Page 5 of Destined Paranormals: Volume One

I slipped back into the house and saw Father standing in the main room with Dad. They were engaged in a tight embrace, and I believed if not for their enhanced senses, they wouldn’t have even known I was in the room with them.

Father pulled away from Dad just enough to look over Dad’s shoulder at me.

“Konrad, I would have expected you to be asleep already.”

It took a great deal of discipline to keep from rolling my eyes. My dads weren’t bad parents, but they seemed to forget that I was not a child and was, in fact, over seventy years old.

“I was cleaning up in the bathhouse,” I told him.

“At this hour?”

I did roll my eyes that time. I was tired of being treated as if I was a child. I knew they were protective because I was an omega, but I was past the age of being old enough to have moved out and into my own house.

“It is not late yet,” I said. “Since you and the others have returned, I think I will spend the night with Elias.” His father hadn’t left because long ago he’d been severely injured during a fight, and he had a wing that wouldn’t allow for long flights.

“You will do no such thing. You are needed here to help with the twins,” Father said.

I grumbled under my breath but didn’t argue. I knew that soon enough they would be so wrapped up in one another that I would be able to slip out and down the way to Elias’s house.

I entered the bedroom I shared with my brothers, once more realizing how frustrating and wrong it was that I was forced to share a room with my brothers and wasn’t allowed most freedoms that others were.

As expected, it didn’t take long before the door to their room closed. After that, it was only minutes before I heard the familiar sounds of them getting reacquainted. That was all it took for me to grab a change of clothing and slip out of the house. I loved my family. But I wanted more than this. There was no reason I couldn’t live in my own cottage here in the village. Elias and I had talked about building one, and we would share it. We’d been shut down by my father though. Two omegas living together couldn’t defend themselves. That always had me rolling my eyes so hard I became dizzy. We were still dragons, after all.

I made it to Elias’s house and quietly knocked on the window of his bedroom. His face immediately appeared, and he pointed toward the back of the house. I walked around and was met at the back door by Elias.

“They’re back. We all heard them.”

I sighed as Elias stepped back to allow me to enter.

“That bad?” Elias asked.

“No more than expected. I’m just tired of being treated like one of the twins. I’m not eleven, you know?”

“There is a cottage next to the market that has been vacated. The couple have decided to move back to her pack, and it has been empty for several weeks now,” Norbert, Elias’s father, said.

“Really?” I asked, hopeful. Elias touched my arm.

“Yes. I’ve been to see it. It’s not far, and there are two bedrooms as well as a main room. It’s perfect for us. We could have our own place but wouldn’t be far from either of our parents.”

“Reinhold isn’t a bad alpha or father, Konrad,” Norbert said as he came to stand in front of us. “He is set in his ways and feels he has to be overly protective since he has three sons, and although your brothers are alphas, you are an omega that garners quite a bit of attention from the alphas in the village.”

I nodded because I did understand. I’d noticed that as well. Da had said it was my hair and eyes. They caught alphas’ attention. I just wanted the ability to live my own life. Elias and his parents got along swimmingly, but he only stayed with them because he was waiting for me to move out with him. We had been planning this since we first started shifting when we were twelve. That had been so long ago. We’d traveled twice, both times because we’d stolen off in the middle of the night in order to go searching for our alphas. We’d had to admit defeat, though, and always came back. Why, I wasn’t exactly sure.

“Konrad, come in. I’ve heard the wings flapping just as anyone else. That means your dads will be at each other all night,” Etta, Elias’s mom, said. I smiled at her. She was a wolf shifter that loved her mate and he her. Then again, my dads loved one another as well.

“Hi, Etta. Thanks for letting me barge in like this.”

“Nonsense. The two of you go off to Elias’s room and enjoy your evening.”

I let Elias pull me back to his bedroom, and once there, I fell face-first onto the bed. His was much harder than mine, but it was also newer. By quite a bit, actually. Despite the injury that Norbert had suffered, Etta had come from what one would call a wealthy pack. Her dad was beta, and they had long ago said they were more than ready to move closer to the pack and leave the somewhat archaic views of our village. We were basically a thunder, only a few being non-dragons.

“How bad was it? Really?”

I rolled over, sat up, and shrugged. “It wasn’t terrible. But Father thought it was late for me to be up and wanted to know why I wasn’t yet in bed asleep.”

Elias rolled his eyes. I’d done that exact same thing not even half an hour ago. “Your dads are great, but I hate to say it, Konrad. They’re part of the reason why this village is stuck thinking ways from way back.”

I groaned. “I know. I’m ready, Elias. I don’t want to stay there any longer. The twins are eleven now. It’s not like they have to be watched every moment of the day any longer,” I told him. Elias’s response was a raised eyebrow. Yeah, he was probably right. The twins were a handful on a good day, downright terrors on bad ones. Today, I wasn’t sure what had gotten into them, but they were really wound up when I arrived home.