Chapter Two
Teige
The wee spriggans had the true energy that came with being Stoor or Loch.
And in their shifted form, it became very apparent that little Faolan was a true Stoor, despite being of Loch blood.
His mane of fur along his spines flowed like the old ones, vicious forms calling back to a tale of dragons with wolf spirits.
All Loch and Stoor were truly Irish, no Scottish dragons in existence anymore, all bearing different names, but that little one could resurge an entire clan were he to find the right mate.
The little ones, shifted and tumbling, chased roosters about with feckless glee, their home-raised flock, a long history originating from the orneriest cockerel they’d ever witnessed.
Not since his youth in the northlands had he seen such horrid fowl, but Viraj had somehow gotten a flock of the males to brood and raise male chicks that people brought along, creating the most homosexual bunch of chickens on earth.
They mounted one another far more often than not.
Honestly? Mood.
But if one or two got eaten playing with the pups? None would be the wiser.
Especially not when one strutted up and pecked viciously at Gatlin’s leg before trying to fornicate with his shoe. Nonconsensually.
After what seemed like a long while, Gaspard strutted back, face a mask of professionalism, Bastien no longer at his side. “Boys?”
Every one them looked up at once save for Ryan. The little prince he was, now a king, held no notion that Gaspard would call him boy.
“Aye?” Gatlin said as he kicked a rooster off his foot while it made a hideous squawk of coitus interruptus.
Also, mood. Poor lad. Didn’t even let him finish.
Gaspard pointed to Teige and Gatlin with a stern glance, his face somewhat cold as he did so. Teige feared they wouldn’t like the news they received, so they followed, leaving Ryan and the pups to play happily, even if he gave them disdainful glances.
As they strode away from the area, they made their way to the sunroom on the back of the Silverton estate, watching over the gardens and chicken coops with halfhearted interest. Ordinarily, it brought joy, but Gaspard’s sullen mood only brought a leaden severity to the situation.
“Tell me, boys. Have either of you been with a Dette before?” Gaspard folded his hands and waited patiently while Teige and Gatlin shook their heads.
“Dette siblings?”
“I had two but we weren’t allowed around one another. We’re separated young.” Gatlin cleared his throat.
Gaspard swore under his breath. “Clueless fucking Drakes.”
Teige and Gatlin glanced at one another with a halfhearted shrug, but Teige spoke first, “Why?”
Gaspard rubbed his nasal bridge, pinching it for a moment before sighing deeply. “Viraj is Hijada, correct?”
They glanced at one another and nodded sheepishly. “But that doesn’t make him any less of a Dr—”
“He’s a Dette.” Gaspard’s brow fell flat as he stared the two down. “A hormonally stunted one, intersex yes, but with the correct treatment…”
The two stared at Gaspard, eyes wide.
Gaspard exhaled sternly, muttering about Drakes needing sexual education before turning them loose on dragon society at large. “I, personally, like being fucked by Dettes more than I like fucking them. I have zero tolerance for ignorance. How you two failed to notice was beyond m—”
“But Dettes don’t have… In dragon form. He does.” Gatlin’s brow clenched.
Gaspard rubbed his nose bridge and sighed so hard, he nearly choked.
“Dettes have pseudophalluses in dragon form. They’re small.
Around the ventral slit, Drakes have a canal that serves to store their flaccid phallus.
Dettes never develop that fully, so there’s a prepuce that has encapsulated their reproductive nerve endings there. ”
Teige blinked. “So, you’re telling me he’s a well-endowed Dette?”
Gatlin reached up to take Teige’s hand. “But in his human form—”
“Probably undeveloped. Nothing to be done about it this late in his life, but a Dette finds their pleasure in other ways, I assure you. And you never wondered why he doesn’t have a knot?
” Gaspard crossed his arms. “I’m telling you this before I tell him.
Bastien is seeing what he can heal with magic, and we’ve injected him with an isolate from nestblossoms. Bastien, himself, had strange heats until he got enough nestblossom—one of the compounds is an analogue to a precursor to the very specific type of estrogens that make Dettes fertile. ”
Either due to his Hijada nature or by sheer dint of his size, Teige had never questioned Viraj’s lack of a knot.
Gatlin raised a hand as if it were a class and frowned. “Why did… Should we say something?”
“No. Ordinarily, yes, I’d like to say something, but he’s lived his life as a Drake.
And I really don’t think we should say anything unless we can make his body function once more.
Once done, we can go from there, but until his baseline biology is corrected, I don’t think telling him would make him feel better.
How would he take it if he found out he were a Dette, and not only a Dette but a broken one?
So close to what you two want but so far away?
” Gaspard huffed. “Even worse, I’d imagine. A Dette that can’t even get slick?”
Teige raised his hand, cheeks on fire. “So…”
Gaspard heaved a short breath and froze. “He gets slick, doesn’t he?”
Gatlin and Teige nodded.
Gaspard reached up, grasping them both by the hair and knocked their heads together with a firm smack. “Idiots!”
A soft set of footsteps plodded into the room, and Teige glanced up to catch sight of Viraj’s great-nephew with that same annoyed expression on his face. “They didn’t know?”
Gaspard shook his head.
Bastien took a deep breath. “I did what I could. I’ve left the medicine here and gave him instructions. Pepas must be back by the end of the week, what with spring coming. If he truly does have an amorous period often, he should go in to a true heat.”
“Then do we tell him?” Gatlin frowned.
“No, then you come visit us and we see what happened. If he’s expecting blanks, we say something.” Gaspard rubbed at his face. “Clueless fucking stags.”