Page 18 of Stripped to the Scales

“I’ll call tomorrow morning and see what Sprinkles thinks about the plan. She hasn’t met her true-mate yet either. She may schedule me a block during the busy times. Eh…..”

“What?” Castor blinked.

“Maybe bring your crew and invite Elio or maybe his brother to answer questions that they may have. I don’t know who knows what, but the more the merrier and maybe if Sunny gets a good look at the district he’ll dip his balls in ice and chill the hell out.”

“I did not need that mental image!” Castor threw his head back laughing and playfully slapped me on the chest.

“Too bad. Now it’s burnt into your memory forever.”

“You fucker,” he laughed and kissed me hard.

“Your fucker,” I said when the kiss broke.

Chapter Nine

Castor

I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of taking the whole crew to the purple district, but Axlin was right. It would be best to present them with a united front. At the very least, I figured Sunny would need to go as the diplomat from the Moonscale Dragon Flight. And I wasn’t taking him anywhere near that place alone.

Fred’s mate, Elio, came along with us. His brother, Marsin, stayed home with their baby. He’d seen the purple district enough to know he probably wasn’t going to find his true-mate there. Eyeballs flitted in every direction as we walked down the back-alley way that led to the employee entrance to Sprinkles. That didn’t stop dragons in various states of undress from having all the fun they wanted to. Only Teddy kept his eyes on his boots. Then again, if my sire was nearby I probably would’ve died on the spot. Then again, he may have beat me to the doors of life and death if he knew this place existed. Inside wasn’t going to be any more innocent than outside.

I kept an eye out for Melon because I wanted to tease her about that drink and cigarette, but didn’t spot her on our way to the club. We didn’t head upstairs with Axlin to his dressing room, but were led by one of the staff with the painted, white stars to an office where Sprinkles waited for us. Axlin had spoken with her on the phone that morning to ensure she had no problem with us making use of her venue to recruit help.

Inside the office was the tallest woman, dragon or otherwise, I’d ever met. She towered over her desk with her elbows resting on it. She wore a dark blue blouse with shiny sequins and her purple eyeshadow had the tiniest glint of green glitter to match her eyes. There were seats for all of us and she motionedfor us to sit down without any need for the handshaking and introductions Clarence Moonscale would’ve demanded.

“I assume nothing,” she said, leaning back in her high leather chair. “Which of you is Castor?”

She looked right at me when she asked the question and I squirmed under her gaze. Did I already smell that much like Axlin?

“Me.”

“Thought so. I only caught a glimpse of you the other night, but I rarely forget a face. After Axlin explained the situation to me I called our fearless flabby leader. He was resigned about the whole situation as usual. He has his true-mate, after all,” she rolled her green eyes. “As you may have noticed our leadership here is more about keeping the flight on the right path than finding love. I,” she pressed a long-fingered hand between her ample bosoms, “would like to find my mate in this lifetime. This whole place is fun, but I think it’ll be twice as fun when I meet her. I was so disappointed that there were no women on your ship. I mean from what the literature says about the Moonscales I didn’t expect anyone aboard to be an omega, but no women?”

“That was by accident,” I said. “No women showed up wanting to go to outer space.”

“It was mostly nepotism,” Fred volunteered.

“You’re the Moony who used to own the club I’ve heard a bit about now.”

“That’s me. See what happened is my first true-mate died. Then Elio and his brother sent me a message through the Other World gateways on Earth with a spell. I thought it was her. So, I decided to answer the call. That one,” Fred pointed to Teddy, “is my kid. I sorta strong armed everyone. I’ll admit it. They needed me to get here, and I would only come if my son could. The one ogling your breasts, is Sunny. He’s the son of our leader and a good friend of my son. Castor built the ship. Casimir helped.Izora was the only doctor we knew who wanted to go to space. If my daughter had wanted to come I’d have made a way for her to come too. We didn’t try to leave anyone out. The Medwin 2 was built to house a crew and not a whole flight.”

I almost shot Fred a dirty look, but he related to Sprinkles on a level I couldn’t. He knew the business she was in and it didn’t seem very different than when he ran a club back on Earthside. Well, no one attacked this club as far as I knew, but it was close enough.

“Interesting,” she nodded. “I’m in. I have no idea how to go about any of this. I’ve heard the elves are in charge of it all. They say the gateways belong to them. If you need an elf to open one, I have no clue where you’d find one.”

“That’s why we want to gather ideas. The Starscales know these worlds better than we ever will,” I said.

“I hope you stick around forever, Castor, Captain of the Medwin 2. I’d sorely miss Axlin on the stage. He always brings in a good crowd.”

“So, I’ve seen once,” I said, trying not to blush as the memory of our meeting came back to mind.

“I can’t guarantee anyone will know what to do, but I’d put my favorite corset and whip on the line that a lot of people are going to want to help. Our biggest problem here is finding our true-mates. We haven’t really hacked the code of life and death as much as Hush and the other leaders would like you to believe.”

“Well, we hope to help you all have more of a chance to do that,” I said.

“Tell me, is it everything they say it is?” she locked her green eyes to mine.

“More,” I said and meant it.

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