If only feelings were that easy to ignore. You’d think that after a hundred years or so I would have gotten over them, but…nope.
“You’ll come with me, won’t you, Sage?” Dex implored, pulling me out of the start of one of my usual spirals.
I blinked at him, taking in his wide, hopeful blue eyes and the almost aristocratic slope of his nose. Dex was so handsome, and his English accent was my kryptonite. Even though I had never admitted it, I was pretty sure he knew it, too.
“Fine,” I agreed, even if it sounded reluctant to my own ears. Then I turned to my brothers. “What information do you need us to collect?”
Chapter Two
Shift, I willed myself, my eyes closed and my body as close to relaxed as I could get.Shift. Now.Nothing happened.
Please.
My inner dragon refused to cooperate. He hadn’t made an appearance in almost a century, so I didn’t know why I expected things to be different now. Well, aside from the fact that I had swallowed my pride and reconnected with Sage…but not even that had made a difference with my stubborn shifter side.
My inner omega wassucha fucking diva.
Technically, we were one and the same, but I made one stupid decision a hundred odd years ago and he just stopped cooperating with my biped form.
I’m sorry, I mentally pleaded with him, drooping my shoulders in defeat.
There wasn’t an answer. There never was.
With one last mournful sigh, I cracked my eyes open and tilted my head back, staring blankly up into the night sky. Out here in the sticks, stars twinkled against a velvety dark backdrop, seemingly teasing me from their vantage point.
I missed the sky. The wind beneath my wings. The caress of air over my scales. Swooping and spinning and diving through a seemingly endless space, with fresh air in my lungs and rolling landscapes beneath me. Feeling wild and free.
Gods, I missed it all.
I hadn’t even cherished my last flight, not knowing it was the final one at the time. But I had many regrets from that time in my life. So many things I would change if I had only known…
Except that was the thing about hindsight, wasn’t it? I was a fool, and now I was paying the consequences for my own stubbornness.
Perhaps there wasn’t that much separation between my forms after all.
Sneaking out into the fields late at night wasn’t doing me any good, and apparently neither was spending time with Sage, either. I wasn’t oblivious to his increasing frustration with me and, truth be told, that did sting somewhat.
We were once thick as thieves; closer than two omegas had any real right to be.
Until I fucked it all up, at any rate.
But when he got to this godsforsaken town in the middle of Iowa, of all places, and sent for my help, I thought…
Well. I thought we could mend things, didn’t I? I thought that we could repair our friendship, and the rift inside my soul, and everything would just go back to normal.
Over three years later and I was beginning to suspect nothing would ever be the same again. Which was absurd, really, wasn’t it? As a dragon, three years was hardly a blip in my lifetime, but with every agonizing minute that passed without my situationimproving, I felt more and more hopeless. Minutes, hours, days, years…what did any of it even matter anymore?
Sadly, that futility was feeding my emotional state and that then made me reckless with my words and my actions, which naturally irritated everyone around me, including Sage. And so the cycle continued.
It wasn’t an excuse, though. I knew that. I had never exactly been the sweetest, kindest omega in the pack. Now, though? I was beginning to even annoy myself.
It might be time to move on for good, I mused, blinking away moisture as the stars above continued to taunt me.
Frustration simmered in my veins. I had helped Sage and his brothers and their ragtag group of shifter friends during my time in Shifters Sanctuary. I had traveled the world to find obscure texts and even a freaking unicorn shaman —a veritable needle in a haystack mission, I might add— and if that wasn’t enough to convince them that I genuinely cared, I didn’t know what would.
This is all a mess of my own making.
The thought hurt, but it was the truth.
