Pretty mate, you had us worried.
Do you need us there, darlin’? Just say the word.
My stomach swirled, and I lurched to the side of the bed and vomited through the pounding in my head. From the corner of my eye, Slade disappeared from view, only to return with his phone in hand.
“Get out of her head,” he snarled down the line to someone. “You’re hurting her, and until we figure out how this mind-speak words, try to keep your essences to yourself.”
The other beasts all backed away until my wolf stood alone, and it was then I noticed a shimmering boundary around us. Leaving me in the center.Me as the heart.
As the alphas distanced themselves, I was left with relief and distress at losing their energy. But my stomach did stop swirling, and the pounding in my head eased as I sucked in deep breaths. My wolf moved restlessly, and I urged her to step over the shimmering boundary toward Slade, deciding to test a theory.
Can you hear me?I asked him, and in our quintet, his dragon lowered its head to caress my wolf. There were thick strands of energy that connected him to Talon, but at the same time, they were their own entities. Two sides of the same coin.
Yes, I can hear and feel you.
When I backed away, the flow of his energy eased, and I knew it’d take some practice, but I already got the sense of how this connection and mind-speak would work. “I can feel you all,” I said out loud. “And I think as long as your beasts don’t rush my wolf at once, Iwon’t be vomiting all over the place.”
“It was too much,” Slade agreed. “And while it appears you are the one who can control the connection, I could push through your barrier if I wanted to. Not that any of us would force that on you.”
With a wave of his hand, the vomit disappeared, and I collapsed back on the bed, filled with mixed emotions. I brushed my fingers over the new mark on my shoulder, which already felt completely healed. The fastest one yet. I attribute that to the bristling strength of my beast as she stood with her pack. Any weaknesses I’d fostered growing up outside the cities and unable to shift regularly, were gone in the face of a complete quintet.
“Are you okay?” Talon asked as he helped me into a sitting position, supporting me against his firm side.
“I think so,” I murmured, still feeling like my rattled brain hadn’t quite settled.
Slade stepped in between my legs, and it was impossible not to notice that he remained naked and semi-hard. Or was that how his dick always looked?
Wouldn’t put it past him… A showeranda grower.
“Come back to us, Emmeline,” he said gruffly. “We’re not pushing in your head, but we are worried.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. “I feel stronger and morewholewith the quintet sealed. It was just overwhelming to have all the power and voices in my head at once.”
Slade lifted his hand and brushed down my cheek. “Your essence is definitely stronger, your beast too.” He leaned closer. “That bonding was beyond my wildest expectations.” His lips brushed over my cheek, and the casual touches had me wanting to curl up and sigh. “My dragon is urging me to capture you in our den and never let you leave. Fair warning.”
As he pulled away, my eyes locked on the bite I’d left on his shoulder. The only scar on his bronze skin.My bite.
Possessiveness rolled through me like a shiver down my spine. As if he’d felt that sensation, Slade’s eyes darkened, and he brushed over his bite—the largest of the five I wore.
“You’re staring with a Talon-like intensity,” I whispered.
Talon laughed, completely at ease with my assessment, and Slade bestowed his famous lip twitch on me. “You have no idea,” he murmured. “No fucking idea how closely I’ve watched you. Prettymuch from the second you were dragged into our world. And now… now I can feel you in my essence. I can track you with my beast. There’s nowhere on Earth you could run that I wouldn’t find you. You don’t even need that jewelry, as there’s a much larger, more vicious dragon around your throat.” He grasped the necklace that I hadn’t taken off since that track day.
His confessions might have been concerning if I wasn’t as equally obsessed with my alphas. “I can find you too, Scary Shifter,” I reminded him. “You’re all mine.”
I tilted my head back to meet an amused gaze staring down at me, and I found myself brushing my fingers over the scar on Talon’s cheek. I hated the reasons for the scar, but I loved every part of this dragon. “You and I have some unfinished business, Tal.”
His mirth faded under an inferno of heat, and the ravenous stare he bestowed on me had my thighs clenching. “You should probably rest,” he ground out, and I could feel the strength it took for him to say that. Our new bond was allowing some of the alpha’s thoughts and emotions to reach me, no doubt due to my lack of experience in knowing how to keep our beasts locked down.
Twisting in his hold, I hugged him closer. Or he let me, since there was no way I could move a mountain of dragon shifter against his will. “I feel better than I have in years,” I said, scratching my nails over his short hair, which got a very purr-like rumble from him.
Turned out dragons could definitely purr. My big scary kitty beasts.
“I’m stronger and more capable than I was twenty minutes ago,” I reminded him, “and I don’t want to wait another second for us to seal the final strands of our bond.”
Slade backed up a few steps from us, as if he was giving Talon and me our chance to really bond. I put my full focus into the newest, but no less important, member of my quintet.
“Hey,” I whispered, running my finger over his scar again. His throat worked with each touch, and our gazes were locked. “I want you to know how happy I am that we made it here. We’re stronger than ever, and this feels right.”
