not so sure I want to hear it. Besides, how do we know all of this isn't just about the magic and the spell that binds it? You could be wrong."

"I'll admit this does seem complicated. But the plan is to work it out together. We'll go back to the Ferguson estate, where you can be a lot more comfortable in a private space and then we'll see what Kitra can do for us both."

"Are you avoiding telling me about an omega? Cause it kind of feels like you are."

I smiled. She wasn't going to let me get away with anything it seemed. "Do you believe in fated mates?"

She scrunched up her nose and thought about it. "I believe in chemistry."

"Okay that's a start. You're a scientist at heart, and science and magic aren't that far apart, right?"

"Mmmm. One is proven, and the other is not. But what does that have to do with omegas?"

"Omegas are fated mates, and among the rarest of the mated bonds. So rare that until Kitra met Isaac I'd never seen or heard of a single living one in centuries. And I have to admit I'm going off of second- and third-hand knowledge here because while Isaac and Kitra have an Alpha and Omega mate bond, and my other brother did as well with his mate, I've been too absorbed with my own problems to learn much about them."

"Okay, that's fair then. So we're both learning. I kind of like that.”

“Omegas are known for their reproductive qualities and are sought for that alone, but they are so much more than that.”

“How so?”

“For one, they’ve been known to be the source of powerful magic. And despite that, they are still nurturers, with the capability to calm the wild of an alpha. Supposedly the perfect balance that sets the stage for both to become the best they possible can.”

“I don’t feel very nurturing. I prefer to be alone most of the time.”

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