Page 51 of Alpha Dragon's Mating Contract
“Hass has my building materials ready.” The alpha vibrated with excitement. “I can start building your nesttoday.”
14
RAPTOR BUILDS A TERRIBLE NEST
Walren watchedas Raptor rummaged through his folded clothes with his free hand.
“Ah ha!” the alpha said, pulling out a large hoodie. “This is for you. Put it on.” He tucked it into the space between their bodies, scrutinizing his closet. “I don’t think any of my other clothes will fit you. Without a tailor, you can only tighten the waistbands by so much.”
Walren wriggled into the hoodie—it was unexpectedly soft. The sleeves fell way past his hands, and the hoodie felt like a huge, baggy dress. The best part was that it smelled like Raptor, all ironwood and smoke.
Then Raptor’s words sank in.
“I’m not walking around without any underwear!” Walren yelped.
Raptor glanced at the fabric pooling around Walren’s hips, giving a throaty rumble. “My hoodie will go to mid-thigh on you. No one willknowyou’re not wearing any underwear.” And in alower tone, “Think about how easy it would be for me to slide inside you.”
Walren’s faceburned.
“Don’t worry. I placed an order at a specialty shop. They’ll deliver your new clothes later today.”
“Specialty shop...?” Walren scrunched up his face. “Is it going to be some nurse outfit?”
Raptor gasped. “I can’t believe I forgot to buy one of those.”
Walren groaned. But the alpha only grinned.
“Naw, I’m kidding. I’m trying to avoid going into rut; we’ve been having too much downtime as it is. Even though I loved unloading inside you.” Raptor nuzzled Walren affectionately, carrying him out of the walk-in closet. “But back to the subject at hand: I bought you some silk panties, and some lace ones too. They’ll fit real pretty on your hips.”
Walren opened his mouth to protest. Only to realize that he’d never had the chance to wear anythingnice.Fancy, delicate underwear had always been out of his price range; none of the alphas he’d dated had bothered to spend that kind of money on him.
What would it be like to wear something pretty?
What would it be like tofeelpretty?
Walren hadn’t felt pretty in a long time.
He closed his mouth and chewed his lip, blushing when Raptor gave him a knowing smile.
Finally, he couldn’t stifle the question any longer.
“What about my leg?”
“What about it?” Raptor had not paid much attention to it at all. In the shower, he had lathered Walren’s bad leg with soap, but his light touches had not lingered. The same thing happened when he had dried Walren off with the towel.
But Raptor was aware of its inability to bend. He had carefully steered them into the walk-in closet so Walren’s leg didn’t smack into the doorframe. Right now, he was keeping Walren angled away from the closet shelves, so his foot didn’t bump into them.
“It’s ugly,” Walren mumbled, refusing to look at the thick, silvery scars bunched around the middle of his leg, where his knee should be. It wasn’t even a clean join from thigh to shin. Larei had stomped hard on Walren’s knee so it shattered, then run it through with a rusty iron spike.
All because Walren had forgotten to pack him a snack for their hike.
Larei had stabbed Walren’s knee so many times that he’d gone into shock. When he had hit an artery and blood started gushing everywhere, he’d fled.
He had left Walren alone in the wilderness, far away from civilization and with no cell signal on his phone.
Walren had been lucky—there had been an omega nearby who had some experience with first aid. They had realized—to their horror—that the iron spike had left poisonous shards in Walren’s shattered knee. To stop the poison from spreading, and to stop him from bleeding out, the omega had removed Walren’s knee somehow, and joined the halves of his leg together with clumsy stitches and a mountain of bandages.
It wasn’t the best save, but the omegahadprevented Walren from losing the rest of his leg. And his life.
