Chapter 7 #2
Someone knocked on the front door and Daisy grabbed a mouth full of cheesecake bites and ducked under the table.
“That would be Slyvin,” I laughed and sprinted through the house to let him in.
Slyvin looked more like he’d been outside all day rather than working at the temple’s cooling station. His hair stuck up at odd angles and a cobweb stuck to the shoulder of his green shirt. Of course, there was a cobweb. He’d probably crawled into every small hole at the temple looking for Daisy.
“I didn’t know she was there,” I said automatically like a teenager about to be accused of sneaking a guy into my room. Slyvin flashed me a quiet grin and patted me on the shoulder.
“At least she was safe. We wouldn’t have called and interrupted your special day under normal circumstances, but Daisy has become quite the escape artist,” Slyvin said and hugged me. “Should I take her and go or is this a good time to meet Alby?”
I glanced in the direction of the kitchen and shrugged. It would take him a few minutes to fish Daisy out from under the table. So it was as good a time as any to introduce him to Alby.
It was a surprise for both of us to walk into the kitchen and find Daisy sitting on the table in human form talking to Alby. We both stopped in the doorway silently. Neither of them knew we stood there watching as they snacked and talked.
“So are you going to live with Bennie?” Daisy asked, licking the chocolate chips off a cheesecake bite.
“We’re mates,” he nodded.
“But are you going to live together?” she asked.
“Yes,” Alby nodded.
“You can’t have the playroom. You’ll have to share a room with Bennie. I sleep in the playroom when I’m over there. Don’t scratch the green tower, it’s mine!”
“Noted,” Alby grinned.
“It’s mine and I sleep on it! I don’t let anyone scratch it. It’s the tallest and I need to see everything because I’m short,” Daisy continued on. “Also, the orange creamsicles are mine too. Don’t tell my dads but Bennie lets me eat two of them because they’re little.”
Slyvin flashed me a knowing look but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t the first of my siblings to meet their true-mate. A few not much younger than me already had kids and had spent years in mated life.
“Are you ready for a houseful of hers?” Slyvin teased me over the family link.
We both knew I’d been ready for a while. I never chased after the idea of my true-mate because I trusted fate. Sometimes mates needed to live longer before colliding together because they both needed to grow as people.
“It’s going to be an adjustment for her. She’s claimed you as hers since she was born,” Slyvin grinned.
Daisy was born in the middle of what should’ve been Ryder’s third trimester.
She was a tiny little cub who against the odds only spent three days in the special baby ICU center at the hospital but from the moment she left we never let her out of sight.
That meant Ryder and Slyvin needed more hands.
Sure my siblings helped here and there but until she was two I stayed put and even when I was gone, I called her as often as I could.
Since I had been home, she’d clung to me and my belongings whenever she could.
Not that I blamed her. I knew how it was to have an older brother jumbled in with your caregivers.
“Don’t move,” Daisy whispered in that loud way little kids had. “They are watching us from the doorway. They are going to steal our cheesecake and say we’ve had enough before dinner. If you sit very still, maybe I can get away with the cheesecake while they catch you instead.”
We all laughed and Daisy shot Alby a dirty look.
“Why did you move?! You ruined my plan!” she said, holding her hands up by her head like little paws.
“Daisy!” Slyvin said sternly and her little hands dropped to her lap.
“I know I’m not supposed to swipe family members but he’s new,” she hung her head for a second before looking up at us. “And I like these!”
“How many have you had?” he asked her and she held up all her fingers.
“And how many meats have you had since lunch?” Slyvin asked.
“But meats aren’t sweet,” she sighed and then jutted out her pouting bottom lip. Yep. That was the look that always got to me. For the first year of her life, she didn’t want to eat anything. So, now I mostly fed her what she was willing to eat without putting up a fight.
“How many meats do you owe me?” Slyvin asked and she flashed her little hands up with all her fingers wiggling.
“Exactly,” he nodded. “If you have a sweet, what do you have to have?”
“A meat,” she sighed. “Why do you want me to eat everybody?”
She flopped back onto the table and stared up at the ceiling. Daisy wasn’t having a tantrum as much as she had plopped up to regulate her little nervous system. I took the moment of quiet as the opportunity to introduce Alby to Slyvin. He stood up and shook the older tiger’s hand.
“I know your grandsire,” he said. “Clyde’s a good guy.”
“He tries,” Alby said, humble as always.
“Heard Raziel got one over on you guys,” Slyvin said.
“I don’t think he knows what a prank is,” Alby laughed.
“He’s certainly defined the word in his own way,” Slyvin nodded.
He opened his mouth and shut it again. For a second, I thought maybe he had some comment to add to Raziel’s pranking ability, but that wasn’t it.
He had a secret and it was fruitless to try to pry information from him.
He took his vow as a follower of Frost very seriously.
It could be annoying at times, but it was also one of my favorite things about him.
“He means well, but is dealing with forces bigger than himself,” Slyvin finally settled on saying. “Though, I have no complaints. It’s good to see young people happy and dragons meddling in the right direction. Welcome to the family, Alby.”
“Welcome to the family,” Daisy echoed him from her spot on the table. “I owe you another meat now.”
“Ah, yes. Are you ready to go home and pay off some of your debt?” Slyvin asked, scooping her up into his arms.
“I guess. Can they be chicken nugget meats?” she asked.
“Some of them,” he nodded. “But you have to eat some cow too.”
“But I like cows!” she groaned.
“Well, you didn’t know this cow,” Slyvin said, heading out the back door. “He was a very mean cow. So we decided we had to eat him.”
Neither one of us said anything until we heard the door lock behind them as they left. Then Alby laughed.
“He has his hands full with that one,” he said as I sat back down.
“Everyone does,” I nodded, still grinning. “Sorry about that.”
“No, she’s cute. Kids have the right to be kids. I’m sorry she scared everyone, but more often than not they know what they’re doing by that age. She hid in your car. She knew your car would eventually go home and you’d be there. Though, I’ve never seen a feline baby not want to eat meat.”
“She likes meat,” I said almost automatically. “She just likes sugar more. Plus anything with dairy in it. Those are protein cheesecake bites. So I’m not worried. Raziel is a dragon so he tries to buy the protein version of everything.”
“Not a bad plan,” Alby said. “Slyvin seems really nice. I’ve never met him in person before. I think everyone knows who he is. I don’t do a lot of temple things because… Well, I don’t know why.”
“It’s not for everyone. I mean, the temples are there for everyone, but not everyone’s inclined to participate and that’s okay.
Plus, from what I know about Clyde, he’s not inclined to wait around for anyone’s ancestor to do his dirty work and I can respect that.
Slyvin grew up at the Temple of Juda on Hemlock Mountain.
I practically grew up in the Temple of Frost.”
“You enjoy the order the Tenets give your life,” Alby observed.
“I think they’re a good foundation for life. It covers the basics,” I nodded. “I always imagined my own kids would be in and out of the temple just as often as I was. There’s something nice about having a group within a group to call your own.”
“I’m not against it. I didn’t refrain from going to the temples for moral reasons. I guess we just figured we had enough of our own people who needed help plus we always get newcomers for short term stays.”
“That makes sense,” I nodded. “I’m not what Slyvin is. I’m not an official – priest, warrior, or whatever you call them out there. I would say I am a member of the temple but not a worker. I like my alone time too much for that. By the way, you’re not excluded from my alone time.”
“Good to know,” Alby laughed.
“What? You like to nap! We’re a perfect match,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
We talked for a few more minutes before sticking the remaining cheesecake bites back in the fridge and moving to the living room.
“I’m going to get something to drink, and I’ll be out in a minute,” Alby said and I went ahead without him.