Page 29 of Our Haunted Omegas (Moonscale Heirs Duet #1)

Odell

Two days after Reve died, Cobalt watched me take a shower.

His eyes roamed all over my body, following the soapy lines my scrubbing left behind.

I took my tine, drawing soapy circles on my body but my mind was a million miles away.

Some deep primal part of me yelled that I should be terrified of whatever the hand was since it continued to pop up everywhere we went.

Even now it perched on top of the little bar in the shower watching along with my mate as I made a show of cleaning myself.

Only I wasn’t afraid of it. Everything under the sun gave me anxiety.

I was certain another war would break out if someone breathed too hard in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was certain my crippling neurosis would make me a horrible carrier.

I feared that Cobalt would find me boring and look for better places to bury his favorite body part.

The hand didn’t scare me. What had it done?

In some undesirable way, I felt as if it protected me.

It found Reve taking porn photos of us and took him out.

It didn’t make me figure out what to do with him.

It took care of the issue at hand. It hadn’t hurt Crilus either.

The hand had only pushed him away from us and near the edge of the property line.

It stopped when I said I didn’t like what it was doing.

It vanished anytime I told it to stop haunting us.

Sure, it came back but guarding someone was a full-time job after all, wasn’t it?

I focused my thoughts on the soapy circles, trying to think about the hand without thinking about it.

If I thought too hard about it the others would know and be pissed off that I didn’t want the hand to leave.

What if someone else spied on us? What if one of those horrible things that happened only during my anxiety spirals happened for real?

If it was around to rip people asunder Cobalt wouldn’t have to put himself in danger to protect me.

With the spirit behind the hand around, I could have my babies in peace.

“Nest,” the hand whispered and I startled away, nearly slipping on the soapy shower floor.

Cobalt dashed into the shower with me as if he phased through the shower door but it was open and letting the hot air out as soon as his arms closed around me.

“You still have your clothes on,” I said, looking up at him through my wet lashes.

“Did the hand---”

“It didn’t knock me over,” I shook my head. “I slipped. It’s not here to hurt us. If it wanted to hurt one of us it already would’ve.”

“Are you getting Stockholm syndrome, mate?” Cobalt asked, raising a brow.

“We’re not prisoners. We can leave. We’re on our matingmoon or we’re living here. Whatever we decide, but we’re not prisoners. Come on. I’ll rinse off and you can put dry clothes on and we’ll go outside. We’re not prisoners of the spirit,” I said, stepping back under the water and rinsing off.

Nest.

That’s the word the spirit had whispered. The spirit had to be more than just a hand. If it were merely a hand it wouldn’t have been able to speak to me. It wouldn’t have been able to say nest.

Nest.

I didn’t need a nest. I wasn’t pregnant.

Even if the condom didn’t work, nothing would show up on a pregnancy test yet.

Probably not even on an ultrasound just yet.

Not even the newest one that could hear a fly fart on the moon.

Not even Ambry, who was trying for a baby, could be pregnant enough to be seen on medical testing.

“Is there a nest here?” I asked Cobalt as he ran his fingers through my hair, helping to rinse the shampoo out.

“There’s a nesting tower, but I don’t think there is a nest up there,” he shook his head. “We can check, though.”

I opened my eyes long enough to risk a glance at him.

The water made his white T-shirt cling to his skin, showing off his chest and abs and I almost shooed the hand off so we could have some privacy.

Only we didn’t have a condom with us and I didn’t trust waterproof condoms to actually be waterproof.

So I let him finish rinsing me off. The hand vanished somewhere along the way and I was grateful because drying off led to Cobalt jacking me off and I didn’t want an audience.

Reve had been enough of one to last me a lifetime.

After cumming I felt clearer headed enough to suck him off before we dressed and headed out to check on the nesting tower.

“It was a lookout tower built during the war,” Cobalt explained as we walked the length of a football field between the house and the tower.

It wasn’t as close as I would’ve liked for nesting but I guessed it was that far away for safety.

If I was trying to off my enemies I’d take out their watch towers first.

“The inside has been remodeled, though. The first floor is mostly storage – extra non-perishables, toiletries, and blankets and stuff. Things you’d need to bed down and wait out a battle or siege. The word siege twitched something inside my brain and I leaned against Cobalt mid step.

Siege.

That’s exactly what the musty and musky bomb shelters were made for: A city under siege.

I squeezed my eyes closed and Cobalt pulled me in close.

He patted my back, following the pace of our in sync hearts.

On my ankle, another hand patted. Whatever was going on I had an extra protector. We had an extra protector.

“I’d still like to see inside, if that’s okay,” I announced a few minutes later.

The past was back in London. It wasn’t here with me in the woods. This was our fresh start. This was our nesting tower. Cobalt swiped his family identification card and the door swung open.

“When do Ambry and I get those?” I asked, as my eyes fell on piles and piles of supplies.

“We were waiting until you were on the family link via the claiming vows. Now, we’re waiting on our grandparents to have a free moment to come make them. Usually, my grandcarrier does it himself because he doesn’t trust anyone not to copy them. There’s a lift to the left that goes all the way up.”

“A lift in a watch tower?” I arched a brow. “Aren’t steps safer during war or battles or fire?”

“Yes, they are. The elevators are a new edition. Like I said, the place has been remodeled. Do they make you anxious?” Cobalt asked.

“Let’s find out,” I said, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. “Oh! Little bags of gummies! Can I have some?”

“What’s mine is yours. You’re a Moonscale with a capital M now, love.”

I snatched a bag of gummies on the way to the elevator. There wasn’t a button to press to call the lift. I opened my mouth to ask how we got its attention but it opened as I started to speak.

“It has a motion censor,” Cobalt said, gesturing for me to get inside.

I stepped inside and reminded myself that it was built to hold a group of dragons. Cobalt was a dragon, and I was a wolf. If the hand was there, it was a spirit. We couldn’t weigh more than the group of dragons it was meant to hold. I distracted myself with gummies and asking questions.

“I thought you statesiders call them elevators?” I teased him.

“We do when we’re stateside. You have to remember, we grew up over here part time too.

In London, Spain, France. Wherever our grandparents summered, we usually visited, and our sire grew up over here.

We learned to switch back an forth pretty quickly.

When you’re of two places you learn how to be both. ”

“Call it what you want. I was teasing.”

“Kids did too when we were younger. We had a therapist ask us which version of the language we thought in but to be honest for all of us it’s a mixed bag of them. Lifts are lifts but car trunks aren’t boots.”

“They are too,” I teased him as the lift door chimed open.

I hadn’t thought to press a floor button, but Cobalt had brought the lift up all the way to the topmost floor of the tower. He pressed a button on the wall and the opposite wall lifted as if we were in a garage.

“That’s how dragons would come and go in that form,” he said as the midafternoon sunlight danced into the place. “This is the only empty floor because behind this halfway,” he walked over to the center of the room where a wall came up to his navel, “we’d build a nest.”

Nest.

The word played through my thoughts in the spirit’s voice and Cobalt frowned at me. I wasn’t doing as good of a job as I thought I was at keeping my thoughts about the murderous spirit to myself.

“Do you think Ambry and Indigo will want to build a nest too?” I asked. “I mean, with us. We’d share of course. I couldn’t imagine not sharing if we’re all laying eggs. I mean, Ambry and I are laying eggs. Do alpha dragons lay eggs? Stop! I did go to school! Don’t answer that.”

Cobalt pulled me into a tight hug and then kissed me.

I was grateful for his warm, nimble tongue shutting me up.

I really wanted a baby. I wanted a baby who looked like Cobalt and ran around chasing its own tail like me.

Maybe my baby would be a wolf with wings or a dragon with fur.

An egg wasn’t guaranteed even if we went at it without a condom.

A wolf baby was still more than likely because of my genetics.

I was making quick work of Cobalt’s fly when the lift dinged, closed, and disappeared.

“Indi and Ambry are coming up,” Cobalt said.

“Guess I was ignoring them in favor of your dick,” I laughed.

“You still can. I don’t mind. If they’re bored enough to stick around and watch----” Cobalt said as the doors to the lift chimed open.

“Next week everyone will be here,” Indigo sighed. “They’re saying they’re coming for a mating feast and to properly meet them, but we all know they’re coming to search for the hand.”

“Everyone won’t fit here,” Cobalt shook his head as if his brother spoke utter nonsense. “We’ll have to have it at the Manor.”

“I’m not sure we should have it at all,” Indigo sighed.

“I don’t think you have a choice unless you want to go into hiding,” Teal said, landing just inside the open garage door. “It’s not just about the hand.”

“No weddings,” Indigo shook his head.

“No, our parents wouldn’t force you into that but they do want to meet them. They want to put eyes on you and know you’re okay after everything that happened,” Teal frowned.

“I don’t like them putting a timer on our matingmoon,” Cobalt frowned.

“It’s not like that,” Teal said. “At least I don’t think it is. You can come back here. It’s the true-mate magic talking. It’s not going to be everyone. Just our family.”

“That’s still a lot of people and….” Cobalt said, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

“I know,” Indigo sighed. “I tried to tell them too.”

“We’ll just leave if becomes too much,” Cobalt announced. “Let’s not allow it to damper our matingmoon.”

“We should build a nest,” I announced, wanting anything to talk about that wasn’t a house full of strangers or them wanting to banish my murderous protector. “We could make our own party of it. We could have snacks and you three could show us how it’s done.”

“Are you pregnant?” Ambry asked, dropping Indigo’s hand and stepping forward to take mine.

“Umm… No. We used a condom. You might be pregnant, though, huh?” I turned the question back around on him.

“Maybe,” he nodded. “The nest might be a good idea. Egg pregnancies don’t always last as long, do they?”

“No, they don’t,” Indigo said, stepping up to hug him from behind.

“I’ll get the snacks and gather the stuff, if we’re going to do this,” Teal said, bringing his wings back out.

“What? Don’t want to cuddle with us?” Cobalt teased. “We’ll even let you bring Crilus.”

“Eh, no thanks,” Teal shook his head. “I’m not dating again. He’s pissed. Thinks we’d be the cutest couple ever. I’ve had enough boyfriends meet mates that I’m done with it.”

He disappeared into the open sky before any of us could offer him any words of comfort.

“Oh, that makes sense, though,” Ambry frowned. “I thought it was because he was going into heat. Teal was sort of annoyed with him too. I forgot he’s in on our weird carousel of emotions.”

“It’s not weird,” I rolled my eyes. “We’re perfectly normal, thank you very freaking much. People who aren’t all linked up to their closest friends like this are the weird ones.”