Page 58 of Emerald Waves
“Thank you. I’ll leave you to take measurements while I check on my mate,” I said, urgently needing to see him.
I doubt I’d ever get over the shock of discovering him missing, no matter how much time had passed. I was just glad he hadn’t caught on to how many times I poked my head into the horde to ask him some random question I could have easily telepathically sent to him. Yes, I was making sure he was there. Yes, I needed to see for myself. Yes, I also needed to smell him.
And hug him, taste him, tickle him, and curl myself around him.
He was my mate, and sometimes I just needed that reassurance that nothing else had come along and taken him from me.
Tasi was the cutest little thing and the absolute sweetest baby Merdragon ever, but in the back of my head, all I kept picturing was my mate in the hands of a creature with the intent of causing harm. He’d had enough of that for one lifetime.
As silently as I could manage, I pried open the door and slunk in once it was open far enough. I didn’t need light to be able to see that my mate was still in bed where I’d left him. I could easily see in the dark as well as hear his slow, even breaths as he slumbered. Good, there was something else I could attend to while he got some much-needed rest.
In our horde, beside the space where our desks rested, there was a thick column of stone, part of the tunnel system I’d carefully carved my horde space into. Taking measurements, I focused on the image that had popped into my head, of a scooped-out bowl of stone that would serve as the little one’s bassinet while we worked and a shelf carved into the wall above it, where we could keep any baby supplies on hand. With it being the area we both gravitated to, I knew we would spend far more time there than in the Master Bedroom. They’d growup surrounded by all the rescued sea creatures housed here and maybe even make friends with a few of them.
I couldn’t wait for that.
Whistling, I used a claw to trace out the pattern I envisioned, adjusted the length and depth, and carefully noted them all too. I wouldn’t carve until Emerson had the opportunity to see what I’d dreamed up. If it didn’t meet with his approval, then we’d have to brainstorm additional ideas until we got one that resonated with us both.
Satisfied with the way it was all mapped out, I returned to the main part of the house, determined to remove that mirror and anything else I’d forgotten to take down following my one-man demolition show. On my way to collect the mirror, I remembered the cracked stand in the foyer, where a lamp I’d already disposed of had been resting before my tail had smacked it off its perch. The last thing I expected was to see Ionus seated on one of the few remaining pieces of furniture, thumbing through a heavy tabletop book filled with underwater photographs of all manners of sea life, shipwrecks and beautiful coral reefs.
“Since you persist on making yourself scarce before we have the opportunity for a much needed one on one chat, I decided to come to you,” Ionus declared as he slammed the book shut with a flex of his fingers.
Okay, I had done my best to avoid this conversation, mostly because there was little my brother could say to me that I hadn’t already heard from my dragon. I’d fucked up and had some pretty serious lapses in judgement. I’d do better. That was the only thing I could promise.
“I’m sorry you had to go to the bottom of the ocean to help clean up my mess,” I said, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible so I could go back to basking in the joy of impending parenthood.
“Would you care to explain why you left me completely in the dark about what was going on until it was almost too late to be able to help you?” Ionus asked, having stood and begun pacing.
“I never claimed my timing was the best,” I replied, trying to play it off with a bit of Odem’s snarky nonchalance.
My words produced a crackle of electricity that rolled over my brother’s skin as he let a low, rumbling growl from his dragon release. Okay, he was not in the mood for snark. Noted.
“Look, I know I messed up, not putting the pieces together about the statue, or the tunnel into the Merdragons cave. I knew I’d spotted dragons on the ledge when I emerged, it just never dawned on me that they were the stone comprising the room.”
“Which is shocking, when you, yourself can turn to stone whenever you get it in your mind to, which you haven’t done in a very long time,” Ionus declared. “Nor have I seen furrows in the ground from your incessant burrowing.”
“In all fairness, you used to complain every time you tripped over them,” I pointed out. “And with current renovation costs, I can’t afford to mess up the lawn a second time.”
“No, you can’t,” he said. “Next time I might suggest an in-ground swimming pool to go along with the maze and playground.”
“What made you guys ever think up a playground at the center of a hedge maze?” I asked.
“Alex was watching Labyrinth.”
“I’ve seen that one before, I think,” I replied, scowling out the window, thinking hard about the movie while hoping this was a blessed change of subject. “I don’t remember a maze in it through.”
“Don’t remember a maze? The whole movie, minus like, a handful of scenes, was held in it, how could you miss the maze? It’s literally called Labyrinth! That’s all the movie is,just a character trying to get through it, and all the help, and hindrance, they faced along the way.”
He was actually getting indignant over a movie. Whoa, that was seriously not the Ionus of the past few centuries. His cheeks were even pinking up a little, though not as bad as Alex’s each time he launches into a tirade about something he can’t believe we’ve never heard of or haven’t tried. Having him become part of our family has certainly been a lesson in humanity.
“I think the babies will have fun flying through it,” I offered, eager to keep the subject on movies and little dragonets.
“I’m sure they will, when the twins aren’t burning holes in it,” he muttered, nose scrunching as I turned back to look at him.
His eyes narrowed on me, and I saw the moment it clicked what I’d been doing.
“Nice,” he grumbled, scowling a little harder. “But after centuries of dealing with Odem, did you really think I’d fall for that, at least not for long?”
“Couldn’t hurt to try.”
