Baby From Frost by Ashe Moon
7
Delos
I spentthe next few days holed up in my room, and it wasn’t until the landlady came up to tell me that the people in the rooms next to me were complaining about ice on the walls that I broke my seclusion. The tryst with Raka had brought back all of the rough feelings of losing him, and I felt like an idiot for not having more self-control. But, no matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t see any going any other way. We’d both wanted it to happen, and that was obvious.
There was nothing I could do until Rainor responded to my letter, so I decided to work on alchemy studies. I was curious about what kind of information the Librarium had on the other elementals, particularly thunder drakes, so I went back and cautiously explored while keeping my eye out for Raka. I badly wanted to see him, and that’s why I knew it would be best to avoid him. I had to get my head back on straight.
I spotted Shen fussing over a pile of books and went over to him.
“You’re still here! I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you around,” he said. “Ra was acting all indifferent when I asked where you’d been, pretending like he didn’t care.”
“I’m looking for books on alchemy,” I said. “Specifically thunder control. Can you help me?”
“Why don’t you ask Ra?”
“I don’t want to bother him.”
“You’d be doing him a favor. He really wants to see you. Not gonna admit it, but he does.” Then he leaned in and whispered behind his palm, “He finally gave me the rundown. Don’t worry, I know about you guys.”
“Well, then you understand why I’m asking you and not him. Anyway, you’re a thunder dragon, right? Thought you’d know what I need.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “I know what you need. You need a good kick in the behind. Both of you.”
“Excuse me?”
“A kick in the behind.” He snapped and made white threads of lightning crackle from his fingertips. “Look, Ra is stubborn. He gets into a way of thinking and it’s hard to change his mind. He’s had to rely only on himself for his whole life just to survive. And I can see you’re the same—rigid as a block of ice.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Okay, but am I wrong?”
I stood silently, not wanting to admit that he was right.
He smiled and said, “If you want to learn about thunder dragons, the first thing you ought to know is that our intuition is second to none.” Then he reached out and held his finger in front of my forehead, and a little blue spark stung my skin.
“Ow! What the hell?”
Shen laughed. “Don’t give up on him, Delos. He just needs work.”
“I'm just here to do research,” I said.
“Of course. Follow me.”
He brought me to a table and told me to wait while he collected what I needed, and a few minutes later, Raka appeared pushing a cart of books, apparently meant for me. He paused when he saw me and sighed.
“Dammit, Shen,” he said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I said.
Raka unloaded the books onto the table. “I suppose I would’ve realized these were for you had I read the covers. A Study of Thunder, volumes one through three. And Alchemic Techniques. Here you go.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’ve been avoiding the Librarium,” he said.
“I needed some time to think.”
“I did, too. But I was trying not to wonder why you hadn’t shown back up.”
“Shen noticed,” I said, chuckling.
“Shen notices everything. Can’t hide anything from that one.”
Despite everything I’d felt, it was a relief to be talking to Raka. I’d expected to feel like shit, but avoiding him was worse. Hiding wasn’t the solution, anyway, and neither was running. And that was all that both of us had been doing all this time. Raka seemed to feel the same way—he stuck around and helped me with my research, and showed me how to make exact copies of pages by wiping them with a special paper and a glow stone. It wasn’t easy to keep focused on what I was doing. Raka just took my attention and held it, even when all he was doing was sitting next to me. All I wanted to do was look at him. And touch him. And taste him. At a certain point, I was only pretending to work. All the pages I’d collected, I would have to reread again later.
“It’s time for lunch,” Raka said. “Oli will be getting out his mid-day lessons, and I need to prepare his food. Would you like to join?”
The invitation caught me off guard. “Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that a lot, actually.”
He brought me through the Librarium’s main hall, then up three flights of stairs to a locked door which brought us to an outdoor, rooftop courtyard. We passed a shaded fountain to another door that was the entrance to the dormitory. Raka’s place had a central living space with a small kitchen and separate entrances to his and Shen’s private apartments. It was sparsely decorated, with only a low table for sitting on the ground, a few cushions, and a small bookshelf. A few toys were lying around and Raka gathered them up.
“I’ll show you our rooms,” he said, carrying the toys into the other room.
His apartment was a small bedroom divided in half with his area on one side and Oli’s on the other. Raka put the toys in a box next to Oli’s bed next to a wooden dragon which looked not unlike the one that Thomas had made for Dalia.
“All of the members of the Fraternity live here,” he explained. “It’s simple, but I can’t complain.”
There was something on the dresser next to Raka’s bed that caught my eye, a little slip of paper mounted in a frame, and I went over to look at it. I felt a flutter of astonishment when I realized what it was, but even then, it was hard for me to believe.
“This is the ticket from the ship we took,” I said.
Raka gasped and rushed over, grabbing the frame. His face was flushed. “Don’t look at that.”
“You kept that? You know, some might call that incriminating evidence.”
“Others might call it a memento.”
“Of your perfect crime?” I was grinning at him.
“Oh, quiet. I think you know what I wanted to remember.” He put the frame back on the dresser and pushed me out of the room by my shoulders. “Come on. Lunch.”
I sat in the living room while Raka put together the meal, a big platter of pickled and fresh vegetables, rice, and an aromatic sauce. I was beyond stunned. I never could’ve imagined that this was how Raka felt about our past. I was always so sure that he’d forgotten me, that I’d meant nothing to him. I’d spent these seven years trying to forget, while he’d been remembering. And we’d both wished to see each other again.
As I was filling my plate, Oli dashed into the living room and skidded to a stop when he saw me. “Hey, what are you doing here?” he said, pointing at me.
“Oli, that’s rude,” said Raka. “And you’re late.”
“I’ve been wondering where you went, mister,” said Oli. He had his hands on his hips in a stance like he was here to collect a debt. “Dad told me not to bother you.”
I laughed. “No wonder no one’s been throwing rocks at my window.”
“Sit and eat lunch, Oli,” Raka said.
He sat on a cushion between us and Raka pushed him a tin plate of food and a cup of milk, which went frosty when Oli grabbed it. He chewed on a carrot and looked over at me from the corner of his eye. I did the same thing with my cup of water and made the surface turn to a thin layer of ice. Oli smiled and fidgeted happily.
“How were your morning lessons?” asked Raka.
“Good,” he replied quickly.
Raka looked suspicious. “Oli… Please don’t tell me you snuck out of class again.”
“I didn’t!” he protested. “Well, not all of class…”
“Oli!” Raka snapped. “You promised!”
Oli winced and looked at me like he was hoping I would save him.
“Don’t look at me,” I said.
“I already learned the entire lesson,” Oli said. “I read the books. It’s just so boring. The Archivist is sooo boring.” He thumped his forehead on the table.
“We’ve been over this, Oli,” said Raka.
Oli glumly pushed the food around his plate with a defeated sigh. “I wish I could just do something else.”
“I know,” Raka said. “But you know why it’s so important you complete your studies. Becoming an Archivist when you grow up will ensure you’ll always be taken care of.”
“Oli,” I said, “what do you think about learning how to use those dragon abilities of yours? I brought it up with your dad. He wants the both of you to learn how to fly.”
“Really?” Oli said excitedly.
Raka looked at me, startled. “I did not say I was going to learn how to fly.”
“But can we, Dad? Please?”
Even if Raka couldn’t see it now, maybe I could help give the poor kid some other options by showing him how to use his natural-born abilities. Oli didn’t need to be stuck behind a stack of books. I could see that he had the makings of a prime firefighter—the guts and tenacity, especially. He was our son, after all.
“Yes, alright,” Raka said. “I’m only watching, though. You can do all the flying.”
“Then we’ll do it tomorrow. No lessons, right? It’s the weekend.”
“We all have the day off,” said Raka, and he gave the back of Oli’s neck an affectionate pinch.
The kid perked up and ate his lunch with zeal. His break was short, and after eating, he had to leave for his afternoon classes. He grumbled and stalled, but I could see he was in a good mood, his head in the clouds. He stopped at the door, then ran back and hugged me. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t expecting it at all.
“Goodbye!” he said and left.
Raka had been watching and I could see he was just as surprised as I was. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him so excited about something.”
“Of course,” I said.
“We’ll tell him. We’ll find some time to talk to him about the whole thing before you have to leave.”
“Yeah.” Separating from them was the last thing I wanted to think about.
I helped Raka clean up the dishes, drying them as he washed them in the basin, neither of us talking very much. I so badly wanted to grab him and feel the shape of him in my hands and his taste on my lips. I was reaching out for him with my mind, wishing we didn’t have to be responsible and that we could throw all this damn resistance away. It was like I was on that ship again, fantasizing about a future together that would never happen. Now, I was imagining what it would be like just to know his body again. Just one more chance.
We finished up, and I said I ought to go back to work. He agreed and told me that he still had some time so he was going to stay here. And as I was going for the door, he called my name.
“Why don’t you…stay too?” he said, and those clear eyes of his told me everything I needed to know—that we were on the same page, wanting the same thing.
I strode back to him, my shirt already open before I reached him. He pushed his hands across my chest and tugged the shirt down my arms, and then he was on his knees, the front clasp of my pants twisted between his fingertips. It opened, and he had them down in a second, and my cock sprang ready. Raka didn’t waste a second wrapping it up with his palm and then his mouth. I groaned, an incredible relief coming over me. The tension of want from the past few days had somehow been even more potent than what I’d felt over all our years apart. Being close to him and not being able to have him was much worse than the separation. But now it was obvious—as long as we were near each other, there was no way we’d be able to control our desires.
His tongue flicked across my balls as his hand worked my length, and he was back on me again, taking me ravenously into his throat, pulling me all the way down until his lips hugged the base. He looked up at me, eyes welling up with tears from the effort, and then released to take a breath, his spit dripping from the tip of my cock.
I dropped down and kissed him, and then turned him around and bent him over the floor table so that he was kneeling with his ass pushed out against me. I slid my palm between his cheeks, my fingers tracing the shape of his manhood bulging through the fabric. I curled my hand around and clutched it, and felt it swelling hard into my grip. I got his pants down his thighs in one clean jerk and his cock swung heavily between his legs. I drifted the back of my fingers down his bare skin, barely grazing his entrance, to his balls and the swollen ridges of his cock. Then, I spread him with my palms and pushed my face into him, teasing his entrance with my tongue and my lips while I used my hand to pleasure his cock.
Raka moaned into the crook of his elbow, his cheek pressed firmly against the table. I felt all of his reactions through my palm as his erection flexed against me, urging me for more. Then I tested him with a finger, just one at first, and pushed it in slowly. He accepted it easily, slick with arousal, and I fit in a second and curled both to massage the sensitive spot inside of him. His entire body moved with my teasing, and I managed to push in a third finger, though it was very tight. Raka looked back at me, pleading with his eyes for much more. I continued to stroke his length with one hand, long and slow, while I pushed the tip of my aching erection to his hole. Then, impatiently, he pushed back onto me, pulling me inside.
I jerked and grabbed his hip with my free hand, shocked by the intensity of his tightness. The feeling was amazing, and he continued to move his body back and forth, drawing me deeper. Then I matched his rhythm, first with the swing of my hips and then with my hand so that I was fucking him and stroking him at the same time. His ass smacked against my abs, hard hits that drove the table forward an inch at a time with a steady honking scrape against the rough stone floor. Raka grabbed the sides of the table, the muscles along his back rippling and tight with his enjoyment.
The finish hit me like a tidal wave, a sudden crash of pleasure that wiped everything from my mind and left me with nothing but him, entwined with each other. Raka came with me, our bodies locked in a perfect dance, back and forth, back and forth, until the gentle ringing in my ears subdued and I was back on solid ground.
I sat on the floor, and Raka slid between my legs to recline against me. I wrapped my arms around his body and held him tight.
“We’re going to keep doing this, aren’t we?” he said.
“I think so,” I answered.
“There’s nothing we can do about it, is there?”
“Not a thing.”
He rested his head against my chest, and I knew he was going to say something about bad ideas and making things harder. I covered his mouth with the tip of my finger.
“Let’s just enjoy what we’ve got right now. How about that?”
“I’ll try,” he said.
“Good.”
Starting at my knees, Raka slid his hands slowly down my thighs. He turned around and pressed his hand in the middle of my chest, pushed me back onto the floor, and said, “In that case… There’s still a little more time before I have to get back to my duties.”
The Librarium had an attached greenhouse filled with all kinds of interesting plants I’d never seen before. I stood behind a large fern and pretended to examine the leaves as a caretaker smiled and nodded to me from the other side of the room. A dense cover of veckwood plants covered me from the waist down, where Raka was on his knees with my cock in his mouth. We’d both gone back to our work, but getting anything done had been out of my hands. Any moment where we could get away with it, we were on each other—and the Librarium seemed to be full of places for us to try.
“That’s a beautiful star fern, isn’t it?” the caretaker said, apparently seeing the wash of ecstasy on my face. He made his way over to me and stopped on the other side of the hedge.
“Oh yes,” I grunted, halfway to a moan.
Raka looked up at me as he swirled his tongue around my shaft and swallowed me. I almost ripped off the entire frond I had in my hand.
“If you like those, I think you’ll find the dwarf crawler ferns very interesting.” The caretaker started to walk around to come to my side of the row, and I threw a hand up.
“Don’t come,” I said, glancing down at Raka, who hadn’t let up at all. He was enjoying toeing the line like this.
“Sorry?” the old man said.
“I mean…that’s okay. I’m just about to leave.” I tried to turn away, but Raka held my hips and stroked my cock fast, pushing me to the edge. “Ah! I’m gonna… come,” I groaned.
The caretaker stared at me, puzzled.
“I’m gonna come...over to you if I need anything,” I mumbled. “Thanks. Would rather be alone.”
“I understand! Sometimes the company of plants is best enjoyed in privacy.” He bowed and went off to water some flowers on the other side of the greenhouse while Raka licked my finish off his lips.
It was some time before I was able to get back to work—Raka had to go help Shen, so I spent the rest of the day exploring the Librarium on my own. It was a comfortable place to be, and I could easily see myself losing hours at a time in the silent peace of the archives, surrounded by every alchemy and botany book I could ever want, or in the gardens beneath the shade of a palm tree. But it wasn’t home. Even I would eventually tire of it; the quiet would become deafening and the peace unbearable, and I would crave the adrenaline of the alarm bell and flying with my mates against an unstoppable fire. Raka wanted more, too. Just like Oli, the boredom was wearing him thin. This wasn’t home for either of them, and I needed to get him to see that.
The following day, I met Raka and Oli in the main hall of the Librarium, and they brought me to the roof where there was a flight platform for the delivery dragons and couriers. I took a moment to take in the view of the city from our height. It was greater than the station back home, and yet this wasn’t even the tallest building in Stonvale.
“Are we going to jump off and fly?” Oli asked excitedly, peering over the edge of the platform.
“Maybe I should give you a push,” I said, and I grabbed him by the shoulders and pretended to shove him to the edge. He squealed with laughter, and I picked him up and carried him back to Raka, who was giving me a look. I took off my wide brim hat and placed it on Raka’s head.
“No flying yet,” I told Oli. “If you want to fly, you need to shift first.”
Oli looked at Raka for permission, and Raka nodded. “It’s okay. But you still need to stay close, understand?”
“You can feel the dragon inside of you, right?” I asked Oli. “I bet it wants nothing more than to burst out, but you haven’t been able to give it that freedom. So, give it that freedom.”
“How?”
I crouched next to him, put my arm around his shoulder. “You’re a cold drake. Your ancestors came from ice and snow. Feel the cold. Let it grow. And picture in your head the dragon that’s inside of you. You’ll see it.”
He closed his eyes, and his skin shimmered as scales rippled outward. Then, a pair of small wings pushed from his back—it was the half-shifted form he was used to taking.
“Further,” I said.
His face strained, and his fists balled up tightly. I moved my hand to the back of his neck and closed my eyes, allowing my frost energy to transfer through my fingertips to him. It was the same thing my father had done for me during my first shift, an extra push to keep the momentum flowing, and it did the trick. His eyes flew open in surprise just as his form changed and a full set of scales and stubby horns covered his skin. His nose formed into a long snout, jets of cold steam erupting from his nostrils. He cried out when he looked down and saw his hands were turning into claws.
Raka was on his feet now, and though he looked unsettled, he stayed back and didn’t interfere.
“You’re doing great,” I said to Oli. “Keep focused, don’t be afraid.”
But I could see that the shock had passed and that he wasn’t scared.
This is my son, I thought proudly, and I felt a bond between us setting its roots deep into my heart, through the barrier of ice that’d kept it closed away for such a long time. This love was more intense than anything I’d ever known before. It was unique. It changed me. I could feel my heart growing to a capacity I would never have believed possible. It was like waking up from a deep, cold sleep.
I grinned at Raka, hoping he could appreciate the majesty of what our son was going through. Oli dropped onto all fours as his tail whipped out, and his shift was complete. He looked happily at me, burped out a cloud of steam that turned into snow, and stretched out his wings. It was my turn. I shifted in an explosion of energy that changed my body to dragon form in a matter of seconds.
“Are you sure you don’t want to fly?” I asked Raka.
“Come on, Dad!” Oli said, awkwardly hopping around on his legs that he hadn’t quite worked out how to use.
“No,” Raka said. “No, I’ll stay here and watch.”
“I hoped to see your dragon form,” I said.
“Keep hoping,” Raka replied. “You two have fun. Are your wings okay, Delos?”
I pushed my shoulders up and let my wings unfold to their full length. There was some soreness, but otherwise, they’d healed up enough over the last few days of rest. “Wings are good.”
“Be careful,” said Raka.
“But not too careful,” I said covertly to Oli.
He followed me to the edge of the platform, which extended out from the roof in a sheer drop to the street two hundred feet below us. But Oli wasn’t concerned. He was ready to go, watching me for instruction.
“There’s no real easy way to learn to fly, except to do it,” I said. “Don’t overwork your wings. Let the air work for you. You’ll see.”
I leaped off, stretched my wings and caught a current that flowed invisibly through the air like a stream. I pumped my wings twice to change course, curving around to make circles just below the platform. Oli paced at the edge and tested his wings. Then he backed away from the edge, lowered his head, and made a galloping dash for it. He sprang from the edge and strained to slow his fall by madly fluttering his wings.
I glided down next to him. “Put your wings out and trust the wind. You have to be able to let go and just trust.”
He wasn’t in a complete free fall, but the ground was coming up fast. Either he’d get it or I’d have to get under him and catch him. Up above us, Raka was on his knees at the end of the platform, looking like he was on the verge of a heart attack.
“You have this, Oli,” I said. “Just like the shift, don’t be afraid.”
He had his arms and legs pulled tight against his body, claws balled up into little fists, his eyes squeezed tight.
“Oli!” I urged.
He threw out his arms and legs and locked his wings open, and he shot upwards like he was pulled by an invisible string. He screamed in delight as he whipped up and down like a boat on a swell.
“I’m doing it!” he shouted. “This is fun!”
“That’s it!” I called. “Follow me up.”
I dipped first to get more momentum and then rode the current up, pushing myself faster with a few well-timed surges from my wings, and when I looked behind me, I saw Oli was imitating me perfectly. He was getting the hang of it fast. We shot past the platform and sent Raka stumbling onto his back in surprise.
“Higher!” Oli cried happily. “Let’s go!”
I slowed to let him shoot past me, and he corkscrewed and looped through the air, and even closed his wings to free fall and catch himself. He’d figured it out fast—especially for a kid who learned how to fully shift later than normal.
“Don’t overdo it,” I told him. “Take care of your wings or else you’ll end up falling and hurting yourself.”
Oli blew a cloud of snowflakes out of his mouth. “Can you teach me how to use ice magic?” he said. “I want to make huge ice sheets! Boom!” He burped out another tiny frost cloud.
“Not today,” I said, chuckling. “One thing at a time.”
I wanted to take my time with him. There was so much I wanted to show him. But how long did I have? And when would Raka and I tell him who I was? Part of me wanted to just tell him now, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea. It was far too important, far too sensitive a thing to drop onto him. I was thrilled to tell him that he was my son, but I couldn’t assume he would feel the same way. It would be a lot to take in.
“Look,” Oli said. “Dragons.”
I turned and saw a group of dragons flying towards the Librarium roof, right in our path, and as I focused on them, I realized who I was seeing. I couldn’t believe it. It was the entire flight—Rainor with Thomas on his back, and Altair with Grayson and Dalia.
“By the Gods,” I said. “They all came.”
“Who are they?” asked Oli.
“My flight,” I told him. “I sent them a letter just a few days ago. I didn’t think they’d all show up.”
Oli suddenly became shy and flew behind me as the group approached. I extended my neck and stretched out my wings in a salute. Grayson pointed me out to Dalia, and she frantically waved her little hands above her head.
“What are you all doing here?” I asked, flying out to greet them with Oli next to me.
Rainor laughed. “Good to see you too, glad to know you missed us.”
“I did!” I said, probably with more enthusiasm than any of them had seen from me. “I really did. But I only sent for Rainor. I didn’t think everyone would be here.”
“It wasn’t easy to convince Altair,” Rainor said. “Hell, it was hard to rip me away, even with Castelle in command of the Watch.”
“We need to be able to trust them to do their job at some point,” Altair said, not sounding entirely convinced.
“What about Soot?” I asked, troubled by a vision of a cat in ice.
Rainor reared back—he had luggage strapped to his underside and held a wooden cage in his right hand, and I saw Soot’s little green eyes peering through the bars at me.
“We needed to get out of the station anyway,” said Grayson. “Things were getting a little cuckoo.”
“The omegas decided to take up cleaning as a hobby right after you left,” Rainor said. “They won’t stop. Ever.”
“You think that place is ready for new babies?” asked Thomas.
“It was awful,” said Grayson. “It’s better now, but it could be better. Now I’m thinking they should’ve left us behind to get things ready.”
“They’re nesting,” Altair said to me, and then turned his attention to Oli. “This little dragon must be Oli.”
A quick look between Altair and I was enough to tell him how much Oli knew about who I was, and the same for Rainor.
“This is Oli,” I said. “He just learned how to shift.”
“And fly,” Oli piped up.
“Very impressive,” Altair said.
Dalia peered curiously at Oli from behind Altair’s neck, and then stretched an arm out to me.
“You want to go to Uncle Delos?” Grayson asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s fly in. I’ll introduce you to Raka, and we’ll see if you can board where I’m staying.”
I flew next to Altair and Dalia climbed deftly across to my back. She hugged my neck. “Hi, Uncle Delos.”
“Miss me?”
“Uh-huh.”
We turned to fly to the Librarium, and I called back to the others. “Hey. Who’s looking after my plants?”
As it happened, the other two upstairs bedrooms had just become vacant. Rainor and Thomas took one, Altair, Grayson and Dalia the other, and for a good price, the landlady opened up a third room for us to use as a communal living room. We had the entire floor to ourselves, which was perfect since Soot seemed keen on finding a way to slip outside. The landlady brought up drinks and food from the tavern. Grayson was busy unpacking bags, Rainor and Thomas argued over which side of the bed to sleep on, Altair sank into a recliner in the living room while Oli played with Dalia on the floor next to the sofa. I helped Raka with setting the table, and he smiled at me when I reached over and gave his ass a playful squeeze. I really liked this. For once, I didn’t feel like the odd one out, the only one without a mate. Things didn’t feel quite so gloomy.
“Hi, Soot, hi,” Raka cooed, kneeling to stroke the cat’s face as he brushed past his leg.
“Cute, isn’t he?” I said.
“Delos wanted to turn him into an ice cube,” Rainor shouted from the other room. “Don’t trust him.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Raka. “I didn’t think you liked cats.”
“He grew on me,” I said, shrugging. “He didn’t leave me any choice.”
“What a nightmare it was getting into the city,” Thomas said, coming into the living room. “It took us nearly four hours to get past the gate. Their officers couldn’t believe that Grayson and I were their mates. They couldn’t decide if we had to be sent down to the ground level.”
Rainor came in with two books in his hand and set them on the table. “You should’ve heard Thomas when he spoke to them like a commander. They got all flustered being ordered around by an omega.”
“I completely understand how you hurt your wings, Delos,” Altair said, stretching his arms. “I’m not used to long-distance flight. Especially with two heavy humans on your back.”
“Papa, I’m not heavy!” Dalia protested.
“What are these?” I asked, looking at the books.
“These are Dragotic reference books,” said Rainor proudly.
“Rainor is raring to have a go at this,” Thomas said, sitting down on the sofa. Had his stomach managed to grow even more since we’d been apart? It’d only been a little over a week, but he looked almost as big as Grayson.
“Do you have the text here?” Rainor asked.
“All of the books must stay within the Librarium,” Raka explained, pouring tea for everyone. “We can take a look tomorrow.”
“Oh, I can’t wait,” said Rainor. “How is it in there, Delos? A wet dream?”
“Better,” I said. “You might never want to leave.”
Grayson came in, looking exhausted. Altair tilted his head back against the chair to snag a kiss from him as Grayson passed behind him.
“Sit down, relax,” Altair said.
“Trying,” said Grayson.
“It’s been a long journey for everyone,” I said. “Come on, let’s eat.”
Everyone sat down at the table and passed around plates of sausages, roast chicken in spicy sauce, melon soup, and glasses of dragon firewater. Oli and Dalia sat next to each other, and Dalia watched Oli’s every action with great interest as Grayson tried to get her to eat her food. Soot nibbled on some ground-up chicken from a bowl on the floor. Altair made a toast to having the flight together again, and Grayson made one to a much-needed change of scenery.
“What about you, buddy?” Rainor said. “Make a toast.”
“Nah, I’m not good at toasts,” I said.
“What’s there to be good at? Say a few words and that’s it. You don’t have to make a speech.”
“A dragon of few words, our Delos,” said Altair.
I thought about it for a second and then raised my glass. “You have no idea how happy it makes me that you all came here. So, a toast to the family we choose.”
“Hey, there we go,” said Rainor.
“I like it,” Grayson said, lifting his glass.
After food and several more rounds of drinks, we settled onto the couch and chairs and talked, while Oli and Dalia played together and chased Soot. Rainor told stories about our firefighting exploits, and his embellishments had Thomas rolling his eyes and Raka grabbing onto my arm in a fit of laughter. Altair had plenty of questions about the fire control in Stonvale, but Raka only had a general idea of how things were controlled.
“I’ve never met a Stonvale firefighter, I only read a journal about it,” Raka said. “The city is separated into districts and the force is mostly made up of dragons. It’s a coveted job. But they use pressurized water tanks, mostly. There aren’t too many ice dragons.”
“We’ve got the best of the best,” Altair said. “But how do they have access to enough water to take on a full blaze?”
“There’s a lot of interesting stuff in Stonvale,” I said to him. “They do things with thunder magic I’ve never seen before.”
“I’m going to put Dalia to bed,” Grayson said to Altair.
“Hold on, I’ll come with you,” he said. “I want to keep talking about all this, but I’m absolutely exhausted. Delos, I could use some healing salve for my shoulders, if you have any to spare.”
“Of course.”
“Seconded,” Rainor said, and stood and stretched his huge, cannon-like arms above his head. “I’m fuckin’ beat.”
Thomas announced he was going to do his nightly workout and left with Rainor. Oli came over, slid onto the couch between Raka and me, and cuddled against Raka.
“Tired?” Raka asked.
“No,” he said, yawning.
“We should go back. It’s bedtime.”
I reached over and put my arm around Raka’s shoulder. “I could ask the landlady to make up a cot for Oli, and you two could stay,” I said.
“No, we’d better be going back,” said Raka.
Oli looked disappointed, and I probably did too. We stood, and I walked the two of them back to the Librarium. When we reached the front, Raka patted Oli on the butt and sent him back inside on his own.
“Right up to bed,” Raka told him. “I expect you to be asleep when I get up there.”
Oli waved to me and ran into the dim hall, leaving Raka and me alone at the door.
“He’s such an amazing kid,” I said.
“I know,” said Raka, taking my hand.
“We have to figure something out, Raka,” I said. “I want to be there for him. But this place isn’t where I’m meant to be. And I don’t think he’s meant to be here either.”
“Delos…”
“Hey. Don’t shut me down. Raka, you have to trust me. I can keep you safe in Old Shore Port. And not just me, we all can. You’d have three strong alphas and two very capable omegas by your side.”
Raka looked over my shoulder like he was staring out into the unknown. “I couldn’t put you and your flight at risk,” he said. “You have a flight daughter, too.”
“Raka, our flight is no stranger to danger. We know what we’re capable of.” I kissed him on the forehead, then his nose, then his lips. “Please, think about it.”
