I shoved my suit back into the closet and sauntered downstairs in a pair of grey sweatpants with my towel still around my neck like I hadn’t a care or a plan in the world. Ferrick did his silly little happy jog across the living room to hug me and I hugged him back like he wasn’t an egg smasher. I hugged him like he was still one of my favorite people in the world.
“Ooh!” he squeezed my arm and then patted my stomach when the embrace broke. “Someone has had a growth spurt. Roster come feel your son’s muscles.”
“I’ll pass and get the bags up to our room, dear,” Roster said, rolling his eyes. “Though, I do appreciate that you found something productive to do while we were gone,” he said, hiseyes darting over me. “Perhaps, it’ll be time to build you your own domicile soon.”
I nodded to my sire, and my carrier took my hand to pull me across the living room to meet the wolf omega who looked so out of place standing in our castle. I wanted to tell him to turn tail and run but for all I knew he was in on whatever deviant things Roster and Ferrick had brewed up.
“This is Charden,” Ferrick introduced the wolf with little green eyes and long blond hair. “We met him at the Moonscale village in Spain. You know the one. The nudist colony,” my carrier said. “He’s a wizard by birth and I was telling him how long we’ve been searching for a wizard to add to our cabinet.”
We didn’t have a cabinet. Not officially anyway. There was a group of friends and monsters that followed my parents around whenever they let them. Though, Medwin and Volex didn’t discuss the details with me I was almost positive their friend group had shrank while they were gone.
“So, Charden agreed to come back with us and apply for the job,” Ferrick said. “We’re lucky to have him. After all, we need protection if another assassin comes after us. I hope my poor brother is resting in peace on the other side of his door. I don’t know what led him so astray.”
It was plain on Charden’s face and scent that he believed every acid-laced word dripping from my carrier’s tongue. He slid an arm around his waist in a way that was a little too familiar for my tastes. I wasn’t naïve to polyamory. I just didn’t believe either of my parents could ever practice it without their third ending up dead.
“Charden,” Ferrick said, also wrapping an arm around the wolf, “this is Clarence. He’s our only little hatchling. Well, I guess he’s a big hatchling now. He grew so much while we were gone, searching for a wizard. Anyway, I’m sure you two will have plenty of time to get to know each other before we fly off to Paris next month.”
I shook Charden’s hand and kept my face friendly but neutral. Sparring wasn’t the only thing I practiced with Medwin and Volex. With or without meaning to they had taught me the fine art of composure. Now, my face could lie with the best of them and since I lived with the two biggest liars I knew, that was a high achievement.
Something flickered through the window on the far side of the room. I barely glanced in the direction but caught the briefest glimpse of Volex’s face. He was checking up on me because I was late for my date with Medwin. I asked Charden something mundane to keep the relief from washing over my scent. The last thing I wanted to do was worry or disappoint Medwin, but as always, my parents’ actions were out of my control.
“We’re going to head into the kitchen for a snack,” Ferrick said, already leading Charden away. “You should head upstairs and see if your sire needs any help, sweet pea.”
Never in my life had either of my parents called me sweet pea. He was laying it on thick for Charden. Still, I headed upstairs. I needed to find out if I was the only one working out while my parents were abroad. Sooner or later, I’d have to fight Roster. Ferrick too, but that would be more of a mind game than a battle.
“Too bad we can’t just launch them into the sun,”my dragon mumbled under his breath, and I told him to shut up and pretend we were still airheads.
I found my sire in his study. He’d already taken his shirt and shoes off. He didn’t look any buffer than when he left but with dragon shifters it was hard to tell. Bigger muscles didn’t always mean you’d win the fight.
“Maybe you should go out tonight,” Roster looked up from the papers he was shuffling through. “Thinking of fighting me? Sounds like a rut. If you want a go at Charden just wait until your carrier grows bored of him in a few months. I don’t know what his obsession is with that wolf man, but I let him get on with it. He’ll either get bored or break him soon. It’s not like two omegas are going to start popping out children.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong but decided against it. I wasn’t sure what Charden’s intentions were and until I was, I wasn’t going to risk getting him offed sooner rather than later.
“But really, I’m not in the mood to have the office smashed up. I remember when I was your age. I had a rut so bad that my father had to beat me over the head with my brother. Poor old Cloister was never the same after that. Probably why he died in that battle. Go on. Put on some proper clothes and go take care of that issue. Your carrier is enough for me to deal with.”
“Poor old Cloister,” I said, walking out of the room. I had to be more careful. He’d picked up on me sizing him up. Fortunately for me and the future in his mind the only reason for that was I hadn’t ‘taken’ what I wanted from an omega. If that dragon knew I hadn’t even ‘properly bedded’ my own true-mate he’d shit himself.
Still, the night was young, and I’d been dismissed. That meant there was only one place for me to go.
Chapter 8
Medwin Smokescale
Moonscale London Under the Reign of Roster and Ferrick Moonscale
I heard the familiar thump of Clarence landing on my balcony. I started to sprint through the flat, but Volex held up a hand to stop me. Roster and Ferrick were back. That most likely meant Clarence had a new tail. Volex exited through the front door, and I ran into the kitchen to put the kettle on and start coffee. We’d missed out on our dinner reservation but that didn’t mean we couldn’t spend time together.
Volex came through the front door with a severed head wrapped in his shirt and motioned that I could let Clarence in now. At first, I never understood where the bodies were but over time, I figured out either he burnt them to a crisp or ate them. I wasn’t sure which I preferred.
At the moment, my walk-in was overfilled with tubs full of heads. Under normal conditions, Volex would fly them out to some Scottish bog and bury them but with Haen and Pras out gathering support from the edges of the Moonscale Territory for Clarence’s coup he didn’t like the idea of leaving London. I wasn’t stupid. I might hold my own with Roster Moonscale. I might even beat him because he thought highly of himself and I was desperate for revenge and for Clarence. I wouldn’t survive Ferrick. Not yet. Not even with all my secret magical studies.Some nights I lay awake because my dragon wondered if the only way to beat Ferrick was to eat him and steal his magic that way.
“Hey! Maybe that’s why Volex is so powerful,”he chimed off into my thoughts, and I shushed him as I went to let Clarence into the apartment.
He hugged me tight before I got a word out and despite the chaos that was our lives for a second, I felt safe. With his arms wrapped around me it felt as if there wasn’t a threat we couldn’t overcome together. We kissed before we said hello. Our lips crashed together and our tongues met, twirling to say all the things that so often went unsaid because of the situation. I buried my fingers into his shirt, holding onto him so that he had to stay close. Leaning in against his body, I savored his muscles and the heat from the dragon fire radiating from his belly.
“I’m going out for a while,” Volex called from the corridor. “You two have fun! I might go for a flight up to the bogs tonight and see what I can hunt down. Pickings here are getting slim unless I want to steal a cow or sheep.”
“Have fun!” I called back, hoping that Volex left with his arms loaded down with severed heads. We were running out of places to put them and unlike Izin, most of them couldn’t talk and spill the beans on what they knew. I hated how Volex tortured the truth and prophecies out of him, but I was desperate to save Moonscale London. These were my dragons. My friends. At the end of the day, my and Clarence’s fates were irreversibly entwined with that of the city and of the broader territory. If the Moonscale Dragon Flight failed, so did we.
