Page 16 of Our Haunted Omegas (Moonscale Heirs Duet #1)

Odell

Long car rides reminded me of the war. Any time I was expected to sit still for more than an hour my thoughts turned back to the bomb shelter or the long dark nights where we all pretended to sleep but feared that those without magic would try to burn the world down.

My family wasn’t even all that magical. I could do a few basic spells like turn the lights on and off and a scrying spell for lost objects but those were so common these days I barely counted them as actual magic.

The extended cab truck was green on the outside and blue on the inside as if someone couldn’t agree on a color scheme for the vehicle. Still, it was nice to be ‘squished’ in the backseat with Ambry. Cobalt drove so I refrained from rubbing all over his chest and shoulders like Ambry did on Indigo.

We hadn’t really talked about what happened in the kitchen the morning of the festival.

If Cobalt was angry, he hadn’t said anything and he didn’t smell mad.

As much as I hated to admit it, he smelled nearly as anxious as I did, even if he was one thousand percent better at masking it than I was.

So, instead of groping on him, I concentrated on not thinking about the war.

Only, the quickest way to bring anything to the forefront of your mind is to try to ignore it.

Cobalt reached back between the seats with his free hand and I took it.

For a moment, I hoped I didn’t wreck his life.

What did you do if you were bad for your true-mate’s mental health?

How did you fix that when the problem wasn’t that you were an asshole for the sake of being one but were driven by so much anxiety that sometimes you were pretty sure your body vibrated with it but everyone was too nice to say anything about it?

I met Cobalt’s gaze in the rearview mirror. My brain exploded with things I wanted to say to him, but I bit my tongue to stay quiet.

“I don’t mind,” he said as if he could already read my mind. “Whatever you’re thinking I mind, I don’t.”

“That’s not a dangerous blanket statement,” Indigo teased his brother trying to lighten the mood, but he was right. Cobalt should mind if my mental health wrecked his life.

“I don’t mind,” Cobalt said again. “It’s like we have some sort of built in alarm system. It doesn’t matter that I can’t read your thoughts yet. I can feel your emotions or at least feel it when you’re anxious. Do you know how many alphas would pay for this ability?”

“Not if they were my mate,” I chuckled.

“Well, they’re not you’re mate, I am, and I don’t mind.”

“In the kitchen---”

“When you had the existential crisis a lot of folks have when they think about bringing children into this world?”

“I wouldn’t say it like that---”

“Okay, so when you were trying to push me away and when it didn’t work you had to leave the room?” Cobalt said and I bit my lip. That was sort of what happened even if I didn’t think of it like that at the time. Everyone knew I’d be a horrible parent and….

“Indi? You’re driving. Switch me seats, Ambry,” Cobalt said, pulling the truck off to the side of the road. “Before we wreck.”

In seconds everyone had switched around except for me. It was just like my life. Everyone else could move around and forward and wherever but somehow, I was always stuck in the same spot.

“I’m not having that discussion again,” Cobalt said, fastening his own seatbelt only after he double-checked mine. “I gave you an option if you want to wait to have kids.”

I glanced at the front seat and neither of the guys looked back at us. Of course they could hear us. Seats of trucks weren’t soundproof, but they acted like they couldn’t. I had a feeling that was as much privacy as we’d ever get. Besides, it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to tell Ambry eventually.

“I know that but what about our kids growing up with their kids and all of that?” I asked.

“Who cares if their a little older? Yeah, ideally they’d be close in age but that doesn’t mean they won’t be close with some years in between them. If you want kids, we’ll have them, but only when you want them.”

“And I don’t want anyone cutting on you! They’d have to put me to sleep before they could because I’m telling you right now I would eviscerate them. My wolf is not in a place where he can handle smelling your blood or knowing it’s been spilled, okay?”

Cobalt let out a long, slow breath and I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it.

“It’s the true-mate magic, Odell,” he leaned back against the seat. “It makes everything a thousand times more real and intense. I couldn’t handle you having an elective surgery right now either, if I’m honest. Hold my hand.”

I almost told him his bossy ass could hold his own damn hand but stopped because I actually wanted to hold his hand. Touching him eased the anxiety that drove my heart rate through the roof.

“You know what you have to do, brother,” Indigo said from the driver’s seat.

“Yep,” he nodded and glanced at me.

I froze in place, my muscles immobile as I waited for him to chomp down on me.

I would’ve taken the claiming bite without any foreplay whatsoever if it meant everything stopped.

Sure, I’d still be my anxious self but if it would make the thoughts of how I’d fuck up his life and our kids and everything else stop, I’d do it.

“Soon,” he said, glancing at me. “Let’s get to the lake first. I’m not even going to tell you to try to relax. Bug out if you need to. Just tell Indigo to pull over if you feel sick or need to move around.”

I leaned back against the seat and tried not to think about the constant mind-eating anxiety that had consumed me since the night we met the guys. It was as if my nightmare arrived not just to remind me of the past but as an omen for how badly I’d screw up my life.

Ambry sighed in the front seat and Indigo met my gaze in the rearview mirror. He was the only one in the car who didn’t smell exhausted of me.

“We’re not exhausted of you,” Ambry finally spoke up. “We’re worried.”

“He’s fine,” Indigo said as if they accused me of a horrendous crime. “Seriously. Odie is fine, aren’t you?”

I wasn’t so sure about that but appreciated his confidence in me.

Though, my anxiety wasn’t going anywhere.

Where could it go? It had built its home in my soul one brick at a time from the first attack on Moonscale Manor and then hung up the curtains the night my parents died.

It dwelled there now and there wasn’t a court in the land that had the power to evict it.

“I’ll survive,” I shrugged.

“You’ll keep the pups safe if you have them,” Indigo said. “Believe that.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Knowing what our carrier and uncles went through and the fact us and all of our cousins turned out alright too does make it a bit easier,” he nodded.

I glanced at Cobalt, and he nodded, “not to mention our sire was convinced we were all going to drop dead of some random freak accident for the first few years of our lives. So, this isn’t new to us.

The war was real. Bad things happened to you.

Things like that have a way of carving themselves into your soul.

You just have to remember those grooves don’t have to stay empty forever.

You’re allowed to let other things fill them in. ”

“Or not,” Indigo added. “You’re allowed to keep them too. You’ve earned your scars.”

The brothers exchanged a weird look in the rearview mirror, and I leaned my head on Cobalt’s shoulder. Life was fucking weird. My mate squeezed my hand and rested his cheek against my head.

A few minutes later, Indigo pulled the truck into a roadside gas station and went inside without saying anything to the rest of us. Ambry glanced over his shoulder at me and I wanted to shrink down to the size of an atom. He wasn’t angry. He felt bad for me.

“Don’t do that, Am,” I sighed at him. “You have your days too.”

“I do,” he admitted.

“But what?” I huffed.

“I think you’ll be a good dad. I think you’ll be a good dad now or if you wait. Our kids will have to be friends because they’ll still be around each other now or later. For once, just think about what’s best for yourself and not everyone else.”

“You don’t want me to do that,” I said.

“Why not?” he unfastened his seatbelt and twisted around in the seat to face me properly.

“Because I’d just take a bite out of Cobalt’s shoulder and get on with stopping this spiral of whatever it is.

Everyone goes on and fucking on about how great this experience is.

Well, he’s great but this,” I pointed to my own stomach as if the anxiety pulsating there was visible to everyone in the truck, “isn’t.

This magic is trying to kill me. Like how the fuck is the universe trusting me with something like this---”

My words died in my throat because Cobalt’s mouth closed around my shoulder and a second later the clear magical fluid seeped up around his elongated canine.

I squeaked and sank further back into the seat.

Ambry’s confused scent filled my head for a second before it was all Cobalt.

For a moment I was certain he’d rip my clothes off and take me right then and there in the parking lot with Ambry and every other passerby getting a big eyeful.

Instead he stroked my hair and lapped up the magical fluid as if it and I were dainty and delicate.

I squeezed his thigh, everything inside me hardening and melting at the same time.

I knew what he was seeing. He was seeing IT. It was always IT.