His greeting was, “You missed family lunch again.”
“I’m sorry, Pops. I had an emergency at work. My client was attacked.”
My great-grandfather whistled under his breath. “I saw that on the news! It’s nasty how the paparazzi follow that young man. I bet it was one of them.”
“Could be. We don’t know yet.”
“And how are you?”
“I’m fine. Good. Listen, Pops, I have some news. I haven’t told anybody yet. I was hoping you might have some advice for me. Are you alone? Can you talk?”
“I’m out with the dog and listening.” I could hear distant birdsong on the phone. My pops lived in our residence outside Ardaine together with my grandparents and my uncle’s ample family. It was a huge house, more like a mansion, but with twelve of them in it, it got busy. Pops gothis much-needed solitude during treks around the neighboring forests, using his aging border collie as an excuse to be gone for hours every day.
“Just let me talk, okay? No interruptions.”
“I said I was listening.” The sound of his footsteps on gravel died out. He must have paused.
I took a deep breath and laid it all out. “I have a mate. We only just found out. He’s a dragon too, an alpha, and… I’m mated to Lothair. I don’t want to tell Dad and Papa yet, not when Lothair and I are still figuring things out. But before you ask, yes, I’m sure, yes, it’s final, and no, I won’t do anything to change it. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be possible if I tried, but most importantly, I don’t want to. He’s my mate, and I’m falling for him.”
I could hear Pops breathing in the phone and nothing else.
“That’s it?” he asked after a while.
“Yes.”
“You said no interruptions, so I wasn’t sure.”
“No. Um. That’s it.”
“Congratulations, boy,” he said brightly. “You must be happy.”
Relieved, I stopped pacing around the room and sat on the sofa. One down, plenty more to go. “You’re not surprised?”
“Sure I am. It’s not every day your great-grandson tells you he’s mated to an A-list celebrity.”
I snorted. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why? Should it?”
“He’s an alpha, Pops.”
“Badger!” Pops called his dog, and a rustling sound followed. He must have resumed walking. Then he saidcasually, “Dragons haven’t cared about that nonsense for ages.”
“Some do.”
“Then they’re fools.”
“We can’t have children together. Papa will care about that.”
“Like he doesn’t have ten grandkids already. By the way, Conrad Roche is mated to an alpha, and they have an entire entourage of kids with their omegas.”
I blinked. “I didn’t know that.”
“You’re a good boy. Such a good boy. There, have a treat.” I chuckled when I realized Pops was talking to the dog and not me.
“Are there more mated alpha couples you know in Ardaine?”
“Two or three that I only know fleetingly. If you made the time to join us for the gatherings, you’d know Conrad’s story. You might even have been better prepared for this situation.”
