Page 124 of The Dragon Warlord

Gods, no. “Please, Alpha. I don’t understand.”

“Be vulnerable. I know it’s hard for you, but I still want you to try. Try and I’ll reward you.”

That’s different. “I’m in conflict. I’ve never forgiven you for chaining me to you, but I feel like our connection should be important. It doesn’t seem important to you. He’s allowed to call you by your name.”

“Which isn’t special. Lots of people do. You’re the only one who may call me Alpha.”

I didn’t think about it like that because I haven’t thought about it as a special term even though I’ve grown to love when River calls me his alpha. “I feel excluded from a club.”

He laughs. “You’d never call me alpha if I didn’t make it a rule. Sorry. The rule stays and you’re going to have to learn to reframe that one.”

“Stop referring to me as pet,” I negotiate.

“Not a chance.”

“You’re an unbelievable arse.”

“Watch it.”

I clench my fists, thinking about the damn dragon whip, which does keep me in line. He’s fucking merciless and jumps straight to that. “Fine. I was hoping there was another reason.”

“There is.”

I didn’t expect an answer so quickly. “Are you going to tell me, Alpha?”

“I was inexplicably drawn to you, pet. You are rightfully mine.”

I remember the times he saved me when he said he wouldn’t. The first time when I dropped from the tower trying to save Amira. When he came into the Wastelands, even though he set the whole thing up, he was dressed to go to war. Was that just in case I wasn’t going to succeed? I think he would have liked to have been able to let me die of dark wyvern poisoning, but he couldn’t. He’d said he was proud when I closed the veil and I’m sure he was, but maybe there was something more he wished to say.

“But that means—”

“You’re my true omega, Tristan. Would I have bitten you anyway if you weren’t? Hard to say. With that collar, it wasn’t an absolute necessity to bite you as well, but then again, you know I’m paranoid, so my guess is yes.”

“You’ve led me to believe that was the case all this time.”

“The answer was under your nose the whole time if you’d really wanted to figure it out.”

Sitting back in the chair and folding my hands over each other, I contemplate it all. In the grand scheme, it doesn’t change anything. I’ll have to go on as we have been so long as I wear his bite and his collar.

“But you never … well you don’t seem like you care about me. You make me do your bidding. You never give me a day off. You’re mean.”

“You haven’t a clue what I do so that you don’t have to worry about our bond while you manage the one with River. If you only knew you’d … well that’s neither here nor there. I want you to be ready. The hard times haven’t begun. If I’m not hard enough on you, I’ll fail us all, but worst of all, I’ll fail you, pet.”

I don’t know what to do with any of that. I don’t want to have to change my whole outlook on the dragon lord. This has got to be just another one of his tricks. A test. The dragon lord cares most about keeping his collection of dragons and his precious tower. I’m just a minion who does his bidding.

“If you’ve got the whole bond thing taken care of, then why is it giving us trouble now?”

“I know it may appear so, but I am not perfect and bonding magic is ancient. Older than me. It’s, for lack of a better term, pissed off. I keep you at a distance and the bond has never liked that, but I’ve toyed with it. Manipulated it to my whim. Things were fine until—”

“I took River.”

“Yes.”

Except, I think that was just a catalyst that disrupted another thing we’ve had to balance along the way, and that thing was only ever shelved, not eradicated.

“I’m still jealous of the ice dragon.” I don’t want to admit that, but denying it is making things worse. “The bond has never forgotten that. No wonder it is acting in an arguably jealous manner over my new development with River. So, what do we do?”

“This. Be my apprentice, Tristan, and let me teach you what you need to know. Let it happen. Stop fighting it.”