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To say he was frustrated was the understatement of the century.
They ate dinner, cleaned up, and Vasily showed Amaru to his own tent and helped him settle in for the night. When he was sure the mage was comfortable, he retreated back to the tent he was supposed to share with Luka. Not that Luka had made any kind of appearance yet.
Determined to hash this out, he propped himself up on a pillow and scrolled on his phone while he waited for Luka to return. He had to return at some point. All of his stuff was still in the tent.
That was his thought, at least, while he waited. And waited. And…waited.
Hours dragged by and Vasily’s eyelids grew heavy. He kept fighting the impulse to sleep and felt himself losing. Getting up and stretching had no lasting effect. He finally propped himself up on one elbow, thinking the slightly uncomfortable position would keep him from dozing off.
The next thing he knew, it was oh dark thirty, and he had somehow collapsed onto his side with his arm tucked underneath his head like a pillow. When he lifted his head to check, he found Luka sound asleep next to him.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Had Luka deliberately come in after Vasily was asleep? This timing was all too suspicious.
Vasily glowered at Luka, his frustration back with a vengeance. He vowed to himself that he would talk to Luka first thing in the morning. He wanted to know exactly what Luka was thinking and straighten all of this out before the situation bent out of shape.
Luka would not be allowed to avoid this confrontation.
“Ravi, if your husband discovered I let you anywhere near the explosives chest, he’d skin me and mount my head on the wall.”
Explosives chest?
As if by magic, Amaru found his feet stopping and turning toward that voice. It sounded like Gregori, the dragon he’d met recently.
“Amaru?”
Luka’s voice tried to penetrate his thoughts, but it didn’t have much of a chance. Amaru understood explosives, but now he needed to know what an explosives chest was. He very much wanted to know what Ravi was doing with an explosives chest. It sounded far more entertaining than glaring at his own failed notes on how to fix the devices keeping his clan trapped in sleep. Plus, he’d briefly met Ravi when he’d first arrived at the camp and the wind dragon seemed like he knew how to locate fun things.
“Just…just going for a little walk. It’ll help me think,” he replied, waving his hand toward his mushy brain. It wasn’t his fault his brain was mushy. Five hundred years of sleep and being surrounded by two hot dragons would turn anyone’s brain to mush.
“Uh-huh. I can’t imagine why I don’t believe that,” Vasily muttered under his breath.
Amaru smiled. Of course his mates knew him. Besides, this would be fun, and they all needed fun.
Toward the edge of the camp, Amaru found Gregori standing in front of a bright red tent with Ravi and another person next to him who seemed familiar, but then he’d met so many mages and dragons recently they were all a blur of faces and names. For now, each one had a hold on one of Gregori’s arms as they seemed to plead with him.
“Who?” Amaru whispered, trying to keep faces and names straight.
“Gregori, Ravi’s the brunet and the blond is Nikki. Nikki uses they/them pronouns, by the way.”
This made little to no sense to Amaru, but he thought he understood. “Oh, is Nikki one who embraces all genders?”
“Uh…” Vasily blinked at this. “Sure? That’s one way to put it. This is something you’re familiar with?”
“Sure. Genders are something we decide for ourselves, really. There are some that don’t like to be caged by one, so embrace multiple. I will address Nikki that way.”
“Cool.”
“Come on, Gregori!” the mage begged. “Rodrigo already said the earth dragons are going to come help clear the tunnel and secure the grotto. It’s not like you’re going to need all the black powder. You can loan us a little.”
“Loan you?” Gregori gasped. “What? Like you’re going to return the black powder after you use it?”
The mage fluttered their eyelashes at Gregori while their smile turned sly. “We promise to give back any we don’t use.”
Gregori laughed in Nikki’s face. “Nikki, you’re insane if you think you and Ravi would have any left over after you two finished playing.”
“Come on, Gregori! How about some C4 then? Dimitri said you always have a little on hand. I’ve never gotten to play with it,” Ravi begged.
“C4? What’s that?” Amaru interjected.
“And that’s our signal to go find other people to play with,” Vasily announced in a loud voice as he grabbed one of Amaru’s arms. “Come on, Amaru. I think Luka’s got an old iPod you can take apart.”
