Chapter 6

Chapter

Six

L ars had brought the Samuel guy back in.

That was the word Jake had gotten at Logan's house, where he'd camped out overnight, having a steak and a beer minus the guardian meeting.

Grant was toddling around the kitchen, because the babies fascinated him, and the big cats, Tawny and her mate Auryn were great babysitters, bumping Grant back into play if he wandered too far. It was sort of like one of those big balloons at a concert. Boing. Boing.

Jake sipped his coffee, knowing the other shoe was going to drop sooner or later.

"Ah, good morning, Jake." Simon walked into the kitchen. "I was about to start breakfast. Good morning, little one."

Grant ran directly to Simon, his little legs pumping as fast as they could. He adored Logan's housekeeper and personal assistant.

"Mon! Mon! Mon, Mon, Mon." Grant's voice was sort of like two stones slamming together and grinding. It was more than a touch aggravating that Grant had learned to say Simon's name, Amber's name, Teaball and Bumper's names before he learned to say daddy.

So freaking unfair.

Simon scooped Grant up. "Oh, my love. It is so good to see you. Have you been playing with the babies?"

"Babbie!"

"Oh yes, my little Frankenstein's monster baby." Simon laughed, giving Grant a hug before putting him back into play. "So are we hungry?"

Jake rolled his eyes and snorted. "I don't know. Are we?"

"Don't be a jerk. You've already gotten in trouble once today."

He couldn't help this chuckle. "Porcupine man, I'll have you know that I got in trouble yesterday . This is a completely different day, you know? Fresh start and all that."

One of Simon's eyebrows lifted, and Jake couldn't help but wonder if those were little hairs or tiny little quills up there.

Man, that would be awkward. Seriously, what if all of Simon's hairs were just spikes and?—

Okay, that would make sex weird and… Ew, that was bad. He didn't want to think about sex and Simon in the same sentence. Or even in the same paragraph.

He was pretty sure that Simon and sex didn't even belong in the same chapter of anything.

"Well, I don't know. I think any amount of trouble that involves you having to go and be fetched for a spanking carries over to the next day." Then he got a wink. "And don't think I don't realize you and Logan went to have your ‘meeting', so he wouldn't have to deal with colicky number one and two."

"The girls are having a bad time, are they?"

The twins got a fond look, a smile. "It's hard to be a baby."

"Are you getting any help?"

Simon snorted. "Dakota is an amazing father. So is Logan. Logan's just very tired."

"Of course." He hadn't meant any offense. "I just know how busy you are."

"It's my honor, my privilege, and my calling. Bacon or sausage?"

"We can't have both?" Dakota trailed in, bundled in sweats, and beamed at Grant. "Look at you wandering around, little man. Are you ready for breakfast?"

"Ood!"

"Well, that was definite. Good morning, Jake."

"Good morning," Jake kinda thought Dakota was a wonder among omegas. He really did put up with just about everything, and it never surprised him when somebody was in his kitchen first thing in the morning.

Of course, he'd probably had plenty of time to talk to Logan about Jake's snafu last night, but still, that smile was very kind. Always.

"So, how is the little man this morning?" Dakota wiggled his fingers at Grant who giggled and bounced a little bit.

"He's feeling much better today. Yesterday was a little stressful."

"So I hear. That's okay. It'll get fixed one way or the other. If there's anything I've learned from living in this wing, it's that these guardians, Lars and Logan, I mean, just sort of smooth everything over. Bea, not so much."

"Yeah, not so much with me either. To be fair, I think instinctively I knew he was here for my baby. And it really upset me." He spread his hands in a wry motion.

"Well, of course it did. Grant has been yours for a year. You're his dad. It doesn't bode well for anybody who tries to take him away from you, but from what Lars seems to think, this omega is not here to actually take him away. He's trying to find a place here in a wing that's safer and kinder than his, just like all of us did. We're the island of misfit toys wing, right?"

Jake had to laugh at that. He was laughing a lot more this morning than he had yesterday. "I guess we are. I just felt like more of a misfit yesterday than I had in a long time."

"Well then, we need to fix that too. There's no reason for it. You feel like you're going it alone, but you're not, right, Simon?"

Simon nodded. "Absolutely. Or no, I'm not sure what the question was. Let me start breakfast."

"Yeah, breakfast would be good." Dakota tilted his head. "So what are you going to do about Lars?"

"I have no idea. None. I mean, I could send him a box of chocolates."

"You're apologizing, not seducing. Try again." Dakota tapped his fingers on the counter, and little Grant repeated the action. "That just doesn't work. You're gonna have to actually grovel. Maybe Le Creuset? He has his eye on the braiser. Either that, or possibly you could get him new finials for his staircase. He has an Amazon wish list."

"Okay, well, I can do that." It was going to cost him way more than he had expected, but Lars was worth it. Lars was a good friend.

Even though he had that interloper in his house right now.

Jake still didn't approve.

Not that disapproval equaled aggravated, because that wasn't mature.

Or calm.

And Logan had expressed to him over and over and over and over and over last night that the whole point of this was to be calm, collected, and mature and end up with no one trying to take his son.

"You're making the house tremble again. Logan's going to notice," Dakota whispered, going to pick up one of the twins.

"Can you tell them apart?"

"Of course I can. Logan can't. We forgive him, but Ari here is absolutely the alpha, whereas Mari is the omega and a little quieter. Mari is, of course, more stubborn than her sister, and she always gets what she wants because her sister makes sure of it. Also if you look really close, Ari has the tiniest little freckle right beside her nose. On the left-hand side. Mari has the tiniest little freckle on the right-hand side of her nose."

"Mari is the one with the freckle, and it's on the left side." Logan came storming through the kitchen. "I need a cup of coffee."

Simon nodded, quills rattling. "Mug's all made up. Coffeemaker's full. We're having bacon and sausage and eggs. Do you want pancakes?"

"Do we have maple syrup?"

"Have we ever not had maple syrup?"

One of Logan's eyebrows shot up. "Well, there was that one time during the great maple syrup migration of 1042 where you didn't have it on the table. It is early to be sarcastic with me."

"Oh, someone has a hangover. Here, babe, let me get you something." Dakota went to get some headache powder from the cabinet, surreptitiously handing Grant a wooden spoon and a pot for him to play with.

Oh, evil omega.

The banging started immediately.

Bang bang bang ! "Yay." Bang bang bang . "Yay."

"I hate you."

"You adore me. Also the freckle's on Mari's right side."

Really. Is this what parents did if there were two of them? Children and parents, that was? They sat and discussed freckles?

He supposed that he should be grateful that they weren't discussing poop. He did remember when Grant was the age of the twins—poop was the big thing. There was a lot of discussing it.

Bea had loved that talk. She had come over to have coffee just to amuse herself at length going on about the quality and consistency of Grant's poop. She was kind of an asshole.

That was the thing, though. They were a family, for all their weirdness and their warts and stuff. Sometimes they didn't communicate perfectly, and they often disagreed, but they were family.

He pulled out his phone to make the Amazon order for Lars.

"Get the Le Creuset," Logan told him. "The finials will seem chintzy."

"Have you seen what they cost?" Jake asked, eyebrows going up.

"Yes, but one solid present says I'm sorry way better than a bunch of weird little things."

"Hmm." That had a ring of truth to it. So he clicked buy it now.

"Anyway, Lars is bringing Samuel over today to meet Grant. That way, it's a neutral place."

Jake swallowed his immediate denial. "Okay. Sure. I can see it."

"That's the spirit." Logan beamed at him. "I love it."

Jake didn't, but he kept it to himself. He did go to pick up Grant, though, getting smacked on the nose with a wooden spoon for his trouble. Whack .

"Amber says Mari says he's nice," Dakota offered over. "Does that help?"

"No, not particularly." He didn't care if the guy was nice. "This one, I need to go away." He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to have to remember any of this. He just wanted to get on with life.

He didn't want to have to deal with anything more than what he was dealing with now.

That was fair.

"This is just a meeting, just a time for this new guy, whose name I have forgotten already."

"Samuel," Dakota offered helpfully.

"Thank you, mate, Samuel. What was I saying?" Logan asked.

"That this was just a meeting."

Jake thought that maybe Dakota was going to hit Logan over the head with a rock. Instead, Dakota just handed him one of the twins and went to pick up the other one that was beginning to scream.

"Right, this is just a meeting. You get to meet him, he gets to meet the baby, Everyone gets to sit. We'll have tea or something."

"Tea." Jake just stared at Logan.

"Okay, we'll have beer. They can have tea."

Dakota's eyes narrowed. "There will be no beer. Simon, we'll need a light snack. Something you know, vaguely lunchy, snacky, vaguely tea-like. Nothing that will hurt anything if somebody starts to throw it."

Man, he remembered when Dakota was this really mild-mannered scared little guy. Now it looked like perhaps he had Logan's balls in his tiny little fist. Interesting.

"That sounds absolutely lovely, Dakota. I will make sure it happens."

"Thank you, Simon. I appreciate it. Holler if you need anything else. Logan and I are going to take the babies and feed them."

"But—"

"Now."

"Going to feed twins. I'll be back." Logan had the hang-dog face on, but when their eyes met, Logan winked at him.

Simon chuckled softly, shook his head. "Mates."

"Can't live with them, can't kill them?" he asked.

"Said like a bachelor alpha."

"Yep. That's what I am." Jake unbent a little bit because what else could he do? Everybody was being so kind. He supposed he could do the same thing and let this Samuel guy come and meet Grant.

"There see. That's what everyone wants. Just to see that you were going be okay with things."

Jake shook his head. He wasn't sure he was ever going to be okay with this when he was feeling…bitter. Still raw. Maybe that was the problem. He'd lost his sister, but so had Samuel. So, maybe he needed to be more open.

"They'll be over in about an hour," Simon said.

"How do you know all this stuff without anyone ever talking to you?" Jake asked.

Simon tapped his temple. "I'm plugged into the communication and the family hotline."

"I guess that's one way to do it." Man, Jake missed that sometimes. Sure, the other guardians could talk to him, especially when it was an emergency, but without his sister, he didn't have someone that he could just babble at all the time. It sucked. And it made him feel so isolated.

Anyway, he just figured he would bow to the other voices in the room and do this meeting even if he didn't want to. Really. There were going to be two other guardians there at the time. What could it possibly hurt?

Samuel didn't want to do this. Oh, he was going to; he didn't have a choice. There wasn't any of this that he had a choice in, but he didn't want to.

He also didn't want to call his parents. He didn't want to go back to the coast. He didn't want to stay here at Lars's house, and he didn't want to have to drive his rental car back to Albuquerque.

Or get on a plane or something.

Again, his choices were limited, if not nonexistent, so…

He put on a pair of black dress pants. He put on a pair of black dress shoes. He put on a decently formal shirt. He didn't have a tie, so he wore a big oversized sweater over the top of it. Then he carefully braided his hair and tucked it under the sweater. Then he put on the glasses that he didn't really need, but they were a great affectation, and they made him feel more like a librarian.

Then he put his things in his pockets, and he headed downstairs to where Lars was waiting.

"Well, don't you look nice?" Lars was wearing faded jeans, heavy biker boots, and a bulky sweater that basically mimicked his own.

"Thanks. It's my one dress outfit that I brought." If he needed more, he would buy more.

"Well, you look fine." He thought Lars might be nervous. He was vibrating a bit. Crackling with static electricity. "Come on; it's not far at all. And the roads are… Well, they're a wreck. So we're going to wear coats, and I'm going to put on the chains, so we'll be safe as houses."

They started heading to the mud room, and when he peered out, all he saw was snow. His shoes were in so much trouble.

"So the baby is at your brother's house?"

"Yes."

"And your brother's another guardian?"

"Yes."

"You said he had children."

Lars chuckled. "Yeah, two. Twins. Ari and Mari. They're amazing. They're very little, they're very loud, and they adore me." Lars chuckled softly. "Logan has a person, dragon, man Friday, valet, housekeeper, keeper of the keys? His name is Simon. He's amazing. We all want one. Logan's the only one who has one. We're all jealous."

Okay, that was confusing. "So why didn't you get him?"

Lars pinked, blushed, shook his head. "Obviously because I didn't need him."

"Oh, all right." The last thing on earth he wanted to do right now was to make Lars upset with him. Everyone else in this keep hated him. He wasn't going to lose the one friend he had here in this place. So he just went with it.

They bundled up, and he grabbed the books and the toy that he had brought to amuse Grant.

Grant.

The baby's name was Grant.

They'd had an Uncle Grant that he hadn't seen in as long as he could remember at this point. He had fond memories, though, of him, and he knew that Susan had adored Grant, so that made him happy.

The drive wasn't bad. Little bumpy, a little slide-y. Kind of exciting, if he were honest.

Lars seemed capable as a driver, and so he didn't actually get scared. It was sort of like a roller coaster. There was a little gasp and a little whee, but he kind of trusted that everything was going to be fine at the end and no one was going to die.

And that was a little ridiculous because he could just fly.

No one dies doing that.

He could almost hear his sister, her voice dry as dust.

He didn't understand exactly how they'd lost Susan. No one seemed to want to tell him.

Well, most notably, Lars didn't seem to want to tell him.

He assumed that this Jake person didn't want to discuss it either, which was fine, because he was never speaking to that one ever again.

Surely someone in this keep would tell him how his sister passed away, and if there was some sort of record of her passing.

If there was some sort of memorial. A stone or a plaque or something. Oh, really, there should be a stone. If there wasn't one, he could pay to put one up. That was only fair, right? As long as they could tell him where they had laid Susan to rest.

If they had. Some dragons preferred to go back to the ash they all assumed they had been created from, although so many dragons didn't spit fire, and?—

"Are you all right?" Lars asked him as they pulled into the drive of a giant house.

"Hmmm? I suppose. Why?" What had he done wrong?

"You were singing."

"Oh. Sorry." Samuel ducked his head. Susan had always told him he did that when he was stressed, or when he was thinking too hard. "I tend to forget I'm not alone in a library." Not that he didn't get in trouble for singing there too. Someday, he'd have his own library, where he was the only worker, and no one would glare at him for singing there.

"Ah. I sing when I'm in the shower. Or when I'm cooking. Sea shanties for the shower. Opera for cooking."

"Sea shanties? How fun! This is the desert, you know," he dared to tease.

"Even more reason. Humidity by magical thinking."

A giggle escaped him, and he clapped a hand over his mouth. "You're amazing."

"Thank you. All right, now. Buck up. Jake is a good man, a good dragon. He's still reeling from losing his sister and getting Grant. And becoming a guardian. I'm not saying that's an excuse, but he's had a rough year."

He wanted to ask what that mattered to him, but that was unkind to Lars. He was so tired of not knowing what to do, of feeling off-kilter.

Lars grabbed his hand for a moment. "It's going to be okay."

"Of course it is." He tilted his chin up, just like Susan had always told him to. If nothing else, it made him look more confident than he felt. "Let's go."

The adobe house was fancy, but homey in that kind of ‘I have more money than God, but I'm going to pretend to be rustic' sort of way.

"Don't worry," Lars whispered. "This is just the front area. We get through that entryway there, and it's like baby hell."

The last thing he wanted to do on earth was laugh, but Lars cracked him up, so he started to giggle about the time a silvery dragon peeked out. "I thought I heard you come in. Hi. I'm Dakota. It's good to meet you. Sorry for all the weirdness and the mess. Babies, you know?"

"Hello." Okay, so that was adorable. Dakota looked like he'd been through a tornado—long hair all coming out of his braid in little tendrils, a white burp cloth on his shoulder, and what looked to be coffee stains dripping down his front. How could anybody not like that?

"See?" Lars stepped up and hugged Dakota hard. "Told you. They usually go in and out the kitchen door. So this is the only place that's suitable for guests right now."

An amazing dragon with bright blue quills appeared behind. Dakota, one eyebrow raised, said, "Pardon me?"

"This is the Simon I was telling you about. He's amazing. Even if he's a terrible housekeeper." Lars grinned, and the Simon guy kind of rattled his quills, but Lars didn't seem even the least bit worried.

"Don't bad mouth my hero," Dakota said. "I don't know what I'd do without him."

"Starve," Simon shot back. "Starve and have a psychotic break with reality. Now can we all come away from the door and have some tea? I have a meal laid out."

There was no way that Samuel was going to be able to eat anything, possibly ever again. He was so tired of being worried and being queasy, and he just wanted to go home.

Better the demon that one knew than the demon one didn't, he supposed, but right now, all he wanted was to go home to his library and look at his books and pretend that everything was going to be okay.

"That sounds great. Hand me your coat." Lars came back to him, took his coat, and then they stomped through the entryway.

Well. Lars and his boots stomped. He kind of slid and clicked in his fancy shoes that were undoubtedly ruined.

They entered into a mass of chaos and noise and color. The huge sunken living area was filled with toys and blankets and stuffed animals, the kitchen was a miasma of amazing scents—bacon and bread and chocolate.

There was absolutely chocolate.

While still expensive, this space wasn't fancy or sterile. It was a home.

The mean dragon—who he was not going to speak to—sat there with his sister's baby, then there were also a set of twin little girls with fiery red hair and huge green eyes and obvious tempers. That was proven by the fact that a huge alpha dragon snatching sparks out of the air as they tried to set one another on fire.

Well, he supposed that immolation was an effective thing, but it tended to cause trouble.

"Do not set your sister on fire. If you do that, I will have to listen to your father yell at me for not watching you, and I don't want to have to listen to him snarl about you setting things on fire." The big dragon looked up as they walked in. "Hi."

Dakota's lips twisted. "Uh-huh."

"Yeah, sorry. It was a long night."

Dakota snorted. "Yes, there was an enormous amount of beer. He gets no niceties for being hungover. None." The words were tough, but the smile that Dakota gave the big dragon was adoring, so he supposed that this was just an ongoing discussion. Twins tended to lead to a lot of discussions.

Discussions and long sleepless nights.

The big dragon came right up to him and offered him a smile. "Hello. I'm Lars's brother, Logan. It's very nice to meet you."

"Samuel de Lamar. Thank you for the invitation to see your home."

Really it had been an invitation to see his nephew, but niceties were niceties.

"You're very welcome here. Come on and sit down." Logan grabbed his arm and tugged him to the chair directly opposite the person he wasn't looking at. "I think you've kind of met Jake, and this is Grant."

Samuel did glance at the baby, and…oh. He was immediately captivated. Grant was…simply amazing. Samuel felt the familial bond with him right away.

"Look at you, little one. So adorable."

Grant stared at him for a moment, then squealed, held out his arms, and lunged.

The move clearly took Jake by surprise. "Whoa, buddy." Jake caught Grant before he could fall. "He's stronger than he looks."

"So am I." He held his hands out, and Grant landed on him with a thud. "Oh, sweet baby. Hello, I'm your Uncle Samuel."

"Bee!"

"That's right! Sweet baby! And so smart!" He was in love. Totally and completely.

Grant stared up at him, tugging at his sweater, making him grab those little hands and laugh. "No pulling. It's the only really warm sweater I have with me."

"You weren't prepared to come here?" the Jake one asked.

"Not for this extreme snow, no. How could I?"

Jake's mouth twisted a bit, but he didn't growl when he answered. "We have a shop in the wing where you could supply yourself some."

He didn't know what to say, but was he supposed to say…thank you?

He didn't want to talk to this person. They weren't nice, they weren't polite, and they obviously weren't worthy of his attention.

But he also didn't want to be rude, so took a deep breath and simply said, "Thank you."

Then he went back to focusing on the baby.

"Don't you have the most beautiful eyes, little one? You look just like Susan." What a gorgeous baby.

Grant beamed at him. "Bee!"

"That's right, you're the baby. Those are your friends too, right? The other babies?"

Grant gave him a wide grin, the couple of little teeth just gleaming. "Bee!"

"Oh, you are a brilliant little one, I can tell. I brought you some books and some toys." He dug in his knapsack and pulled out one of the soft, untearable books that he'd brought, along with two soft stuffies with sewn-on eyes that the twins could have.

He hadn't intended on giving anything to the twins, but they were watching him, and even though they wouldn't remember, somewhere in their hearts they would know if he had forgotten them.

"These are for the girls." They were little soft dragons with long tails—a green one and a purple one. "A friend of mine makes these."

"You have friends?" Jake asked, and he scowled over, stung.

"Of course I have friends."

"Jake! Dammit!" Dakota glared at the Other Dragon.

That was what Samuel was going to call him from now on, the Other Dragon.

"You don't have to be an ass. Of course he has friends."

"I just meant?—"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupted. "They're handmade. I hope the girls enjoy them."

Fucker.

Oh, didn't that feel good to think?

"What did you say to me?" Jake surged up, eyes flashing, and Samuel wrapped around the baby, his light shielding them both from the Other Dragon.

"Nothing." He'd been talking to Dakota.

"You—" Jake took a deep, deep breath, then let it out. "I know what I heard." That even tone didn't fool him for a moment. The Other Dragon was in a temper.

"He didn't say anything, Jake," Dakota murmured. "Sit down."

"I—" Jake glanced back and forth between them, and then he scowled. "I would never hurt my son. You don't have to protect him from me."

Logan rolled his eyes. "He would never hurt someone who has the protection of this wing, either. Jake, just chill."

"I'm trying." The Other Dragon sat down, watching him warily. As if he were the dangerous one.

Grant poked at his arm. "Da!"

"Oh. Yes, I suppose that's your Da." He felt tight-lipped at having to admit that.

Jake's face transformed utterly, joy suffusing it. "That's it, buddy. I'm Da."

Grant squealed, legs kicking, and he lunged for Jake. "Da! Da da da!"

Samuel wanted to squeeze Grant close, but that wasn't nice, so…he handed the baby over.

"Hey, bud." Jake grabbed Grant and swung him up, kind of tossing him in the air.

Grant's laughter was huge and bright, almost visible in the air. He clearly loved the Other, and Jake was so in love with that baby. One could see it on his face, in every move he made while he held Grant.

It was a hard thing to admit, even to himself.

"Come on, have a seat." Lars brought him over to a padded chair close by. "The toys are adorable. Very special. Would you like a cup of tea?"

No. What he wanted was to leave, to take the baby, and to go to Lars's house and just enjoy him, but that wasn't going to happen today. They would have to discuss all this in short order. But that wasn't today. He needed to deal with Grant's father.

That he wasn't looking at.

Even if the baby didn't have a father.

Except that wasn't true, was it?

It sucked being fair.

"I would love a cup of tea, thank you."

"You like lemon and one cube of sugar?"

Samuel grinned at Lars. He remembered. "Thank you."

The Other actually growled.

He sat quietly. You don't have to be an asshole. I'm not mean. You're the one who was evil to me. So just shut up and be nice and leave me alone. I'm just here to see the baby. He's half ours.

The Other was staring at him, his eyes flashing. Grant is mine.

Samuel's head tilted. No one else had heard that. That was just him.

He'd heard of this. He'd read about this.

It happened—mental communication—but there had to be a connection, and there was no connection here. There would never be a connection between them.

He stared right back. You leave me alone .

The Other's eyes went wide and a little shocked.

He wasn't a stupid dragon. He'd spent his entire life surrounded with all of the information in the world.

And that was why his parents had sent him.

The thought surprised him, but it was true. He knew the rules; he knew about the laws; he knew what was possible and what was not possible.

And they had done this to him on purpose. Not because it was convenient for them, or because he was well-suited, but because they knew that he knew the rules.

Unfortunately for them, he also knew how to break them.

"Here's your tea, sweet pea. It will all be all right."

He's not allowed to call you sweet pea.

Interesting. He didn't know if the Other knew that Samuel could hear him. Fascinating.

He turned a brilliant smile on Lars. "I appreciate all that you've done for me—letting me stay in your home, letting me stay in the wing. Bringing me to see the baby, even. I can't repay you for how kind you've been."

He can call me anything he wants to.

No. He's not—He's not for you. Those eyes went bright gold, the dragon right there on the surface suddenly.

Samuel crossed his arms over his chest. That's my decision, not yours.

A low growl did sound then, and Grant stopped giggling, looking at his father with big eyes, then reaching up to pat his cheeks in that way babies had when offering comfort.

Logan raised an eyebrow. "You okay there, Jake?"

"I'm fine," the Other ground out. "Just fine."

Liar.

The twins began to fuss, and he backed off, unwilling to upset the balance more than he already had.

If I'm lying, it's because how I feel that this is my business. No one has helped me with this. They're all afraid —Jake broke off, taking a deep breath and bouncing Grant when he started to make that sound that meant he was going to start crying. It's been hard.

What were they afraid of? Which they?

He sipped his tea, trying to decide what to do. He had to admit, his curiosity was burning. I'm sorry it has been difficult. But you make yourself disagreeable.

A little smile crinkled up the Other's eyelines and one side of his mouth. Gee. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

See that you do. His hand only shook a little when he said it. He'd just told an alpha Guardian dragon off.

Gods help him.