Until he was four drinks in and grinding up against the most beautifully scaled omega he’d seen in his life, covered head to toe in tattoos and piercings. Omega and alt. Father would be piiiiissssed. But a fantasy could last. Couldn’t it?
It lasted just as long as his hemipenes had when the guilt hit, when the nausea took him from all the drinks and he needed to go. And then he couldn’t find the male, couldn’t get a number, and held an emptiness in his soul that getting his dick wet wouldn’t solve.
***
Tripp found himself in a washed-up bar staring at his unshaven face in a mirror. The only ass tappable in the place was a generation older than him and stank of mammal. But it didn’t matter. He hoped he’d find an answer to his loneliness at the bottom of a glass of scotch. “Nope, not this one.”
The bartender, an older male with kind eyes, slid along the bar and smiled, resting his chin on folded hands. “Not what one?”
“Didn’t find my mate at the bottom of this glass, either.” He huffed.
“Ah, it’s a mate you’re searching for?” The bartender grinned. Shifter. Aquatic…no, he was preternatural. Reptilian… Wyvern? Dragon? Wyrm?
“Aren’t we all?” Tripp glanced in front of him as another glass slid forward, something bubbly.
“I found mine. On the house.” His vulpine smile made Tripp think dragon.
Tripp took a sip and huffed, a lemon-lime soda.
“What can I get you to eat? A frozen mouse?” He flicked a pointed tongue.
“Not hungry.” Tripp still drank his soda with relish. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t alcoholic.
“Well, when I was in your place a long time ago, I found that it was time for me to make big changes.” The dragon rolled his sleeve up, the fire in his eyes dancing through fallen, loose locks of an almost-aristocratic ashen black. Definitely dragon. Over his upper arm had been adorned a rather detailed and wild tattoo of two bears. A strange tattoo for a dragon.
“Tattoos aren’t really for me.” Tripp sipped his soda.
“They aren’t for everyone, but nothing beats the blues like something big and a nice, hours-long session of pain. Call it a type of acupuncture.” The dragon winked before rolling a strange coin down the counter. A two-toned token of some variety, with an oni-mask logo and an address, rolled over his fingers before clattering and staring up at him judgmentally. “First tattoo’s on the house. Give it to the omega at the desk. He’ll know what to do.”
A free tattoo? Tripp had heard they were addictive. Maybe that was how people came to be covered in them.
He rose from his spot at the bar, staring the coin down. “Sure thing.”
From within his wallet, he pulled a few bills, and the dragon waved him off. “I’m the owner. You don’t pay, tonight. I know the look of someone that got cheated on.”
Tripp gripped the coin, imagining his father’s disgust at a tattoo. “Thanks.”
The bartender blew him a kiss, and Tripp left, far more sober than he’d been in months.
Chapter Two
Dray
I am the unluckiest shifter on earth.
Dray sat on crinkling paper, staring at tile with more cracks than he had common sense. It hadn’t worked. The Plan B hadn’t done shit for him. Compatible species, fresh heat, and a youthful vigor meant that sperm went where sperm wanted. And there was nothing that could be done.
“So, I take it there’s no alpha in the picture?” The kind woman sitting before him twisted her lips, not saying what she wanted between the lines. That Dray was dumb. That the laws were archaic, that Dray was a whore, or—
“They get away with anything, don’t they? They make the laws, and we bear the consequences.” She shook her head. Dray almost fainted in relief.
“So, with reptiles, even the females have to come to us, so there’s no shame, dear. Omegas do it alone all the time. It’s going to be a bit different from a normal pregnancy. Did you get a good education? You know about the egg, right?” She stared at him hopefully, asking rather than assuming.
“Yeah. We lay eggs that rupture upon birth, or even a week or so later depending on how ready the babe is to see the world.” Dray glanced at her to make sure he was correct.
“Yep. So, labor will hit suddenly, and when it does, you have about thirty minutes before you go into a trancelike state—” She gave me a meaningful look.
“I’ll talk with my roommate and my father. I’m sure between them I can set up a safety net.” Dray leaned forward, head in his hands.
