Chapter 25

25

Alluresh

A ll day, Tavi and I kept checking the egg for pips. Today was hatching day, if our baby was on time. But nature's time had its own clock. No guarantees it would be today.

We knew the egg was viable. We'd had it checked and double-checked by Dr. Hayden. A healthy baby dragon form grew inside it.

When I had egg duty, I could sit for hours and stroke my hands over the warm shell surface. I never thought I could love so much.

I will play with the baby. I will be a good father.

"Yes, you will, but not until he is a bit older, okay?"

Tavi will bring him to me and I will meet him. Scent him. Then he will be mine.

Tavi and I were going to have to have a talk about that.

On hatching day, I sat before the egg, stroking slowly all around it, when I felt a slight vibration. I jumped, startled.

"Tavi!" I yelled. "I think the egg moved."

He was in the bathroom, having just gotten out of the shower. He came running, dressed only in a towel. "It moved? How?"

"I felt a vibration."

Tavi knelt inside the nest. I had the basket in my lap. He reached out and touched the shell.

For a couple of minutes, we were like two people frozen in time, each afraid to move for fear of not feeling the egg if it decided to move again.

It came again. The vibration. Then it felt like something hit the egg from within. I stroked the egg and felt a little bump. "Hey, is that a pip?"

Tavi leaned down, eyeballing where I pointed. "Yes. I see a bump in the shell. It's tiny but it's the first pip!"

He threw his arms around me and started laughing. "Our baby is coming!"

I hugged him. "Okay, then. No more touching. This baby needs to hatch by himself."

"Should he be in the basket or out?" Tavi asked.

Out. Give him room.

"Allure says outside the basket now. He needs room, I guess."

"He'll still be in the nest," Tavi said, lifting the egg out as I set the basket aside. "He'll be perfectly safe."

He set the egg on the fluffy mattress, two pillows on either side of it.

We both watched the egg for hours. I took a break to bring up some food for us. But Tavi barely budged even as he snacked on veggies and dip and a turkey sandwich.

We saw about four pips an hour until the egg was covered with them and we lost count. By three in the morning, we were both exhausted.

I brought up coffees and water on a tray.

"Technically, yesterday was not our baby's egg birthday," I said. "It's a new day."

"I just realized that. He's taking his time."

"It will make him stronger." I wasn't worried. It was in my foster paperwork that I'd taken eight hours to hatch. Our baby had been at it about that long.

Suddenly, the apple Tavi had been snacking on flew straight up into the air. "I see a crack!"

"Where?"

He pointed. And I saw it. It wasn't just a crack. It was part of the shell breaking away. I could see through it to the inside. Something bright was moving around. Something wonderful.

Look how strong he is. More cracks are showing.

Allure was right. "Look, there are more."

Tavi wrapped his arms around himself. He'd taken a short break to change from a towel to jeans and a t-shirt, but otherwise had never left the egg.

Now that the cracks had begun, it wasn't long before parts of the egg began to fall away, leaving sticky strings behind.

We could see a wing. Then the side of a snout. Then a little bit of tail and leg. His scales matched Allure's, all purple and ocean blue.

"Look how beautiful he is," Tavi said.

"He is definitely the most beautiful dragon ever, from what I can see."

Hey.

Tavi replied as if he'd heard Allure. "Except for Allure, of course."

"Of course."

"I guess we should agree on a final name."

More eggshell fell away exposing an entire wing, which suddenly poked through the big hole as we cooed over it.

"Now's probably the right time to decide," I said.

"Calen. Bali. Drake."

We had spent days furiously coming up with names, making some up and finding obscure ones online. We were down to those three.

"Who named you?" Tavi had asked me.

I did.

"The foster system called me baby Zee. They went down the alphabet to name the abandoned babies. When I got old enough to shift, my dragon informed me he was Allure and that I should be called Alluresh. My paperwork was updated and that's how it happened."

"Oh wow, the babies name themselves?"

"Some do."

"We'll call him Bali, then. I like it best. But only if you agree. And then some day when he's ready, we'll let his dragon name him."

"I like it. I agree."

I agree.

It took more hours than I thought it would for baby Bali to shed the last piece of shell and let out his first tiny roar unto the world. But when he did, it was powerful, if small.

Impressive for a dragon who is only minutes old.

Minutes later, he shifted to a crying human infant, and we wrapped him carefully in soft blankets and took him to our bed to admire.

"Can you tell if he's an alpha or an omega yet?" Tavi asked.

"Not yet."

Tavi's milk had come in a couple days before the hatching. He hadn't grown bigger in the chest, but his nipples had enlarged. When the baby was ready, he nursed him for the first time while I watched.

Emotions came over me I'd rarely felt before. I had an overpowering nurturing instinct which included tingling in my own breasts. Also, an urge came over me to shift and fly away with my family on my back, find a large cave and seclude us there forever.

These were feelings I could control, of course. Our castle was the safest place for all of us. And if I wanted my nipples rubbed and suckled, Tavi was always happy to provide that comfort.

As Bali eagerly nursed, I leaned over and kissed my mate on the lips, then Bali on the forehead.

In a matter of months, my life had changed more than I ever would have believed.

One day, I'd reluctantly gone to a slave auction. And now here I was fully mated and with a family to care for and love.

Money might buy a slave, but no amount could buy what had developed for me and Tavi. Fate had stepped in. We were made for each other.

I'd never believed in such things before. A lack of love, bitterness at the world, and deciding money was the only thing worth hoarding had left me with material wealth but no heart.

Tavi had come into my life with his own set of major hurdles, an outsider like me. In each other we had found more meaning than our world had ever allowed us, and more love than we ever thought we'd deserve.

I stood naked in our backyard and Allure took his form. He didn't block me as he usually did, pushing me deep inside. Today, I could see everything. I watched as Tavi walked across the patio, past the two pools and onto the grass.

A late, cool October breeze set the trees swaying. The spice and tang of the sea filled the air.

Tavi held Bali in his arms. Our baby was dressed in a fluffy, white onesie. A purple blanket was folded around his lower half.

Immediately, that little head went back against Tavi's chest as Bali raised both arms. He saw Allure and let out a sweet little cry.

Slowly, Allure lowered his big head. Closer and closer the baby's face came. A puff of air vented from the huge nostrils.

"Yah!" Bali had a big voice inside him, and it came out.

When I thought Allure had gotten too close, I yelled inside his mind. Stop!

He didn't listen. He never listened.

To my surprise, Tavi lifted Bali up into the air until Allure's nose touched our little boy. Gently, gently my dragon nuzzled at the blanket and all around his head.

This was the dragon who had broken my castle more than once. The dragon who had flown over the sea every day venting his anger and rage in fireball roars. But also, the dragon who'd found my mate. Our mate. If he hadn't used his threats to get me to buy Tavi from Noah's shady auction, I never would have discovered the best treasure ever.

Love. Home. Family. Freedom. Four things all of us had gained in a world that had declared us unworthy.

Deep in my safe in the castle, I'd hoarded cash, gold, precious gems. None of it was worth what I had now.

Allure let out another puff of air. Bali chortled and cooed.

Tavi began his usual walkaround. He held the baby close to Allure's scales, letting our boy see all the colors, letting him scent his other father.

I heard him saying, "Look! Look, Bali. You will be big like this someday. You will be magnificent like your father."

When Tavi finished, he backed away.

I scent an alpha.

Tavi and I had suspected, as well. But we had an appointment tomorrow for the baby's first full exam to be sure.

He is a fine heir. Already has the aroma of power.

I felt it in Allure's bones and blood. The need to stretch out now, to fly. The extending of thin bone and muscle always felt so good.

The autumn wind ruffled the leathery skin of the wings and flowed over his body. He turned away from our mate and child and began to run east. Before we crashed right into a copse of trees, he took off nearly straight up, roaring as he went, fire sizzling toward the sky.

When he looked down, Tavi and Bali were as tiny as ants, but I could see Tavi waving furiously, the wind blowing through his long brown hair.

Soon, the sea frothed beneath us, waves dancing as if to share our joy.

Allure let out another roar, softened, mysterious, a tone I'd never heard before. It no longer sounded feral, empty, or full of fury.

It sounded like a roar of belonging.

It sounded like a roar of love.

THE END

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