Page 18 of Alpha Dragon’s Mating Contract (Babies For Broken Dads #3)

RAPTOR BUILDS A TERRIBLE NEST

Walren watched as Raptor rummaged through his folded clothes with his free hand.

“Ah ha!” the alpha said, pulling out a large hoodie. “This is for you. Put it on.” He tucked it into the space between their bodies, scrutinizing his closet. “I don’t think any of my other clothes will fit you. Without a tailor, you can only tighten the waistbands by so much.”

Walren wriggled into the hoodie—it was unexpectedly soft. The sleeves fell way past his hands, and the hoodie felt like a huge, baggy dress. The best part was that it smelled like Raptor, all ironwood and smoke.

Then Raptor’s words sank in.

“I’m not walking around without any underwear!” Walren yelped.

Raptor glanced at the fabric pooling around Walren’s hips, giving a throaty rumble. “My hoodie will go to mid-thigh on you. No one will know you’re not wearing any underwear.” And in a lower tone, “Think about how easy it would be for me to slide inside you.”

Walren’s face burned.

“Don’t worry. I placed an order at a specialty shop. They’ll deliver your new clothes later today.”

“Specialty shop...?” Walren scrunched up his face. “Is it going to be some nurse outfit?”

Raptor gasped. “I can’t believe I forgot to buy one of those.”

Walren groaned. But the alpha only grinned.

“Naw, I’m kidding. I’m trying to avoid going into rut; we’ve been having too much downtime as it is.

Even though I loved unloading inside you.

” Raptor nuzzled Walren affectionately, carrying him out of the walk-in closet.

“But back to the subject at hand: I bought you some silk panties, and some lace ones too. They’ll fit real pretty on your hips. ”

Walren opened his mouth to protest. Only to realize that he’d never had the chance to wear anything nice. Fancy, delicate underwear had always been out of his price range; none of the alphas he’d dated had bothered to spend that kind of money on him.

What would it be like to wear something pretty?

What would it be like to feel pretty?

Walren hadn’t felt pretty in a long time.

He closed his mouth and chewed his lip, blushing when Raptor gave him a knowing smile.

Finally, he couldn’t stifle the question any longer.

“What about my leg?”

“What about it?” Raptor had not paid much attention to it at all. In the shower, he had lathered Walren’s bad leg with soap, but his light touches had not lingered. The same thing happened when he had dried Walren off with the towel.

But Raptor was aware of its inability to bend. He had carefully steered them into the walk-in closet so Walren’s leg didn’t smack into the doorframe. Right now, he was keeping Walren angled away from the closet shelves, so his foot didn’t bump into them.

“It’s ugly,” Walren mumbled, refusing to look at the thick, silvery scars bunched around the middle of his leg, where his knee should be. It wasn’t even a clean join from thigh to shin. Larei had stomped hard on Walren’s knee so it shattered, then run it through with a rusty iron spike.

All because Walren had forgotten to pack him a snack for their hike.

Larei had stabbed Walren’s knee so many times that he’d gone into shock. When he had hit an artery and blood started gushing everywhere, he’d fled.

He had left Walren alone in the wilderness, far away from civilization and with no cell signal on his phone.

Walren had been lucky—there had been an omega nearby who had some experience with first aid.

They had realized—to their horror—that the iron spike had left poisonous shards in Walren’s shattered knee.

To stop the poison from spreading, and to stop him from bleeding out, the omega had removed Walren’s knee somehow, and joined the halves of his leg together with clumsy stitches and a mountain of bandages.

It wasn’t the best save, but the omega had prevented Walren from losing the rest of his leg. And his life.

Walren had fainted in the middle of the procedure. By the time he woke up, he was in a hospital, and the omega was nowhere to be found.

I never got to thank him.

All he knew was that the omega had bright orange eyes, and he had been on the verge of fleeing, that entire time.

“Why do you say it’s ugly?” Raptor asked, bringing Walren out of his thoughts.

“It’s... It’s all scarred up,” Walren mumbled. “It can’t bend. If the damage were just skin-deep, maybe I could ignore it. But I walk funny now. Sometimes it hurts to walk the way I do. And sometimes people think I’m stupid, just because I don’t walk right.”

Raptor’s eyes blazed. “Who?”

Walren shrugged. “Just random people on the streets. My friends treat me like a normal person.”

Raptor growled anyway. “If anyone says a single bad word to you, you’ll tell me immediately.”

“That’s a lot to bother you with.”

“ You’ll tell me, ” the alpha said, low and fierce. “No one gets to treat my—my employee like that.”

“Okay.” Walren blushed again.

They stared at each other for a long moment, until Raptor nodded to himself.

Then the alpha sat on the edge of his bed, carefully propping Walren’s leg on the mattress.

Raptor covered Walren’s scars with his hand.

“This isn’t ugly, sweetheart. It’s a part of you that was broken, and you’ve done your best to heal around it. ”

Walren’s throat tightened. “Oh.”

“You’re still pretty,” Raptor said quietly. “You don’t need pretty clothes to prove that to me.”

Walren’s eyes began to burn. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

The alpha shrugged. “That’s okay. Take as long as you need. Wear the panties, prove it to yourself. Gods know I wasn’t born this way.”

“Y-you weren’t?”

Raptor shook his head. “I used to be less crazy, but that’s a story for another day.”

Walren had so many questions, but Raptor’s expression said he didn’t want to talk about them right now. “Okay.”

“Now.” Raptor narrowed his eyes and lightly squeezed Walren’s scars. “Who did this to you?”

Walren fidgeted. “The short story is that an omega sewed me up.”

A low growl started up in Raptor’s throat. “And the long story?”

Walren told him. Not Larei’s name, nor how long his stupid younger self had stayed with that alpha, but the hike. He told Raptor about the rusted iron rod, dropping his gaze when Raptor’s shoulders tensed and his eyes glowed bright red.

“What’s his name?” Raptor snarled.

“I don’t know if I should tell you,” Walren said nervously. “I don’t want you to fight him and get hurt!”

“I’m not going to get hurt,” the alpha said.

“But what if you go into rut? I—I don’t want to be near him, and you’d have to bring me along.”

Raptor stared at Walren for so long that he squirmed. “Fine. I won’t hunt him down.”

He looked as though the compromise had cost him an entire arm.

“I can’t believe he hurt you,” Raptor muttered. “You were his omega! Who the hell hurts their omega?”

Walren wrapped his arms around Raptor and leaned into him. “I don’t want to talk about him. Please.”

“Okay.” Raptor drew a deep breath. “Okay. Time to build your amazing nest.”

His knot finally receded enough that he could slide out of Walren. Walren made a soft sound of protest, but Raptor didn’t fill him again.

“I can’t build anything while you’re impaled on me,” Raptor said gently. “But I dearly wish you were.”

Walren grumbled and pulled his hands away from Raptor’s shoulders.

It wasn’t as though he needed a nest. He wasn’t going to get pregnant.

Sometime later, they stood on the front steps of the mansion, staring at the pile of completely random things that Raptor had ordered.

“They’re for... decorating the nest, right?” Walren asked hesitantly.

“What? Pssh! No! They’ll be used to build the nest,” Raptor crowed. “It will be a nest unlike any other.”

Walren stared at the pool noodles and the boxes of tissue paper. “ How? ”

“Oh, it’ll be a nest alright,” Hassel whispered loudly. “Right before it collapses.”

“Don’t you dare jinx me,” Raptor growled.

Hassel—in his human shape—rolled his eyes. “You’ve already jinxed yourself by trying to build with pool noodles. ”

Walren lowered Zebbie onto the grass so the baby could crawl around. Raptor surveyed the land.

“It will be a masterpiece,” Raptor declared, glancing at the hedge maze that separated his mansion from his twin’s. The maze had a fountain in the middle, and it was half as long as the property—the rest of the separating wall was made up of the same tall hedges that surrounded the mansions.

The alpha dismissed his maze, then studied the trees closer to the mansion. He circled them and muttered excitedly to himself the whole time; Walren watched Raptor from afar, unsure if he should follow the alpha around.

Then he glimpsed a patch of bluebells. The little flowers bobbed in the breeze, looking so delicious that Walren edged closer to them.

When no one was looking, he plucked one of the flowers and sneaked it into his mouth.

Nectar burst across his tongue. It tasted amazing.

When Hassel went to rearrange the tubs of plastic balls, Walren ate another bluebell. Then another.

He reached for another tiny blue flower, only to realize there were none left.

Who ate my flowers?

Walren frowned accusingly at the clump of leaves and stems. Then he realized that it was him. He was the one who had eaten them all.

He panicked. I just demolished the whole patch of bluebells. It’s exactly like Killian said I would.

“Chef Consort!” Hassel said.

Walren jumped and spun around, his heart thumping. “Y-yeah? Crap, no. Wait. Why am I responding to that?”

The butler eyed him shrewdly. “Is something the matter?”

“No! Of course not,” Walren babbled before he could think it through.

Hassel raised an eyebrow. Because he had caught Walren in the lie. Dammit!

Walren ran his tongue over his teeth as discreetly as he could, in case a petal had gotten stuck in there.

“Huh,” Hassel said. Then he looked down at the bluebell patch.

“Wow, it’s sure warm out today,” Walren said desperately, looking at the sky and scratching his neck in the fakest gesture of innocence.

Hassel snorted. “You’ll have to do better than that, Chef Consort. You have to exaggerate a little. Make some puke sounds! Flop over and play dead! Then no one will remember that all the flowers are missing. ”

“Oh gods.” Walren collapsed in a heap next to Zebbie and pulled Raptor’s hoodie over his head, hiding his burning face. “He’s gonna fire me. I didn’t even last a day.”

“Give him a baby, and he won’t,” Hassel said slyly.

Walren shut his mouth and scooped Zebbie up, depositing his son on his back. Then he belly-crawled to a hibiscus bush nearby, depositing Zebbie next to him. When Walren flopped onto his back, he found several huge red flowers staring down at him.

They called to him just as strongly as the bluebells had, and his mouth watered again.

Just one, he told himself.

Before he knew it, there were no more red flowers within arm’s reach.

Hassel stood over him suddenly, clucking his tongue. “Oh, Chef Consort.”

Walren yelped and grabbed Zebbie. “I didn’t touch the flowers!”

“Of course you didn’t,” Hassel sang.

Walren placed Zebbie on his belly and shuffled backward—with some difficulty because he only had one functioning leg when he was lying on the ground. He shuffled further and further from Hassel, until he bumped into something solid.

Raptor almost tripped over him. “Sweetheart!” he yelped.

Several hollow plastic balls rained down on Walren’s head. Zebbie giggled and batted at them. Hassel snickered.

“Sorry!” Walren squeaked. “I was just... trying to get away. From Hassel.”

Raptor pointed at his butler. “Go away!”

Hassel dusted off his hands smugly. “My job here is done. But if you’re serious about the courtship, you should consider sharing some pickup lines!”

Courtship?

Raptor spluttered. Walren looked up at him curiously.

With a cackle, Hassel flounced into the mansion.

“I apologize in advance,” Raptor said hurriedly. “Ignore him.”

“He’s not so bad,” Walren said. He couldn’t help thinking back to Hassel’s words though.

What would it be like if Raptor tried to court him? Was the nest part of the courtship?

It’s all for the babies, his mind said helpfully.

Walren wasn’t sure what to think of that.

Instead, he turned to see what Raptor had been busy with.

The colorful pool noodles had been strung between two trees, a curtain of tissue paper hanging down from them. The pieces were held together with sticky tape, looking so fragile that a light breeze could rip them apart.

But that wasn’t all that Raptor had done.

The dragon had arranged the cans of corn in a ring around the trees, with rubber ducks perched like sentinels on guard towers.

Long steel ropes surrounded the ‘nest’, and roses were scattered within the circle.

Everything else was piled up around the nest like a haphazard moat.

“The hardwood will go between the corn,” Raptor said helpfully. “It will be a giant woody orgy.”

“Um,” Walren said. “What?”

“I know! I’ll build a sail so when the wind blows—ha, blows —the logs will slide back and forth like they’re frotting.”

“I... can’t picture that,” Walren said honestly.

“Just you wait, I’ll have it ready in no time. Then you won’t have to imagine it because it’ll be real. ”

“Don’t you have to work at the restaurant, too?”

Raptor made a face. “Damn it.”

“And, um, you said the logs will be moving... I’m just worried that Zebbie might get his fingers caught between them.”

Raptor’s eyes grew wide. “I’m going to ask a friend for some help.”

He pulled out his phone and began texting. Out of curiosity, Walren went up to his side, peeking at his phone.

Raptor

Heyyy Uriel! I would like some help

Uriel

What do you need help with?

Raptor

A spell to keep lil fingers out of some dangerous things. Many of these, I guess.

Also, do you have a spell for a guaranteed conception?

Walren choked.

Uriel took a long time to reply. His typing dots appeared on the screen, then vanished. Then he started typing again and stopped.

Walren’s phone buzzed.

Before he could check the text, a bright orange glow flickered in the corner of his vision.

Zebbie!

Walren panicked. Surely Raptor had not seen it. Surely Raptor didn’t know that Zebbie was part-dragon, or he would want Zebbie for himself too.

He turned, only to find Zebbie as a fawn, with orange flames bursting out of his little snout.