Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Being parents to four dragon hatchlings was not for the weak of heart. Riordan had come to that conclusion on the day his four babies had hatched and had repeated that to himself multiple times a day since.
Zayden had stolen Xander’s breakfast again, and Olivia had expressed her opinion about the banana pieces she’d received as a snack by launching her food bowl across the kitchen with a precision that suggested she’d been practicing.
“That’s the third bowl this week,” Wilmer said, examining the dent in the baseboard. “We should invest in metal ones.”
“We have metal ones. She bent the last one.” Riordan scooped the scattered food off the floor while Zayden—the eldest by an hour and thus the self-appointed leader of every situation—postured over Xander’s portion with the territorial confidence of an alpha that belied the fact that he was only a few months old and twelve inches long.
“Zayden, that’s your brother’s. Give it back. ”
Zayden spread his tiny cream-colored wings and hissed, which would’ve been intimidating if he hadn’t also hiccupped mid-hiss and startled himself so badly he fell off the feeding mat.
Xander, who worshipped his older brother with the blind devotion of a second-born who hadn’t yet figured out that he was slightly bigger, immediately abandoned his own food to check on Zayden.
The two of them tumbled into a wrestling match that knocked over the water dish and sent Olivia into another bout of outraged squawking.
Four months of parenthood, and Riordan’s kitchen looked like a war zone twelve hours a day.
The other twelve hours, the hatchlings slept—always in a pile, their small dragon bodies tangled together in a heap of scales and tails and tiny claws that somehow managed to be both the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing Riordan had ever seen.
“Jermon, can you—”
His mate was in the doorway, one hand raised, purple magic shimmering around his fingers as he dangled a glowing orb above the wrestling match.
Zayden and Xander both froze, their tiny heads tracking the light with predatory focus.
They were genetically programmed to chase anything that moved, and their parents made use of that.
“Careful,” Riordan warned. “Last time you did that, you set the curtains on fire.”
“That was one time.” Jermon flicked the orb toward the living room, and both alpha hatchlings scrambled after it in a chaos of wings and claws and excited squeaking.
Olivia, apparently deciding that if she couldn’t eat, she might as well hunt, launched herself off the feeding mat and waddled after her brothers with a determination that was pure Riordan.
Which left Harley.
Riordan’s youngest sat at the edge of the feeding mat, nibbling their food with delicate precision.
Their scales shimmered baby-blue in the morning light—not the cream of their siblings, not any color in the dragon classification that Riordan or Jermon or anyone else had been able to identify.
Just blue. Soft, pale, luminous blue, like a winter sky reflected in still water.
Harley looked up at Riordan and blinked. Slowly. Thoughtfully. With the watchful patience of an old soul peering through young eyes, assessing the world and deciding, with careful deliberation, what they thought of it.
Riordan’s heart clenched the way it always did when Harley looked at him like that—with a love so fierce and so complicated that it defied the vocabulary he had to describe it.
He loved all four of his children with everything he had and was.
But with Harley, the love came wrapped in an extra layer that was protective and anxious and tender, born from the knowledge that this child was different and the world had never been kind to different.
He sat on the floor beside the feeding mat and stroked Harley’s head with one finger. The scales were warm and impossibly soft, and Harley leaned into the touch with a small, contented sound that made Riordan’s eyes sting.
“Good morning, little one,” he murmured. “Taking your time as usual?”
Harley blinked again, then returned to nibbling. They had made it clear time and again they would not be rushed by anyone or anything, including gravity, sibling rivalry, or the expectations of dragon society.
From the living room came a crash, followed by Jermon’s “That was also one time!” and Wilmer’s measured “That’s the lamp. The lamp we just replaced.”
Riordan didn’t move. He sat with Harley and worried, the way he’d been worrying since the moment this child had hatched a color that didn’t exist in any dragon text and had refused to let anyone determine their sex or status.
“You’re doing it again.” Wilmer appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a dish towel over his shoulder.
He looked like what he was—a man who’d been up since before dawn feeding animals, both the four-legged kind and the two-winged kind—but his eyes were soft as they took in Riordan on the floor with Harley.
“Doing what?”
“Worrying.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m sitting.”
“You’re sitting and worrying. I can tell because you get this line.” Wilmer touched the space between his own eyebrows. “Right here. It’s your worry line.”
“I don’t have a worry line.”
“You have a worry line. Jermon and I have discussed it.”
“You’ve discussed my worry line?”
“At length, but with love.” Wilmer crossed the kitchen and lowered himself to the floor beside Riordan, their shoulders touching. He reached over and scratched Harley under the chin, which earned him a pleased chirp. “What’s the worry du jour?”
Riordan watched Harley’s scales shift subtly in the light—the blue deepening for a moment, then lightening, responsive to stimulation in a way their siblings’ coloring never was. “Sando is coming by today. He has the results.”
“Ah.” Wilmer’s hand stilled on Harley’s chin. “And you’re afraid of what he’ll say.”
“I’m afraid of what it’ll mean. For Harley.
For their future.” Riordan’s throat tightened.
“We’ve known they’re different since they hatched.
And I’ve been telling myself that different isn’t bad, that different is just different, and I believe that, I do.
But believing it for yourself and believing it for your child are two different things. ”
Wilmer was quiet for a moment. His hand resumed its gentle scratching, and Harley’s eyes half-closed with pleasure. “You know what I’ve learned from twenty years of veterinary work?”
“That goats are assholes?”
“That’s common knowledge, not professional insight.
” Wilmer’s mouth curved. “What I’ve learned is that every species on this planet produces individuals that don’t fit the standard classification.
Intersex animals, unusual coloring, atypical behavior patterns.
And in my experience, those individuals aren’t deficient.
They’re variations. They’re the species experimenting with itself, trying something new.
” He looked at Harley. “Harley isn’t broken, Riordan. They’re new.”
Riordan leaned his head against Wilmer’s shoulder. “When did you get wise?”
“I’ve always been wise. You were just distracted by my rugged good looks.”
The sound Riordan made was half laugh, half sob, and Wilmer’s arm came around him in the same steady, undemanding way Wilmer did everything. He was their rock, their steady foundation, and Riordan appreciated that in the chaos their lives had become.
Jermon returned from the living room with Zayden, Xander, and Olivia trailing behind him like ducklings following a mother duck. “The lamp survived,” he announced. “Mostly. Also, Zayden can reach the top shelf now, which is going to be a problem.”
He stopped when he saw Riordan’s face. The playfulness vanished, and he sat on Riordan’s other side, hemming him in between both mates, and put his hand on Riordan’s knee. “Sando?”
Riordan nodded.
“Whatever he says, it doesn’t change anything about who Harley is.
” Jermon’s voice was firm. “I’ve been monitoring their magical signature since they hatched.
It’s strong, Riordan. Healthy. Different from their siblings, yes, but not diminished.
Not damaged. Just operating on a frequency we haven’t encountered before. ”
“That’s what worries me. That no one has encountered it.”
“Then we’ll be the first.” Jermon squeezed his knee. “We’re already the first in about fourteen different categories. What’s one more?”
He wasn’t wrong. A triad with two alphas—one dragon and one wolf—and a wolf omega.
Dragon hatchlings born from a wolf daddy.
Four eggs all surviving when the statistical likelihood was closer to one or two.
They’d been breaking new ground since the day Riordan had gone into a heat that shouldn’t have produced dragon eggs and then delivered four of them.
Sando arrived after lunch, carrying a leather satchel and wearing his usual slightly rumpled expression.
His glasses sat crooked on his nose, and his shirt had a stain from something red, but his eyes were bright with enthusiasm, which comforted Riordan.
Sando wouldn’t look this cheerful if it were bad news, right?
The hatchlings had been put down for their afternoon nap, four small dragon bodies tangled in their nesting basket. Harley was in the center, their baby-blue scales standing out among the cream of their siblings like a patch of sky among clouds.
They settled around the kitchen table with Riordan, Wilmer, and Jermon on one side and Sando across from them.
Sando opened his satchel and pulled out a folder, then paused before opening it.
“Before I share the results, I want to say something. What I’ve found isn’t a diagnosis.
It’s a description. Harley isn’t sick. There’s nothing wrong with them.
What I’m going to tell you is information about who your child is, not a problem that needs to be solved. ”