The tone her soulmate spoke with was nothing anyone had ever dared speak to her before. Not even higher officials she had to obey while working on missions spoke to her with arch demand. The aged she had expect but certainly not the command.

Something twitched in her mind, whether it be annoyance, appreciation for his efforts and bravery, or simply acknowledgement that he has her attention she isn't quite sure. Her thoughts are consumed in a muddled grey ball of string that, sadly she can't even sort out. Vaughn on the other hand has all the time and interest to untangle those lines of thoughts and feelings to know what she's trying to internally tell herself. How's he supposed to be helpful when he doesn't known her turmoils she doesn't want to understand but needs to to actually comprehend the issue. Someone here had to be the grown up. Licking your feelings up and hiding them gets you now where in life.... we'll actually that's a very large lie and Vaughn knows it. Max had acceded at her profession at an extraordinary acceleration because she had done just that.

Vaughn wasn't sure if he could say the same about Wade. Emotion drove the Mercenary forwards to succeed his goal but when he boiled down to his ordinary life he too tried to lock away his feelings though the outcome resulted in self inflicted punishment to attempt and free himself of the feelings.

Peter.... the technique went both ways for him. It made him who he is, made him a hero. One of the best really but it took its toll by breaking him on the inside. He didn't show that part of himself often, but even with Wade slowly tapping Peter back together he was still a very broken and shattered young man. What Wade did for him only held him together, nothing could ever heal his wounds.

Really, keeping your emotions locked up could be beneficial, but in every case there would always be a build up of inner turmoil. It when people don't know when to cope with those cornered feelings that things go south. Max didn't know how to deal with them and that's what got him killed. Did he hold her responsible... no. Was he mad about it? He was for a long time, a few years anyway but me didn't turn his back on her when he was stuck with her before he accepted it and was soon later rewarded with this chance of physical form again. But he was here now to prevent her from letting it happen again. They worked together, he explained things to her when she needed even (most of the time) when she didn't know she did, in return for no one getting hurt.

"What do you mean?." Max asked. She was purposefully playing with Jaden know. She wanted a similar reaction. She was experimenting to see how far he would let his temper go.

Vaughn desires the urge to role his eyes. He knew she was trying to see what scale the other, much drier blonde, tilted on the beta scale. She was in hopes he was more alpha then an omega. As much as Vaughn had been offended that she seemed to dislike the idea of a omega Personality for a human mate, she had explained to him why it was as such. An omega as a regular mate in their own species was fine. But human omegas didn't follow their own rules of conduct or understanding of ranks, nor did they have any benefits like an omega dragon  would.

The conversation made Vaughn himself  mildly uncomfortable. He himself was an omega. Had been told strait up by the other that he was basically useless when he'd asked to follow her after they first met. She had been proven quite correct the first time they ran into trouble but she didn't pause to accept that he was hers to protect when the time came. She hadn't even considered the idea of ever not protecting him when the time was needed which he marveled over for weeks before slowly accepting. By now he had learned  to stay out of the way and let her take care of what needed to be done. It was her internal instinct to claim his as her own until she approved of a mate he had selected and that instinct hadn't skipped a beat since he had been gone and away from her physically.

It did alarm him though, the idea that she may never let him have a mate because no one would be capable of keeping him as safe as she could. With only humans he would have to be severely picky and be sure that his desired mate was fit enough to impress his... well there was no name for the higher ranked dragon that cared for an omega they had chosen as their own to protect rather then mate but the point was still there.

He just didn't know how long fate would allow him such a pleasure to stay long enough to play the dating game.

"What are you? Was that you? It sure as hell had your eyes." Jaden snapped back at her, he was only a few inches away at this point.

The mention of noticing her eyes threw Max off a bit, finding the statement almost bewildering. "You looked at my eyes?"

"Well yes. What else am I supposed to look at when I talk to you?" Her soulmate asked in annoyance.