Page 11

Chapter 11

Malric

I spent the whole morning fighting with my dragon. He was in the pissiest mood I’d ever seen him in. He roared beneath the surface like a petulant child denied their favorite candy. I hadn’t lost control like this since I was a whelp learning to shift for the first time. If it continued, I was going to need to go someplace to be alone, someplace where I wouldn’t accidentally burn shit.

Scales erupted along my arms and refused to fade. My neck was covered too. Nothing I did calmed me down—and I knew nothing short of seeing Ollie again was going to help. My beast was stubborn, and he wanted the manny who’d stolen our heart. And he wanted him now.

There was no point denying it anymore. He was my mate. He was ours, and I’d nearly ruined it. Or maybe I did ruin it. If I were Ollie, I wouldn’t want to be around me after what I’d done. That was for sure. But the thought of him not in my life… it was unbearable.

The second I allowed myself to believe he was mine, to really feel it, everything changed. The desire for him hit me like a storm. Why had I been such a stubborn ass? Even when I said that there could only be one mate, I didn’t truly believe it. Not deep down, anyway. My dragon always recognized him, it was Malric the man who’d messed everything up and epically.

I heard laughter in my head. A voice I recognized but hadn’t heard in over a century echoed in my ears. I wasn’t sure if it was real or not, but it comforted me in the way I needed. I knew you’d find someone someday, Chastain’s voice echoed in my head as if he was actually here. And maybe he was. Maybe he had been watching over me, waiting for me to find happiness once again.

Chastain wanted me to move on. He’d said as much often enough before he passed. He wouldn’t have wanted me to be living a half-life, and I had been. I might not’ve realized it at the time, but before Ollie came into the picture, everything had a cloud over it, it was dark.

Moving on had once felt unfathomable. Losing him had torn me apart and stomped on the pieces. And until Ollie, I had remained that way. Now it was like I was being stitched back together.

My phone rang, and for a split second, I thought it might be my mate. It wasn’t, and the disappointment slammed into me. I loved my son, but I needed my mate, to hear his voice, to know that he was okay.

“Tavian?” I answered. “Have you and Kier returned from your trip?”

“Never mind that.” He didn’t sound pleased. Far from it. “Why does Ollie smell like you and also like sadness and despair? What happened?” Of course he picked up on everything. Ollie wouldn’t have told him, as was evident by the direction this conversation was heading. But hiding what happened? It was impossible.

A lecture from my son had not been on the agenda today, but here we were.

“I can explain.” I still didn’t know how, but I would figure it out and quick.

“Dad, if you broke his heart…” He sighed. “What the heck could’ve happened? You were only here a little while, right?”

I cleared my throat. “I stayed the night.” It wasn’t something I had meant to share and was probably equally something my son didn’t want to here, but it was too late to suck the words back inside.

“Oh.”

“Tavian,” I said, taking a breath. “It’s very possible… actually, I’m pretty damn sure of it. Ollie is my mate.” I’d wanted Ollie to be the first person to hear my acceptance, but it still felt good to hear them out loud.

Gods, I wished I’d had this talk after speaking to Ollie. Or at least face to face with my son. But this was what I had.

“Oh,” Tavian said again, softer now.

“I didn’t believe it at first when Ollie told me, but… there’s no way he’s just a fling. Or even a casual relationship. I feel the same way for him that I did for your father,” I admitted. “Or close enough to recognize the signs now.”

If only I hadn’t been too stubborn to accept them immediately. Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“Then what are you waiting for? Go get him.”

“I fucked up,” I said quietly. “I thought I’d give him some space.”

“Space is not what he needs,” Tavian snapped. “If you rejected him, you need to go to him. Now. Take it from me—I waited too long. I thought I was giving Kier time. What I should’ve been doing was being honest with him. We could’ve saved so much time.”

Damn it. He was right. I hated that he was right. At five hundred years old, I shouldn’t be making rookie mistakes like this, and yet here I was, needing my kid to tell me what a bonehead I was being.

“Is he at your house now?” I asked. I was already reaching for my keys. I’d already wasted too much time, I refused to waste any more.

“No. He said he was heading to the bookstore. Try there.”

I knew the place well. I’d been going for years. What was new to me was that my mate enjoyed it too. Or maybe he was on an errand. I planned to find out which.

“Okay,” I said. We said our goodbyes. I closed my laptop and left to find my mousey mate.

After all this time, the idea of having someone at my side again… it was wild. The longest years of my life had been the ones spent alone. The ones without Chastain. Without anyone. Just me and my sons, and now they were grown.

Thankfully, even though it was a Sunday and the bookshop was usually packed, it was quiet. I blamed the beautiful day and was grateful for it. It made finding my mate easier. I instantly spotted Ollie through the window, curled into one of the comfy chairs, reading.

He looked up. Our eyes met. Then he looked away fast and sank deeper into the chair. He wasn’t happy to see me. If anything, my presence caused him pain.

Fuck. I really had screwed up.

I pushed through the front door, barely acknowledging the woman at the counter who normally greeted me with a smile. I didn’t stop, walking straight to my mate.

“Hello, Lord Malric,” Ollie said, still flipping pages. He wasn’t actually reading, though—I’d watched him flip two pages in five seconds. The “lord” was like a punch in the gut.

“Ollie, I’d like to talk.” To fix things, to make you see that I am worthy despite being a horrible mate.

He sighed. “I don’t want to talk. Eventually, we can have a discussion. But not today. I just want to be alone.”

“I respect that. I do. And I want to give you space—but I believe you. I believe we’re mates.” I had to at least get that out. He needed to know.

Ollie sucked in a breath and finally closed the book. He set it beside him.

“You do? You truly do?”

He didn’t fully believe me, and I understood why. I’d messed up so royally.

The hope in his eyes fueled me.

“Yes. I recognize the signs now. I spoke with a friend of mine. He confirmed it’s possible. Some people have two mates at the same time . So it’d not beyond the realm of possibility that I would have two years apart.” I shouldn’t have needed a friend to open my eyes. I should’ve trusted my feelings, trusted my mate. Past me was a jerk of a dragon, and I vowed to myself never to be that guy again.

“You talked to a friend?” Ollie’s face twisted, and he sank back into the chair, further away from me. “About me... about us… about what we did.” His cheeks were bright red. Adorable.

“Yes.” I figured it best not to linger on any details connected with me discussing our personal life with anyone not him. “And as soon as he confirmed it, everything clicked. I can’t control my dragon right now. It’s taking everything I have not to scoop you up and run.”

Ollie smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Did he still not believe me. That would be fair, given my behavior.

“What is it?”

“You didn’t take my word for it. You didn’t trust what I was feeling. You needed someone else to tell you it was real. Probably a dragon. Probably someone older than me.”

I winced. “Yes. But I do believe you, Ollie. I’m glad you told me. I see it now.”

Still sadness radiated from him, like a signal blasting to the world that he was unhappy. “I’m sure we’ll talk about this more,” he said, voice quiet. “But I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t hurt. You didn’t trust me. That destroyed me, Malric. It hurt. A lot.”

My chest ached like I’d been punched in the chest.

“I don’t know what it feels like to lose a mate,” he went on, “and maybe that’s something we’ll have to work through. But you are my mate, and you hurt me.”

“I know,” I whispered. “And I want to tell you it was me I didn’t trust, which is also true, but I should’ve listened to you. You are the one person I should trust unconditionally.”

“So I guess we’ll work through it,” he said. “But right now, I don’t want to talk.”

I swallowed hard. “Okay. I respect that. Do you… do you know when you might want to talk?” I was being pushy, and I hated that, but I had to try.

He considered. “You can call me tomorrow. Tuesday night, I’m free. I have the evening off from watching the kids.”

If I called my son, they would make sure he had off right now until next week, but that wasn’t what my mate wanted, what he needed. I had to learn to accept his boundaries even if I hated them.

“I’d love to take you to dinner.” Or anything else that would make him smile.

He nodded. “Yeah. I think that would be nice.”

It wasn’t much, but it was something. I could work with that. I had no choice. The alternative was giving up, and I refused to give up on my mate and me. He was mine and I was his, and if waiting until Tuesday was what I needed to do, then I would do it.