Page 23 of Overbooked at Dragon's Landing

Trace already had his phone out. “I’m calling the midwife.” He went out in the hallway and spoke in a low voice then came back in. “She says to do whatever he wants.”

“We already said we would!” I replied. “But what does it mean?”

“He’s nesting. She says that means he’s going to lay an egg. And she will come anytime if we need her, but she seems to think he’ll be fine either way.”

Sure, I knew dragons had eggs. I just didn’t know a human could produce, carry, or lay them. But for the next few hours, we moved furniture and piled nearly every pillow, blanket, comforter, and bolster in the house in the corner under our omega’s direction. If we slowed down, he struggled to his feet, wanting to help. But by four o’clock, we had managed to create a mountain of softness, approved grudgingly by Craig.

And we’d completely forgotten to each lunch. Craig waddled over to the nest and sat down.

“Let’s go down and eat,” I suggested.

“You two go, and I’ll wait here,” he said. “I need to be on the nest.”

He didn’t even seem fazed by the fact that he was most likely going to lay an egg, so we went to the kitchen and made some sandwiches, then brought them back up and picnicked in the bedroom.

At bedtime, Craig insisted on staying on the nest while we slept in the king-sized bed a few feet away. Or we did until a loud cry had us both rocketing out from under the covers and fallingto our knees at his side. Our omega was struggling to get out of his pants, which we helped him with.

“It will be all right, omega,” I reassured him. “We can get the midwife.”

“No. Stay with me.”

“I’ll just grab my phone,” Trace said, but Craig reached out and grabbed his arm.

“Stay, both of you please.” He was struggling to rise, and we both helped him into a squatting position where he bore down, grunting, perspiration flowing off his forehead and soaking his shirt. “Don’t go.”

“We’re right here.” The midwife had said he should be fine. Trying to leave his side was going to cause more harm than good, it seemed. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

Suddenly, he let out a loud cry, and underneath him lay an egg. But not like any egg I’d ever seen. It was much larger, blue, and looked like it was covered with sparkling crystals. It was beautiful. And it held our child.

“Well done, omega,” Trace said, stroking strands of sweaty hair back from Craig’s face. “No dragon could have done better.”

Of course, once he was settled, we did call the midwife who, after she listened to the details, confirmed that everything had gone beautifully and she would stop by in a day or so just to make sure he was healing well from the delivery.

What she couldn’t tell us was how long it would be before the egg hatched, due to the mixed parentage that could change some factors. So, we all settled in to wait. Trace, me, and an omega who refused to leave the nest and the egg for more than five minutes at a time.

Chapter Seventeen

Craig

Dragon eggs usually came in pairs or triads—once in a while, in fours. But one? One was unusual.

Even I had originally been one of two eggs—only one wasn’t viable. I didn’t lose a sibling, not really. There never was another dragon. But my parents still mourned the loss because, to them, they were having a second baby—up until the point that they weren’t.

So when my mate laid only one egg, I started to worry. And I kept that worry to myself, letting it fester.

It would’ve been the perfect time to call my mom, my dad, or my grams and gramps. But they were all gone, and we’d never been part of a flight in my lifetime. So, instead, I ducked out early in the morning and went to the B&B to talk to their resident dragon and see if maybe he could give me some insight.

We’d become friends ever since the overbooking issue. It amused me that he found his mate in a very similar way—some stupid app glitch. Or maybe a money grab. I wasn’t sure which.

But, in both of our cases, it didn’t matter. Because we found what our beasts had been longing for all these years. What we’d been needing. What fate had gifted us.

“I noticed you’re here before your mates would normally be up,” Cyrus said by way of greeting.

It was a fair guess, considering the sun was barely coming up.

“Something like that.” I followed him into the kitchen, where he was about to get a meal ready for his guests. By the look of the lot, quite a few of them, too. “Cyrus, you have a human, right?”

I didn’t know why I was asking. I knew Boen nearly as well as I knew Cyrus.

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