And that’s when I hear it.
A scream.
Not just any scream either. The force of it grabs hold of my heart and my soul in a vise and squeezes, tugging me toward it. Everything else fades away as I morph into my other form and spread out my wings. I leap into the air, letting out an enraged roar.
She’s here.And in danger.
The feeling in my chest tugs me through the garden, and I belatedly realize I’m following the same golden thread that leads outside my door. I reach one of the other huts in the center of the garden and find the end of the thread; the treasure, waiting.
I see a mass of golden hair. Soft skin. I smell sweet cherries, vanilla… and fear.
Mate.
And then I see the soul-eater charging towards her and release a deafening bellow. I blast the fucker with fire and watch it turn to ash and then leap at my mate, scooping her up into my arms and holding her tight.
“You’re safe now, my mate, my little treasure,” I growl into her hair.
8
Brogan
Well, shit.
Not only does my mate have two other mates, but they’re both ornery bastards who really do not get on. Funny, considering how similar they both are, they’re both antisocial and don’t give a shit about infecting other people with their bad moods. I’m not like that, far more interested in trying to act as peacekeeper, keeping this ship on an even keel. Which… might be a little more tricky than usual with a mate thrown into the mix.
Echo is nothing like either of them. Even from the first moment I saw her, I could tell that much. How she’s been unlucky enough to be stuck with two such grumpy bastards and… well, me, I don’t know. Poor woman does not know what she’s in for.
She’s like joy personified. No, that’s not right. People who act like everything is hunky dory and custard are creepy and often hide a lot of darkness under all that sunshine. Echo’s someone that practically radiates good vibes, and I’d imagine anyone would find it hard to fight the pull to be around her, drawing in some of her goodness.
Right now, she’s being held in the arms of a man she’s never met before. A naked man, no less, who is growling in her ear about her being his mate. She’s not kicked him in the nuts yet though, even though I’m sure they’re just dangling there. Instead, she pulls back and pats him on the arm and gives him a gentle smile.
Hoo boy, I’d been hoping to kind of drip-feed the whole mate bond thing through to her. Or I’d been hoping that she was distracted or something today and tomorrow she’d wake up after a full night surrounded by our scents and then it would click. She’d know exactly who we all were to her.
But things haven’t worked out that way.
“Hey, buddy? Mind setting me down? I think we need to have a little chat,” Echo says, her voice fluid and melodious even if it is coming out a little muffled against Finn’s muscled shoulder.
“I’m Echo,” she says when the dragon releases her. He doesn’t stop touching her, though. One hand is running through the strands of her hair, and he’s staring down at her like she’s the answer to all of his prayers.
Seriously, the guy comes across as what you get when you cross a mountain man with Golem. He’s intense and a fair bit unsocialized.
No wonder he’s rubbing his dick up against her at first meeting.
“A name as beautiful as the rest of you, my treasure.” He tugs again at a strand of her magnificent hair and it stretches all the way to her waist. Echo just bats at his shoulder.
“Okay, Romeo. Now do you want to tell me your name and maybe get a towel or something? Not that you aren’t something to look at, but I have a feeling you’re making Soren uncomfortable.”
True enough. Soren is way more uptight about nudity than me or Finn, perks of being a shifter, I guess—or a dragon, since they don’t consider themselves like the rest of us.
“I’m Finn, your dragon. How long have you been here, my mate?” he purrs at her and then snaps his head around to glare at us. “And why didn’t you fuckers let me know our mate had found her way here?”
“Uh… our?”
Shit. Busted. Echo glances between Finn, Soren, and me, her eyes widening with every passing second.
“We were trying to get to know each other before we broke the news,” Soren snaps. “Not all of us introduce ourselves by rubbing our cocks all over our mate.”
“Our?” Echo repeats, a little louder this time.
