Page 2 of The Nesting Life

“I guess we do,” I said. “I’m on egg leave at the moment, but if you need help.”

“I’m fine,” he said and tried to slip away. I nudged him back with my snout and did my best to get a good look at his face. I swear folks in their human forms shrunk every time I shifted into my draconic form.

“Are we having Raziel for lunch?” Simon asked, walking up from the back of the nest. His scent soothed something deep inside me. I almost told him that Raziel asked if we had healer-patient confidentiality but thought better of it.

“Check to see if this hatchling is injured. He’s asking strange questions,” I told him over our mating link.

“He’s always asking strange questions. Remember when he was four, he asked me if I remembered what it was like to be dead?” Simon reminded me.

I did remember that. I remember how pale his carrier had gone – how pale I had gone. For a brief second, Simon and I wondered if Raziel was Gordy-Gordon reincarnated. He’d denied that over the years, but even if he was once that idiot, now he was Raziel.

“Are you hurt?” Simon asked our nephew, looking up at him with his big lunchbox in the crook of his arm.

“No,” Raziel said. “Just something I wanted him to look at.”

“If you think you have an STI you should go to the clinic,” Simon said and a ring of smoke wafted out of my nose as I tried not to laugh. Raziel jumped down, because even at my age, smoke coming out of my nose made me sneeze. Sometimes that made more smoke waft out and I cycled through three or four sneezes before managing to get it under control.

“Are you trying to get me murdered?” Raziel growled. “And I don’t have a dick problem.”

“The clinic will look at any problem,” Simon patted him on the shoulder. “Plus, he’s on egg leave. So don’t bring anything here to show him unless you want to show me too.”

“Oh, be nice to him. He’s still a kid,” I told Simon over our mating link.

“He is not a kid anymore,” Simon said.

Yawning, I shifted down to my human form and examined my four big black eggs before turning my attention to Raziel, hoping he was telling the truth about the problem not being down his pants. It was difficult for dragons and alphas to catch STIs but other things could be transmitted from romping around that affected the scales down below deck. I didn’t work with patients directly unless they were part of medical trials, but I heard enough horror stories to last me a couple lifetimes.

“Never mind,” Raziel said and started to walk away.

“Wait!” Simon called after him, holding the lunchbox like a football as he moved. “I was just teasing you. Come inside and have tea.”

I laughed because most of the younger Night Star elves didn’t drink tea like those of us who grew up in the Other World. Though, Raziel still ducked inside the house. I glanced at my eggs. Sure, they’d be fine, but this was the one draw back to having an open-air nest. Sometimes, it was left – well, in the open-air.

Inside, Simon put the kettle on and I started a pot of coffee. He was Star’s kid. So of course he drank coffee by the gallon. At the table, Raziel fidgeted with his fingers. It wasn’t like him to be so nervous.

“He’s usually better at masking it,” my dragon chimed into my thoughts.

My inner beast was right. Raziel usually hid most of his emotions. He normally wore pheromone blocker spray too. He wasn’t doused in that today either. I sat down across from him at the table and crossed my legs. Resting my hands on the table, I waited for him to say something. The last time someone sat in that spot nervous was when Anthony and an omega he hooked up with via Pheromone Swap had a pregnancy scare. Well, it turned out that it wasn’t a scare exactly. The omega was pregnant, but the baby wasn’t his. Instead, the baby was sired by the guy the omega hooked up with the next night. Anthony was embarrassed but I liked to think that Simon and I handled it with grace. Even if a baby had come about from that app – the way young people waited for their true-mates these days – we would’ve been graceful about it.

“I’ve had two more claiming glands show up,” Raziel said.

“You have two now?” Simon asked.

“No, I have three and I think I know what’s going on. I don’t want to talk about the why. I just.. Uncle, can you look at them and make sure they’re claiming glands and not something else?” he asked, without looking up at me.

“Take off your shirt,” I nodded and stood up.

He took off his shirt and even before I rounded the table, I saw them. He had a total of three claiming glands on his shoulders. One was the norm. Two wasn’t unheard of these days, but three was news to me. I palpated around them gently.

“How strange,” my dragon commented into my thoughts. “Who would have three mates?”

I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about who he might’ve been in a past life that would give him that many mates this time.

“These are claiming glands,” I nodded, ignoring Simon’s confusion. I loved my alpha, but this wasn’t about him right now. “I could run some tests at the lab, but I’ve seen enough claiming glands to know that’s what these are.”

Raziel nodded and I sat back down. Simon brought the tea tray to the table and then the coffee pot a second later. Raziel dosed his coffee with a healthy amount of cream and sugar before downing it. Simon took his seat and set about putting together some proper tea for us. We both drank tea and coffee, but after noon we tended to stick with tea. Raziel didn’t say anything else for several long moments which gave me time to listen in on Simon’s rambling thoughts.

“Three? He’s going to have three omegas? I hope they’re not all dragons. He’s a decent hunter and an okay fighter, but how in the name of Old Sigmore is he going to feed three dragons?” Simon’s thoughts leaked onto the mating link.