Amethyst Storms (Primordial Protectors #1)

29. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Alex

I breathed so much easier now that the eggs were no longer turning my insides to goo, but even better than breathing was being able to touch them and caress their shells.

“I love you all so much,” I whispered as I bent to kiss each one before gathering the blankets back around them.

Their little giggles echoed like tiny bells while I sighed and settled in beside them to rest and keep them warm. Though I felt amazing, it had been three days since I’d ventured farther than the bathroom, despite an offer Gramps made to sit with them if I wanted to stretch my legs.

I knew I should. I probably needed a bit of sun, too, since it had been rare for me to spend daylight hours indoors before I’d come here. My skin itched for it, and something inside of me kept prodding at me to ask my mate to accompany me outdoors.

And me.

That feeling inside of me rumbled and surged at the sound of my dragon’s voice, and dammit all, I still needed to share his new name with him. The perfect moment hadn’t presented itself yet, and if it didn’t happen soon I was going to have to make one, before I got so antsy and impatient I crawled right out of my skin.

The weirdest sensation washed over me, like my whole body flexed while my skin prickled and suddenly felt much too tight.

Definitely you.

He preened at that, and I knew that the only thing that kept him from being in here with the eggs wrapped in his tail was whatever had been so pressing that it had required Ionus’s presence. Humming, I nuzzled the eggs and let each one feel the vibration of the song. Maybe “I Wanna Rock n’ Roll All Night” wasn’t a fitting lullaby, but after the way they’d rocked and rolled inside of me, it felt right to me. They really seemed to enjoy it the same way my dragon did, and after several more tunes, they were all silent and still inside of their shells. Time for Papa to try and slip a nap in, too.

Yet even with the softest blankets wrapped around me, I still felt itchy and ill at ease. Great, so now I’d pissed off the goddess of sleep somehow, lucky me. Wasn’t it supposed to be a rule that the parents of newborns, or the newly laid, got to rest when their offspring did? Talk about unfair. I nuzzled the blanket and cuddled the eggs, before shoving an arm out from beneath the warm material, needing to cool off a little bit. Less than five minutes later my arm was cold, so I drew it back under the blankets and dislodged a foot, shocked when my toenails caught on the material and snagged so badly I couldn’t move.

What the hell?

Mate, is everything well?

There was an edge of panic to his voice, one I knew he’d deny with a pfft and a snarky dragons do not panic, but I’d felt it in the spring, when we’d still been uncertain of what was happening with the eggs, and I felt bad for rattling him.

Yup, fine, I just need some toenail clippers.

We will bring some when we return.

Thank you.

Anything for you, my mate.

Smiling, I settled back down for that much needed nap I’d been hoping for, but the feel of that blanket wrapped around my toe was as irritating as the prickly itching and inconsistent temperatures. Fine, fine, if I could just figure out where I’d shoved my phone. I loved the warm lighting the contractor had installed, but the blankets and the natural curve of the walls created a lot of shadows. I needed my flashlight to get a look at this nail, and if it was ragged enough, maybe I wouldn’t even have to worry about clipping it. Maybe I could just rip it the rest of the way off and worry about filing it later.

Only what I saw, when I finally aimed the phone’s flashlight at my foot, wasn’t a jagged toenail, it was a fuckin’ claw. Three of them actually, on the swollen end of a misshapen foot I barely recognized.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Mate?

Dragon! I need you, Dragon, right fuckin’ now!

Everything shook, I feared what the damage would be, but what I feared even more was accidentally damaging one of my eggs if another appendage decided to go rogue on me. He wasn’t the only one to arrive, either. The moment he squeezed into the space, a piece of his shirt dangling off one ear, another head peered in through the doorway.

Odem’s.

Oh good.

Oh, that was very good. They’d be just fine with their uncle while my dragon took me outside to figure out why I suddenly had claws where my toenails were supposed to be. Was this how shifting worked in the beginning? Did it come in pieces instead of all at once? Holy shit, was it totally unpredictable? Was I going to go to sleep one day Alex and wake up in scales with a tail? As cool as that would be, the worry about my eggs superseded everything.

“You have to get me outside,” I told my dragon. “But be careful of the eggs.”

I’ve got you, mate. No harm will come to you or our eggs.

He had me untangled in seconds and lifted me like I weighed nothing, the brothers making eye contact as my mate carried me out of the nest area. I didn’t have to ask what was being said. I witnessed Odem’s shift as my mate carried me away from our eggs and watched until the tip of his tail had disappeared inside the space. My sleeping eggs would know that they were safe just from his presence, and they’d already become accustomed to their uncle’s voice.

They’d be fine.

Everything will be fine.

Yes, yes, everything will be fine.

As he carried me out, I drew a deep breath and tried not to squirm as my skin itched worse than it had before. The toes on my other foot ached like they were on fire, and as we burst out into the sunlight, I got to witness claws sprout as my dragon carried me away from the house.

It was really happening.

Yes, my love, it’s happening. I can’t wait to see you in your scales.

I couldn’t wait to see me in my scales, either. The only dragons I’d seen were the protectors. I still hadn’t gotten to see Great-Gramps and the rest of my clan in their dragon forms, so I struggled to imagine what I’d look like when the full transformation took place. My feet were deep silver, but where the light struck there were shimmers of thin blue lines snaking over them, like lightning bolts.

Everything felt better now that the sunlight was beating down on my skin, but everything truly began to feel amazing the moment I caught a whiff of ozone in the air. The distant clouds I’d glimpsed were too far away to produce anything, but as my eyes skimmed the blue sky above me, I saw a low, lazy cloud roll over the top of the house. Gray but not heavy with moisture, it still left a visible trail of rain across the field as it headed our way.

Are you doing this?

No, love, I believe you are.

It was easier to speak in our minds than it was to get my mouth to work. My lips felt different, but my arms were too heavy to lift, so I couldn’t touch them to feel what had changed. I realized why the moment my dragon lay me down in the cool grass and remained standing over me, waiting and protecting.

My arms had thickened into heavy legs that would support a bulkier body, but nothing hurt. This wasn’t anything like the agony I’d been in when the eggs had staged their jailbreak. All I felt was heavy and cool as a gentle rain washed over me. It shouldn’t have lingered, not with the speed it had been moving when I’d spotted it over the house, only instead of drifting away it swirled, remaining overtop of us while my transformation continued.

Bones stretched and my skin moved with it, and it dawned on me that maybe the itching I’d felt had been the tiny prisms I’d noted shimmering along my arms. When I’d first spotted them, I’d nearly snarled out a demand to know who had brought something into the house with glitter on it. I’d been very specific about there being nothing remotely glittery allowed anywhere near the nest or the nursery. I’d licked my finger and dabbed at it, wondering how many times I was gonna use spit to get the smudges off the hatchlings’ cheeks the way Gramps had always done to me. Would they grumble and scrunch up their faces, swiping at the wet spot the way I’d done after every time he’d used that method to make me more presentable? If so, Ionus better have a camera ready because that would be another shot I’d want for their scrapbooks.

I’d never felt so heavy, like being buried beneath a pile of weighted stuffies. Ohhh, I couldn’t wait to present each of the hatchlings with the ones we’d picked out for them.

Mate. Mate, open your eyes.

In a minute. I’m fine. Really. Just heavy and enjoying the rain. I love rain almost as much as I love storms.

It seems as if it loves you, too. I believe you’ll be pleased when you look at yourself. You are stunning, my mate. Simply, gloriously stunning.

He was proud of me. I could feel it through our link. It had chased away the worry I’d felt when he’d arrived at the nest, and it filled me with joy.

Proud of you for many, many reasons.

Still always good to hear.

Then I’ll make certain that I tell you and show you at least once a day for the rest of our lives together.

Only once? After the size of those eggs I pushed out? How about once an hour, at least until I’m no longer experiencing phantom nudges, and let me tell you something, big boy, it’s gonna be awhile.

I am a big boy, aren’t I?

Pfft, is that all you took from the conversation?

When I cracked an eye open I caught him preening and prancing in the rain, until a tiny lightning bolt zipped down and zapped him right on the nose.

Insolent cloud. How dare you!

I could laugh as a dragon, it was loud and rumbly and made my sides ache a little with how hard the giggles hit when I watched him point a talon at it and shake it menacingly.

Don’t you threaten my cloud.

It was time to get up now and defend the swirly whisps before he snorted them halfway across the mountain. It took a moment, though. Damn, I felt like I was a hatchling, trying to figure out how to get four legs under me when I was only used to two. Wait. All the handbooks said that babies crawled before they walked. Maybe that was the approach to take. Only, shit, did I still have knees?

Images swirled through my head, of my dragon when he bent and twisted to fit himself into the nest. He had to drop down and inch forward, which meant dragons had knees. That was good to know. It took me a moment, though, rocking and almost falling over, only my dragon hooked a claw over my side, tugged me upright and held me until I was steady. Even in my new form he still easily dwarfed me and kept alongside me as I slowly began to rise. Those first few steps might have involved as much wobbling and waddling along as when I’d been pregnant, but I managed eight and the whole time my tiny cloud moved with us, continuing to shower us with its gentle mist. As long as it didn’t follow me inside we’d be okay. Oh, holy shit. Another attack of the giggles hit when I thought about all the effort he’d put into fireproofing the place. I hoped he had good flood insurance.

Dragons have never needed insurance. We build our homes to withstand whatever the elements might throw our way, though we may wish to make a few additions to the drainage system, to handle any unforeseen incidents.

Not that there was much left in this cloud. The last sprinkle of rain fell across my nose, then the whisps floated away and allowed the sunlight to wash over us again. That’s when I looked down at myself and nearly smacked my head into the ground as I did it so fast and clumsily. Once again my dragon was there to prevent me from causing myself any injury, though I doubted it would have hurt, with all the scales covering me now.

Doesn’t mean we need to find out.

I could just picture him leaping, rolling and sliding on his back to catch one of the hatchlings before they could hit the ground, another of them already clutched tight to his chest and giggling. He’d better have a whole lot of stamina to go with that size, or we’d both be passed out exhausted on the floor of the nursery while the hatchlings danced on top of us.

If you have to question my stamina, I didn’t make enough of a lasting impression when I got you with egg.

When we got him with egg!

That was the first time Ionus had spoken since I’d been shifted. Dragon should have known he’d pick that moment above any else.

You’re damn right he should.

This time I was far more careful when I stretched my neck up so I could see him better, and along the way I got a clear view of myself and my new form. All of me was a mix of pale gray and the palest purple, just like a cloud before a storm and matching Luna’s lilac egg to a tee. And like I’d seen on my feet, there were thin slivers of pale blue lines, like lightning bolts, randomly woven through the pattern of my scales.

Dragon, your name is Torran, because I found you in the craggy mountains, though I promise that when you go stomping around enraged about something, I’m just gonna call you Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And you I’ll just call Bront?, the Greek word for lightning because that’s all I’ll ever be able to think about when I look at you.

Preening, I rubbed along my dragon’s side and nearly toppled over in the process. That was okay, though, I’d get the hang of it with Torran’s help. As long as we could keep our enemies at bay, we’d have decades to practice.