Page 25 of Singing the Dragon’s Heart

Chapter

Twenty-Five

“ L ove? Where are you going?”

“Hmmm?” Kami tried for vague and possibly innocent, both of which he was bad at. He carried wee Miranda in a sling across his chest, and he clutched a bag of snacks, water, and formula in his hand.

“Um…”

Reno blocked his way, leaning in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed over his wide chest. “You’re not thinking of going into the cave, are you?”

“What? No.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I was just going to?—”

Their front door banged open. “Kami!” Talon bellowed. “Come on! We have to get out of here before Reno… Whoops.” Talon skidded to a stop, looking peeved. “Sorry, my friend.”

“See, this is how it is. I come home early to spend time with my hailee and our new baby, and he’s creeping off to go caving with his best friend.”

Kami rolled his eyes. “Well, you were with your best friends beating the stuffing out of them.” Reno had needed a good workout, had needed to get out of the house, which smelled like spit up and poop and go whack things and then eat meat.

Looked like Reno had been stood up for the meat.

So he was home for lunch. Yay! But then he knew what Kami was up to. Boo.

“Kami. Hailee, you cannot take the baby caving.”

He went for fluttering his eyelashes. “Why not?”

“Uh…spelunking is bad for babies?”

“Who says? Back me up, Talon.”

He noticed Talon kept his mouth shut.

“She’s made for it. She wants to go. Ask her.”

Reno stared at him, eyebrows almost to his hairline. This wasn’t working.

“They’re calling to me, braaken. The stones need to be drawn out. There’s a whole vein of it. I know it.”

“What does Cain say?”

Kami fastened Reno with a glare. “The caves aren’t Cain’s to say boo about anymore. They’re mine. Ask me, I’ll tell you. Your daughter wants to see the caves.”

“She does? Do you want to see the caves, little one?” She reached out, flailing for her father. It was absolutely unnatural how much she loved that man. Just unnatural.

“There’s a huge vein of aquamarine down there. Reno, I know there is. We’ve just got to get it out.”

Reno shook his head, but Kami knew that it was just begging to be explored down there. He could hear it begging.

“Oh, hailee. What am I going to do with you?”

“We can make sure that we’re safe. You can even come with us,” he offered.

Reno frowned. “We go together. When I say stop, we stop and you—” He turned and glared at Talon. “Do not go behind my back, man.”

“He’s kind of my boss.”

“Not in this. If the baby is involved, I’m the boss.”

Kami blinked at Reno. “You?”

“Yes, because you’re addicted to this whole stone thing, so I get to win.”

Kami rolled his eyes, but his mate was being reasonable, and he was getting to go. “Fine. We’ll all go. I’ll stop when you say stop. But you hold the baby.”

Reno’s eyes lit up, and he smiled, attention on Miranda. “Anytime. I would carry you both. Forever.”

Gemstones.

A best friend.

A happy baby.

And a braaken that promised forever.

What more could a stone singer, a pall’hakh want?

End