Page 42 of Driven by Dragonblood (Blood Born #3)

Patrick

P rim’s energy had passed overhead, causing my groin to tingle, but it faded as quickly as it came, triggering a flaring bone-deep ache to radiate through my body before quieting once more.

Leaving the two of them behind in my bed had been just as agonizing, but every block I’d driven away from my house earlier that morning had proved easier.

As had pushing the suddenly chatty darkness inside me that had graduated to using manipulative full sentences back behind tenuous walls.

Sitting at my desk with quietness in my head was a welcome respite, and I relaxed for the first time in what seemed like days, rather than hours, since our bonding.

Distance is key to keeping my brain quiet , I told myself while flipping through the files for that day’s patients, even though the deepest reaches of me longed to return home, where mental chaos—but also a sense of comfort and fulfillment—awaited me.

My cock swelled regardless of my un-sexual thoughts .

Visions of Jaxon taking Primrose from behind flooded my mind, his steady thrusts pressing her against a door. The scent of their arousal hardened me to the point of pain.

Did they fuck?

Yessss.

I pressed my lips tight as the voice pushed past my defenses.

It wasn’t jealousy but annoyance that tightened my guts over the fact I wasn’t there to watch how he loved her during a stolen moment during his workday.

I wanted to be the one orchestrating their movements, my commands entwining their perfect bodies.

It should have been my words bringing them to climax and allowing me to thoroughly enjoy a show of my own creation.

I shifted on my chair, focusing more difficult than I’d hoped for with how my mind played out its fantasy.

Mere minutes later, elation rolled through me, causing my body to tense, a grunt pulled from my lungs.

The scent of cum filled my nose, and somehow, I knew my young mates had found their release while I sat hard and unsatisfied in my office chair.

“Fuck.” I scrubbed a hand along my whiskered jaw, shaking my head to rid my mind of their coupling like horny teenagers in a bathroom stall. I cursed again, clenching my jaw as I fought to concentrate on the open file on the desk in front of me.

Prim’s energy licked at my skin and faded once more toward the east and our home.

She returned alone.

Probably full of his cum.

Need.

I pinched the bridge of my nose beneath my glasses, fighting my beast’s inner push against the void he had willingly tucked himself into after I told him to keep quiet like he’d promised to do.

Longing to go to our female and add to the seed our beta had attempted to plant in her womb flooded through me.

“I have a job to do,” I reminded him, my tone stern, and his petulant whining roused my anger even as my shaft continued to ache with the need to bury deep and breed who we belonged to.

“ I am in control,” I muttered under my breath, flipping open a patient file and setting the others aside while the beast pouted and curled up inside me. Silent, thank fuck.

A knock sounded.

I cleared my throat, glad for my one o’clock appointment arriving and giving me something else to focus on. “Come in, Emelia.”

She slipped into my office in the same Hello Kitty robe she’d worn on our first meeting.

The beast inside the vault of my soul pressed for release, wanting to make his presence known to her, but he surprisingly stayed quiet.

Regardless, the second her gaze landed on me, she smiled. “You finally listened to him.”

Unsure of what to say or how the fuck she knew the truth, I motioned toward the chair. Same as the first time we’d met, I needed to take caution with the questions I asked and how I responded to her.

“You have claimed your mates?”

“How are you feeling today, Emelia?” I asked rather than answer her.

A frown flitted over her brow when my inner beast didn’t communicate with her like he wanted to do. Perhaps the fucker was private when it came to intimacy behind closed doors?—

They are mine , he finally whispered.

Yep—possessive as fuck .

And zero self-control.

Emelia snickered. “I am well, thank you,” she answered me.

Hating how easily the beast had given in to weakness, I asked a few more doctor-like questions of my patient to keep us from meandering off the necessary path of my work.

“You aren’t happy.” Emelia made a note as soon as our conversation allowed her to change the topic off herself.

I lifted my head, my focus on her face rather than her file. Her dark-as-coal eyes peered across the desk at me, but I shoved the inky blackness of my inner beast behind walls before he could breathe a word to her.

Her frown deepened. “Why don’t you allow him freedom?”

I considered her question as the clock on the wall ticked, a variety of responses filling my head.

But uttering a word about the madness inside me would condemn and ruin my life if heard outside these office walls, never mind get me in trouble for the poor choices I’d made in the previous twenty or so hours.

“Are you ashamed?” she pushed when I didn’t answer.

Still, I kept my lips pressed tight even though she’d touched on another reason for my silence.

“You are Blood Born, Doctor Macaire.” Her quiet voice, so childlike, sounded as otherworldly as her question. “The orb told me so when I found it.”

I leaned forward at her turn of topic, no longer concerned with the time. “You mentioned finding an orb in our first meeting.”

The beast inside me roused to breathe fire against the walls, longing to speak, but my humanity proved stronger without my mates nearby.

“Yes.” Emelia continued to study me with spine-tingling intensity. “In a cavern while hiking in the canyon. It’s where our ancestors lived.”

I sat back at her statement, but my inner drive for truth wouldn’t allow me to do anything but ask more questions. “ Our ancestors?”

“Yes.” A hint of a smile curved her lips as though I’d agreed with her.

“We’re family, Doctor Macaire. You’re a direct descendant of the royal line of our house—which is why both your inner beast and human side are so strong.

I am a distant cousin, but we’re family, nonetheless.

It’s a good feeling to know we’re not alone, isn’t it? ”

I found myself nodding, unable to tear my gaze from her face as I fought to process what she claimed. “Who were your parents?” I asked since there wasn’t much information listed in her file.

“My mother was a ward of the state who heard voices.” Emelia smiled, even though she’d used the past tense in regards to her mother. “My fathers were brothers on vacation from Canada, looking for a place to rest.”

My brow furrowed at the plural. “Fathers.”

“It takes three dragonblood to procreate.”

“Your mother…” I cleared my throat to keep from saying anything about dragon shifters out loud that sounded as though I accepted her words as truth rather than a doctor attempting to root out her mental sickness.

“What were your fathers’ names?” I asked rather than suggested the woman had been more than human.

“My mother didn’t know.” Emelia shifted on her chair, her gaze flitting toward my bar-covered window. “They only spent the one night together.”

Why didn’t they bond?

Wily fucker had taken advantage of my being distracted by this new knowledge. I slammed the weakening wall back up, silencing him once more .

“Because they weren’t fated mates,” Emelia answered my beast’s question when I refused to voice what I also wanted to know.

Glancing at the clock showed our time was up, but I had one last question.

“And where is this…supposed orb now?”

“I assure you, it’s very real and in my room. Would you like to see it?”

Yessss.

My dragon slammed against the wall, suddenly desperate to escape, but I held firm in my need to appear sane.

While in my humanity alone, while at Lockwood, while building my own practice.

I cleared my throat, shutting her file. “Next time,” I suggested before sending her on her way.

Long after Emelia left, I considered my reality and the possible futures ahead of us.

Owning them had weakened me to the point I’d given in to lust as Doctor Sorino had done.

But even though Jaxon was legal and no grooming had occurred, would I escape ruination if our intimacy was found out? And how long could I continue to hide them when every part of me wanted to claim them publicly because they completed me in ways I’d always longed for?

I didn’t want to be separated from them, but I’d worked hard to finally open my own clinic—even if I struggled to gain patients enough to hire a secretary or even support myself, let alone a family of three.

Being offered the temporary position at Lockwood had seemed a godsend, but what if it had been fate leading me toward my destiny rather than the resume of a hardworking man?

Would that destiny also provide a path through the sure scandal ahead of us?

The beast remained silent, and I cursed his absence of knowledge over humanity and how we could very well be frowned upon.

Or worse, shunned and seen as something evil, worthy only of existing behind lock and key, like I had feared my entire life.