Page 7 of Mistletoe Wishes and Dragon Kisses

Then he chuckled again becausehe knewif Mick was in the same room, he'd at least be able to kick him in the shins, and that would've made the entire conversation and the resulting frustration almost worth it. The chuckles became all-out laughter that was only interrupted by his brother's grumble, "And no, youcannotkick me in the shins, nor will that half-ass attempt at irritation stop me from reminding you that you’re…”

‘That you’re once again reading my mind?”

“No, that you’re…”

“I know. I know. I know. You want to remind me that I’m the last of the four Archer Dragons–well, the ones who happen to be brothers–to make it official with the woman made for me by the Universe, right? You want to say that even though I know who she is–my sweet Gloria Angelica Brown, the Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love, that I have been takin’ my sweet ass time, right? And want to remind me that I have used the fact that I’ve been helpin' you, and the others get hitched with their One True Fated Mates as an excuse. Am I gettin' warm? You think that I don't know that…?"

“Okay, kid, there’s no need to….”

“Oh, yes, Mick, there is a need to bitch and moan and then bitch some more because you’re not the first call of the day to remind me of all of the above and so much more. Before I even crawled out from under the covers, Nate called with Molly on thespeaker. She just kept telling me to go see Glo. She said it over and over. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with before I’d had my coffee, do you know what she said?” Not waiting for an answer, he just kept going, “That sweet little Witch who is a true sister to me told me to get off my scaly behind and fish or cut bait. Can you believe that shit? I mean, now that I say it out loud, it really is funny, but still…”

“Yeah, I get it, but…”

"Yeah, you get it, but nothing," Chris scoffed with a good dose of sarcasm and just the right amount of angst that only a little brother can give to one of his older brothers, no matter what age they happen to be and not get a Magicalwhapto the back of the head.

Not missing a beat, he continued. "And before you get on a roll, let me add that I also had the pleasure of talking to Liam and his lovely Mate–precisely three minutes after hanging up with Nate and Molly. Tell me that wasn't planned. Thankfully, Ella was a lot of fun and actually had some really great ideas without, and I repeat with an appropriate amount of emphasis and oomph,withouttelling me everything I’ve done wrong since we flew back into Nowhere, USA to save Molly almost five years ago. Ella really is a keeper, not to mention she has a great sense of humor. As for Li, well, let’s just say he thought I should take the Neanderthal approach.”

“No, he did not,” Mick, brother number three, guffawed with such gusto that Chris had to hold the phone away from his ear for a few seconds.

“Oh, yeah, he did,” Chris confirmed with a huff of irritation. “The butthead told me that I needed to just show up like I owned the world, knock on her door, throw her over my shoulder when she opened it, get back out here to the house, and let nature take its course.”

“And by nature takin’ its course, he meant you gettin’ Magicked to the far ends of the Earth or turned into something other than a Dragon? Or maybe ending up smellin’ so bad even the Murdock Mud Duck Commotion would make you take a bath before you could hang out and party?”

"From the way Elle giggled like a schoolgirl and told him to 'stop it,' in that southern accent of hers, I'm pretty sure he meant the other kinda nature. Then, when I told him that doing as he suggested could not only get me zapped to Hell and might be considered a crime in some states, he so brazenly asked, 'What the hell would you know, Kid?’ You were ten years old when we left Nowhere, USA, and only went out with three girls the whole time we were gone."

“Whatever. You know you can’t listen to Liam. That brother of ours really does have a one-track mind since he got Mated.”

“Says the dude who only answers about half the time when I holler at him telepathically and sends me straight to voicemail more than that when I call on these stupid cell phoneshedemanded we all get.”

“Yeah, well, get on over there and make everything official with your Mate and you won’t want to talk to anybody either.”

“So you keep sayin’.”

“Was that all Liam told you to do?”

"Nice change of subject, Bro," Chris snickered. "No, of course, that wasn't all he said. The big butthead told me that I was lucky that I didn't have to go through the whole 'Coming Home' or 'We Really Do Have Magic' or the 'Hey! Did you know I'm a Dragon Shifter and one of the famed Dragon Guardsmen?' stories as he called them."

“You have got to be kidding. The bonehead gave them titles?”

“Nope, I am not kidding, and yes, he has given them titles that he thinks we should use every time we run into someone who doesn’t know what happened.”

“You know it’s not gonna be as easy as sayin’, ‘Hey, Glo, have you heard the one about the brothers who thought they didn’t have Magic because their parents were assholes who wanted to take over the world, so The Powers That Be had to lock them down for the first twelve years of their lives?’”

“It was only ten for me.”

“Okay, ten years for you. Sue me. I think of it from my perspective when I get on a roll.”

“I know you do,” Chris chuckled. “Just givin’ you a hard time.”

“Nothing new there.”

“That’s what little brothers are for, right?”

"Yeah, they damned sure are, but that doesn't mean you have to go for the gold medal in Little Brothering," Mick teased. Then, wistfully sighing, he continued, "You do know that you can't justhopeGlo’s heard one of the stories, right?” The feeling of commiseration and brotherly love floated not only through the phone but also through the unique mental link they shared. “You’re gonna have to…”

“Yes, I know that I’m gonna have to lay out all the gory details. Tell Glo about…” Letting go of yet another long-suffering sigh, he went on, “Well, tell her in myownwords that our parents are the biggest assholes in the world. That they are huge frauds who manipulated everyone they ever knew, including us. That our Magic had to be hidden from them–not us–because they had some grand plan to use the Blessings we'd been given to take over the world. That we found out the truth about what they had planned and who we really were about two minutes before being whisked away to the Isle of Skye. That was alooooongtime after that. When the time was right, we came back and captured our pathetic parental unitswhilethey were trying to kill Molly in her very own tool shed. Then we sent them off to stand trial before the SupernaturalandWitches Council, wherethey were sentenced to eternity in the lowest Pits of Hell. Where I might add, they are cleaning Satan's Hellcat's kitty litter. But that wasn't enough for Big Daddy and Mother Archer. Oh, no, they just couldn’t give up. Theystilltried to get at all of us–even our cousins and their Mates. They have made deals with every lowlife in the Underworld and then some and are supposedly in complete and total isolation. And best of all, I have to tell my Mate that the people who gave birth to us are such treacherous, mutinous pieces of shit that I hate to admit I am related.”

He sighed again, ran his fingers through his hair for what seemed like the hundredth time, and opened his mouth to speak, just as Mick snickered, “Yep, or you could just tell her that our parents are losers and got the shit end of the stick for their sins and see if she laughs. I’ve found that a joke is always a good way to break the tension. Get that girl of yours laughing, and you’ll be one giant step closer to happily ever after.”

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