Page 13 of The Dragon’s Stormwoven Bond (Dragon Flight Academy #2)

Pep

We had never intended for the lie to my parents to go on for so long. And I say we, but Valen had never planned to lie to them at all. He only did so to appease me, and now he was neck deep in this deception.

We hadn’t taken the time to talk about how to even bring the subject up of how to fix this mess. Part of it was fear, on my side, at least. But, both Valen and I got so incredibly busy with our jobs, too. Was that partly an excuse? Maybe, but that didn’t make it less true.

And being newly mated meant that when we did have pockets of time, we tended to get lost in each other’s arms.

Luckily, I remembered to drink the tea before going to my parents’ house to pick up a few more things of mine.

As far as they knew, I was living in the staff dorms, like they had originally thought, not in one of the cabins on the lake.

It felt shitty doing this, but until we sat down and figured out a plan, it was a necessity.

Having them come home with me already gone, but the telltale scent remaining would only result in badness.

No one was at the house when I arrived; both my parents were working, and I wasn’t sure about my brother. I only needed to get in, grab a few things, and get out. Easy peasy.

Soon, very soon, Valen and I were talking this out and getting out of the mess I threw us in. Maybe we’d even come over this evening to talk to them. If we were feeling brave, and by we, I meant me. Valen was the bravest dragon I knew, and he’d been fated to my sorry ass. Ugg.

The minute I stepped into the house, my dragon surged forward.

Instead of going there to grab the extra computer monitors that I wanted, along with the mounting setup, I found myself going to the second floor in a bedroom that wasn’t used by the family much at all.

It was a guest room for when my older brothers visited with their families. I hadn’t even been in there that much.

When I stepped inside, I saw why my dragon wanted me to go in there.

The family nest sat in the corner of the room.

It was a large wicker-like basket, made of interwoven pine wood reeds with bits of fabric and leather.

Inside there were blankets, pillows, other knickknacks that usually went to whatever family member was having a clutch at the time.

It had been years since it had been used. None of my older brothers had recent clutches. The last time it had been used was by my brother and me, and we had stopped playing in the nest when we were toddlers. When had it been moved here? And why was my dragon so focused on it now?

That was a stupid question. I knew exactly why. We were mated now, and that meant he was looking forward to our first clutch. He didn’t understand that we’d created a huge-ass mess for ourselves and needed to focus on digging ourselves out before taking the family nest home.

I stared at it a moment, visions going through my mind of all the ways in which I could set up this nest for Valen’s and my clutch—a clutch I wasn’t even sure that I was carrying yet.

It was calling to me just as strongly as it was calling to my beast. Growing a clutch wasn’t something I envisioned being in my future for decades, if not centuries, and here I was looking at a piece of my childhood and—

Whoa. I definitely was expecting. My dragon knew it, and now my human side did too. It slammed into me all at once, but now that it had, I had no doubt. Valen and I were going to be fathers, and soon.

The mixture of joy and fear had me standing there frozen. I wanted a family with Valen. That wasn’t a question. But with my family struggles mixed with my new job, would I be a good father, the one they deserved?

Dragonets . My beast didn’t have such worries.

I set to work, not even realizing what I was doing.

First, I removed everything from the nest, then began strategically placing the blankets in there.

Each time I laid a new one down, I laid on it, testing its comfort, its softness, and also getting my scent all over it.

My dragon purred with contentment at each and every soft thing I put in the nest.

The only thing missing was my mate. I needed him here.

Needed him to add his own personal touches.

My dragon wasn’t satisfied with the blankets that were available in the nest. I needed more pillows, blankets, bits of fabric—things that were soft, fluffy, that I could lay my clutch on without worrying about any damage.

I needed my eggs to know that they were loved and cared for. This nest couldn’t be a hand-me-down, it needed to morph into a personalized nest embracing our family’s history, and I was quickly discovering that that took a lot.

Time slipped away, and I didn’t know how long I worked, but it was enough that my pregnancy exhaustion overtook me. I laid down, closed my eyes, and settled in the nest. I was going to close my eyes for a few minutes, nothing more. That plan failed, and I didn’t stir until my name was called.

I woke in a haze, not recognizing where I was at first. Then my name was called out again, and this time I recognized the voice —my mother. I was home, not the one I was building with my mate, but my childhood home.

Fuck.

The next thing I knew, my father and mother were pushing the door open.

“Pep, what’s going on?” my mother asked. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of me sprawled out in the nest, blanket spread wide. Any dragon would know immediately what I was doing. This wasn’t a young dragonet playing in their nest—this was bona fide nesting 101.

“Are you nesting?” she asked, knowing full well that was the only possible explanation. I understood why. This had to be a shock to her. For all she knew I was a single omega. “But how could you…?”

My father and mother exchanged glances. They spoke volumes between them, and I couldn’t decipher a single word of it

“I can explain,” I said. They weren’t going to like said explanation, but that was an entirely different story altogether.

“But you aren’t mated,” my father said. “What is going on?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “We wanted to tell you, we just haven’t had a chance. We—”

“You are mated, and your alpha couldn’t come forward and tell me? What sort of alpha do you have?” My father was pissed. I had a feeling he was going to be even more pissed when he learned who my mystery mate was.

Gods, I wished that I’d brought Valen with me. This would be so much easier with him by my side.

“The best mate ever,” I said without hesitation. He was, and I refused to hear anyone say anything less. “Don’t talk about Valen like that.”

My dragon surged forward, scales erupting on my arms. Now was not the time to rile him up by speaking ill of our mate.

Of all the ways I thought about telling my father that I had mated his longtime friend, this wasn’t one of them. I blurted it out after being discovered in my childhood nest. My father’s eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and smoke came out. Scales rippled across his skin.

It was going about as well as I had expected it to.

“That bastard.”

I couldn’t remember hearing my father talk about another person like that before, ever. He was livid, and he had every right to be. That didn’t stop my dragon from wanting to meet his energy. No good could come of that. None.

“He mated you and never told me? Never asked me?”

I stood there watching him. Nothing I could say would make this any better. It was best to let him go on.

“He came to my home. I told him… When did you meet?”

“His first night here.”

My father sucked in a breath, then stormed out. My mom looked at me with sad eyes. Somehow her hurt was worse than my father’s anger.

“I’m sorry.” There was nothing more to say.

I searched for my phone, but in the mess of making my nest, I’d misplaced it somehow. My eyes blurred with tears.

“I’ll call Valen and Rhythe,” she offered.

“Thank you,” I said.

She took out her phone and called Valen first, telling him I needed him. He didn’t answer, but she texted him and assured me he was on his way.

He had no idea what he was walking into, or maybe the tone of her voice gave him the exact idea, but regardless, he was on his way, and once I heard that, I allowed myself to feel—truly feel all that had just transpired, tears flowing down my face.

I had so much to apologize for, to make up for…

To my mate for asking him to hide the truth from his longtime friend, my brother for putting him in the middle, my parents for actively lying to them because I was too scared of their reaction.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to fix any of this, but I was going to before our dragonets were here.