Chapter 18 #2
“Well, it’s sort of the same way when a dragon omega gets pregnant. The symptoms come on very quickly. Things like cravings and mood swings, and it doesn’t take as long to have the baby as a human parent might.” He was proceeding slowly, trying to introduce one concept at a time.
“Uh-huh.” Daniel’s panic was building; he could feel it. “And what happens to the pregnant one at the end?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.” Hayden just didn’t follow.
Daniel’s eyes were wide. “Am I going to explode? Am I going to die? Is that the end game?”
“What? No, why would I even talk about you getting pregnant if there was death at the end of it?” What a horrifying thought. He couldn’t even imagine.
“Well, what happened to Jacks’s parents?”
“We don’t know.”
Daniel shook his head. “Somebody has to know something.”
“Well, not me. Someone found Jacks, a rescue team. They gave him to the agency, then the agency gave him to me.”
“Okay.” Daniel frowned at him, almost scowling. “How many more are there?”
Goddess, he was confused. “More what?”
“Dragon babies. And I do not approve of some wild dragon orphanage with little ones waiting for parents to love them.”
“I don’t know how many more there are, babe.” He imagined there were some, but he’d have to talk to the agency and find that out.
“Well, we need to know.” Daniel. I stared up at him, his lower lip pushing out a little bit. “That’s not okay… to have baby dragons that don’t have homes.”
“No, I agree with you there, but it’s also important for baby dragons to go to the homes that they need to be in.” Hayden knew not every dragon baby was suited to live with every dragon family.
“I had no idea there was an underground Dragon Network.”
“Mostly we’re an aboveground Dragon Network.”
“Really.” Daniel pinned him with a look. “So you still haven’t explained the whole how does the baby get out thing.”
“Oh, oh! I haven’t. I should. It’s important.”
“It so is. Go ahead. I’ll wait.” Now Daniel was just being testy.
“So, a birth line forms on your stomach, and when it’s time for you to go into labor, it’ll open up. Easy-peasy.”
Those red eyebrows lifted. “And this is biology?”
“More magic than biology. We are basically magical animals.” It was a little hard to explain. “It’s like flying. It’s really not a physics thing, it’s a magic thing.”
Daniel frowned at him. “You can fly. Is our baby going to be able to fly?”
“I don’t see any reason why not.” Hayden didn’t know any reason the baby couldn’t.
“Well, I can’t fly.”
He shook his head. “No, you haven’t flown. There’s a difference. You will fly, I have no doubt of it. Probably not until after the baby, of course. That’s a lot to work out — magically flying and creating a baby.”
“Of course.” Daniel closed his eyes for a second and breathed. “Okay, so everything in dragon time goes really fast. Does that mean Jacks is not going to live very long?”
“What?”
“Please pay attention, love.” Daniel poked him in the leg. “Jacks? And the new baby, of course, but Jacks? He deserves to have eighty or ninety years.” Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, love.” He held Daniel close. “Dragon babies age really quickly at the beginning, until about puberty, then they slow. Like, genuinely slow down.”
Daniel sniffled. “How slow?”
Dammit. “How old would you guess I am?”
Daniel shook his head, shrugged. “Maybe thirty-five?”
“I was born during the Crusades.”
Daniel gave him the hairy eyeball. “The Crusades, as in back in the twelfth century Crusades?”
Yeah, this wasn’t going to go over well.
“Yes, that far back. Like Canterbury Tales kind of stuff.”
“So you remember the great plagues?”
He could tell Daniel was trying for sarcasm, but it wasn’t funny, or even unreal.
“I do. It wasn’t a good time. But since I’m a dragon, I was immune pretty much. The most dangerous thing to dragons are humans, who outnumber us by quite a good percentage.”
Daniel put his face in his hands. “Oh my god. Oh my God.” He kind of sounded like he was hyperventilating.
“Easy, easy now. Just breathe. Now, you have this.” The dragon didn’t scare Daniel. The age did.
“I do not have this. I don’t know what this is, but I absolutely one hundred percent don’t have it,” Daniel snapped at him.
“In fact, I have the absolute opposite of what it is. You have to know more than I’m ever going to know.
Why on earth did you want a nanny? I’m not capable of teaching anybody anything.
Much less having a dragon baby, and another one that’s supposed to love me, and then you.
No, that doesn’t happen. I have to be less interesting than a bug. ”
Hayden did not sigh, even if he wanted to. “Less interesting than a bug seems like a little bit of a stretch, dear.”
“Don’t patronize me. You know what I mean.
This can’t be exciting in any way. I don’t even know for sure that I can fly, and I can’t breathe fire.
Right now, the only thing I can do is drink milk and take the baby outside to play in the snow.
” The tears did start now, hard and fast, and Jacks sat up, staring at them.
“Please, mate, breathe. Please believe me when I tell you that I would not put you in this position ever if I thought it was in any way wrong or bad.” He really didn’t know whether or not Daniel was going to be all right. It didn’t feel very all right.
“Dan Dan?” Jacks waved to Daniel. “Dan Dan!”
Daniel looked at Jacks and just started crying harder, which of course was when Jacks set the little bars of his playpen on fire.
“Oh, holy shit!” Daniel turned his head and blew ice at the flames, dousing them immediately.
Hayden stared back and forth between his mate and his child, then blinked. “And you say you’re not interesting.”
“I am going to murder you.”
“Do I need to bring the fire extinguisher?” Denise asked, poking her head into the living room.
“No. No, but I think Jacks is going to need a new pack ‘n play.”
“I need more milk.” Daniel hopped up from the couch and walked away from him, feet coming down hard.
She winced. “Not a great talk, I assume?”
He shrugged. “I told him how old I was. It was…challenging.”
That was the understatement of the century.
“I’ll have Rita order the pack and play and have it delivered as soon as we can. We’re getting to a point where things aren’t so easy to come by though.”
“I’ll make sure and let Jacks know that,” he snarled, and her eyes flashed.
“Don’t you snap at me. It’s not my fault.”
“No, it’s not Jacks’s fault either. Daniel was crying, and it upset him.”
“Poor little love.” Denise picked him up out of the mess, which immediately made Hayden feel like the world’s worst father ever. Who didn’t pick your child up out of the burning playpen? What kind of nanny didn’t do it?
Not a fucking nanny. You said so. That was definite and sharp.
Hayden’s temper flared. Fine, you’re not a nanny. What kind of a father would leave his son in a burning bed?
Well, obviously a dragon one!
The kitchen door opened and closed with a resounding slam. Then Jacks just started to wail hysterically.
“I’m taking him to our quarters. You deal with your mate.”
“Are you telling me what to do?” he roared, and suddenly Denise seemed to be huge, a surge of energy flashing from her.
“Excuse me?”
Hayden was not one to cower, but he did wince. “Okay, okay, look I’m sorry. I’ll go get Daniel. You take Jacks, and I’ll meet you back here for dinner.”
“Perfect.” She enunciated every consonant.
Hayden didn’t bother to bundle up. He was a fire dragon, after all. He just went outside. He generated enough heat that he probably melted snow around him for a good fifteen feet.
He caught up with Daniel halfway to the nearest outbuilding. “Baby, please, can we talk about this?”
He stood and turned around, arms crossed around himself, tears in his eyes. “What is there to talk about? You must think I’m the biggest rube known to man.”
“No, I think you’re my mate, and I have waited centuries for you. Just you, not anyone else. I believe in magical energy. Just because your body has only been here on Earth for so many years doesn’t mean your soul isn’t just as old as mine.”
Daniel sniffled, shaking his head and dashing away the tears. “That’s a very sweet thing to say, but I’m not sure I buy it.”
“Well, I wish you would because you can.” He held out a hand, hoping that he was sending the right kind of vibes. He wanted Daniel to come touch him because that would help.
Daniel did move closer, at least tentatively reaching out for him, but not quite touching him. So he was the one to grab Daniel’s hand and initiate the contact.
“I love you, Daniel, and I know we have a lot to iron out here. I know this all has to be a great shock to you, but it’s important to me that you understand how much I care about you and how much I want you to be here with me.”
He stared into those bright blue eyes willing Daniel to believe him and be right there with him.
“I want to believe that.”
“Then do it. Jacks loves you too already, so much. You’re his Dan Dan. I’ve never seen him react that way to anybody and he loves Denise and Rita. He loves me, but he doesn’t act that way for me.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“How about we agree to do it together?” He reached up to stroke Daniel’s cheek with the thumb of his free hand. “At least tell me you’ll try.”
Daniel took a breath so deep that it puffed up his chest, but then he nodded. “I’m trying every day, Hayden. I promise.”
“I know you are, and I love you so much.”
Daniel’s eyes widened, but that seemed to break some sort of a dam because Daniel flung himself into Hayden’s arms. “I love you too,” he said. “And I’m trying to get this. I really am.”
“Then that’s all I can ask, and we’ll do this together.” He took a long, deep kiss from Daniel, pulling Daniel into the shelter of his body and warming him where he was freezing. He knew they had to get through this somehow, but he hoped it would not be as hard as it had been today.