Free Loving the Omega by Carrie Ann Ryan Page B

their lives while others had fought for their right to live—at peace and in general. Not everyone in the realms was happy about the turn of events.
    Frankly, Nadie wasn’t sure she was either.
    The others were talking about how much had changed and how the rest of them still needed to find their true halves. Nadie, though, knew she was in a different place than the rest of them. While the others had hope for a future or were on the bliss side of happiness, Nadie knew she had nothing like that. No, she had nothing. She had a feeling she’d known her true half longer than the rest of them, longer than they’d even known what true halves were, yet he’d done nothing about it.
    She closed her eyes, a sudden rush of something more powerful than herself seeming to wrench whatever energy she had left from her bones. Pain arced across her body, bile filling her throat as something clawed at her, her body growing weak. Her hand shook as she set down her lemon drop, but she didn’t think anyone noticed. Life was moving on for the rest of them, yet Nadie didn’t think she’d move on with her friends.
    She swallowed hard, the truth slapping her in the face.
    Again.
    Her dragon didn’t want her.
    Well, not her dragon, as he never would be hers. He’d seen to that. The tattooed, sexy bar owner, Dante, had known her for years and yet hadn’t taken one step toward her beyond being her friend. And he’d started to move away from even that since the lightning. They weren’t the friends they’d once been and the loss was almost too much to bear.  She’d had a crush on him ever since she could remember and she’d never done anything about it, either.
    He was a freaking dragon, meaning that even when she’d been human and ignorant of all that went beneath the surface of the human realm, he would have been able to feel her as his true half, would have been able to feel that pull, that deep desire not only to have the other person in his life for eternity, but to have them in all ways possible.
    Yet he’d done nothing about it.
    Well, that was just fine then. She didn’t need him anyway.
    Another wave of pain drenched in power washed over her, and she closed her eyes, willing it away. Damn that dragon. No, damn her as well. If she’d had the courage to actually speak her mind, maybe she’d have been able to see what he wanted from her or, rather, what he didn’t want from her.
    Now she was alone and too scared to do anything about it.
    Honestly, she had only herself to blame for it.
    She wasn’t weak, but she sure as heck was acting like it. Her fingers slid over the smooth wood on the table as she tried to regain some semblance of control. She didn’t want this to be the last time she came with her six girlfriends into the bar that had become their getaway, but it was looking more and more like that was what would have to happen.
    She couldn’t come into the place that called to them and not think about the dragon who filled her dreams. Not that she’d ever seen him in his dragon form, but his human form was exactly what she wanted.
    “Hello, ladies,” Dante said as he walked up to them. His piercing blue—not that blue was a good enough word for the pools of color she saw—eyes met hers for a moment before moving on to the rest of the girls at the table.
    His attention elsewhere, she could do what she loved best—study her dragon. While she was the plain Jane with straight blonde hair and a way-too-innocent face, according to Faith, Dante was the exact opposite.
    He’d tied his long black hair in a ponytail so the blue streaks stood out even more. She wasn’t sure if he dyed it that way or if black and blue just came naturally. Since he was a dragon, it could just be who he was. He’d chopped off a lot of it recently, something she wasn’t sure about, but she thought he was sexy no matter what. So it settled in the middle of his back. She knew that if he didn’t keep on it, though, it would grow so long that