Nesting True-Mates

Chapter 1

Voron

Hemlock Wolf Pack Territory (Star’s Territory)

Five years ago, when my family moved from Mage Street to my brother’s territory to have more space, I knew it meant I’d see a lot of his family.

Which was part of the point. Our other clutch mate, Creg, had already moved here over a decade before that.

Our family had its own little neighborhood and it wasn’t uncommon to stumble upon large, outdoor nests.

That’s where I was now. Somehow between Simon’s guard duty and my research we ended up without any kids at home.

We weren’t as prolific child producers as some of my siblings, but there was almost always a kid in the house.

Except for the last few years, that was only true when one of our adult children dropped by or a grandkid came to spend the weekend or a week over their summer holiday.

Unless you counted Star and Zeke’s kids.

Creg was a lifelong bachelor – so far. I always said so far because I didn’t want to jinx him.

Fate must’ve decided we waited too long between pregnancies because I was sitting on four eggs.

We hadn’t had such an occurrence since our first children, Anthony, Ignatio, Mars, and Mercury were born.

Our first four were also our most frequent visitors.

None of them had met their true-mates or taken chosen mates.

Not that I blamed them on the last part.

I had waited for Simon for years before he stumbled through the wrong death door, riddled with arrows and dosed with enough Meadow Berry poison to take out a small army.

My dragon and I were pondering what to make for our weekly Friday evening dinner with the quads when I smelled Raziel.

He was the son of Star and Zeke. He was one of the quieter kids.

Simon always said he wore the expression of a much older dragon and he wasn’t wrong.

Raziel always looked like he had something on his mind.

He crept into view, moving slowly, afraid I was asleep. I almost closed my eyes and pretended to slumber but he smelled more worried than usual. So, slipping a long, scale-covered forearm under myself I rotated my eggs and turned my head in his direction.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked over our family link.

Raziel sighed. I wasn’t a cold person, but over the years Simon and I had figured out that he was much better at comforting sighing people.

If someone told me what was the matter with them, I could fix it or at least listen until they could deal with the unchangeable, but if someone sighed at me or wanted me to poke it out of them, it grated my scales.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked again, hoping Raziel hadn’t heard me.

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“That’s what the young always say. I might be old but that means I’ve spent more time in complicated situations,” I told him, patting the edge of my nest with my tail to invite him to sit down.

Raziel hopped up on the side and leaned back against me. I was careful not to move and send him toppling into the nest. Though, maybe the drop would give him some time to think about how many minutes he wasted not asking for help.

“He’s young. Give him time to brood. It’s not like we’re going anywhere, anytime soon,” my dragon chimed into my thoughts with a yawn.

“Do you remember Gordon?” he asked me.

I blinked. Yes, I remembered Gordon. He wanted to mate with my carrier, but he wanted nothing to do with him. Then he tried to steal my Simon’s life force to stay alive unnaturally.

“Yes,” was all I said over the family link.

“Would you forgive him if he stood before you?” Raziel asked.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” I asked him.

“Gordon isn’t back, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Raziel sighed. “It’s probably a better comparison to ask if you’d forgive Floria.”

I almost said I wouldn’t forgive her if she was the last person on Earthside but thought better of it. People rarely asked questions like that for the sake of the person mentioned.

“Do you need forgiveness for something, Raziel?”

“Not from you so much. I don’t think anyway.”

“Is this a riddle? Did you land on another car?” I asked.

“I was twelve when that happened!” he laughed aloud. “But no, I didn’t land on another car.”

Neither of us said anything for a long time and I didn’t push the issue.

It was well known that Raziel remembered one of his previous lives.

None of us knew who he was or what he was going on about most of the time, but we loved him anyway.

I imagined my family felt much the same when I talked about what went on in my lab.

Raziel always acted dark and broody about it but I couldn’t imagine the kind young dragon I knew to be any monster comparative to Floria. Gordy-Gordon maybe, but not Floria.

“Do we have healer-patient confidentiality?” he asked.

“Are you hurt?” I asked over the family link, sniffing the air and then shoving my snout into the top of his head for a better sniff.

“Hey!” he said, trying to squirm away, but our size difference was to my advantage. I may have been an omega, but I had centuries on my nephew. Even when we were both in draconic form, my age ensured I was larger. “I’m not hurt! But I’m not talking about it until you give me an answer.”

“I guess we do,” I said. “I’m on egg leave at the moment, but if you need help.”

“I’m fine,” he said and tried to slip away. I nudged him back with my snout and did my best to get a good look at his face. I swear folks in their human forms shrunk every time I shifted into my draconic form.

“Are we having Raziel for lunch?” Simon asked, walking up from the back of the nest. His scent soothed something deep inside me. I almost told him that Raziel asked if we had healer-patient confidentiality but thought better of it.

“Check to see if this hatchling is injured. He’s asking strange questions,” I told him over our mating link.

“He’s always asking strange questions. Remember when he was four, he asked me if I remembered what it was like to be dead?” Simon reminded me.

I did remember that. I remember how pale his carrier had gone – how pale I had gone. For a brief second, Simon and I wondered if Raziel was Gordy-Gordon reincarnated. He’d denied that over the years, but even if he was once that idiot, now he was Raziel.

“Are you hurt?” Simon asked our nephew, looking up at him with his big lunchbox in the crook of his arm.

“No,” Raziel said. “Just something I wanted him to look at.”

“If you think you have an STI you should go to the clinic,” Simon said and a ring of smoke wafted out of my nose as I tried not to laugh.

Raziel jumped down, because even at my age, smoke coming out of my nose made me sneeze.

Sometimes that made more smoke waft out and I cycled through three or four sneezes before managing to get it under control.

“Are you trying to get me murdered?” Raziel growled. “And I don’t have a dick problem.”

“The clinic will look at any problem,” Simon patted him on the shoulder. “Plus, he’s on egg leave. So don’t bring anything here to show him unless you want to show me too.”

“Oh, be nice to him. He’s still a kid,” I told Simon over our mating link.

“He is not a kid anymore,” Simon said.

Yawning, I shifted down to my human form and examined my four big black eggs before turning my attention to Raziel, hoping he was telling the truth about the problem not being down his pants.

It was difficult for dragons and alphas to catch STIs but other things could be transmitted from romping around that affected the scales down below deck.

I didn’t work with patients directly unless they were part of medical trials, but I heard enough horror stories to last me a couple lifetimes.

“Never mind,” Raziel said and started to walk away.

“Wait!” Simon called after him, holding the lunchbox like a football as he moved. “I was just teasing you. Come inside and have tea.”

I laughed because most of the younger Night Star elves didn’t drink tea like those of us who grew up in the Other World.

Though, Raziel still ducked inside the house.

I glanced at my eggs. Sure, they’d be fine, but this was the one draw back to having an open-air nest. Sometimes, it was left – well, in the open-air.

Inside, Simon put the kettle on and I started a pot of coffee. He was Star’s kid. So of course he drank coffee by the gallon. At the table, Raziel fidgeted with his fingers. It wasn’t like him to be so nervous.

“He’s usually better at masking it,” my dragon chimed into my thoughts.

My inner beast was right. Raziel usually hid most of his emotions.

He normally wore pheromone blocker spray too.

He wasn’t doused in that today either. I sat down across from him at the table and crossed my legs.

Resting my hands on the table, I waited for him to say something.

The last time someone sat in that spot nervous was when Anthony and an omega he hooked up with via Pheromone Swap had a pregnancy scare.

Well, it turned out that it wasn’t a scare exactly.

The omega was pregnant, but the baby wasn’t his.

Instead, the baby was sired by the guy the omega hooked up with the next night.

Anthony was embarrassed but I liked to think that Simon and I handled it with grace.

Even if a baby had come about from that app – the way young people waited for their true-mates these days – we would’ve been graceful about it.

“I’ve had two more claiming glands show up,” Raziel said.

“You have two now?” Simon asked.

“No, I have three and I think I know what’s going on. I don’t want to talk about the why. I just.. Uncle, can you look at them and make sure they’re claiming glands and not something else?” he asked, without looking up at me.

“Take off your shirt,” I nodded and stood up.

He took off his shirt and even before I rounded the table, I saw them. He had a total of three claiming glands on his shoulders. One was the norm. Two wasn’t unheard of these days, but three was news to me. I palpated around them gently.

“How strange,” my dragon commented into my thoughts. “Who would have three mates?”

I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about who he might’ve been in a past life that would give him that many mates this time.

“These are claiming glands,” I nodded, ignoring Simon’s confusion. I loved my alpha, but this wasn’t about him right now. “I could run some tests at the lab, but I’ve seen enough claiming glands to know that’s what these are.”

Raziel nodded and I sat back down. Simon brought the tea tray to the table and then the coffee pot a second later.

Raziel dosed his coffee with a healthy amount of cream and sugar before downing it.

Simon took his seat and set about putting together some proper tea for us.

We both drank tea and coffee, but after noon we tended to stick with tea.

Raziel didn’t say anything else for several long moments which gave me time to listen in on Simon’s rambling thoughts.

“Three? He’s going to have three omegas? I hope they’re not all dragons. He’s a decent hunter and an okay fighter, but how in the name of Old Sigmore is he going to feed three dragons?” Simon’s thoughts leaked onto the mating link.

“We don’t know that they’re dragons. We don’t even know if they’re omegas.

We don’t fully know how all this works and I think that’s the point.

I think that’s the lesson of the magic behind it.

The rules are different for everyone or have you forgotten we exchanged ours while you were unconscious?

That we conceived Anthony, Ignatio, Mars, and Mercury while we were in your hibernation space?

Those were our rules. There are two of us.

That’s another rule we have put into place.

I think it’s different for everyone because it conforms to the space it’s in like air. ”

Simon thought silently for a moment as he passed me a teacup. I swirled the tea around the cup, wondering what the leaves would tell me if I read them when I was finished. I wasn’t as great as my carrier at reading tea leaves, but I wasn’t horrible either.

“That’s what I thought,” Raziel finally nodded.

“Is there anything else we can do for you?” I asked gently.

“Probably not about this,” he laughed, looking more jaded than a dragon his age should.

“How about sandwiches?” Simon suggested.

“I could go for a sandwich,” Raziel nodded.