Page 20 of Singing the Dragon’s Heart

Chapter

Twenty

R eno put the last of the shower stuff away in the nursery, tucking away onesies and wee socks and a million other pieces of cloth. Then he went to lift the cradle that would stay in their bedroom until their baby was big enough to move to the crib in his room, putting it where he and Kami would be able to see it easily. He ran his fingers over the smooth wood, and he felt pride that he had helped to make it, learning the process as he went from one of the keep’s craftsmen.

He had put his hands on this wood and made it into something lovely.

The day had worn Kami right out, and he was asleep in bed with the TV on. Reno wanted to snuggle with him, but he was also restless. He kept replaying Tempest’s vision in his head, trying to figure out what it meant.

He could make himself crazy doing that, and he knew it, but that didn’t stop him, so finally he pulled out his phone to text Boone and Durango.

Chat?

Meet you at the lounge

Boone shot back.

B right there

Every major floor of apartments had a lounge just for this reason. So if someone wanted to be restless and not disturb their mates or roomies, they could go play pool or turn on the TV or talk. That was new this past year.

Since more and more kids kept arriving.

He left a note for Kami right on top of Kami’s phone, then headed for the lounge, grabbing beers to take to the guys on his way out.

“Hey, man.” Boone met him first, showing off a bag of barbecue chips and a pot of dip. “Kami not wanting to cuddle?”

He rolled his eyes, handing over a beer. “Today wore him out.”

Durango walked in. “Should we invite Talon?”

“Shit. Yes, we should.” And he felt like a dick that he hadn’t, too. He texted.

Beer in the lounge?

“I’ll run get another beer,” Boone said, and he was off.

“Thanks.”

Be right there

Talon took a while to text, still. He wasn’t much on the tech life. Apparently, that had been Kami’s job.

He blew out a breath. “I feel like a dick.”

“Nah.” Durango clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re all so used to each other. But he’s still the new guy.”

“Yeah.”

Boone slid in the door just as they heard Talon’s door open and shut.

“Whew.” Boone handed him back the beer he’d brought. “Give him that so it’s from you.”

“Thanks, man.” Reno winked.

Talon strode into the room, eyebrows rising at the sight of all of them. “Are we assembling the Avengers?”

“Dude! Good one.”

Reno grinned at how pleased Durango was.

“I needed to talk to you guys.” Reno plopped down on one of the comfy chairs.

“What’s wrong?” Boone tilted his head. He always knew.

“Is something the matter with Kami?” Talon barked.

“No. No. I just can’t shake this worry that Tempest’s vision means something bad is coming.”

“Hmm.” Durango shook his head. “You know how weird visions can be.”

“I do, but something tells me we need to listen.” He sighed. “I just worry that the mine lady is going to be a problem.”

“Should I text Cain, see if he wants chips and dip?” Boone asked.

Talon blinked hard. “Would he come? He would do that?”

“He might, if he’s not busy or in the midst of some kind of meditation.” Boone tapped out a thing on his screen, and it was only about a minute later that he held up his phone. “See? He says he’ll be right here.”

“Cool.” Cain had stopped in at the shower, but they all knew that really big groups of people like that made the guy twitch. This was way more his speed.

They opened the chips and dip, and Reno went to get more beer, checking in on his hailee. Kami was clutching Reno’s pillow, but otherwise he was fine, so Reno crept back out with a bag of ice to put in the sink in the lounge and a bunch more beer.

Cain arrived not long after he did, and came to smile at all of them, putting more chips down on the table. “Ah, gentlemen. I love barbecue chips and beer.”

“Good.” Reno grinned. “Have a sit, boss.”

“Thank you. That was a lovely party today, Talon.”

“Anemone and Tempest had a great deal to do with it,” Talon said. “Such enterprising young ladies.”

“They’ll run you down like a lawn mo-mo,” Durango said.

Talon frowned. “A what?”

“A lawn mower. Grass cutter, man.”

“Ah. Yes.” Talon nodded. “I see the resemblance.”

They all chuckled, but they sobered soon enough, and Reno asked what was on his mind as Cain stuffed a chip in his mouth. “How much trouble is this Barra going to be?”

Cain munched, clearly thinking about it. “A great deal, I think,” he said after he swallowed.

“But she can’t get through the wards,” Durango said. “As long as Kami doesn’t leave, they can’t get to him.”

“He can’t be a prisoner!” Talon shook his head. “He’s too good for that.”

“We’re all too good for that, Tal,” Reno argued. “No one is a prisoner here.”

“Reno’s right, but I have the worry that this goes deeper.” Cain shook his head. “I think it goes much deeper than just our keep. The stone singers are… Well, they’re something special. They’re outside of graaken. I’ve never heard of a stone singer that wasn’t trained down there in the mines.”

“Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.” Talon didn’t even look too worried on that front, to be honest.

Cain nodded, nibbling on a chip. “I’m sure you’re right. There have to be stone singers that no one knows about, and they are incredibly rare. Kami has the mark, I believe.”

Reno nodded. “He does.”

Everyone stared at him, but he didn’t elaborate, and then Boone shrugged. “No one knew?”

“Obviously not. His parents are exiles. They live off the grid.”

Talon nodded. “They are…free souls. They live in the middle of nowhere, raising goats and making art.”

Reno had actually spoken to Kami’s mother once, when they told her about the baby, and she’d seemed…nice-ish, but she hadn’t loved the idea of her son in a keep. “But the simple fact is, if he doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t have to. They can’t make him go.”

“No, and I won’t allow it.” Cain shook his head and sighed. “I have to tell you guys, when I started this, I didn’t think that it was going to become so big. I thought it was going to be just me and a couple of my friends hanging out here in the mountains. Not a keep.”

“You’re more than a keep. You’re a revolution.” Talon stared right into Cain’s eyes, unafraid.

“You have everything that you need. And it’s come up very quickly, boss.” Durango went to get another beer.

Cain nodded to them. “Thank goodness I have Skye here. He’s such a help when I get overwhelmed.”

Tal looked confused, and Boone shrugged. “Skye is Lake’s brother. He’s another seer. He was a seer for Lake’s keep. We took the seer and Lake’s mother, and oh, about twenty-some-odd of their warriors and Cerran and Triton and Leilani and Leilani’s stone…”

“And now we have a stone singer.” Reno shook his head. “Have you considered laying low for a while, Cain?”

Cain offered him a wild grin. “No, not even for a second. That’s bad, isn’t it? There’s something amazing about this place.”

Talon’s laugh filled the air. “I never thought I would return to a keep. Never, yet here I am. I have quarters .”

“We won’t let anything happen to you, to Kami. None of us will. And if there’s trouble, then we deal with it. However, we’ve let the dragon world know he belongs here with us, and he wants to stay here. His mate is here, his child is here. And he gets to be his own dragon, just like the rest of us.”

“That’s right.” Talon lifted his beer in a salute. “We are free.”

Durango rolled his shoulders. “So why is all this going on, do you think? Why are all these things happening now?”

Cain pulled his legs under him, his lips twisting as he thought. “Honestly? I think that the catalyst was Dex, weirdly enough. Dex and Jack. I mean, omegas have been having their stones crushed for an eternity. Keeps have been throwing out alphas when there were too many since forever. It was the way that they did things.”

“So what’s different about Jack and Dex.”

Cain snorted. “Jack decided he didn’t want to be a dragon anymore, so he just left. Somehow, Dex survived that. Dex survived longer without a stone than anyone that we know of. I think it’s possibly because the bond hadn’t formed yet, but we don’t know. But once he began to thrive? Then I knew we could manage it—saving omegas. Giving alphas homes. Allowing people to fall in love.”

Now they had a stone singer in Kami, and he made this change even easier because he could connect a dragon with an exact stone. Goddess, that had to be pissing everybody off.

Reno grinned and shook his head.

“What?” Boone asked.

“I just—we get what we need, don’t we?”

“I think we do, yeah.” Boone clinked their bottles together.

“It is because we put so much good out into the universe,” Talon said with deep certainty. “We are creating a new kind of magic.”

“Oh, I like that,” Cain murmured. He dipped a chip and popped it in his mouth. Once he finished it, he nodded once. “Yes, I think you’ve hit on it, Talon. The intent we have here, the way we all work together to make this place different… Dragon society, graake, got hidebound and insular when the human world pushed up to the edges of the sea. So we needed to expand what it means to be dragons.”

“I think that you just said we were the cowboy archetype of dragons.” Durango’s eyes lit up, sparkling. “As in yeehaw mother fucker.”

Talon sort of beamed at Durango. “I love cowboys!”

“Right?” Durango actually bounced, the blue scales catching the light. “Right. It works. We’re like the cowboys of dragons. But if we don’t need horses, we need…”

“Umm, you have pickups?” Reno offered, trying to help. “And we wear a lot of blue jeans when we’re home.”

“Right. And goddess knows we have all the babies.”

Everybody looked at Boone, and then Reno drawled, “Well, you have all the babies.”

“Hey!” Boone rolled his eyes. “By definition, Dex has got as many as me. He just adopted grown ones.”

“Dex is still one behind.”

“Yes, but he’s pregnant, and Tempest came to live with me. So he’s still one behind you. He’s still winning.” Durango looked so damn pleased with himself, getting one up in an argument with Boone.

“You’re all amazing.” Cain stared at them, one after the other. “You just took these babies, these children in. You saved the people you needed to save. It’s…it’s amazing to me. Everything I’ve asked of you, and so much I haven’t, you’ve accomplished.”

Reno’s cheeks went hot. He was proud of this keep, but it was moments like now where he felt as if he was important to Cain, like he was more than a cog in a wheel.

“We have all these new omegas, which is handy because we have more alphas than any keep I’ve ever even heard of, too. That was amazing, Talon, you bringing them in.”

Talon offered Cain a mild smile. “So long as there’s food and room and resources, Seer.”

“Exactly. Jack and I are already talking about Skye going to open another facility. But we have time before that happens.”

“We do. You really do an amazing job of infrastructure.”

Cain scoffed. “That’s Jack. He’s a whiz with anticipating what we need and how to build things in a sustainable way.”

“Yeah, but he’s a butthead. You’re the people guy,” Durango put in.

Cain flushed now, smiling. “Thank you. I think.”

“Totally a compliment.”

“Anyway, to circle back, the wards have been reinforced and should be fine. But I worry that Barra will have people waiting anytime someone comes or goes. So your teams need to be on alert, all of them.”

“You got it.” Boone sucked back the rest of his beer. “Okay. I need to go sleep this off before it’s actually time to wake up. Night, guys.”

“Night, man.” Reno waved.

Durango followed. “I need to go check on everyone and get back to bed. Later.”

Then it was just him, Talon, and Cain, who was working his way through the whole bag of barbecue chips.

Talon looked at Cain, serious and maybe a little worried. “What can we do about Kami, Cain? How can I help?”

“Right now, we just go on as we have been. We keep an eye out for anything odd. And we’ll get the teams on the ball to keep all new dragons coming in safe.” Cain shrugged. “And we let Kami decide what he wants to do.”

Reno nodded. “Like you said, Tal. He’s not a prisoner here.”

“Right.”

“Okay.” Cain grinned. “These chips are sooooo good.”

“Better than the weird fish things?” Reno asked.

Cain paused. “Well, don’t get crazy now…”