Page 16 of Stripped to the Scales

Sunny pursed his lips and nodded. He looked so much like his Frost-damned sire when he did that. Sunny hatched on the edge of a war and spent a good part of the first year of his life being raised by his older brother and his true-mate while his parents tried to chase a hate group out of Moonscale Territory. He spent a lot of time being doted on by his parents and his brother as he grew up. Sunny was a good guy, but he wasn’t used to hearing no when it came to chasing down something he wanted.

“Sunny,” Teddy said, in that low, almost too intimate voice.

He shot Teddy a look and sighed.

“Maybe your true-mate has siblings or friends or something that have mates on Earthside. Working this thing out for the Starscales may help them or help our friends back home even. I want to meet mine as much as you do, but this is so much bigger than us. This is huge!”

Sunny nodded and stayed quiet. Sometimes I wondered if the pair of them hooked up when no one was paying attention. They never smelled like each other that way, but the pair was close and despite sharing a surname they weren’t related. A lot of dragons in the flight went by Moonscale, but that only meant at sometime their lineage joined the flight.

“Is that frowned upon on Earthside? Two alphas being together?”Axlin cut into my thoughts, and I startled.

Casimir asked if I was okay and Fred only flashed me a knowing look.

“I’m alright,” I said and quickly explained to Axlin that while it wasn’t too uncommon that not everyone understood that. Sometimes no one batted an eye and at other times all theycould do was think way too much and too hard about who was bottoming for who when it was none of their business.

“Seems like they need to get laid more. Maybe acquire a vibrating butt plug or something if they have that much free time on their hands. They don’t have to be vers but why do they care what other people do in their bedrooms?”

“I think it’s left over from the human governments.”

“Well, no one really cares about that here. I’m headed back now. I only brought a few trunks. I know there are empty bedrooms now but I didn’t want to overload your house with stuff before we talked about it. I know you like to keep the ship flight ready.”

“I can’t wait to see you,”I said before thinking about it.

“Me too, mate, me too.”

Chapter Eight

Axlin

Thankfully, Castor’s meeting was over by the time I landed back at the ship and there was plenty of room for me to set down the trunks and move away enough to shift back into my human form. Castor tossed himself into my arms and I caught him. His heart thrummed in time with mine as our lips met for a hello kiss. For a moment, I thought he might strip my clothes off right there in sight of the others back in the pool. He contained himself, barely.

Casimir insisted on carrying one of the trunks inside the Medwin 2. I could’ve stacked them on top of each other and carried all three of them, but appreciated that he wanted to help me and Castor out. I meant it when I said we were family now that Castor and I were mates and now I had to make good on those words. We stacked the trunks in the corner of the bedroom and Casimir disappeared out of the ship again. Castor and I shared a quick snack in the kitchen before I put him back on the table to make him my next snack.

We were still in our matingmoon phase. Being away from him left an ache deep inside my chest. Even with the mating link allowing us to stay connected, any distance from him was too far away. We hit the showers and I unpacked a few things I used every day and sat them on top of my trunks.

“We can turn one of the extra bedrooms into your closet if you like,” Castor offered up.

“I’m surprised you haven’t,” I shrugged.

“I had strict rules for what everyone could bring. The ship has a limited capacity in flight. All of them do,” Castor said.

“Will this stuff affect the ship’s ability to take off?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t ruined his back-up escape plan. The ability to flee at a moment’s notice was important to every dragon’s mental health.

“Even if everyone was back on it along with Fred and his family, I think we’d be okay. We have eaten and used up a lot of supplies. So it evens out in the end. The warning light hasn’t come on in the command room and before you ask, no we can’t romp in there.”

“Such a pity,” I teased him. “A lot of my clothes are at Sprinkles. I usually take most of the clean laundry there and just leave it, so I have extra street clothes if I need them. The house is a bit of a fly away from town and the purple district is almost directly in the city’s center. I’m a full timer, meaning I dance at least three days a week if I’m not on holiday. Us full timers get our own dressing rooms and attached bathrooms and tiny kitchens. Some of the others live there, but I usually fly home unless I’m working multiple days in a row. I love the pounding of the club but sometimes you have to hear yourself think.”

“And what did you think about in this big ole house of yours that’s a bit of a fly from the city?” Castor asked, sinking onto the edge of the bed still naked.

“Lots of stuff,” I shrugged. “I don’t really collect anything unless you count the stuff I use for work, but I like to read or play video games. I like to think about stuff. I don’t know what I think about. You put me on the spot and my mind went blank.”

Castor laughed and held out his hands to me. I crossed the room and took them. He tugged me down with him until I was flat on my back and he was laying next to me with his head resting on my chest. I liked squeezing into the tiny bed with him. It meant we had to touch as much as possible to fit properly and comfortably into the space.

“So, they really want to meet their mates, huh?” I brought up the topic of his meeting I eaves dropped on over our mating link.

“I think most alphas and omegas do, but now that they know what the stars on their chests mean they’re thinking about it a lot more often. Teddy is Fred’s son. His star might be from that, but I hope his other half is here too. I hate to think of him being the only one left out.”

“I bet he is or she.”

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