Page 6 of Destined Paranormals: Volume One

“If Kolton goes into heat again and ends up pregnant, are you going to move back in to help?” Elias asked. He pulled me from my thoughts, and I shook my head.

“No. I love my dads. Overall, they’re great, just a bit suffocating. But I am tired of living my life for them. The twins are a handful, and although I love them, I am tired of sharing a room with them and it being expected that I follow the same schedules as they do yet still be expected to contribute as an adult.”

Elias grinned. “Good.” He bounded over to the bed and plopped down beside me. “It’s not yet half past eight. What do you want to do for the evening?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what to do. I loved the freedom that I had here. Elias’s parents treated us as the adults we were. If I was being honest with myself, Dad wasn’t nearly as stifling as Father. He, too, was an omega and knew what it was like to be an omega and be seen as not equal. I hated it.

“I would say we could go out, but with the alphas returning…”

I shivered. Yeah, I didn’t want to be caught out and about. I knew that not all of the alphas that had been out with Father were mated. When returning from a week-long assignment, they usually wanted one thing, and Elias and I weren’t looking for that kind of attention.

“Read?”

I shrugged.

“Draw?”

I tilted my head from side to side.

“I know.” Elias got up off the bed and went to the small table he used as a place of drawing and writing. He came back with a book and an inkwell and quill. “We’ll decide what we’re going to do with our house. There was already some furniture in it, but we’ll need to figure out how to decorate it.”

That sounded perfect. Elias and I sat on the floor, leaning against the bed, and after he drew the current layout of the house, we decided where we wanted to locate things, what new furniture we wanted for the place, and what we were going to do to help make sure my alpha father didn’t insist on me moving back in with them.

It wasn’t uncommon. I was seventy and four. Elias was only a few months younger than I was, and he still lived at home with his parents. Our friend Wilhelm lived with his parents, but Lukas lived in a smaller cottage next door to his parents. Then again, his parents had nine children, and they were simply out of room.

We excitedly made lists and diagrams and came up with ideas that we would have a small get-together every week with our friends. It was something that we were both eager to do but hadn’t yet been able to because we both were still with our parents.

When Elias and I both couldn’t stop yawning any longer, we put the book and ink away until morning. After blowing out the candle, we settled into bed.

“Night.”

“Yeah, good night,” I told Elias. I stared up at the ceiling through the darkness. I could make out the texture of the wood on the roof.

I lay there listening to Elias’s breathing. It was different from hearing the twins. There were two of them, and it sounded off at first. I knew I would have to answer to Father come morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and walk back to my own home. I knew that Norbert and Etta wouldn’t make a peep tonight because they were nice like that.

After some time, I finally felt myself start to doze off. I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep, but an unknown noise woke me from my sleep. I listened for a moment, and when I didn’t hear another sound, I dozed back off.

When I realized someone was in the room with us, it was too late to call out because something was placed over my nose and mouth, and my brain became heavy and foggy, and that was the last thing I remembered.

Chapter 3

Aleric

May 1768

If nothing else, the freedom of flying high above the mountain without worry was a positive about flying across the large sea. This was not something that I had been able to do in our homeland. We always had to watch for others, make sure we weren’t seen shifting into our scales or flying in the skies. True, we could fly high, up into the lower clouds at times, but we still had to be careful that we weren’t seen. Too many had been found out and had paid the ultimate price.

We’d been here close to forty years. Sadly, my mate wasn’t here. I’d searched the mountain shortly after we’d built a house. My mate wasn’t anywhere nearby. After we’d settled in, I’d gone out farther searching but always came up empty. I’d even spent a few fortnights searching around for him, but still nothing. I’d discovered that there were humans around here and there, and there were several wolf packs and bear dens, but if my mate was one of theirs, they’d not yet been born.

I didn’t really want to think about that prospect. I didn’t mind a younger mate. It wouldn’t bother me if he was older even. I just wanted someone to hold at night. Someone to build a life with. We were here, but I didn’t feel overly drawn to the area as my fathers did.

A glint caught my eye, and I angled my wings to turn direction. If I were in my human form, I’d smile about the cave. If my fathers knew about it, they’d not let on. It had become my own little sanctuary. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was somewhere that I could escape to during the hot summer nights.

I flapped my wings twice, lined up with where the mouth of the cave was, and tucked my wings. The water of the waterfall hit my snout, and then I felt the cool water run along my scales as I flew through the water and landed in the large mouth of the hidden cave.

It was happenstance that I’d discovered it at all. I’d been out flying on a day that was incredibly windy, and the water from the waterfall happened to blow to the side somewhat. Just enough for me to see there was a large opening behind the falling water. I didn’t know what to expect when I first took a chance and entered the cave.

I was surprised that it was as large as it was. It seemed to be structurally sound as well. The best I could guess was that it was a result of years and years of water running through the rock, and a hole formed, one that grew over time to become the cave that it was. There was enough room for me to stand up in my dragon form at the opening, but not quite when I walked farther into it. But I could go quite a ways back into it in my human form without issue.