We all slept in the morning that Pras left. By the time we woke up his ceremony was well underway. Jondi was still out cold and I lay on the floor listening to the bits and pieces of Pras Lavender’s voice booming across the farm. He sounded like he meant what he said but nothing he said would stop an asshole from being an asshole. I should know as Brom Valen’s grandchild. I rubbed my forehead wishing I could lick it. Sometimes you just needed your forehead licked by someone who didn’t mind wiping away your thoughts with their tongue.
Was Beryl there? Was he looking for the rock? I doubted it because there was no way a dragon took this long to find a rock. Disappointment ate at the edges of my half-awake thoughts but I wasn’t surprised. There was a reason I hadn’t dated a lot and Eran’s willingness to show up was probably half the reason I was willing to settle down with him before he met Vatten. The bar was so low. I just needed someone to actually show up and be a partner as much as they wanted one.
“I’ll go get the rock after breakfast,” Eran yawned, picking up on my thoughts over the group link. “I won’t be as quick as Vatten or an otter, but I’m not nursing or a kid.”
“Thanks, Eran,” I said and managed a smile for him.
“You know, he’ll come around at some point, right?” Eran yawned, counting his babies, and smoothing down their sleep messy fur. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. The few times I met him before he never seemed like an asshole.”
“The pride roughed him up pretty good, but nothing too major. I’ve gotten marks that bad from wrestling around. You don’t think he’s mad that I didn’t stop and lick his wounds or something, do you?”
“Jondi was upset,” Eran shrugged.
“The right guy would get it,”Vatten cut into our thoughts over the group link.“I thought Eran would run off when I had five babies. I really did, but he’s still here.”
“He’s still happy,”Eran added and leaned over to rub his nose against Vatten’s cold, wet dog nose.
“He was a-scared of the lions,” Jondi yawned. “Ferrick – or Not-Ferrick, he was a-scared of the lions. There were a lot of them out there. He wanted to come home with us I think.”
I quirked an eyebrow at Eran and Vatten. Beryl was a dragon. He was Diamond Moonscale’s son. I doubted there was much he was afraid of.
“Jondi, will you be alright to have breakfast with Uncle Eran while I go out for a bit?” I asked him.
“Can I sleep more?” he yawned.
“Of course, baby,” I said and kissed his forehead.
“Don’t get eaten, okay? I’d miss you.”
“I’ll always come back, kiddo. That’s one thing you can count on,” I told him before going to get dressed.
I stood on the back porch for a long moment. Usually, the farm was pretty quiet this time of day but the chatter from Pras’s thing carried on the wind. I was about to start off in that direction. If Beryl was afraid of lions that was something we could work on. I was barely off the porch when I spotted movement out by the pond. There he was all dressed for the funeral and standing akimbo staring into the pond like the rock was going to jump out of the water and say hello.
His shoulders were broad and tense. He smelled like he was about to jump into the water and fight a monster instead of swim down and look for a rock with a face on it. Still, he smelled delicious under all that fear. Straight up fucking delicious. Still, I wasn’t romping with him until he proved he could do more than whip out his dick and whine about a little mud.
I stalked in his direction, and he didn’t hear me until I was about a foot behind him. He startled and turned around.
“The wind was not moving in my favor,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Are you afraid of lions?” I asked, not wasting any time.
“Huh?” he blinked. “I was thinking.”
“Are you afraid of lions?” I asked again. “Is that why you were so weird last night?”
“ME?” he asked, crossing his arms. “I wasn’t weird. I was knocked over in the mud by your pride.”
“You’re a dragon, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Acts like a gecko!”my lion cut into my thoughts.
“What? Did you expect me to fry them?” he asked, throwing his hands up in the air like I asked him to fly to the moon.
“No, but.. Never mind. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but obviously, whatever issues you have are beyond my pay grade.”
“Who said I was afraid of lions?”
“Jondi.”