Page 78 of The Dragon's Perfect Omega
"Don't worry," he said, as if he could still sense what I was thinking even with his enhanced perception gone. "I can cope without magic, and who knows, it might even come back. Thoughifit does, we'll never tell the people at the shrine about it." The grin that lit up his face was almost conspiratorial. He really wasn't taking this hard. In fact, he seemed to positivelyglowwith happiness. I squinted. Was that an actual glow I was seeing around him?
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
"No, I just... I thought I saw something." But it was already gone again.
"Saw something you liked?" My dragon wriggled his eyebrows at me.
"Oh, you're awful."
But I kissed him anyway.
37
Zim
That night, I had an oddly vivid dream. In hindsight, I'm not sure it was a dream at all. My mom and dad were in it. Only they looked a lot younger than I knew them. Mom's hair was long and wavy, and dad's had no gray in his. They sat huddled over the kitchen table. Dad was rifling through documents, and Mom...
Mom was holding a sleeping baby in a onesie the same shade of blue as the one they'd sent us.
Was that me?
"Are you sure we're doing the right thing?" Mom asked Dad in a hushed tone of voice, as if she was afraid someone might be listening, even though they seemed to be alone.
Dad never looked up from his paperwork. "It's the only thing wecando. You know how our society treats omegas. He'd never be taken seriously."
"But what if... What if he falls in love with a—"
"That's not going to happen as long as we make sure he takes his hormones."
Mom bit her lower lip, looking at me, then back at my father, as if still not convinced.
Finally, Dad set the paperwork down. "Do you love our son?"
"Of course I do!"
"Do you want him to have all options open to him?"
"Of course..." Mom's voice came softer now.
"Then why are we even having this discussion? Maximilian is going to be fine, trust me." Dad turned his attention back to the paper in front of him and signed it with a flourish.
Why did it feel like he was sealing my fate?
I jerked awake, snapping my eyes open to the darkness of our bedroom. What had I justseen? It felt too real to be a dream. And my memory of it wasn't fading the way it usually did when I woke up.
"Zim?" Lowen looked at me, head propped on his hand.
"I'm okay," I said quickly. "Just uh... a weird dream? I don't know."
"You seem upset." Lowen sat up.
"I'm not... I'm... Okay, maybe I'm a little upset." I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to make sense of the chaos in my head. How could I communicate my feelings to Lowen when I didn't know what they were? "I thought I saw an aura earlier. Is it at all possible that some of your powers transferred to me along with your magic?"
"I don't know." Lowen stroked a hand through my hair before leaning in to kiss it. "Do you think your dream was a vision?" He tried to hide the alarm from his voice, but he didn't quite manage. He must be scared that I was seeing the sorts of things he'd been seeing. But my dream was nothing like that.
"I'm not sure. It wasn't the future."
Lowen exhaled, turning on the lamp on the bedside table so we had a little light. "I've seen past events before. Feels kind of useless most of the time, to be honest."
