Page 10 of Delinquent Dette
Flour, sugar, butter, soda, pearlash, and the powder all mixed with cinnamon from the spicelands and vanilla from the southern part of the continent, the long beans aged until blackand leathery as a mummy’s finger and soaked in distilled spirits until fragrant and rich.
He used his baking scoop to measure things: a scoop of butter, three quarters of a two scoops of unrefined sugar. He had to smash the brick of it apart, as it had caked solid from last year’s haul. One egg, and he used the eggshell’s fat end to portion the vanilla, a scoop and a half of rich flour. He used the narrow end of the shell to measure the pearlash and the salt before adding half a scoop of the powder.
Butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla—he mixed them into a paste before folding in the dry ingredients, shaping it with his hands until he had a solid ball. They had enough sugar that they spread evenly, so he doled them out over his baking sheets, using the edge of a knife to cut a riveted pattern across them so they had the seashell scores. It increased the surface area and they cooked faster and crisper. With little liquid in them, they stored well.
And from there, he made several more batches. One batch was never enough. Especially not for a large clutch.
When he packed the cookies away, he joined Sten for rest, because he’d need it too. His heat was coming.
They made love that night to one another in the wee hours of the morning, sweet kisses turning to feral rutting. With the children gone, it was far easier to be loud and gratuitous.
He only had a wish he could remember his heat that took him soon after. The flower always had that effect, leaving him with pleasant memories that always meshed together. Heats were enjoyable at the beginning, but after a day or two, it became bothersome. An itch that needed a cock to scratch over and over again until the rash of pleasure passed.
He woke at the end of it, sprawled nude in their nest of gold and treasure. It was nice, the metal cool against his skin that ran so much hotter than other dragons. As a rule, themore fertile a Dette was, the less they could stand blankets and pillows in their nests. Frikka didn’t even allow for a sheet. Which had its positives, he mused as he glanced over toward Sten, who lay sprawled out obnoxiously with gold stuck to his thighs. He pulled one off to see the head of some monarch imprinted beautifully on his ass.
As he stared, his claws grew, and an urge from his dragon stirred.Mate. Mark.
Frikka pulled away and huffed, throwing on a pair of loose breeches as gold unstuck and clattered off his body in places. An errant gem scattered. “Not until Dettes are truly free and I have my revenge.”
In the twenty-six years since he’d watched his forgotten son crushed under sour green scales, time had healed no wounds, only crushed the last of theBhaldraithe. None of their name remained.
Frikka lit a torch and wandered their cavern. The smell of must and rot filled his lungs as he twisted and turned to his trophy room.
Sile, the council of the new world’s head, understood Frikka’s plight. The Bhaldraithe family had been dismantled, all those with the name either forced to renounce their fortunes and begin anew as Lochs under their family—which wasn’t much better—or relegate themselves to the wildlands of Cathay.
Those that did neither? Frikka hung a torch in a notch on the wall and pulled back a boulder. While Sten was away, Frikka played the part of a good boy. But he hunted down every Bhaldraithe mossy agate-scaled bastard that dared to set foot in the new world.
Of course, he played the part of a sweet and innocent Dette, separated from his clan. And the moment they tried to drag him back to their cavern, to add him to their hoard and fuck him, herended them limb from limb and left with all the gold he could carry.
When the light hit the alcove that Frikka had spent years carving away, casks and chests met baskets of treasures, gold and silver. And if he’d secretly given Cairn a dowry for his Drake to raise his status, nobody was the wiser. Nor were they the wiser when Frikka gave any other Dette the Diors harbored, enough gold to live on their own.
That wouldn’t happen anymore, though. They had found their mate and needed no stray Dettes to fool their families.
The tang of stale blood hung in the air, moldering about. A lungful of the scent should have made him happy. But there was only hurt. And he could abuse, murder, and hunt down every single shitty Drake in the world and it’d never make it better.
He left the room, his forsaken hoard, and returned the stone before finding his way upstairs to the rest of the small estate. Chores needed to be done, after all. Their hired help was only part-time. The half-blind coyote shifter did his work at night, and as long as the chickens were fed, the cows milked, and their small farm upkept—he was happy.
Fresh eggs filled the skelter, the dishes were clean, and the pump sink basin had been scoured. All was well with the world, save for a hoarse crowing that assaulted his ears.
“I am coming, Ingred!” His gender-confused hen had taken to bullying the others and crowing, which was amusing. It reminded him a lot of himself. The weaker of the two sexes turned dominant. Any rooster he brought into the flock stayed long enough to mate half the hens before he tried his hand at her. And that was the last mistake a horny rooster ever made.Me too, chicken. Me, too.
Once outside, Frikka scooped some feed and scattered it for the hens, watching them flock to it like moth to flame. And he seated himself on a stone bench by their failing garden. WithoutHallr around to tend it, it suffered greatly, but the tiger lilies still crept up in dense clusters. Ingred hopped into Frikka’s lap and made a clucking purr. “I hope he finds his tiger lily.”
Ingred clucked in agreement, or so he thought.
The cows in their pasture roved into places with more grass, a few new calves sucking at their mother’s teat. The only milk a dragon ever drank was stolen from others, but it was delicious.
Sten came by sometime later, dragging the copper washbasin to the pump before throwing a lump of lye soap in. “I can smell you from here, Dette. Come wash your ass.”
“Could probably taste me, too.” Frikka rose and stretched, letting Ingred go off to do her thing. A cold bath sounded good, but it wasn’t for fun. The scrubbing, perfunctory and quick, left them raw and squeaky clean before they went back inside to find something to sate their hunger.
They were out of salted beef, and besides eggs and a fresh can of milk on the table, there was nothing to eat. “What happened to all that cooking you were doing before we went down? Did you dry any meat or have Sam cook something?”
Frikka shrugged. “Other priorities.”
Sten grunted and shuffled back outside, muttering something about which goat he’d pick for their post-heat feast. Frikka hoped it was the one that kept headbutting the nannies. Knowing him, it would be. Arrogant billy goats didn’t last that long.
When Sten returned a while later, Frikka had water boiling, a loaf of bread out being sliced, and several potatoes and onions from the larder chopped. Frikka didn’t handle meat—that was Sten’s job. Not since… The only meat Frikka slaughtered was Drakes, and that wasn’t for eating.
