Chapter 11
Clarence Moonscale
Moonscale London Under the Reign of Ferrick Moonscale
Why it hadn’t occurred to me to ask the names of Medwin’s parents before meeting them, I didn’t know.
“We had a lot on our minds,” my dragon chimed into my thoughts as Borris Scartalon led me into the kitchen of their countryside home that could only be described as cute.
Even the curtains had a dainty daisy pattern on them that matched the plaid style wallpaper.
He pulled out my chair for me and put the kettle on.
While Borris Scartalon was the larger of the mated pair, he was far from the most impressive.
He was an academic type that had spent many of his early decades in a lab studying medicine and history and whatever suited his fancy.
The Scartalons were from further north where the days were short, and the weather was colder, but he came from old money.
He was on his university’s rowing team and had once single-handedly transported a pod of beached whales back to safety.
Still, his accomplishments paled next to Medici Smokescale’s.
Medici wasn’t born into money. His carrier was a professional poker player, and his sire was a boxer.
In his early days, Medici fought in back-alley arenas, betting on himself to win for his supper.
Though, he would eventually make it further than his father into the legal world of fighting before attending university for a guard degree and playing rugby for the academy’s team before switching to water polo because rugby bored him.
Then he switched to ice hockey because he was told there were no omega teams for him to play on.
So, he played with the alphas and had a record of going harder than them to prove he deserved his place.
He was eventually banned from the official teams for beating a teammate to death with a hockey stick and eventually shanking him with the broken stick thirty-seven times because he caught him slipping something into someone’s drink at a bar.
The court gave him a warning and told him to get his dragon under control.
That there were ways short of death to deal with potential rapists.
That’s when his activist work began, fueled by the money he’d made here and there over the years.
Then he met Borris Scartalon and that’s the night he broke several bones in my sire’s right arm.
That story was only recently told to me by several of my new friends.
Medici was playing pool at a biker bar that no longer existed.
He had bent over to make a winning shot at a pool table when Roster thought it was appropriate to grope him.
From how I was told, he carefully laid the pool stick down and told his opponent to wait just a second.
He turned around and took my sire’s hand in his.
Roster grinned and the next thing anyone knew Roster was on the floor with a shattered shoulder joint, a broken elbow, wrist, and thumb, and a fractured collarbone.
That was while he was still heir, too. When he was finished putting the groper in his place, he stepped over him and picked up his pool stick to take his shot and win the game.
When the judge and my grandfather asked him why he was so extreme he quoted the previous judge and said he thought he was taking sound legal advice since he stopped short of snapping the pool stick and shoving it up his ass.
Medici and Borris were banished from Moonscale London proper, but from what I knew neither of them gave a damn.
“My mate is a lot to handle,” Borris said, bringing a platter of teacups to the table. “He means well but he had a hard upbringing and it shows sometimes. Not to mention, he’s sour about not being able to take a piss on your sire’s tomb.”
“I’m sort of sour about that too,” I nodded. “Don’t want to take too many risks around my carrier.”
Borris smiled and shook his head, “take some advice from someone who was raised by a fierce omega and who has spent over a century loving one, they are always dangerous but if they love you, you’re the safest person in their presence.
You just have to learn their love language.
Medici might disagree with me, but I’d wager a lot of gold on the fact your carrier loves you.
Maybe not in the ways you’d like, but whether or not people are sane, we don’t get to choose how they love us.
We can choose to accept their actions or not, but they’re not within our control.
I think you have more of an upper hand than you think.
We watched your heir coronation on the telly, and you were the only person he didn’t look at like you were dogshit on the bottom of his shoe.
Remember that. With his sort of love, you’re safe as long as he believes it’s equally reciprocated. ”
I opened my mouth, intending to ask him what omen he meant to impart to me, but Medwin and Medici walked into the kitchen. Borris stood and gave his mate a quick kiss just as the kettle sounded off. Medwin sat next to me stiff backed as if waiting for an attack or a chiding.
“The time for him to be nervous about us meeting his parents has passed,” my dragon chimed off into my thoughts. “That time was when we were nearly bludgeoned to death.”
The scaley beast was right but I couldn’t stop smiling.
Tension I didn’t know I was holding onto fled my shoulders and back from merely being in the presence of my mate.
I reached for his hand under the table and he let me take it.
Entwining our fingers together soothed the seething rage I’d learned to live with since my parents’ confessions.
Borris rambled on about polite topics while we drank our tea. Whenever I think back to that day, I can never quite remember all the things he said, but he filled the silence and distracted Medici from staring daggers through me for the duration of our tea.
“Have you told him?” Eventually, Medici cut to the point. “Your carrier.”
“Not yet,” I said, knowing it was the wrong answer, but the truth was all I had.
“When do you plan on telling him?” my carrier-in-law asked me.
“When I return home,” I said and fought off the shudder that tried to shimmy down my spine at the thought of letting Ferrick in on my secret.
Either it would go over beautifully, and my carrier would look forward to the next generation of our family line or he’d hate sharing me.
Hopefully, Charden kept him beautifully distracted for just a bit longer.
“Not with my son in tow,” Medici said despite the warning look his mate flashed him.
“No, Borris. Don’t look at me like that.
Don’t look at me like I don’t know what I’m talking about because I do.
He’s not dragging our son back to the Juda-forsaken city until we know how the egg smasher will react. ”
Borris opened his mouth, but I spoke first.
“That’s a reasonable request,” I said before an argument could break out.
“I don’t want to put Medwin in harm’s way either.
That’s why we’ve kept our response a secret for so long.
” I could’ve gone on to say how miserable I was without him, but Medici didn’t look or smell as if he cared what I felt.
For all the animosity that could’ve brewed between us, we had a common goal.
“Plus, I’ll need some time to talk to him about lifting the banishment.
I think we’re all in a good place to admit how horrible Roster was.
We can’t have a wedding without you two. ”
“A wedding?” Medici arched his brows. “Really? A wedding? Basically, a giant circle jerk for attention that will be the perfect point of attack for both sides? You really think that this is the time for a wedding?”
“It’s tradition,” I said, keeping my voice level as I often had to do with my own carrier.
“Yeah, well, like Roster, a lot of your traditions suck. Pompous and showboating while there are real issues,” Medici huffed and waved away a triple smoke ring that shot from his nose.
“It will draw more attention if there is no wedding,” I countered.
“Wasteful. I remember when your parents got married. Wasted enough resources to power their filthy city for a week,” Medici said.
“No wedding unless I’m there and not for the whole carrier of the omega thing either.
I’ll play along because I can smell it all over him that he wants it, but because when there is an attack, I’ll be there to take the trash out”
“That is fair,” I nodded, saying little in hopes of not saying the wrong thing again.
“You’ll stay here tonight. It’s getting dark and we have plenty of guestrooms,” Medici said.
I opened my mouth to say I’d rather spend the night with Medwin but thought better of it. Sex positive didn’t always equate to sex before mating.
“I know that look,” Medici pointed at me.
“Before you sleep with my son, you better have your shit together, Moonscale. When you start fucking around to make eggs, you’re a father from that day forward whether or not eggs are involved.
True-mate magic doesn’t give a bloody teapot about birth control or whatever prophylactics you can pull out of your sheath.
So you better be ready. Don’t make me do your job of protecting and raising your hatchlings.
I will do it, but you’ll regret me having to. Baby won’t regret it, but you will.”
“Dad!” Medwin had finally had enough. “Were not some teenagers romping around under the bleachers and behind the gazebo! We’re true-mates!”
“And he’s hidden you away and---”
“I agreed to that when all this started! Do you think I wanted any more of a target from Roster the Groper on my back than I already had from merely being your son?” Medwin stood up.
“Am I mad that I feel like Pras gets to behave more like his true-mate than I do? Yes! One thousand percent yes! Am I mad that it took him so long to come get me? Yes! But some things are more important than me! Those fucking people have fucked with everyone I care about! My best friend died! My other friends have died fighting! My parents are banished! What on the name of Juda and all his little babies do you expect me to do?”
No one said anything for a long moment, and Medici’s expression softened but only for his son.
“Perhaps, I care more about my son than a city that has let their problems grow wings and fly into them again and again. If you care about London, I’ll resume caring about London. For you.”
“I care about the whole territory,” Medwin said. “People should be able to live their lives without fearing those in charge or those close enough to them or rich enough to buy their way out of trouble hurting them.”
“I don’t know that we’ll ever live in that world, kiddo, but I hope for your sake we can live in something close to it.”
“And Clarence is sleeping in my room tonight,” Medwin said, squaring his shoulders.
I glanced at Borris who was on his fourth cup of tea. He watched his mate with a twinkle in his eye. Medici pondered his son’s words for a long second and then nodded.
“If that’s what you think is best,” he said. “Just… Remember to save something for yourself while you’re saving the world.”