Page 136 of Something Handsome This Way Comes

Milo tried to glare at his mate but couldn’t muster it through the grin tugging at his lips.

“And I think Pip is right. It’s better to be harsh early on. She will be a very big, very strong MythBeast someday. She needs to learn boundaries now. Also, we should give her a name.”

“I name man-monster. I name baby-ice-monster too,” Pip declared.

It was true; Pip had been the one to give Grievance his name, without Milo’s permission or supervision, of course. But it had stuck, and now Milo couldn’t imagine his mate being called anything else.

“What do you have in mind?”

“She is spoiled ice princess. She is Elsa.”

“Hmmm.” Milo tapped his chin. “A little on the nose, don’t you think?”

“I like Esmerelda,” Grievance said quietly from the corner, as though hoping nobody would hear.

Milo’s head shot up.

“That’s perfect! I love it.”

His mate shrugged. “It’s pretty. Better than Ralph,” he said, his face turning sour.

“Oh, so Nestmaker like that name but not Pip’s?”

“Hey, it’s fair,” Milo said. “You named Grievance. I named you, and now Grievance can name the Glaceryn. We’ve all named someone.”

And Milo swore that if a spider could roll its eyes, Pip just did.

“Fine.”

“Perfect. Now let me get our poor Esmerelda out of purgatory and feed her dinner.”

“No! Nestmaker bad at discipline!” Pip hissed as Milo walked out the door with a laugh.

“Then you’d better come supervise me.”

Pip made an irritated little noise, but Milo heard the rapid tap-tap-tap of eight legs following him down the hall anyway.

They found Esmerelda where Pip had sent her, curled in the nest of blankets they’d arranged beside the hearth in the study. Only her nose and the tip of one icy-blue ear poked out. At the sight of Milo, her tail immediately began thumping beneath the blankets.

“No,” Pip warned.

The thumping stopped.

Milo pressed his lips together.

Pip is going to be absolutely insufferable about this.

He crouched beside the little dragon and set down her bowl of diced rabbit meat. Esmerelda lifted her head, sniffing eagerly. But before she could bury her face in dinner, she sneezed.

A tiny burst of frost shot across the floor. Ice crystallized over Milo’s toes, and he hissed, rubbing at them quickly to take off the frost and coax some feeling back into his already poorly circulating feet.

From the doorway came Grievance’s deep laugh.

“Not funny,” Milo said without turning around.

“A little funny.”

Pip crawled onto Esmerelda’s head and bapped her once between the ears.