Chapter Six
Teddy
“I don’t know what sort of tree makes squiggle worm wood, buddy,” I laughed and ruffled Minter’s hair.
He shot me a dirty look that reminded me of our sire as he smoothed it out clumsily. I messed it up again because I also inherited too many of our sire’s genes.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Liatris asked, drawing my attention away from the squiggle worm in my arms.
“Hush will have to get over it. You wanted privacy. They want a door. This is the best time to do it. That way we have some time to set everything up and figure out stuff,” Selt said.
“If they’re mad, what can they do about it? If any of them raise too big of a fuss you shut the door and refuse to give it back until they behave,” Xav shrugged.
Their backs were to me as if I were the one who might run off and tell everyone of their secret plans.
“Not you,” Selt said over the flight link. “The baby doesn’t know better. Selatris is asleep inside the tent, so he doesn’t hear and accidentally leak something either.”
Xav was almost as broad as Selt now. Whatever work out or diet changes he made since moving here was really fucking working for him. Really freaking working for him.
“Hey!” Selt snapped over the flight link. “Do who you want, but he’s a little too close for comfort.”
I almost told him I wouldn’t screw his new friend, but I wanted to follow that up with he didn’t have many real friends and for that reason I wouldn’t do something that made Xav or me distant from him. Xav was hot but so was almost every other single person on all of the Starscale worlds.
“Buddy, everyone is getting mad at me these days,” I sighed.
“Me no mad!” Minter shook his head and hugged my neck. “Me no mad.”
“I know, buddy. I know. Let’s go shhhhhh and watch Uncle Liatris poke a hole in the fabric of space and time, huh?” I whispered against his temple.
“Okay. We go shhhhh! No one hear us! Daddy and Papa go shhhhhhhhhhhh to me.”
“They are quiet. They just need some big old people time,” I said, doing my best not to think about what might be going on back at the ship.
I held Minter a little tighter as I walked over to join my friends.
“I don’t think Hush will care in the long run,” I added to the conversation. “I mean, everyone would love to see it happen, but I think at the end of the day as long as it happens most of them will be happy. Hush seems to go by that. If most of the dragons are happy and they’re all getting their basic rights, he seems to be a happy guy.”
“He’s your uncle by marriage, huh? Does he actually talk to you?” Selt asked.
“I go out of my way to talk to him,” I nodded. “Not so much because he’s a leader but because Sunny should be doing it more often. So, I’m gathering up a lot of information on how things work here and making notes on how they might be applied to a more diverse socio-economic ecosystem.”
“Let’s do it,” Xav shrugged and glanced at Liatris.
“Do it! Do it!” Minter said, clapping his little hands together.
“Screw it!” Liatris shrugged and turned toward the spot in the grass marked with a ring of bright, translucent, purple stones.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered in Minter’s ear. “You’ll get me in trouble.”
Selt, Liatris, and Xav stepped into the middle of the circle of stones. Liatris’s hands glowed like he dangled mini suns from his palms. Selt’s hands paled in comparison to their purple light. I double checked Xav’s hands to find they didn’t glow at all.
Selt stepped behind his mate and wrapped his arms around him. Liatris leaned into the dragon and let out a long breath that moved his chest and stomach as if the air itself might make him too heavy to perform the spell. Xav stood nearby with his palms up and facing skyward. A lot of Grandpa Cromwell’s magic started in that pose.
“I’m not a fox,” Xav laughed as he picked up my thoughts over the flight link. “Everyone loves guessing stuff about might. I guess, I’d rather it be what sort of ‘secret shifter’ I am than everything else.”
“Are you a shifter?” I asked.
“Shush!” Selt snapped at me. “Liatris is concentrating. Don’t distract him.”
“Look who grew up and became the bossy one all of the sudden,” my dragon grumbled but I stopped his words before they reached Selt or his dragon via the flight link.
Liatris fell limp in his mate’s arms, and we all fell silent. A second later, the glowing light around his hands extended out and he reached out both of them as if to knock. His hands found something solid, but invisible. He straightened his back, Selt moving with him for support – literal or moral, I wasn’t sure. Liatris, with his eyes still shut, patted around this invisible, solid object. Slowly, the grain of the wood came into view. It was a beautiful dark wood with purple undertones and highlights. The knob when his hand finally closed around it was one of those old timey, brass ones, seen most often in old human movies on Earthside.
“You did it,” Selt whispered and kissed Liatris’s neck.
“WATCH IT!” Someone yelled on the other side of the door before it flung open knocking both of them backwards. Xav made to snatch at the man running through our new door, but the guy ducked out of his reach. Xav’s fingers twitched but the newcomer dodged the spell too.
“WATCH IT!” The guy growled, twisting around and raising his bow and arrows.
“You watch it!” Selt said, shoving Liatris behind him.
“You can put that down,” I snapped, hating how much I sounded like my carrier in that moment. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”
“Fucking pig!” The guy nodded toward the door.
“F PIG! F PIG!” Minter cheered and I had to fight not to knock the guy for a loop.
I stepped closer figuring that it was better that I get to him before Selt did.
“Big fucking pig!” Xav said, raising his hands, fingers alight with magic.
What barreled through the open door next was a big fucking pig with tusks that decided to snort out fire. The newcomer loosed his arrow and the pig charged. The arrow bounced off its hide and I shoved Minter into the new guy’s arms as I tackled the beast. Minter laughed still shouting about the F PIG as I wrestled the damn thing that decided my arm should be a chew toy. It smelled like a forest and like a ham. The newcomer smelled familiar too but then almost all dragons shared some common ancestor in the Other World.
“Food or companion?” I growled.
“Food!”
“Not today, buddy,” I grunted, twisting to shove the pig through the door.
Liatris, always good for reading the room, slammed the door shut behind it. Given some time the pig would cool its heels and decide to go back home or at least somewhere a dragon with a bow wasn’t trying to shoot its balls off.
“Why in the name of bacon would you do that to a guy?” The newcomer dropped his bow and narrowed his eyes on me. “I’ve been tracking that fucker all day.”
“Looked like you lost that battle,” I crossed my arms, searching out why this guy was so fucking familiar.
He scratched at his chest with his free hand and all our eyes went there. He wasn’t my mate, but the vague outline of a star shape was coming up on his chest.
“What sort of parasite did you fuckers give me?” He glanced down and then around at our bare chests. “Where the fuck am I?”
“Starscale 1,” Selt said, finally letting Liatris come out from behind him.
“You’re the first to come through the new door. Looks like it’s your lucky day too,” Liatris nodded at him.
“He let my pig go!”
“F PIG!” Minter said.
“And why am I holding your baby?” he asked as Minter squirmed out of his arms.
“Brover,” Minter said and shot the guy a dirty look.
“It’s nice to meet you Brover but I’m not your---”
“Mom?” I blinked at him.
“What?” Selt laughed but I couldn’t look away.
This man smelled nothing like my carrier. Looked nothing like my carrier. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. Nothing like my mother except the bright yellow star coming up on his chest. I bit my lip. Where the hell was I gonna keep Mom while Dad took care of Elio?
“At Sunny’s house?” Was my dragon’s only idea.