by Honor James
“Quick as a rabbit,” she called through the door, already getting herself cleaned up as she spoke. Thankfully, she had washed her hair the night before, so she pulled it up in a rubber hair tie she wore at her wrist and just had to get her body clean so she didn’t feel like she smelled bad after sleeping so long and so well.
Once she was cleaned and dressed in—well, she was going to go with one of their shirts and perhaps one of their boxer shorts—she came out of the room to find both waiting for her. Grinning, she said, “Was that fast enough?”
“I give it an eight and a half,” Volos said. “Though you’re only getting that because you look better in that outfit than we’d thought.”
“Nine and a half. She looks sexy as hell in that outfit,” Drake said with a smile. “But you do lose half a point for presentation, since it appears you have a bit of a tail going on there with that shirt through the shorts.”
“Well, the shorts are a bit on the big side, so it was tuck the shirt in or lose the shorts. Which would you prefer?” she teased and linked her arm with his. “But I love that you gave me nine and a half, because that just makes me grin and gives me something to strive for. A ten, from both of you.”
“Volos is a much tougher sell than I am,” Drake said.
“That’s ’cause you’re easy,” Volos muttered and earned a punch to his arm from Drake. “Ow!” he screeched. “That hurt!”
“Ready for breakfast, princess?” he asked her with a smile.
She snickered but nodded. “I am. Just remember, no meats please.” She hesitated and then added, “Oh, but I love toast and jams. So good for breakfast.” She didn’t have huge breakfasts, ever. She just never had, because she generally hated mornings.
“Don’t know if there’s any toast, but there’s usually some freshly baked bread, muffins, biscuits and such,” he told her as they headed for the door. “There’s always lots of fruit as well, and whatever else your little heart could desire. We usually do a very informal breakfast in the kitchens. The staff set up a buffet that anyone can partake of, off and on, for about three hours.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. I like it. That way, if we want to come back within those three hours, we can. We can ensure that we are all well fed and all that fun and joyful stuff, right?” She moved away from the men and to the food, and when they got there, she began to pile her plate full.
Volos was right there, but he only got a cup of coffee that he started drinking pretty much as soon as he filled the cup. He let out a sigh of pure pleasure and then refilled the cup.
Drake was filling a plate beside her, stacking it high with meats and not much else, though he did grab a muffin and shrugged at her look. “They are really good muffins,” he said with a grin.
She snickered and got some eggs, and then syrup. “Well, we will see.” She snagged one of the muffins from his plate and moved off to the table, food in hand as well as her silverware. Once she was settled, after getting a drink, she took a bite of the muffin and sighed in pure pleasure.
“Told you so,” he said with a laugh as he settled in next to her. He set the muffins on the table and got to work on the mountain of meat he had on his plate. “By the way, there are always baked goods in baskets down here for you to snack on throughout the day. The staff never lets them run out, since we feed all the staff and the field workers as well who are welcome to come in at any time for a snack or something to drink.”
“That’s actually very wonderful of you and your family. Most Royals wouldn’t think of the commoner out in the fields who was ensuring that the foods were harvested and created. I like it. A lot.” Her family had always done that, fed the poor, the workers, the ones that couldn’t work. It didn’t matter. If you lived in their Realm, you never went hungry.
“Shh,” he said, looking around. “No using the R-word around here. I’m just a guy, nothing more, nothing less,” he muttered. “I really hate that word,” he grumbled and stuffed more steak into his mouth.
“I’m nobody special,” he said after a moment more. “Besides, they work for us for a good wage and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. And we always have way too much food around here, anyway. It just makes sense.” Drake was obviously trying to downplay, well, everything.
“Well, I will stop using it when you stop calling me princess,” she retorted. “Although, honestly, I don’t mind. It’s just a title. The truth of the person that you are is the soul of your being. A commoner could be more royal than a couple of pompous asshat kings that I’ve met in my lifetime. Trust me, it’s all about class, and some of the ‘R-words’ just simply don’t have it.” Drake however, he had it in spades.
“I don’t call you princess as a title, sweetheart,” he said with a frown at her. “I use it as a term of endearment for my little mate. But”—he gave a shrug and smiled—“if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stop using it entirely. I don’t want you to ever be uncomfortable with me.”
She rolled her eyes and placed her hand on his. “Drake, honey, call me anything you want, as long as you don’t call me late for dinner.” She pulled out an Earth slang phrase she had learned. “I like it. I really do. So please, don’t stop.”
“Are you sure?” he asked softly. At her nod, he smiled. “Okay, then I’ll keep using it. I will try to tone it down a little, though, promise,” he said softly. “Now eat up. We need to do our tour quickly so that we can get back upstairs.”
“Oh, I do so love how you think,” she said with a grin and began to eat the eggs that she had piled onto her plate, along with some of the jam and berries that had been preserved. It was utterly delicious and soon she was sitting back, sipping her drink and looking at her men. She smiled, happiness blooming inside of her because she had mates. She had men that were hers and hers alone.
“Uh-oh, she’s getting a sappy look on her face,” Volos commented. “We should get moving on the tour before the nostalgia kicks in, ’cause you know what comes next.” Both men winced.
“Yeah, tour,” Drake said, sucking back the rest of his coffee quickly. Standing, he popped a whole muffin in his mouth and held out a hand to her while lifting his eyebrows.
She laughed at them and let them lead her out of the room. “You two are seriously quirky beings, and I love it.” She adored that she couldn’t guess their next move or what they were thinking. She seriously got a kick out of them, period.
“I’m sure you’ll start to figure us out eventually,” Volos commented. “In a couple hundred years or so. Then we’ll have to come up with a whole new routine to keep you guessing. Should be fun.” He smiled at her.
“Good thing that we have a couple hundred or more years for me to start to figure you out so that you can change it all up on me to toss me for a loop again. By that time maybe one of you will side with me to throw the other for a loop?” She was teasing them both and they knew it, and she loved it. She loved being able to be so open with these men.
“We’ll have a great number of years for you to figure things out,” Drake told her. With a grin, he squeezed her hands and led her through the house. It was large, very large. All the rooms were of a massive size and all the doorways on the lower level, huge. Drake explained that, in the days of old, the Draygons would often need to come inside the keeps in their natural form due to injury. As they healed faster in the Draygon form, it made sense. But that meant building the homes to accommodate the rather large girth of a full-grown Draygon.
“The young don’t learn to control the change until they are nearly six. Some earlier, but it’s relatively rare. We let them run about as they would, thus why everything is built sturdily on the main floor. The younglings are not permitted into the upper levels unless they are in human form. It’s a must because, as they age and grow, so, too, do their Draygon forms. A full-grown Draygon cannot fit up on the second and third levels,” he explained.
He guided her out to a large back patio area and pointed to the east. “Over there are the fields
, grains and hay for the animals we keep. North of that, protected by the trees, is where the cattle and sheep are kept. Unlike on Earth, we have to keep ours a little more hidden since the other Draygons like to play a game of snatch and negotiate. They steal any cattle and sheep they find in the open to get a neighbor over for a meal and a little card game to win the animals back. Plus, there is the fact that there are rogue Draygons, those without allegiance to any house, who will steal and eat whatever they can get.”
“So the little ones have to remain down here?” Azure frowned. “I don’t think I like that idea. If our bedroom is upstairs, I wouldn’t want our child to be two floors from us.” She knew that eventually there would be children, and likely one would be a Draygon. “So what happens then?”
“Only in their Draygon form,” he said. “They can shift at will or to protect themselves. But they are taught to control themselves early on so that they are in human form on the upper levels. Night terrors and evil siblings notwithstanding, there’s only ever been a couple of incidents over the centuries. They learn early that on the main level, they can be in Draygon form all they want. But in the private sections, they must hold the human form we are all born into.”
“Which makes sense,” Azure agreed with a nod. “Well, we won’t have to worry about that for a time, so it’s all good.” She wouldn’t worry about anything to do with children in the now, that was for the later. “We have lots of time before us, plenty of time for wee ones, but for right now, we have each other to get to know.”
“That we do,” Volos said. “Besides, we all know you’ll have little Vhampires running around first.” He grinned. “A dozen at least before you need to worry about a Draygon lighting the curtains on fire with a sneeze.”
Azure snickered. “Really? And why’s that, Volos?” She was curious just how far the Vhampire would go, how hard he would tug the Draygon’s tail before giving in. “Because I thought that it was far harder for Vhampires to impregnate their mates than it was for Draygons?”
“Not hardly,” he said, rolling his eyes. “We have a better shot than the dinosaurs do, by a long shot.”
“That’s actually true,” Drake said, even though he was glaring at Volos. If looks could kill… “In the old days, impregnation was easier. These days, it’s harder and harder. For all intents and purposes, we’re a dying race. It’s one of the reasons we voted to go dark from all the Realms. While there are still representatives out there, like myself and a few others, keeping a low profile, the numbers have started to thin. The last Draygon born was a female just under two hundred years ago. Since then, not a single mate to a Draygon has been able to get pregnant and we have no idea why. But we had to close ourselves off so that accidental deaths were kept to a minimum. We can’t lose any more than we already have until we can figure out why we’re not able to give birth.”
Frowning, Azure cocked her head to the side. It was an action that she knew reflected the fact that she was listening to someone, something.
“Huh,” she said with a frown. “That’s interesting,” she murmured quietly. “So, I think that there is someone out there that can help your race with that. Do you have scrolls or books dating back to things that happened in the past? If so, I would like to look over a few things before I say anything concrete. But there could be a chance.”
“There are many scrolls and such in the Council Chambers here. I will take you there, but not today,” he said softly. “Now, enough talk about this. We have a tour to finish, and damn it, we’re wasting way too much time that could be better put to being naked.”
“I agree. That’s for another time. We will worry about all of that later. For now, we will worry about us. We will simply focus on the three of us and not worry about anyone or anything else. I like that idea, a lot.”
“Good,” Volos said with a grin. “Come on, you’ll get a kick out of the portrait gallery. There are a couple that just kill me,” he said with a snicker. Tugging her hand as Drake let out a pained groan and followed, he led her back into the house and up a back staircase to the second floor.
“Oh heavens. Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to have to keep Drake from taking a swat at you because you are poking fun?” She stepped between both men and put her arms around their waists and squeezed them. “That’s okay, I’m right here between the two of you so I will try to do all that I can in order to ensure that both of you keep from arguing with each other.”
“There are a couple that he’ll likely give me grief over but even he admits that I’m right about them. But, first”—Volos led her to a giant portrait and waved his free arm—“meet Drake’s namesake, the first of his lineage and his mate, Ilsa. They are the only ones, in all of the Races’ histories from all the Realms, that were a twosome. And I think Drake actually favors him a bit.”
“Oh, wow. A twosome?” For the Races, that was very rare. “I haven’t heard of too many of those at all. Typically, our races are threesomes and foursomes, gaining more power from being in triads or quads.” It was odd, but the Races all were more powerful with being able to be of a threesome or more.
“Yup.” Volos nodded. “But these two, super powerful. Some believe it’s the reason that the matings became threes and fours or more afterward, that having two with such power was too dangerous for everyone else. Not that either abused the power they had. They are the reason that Drake’s entire line is so damned humble, it’s sickening.”
Azure grinned up at Drake and winked. “Well, I’m just happy that I have a Draygon of my own. I’m very happy that I have Drake as my own,” she added as she hugged Drake. “Well, as long as they were blessed with happiness, which they were, that’s all that matters.”
“They had eight sons, four daughters, eighteen grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren before they passed from this life into the next,” Drake told her. “They loved and were loved greatly. The only day of sadness they truly had was the day she passed. He followed quickly because, as the story goes, he couldn’t spend more than a couple hours without her at his side and still be able to breathe.”
“That’s…Wow, that’s incredible.” Azure felt her heart squeeze in reaction. “I know that this is very horrid of me, but I truly hope that we have that. I don’t want to be without the two of you. I never want to have time without either of you. I already care for both of you.”
“Well, the good news is, all my ancestors have had the same fairytale,” he told her. “They and their mates were never parted except for a few hours at the end of their time. I think we can manage to keep the tradition going,” he said with a smile. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to her lips.
“And now that we have had the mushy part of our tour, onto the best part,” Volos said.
Drake let out another pained groan. “It’s okay if you laugh, I won’t hold it against you,” he promised softly as Volos tugged her up the hall to the next portrait he wanted to show her.
“Meet Drake’s many-times-removed uncle, Drogan,” Volos said, indicating the painting. “And, for the record, the painter did his best but his eye did keep rolling around so that’s why it’s just a little odd looking in the painting.”
Azure looked at the picture and turned. She moved away from her mates and looked at it from many different angles. “Oh my.” The eye seemed to move as she looked at it, but that wasn’t possible, right? “Oh, good heavens,” she whispered with a smirk. “Please tell me that his eye didn’t truly do that? That it didn’t truly google like that?”
“Sadly, I cannot,” Drake muttered.
“His eyes did go all googly,” Volos said with a huge grin. “Apparently no one ever knew just what he was looking at and it’s said that many were highly disconcerted by his stare and that they just couldn’t look at him without laughing. He also couldn’t fly worth a damn. The condition that made him all…” He waved up at the portrait. “It messed with his depth perception, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“That poor man. A Draygon who coul
dn’t fly? Did he ever find a mate? Ever find a semblance of happiness?” Because she didn’t know if that word would have ever applied to the poor man, at all.
“A mate, no,” Drake told her. “But he found love. He fell in love with a woman who’d been blinded during an attack. They were together until the day he died and she followed him over because no one else could appreciate her as much as he had. They were destined to love, but sadly, they were not mates.”
“As long as he at least had love and happiness in his life. I couldn’t imagine a worse lifetime than never finding and knowing that emotion.” And to think that just weeks earlier she had resigned herself to that fate. “I’m glad that I was able to find happiness and mates with the two of you. I’m sure we will have our issues and troubles to work through, though,” she teased.
“And they are named Volos,” Drake said quietly.
But Volos heard and just grinned at them both. “Come on, one more I want to show you. The rest are rather staid and laidback, very Drake,” he said, faking a yawn. “Boring,” he added. Tugging her along, he stopped before the biggest portrait she could honestly say she’d seen. There were three men and six women.
“Meet Drake’s something-or-other grandfather.” Volos pointed to the guy dead-center. “And all his mates.” He waved at the group. “I honestly didn’t know it was possible to have this many, but apparently, somehow, they did. I don’t even know where to begin to comprehend the mating ritual that they had to work out. It had to be an early version of that game Twister to make it all come out okay.”
Azure laughed. “Oh dear god,” she said with a laugh. “Well, I’m sure that however it had to happen, they did it and they got through it. They look happy and that’s all that matters in the end, right?” It did, however, boggle the mind. She didn’t think that there could be that many mates within a bonding, but she was so wrong on that one, obviously.