The Greed of Ruin (Sins of Balthier #2)

Chapter One

Ghreid

“It’s happening!” The guttersnipe of a laundry maid that had come on the tail end of Asha joining their family, ran through the halls.

Months prior, she’d been all skirts and sass.

Since she’d taken up residence with Nadi—many things had changed.

Her clothing was one of them. And she had as fine of a body in skirts as she did trousers, bouncing about like a child.

Nothing Ghreid was interested in—though from her smell, Nadi definitely was.

“Have you told your mate, yet?” Ghreid stuck his head from his room as she scrambled to stop; face screwed up.

“Mate?”

“Nadi.” Ghreid stared Lyss down, and her face lit with realization. She didn’t deny it, though.

“Oh! Good thinkin’. You wanna go find Prince Galatan and Lusty?

” She winked and Ghreid sighed. Galatan would be in the catacombs, and Falustus…

In his sex room, moping. He’d been searching for a new bedservant for a while, but nothing felt right.

And as a dragon mired by the aspect of lust itself, he had a prodigious appetite that was not being met.

Fortunately, he was taking his frustrations out on his work—developing sex education guides for the general public.

His foray into the matter had helped the country immensely.

Ghreid steeled himself and took off through the keep. Falustus’s room was but a few halls down, and he banged the door a few times. “Lust! It’s time.”

A few clangs and rattles of things being shoved around caught his ear before he staggered out. Nearly naked, save for a small pair of tied undergarments that barely contained anything a brother shouldn’t have seen. Unfortunately, Ghreid had become desensitized to it.

“What’s time? Did I miss something? Oh, shit.

I need to go out to that village…” He ran his fingers through silken fine red hair.

Ghreid’s own golden hair had a harmony with it, the two of them brothers of separate clutches, born after Rath and Slath.

In fact, the only one of the brothers that’d been a singleton was Galatan, who was a singleton by virtue only the size of his egg.

Such a large and intimidating dragon, even from youth.

“The eggs are hatching!” That seemed to wake Falustus up. His eyes widened, and he swore before running into his mess of a room to find clothes…or what he considered clothes. If he had trousers on, Ghreid would call it good.

Falustus took off running, still half dressed, all red in his features as Ghreid traversed the halls to the catacombs.

The morose journey filled Ghreid with sadness as he opened the gates and walked the lines of sleeping ones. Galatan sat at the end of his own tomb, staring at the floor. The constant ache of his missing mate had him almost wasting away. Food had lost its taste, he’d claimed.

“Galatan, the dragon I was looking for.” Ghreid stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for him to glance up, bottomless dark-brown eyes like rich cocoa blinking at him from their sea of black. “Naxima and Bessam are hatching.”

Galatan perked up, his face going from morose to delight in an instant. The only time he showed any emotion, it seemed. “Mark my words, we get a niece.”

“Our line hasn’t thrown a female in generations.” Ghreid scoffed, but Galatan had a ken of things and wouldn’t be gainsaid. Also, eggs were food. Galatan was rarely wrong about food. Maybe?

He slid from the tomb and jogged past Ghreid, with a glimmer in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “I’ll be an uncle,” he sang to himself.

Ghreid, for his part, followed along, eyeing the gold seeping through veins in the walls, migrating back with raw magic.

He’d set the kingdom up for success, and soon he’d be at the Monsmont ports, working on the new territory owned by Sauria, a common Duke.

He scoffed at the title when presented it, Prince Ghreiden, Duke of Saurian Port of Monsmount.

It was a mouthful that even Galatan wouldn’t swallow. Lust might, though. Maybe he was into that sort of thing?

Ghreid followed until they reached Rath’s chambers; the king’s hall, a fine thing spreading wide and ostentatious.

Their nestroom, one that Ghreid had known as a child, his parents’ bedroom, looked little like his memories, but still.

He occasionally longed to curl up in it and listen to his mother sing or watch her embroider.

The golden embroidery on his finer clothes still bore her touch.

“Come, come!” Rath gestured them in, his face bright and twisted with glee. “Naxima is pipping.”

Ghreid jogged around the room and threw himself onto some sitting cushions around the fireplace as Asha, barely clothed himself and reeking of lust, blushed and stared at their little ones, shells rocking.

A rather fine crack pulsed at the top of one of the shells.

A sharp, clear tip pushed at the leathery, pearlescent surface.

Part of Ghreid wanted the little ones to hatch slower, to delay the date of his own departure.

A single finger of a paw pushed free; the scales neither Asha’s pearly white nor Rath’s deep blue.

Though, that was common. A color of a dragon noted its affinity.

And by the scales that pushed free… Platinum.

Naxima ripped their shell, pushing a gleaming head free, lined with not a single horn down her scaled head.

Black eyes with white pupils blinked around.

“Naxima is a female!” Rath clapped his hands and shouted. The little one, for her part, opened her mouth to hiss at her loud father and scrambled into Asha’s arms, still wet from hatch. She flicked little slimy wings and grumbled, her voice a garbled chirp of annoyance.

“Rath, you scared her.” Asha untucked the little one and stared at her little face before giving her a tiny kiss to her snoot.

To Ghreid, she didn’t appear scared. She appeared annoyed, but Asha was one full of hope and dreams. He thought the best of things.

“Apologies, daughter.” Rath tamed his excitement and knelt, opening his arms until the little one slunk over to begrudgingly accept his affection, even if her tail did twitch with happiness, betraying her stoic grumble.

They gently daubed her skin dry, letting her crawl around to explore the room, investigating the gathered brothers before climbing Lapryda’s leg and tearing his, no-doubt expensive, trousers. “Hey!”

He laughed all the same before cooing over the little one. “The first daughter in hundreds of years.”

She squeaked and wiggled. Being drawn to Pryd and bearing platinum, she’d have affinities with riches, no doubt, but vanity she’d love.

The next egg, still rocking, caught their gaze as Pryd handed the little one to Slath, and Galatan and the others. Even Lyss got to hold her before Ghreid did. The little girl yawned and flopped over his shoulder before giving a defeated breath, total relaxation claiming her.

Bessam didn’t hatch in a peek and spread as Naxima had. He came into the world intentionally, lashing from his egg in a sprawl and yowl of joy. Lapryda, for his part, snickered and clapped his hands. “Yessssss!”

Collective groans rolled between the brothers.

“Another fucking vanity dragon,” Falustus groaned as the little one preened, his tiny golden horns and claws almost like jewelry on his amethyst scales.

He stretched his body and slid over to his fathers, giving them equal parts affection as if his mere presence was a reward. And from there, he wound his way around Galatan and Slath before holding his little claws up and standing on weak back legs for, as they all could have guessed, Lapryda.

“Are we sure Rath is the father? Both of them are little preening tots.” Galatan laughed gloriously, and Rath joined him.

“I’m very certain, Brothers. I was there for the entire conception.” Rath puffed with his own pride as Asha smacked his arm.

“I was there, too and I can attest that Pryd must have been there in spirit, if this is the case.” Rath leaned over to kiss his mate, and they watched their hatchlings fawn over chosen uncles with delight.

“Oooh, voyeur,” Falustus cooed before wafting his hand a bit, letting a folding fan unfurl in his grasp.

Where he hid the thing, Ghreid wasn’t certain because he had no pockets in his trousers that were nearly painted on, and his top was barely sleeves and enough fabric to cover his collarbones, letting his prominent nipples show freely.

Galatan, for his part, waltzed over to steal the little girl from Ghreid, her already-snoozing form jostling with a lazy blink. “Niece! I will head to the kitchens where we’ll prepare your first feast!”

“And Ghreid’s going-away party,” Draenvir said from a corner, eying Ghreid with a longing expression, as if he wished he were in his place. How Ghreid wished so, too, but he’d felt a calling of late that made him want to go more and more.

“Are you all packed?” Rath eyed Ghreid.

He nodded, golden locks spilling over his shoulders. He reached his hand out, all warm tanned skin, more sun kissed than his father’s richer tones, tucking the strands away with dark claws, gold reflected in their surfaces.

Naxima made her way back to his arms as the celebration commenced, and they lazed about, napping with their newly whelped niblings while not saying the goodbyes that the celebration would entail.

Come morning, Ghreid would fly.