Page 1 of These Little Heirs (Moonscale Heirs Duet #2)

Teal Moonscale

Moonglow Cabin Nest Tower

“Of – fucking – course,” my dragon sounded off in my thoughts. “We said no. We told the old coot that we have it under control but---”

I pushed him down hard before I opened the door ready to send whatever guard Clarence had sent over on his way.

Poor fuck made the trip out here for no reason.

I took a deep breath and tried to slip back into the guy I was before planting food and seed bombing a golf course somehow turned me into an assassin.

I needed to be that guy or Clarence would never call off his guys.

Upstairs Baby Robin had just managed to kick his way out of his egg.

He was tiny and the others were trying to sleep. The last thing we needed was ---

I opened the door to a tawny blur that knocked me flat on my back leaving me breathless while a big cat with garlic breath, snarled above me. I would’ve punched him, but no assassin has garlic breath. No big bad killer knocks on the door and announces himself.

“See, this is why you need a guard,” Clarence Moonscale chuckled in the doorway. “Aren’t you glad I brought you one?”

I rolled my eyes and met the gaze of the giant cat still snarling open mouth above me.

Some guard he was. His belly was exposed and his throat too.

He thought his big-cat weight could keep me down but the only thing that kept me down was that killing a guard by pulling out his intestines was a bad image.

He pressed his furry forehead against mine and sniffed me open mouthed.

I rolled my eyes again. If this guy was trying to be scary, he shouldn’t wear sugar cookie scented pheromone blocker spray and I told Clarence as much.

“It’s his first job,” Clarence shrugged. “Look, I have a mate to keep happy and sane. I have to balance that by trying to find someone you three would let hang out. Ciro is a good guy. He’s a good fighter too.”

“What’s his day job? Garlic taster?” I said, pushing him away gently but the giant sugar cookie didn’t move.

“We stopped for pizza on the way here,” Clarence shrugged. “Had to feed him before I brought him all the way out. Dolores would’ve bitched otherwise and keeping her happy seems to be something else I need to do to keep Medwin sane.”

“This is why I’m glad I don’t have a mate,” I groaned. “No one bossing me around and batting at my balls!”

The big cat hissed and stalked off of me at last. Granddad extended his hand to help me up and I almost didn’t take it.

It was so fucked up but somewhere along the way protecting the family made me feel at odds with him.

I wasn’t sure when it started or why. He’d killed to protect us all before and undoubtedly he’d do it again. So why did he annoy me so much?

“Because he plays golf while people are hungry in other places,” my dragon said and that was it.

The old lizard was oblivious. It wasn’t just the Moonscales and Hemlocks who needed full bellies, it was the world, and if we were ever to know peace everyone needed food, housing, bodily-autonomy, and medical care. No ands, ifs, or buts about it.

I let Granddad pull me to my feet and asked him again where he found the overgrown cat.

“He was born here, Teal. Be nice,” Clarence said. “Just because you haven’t met him doesn’t mean he’s not one of us.”

“Is he going to shift or is he just a lion?” I asked.

Ciro hissed at me and I took a step back. I was NOT in the mood to deal with a giant ass cat swatting at me.

“He’s a liger and before you asked, no he’s not infertile,” Clarence said.

Ciro turned and hissed at Clarence who didn’t budge up at all.

“What? You complain that everyone asks you that. I’m just getting it out of the way to start with. See,” Granddad said and turned back to me, “in the wild male ligers are usually infertile. Except, he’s a shifter. So, he’s not. Don’t let people ask him about that.”

“That’s sort of fucking creepy, isn’t it?” I rolled my eyes, thinking of what Guardie did to Reve for being a creep. “Why the fuck are they worried about his reproduction? They trying to marry him?”

“You and I both know people are weird,” Clarence sighed. “Now that you two have been introduced, I’ll be on my way. Give my apologies to your brothers and tell Ambry---”

“What? You’re not coming up to meet the baby?” I asked. “Is something else going on tonight?”

I doubted it because my phone hadn’t lit up once from my guys.

“No,” Clarence said. “No to both. I’d love to meet Baby Robin, and I will in time.

Tonight isn’t that time because I don’t wish to crawl under Indigo’s scales.

He’s the most levelheaded of you three under normal circumstances which means he’s the most likely to want to fight right now.

Don’t let him eat the guard. Don’t let the murder dog do that either. ”

“Guardie doesn’t eat people unless they’re creeps. Is he a creep?” I asked but Grandad was already turning toward the door.

“Are you a creep?” I asked and Ciro rolled his eyes.

“Are you sure you want to stay?” I asked him, my hand on the doorknob. “Seriously. Are you sure? There is a newborn up there. Ambry might take your face off himself.”

Ciro met me with big golden eyes and I let out a long, slow breath. Sure, he could probably fight. Throwing nine hundred pounds of cat around could do a lot of damage.

“That’s not an answer. You can go. Clarence isn’t the boss of anyone here. Hasn’t been for a long time.”

He didn’t leave. So I shut the door and headed back upstairs skipping the elevator because it made too much noise and I didn’t want to freak out my nephew. He was so fucking tiny. He might’ve been the smallest dragon hatchling I’d ever seen.

“Coming?” I called back to him. “Don’t worry. If the steps can hold my ass, they can hold yours. If Ambry or Indigo disembowels you, you can’t say you haven’t been warned.”

Ciro slunk up the steps beside me. His fur brushed against my fingers, and I pulled my hand away before he thought I was trying to pet him.

Petting was either rude or flirty and I didn’t feel like either.

There was too much to do to worry about him.

Either the others let him hang out or they fucked him up. Being a guard wasn’t without risks.

Guardie was first to lift his shadow head when we walked into the nesting room.

Guardie was originally a shadow hand born of Odie’s trauma.

He haunted shrapnel in his butt cheek and then something about being my brother Cobalt’s mate, cleansed him and turned him into a guard.

Hence the name. Now Guardie looked more and more like an Irish Water Spaniel than a blob of shadows balled up into a dog shape.

He’d saved us twice now. So he earned his keep.

“Ciro?” Odie was the first to speak.

“You know this sugar cookie cat?” I whispered through the dimly lit nesting room.

“Ambry,” Odie whispered. “Ciro has come to visit.”

“Come to visit?” I asked.

“Who’s Ciro and why is he a giant cat?” Cobalt asked, opening one big sleepy eye.

“We went to school with him,” Odie yawned.

“We haven’t seen you in forever. This is an odd time to drop by but there are drinks in the fridge.

” Odie pressed himself upright and Cobalt sat up a moment later wanting a coffee and a cigarette.

Only with a baby who might have some wolf lungs to him none of us were smoking anytime soon.

“Grandad brought him to be a guard,” I said.

Guardie wagged his tail as if he thought I was talking about him.

Odie ran a hand down the length of his shadowy body and over his wagging tail.

Ciro stretched out on the floor and rolled onto his back before shifting back into his human form.

I’d never say it to my brothers now, but it was always a little strange watching a furry shifter become a human again.

Scales could lay flat against the skin before they disappeared but where did the fur go?

Did it turn into the thin body hair some of them had everywhere?

Did it get sucked back into follicles? Did it get stuck sometimes?

Like did they just shift back with a bald spot on their ass or something?

“Stop,” Cobalt said. “Stop before you get Indigo going. Let the man sleep. He’s with his mate and newborn.”

“Was just wondering,” I said, glancing over at a mostly naked Ciro because of course my grandsire would bring a naked man to our house.

“He’s not naked. His dick and balls are covered,” Cobalt yawned, getting up to make coffee. “They lose clothes sometimes when they shift.”

“My bag’s at the front door of the house.

Clarence really wasn’t going to take no for an answer,” Ciro shrugged, looking up at me with big golden eyes from the floor.

His naked skin was marked with orange lines where faint stripes were in cat form.

Before Ambry and Odie, Cobalt would’ve tried to hook up with him.

Hell, before I told Cobalt the truth about the warehouse, he might’ve tried to convince me to hook up with him.

Clarence called him a guard, but we all knew he was a spy.

Ciro may not know it but the rest of us did.

“When did you become a guard?” Odie asked, still petting Guardie.

“I finished my classes a few months ago,” Ciro said, rolling his body until he sat upright facing Odie.

I shook my head. If he wasn’t a spy, he might be attractive. He was long, lean, and muscular with a tight ass and a nice package which his underwear did zilch to hide.

“Maybe we can turn the tables if we mount him,” my dragon considered.

I ignored him. I wasn’t whipping it out just to make sure Ciro kept his mouth shut about whatever he saw while on duty.

We’d just have to be careful and let him know he really wasn’t needed at all.

Only Odie was already chatting with him and if the omegas liked him Indigo and Cobalt would never get rid of him.

I fought off the instinct to rub the bridge of my nose. I was too bloody young to turn into my grandparents yet.

“The baby won’t remember that he showed up in his underwear,” Dolores assured me and passed off a cup of tea. “Babies generally like people and the more people around to help out, the better. I’d duck out until you calmed down, though. Your brothers will never let you live that down.”

“What?” The word escaped my mouth before I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room.

I nearly pushed the button to call the lift until I remembered Baby Robin sleeping soundly on Ambry’s chest. I was hard.

Why was I fucking hard? I wasn’t Cobalt.

I didn’t need to whip it out every time I met someone attractive and single to be happy.

I took the stairs as quietly as I could manage and headed back to the house.

Cobalt was awake enough to fight if Ciro turned out to be a traitor instead of a spy.

A shower and some sleep in my own bed would fix this.

I spotted his suitcase on the porch. I squatted down to sniff it but it smelled like sugar cookies too. What the hell was he hiding?

“Some omega guards do this,” my dragon reminded me. “They spray down everything because they’re afraid the alpha guards won’t take them seriously otherwise.”

I unzipped the suitcase just enough to peek inside.

Mostly clothes and books. I stuck my nose inside.

More sugar cookies. What the hell was this cat trying to do?

Smell like a bloody bakery? My stomach growled.

That was it. He made me hungry, and my dick got confused.

Maybe that was Cobalt’s issue the whole time.

He needed a fucking sandwich and kept getting head instead.