A hiss coiled in my throat. I refused to be their puppet. It didn’t matter if they were trying to help or not. They couldn’t control my fate. It was already written in stone.
2
Poppy
After I readJade’s text, I couldn’t sleep. My heart pitter-pattered all night, my chest a slurry of anxiety and anticipation.
The dragon brothers never messaged me. It was always their secretary Winnie who called in her chipper voice and invited me to return for yet another season.
So why had Jade contacted me this time?
I paced my kitchen. The time on the stove told me it was late now, past midnight, but I couldn’t put my mind to rest. My body buzzed with restless energy. Not even my earlier outdoor stroll was enough to tire me.
What if Jade wanted to talk to let me down gently? What if theydidn’twant me to return for another season?
My heart lurched with dread. It was so bad I had to sit down. I slumped into the closest chair and pressed my palm to my thumping chest.
Breathe...
Breathing exercises helped sometimes.
Not this time.
The apartment felt claustrophobic again. Caged in on all sides by the human city, far from both the endless tundra and the sprawling tropical sea. The only time I felt able to breathe was when I was on the dragons’ island.
But if they didn’t want me back, then...
A puppy-like whimper escaped me. I didn’t want to think about that, but I also couldn’t stop.
I wished I could talk to somebody. My heart yearned for my old omega friends, Taylor and Muzo. But it was inappropriate to call them in the middle of the night. They had young children. They needed all the rest they could get. Besides, I didn’t want to bother them, or their mates.
The other omegas, too, had the same problem. Matteo, Mylo... Heck, even Alaric.
And now, too, my oldest friend, Rorik.
But as I thought about my comrade, I remembered the conversation we’d shared before I left the island.
Rorik had said Jade and the others would do everything in their power to ‘make it happen’.
To make their final single brother take his place as the bachelor.
I’d told him:I’ll be there if he is.
Rorik changed the topic after that, which now filled me with doubt.
I rubbed my arm as a fresh surge of anxiety coursed through me like ice water. Was I overthinking it? Did Rorik veer the conversation away from the Games as a courtesy? Or was there a different reason?
Did Viol not want to do it?
They couldn’t control him, or force him to participate. Nobody could. He was proud, wild, and free.
Yet in the back of my foolish mind, I’d thought... maybe... he’d feel differently if I was there.
But I’d been there the whole time. Six whole seasons. Six different dragons finding their mates. Six different times I’d waited patiently in the background, hoping in vain to catch his attention, or even a glimpse of him...
Gosh, I was pathetic.
I heaved a sigh, slumping deeper against the seat. Fatigue weighed down my body, despite my racing mind. My physical and emotional sides seemed disconnected like that. I often felt like a bird flapping my wings as hard as I could, struggling against a weight that dragged me back to earth, never allowing me to reach the sky.
