Chapter Fourteen
Sunny
There was no rule about how long or short a matingmoon was supposed to be. Though, we both knew it couldn’t last forever. Though, as those days stretched into a week, I found myself wishing it could. Alone in Laken’s house we made love and fucked in every room we stumbled into. We talked late into the night about our lives, flights, and what the worlds might look like after Other World gateways connected the Starscale System to the outside. He really wanted the Moonscales to feed everyone on Earthside. I didn’t say it aloud but I thought my carrier would if he could’ve. My sire was up in the air. He’d feed the kids, sure, but beyond that I wasn’t so sure about him. Now, Cade and Eston, they’d feed everyone. Eston already oversaw the food production for all of Heartville and produced enough to trade the surplus with communities within the nearish by rodent territory. I grew up raiding his gardens every summer and fall when I was in Heartville. The absence of money here wasn’t that different from back there.
Each day someone brought by a basket of snacks and other things we might need. Some days we found a second and one time even a third basket. Teddy and the other crew members often dropped off extra stuff for us. Once, I swore I got a whiff of Selt when I answered the door but the basket was clearly from Teddy. No one else would’ve squirreled away a bit of coffee beans from back home and have been willing to part with them for my sake.
“Maybe you have whatever psychic abilities that allow you to smell things instead of getting vibes,” Laken chuckled when I told him about catching a whiff of Selt. “Or maybe Teddy talked to him without us.”
“I hope not. I didn’t think Teddy had that much of a temper, but he is Fred’s kid. I know that doesn’t mean much to you but he’s Fred’s kid.”
“I get it. I saw Fred. If I lived on a world like Earthside I might’ve turned out like that too,” Laken shrugged. “I’m not worried about Selt coming here looking for a fight. Either he’s embarrassed Teddy put him in his place, or he’s embarrassed about how he acted. He’s the village idiot. At least, one of the village idiots anyway.”
“Any vibes about it?”
“About him being the village idiot? Don’t need vibes to know the answer to that one,” Laken teased as he sniffed the Moonscale coffee beans.
“When we can, I’ll take you to my favorite café back home. I mean if it’s still open. If not, I’ll take you to Bad Wolf Cakes 2.0. A family friend runs that place. It’s still up and going.”
“I look forward to the month of sugar high that will follow,” Laken grinned.
“You have a fire. You can burn off the excess sugar.”
“I’m a whiskered dragon. I don’t want to be a caramel dragon too.”
“I’d lick you clean.”
“I bet you would, and you’d thank me for it too.”
“I’d eat sugar off you any day,” I said, leaning over for a kiss.
Then we were at it again. Everything led to sex or foreplay and foreplay usually always led to romping. Inside his home, I didn’t worry about what others might think if they saw us. Home was our sanctuary and what went on here was no one’s bloody business. Every time I was on top, Laken would raise his legs in the air once we finished.
“We’re gonna have eggs one way or another,” he smirked at me that time after we were done.
“I can’t wait,” I grinned. “I’ll build you a great big nest and feed you everything you crave. I’ll make sure you can watch the arena on screen too.”
“You know, you can sit in the nest too once they come. We can take turns going out into the world. I love the idea of children but I’m not going to be the solo nest sitter while you run around. If that’s the idea, I’ll put my legs down and go take a shower.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Okay, maybe I did but a lot of carriers back home do stay in the nest. They don’t want to be anywhere else. I meant it as in – you won’t have to leave the nest if you don’t want to.”
“They must not trust their mates. I’ve seen you in the arena. You could protect our eggs. I trust you.”
I beamed without meaning to. Laken was a fighter at heart. He worked hard to hone his skills and tone his body. If he trusted me to watch over our eggs and have his back it was a compliment of the highest order.
“I chose you. Of course, I fucking trust you, Sunny,” he said, pulling me over for a kiss. “Look, I wouldn’t have eggs with a guy I didn’t trust to do half the work. We need to work on your views of draconic capitalism but I trust you with our eggs.”
I laughed and stole another kiss.
“They’ll probably grow up here. I’d rather have them learn to work together than work against each other.”
“Me too. We’ll figure it out and I think even if we had to raise them on Earthside they wouldn’t grow up to paywall food. They’d stand outside of those money food stores and hand out free food while laughing at the Sos that ran it.”
“Sos?” I blinked.
“Yeah, those guys that just make money. Okay, people who just make money and do nothing.”
“Oh,” I laughed. “C-E-Os.”
“Yeah. That’s what I said.”
“Close enough,” I shrugged. “But that sounds like something Eston would do outside of my sire’s stores if he pissed him off enough.”
“Good guy this mate of your brother.”
***
One week rolled into two and morphed into three. We might’ve stayed inside forever and actually forgotten about the world if Laken hadn’t woken up craving cheese. He was ravenous for it and apparently that was what happened in his family when omegas were pregnant. A lot of dragons didn’t experience pregnancy or egg sickness, but they got emotional or they had the sort of food cravings that they’d bring down an empire to indulge in.
One of the local healers was more than happy to swing by the house to give him a quick sonic to confirm our suspicions. The sonic let out the perfect ding to let us know that all Laken’s leg holding up in the air wasn’t in vain. The healer asked for his autograph before taking his leave.
“Someone’s famous,” I teased him.
“Yeah for having your baby,” he teased back before taking my hand and tugging me in close to him.
“We have so much to do, don’t we?”
“Well, yeah, and I want to see your crew’s healer so that I can get egg pictures,” he said.
“Oh, Izora will be doing that even if we have to go out to him. He probably won’t make us but still,” I shrugged, wrapped my arms around his middle.
“Eh, if we do, we do. I’m carrying eggs not dying. I hope you don’t expect me to lay around and eat cheese all day. Only half the day is appropriate.”
“I’ll remind you that you said that.”
“If you’re brave enough you can,” he laughed and we shared a long, slow kiss. I wouldn’t be brave enough. He was carrying our babies and our future. He could lay around however long he liked. I didn’t mind picking up the slack.
“It’s funny. We’re talking plurals without knowing.”
“It’s plurals,” I nodded. “I know. Maybe I’m picking up your vibes.”
“Shit!” Laken swore under his breath. “Speaking of vibes. I’d like to try to take care of the whole working with Selt part before I lay my eggs. That way we can handle him together without having him near our nest. He’s flight but I don’t like the idea. My dragon is threatening to use his whiskers like piano wire as we speak.”
“Yeah,” I frowned. “I don’t want him near our nest either. I haven’t talked to Teddy since the last time we saw him together. Let’s hope he hasn’t fucked it up yet.”
“Do you think he would?”
“Not on purpose but Teddy has big emotions even if he can have casual sex,” I shrugged.
“It’s time for me to see your place then, huh?”
“Yep. Though, it already feels like I live here.”
***
“What the hell happened here?” I asked Laken as we walked by the ship.
At first sniff, things more or less smelled the same, but underneath all that every path smelled like fucking Selt.
“I wasn’t here, mate,” Laken shook his head. “I’m sure we’ll find out but I’m not privy to any more information than you are. I’m sure if there was a problem we’d have heard about it. Someone would’ve let it slip up.”
“Do you think they did the ritual without us?” I asked him.
“I don’t think they can but would that bother you?”
“Maybe,” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t trust Selt with Teddy.”
“That’s not your choice to make. We can say no Selt at our place. We can say no Selt in our nest. We can’t say Teddy can’t talk to him. We’re not his parents and we’re not dating him. We’re not dating him, right?”
“Quit being an asshole,” I laughed and shook my head.
“See, we’re not dating him. So if he is hanging out with Selt that’s not our business unless it stands in the way of the ritual or endangers our eggs. Do you want to see if Izora is on the ship before we see Teddy?”
“He’s not or there’d be a line all over the place with pregnant dragons waiting for the same thing we want.”
“Fair enough,” Laken nodded. “Teddy’s it is.”