Page 35 of Iced Heat

“Why did you kidnap me? Are you working with my mother?” Xav asked, fading to a mist and circling around me.

“Your mother, if you want to call her that, is in a locket around Liatris’s neck. Locked up in some little house thing and he’s the only one with the key. I think he’s happy to leave her there for eternity for all the trouble she caused. Not that any of the Starscales are going to disagree with him. Shedidattack Sequin in his nesting room. That is actually an executable offense here.”

“Where’s Seq?” he asked.

“Asleep, hopefully. I did sort of kidnap you from the freezer.”

“I think I woke up because I was too far from him. I can’t rest without him. I can’t smell him from here,” Xav said and the mist began to sink.

“Thank Frost’s balls that we don’t have to go all the way up,”my dragon grumbled as we made our way back to the ground.

Despite his ‘drifting’ form of travel, Xav was on the ground before me, even if it took me a moment to realize he was driftingback up towards the open nesting room doors. Sequin squeaked a moment later and my heart beat properly for the first time since I felt his panic over the family link the day that crazy bitch attacked them.

Knowing Xav was going to be fine, I headed home to Nelum, Elio, and the younger egg brats. If I knew Sequin as well as I thought, he wasn’t going to share Xav’s attention with anyone else anytime soon.

Chapter Twenty

Xav

Sequin didn’t let me out of his sight for days. Not that I wanted to be away from him and our egg anyway. I clung to him in my misty ice form for days on end, still too tired to shift back. We dozed together, waking up only when it was time to tend to our egg or for Sequin to eat. A few times, he tried to wave his ground cow sandwiches in my mist but it only left me feeling greasy.

Eventually, I did wake up in my very solid form, sleeping nearly on top of Sequin near our egg. The icy egg had grown up to my knee during my recovery. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Our egg survived against the odds. We survived against the odds and---

“The odds weren’t against us,” Sequin shook his head, looking up at me from where he laid. “Seriously, they weren’t. Even if Selatris hadn’t wanted to come and visit, the others would’ve made it in time. Everyone within a mile of us crashed through the front door about the time you passed out. Everyone was ready to fight for us. Even if Liatris hadn’t made his tiny door, someone would’ve known what to do. We’re not alone here. I was so afraid that it was too late for you. I didn’t know what to do besides put you in the freezer.”

“It was a good call,” I stretched out next to him again. “I wasn’t melting. I just ran out of magic, I think, or whatever fuels it. I feel better now. Starving and a bit tired, but glad to finally be able to be in this form with you again.”

He kissed my forehead, and I pulled him closer. I wanted to apologize for everything my mom had done and mostly for not realizing sooner that she crossed my mind so often because shewas watching us from the shadows. How had I endangered my family so much? How had I let them down?

“You didn’t let anyone down, Xav. She’s crazy, that’s for sure, but you didn’t let us down. You fought. You were willing to go back with her to save us – which never do that. I’d rather be dead than know you’re going to be unhappy forever.”

“I wasn’t going to stay with her,” I shrugged. “I figured once you were safe I’d figure out how to get rid of her. I’d rather know you’re alive and waiting for me to escape than dead. I can’t live in a world without you, Seq.”

“Don’t say that,” Sequin shook his head hard and fast. “Never say that because we all learn to live in a world without people we love every day. If something happens to me I want you to live. I want you to live the best that you can. I don’t plan on dying or doing anything stupid and getting myself killed, but if something does happen, I’ll never rest easy knowing you think you can’t live without me.”

“I don’t want to live without you.”

“I don’t want to live without you either,” he said and rested his forehead against mine.

“Hey, we make a pretty good team even in a fight. So, that’s not gonna happen. Not for a long time anyway. True-mates usually go together at the end, right?” I smiled because I needed his scent to be happy again.

“Right,” he nodded, and we shared a long, slow kiss.

Behind me the eggshell cracked. Most dragon eggs took months to hatch but some came sooner, and some hung out inside the shell a lot longer than that. I turned to face the egg. There was only a hairline fracture that marred its otherwise perfect surface.

“It’s time!” Sequin said, pushing himself up right and moving closer to our icy egg.

I followed his lead as the air around the egg cooled bit by bit until a mist oozed out of the hairline fracture of the egg’s cold shell. More and more mist came, until the air in front of the egg was nearly as dense as fog. Then on the padded surface in front of us lay the tiniest baby I ever saw. I was certain Selatris did not come out that tiny, but I wasn’t his parent. Maybe all babies looked smaller and more in need of protection than other babies to their dads.

“He’s beautiful,” Sequin whispered, scooping him up as he sucked the rest of his icy mist into himself. “And he’s like you.”

“He has your eyes,” I scooted closer as the baby flailed his little limbs getting comfy against my mate’s chest. He was perfect. Our perfect baby who was born here and safe against all the odds. He’d never know a tyrant as his grandmother. As far as we knew, my sister carried on with the job of leading the elves of the elements and that was fine by me.

Everyone I couldn’t live without was nearby and everyone I lived for was right in the nest with me. Soon, we’d tell the others that the baby had been born, and we’d let them meet him but for now he was ours. Our little icy dragon hatchling.

“Glacier,” Sequin whispered naming our baby. That name would fit in perfectly with all the dragons he’d grow up with.

Soon the time for the wedding planning and reuniting Sequin with his sister would come but for now, our little family had grown, giving us a healthy little boy, and the nest was my favorite place in the world to watch time pass by.

---