Chapter 40
Mordred
Zang, y’all.
Dawn might be spreading all pink and violet over the ocean and the sky outside our windows. But this epic wedding night technically ain’t over yet. Not till the sun rises over the Avalon Sea.
But hells’ bells.
My tentacles have never been so well used.
The rest of my new mates are still sleeping in the tangled mess of Cousin Z’s royal bed.
Me, I got the king’s silk sheets twisted around my thighs, Zara curled up against one side of me with her wild mermaid curls scattered over my chest, and Ronin curled up against the other, with his arm thrown over me and Zara.
When I finally conked out a couple hours ago, we also had Babydoll—I mean Vasili—spread protectively facedown over all three of us, like a dragon guarding a treasure.
I don’t even mind him going all alpha shifter on my ass.
My kraken ain’t no alpha, so he and Babydoll’s dragon gonna rub along just fine.
Still, Babydoll’s gone now. And he shouldn’t be.
He’s nowhere in our bed.
I life my head to make sure.
At some point last night, with Max lending a hand, Lucius managed to pry Neo off his knot long enough to get everyone into bed. Those three are still sprawled where they collapsed, with Lucius spooning Max and Max spooning Neo.
All three of them sound asleep.
All three smelling heavily of wolf.
I think it’s interesting that Max tolerates—even trusts—an alpha like Lucius all snuggled up against that dragon’s scarred back. Judging by my demonic instincts (which are never wrong about this sorta thing) those two gonna be fucking any day now.
Ash is lying asleep and snoring on his belly, with Cousin Z sprawled facedown over him. One of Ash’s muscled arms dangles over the edge of the bed. My second cousin’s arm is flung over Ash’s, fingers entwined while they sleep.
Awww. That’s sweet.
Some day soon, my cuz is gonna hold me like that. Imma make sure of it. Imma love all over the guy till he acts on that boyhood crush I know he never totally got over.
Don’t ask me how I know, baby.
I know.
Sex demon like me, I can sense that shit.
Anyway, my point is, Babydoll’s been gone too long to be in the john.
Carefully I shift Zara’s soft sleepy warmth to one side and Ronin’s hot sinewy frame to the other, little by little. Until I can squirm out from under ’em.
I roll ’em both together and tuck Ronin’s arm tighter around Zara. Then I make sure everyone in our bed’s got a blankey, because the sea breeze wafting through the open windows is nippy, and witchfire doesn’t do shit for warmth.
Finally, with my new family all taken care of, I pull on my britches and pad barefoot through the shadowy predawn.
I’m on the hunt for Babydoll.
He ain’t in the royal suite. At all.
But I got a mating bite from the guy now—I got bites from him and Zara both—so I can feel him when I concentrate.
For some reason, Vasili’s in the dragonlair downstairs with Xhevith.
I trot down the curving tower stairs at a good clip and bust into the lair just as the first sliver of sun rises over the Avalon Sea.
But it takes me a sec, with my sleep-drunk noggin, to understand what I see.
There’s Babydoll—Vasili—naked and gaunt with his eyelids smudged all purple with exhaustion, lying on his side on the bare rock ledge. His long pale body curls like a cat, all protective, around a cluster of iridescent oval objects I can’t quite make out.
Cousin Z’s green dragon Xhev is coiled around V and the whole setup. That dragon’s big scaly body is like a bulwark, guarding Vasili and whatever he’s wrapped around from the steep drop off the ledge. Xhev’s long green tail curls around Vasili to keep the guy warm.
Same way I can feel Babydoll, he can feel me.
Cuz his tired-looking eyes flash open at my approach, then veer suspiciously toward me.
“Babydoll—I mean Vasili—” I say hurriedly. Cuz he doesn’t like the nickname, but I ain’t bound anymore by his summoning spell, and I can call him what I want. “Uh… whatcha doin’ out here?”
“Well, obviously, I’m doing this. ” Looking irritated but far too tired to make a fuss about it, V pushes wearily up to sit.
Now I can see what he’s guarding.
But it’s kinda a lot to take in.
Especially when I’m still half asleep myself.
My mouth falls open and my brain goes blank. “Are those—uh—”
“Yes,” he says briefly.
His tone ain’t exactly welcoming, but I gotta ask.
I scratch the back of my neck under my heavy mane of sex-tangled hair. “But, like, how…?”
“Dragon,” he says with equal brevity. “As for the rest— don’t ask, darling. Truly.”
Slowly, while the sea breeze wafts through the lair and the surf croons to my kraken on the rocks below, I work out the deets.
V’s totally male in his warlock form. So he’s never gonna incubate kids in a uterus like Zara. But his genderqueer dragon has a genital slit.
Guess V musta come down here to the lair and shifted into his dragon late last night. So those fertilized eggs his dragon was clearly carrying could clutch.
Now those eggs gotta incubate in a nest outside his body, like regular dragons.
Then there’s Xhevith.
V’s male dragon and Xhev coulda been biological rivals during Zara’s superheat. Zara fucks the rider—Zephyr—but she doesn’t fuck his dragon.
So when Vasili’s dragon is female, Xhev is kinda like a hopeful suitor.
And I been living in Avalon long enough to know a few things about dragon reproductive behavior—
The whiff of brimstone hits my nose at the same time the scuff of feet on the stairs hits my ears.
“Mordred?” Max says gruffly behind me. “Have you seen Vasili? He is missing.”
“Yo, blondie. Right here.” I step aside to make room on the ledge for our resident Russian dragon.
Xhevith lifts his big green head and warbles.
Hells.
He ain’t greeting Max like a rival dragon. As far as Xhev’s concerned, that dragon sees himself as part of the polycule. When a bonded dragonrider like Zephyr gets off, it’s a vicarious kinda thing for his dragon.
Max pushes up next to me, rakes a hand through his long blond hair to push it outta his face, and just takes it all in. The dragon shifter’s all nakey and yummy and clumsy with sleep. So I take a chance and slip a hand through his to give him some support.
His hot fingers close around mine, good and strong.
When his eyes fall on what Babydoll and Xhev are guarding between them, Max’s slitted dragon pupils telescope wide. “Sweetheart! Saints of the northern steppes. Are those…?”
“Eggs, yes,” Babydoll says curtly, gazing down inscrutably at the eggs in question. “Three of them. To be precise.”
Max’s face is a study in hope and disappointment. His gaze shifts between Vasili and the green dragon.
“I see,” Max says slowly. “They are yours and Xhevith’s. Well, I will love them all equally. This I have sworn. I will love all our progeny, whether I am their biological sire or not.”
Vasili turns and stares at our mate like that dragon shifter has grown three heads. “Dear fuck, are you insane? Max. They’re yours , you dolt. All three of them. I haven’t been fucking Xhevith. Just you.”
Slow joy breaks over Max’s confused face like the rising sun.
That shit’s painful to see, for real.
He clutches my hand like I’m all that’s holding him up.
“But…” Max struggles. “Xhevith…?”
Babydoll rises to his feet and rolls his blue eyes. But he ain’t anywhere close to giving vibes as pissy as I expect.
“Once a female dragon clutches, as you would know if your dearly departed dragon bitch mother hadn’t been a homicidal psycho,” V explains patiently (for him), “male dragons in the vicinity help the… female… guard her eggs until they hatch. It’s genetic instinct for species survival. Nothing more.”
The pitter-patter of running feet announces Zara’s arrival. She’s all flushed and breathless and excited, hair like a teal storm cloud swirling around her shoulders. Her curvy body is barely covered by Ronin’s heavy metal tee shirt, which she’s swimming in.
“Cheese on toast!” she gasps, eyes shining like gemstones. “ Eggs ! Oh, Vasili. They’re gorgeous.”
“Well, of course. They’re mine, aren’t they? And Max’s,” V adds as an afterthought and shrugs like he couldn’t care less, but I know the guy.
Those eggs of theirs are sigma—each one the size of a lunchbox, glowing all pink and pearl and lavender in the rising sun—and he knows it.
Dragon eggs incubate eleven months before they hatch. So I know they’re gonna get a lot bigger.
“So that’s, like, six shifter babies in our nursery. Shit, that’s a lot!” Zara gives an excited hop and snuggles up against Max. “Well done, you two. Definitely showing the whole witching world how this whole fertility thing is done, aren’t we?”
Max hugs her back and nods proudly. His chest swells with visible contentment as everyone exclaims and praises him. I’ve never seen that broody dragon grin so wide, for real.
I mean, who even knew the guy had that many teeth? He never grins like that.
Now his whole face is glowing with pride and satisfaction, which makes him look less menacing and extra handsome.
I figure four biological kids (three with Babydoll and one with our queen) would scratch anyone’s breeding itch.
Even his.
Cousin Z’s the next one to show up, leading the rest of our mates. They all come crowding into the lair in different stages of undress and dishevelment.
While Ash and Ronin and Lucius and Neo crowd around the clutch to admire and exclaim over the eggs, and Xhev hovers proudly over the next like he fathered those dragonets himself, my Cousin Z moseys up to Zara.
“By the moon.” Zephyr wraps an arm around our queen’s tiny waist, tucks her possessively against his side, and bares his feral Dark Fae fangs at all of us in a savage grin. “’Tis fortunate indeed ours is a wealthy family. That’s six royal babes in our nursery, my bride… for now.”