Page 12 of Delinquent Dette (Empty Nests #7)

Sten

“Dette! What are these?” They’d rented the home of a Drake who only visited the area infrequently—Gatlin or something. It was a retreat when he and his two Drake mates came to visit Ryan. Their mate, being his full brother, and bearing some guilt for Ryan’s situation, did his best to visit.

In Vritra culture, some mutation had cropped up due to inbreeding over thousands of years, leaving three classes of dragon: Dette, Drake, and something they called Hijada .

With no direct translation, it could be transgender, eunuch, or intersex.

Despite claiming he was a Drake, Sten knew exactly what the male was—Hijada.

He did meet all the appearances of a Drake but would have little interest in Dettes—their dragons the same way.

It worked well into their clan caste system.

Fertile Drakes took many Dettes. Hijada were servants and helped rear the pups, and Dettes joined their harems. And the Vritra were extraordinarily protective of their Dettes.

Few came to the new world. Many Hijada did, though.

Frikka, who’d been lounging outside, wandered his way back in and stared at a cardboard box on the kitchen table. “Dildos.”

“Dildos?” Sten reached into the box and held up a large, neon-pink rubber phallus with a threatening wobble.

“The Loch boys, the ones that are courting Bastien. They have a factory. They make floppy penises.” Frikka eyed the box warily as if he didn’t want them, which made Sten wonder why he’d brought them.

“They make my penis floppy, that’s certain.” Sten snorted as he gave the threatening thing a wiggle. He couldn’t imagine a human form taking it. “This is to use in your dragon, yes?”

Frikka eyed the beast. “The humans buy them a lot. They must have bigger holes than Dettes.”

Sten gave it another experimental wiggle. “So why do we have the box of floppy penises?”

“So, when the factory, it has accidents and some of the penises come with a bubble or flaw. They throw them away.” Frikka beamed happily. “These are flawed.”

“That doesn’t answer why we have the box of floppy penises, Dette!” Sten dropped the dildo into the box, and it bounced, flopping onto the dining table and then floor with a rather wet slap. They both stared at it as it rolled, picking up lint off the floor.

“I haven’t put the postage on yet.” Frikka tilted a flap on the box and they stared at the address. “Aodh Loch.”

Sten glanced from the address to Frikka. “I miss when you just killed them.”

“We can still kill him. But first? The floppy penises.” Frikka nodded sagely.

“What sort of message is big floppy penises to that slag?” Sten sniffed indignantly.

“We will fuck you to death!” A wide grin dominated his Dette’s face.

“Frikka, I love you more dearly than I love anything. But this is not a message. This is a box of penises.” Sten sighed. “We can send them dung or something. Maybe a disease.”

“I wish to give them lice. And the bugbeds.”

“Bugbeds?” Sten puzzled. “Vaeggelus?”

“Yes, those.” Frikka waved his hand about. “The bugbeds.”

“Those are bedbugs. They bite asses and infect things like sexually transmitted cockroaches.”

“I think those are the crabs.” Frikka frowned. “Little hard-shelled sand creatures. You might think humans just pick a crab off. They have shampoos and things like they move back in and build little penis hair castles.”

“Maybe that is a different kind of crab…” Sten frowned and pulled out his phone. “Hallr would know!”

“It is two in the morning! Don’t call Hallr.” Frikka reached for Sten’s phone and flailed.

“He has nine pups. He is not sleeping. I promise.” Sten held Frikka back and let the phone ring. A grumbling voice answered on the second one—“Hallr!”

“What?” Hallr didn’t sound happy as Sten put the phone on speaker.

“When you have sex and get the crabs. How do you get rid of them?”

Silence followed. Then a click. The call ended.

“See, you woke him.” Frikka rolled his eyes. “I wish for us to give him the penis crabs, too.”

“If it will make you happy. I will do anything.” Sten leaned down and kissed Frikka. “Leave it to me.”

***

Sten woke at a gods-forsaken hour, his phone ringing. Who calls before noon on a Wednesday?

It was Odin’s day, the greatest day of the week! Next to Friday, Freya’s day. Freya’s day was for Dettes though.

“I’m going to regret asking this, but why did Frikka mail a box of dead shellfish and dildos to the Canadian Loch consulate?” Sile Long, the American council head, sighed exasperatedly into the receiver.

“Frikka asked me to give this man crabs. I got the smallest ones to live on his tiny penis. Besides, they were alive when I sent them… Should have maybe added ice or something.” Sten sighed.

“I miss when he just killed them…” Sile’s voice lowered, his tone almost wistful.

“Me, too.” Sten glanced out the living room window and watched Frikka sunning himself in a grassy patch, all smooth pale lines in his human form. “Sile? What do I do?”

“Get a textbook and learn about venereal diseases, one would hope.” The Chinese dragon never really had great ideas. He knew how to gather power, though.

“I mean about Frikka. It’s like he’s afraid to do the last one. Should I do it?” Sten stared out and couldn’t bury the love and joy he held.

“You and I have much in common, Nielsen. Shui was a prince of his clan. Frikka was a jarl’s son.

I was a lowly soldier, from a subservient family to the crown.

My family was no better than shifters to them.

And I stood in service to my clan leader, meeting with Nidhoggs to discuss trading their Dette son.

And a foolhardy Drake with more hair than common sense and barely any Mandarin to speak of gave me a single crumpled flower in a glass vial.

We got stinking drunk talking about this new world and the rail that was coming—one that I invested every penny I had in—and that was history, no?

” Sile’s voice held a fondness to it that Sten would never mistake.

“My Mandarin is still bad!”

“And I got my prince. He still wears that copper on a necklace. You’ve more patience than any Drake I’ve ever met.

Wait to make any moves, and for fuck’s sake, do not send any more dildos or shellfish to the Lochs.

Are we clear? And please don’t use my name and address as the return shipping.

” Sile grumbled. “I owe you much, and I’ll pay you back in full.

I promise.” Sile hung up and Sten stared at the phone.

Wait was the last thing he wanted to be told.

He’d done it for over two hundred years.

But what was a few more?

Sten stalked through the house and stared at the counter, counting jars of herbs and things that Frikka had used to keep his heats at bay. He’d taken them again, and there’d be no clutch come fall for them. But perhaps it was best they not make more. They’d had so much tragedy already.

When his phone rang, he snapped out of his thought and answered without checking the number. “Hallo?”

“Sten. It’s Tyler, Leo’s brother.” The shifter-raised Dette had never called him before, but he humored the boy with a noise of acknowledgement. Despite his attention being on Frikka, he listened. The Dette’s adoptive brother sought the affection of a Dette.

“Not without a fortune. A Dette must be courted—” but Sten only gave Frikka mating coins after their first clutch. And they too were about as mismatched as a coyote and a Dette ever could be. “But to honor Frikka… Tell me more.”

Together, they hatched a plan, to grow the alpha’s fortune, to expand his consulting and construction firm.

But Sten had a small fortune to invest. He sat on too much money and spent little.

What was a few million for his Dette? He had Hallr’s luck of turning one gold into five.

“Tell your brother I’ll make a Drake of him yet.

I’ll boost him to silver if he builds me a home worthy of Frikka. ”

And that was all it took. Sten did not have knowledge of the future, but the moment he said those words into the phone, his Dette glanced up from his sunning spot, one eye open and shining blue like pale sapphires.

“You’d really do that?” Tyler couldn’t hold back his joy.

“Yes. And I’ll teach him how to build a nest worthy of his Dette.”