Page 9 of Delinquent Dette (Empty Nests #7)

Frikka

It had taken time to make his way back home, and the first of his tasks was to unearth his fortune.

If there truly was a Dette council… Old lands had changed, but the lot was still there, razed to the ground.

Seven tall ash trees lined the lot, their boughs strong, the leaves budding and green.

Lovingly tended, each and every one of them had become picture-perfect images of Yggdrasil.

He’d not known Sten had done that. And at the foot of every tree was a stone engraved with a name.

Mol . Gunni. Jon. Klakkr. Bjorn. Mak. Audun.

Frikka stared the stones down, his heart weeping tears his face wouldn’t.

“I’ll plant an eighth tree here for Hallr if he’s hurt that Dette.

” Frikka turned and strode purposefully across the property and into the woods adjacent to them.

Sten still owned the land, apparently, so the entrance would be…

Twenty minutes of pacing brought him to a creek that he followed, the water brackish and less plentiful than he recalled.

And when he spied the concrete structure caging in the entrance to their cave, he snarled.

It figured Sten would have sealed it off.

Engraved upon the door was a few words in old Norse. I knew you’d come back. The password is blossom.

After all those years, Sten would still hold hope? Frikka stared at a keypad by the door and frowned.

B-L-O-M-S-T. Frikka typed the letters in and it beeped. His goose’s name. Blossom. Such a silly time in his life when he was a spoiled little jarl’s son.

The entrance and the first few feet of the cave were much nicer than he recalled. Structure had been reinforced and lights added so he didn’t need flame. The floor had been leveled clean, and it was much drier.

It’d been almost two hundred years, and he remembered the way, winding through the passages until he reached his little hidden… A door had been placed where his secret entrance had been. Sten had found it.

“Honk.” Frikka read the runes on the door and he tapped a passcode in. Orne.

Stupid bastard goose. It was fitting, though.

Frikka dared not travel deeper into the cave, toward where their home had once sat, toward their old nest. What Sten may or may not have done to the place made his stomach clench.

But inside the room, it was all there. Largely as he remembered. A yellowing letter lay atop one of his more favored spoils.

Dette,

Every time this letter crumbles, I rewrite it. I know you’ll come home. I belong in no other Dette’s nest.

Sten

“Romantic bastard.” Frikka wasn’t fit to love. Sten didn’t deserve him, never had and never would deserve something so awful.

Frikka loaded up all he could carry in a sack and left, not wanting to stay in that accursed spot any longer. Knowing what he knew of technology, Sten would know he’d been there and would be on his way.

Hallr hadn’t moved far from his home, a day’s carriage ride away—nothing in flight time, but he had people to see first. Now to find a pay phone…

It took a few hours of searching before he called a number he’d long remembered.

“Hello?” Sile rasped on the other end. Frikka might have worried he woke the Drake due to the hour, but the cries of youth behind him let him know that pups were about. Had Shui had another clutch?

“It’s me.” Frikka leaned against a scratched-up plastic wall, staring at a crudely drawn penis on the wall. Unimpressive.

Silence stretched with unsaid annoyance beneath it. “Where are you?”

“Danville by the shuttered Kmart. I need to liquidate some gold. I’m coming back.” Frikka hadn’t spoken much in a long time, his voice hoarse.

“Everything’s digital these days. I’ll have a driver come get you so we can get you straightened out. Does Hallr know?”

Frikka stared out across the bleak parking lot, the crooked K of the sign’s panel fluttering in a light breeze. “Nah. I want it to be a surprise.”

***

Sile had him picked up within the hour, fed and housed in a hotel where the council met.

He didn’t come himself, but rather sent papers to him with a new identity, a letter, a cell phone, a bank card with documentation on how to access the funds, and had the attendant that delivered it take the gold in return.

A few hundred thousand had been deposited, which was good enough for the time being.

He only needed the bare essentials. And atop the paperwork was a set of keys to a motorbike.

He’d not driven one in years, but it was like riding a bike. Wasn’t it?

He opened the letter and stared at the neat script scrawling across the crisp paper. In it was a polite list of Drakes and Dettes in the area since he’d been gone.

“Sacha Dior lives here, now?” Frikka half grinned. The Drake had been a half brother to Hallr’s tiger lily—Cairn.

The first matter of business was a business . A flower shop in Brenton—Snapdragon. There, he could find Hallr’s mate. The paper said his name was Leo.

He folded the note, tucked it in his leather jacket, and rode out, determined to see this Dette and the pups.

An hour later, he sat in a parking lot, watching through a bright window as the prettiest little red-haired Dette rushed around. He was so small and innocent looking, but when Frikka stepped closer to the building and opened the door—

“Who the fuck decided to put baby’s breath in with my goddamn daisies?

Cheezus christ, man!” Shrill tones cracked out from the male almost as sharp as the scent of mating flower.

A female—shifter of some variety—snapped back at him about storage space since they were dealing with all the nestblossoms.

Frikka stood in stunned silence as the male gave him half a glance. The boy was no ordinary Dette, for certain. He had no decorum, didn’t behave like any dragon Frikka had seen.

“Sorry. I’m out of it. Sile sent you?” The male, Leo, pushed a shock of ginger hair from his face and stared Frikka down with too-green eyes. Too much like Cairn…

“Sacha…” Frikka started, but Leo interrupted.

“Oh, Pops sent ya. Okay.” Leo ducked behind a counter and pulled out a small tissue-wrapped bundle of two flowers. “This should help. Just snuffle around with it and should knock the edge off your heat.”

Cairn’s nephew… Hallr did set his mind to things.

“Thanks…” Frikka stepped back as Leo rushed by, waving him off dismissively.

“No problem. The council pays for them out of the restitution fund. If you need housing or someplace safe to have your heat, there’s a card tucked into the bouquet. Call the number.”

Frikka nodded, slightly dumbfounded, before he stepped out. Things had changed.

Unsure of what to do, Frikka left, making his way to Hallr’s estate.

He still had questions and wasn’t ready to speak to anyone, so he parked down the road and cut through adjacent fields, sneaking over a brick-walled fence.

The shouts of laughter met his ears and such a vision he’d never thought he would see…

Hallr lay shifted out in the sun, his pearl-flecked hide glinting as pups crawled over him—shades of gold, silver, black, white, and a strange kind of black that was not Nidhogg or Nielsen.

And amid them all, a pushy little Drake with two-toned scales bowled over a Dette much older than him with playful intent.

The sight froze Frikka in place for too long because by the time he realized it, a little red-haired Dette with sinfully green eyes stared up at him.

His little shorts bunched up on his legs and had the scuffs of grass and dirt from hard play.

Something no young Dette would have been allowed to do only a short time ago.

“I will not hurt you.” Frikka held up a hand in panic.

“Better not. Papa will kill you, and Father will hide the body where nobody will find it.” He glared.

Frikka blinked. “Hallr your father?”

The child nodded.

“What’s your name?” Frikka moved to settle down and pull himself back into the hedges.

“You first. You smell like family.” The child sat down next to him.

“I’m Hallr’s papa. Your Farfar.” Frikka cleared his throat.

“My name’s Cinder. Papa said you were living in the wild.” The little one pouted.

“I normally do.” Frikka reached over to pat the child’s head.

“Do you get to beat up mean Drakes and eat wild animals and poo wherever you want to?” Cinder blinked up at him innocently.

“I kill the mean Drakes. All of them.” Frikka nodded once sharply.

“Cool. I drawed a picture of me killing a booger dragon the other day but it’s on my iPad in the house. Papa says I can’t play with it until after dinner and lessons, though.” Cinder kicked his bare feet in the dirt.

“Well, it is not bullshit. This is good thing. What lessons?” Dettes often got stuck doing etiquette and silly things.

“Maths was yesterday. I had French this morning and learned how to say a dirty word.” He beamed.

“Which one?”

“Merde.” The inflection was all wrong, but the boy’s heart was in the right place—in the gutter. “Do you know any swear words in French?”

“I know many of the Danish swears. All the swears.” Frikka offered the little one a grin and received one back that reminded him of Sten’s mischief.

“Ooooh. Teach me!” Cinder bounced on his bottom and stared up, eyes as wide as saucers.

Frikka leaned his head to the side. “What about the butthole word?”

“I know that one already. R?vhul.” He beamed.

“Hmm, good, good. What about Fanden ?” Devil . Frikka eyed the kid, and he nodded sagely.

“Okay, what about shit?”

“Lort.” The little Dette was a pro.

But there was one that Hallr detested and would never teach the kids. Juvenile as it was… “Tispik.”

The child frowned and glanced over. “I don’t know that one. How bad is it?”

“It’s a willy word.” Frikka waited.

“Cool.” The way the child’s face lit up with pure chaotic energy made Frikka smile. “How come you’re not coming over to say hi?”

Frikka frowned and thought of a way to explain. Of course, adults telling children to keep secrets was a terrible idea. But… “I’m grounded and not supposed to be out of my room.”

“Oh… You must have been really bad.” He gave Frikka a toothy grin. “What did you do? I got grounded once for hiding a stink kitty in a booger dragon’s car.”

“Booger dragon?” Frikka eyed the child curiously.

“Slang. All boogers.” He nodded once.

“Ah. I did worse than a skunk.” Frikka frowned, thinking. “I cut a Loch’s tail off and turned it into a belt.” Frikka grinned and Cinder’s eyes went wide.

“But I like Uncle Gaelin and Stefan…” Cinder pouted and Frikka didn’t know those names. “Uncle Powel is okay, too.”

That was a name he knew. Stefan Loch. Eamon’s prized Drake son. “I only am mean to bad Drakes. Powel is a good Drake?”

“All Drakes are stupid. Some are less stupid, like my brothers. And father.” Cinder frowned.

“But Powel put lots of gold in my savings and is teaching me how to do stocks. He was mean to Papa once and doesn’t want me to ever have to listen to a Drake when I grow up if I don’t wanna.

But you’re grown up! If you don’t want to be grounded, you can tell them no. ”

Quite the change of heart for a boy raised by Eamon, one of the next Drakes on Frikka’s shortening list. “Doesn’t work like that.”

“I’ll go tell Papa that a Drake grounded you and he’ll say it’s okay to come out!” Cinder moved to stand and Frikka halted him.

“No. Not yet. I want to meet my grandpups before I go annoying Hallr. Besides, if Hallr’s been mean, he may be grounded, too. I am his papa.”

Cinder mulled over the words. “Okay, Farfar.”

A distant shout caught their attention, and Cinder looked up, someone calling his name.

“I gotta go, now.” Cinder turned to give Frikka a hug.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon. Which window is yours?” Frikka pointed to the building.

“The one with the magnolia beside it.” Cinder pointed to the second floor. Easy.

“Okay. Go have fun before you get into trouble.” Frikka grinned and watched the little one go galloping off, happily joining his siblings and Hallr.

He’d draw it out as long as he could before confronting Hallr, because things were very interesting.