“You’re a dick.”
He shrugged. “I do not disagree.”
“Legit, dude. Not cool.”
“Don’t be jealous because you don’t have anything of your beloved to sniff yet. Do you want one of Gary’s scarves? I’ll only watch a little bit.”
“All that time in the woods, and I still don’t know why you are the way you are.”
“I like what I like, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
“You should be,” I insisted. “You should be so ashamed and—wow, they were not kidding. It looks like drag queens were massacred in here.”
And it did. The floor of the large barn was covered in sections of bright purple shag carpeting. There were dozens of feather boas and scarves hanging on one far wall, a few missing for reasons I didn’t want to focus on. There was a large bed of hay at one end, built as a nest of sorts that I knew Tiggy and Gary slept on, a large blanket folded on a chair next to it. In another corner were dozens of brooms in all shapes and sizes, haphazardly placed for easy access.
In the middle of the barn, hanging from the ceiling, was a large mirror ball.
“Godsdamn, these fuckers are amazing,” I mumbled.
“Aren’t they?” Kevin said, a blue scarf still hanging from his claws.
“You know he probably took the time to grab all of this stuff while they were supposed to be fleeing the castle.”
“Yeah,” Kevin sighed dreamily. “He really does it for me.”
“Ugh.”
“Oh please, like you don’t know my feelings for your mother.”
“He’s not my mother—shit.”
“What?”
I winced. “Your hoard. They must have had to leave your hoard behind. Dude, I’m so sorry. We’ll get it back. Maybe. Hopefully.”
Kevin cocked his head at me. “I don’t understand.”
“Your hoard,” I said slowly, sure that Kevin’s brains must have shot out of his dick along with his spunk. “That was in the castle.”
“Oh, that. I suppose. I don’t know how much I care about material things.”
I stared at him. “You’re a dragon. Material things are what you mostly care about.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have part of my hoard right here. And I expect more of it will be here soon.”
I was confused, looking around to see any of Kevin’s treasures that I might have missed. There was nothing. “I don’t understand.”
“You, Sam. You’re part of my hoard. Your parents are in the house next door. And Gary and Tiggy and Ryan and Justin, they’ll be coming home tomorrow or the next day, or so I’ve heard.”
“But—I don’t… hoards are supposed to be your most precious things!”
“I know.”
“And that—you just—we’re part of your hoard?”
“Always quick on the uptake, Sam is. It’s what I always tell people.”
“Dude,” I demanded. “I have such a godsdamn heart boner right now, you don’t even know. Pick me up because we need to hug!”
And he did just that. I tried not to think about what his hand had recently been doing, because that was causing my heart boner to wilt.
I took his snout in my hands as he nuzzled my face. “If I was a dragon, you’d be in my hoard too.”
He growled low in his throat, something he did when he was happy. “You would make a good dragon, I think. Maybe even a great one.”
I lay my head between the slits of his nose. His breath was hot against my skin. “I’m still scared. A little.”
“Of them coming back?”
I shrugged, not looking at him.
“They will be angry.”
My shoulders sagged.
“And they are probably going to yell at us.”
I sighed.
“And they may not forgive us for a long time.”
“Great,” I muttered. “That’s just swell.”
“But it’ll only be so because they love us so much.”
“Yeah?”
He hummed in response.
“We did the right thing.” I knew I was trying to convince myself, and I didn’t know if it was working.
“We did.”
“Even if it started out because I was running away.”
“Even if.”
“And we’ll let them yell.”
“We will.”
“And we’ll take it because maybe we deserve it.”
“We’ll take it so hard.”
“Shut up. But in the end, it’ll be okay, because it has to be. And even if Ryan and Justin have accidentally fallen in love and given each other sloppy blow jobs, I’ll fight to get him back.”
“And even if Gary has been pounded by so many different people that he leaks when he walks, I shall stuff my cock inside his asshole and make him sit there for at least a week, because once you go dragon, all the rest is laggin’.”
“Oh my gods. Why are you making those sounds with your mouth?”
“Is what Gary will say when I eat his—”
“Moment ruined.”
He hugged me a little tighter.
“Can I—can I stay out here? With you. To sleep.”
He pulled back, looking a little surprised. “You’ve been wanting a bed for a long time. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard you bitch about anything more than that very thing.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled. “I just—it’s weird here. Things are… not what I expected them to be.”
“Things change, pretty. We’ve talked about this.”
“I don’t like it.”
“And yet it’s the way things are.”
“I hate it when you get philosophical.”
“I’m a dragon. It’s what I do.”
I snorted. “Yeah, that’s not even remotely true.”
“Yes, Sam. You can stay with me. In fact, I prefer you did. I’ve gotten used to having you whenever I wanted you.”
“Ugh. Don’t say it like that.”
He grinned at me. “You wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Maybe he was right, but I wouldn’t tell him that.
Later, when we were on the cusp of sleep, Kevin curled around me protectively, I whispered the one question I’d buried deep in my heart a long time ago. “What if they don’t forgive us for what we’ve done?”
“Then we’ll work that much harder and prove to them we love them with everything we have,” Kevin whispered back. “And we’ll do whatever it takes to make them believe us. Because in the end, we may have had to leave them, but we left our hearts behind in their care. We must have hope that they kept them safe.”
And then I slept.
I WAS dreaming about lights of green and gold, black and white, and blue and red. I was walking in a field, and they circled around me like fairies, their brightness warm and inviting. The blue lights were the liveliest of all, flitting around me in dizzying patterns. I knew they were the Northern dragons, the mated pair, and I wondered if this was real. If I was dreamwalking because of them.
The grass in the field swayed with a soft breeze, the sun shining high in the sky and—
“Sam?”
My heart stuttered. My breath caught.
“Sam,” he said again from behind me.
I couldn’t turn around. I didn’t know how I could look him in the eye without breaking.
“This feels so real,” he said, sounding despondent. “It’s like when you were in Castle Freesias and we were—”
“On the road,” I said roughly. “Coming to me.”
“Yeah. Just like that.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I’ve dreamed of you. But never like this. I can see you. All of you. It’s not in a haze. It’s not—”
The sun set quickly. The night swallowed the day, and stars burst out across the sky above, David’s Dragon almost blinding. I wondered if he was watching. If all the gods were.
Footsteps approached from behind me, and I said, “Stop.”
He did. “Why? What is this? Is this—is this real? Oh my gods, Sam, is this—”
“I think so.”
“Fucking hell, where are—”
“Language. You’re a godsdamn knight of Verania. You need to—”
He choked wetly. “You don’t—Sam. Where are you? Right now. At this very moment. Tell me where you are.”
I sighed. “Camp HaveHeart.”
The sound he made reminded me of when he’d been pinned to the wall with a sword: deep and wounded, like it hurt more than anything. “You came back?”
“I told you I would.”
“But—that’s not…. I’m coming. We’re almost there. You wait. You don’t move a godsdamn muscle, you hear me?”
“I—”
“I mean it, Sam. You won’t like what happens if I get there and you’re not.”