Page 106 of Dragon’s Ending

I was in the middle of explaining to Dylan and Edna why dragon polo would be an objectively superior sport to rugby when somebody hammered dramatically on the front door.

Every dragonet in the hall froze.

The door burst open, and Father Christmas staggered in with an enormous sack slung over one broad shoulder. A blast of icy winter air swept through the hall behind him.

“Well,” Ben boomed, in a voice I would absolutely be mocking him for later. And then asking him to repeat. In bed. “I seem to have found some dragons.”

And then the screaming started. The dragonets descended on him before he’d made it more than three feet into the hall.

“Father Christmas!”

“That’s not the real Father Christmas,” Laura informed everyone sternly. “The real one has reindeer.”

“I do have reindeer,” Ben said, sounding scandalised. “They’re on the roof.”

“Where are your elves?” Teddy demanded.

“Looking after the reindeer,” Ben told him promptly.

Apparently satisfied by this explanation, Teddy seized a corner of the sack while three other dragonets attached themselves to various parts of Ben’s legs.

I leaned against the wall beside Dylan, watching with helpless affection as Ben attempted to move through the hall while keeping the presents safe, maintaining Father Christmas dignity, and fending off increasingly detailed questions about reindeer poo.

Honestly, he looked absurdly good in the outfit. He’d originally suggested borrowing the Father Christmas costume his family used every year, but it had occurred to me that we’d need our own. Because I hoped, very much, that Ben was going to wear it each Christmas for the rest of our lives.

Eventually, Rae bullied everyone into enough order for Ben to install himself safely in the enormous carved chair near the fireplace. By that time, the very youngest dragonets who’d accidentally shifted in their excitement had returned to human form. Then Rae and Catrin Gruffydd selected and handed him the appropriate present for each child as they came up to him.

But he didn’t just dole out presents. He talked to each child in turn, asking questions and answering them. And he mentioned the nice list more than once, but the words ‘naughty list’ never passed his fluffy-white-bearded lips. Because as he’d said to me, some of the more sensitive children might worry about it in future years. God, I loved that man.

And watching him command a room full of sugar-fuelled dragonets with absolute confidence was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen. Especially when I compared this Ben to the one I’d first met. He’d been certain of himself, sure, but always on the edges, never really part of things. He hadn’t known how to relax and have fun.

All presents doled out, and all children safely occupied with their new acquisitions, I parked myself in Father Christmas’s lap.

“So where’s my present?” I asked. And did not bat my lashes, however tempting.

Ben glanced around to ensure no children were close enough to hear his answer before he replied. And I could feel in every cell of him the effort he had to make not to mention the naughty list.

“Oh, I think you know exactly where your present is,” he said, and shifted his hips just enough to underline that.

“Father Christmas,” I said, scandalised. “In front of the children?”

He snorted, shoved me firmly off his lap, and stood up.

“Merry Christmas one and all!” he boomed, retreating rapidly towards the door.

I weaved my way through the crowd, heading for the kitchen.

“Behave yourself,” Megan told me as I passed.

“At Christmas?” I said. “Really?”

Then I noticed quite how close she was standing to one of the Gruffydd dragons who’d accompanied the dragonets, and quirked an eyebrow at her. Her elbow met my ribs with more force than warranted, and I took the hint.

Ben wasn’t in the kitchen, so I headed up the back stairs. Whereas I’d have ripped the costume off the instant I could, he’d undoubtedly have weighed up the risks of a dragonet straying into the kitchen and seeing him, and gone upstairs to change.

I was right. He pulled his beard and hat off as I closed our bedroom door behind me.

“You realise,” I said, leaning back against the door to look at him properly, “that half the dragonets in this family are now convinced Father Christmas has a personal vendetta towards me.”