Page 2 of Dragon's Revenge

Duer snorted. “You know he would have. And Adar would’ve listened too. The alphas are all terrified of that little omega.”

Delton laughed. “And with reason.”

Their laughter was a welcome reprieve, but then Delton grew serious again. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Oliver needed me. I did it for Adar because he asked me, but I stayed for Oliver.”

“Which is to your credit. I’m not sure I could’ve done it.”

“Yeah, but I’m not in love with Adar. I thought we were mates, but in all honesty, I barely knew him.”

“Thought? You no longer feel that way?”

Time to spit out the truth. “Oliver thinks we’re a triad, and I’ve agreed to do a trial period where we test that theory.”

Duer grabbed his arm, bringing them both to a stop. “Hold up. What now?”

“Oliver thinks we’re a triad.”

“And Adar?”

Delton cringed inwardly. The alpha had been honest with him, which he’d appreciated, but that didn’t mean his words hadn’t hurt. “He’s not convinced, but when I told him I was considering leaving, he became distressed and persuaded me to do this trial.”

Duer’s eyes widened. “You’re leaving? Dude, talk about burying the lede. What the fuck?”

Delton spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “What am I supposed to do? Watch Adar and Oliver be nauseatingly happy for the rest of their lives while I’m alone? I can’t. I want to find happiness too, and apparently, I won’t find that here in the pack. Or the Hayes pack. Everyone is mated.”

“We literally have as many as thirty-five dragon omegas arriving, and we already have a whole bunch who are single.”

“I don’t want anyone else!” Shit, he hadn’t meant to yell at Duer. “Sorry, that came out much stronger than I wanted.”

“All good. It was an insensitive remark on my end. I shouldn’t be so dismissive of your feelings.”

And that was why he appreciated Duer so much. Few people were so willing to admit when they were wrong.

“I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I’m so confused by the whole thing.” And then the whole story finally came out and he told Duer everything that had happened. “I want to believe Oliver, I really do, but there’s so little evidence for his theory. I don’t think of him as my mate, and Adar doesn’t think of me as his. There’s only the connection between Adar and Oliver and between Adar and me. It’s like he’s in the middle of a love triangle, albeit not by choice.”

“Which is the only thing that stops me from kicking his ass. Well, wanting to kick his ass. I might’ve made an attempt verbally but not physically because, wow, that man is built like a tank.”

“He is.” Delton hated the dreamy quality of his voice every time he talked about Adar. He needed to cut that shit out.

“I can’t believe his selling point was that you were already hurting, so what’s a little more if you agree to this trial. Like, what the fuck kind of argument is that?”

Delton laughed, the incredulity and indignity in Duer’s statement too funny not to. “His communication skills need some work. Oliver’s, too, since he kept all this from Adar and tried to force us together, hoping Adar would see the truth himself.”

They started walking again, and Duer was quiet for a while. “I don’t want to speak bad about your possible mate, but that doesn’t sit well with me. It was manipulative and completely dismissive of your explicit wishes and the fact that you’d end up getting hurt.”

“He never considered that. I’m not defending him, but it didn’t cross his mind that he was ignoring my wishes and setting me up for heartbreak.”

“How did Adar react to that?”

“He was furious with Oliver. Oliver apologized, and we both accepted his apology because his genuine remorse was obvious, but it did change how Adar sees Oliver.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was about damn time those rose-colored glasses came off.”

“That’s what I told him. He’d put Oliver on a pedestal, and that’s not a healthy place for anyone. He was bound to fall off sooner or later.”

“Sooner is better, especially in this case. So this trial, what does that look like?”

Delton sighed. “I don’t know. We didn’t exactly specify that.”

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