Chapter Seven
Xav
I woke up with Sequin’s head on my chest and his hand under my shirt resting on my stomach. His fingers must’ve stroked some inner fire during the night because my hair sizzled against the pillowcase. Fortunately, my fire wasn’t temperamental that morning and the color of the pillowcase wasn’t some dusting shade. Otherwise, the element might’ve sent it all up in smoke. I rolled everything from the night before around my head and wondered how many questions Sequin would have. I had rehearsed their answers so many times – both about my elemental abilities and about my transition. Neither of which I cared to explain to anyone but him. After all, he was the only one who would be around for the rest of my life.
“I don’t need that many answers,” he groaned. “Of all the times my dragon could start listening in over the flight link, why does he choose so early in the morning after we walked five hundred miles yesterday?”
“Because we were thinking about you,” I said and kissed the top of his head.
He shifted his weight, cuddling closer to me and showing me just how hard he was. The whole hotel room smelled of us and whispered of all the magic tugging us toward each other. Sequin’s scent surrounded me, hard and slick, metallic and furry. He rubbed his forehead against my chest and then his cheek, nuzzling and scent marking me. For the first time in my life someone thinking I belonged to them didn’t bother me. It was nice but only because he was mine too. I kissed the top of his head against and wrapped my arm a little tighter around him. A guy could get used to waking up like this.
“Does everyone back where you come from have more than one element?” he asked.
“Usually. Sometimes. Hell, I guess the answer is both. It’s not uncommon. Some believe the more elements you’re exposed to as a kid the more you’ll take on. I’m not sure if there’s any scientific data to back that up but it seems plausible. Kids from bigger families often have more than two or three. I think the magic is constantly adapting but most people don’t want other elements. They like what they have and don’t want more. I don’t mind having ice and fire, even if ice is my favorite. I don’t mind having wind tossed in there too. Wind makes everything more interesting. That’s how I’m a breeze and why my fire plays nice with other things.”
“So how many elements do you have?” he asked, sleepily.
I glanced around the room. It wasn’t a motel, but it wasn’t a great hotel either. I was warned away from using any seedy motels by Teddy. Before we ever came to Earthside he spent hours warning us against most things on the planet. Seedy motels were on the top of that list. So while the place was safe and didn’t have bedbugs there wasn’t a coffee machine inside the room. I did have the food delivery app on my phone connected to Teddy’s Earthside points but my phone was still in the diaper bag which wasn’t there.
“Uhh… I don’t know. I’m sort of still figuring out everything my magic can do,” I said, snapping myself back to the present moment instead of worrying about caffeinating my mate. “Back home, we’re not really encouraged to explore all possibilities. So, I’m doing the work on my own now. With some help from Liatris still. I’m happy with our progress, though. You need coffee.”
“You shouldn’t know that yet,” he laughed and buried his face in my chest. “We haven’t even exchanged our claiming vows.”
“We could but do you want to do that before coffee?” I laughed.
As if remembering something from the night before he glanced down at my crotch. I was under the blankets and while I did have morning wood, I wasn’t knotted up this time around. If that disappointed Sequin, he didn’t let it show.
“It’s not like that happens every morning,” I chuckled. “It’s happened less often since we got my dosage figured out. As an alpha I made a lot of what I needed already. So, I didn’t need as much medical intervention as some guys would’ve, but it still took some playing with. It does still happen from time to time, though.”
“I don’t need to know how it happens. Hell, I’d have to think off how it happened at all for anyone for a minute to remember high school sex ed. I just want to know when it happens. Even if I’m in a dead sleep wake me up,” he laughed.
“Yes, sir,” I chuckled and pulled him in for a long, slow good morning kiss.
The back of my neck tickled, and I let my thoughts drift to the flight link. Liatris was poking at me again and his fur always tickled me. This was the weirdest time for my friend and teacher to poke me but I listened up because he never did it without a reason.
Sighing, I rubbed the bridge of my nose, pulling away from the kiss even though I didn’t want to. If this woman kept it up, I’d never squeeze more in than a bit of kissing with Sequin.
“What’s up?” Sequin asked, studying my face.
“Your sister has figured out where we are and Liatris says she’s incoming with a counteroffer about the wedding.”
“You sound as annoyed as my balls feel with her.”
“Weird choice of words, but yeah, I get it, I think,” I said pushing myself upright and looking around for where I’d tossed Sequin’s shirt while I was ice.
“She’d have hung me by my toenails if I did this to her,” he said and swore under his breath as he scrambled upright and fixed his fly. “I should toss her out on her ass and say her wedding can go to hell.”
“But you won’t because you love her,” I groaned and flopped back down onto my back. “I think I’ll hit the shower while you handle her.”
“Without me?” Sequin groaned, turning to face me as he pulled his shirt over his head.
“I have a feeling this could take a while.”
“We could make her wait,” his eyes flew to my crotch. “It would serve her right.”
“You’d just think about her while you were sucking my dick or whatever,” I pointed out.
“I wouldn’t think about her while I was sucking your dick.”
“I don’t believe you,” I shook my head. “I remember last night.”
“So you’re going to make me deal with her alone?” his voice pitched high, almost a whine, but not quite.
“I’ll stay here if you want me to. I don’t think I’ll be much help. You’re fighting over abstract things and while I do think there is a solution, I don’t think it’s me or Rosemary.”
“Ugh! Her name!” he whined.
“Are you going into heat, mate?” I said, scooting to the end of the bed and motioning him over to me.
“I swear to Juda and all the minor flight gods that if you grab my balls to figure it out, I’m going to take a chunk out of you!” He growled but came to me despite his reservations.
“Uh… First of all, your sister is almost here. So, I have zero plans of grabbing your balls when we can’t follow up and I don’t know who’s honking your balls, but they’re not meant to be grabbed like that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Trust me?” I asked him, waving him a little closer.
“Yes, but….” His words trailed off as I leaned in and sniffed his stomach just below his navel. My mouth dropped open, and an icy fire spread through my veins. My already hard dick, stood up a little more, then a lot more. I swallowed a groan.
“Do you want to tell her to fuck right off now?” Sequin laughed.
“A little bit but I have more self-control than that.”
“Is it just me doing that to you or am I going into heat?” he asked, running his fingers through my hair and pressing my face into his stomach.
“Both. There is no just when it comes to you. Is it too soon to say that?”
“We’ve known each other before. I don’t know how much Teddy has told you about our mum and Nelum but I know the lore is true. I’ve had more proof than any dragon ever needed to know that.”
“I believe it,” I nodded. “I was there when Nelum came through. Teddy tossed his supper back through the door.”
I nuzzled lower, inching toward his dick. I would’ve kept going if Daliah’s voice didn’t cut through the room like a rusty knife through smooth butter.
“Good morning!” she called out. “You didn’t answer your phone, but I have it on good account that you had a head’s up I was coming over. I’d like to try this again, Sequin. Rosemary would like…”
“Hey!” I called back. For a second, I considered actually telling her to fuck off. Sequin thought he’d like for me to do that, but he would’ve never forgiven me. “I know you love the girl and all. I get it. I’d skin everyone on the planet alive to make your brother happy. I’d turn the whole globe into a big ice cube for him to skate on if he asked me to. But for a minute think about what the fuck you want and I’m gonna quit shouting and we’ll answer the door because I’m about to blab someone’s personal business all over the damn hotel.”
“SHUT UP!” Someone growled from next door.
“YOU SHUT UP, YOU---” Daliah started but stopped.
Yeah, we were definitely the problem.
“DON’T MIND THEM!” Sequin bellowed back. “IT’S MY SISTER AND MY TRUE-MATE! I ONLY MET HIM LAST NIGHT AND THESE TWO ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY! I’D PREFER HIS METHODS OF DRIVING ME CRAZY BUT THEY DIDN’T TAKE A FROST-DAMNED VOTE ON IT!”
A chorus of congratulations rang out through the hotel cooling down some of the tension that had built up. I might be an alien on Earthside but the concept of cutting newly met true-mates some slack on social norms wasn’t, fortunately, for us.
I chuckled despite myself not wanting the others to overhear. The chaos was catching. I’d argue and shout for him if that’s what it took to make Sequin feel sane. The ice inside me growled threatening to become solid and the fire in my hair sizzled out. I rolled my shoulders and swung my feet off the bed.
“Good morning to you too,” Sequin rolled his eyes as he opened the door, stepped aside, and made a grand gesture of sweeping arms to motion his sister into the room. Daliah rolled her eyes right back at him.
“Jackass,” she mouthed at me as if we had some secret past that I didn’t know about.
“Right back at you, sister dearest.”
“What?” Sequin glanced back and forth between us confused.
“She probably thinks I’m supposed to stay out of your and her arguments because that’s what Rosemary does. I’m not good at staying out of things, though. I’ll leave if you want me to, mate, but if I’m here, I’m here,” I shrugged.
“What do you want?” Sequin turned on her, standing akimbo.
“You back,” she sighed.
Their argument from the night before threatened to repeat itself and I rubbed the bridge of my nose as they shouted back and forth a bit. I only caught key words because I heard it all before.
“Okay, but what does that mean?” I asked.
“What does what mean?” Sequin asked, lowering his voice to speak to me.
“Having each other back?” I asked, standing up and twisting at the waist to pop my back.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
“Do I need to whisk Rosemary away on some completely platonic but far away vacation to leave you two on your own for a while?” I offered up.
“No!” They both snapped at the same time.
“Just offering. I mean you guys got along before we were around,” I pointed out.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment. I hoped Rosemary liked living near an Other World Gateway because my idea of taking her on vacation was just taking her back to our Starscale house and keeping her there until these two worked out their shit. Merely thinking about being away from Sequin left me aching and we hadn’t gone past cuddling or kissing. Well, there was a lot of talk about my dick but finally someone wanted to talk about it. I laughed at my own joke and the other two glanced over their shoulders at me. I just shrugged. As someone full of elements, I’d never fit in the way some people could.
“I liked the damn stuff!” Daliah snapped a second later. “All the girly stuff! Mom died and everything girly went. There was you, Dad, and Teddy and sometimes Duke! You kept sewing – yes but that’s not girly, not really! Everything Mom and I did together went right out of the fucking door and don’t you dare make a joke about fucking mommy issues or I’ll hit you so hard you’ll land on an undiscovered planet that doesn’t even have coffee! So help me, Frost and Juda, Sequin Moonscale!”
Sequin took a step back and I took a step forward. They were getting somewhere, and she could make all the idle threats she wanted but she wasn’t about to put hands on my mate. Sibling or not, that shit wasn’t gonna fly. I wrapped my arms around Sequin from the back and he leaned into me. Daliah’s eyes softened but only for a second.
“I wasn’t going to joke like that. Dal, we all have mommy issues. The issue is she’s dead,” Sequin said, his voice almost deadpan.
“I know,” Daliah nodded.
“If it makes you feel any better, I might’ve been more gentler in how I said I hated the stuff but I still hate it. I don’t think she ever did that much pink. I get that you probably went overboard because you felt like we all tried to take it away from you but it was still a lot of pink.”
“And I liked it and don’t go there!”
“Go where?” Sequin smirked.
“Don’t you call it that!” she wagged her finger at him, but a grin pulled at the corners of her mouth.
“Call it what?” Now I was curious.
“Nope!”
“She turned the whole house pussy pink, alpha,” Sequin laughed.
“How many of those are you looking at to give it a hex code?” I teased.
“That’s the real question,” Daliah nodded.
“What are we going to do about you two?” I asked, trying to pull the conversation back to the matter at hand. I was a patient man, but Sequin had smelled very close to being in heat. Where I was patient, magic as old as the true-mate response wasn’t. It’d push and push until we gave in and besides, I wanted to know what else went on in that pretty head of his.
“We’ll move the wedding and give up one color – black not pink – if you want to have a joint wedding. The deal was Rosemary’s idea, but I like it. We’ve done almost everything together in our lives, why not this too?” Daliah said, all the joking gone from her voice.
“You do know we haven’t even had time to talk about if we want the big wedding thing, right? We haven’t even,” he stopped talking and pointed at his swollen claiming gland. My gaze followed his finger and everything inside me came to life. I was extra glad to be standing behind him at the moment. Everything icy whispered that I could change that any time. I could order her out and claim him right there on the hotel carpet still holding on to its vacuum lines.
“We could give you time for all that. It’s going to be big but---” she said, starting to smell more crestfallen with each word she said.
“I’m open to it,” I said, managing to keep the husky need out of my voice. “Don’t say no on my account. If it’s a thing your family does and you want to do it, I’m down.”
I waited for Sequin to shoot me a dirty look, but his eyes stayed on his sister and the tension fled his shoulders. He wanted the damn wedding. I wasn’t fond of big fancy events, but weddings were a once in a lifetime thing for mated pairs. If I could leave home, help stop a fascist overtake of the world I studied on, and move onto a world full of dragons I could get married in a fancy ceremony or ritual.
“How long?” Sequin asked.
“As long as you need. Dad might not be thrilled. Her parents will be less than thrilled but it’s not about them. It’s about us and them – our them. Him and Rosemary.”
“What if I said a year?” Sequin asked.
“That would mean it would probably be after you’re a daddy,” she said gently. “Unless you decide against kids.”
“We haven’t talked that far but it would probably be after that, yeah,” Sequin nodded, still leaning against me.
I did my best not to imagine his belly full of my baby or babies. Multiples ran in both of our families. Where would we even live? My vote would always be the Starscale World, but I had less to lose than him. My family included him, his brother, Liatris, Selt, and the baby. He had so many more people to consider.
“We’d travel while you did whatever you needed to and then come back a few months beforehand and get it all together. We could call and email or send smoke signals. Whatever worked. They’re right, everyone, that is. We probably do need time apart right now. Not too far though. Not emotionally anyway. Just space.”
“They are right,” Sequin said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sorry I hated all your stuff.”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you I liked it. I shouldn’t have blamed it all on Rosemary. I think she kept trying to talk to you alone while you sewed to let you know but…. Well, we all know how you are about that room.”
“You never liked to sew,” Sequin pointed out.
“I still don’t,” she shook her head.
“How about you two take today and hang out? I’ll meet back up with you tonight,” I offered, wanting them to have time to say goodbye for now, even if it left me jittery all day. Besides, I needed to check on the guys I came with and took off on last night without warning.
“Are you sure?” Sequin asked, turning in my arms. “I mean…” he glanced down at my hard dick.
“It’s not going anywhere. I get to keep it,” I teased him and he blushed. “Like I said, take some time. Work things out and then we’ll figure out where we want to matingmoon. I’ll go wherever you want. Besides, don’t you have to figure out how you’re gonna tell your dad and stuff about postponing the wedding?”
“I’ll take care of that part,” Daliah volunteered. “I think he might be relieved to go back to Starscale 1 for a while.”
“Probably,” Sequin nodded in agreement and then glanced back at me. “I want to hang out with her but only if you’re sure. It’s so hard not to touch you.”
“I know,” I said and leaned my forehead against his. “But I’ll be here and you’ll be here and then we can tell everyone else to fuck off while we do the same.”
Sequin smirked and blushed deeper.
“Alpha, if we’re gonna go our separate ways even for a few hours you’re gonna have to stop talking like that.”
“I’ll do my best but no promises,” I teased and stole a kiss before he pulled away.