Scorch(5)

I’d just found my fated mate and then realized that I couldn’t have him, all within the span of a few heartbeats. And he had left. My mate—Devin—had left. Without even looking at me.

How could he not have felt it?

My dragon was thrashing inside me, burning with a fierce urgency that was totally out of character for my normally relaxed otherself. It was pushing me to go after the beautiful man and claim him—immediately—but the human part of me couldn’t stop staring at my mate’s pregnant wife. With a sinking feeling of despair, I realized that it wasn’t going to be that easy. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to calm my dragon.

“Maks,” Ty said, giving me another sharp tug. “Dude, you’re steaming. I mean, literally. I think you should get out of here.”

I let Ty lead me out of the room, which as a bonus served to quiet my otherself, since we were moving in the direction that my mate had gone. Once we were outside the building, Ty pulled me around the corner and stopped.

“Okay, spill,” he said. “What’s going on, Maks?”

I couldn’t answer. I was in shock. I’d wanted this, wanted to find him… but now that I had, it was the most painful thing that had ever happened to me. And I didn’t like pain.

“‘Smoke coming out of your ears’ is just a figure of speech for us mere humans,” Ty went on when I’d been quiet for too long, wafting his hand through the air around my head.

The movement disturbed hot clouds of vapor that I hadn’t even noticed. I was steaming.

“I’m going to take a stab in the dark and guess that something dragon-ish is going south,” Ty continued. “Is there anything I can do to help you calm down before you explode into some sort of fiery, winged shit that will be hard to avoid questions about?”

He was right. I had to get myself under control. I couldn’t even remember the last time my dragon had tried to assert its will over my human self. My relationship with my otherself was easy. Relaxed. I never felt out of control, and now that I did, I wasn’t at all sure how to go about getting it back… especially when I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. What I wanted to do was the same thing that my otherself did: find my mate and claim him.

But that was impossible, because Devin was already taken, and the fact was killing me.

I remembered something Dane had said when he’d found his own mate. “It’s as if, out of all the humans that ever were or will be, Wesley is the other half of my soul. I just hope it never happens to you, my friend, because I’ve barely touched him, and I already don’t know how I’m going to go on without him.”

At the time, it had sounded a bit overly dramatic, but now I knew exactly what my friend had meant. I hadn’t touched Devin at all—hadn’t even spoken to him—and yet I’d suddenly realized that I’d lived for the last two hundred years incomplete… and I hadn’t even known it until a few minutes ago.

I only realized that I was shaking when Ty gripped my shoulders. He got right up in my face and forced me to make eye contact.

“Dude, seriously—chillax. Whatever is going through your head right now, it doesn’t really seem to be working with the ‘calm down’ strategy. What’s going on?”

I made myself relax, letting out a slow breath and willing my dragon to back down. I gave Ty a short nod once I felt the heat inside me start to dissipate, and he dropped his hands, stepping back a couple of paces to give me some space.

“My mate,” I told him.

Ty frowned. He’d obviously heard the tension that was still in my voice. I tried another slow breath. Hopefully this time I could sound less like I was about to implode.

“The man who just left the party. He was my fated mate,” I said.

Ty’s eyes widened. “Are you talking about the breathing-fire-into-him shit? The ‘I-woud-die-for-him’ thing? Like my brother has?”

I nodded. Ty was one of the few humans who knew what it meant, but he still didn’t understand, and the excitement in his voice stung like salt in a wound.

“Fuck, that’s awesome!” Ty went on, grinning. “What are you still doing here, then? Go get ‘im, tiger. I remember when my brother met Dane, they were practically shoving me out the door so they could rip each other’s clothes off.” Ty reddened, pausing. “Uh, actually that’s not a visual I needed to throw out there… ” He cleared his throat, then his irrepressible smile overrode his embarrassment. “But seriously, no wonder you’re steaming.”

“He’s married, Ty.”

Ty blinked. “What?”