Dragon Treasure by SJ Sanders
Epilogue
Drathnor purred, settling behind his mate. Tania looked up at him, her pale hair as usual bound into a long rope that tickled his nose when it flicked him. The look on her face when she met his eye was one of pure joy.
For sixty-three years, they traveled her world, returning from time to time to their nest to recharge and enjoy the company of kin. Discovering a way to enchant a single piece of the hoard had helped them achieve a reasonable distance for months at a time—and gave his mate no little pleasure as she happily carried it about—but they were always happy to return to their nest.
Although the other dragons within their range were slow to warm up to his strange mating, and his mother still refused to acknowledge his human mate because of their natural progression with mated life, his fathers took to her quickly. As quickly as was possible for creatures like ice dragons.
His first father had been noticeably skeptical when he first met Drathnor’s mate hanging from his claws following the destruction of the monastery and had made his hesitation clear, yet he was the first among them to be won over by the tenacious human. The fact that his fathers warmed up to her as quickly as they did was perhaps aided by Tania’s genuine admiration for the males, especially when she learned that a dragon’s guardian form grew larger as the centuries passed. The grow rate was slow, but the comparison was obvious.
But now all the nests of his kin celebrated for one reason alone, and that reason was the small bundle lying in his mate’s arms. After sixty-three years of adventuring, his mate had decided that she was ready to retire for a few decades to bring forth the first of their young.
Little Admys was perfect. Although his facial features and body bore more resemblance to his human heritage, he was ice dragon through and through, from his powerful legs and wings to the horned crest that already budded on his forehead in front of a thatch of silvery hair.
Plush little lips relaxed in sleep quivered, and his tail flicked as he rolled in his mother’s arms searching for her breast.
Drathnor chuffed, his large hand cupping his tiny son.
“He really is beautiful,” Tania murmured. She peered up at Drathnor worriedly. “You don’t think he will have a hard time fitting in, do you? He doesn’t look like other children or other dragonlets.”
“Strong wings and a strong horn crest, he will hold his own just fine,” Drathnor rumbled. “And when he leaves our mountains, he will find his own adventures. If a dragon such as I can find my way at your side, then he will carve out his own great path.”
His mate gave him a skeptical look. “Uh-huh, but you also had me on all of those adventures. My baby will be alone, and humans can be cruel.”
He shrugged. “Then he will eat them.”
“Drathnor! Don’t even suggest or encourage that,” she snapped. “I told you that Jerard was your only freebie and that I’d better not catch wind of it happening again. Maiming and killing when necessary, yes, but that is it.” She muttered to herself in disgust before shooting him an annoyed look. “Eating humans… what a fucked-up idea.”
He scratched his chest leisurely. “A bit of sauce and seasoning and it would not be so bad.”
“You are disgusting,” she muttered, her lips curving despite her harsh tone.
He grinned down at his female. He did so enjoy it when she got feisty. Years together and he never tired of it. Craved it, in fact.
His claw dragged against her belly, still plush from carrying their young.
“Place him in his nest to sleep and I will show you some of my better ideas then,” he growled.
His mate squinted up at him. Finally, a soft laugh left her, and she gently tucked their baby into the hollowed-out obsidian he had carved those decades ago.
The horrors of the monastery still lingered in their nightmares at times, though after the first couple of decades it had eased off that they no longer needed sleeping draughts from a witch Tania trusted. But despite its darkness, it had given him everything.
It gave him a treasure with which his hoard could not compete. His perfect treasure that he never knew that he craved and needed.
Drawing his mate down to their pallet, he purred, eager to show her just how much.