Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Sloan hummed, moving his hoard around until it pleased him, his blue stones over here, his honey-colored ones there. They matched his scales, which had always been sapphire and emerald and ruby and topaz to according to his brothers, but now he thought maybe sea and sky and earth and honey…
That meant he was destined for Tyr.
His mate was up above, working the hives. Brayden was flying patrol with Cade. And Riley… He wasn’t sure. He thought Riley might be up at the mountain. Or down at the ocean. Or—
“Sloan.”
He grunted, jumping half a mile. “Riley!”
“Hey. Can we talk?” Riley looked a little ragged, his clothes a little dirty and rumpled.
Sloan frowned. “Are you okay? What’s happened to you?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Why?”
“You look like you’ve been put through the ringer.” He studied Riley closely.
“I was playing awak.”
Sloan chuckled, shaking his head. The dragons here played this wild game that involved flying and leaping and was very complicated.
Obviously full contact. And people were very passionate about it.
At least some people who were here, because his mate rolled his eyes, pointed Brayden and Riley toward Cade when they had questions, and wandered back to the hives. His mate was not a sportsball person.
“What? It’s fun, man, and I’m good at it.”
“Oh, excellent. Go you. So what did you want? I mean you’re welcome to just come and visit if that’s what you’re after right now.” But really he was kind of busy doing not a whole lot of things, and he sort of wanted to continue doing just that. He’d been organizing. Organizing was important.
He was becoming one of those dragons. Oh my God, he was one of those dragons. One of those organizational, spends lots of time at home dragons and…
“Are you even listening to me?” Riley asked, his exasperation clear.
He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t there for a moment.”
“I didn’t think so. Listen to me.” Riley pierced him with a stare. “I’m telling you I’m leaving.”
“Leaving. Leaving to where?” He wasn’t sure Riley was allowed to leave. They had too much to learn about this world before it was safe to wander off.
“There’s a town. Not like a city, but a town-town.
Bigger than here. Well, they have awak leagues, and there’s a tournament and these dragons I met need someone to be on their team.
They’re short a member. Someone got hurt, and they saw me play today.
So they asked me to play with their team for a bit, and I fit in really well.
So I’m going to go with them.” Riley finally stopped to take a breath.
“And play awak? They have professional awak players?” That was like having professional… oh, he didn’t know. Curling leagues.
“I think professional is kind of a strong term, but we all have matching bands to wear around our ankles so everybody knows which team we’re on.
It’s not like I can’t just come home if it goes badly, too.
” Riley gave him a furtive glance, and suddenly he remembered that his brother was so young, somehow.
Still. “Right? I mean, I can just come home.”
“Of course you can. This is your home. You can come back every night, or come once a week, or come home once a month. I don’t care. You have a place here no matter what.” He needed Riley to know and believe that.
That got him a grin and a nod. “Exactly. This is home. I just— it sounds like so much fun. And I thought, why not?”
“Can we come watch you? I mean, is that a thing? Can you let us know and we’ll just come and see?” He would bet Tyr would even stop rolling his eyes if it was Riley playing.
He thought that the teenagers from up in the mountain clutch liked this game.
Maybe this was something they could all do together, make a trip to the next town.
Tyr had talked to him about it. It was about three times the size of village, and well, he hadn’t gone and explored over there.
“Do you think that I’ve become a homebody? ”
Riley gave him this weird, tense-faced look. “Is there any answer to that question that’s not fuckitty?”
Sloan blinked. “Maybe?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, you are one.”
“Hey, I go out and patrol.”
“Sure you do. But you do know you’ve been down in this basement for like a week and a half, right? Like, I don’t even know if you’ve seen Tyr.”
Oh, he’d seen Tyr. He’d seen Tyr a lot, sometimes multiple times in a night. They were having a ball. Tyr was incredibly grateful for his pool, and once he cooled down every evening and they’d eaten, they spent many, many hours seeing one another. Intimately.
“I’m trying to organize things. You know, this is the first time I’ve had a space all my own.”
Riley shrugged. “Yeah, I’m still… I don’t get it. But anyway, I’ll let you know about the away-games schedule if there is one. I’m not really sure how this whole tournament thing works, but I’ll get back to you.”
“You’re sure this isn’t some scam?”
“What the great High Dragon awak scam? We’re going to tempt young able-bodied sports players to the murky bog and steal their sportsball capabilities. I breathe fire. And let’s be honest, man, we are big for this particular dimension. I mean, I think they grow us way bigger in the human realm.”
He detected absolutely no lies in that sentence. Every so often, he felt a little bit like a lumbering giant. He wasn’t mad at it.
The only dragon he’d met from this dimension who came close to their size was Cade. He was kind of a giant too. “I just want you to be safe. It’s not a big deal. I mean it’s not like you can’t send messages back to us if you need to.”
Tyr had told him there were magical devices that were sort of like telephones. People had them in houses or in pubs or taverns or whatever they called them. Or there were messengers who would deliver for money if something happened. He would just send some jewels with Riley so he had trade goods.
“Anyway, I’m sure you can come watch, and as soon as I know that we’re going to be having a big game, I’ll send you a message so you guys can come.”
“That sounds great. I would really like to take Tyr to a slightly larger town and maybe buy him a few neat baubles.” Sloan liked to do fun things for his mate and now that they had a house spirit, it was a little bit easier.
Tyr would take a day trip at least. Maybe not an overnight trip until after the bees started to slow down for the fall, but it was a good idea to ask.
“Cool. I would dig that. Hell, maybe you could get some of the Rocky Mountain clutch to come. They’re sort of hiding out up there in their aerie, you know?”
“I do.” In fact, Cade and Poe talked about that all the time.
Sure, some of the mountain bunch came down to the village to do trading, and he guessed they weren’t hiding really so much as just feeling safe.
They had lived that way their whole lives.
At least the Utah clutch had, who were part of the greater Rocky Mountain clutch.
He felt fascinated by how all of them had come together.
Sloan was kind of getting into dragon history too. Not just human dragon history, but dragon history here on Lunastra. The stories intrigued him and the ancient books were gorgeous.
“You’re doing it again,” Riley told him.
“What’s that?” Sloan raised his eyebrows.
“Not listening to me. Look, I’m gonna go ahead and pack a bag. The guys are waiting for me.”
“All right, but please be careful, and here, take some trading money with you.” He handed Riley a few stones.
“I have plenty of stuff I can use for trade, but I’ll take these two just in case.
Apparently, they have—if not a banking situation—then some sort of money-trading situation in that town.
It’ll be interesting to see how it works.
” Riley bounced on the balls of his feet, clearly super excited about getting out and doing something that wasn’t just hanging around the village.
Sloan got it. They had been wanderers for so many years, and while he, as the oldest, had been ready to settle down and stop wandering, Riley still felt like he had a lot of restlessness in his feet.
“I promise I’ll be careful, and if something happens, I’ll get a message to you right away.” Riley inched toward the door.
“I appreciate that, brother. Come here and give me a hug.” He held out his arms.
Riley made a show of rolling his eyes, but really, they had never been afraid of physical affection. They gave each other a back-pounding hug.
“Make sure you stop and tell Brayden you’re leaving, too. If you go without him knowing, he’s gonna be seriously angry, and I don’t want to have to be the one to tell him.” Sloan waggled his eyebrows.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be sure to stop and tell him. No worries.”
“Have fun, Riley. I love you.” Sloan said it to his brothers any time they had to be apart, even for a day.
“I love you, too. Don’t worry. I won’t be gone forever.” With that, Riley was out of there in a swirl of magic and scales.
“They grow up so fast, don’t they?”
Sloan jumped again because this time it was his house spirit who was talking to him, sneaking up on him and making him shriek like a little girl.
“I guess they do. I’m proud of him though. He wants to make his own way.”
“He does, and I think he will do well. Awak is an interesting game, and he is uniquely suited to it with the way he is built and with his talents.”
Sloan studied his tragae. “Do you really think so?”
“I do. I would not steer you wrong. You are my householder.”
“Hmm. Well, I hear that you guys can be a little mischievous every so often,” Sloan teased.
“Perhaps, but not about this. Family is too important to make fun of. Now, do you need help cleaning anything?”
“I think I’m good right now, but Tyr was complaining the other day that his jars of honey were getting a little dusty. You know how particular he is about that.”
Salano smiled. “I do. Every so often, I let them get dusty just to give him something to complain about. But I will go and clean them now.”
“Do you think he’s happy?” His own words surprised him, and his eyes went wide.
“Your mate?”
He nodded. “I want him to be happy, and I think he is, but I need to be sure.”
“Oh, sir. He is so very happy. Your pool was a gift that keeps him smiling all the time. And he loves you so. I can see it when he looks at you. You have made his life better by being in it.”
He hoped so, but there was a part of him that worried. Tyr and he had been together for a few months now, and so many of the other dragons spoke often about how quickly they became pregnant.
But Tyr hadn’t shown any sign yet, and Sloan worried that he’d done something wrong. Him. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Tyr.
“I just want him to be good with all the changes.”
“He is.” Salano came to touch his arm, and magic tingled in the room. “Just wait with patience, my householder. I promise, it will be worth it.”
“Thanks.” And he felt better all of the sudden. He should go find Tyr and tell him about Riley.
And see if eventually he wanted to go to an awak game.