Chapter Five

Casimir

“Why did you ask him to the ball if you didn’t want to go?” Izora asked as I tied the mask behind my head. It was as black as the night sky back home and gave me a bird beak.

“Because he obviously wanted to. It was all over him.”

“The flight link,” Izora nodded. “Sometimes that’s mated life. You go to parties that seem sort of stupid and sometimes they are but it’s not as stupid if you’re there with someone you like.”

“What parties does Nycto make you go to?”

“Are you forgetting beetle season?” Izora arched a brow in the mirror. “He had me out there with wild dragons hunting down beetles. I thought they were meant to eat or something. No, we had to put them in baskets and fly them north so they survived the fall and winter. I’m still not sure how that works but I almost ate one and they’re not food apparently. But I’ll go again next year and the year after that and the next one if he wants me to.”

“I’m going to the damn thing, aren’t I?” I snapped and Izora frowned at me.

“Don’t do that. Don’t give that look. Makes my tail itch.”

“Is this about the ball? I can’t help but notice that you’re here and Tritus isn’t.”

“He drew the short straw on this one,” I shrugged.

“That’s up to him to decide about,” Izora said. “Maybe he did. Maybe whatever you think is so dark and mysterious is that dark and mysterious. Maybe it’s too much for him. Maybe he---”

“It’s none of his business and that’s the problem. It’s no one’s business.”

“Then don’t tell him.”

I gave him a dirty look in the mirror but he shrugged it off.

“I’ve seen enough of those as a healer that they don’t bother me. Don’t tell him. Let the claiming vows do it.”

My spine stiffened at the mention of that particular part of meeting my true-mate. I wasn’t a prude. Never been a prude. Had a reserved period after everything happened but never a prude. I’d been around enough to knock up Melon and then have a few other playmates while she nested with Kelp. If it were just sex and mating, he wanted, I’d give it to him.

“Are you worried about having too many kids at once?” Izora asked.

“No,” I shook my head. “Hey. Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay? Can you do me a favor and make a reason to video call Melon tonight? Just get eyes on the egg, alright? I know Castor will be home but just---”

“You don’t have to explain that one, Cas. I’ll look in on your egg. Melon and Kelp are capable but the more eyes the better. I agree. Now, have fun, okay? It’s okay to live a little. You’re only this you once.”

***

I didn’t need another excuse to leave the cave. The nights were cooling rapidly and purple leaves spotted many of the trees along the path. The masked ball was being held at Starlight Hall, a rather large meeting place just outside the purple district. It was an all-invited but all adult event. Still, they called it a ball. So I got out the coat and the tie. The latter always tried to choke me the fuck to death, but I wore it anyway. Some ‘Moony’ habits died hard. I almost hunted down a top hat to be a bit extra but decided seeing Tritus for the second time at the ball was extra enough for anyone involved.

“Some of those wannabe high class parties were fun back on Earthside,” my dragon poked at me. “Someone always wanted to leave and hook up instead. Someone was always willing to relocate the host’s car a couple hundred miles from where it was parked. Someone was ---”

He hadn’t ran out of memories to cite but I’d ran out of patience to listen to his rambling inner monologue. Moving the host’s car was one of Ren’s favorite things to do if a party ran boring or if someone was a bit too rude. Did she still do that? Part of me liked to imagine her out there stealing cars and gently putting them down on the tippy-top peaks of mountains. Maybe she had a hoard of stolen cars now. Maybe she emptied out the drug dealers into the Thames and ----

I shook my head. I was too close to Starlight Hall to think about that now. Poor Ren. My poor, poor Ren. The her-colored star-shaped scale on my chest ached. For her? For Tritus? For the life I might’ve had if not for --- Well, not for everything.

I wasn’t the only party goer to fly in as a dragon. Two other alpha guys landed on the far side of the landing field not all that far from Starlight Hall. I double-checked that the shifting back and forth hadn’t eaten my shoes or tie and headed to the paved lilac stone path that led to the ball. Music thrummed inside Starlight Hall. It vibrated the ground under our feet as me and the other two fell in line with those proceeding inside. I sniffed the air for anyone familiar. Sunny would be here somewhere. Teddy too – maybe.

“If Sunny is here. Teddy will be, too, probably. Maybe. I don’t know anymore.”

I hadn’t told any of the crew besides Izora about what happened with Tritus.

“Nothing happened to talk about. We smelled him – barely. He had on that damn spray. He smelled us. We made the delivery and asked him out on a date. You should’ve kissed him. You should’ve let me out to kiss but NO! You couldn’t do that.”

He rolled his massive eyes as I followed the line to the steps of Starlight Hall. From what I understood about the building it was supposed to be similar to a governor’s mansion back on Earthside. Only the leaders of Starscale 1 didn’t live here. Didn’t even work here. They basically gave it over to the council and it was used for whatever they thought was best for the flight.

My heart thrummed behind my tie. Tritus would be here. He had to be here. We’d agreed, hadn’t we? Well, not in so many words but he’d be here. Right?

“Calm down. He’ll be here. He’s probably more confused than you are.”

“I hope he gets used to feeling like that. It’s not like I can tell him.”

“Shush up about it for now, okay? We did what we had to. If anyone will understand that, it’ll be the Starscales. Leave it be. Find some whiskey and leave it be,” my dragon tried giving me a pep talk.

“Casimir?” Someone called out my name and I froze mid step.

I was on the fourth step from the entrance to Starlight Hall when his voice wrapped around me. On the third, I nearly stumbled when his scent joined his voice in the air. No white, feathered mask with a long tilted up trunk for a nose could hide Tritus from me. Nothing would ever hide him from me again.

I shook my head.

He wasn’t trying to hide from me. It was a masked ball. It was their harvest celebration. The farmers or whatever they called them here had been hard at work to ensure we had enough food to last the winter. This was one of the many parties to celebrate all their hard work and all the land that the Starscale worlds had blessed the flight with. I let out a long, slow breath.

The woman behind me cleared her throat and I almost snapped at her. Her friend tugged her arm, and they stepped around me. She gave me a dirty look and I fought off the urge to flip her the bird.

“Excuse us,” Tritus said to the dragons around us. “We only just met this afternoon.”

One of the dragons behind me let out a wolf whistle and my dragon reared back inside his inner sanctum. I was going to burn his fucking head off. I was going to tear it from his body and parade his charred head around on a Frost-damned spike.

“Mate,” Tritus said gently. “It’s all in good fun. It’s good natured.”

“I’ll---”

He glanced over his shoulder at the dragons squeezed inside the harvest ball and shook his head. He didn’t want to go back inside with all the bodies pressed close together. I smirked. He worried I’d start a fight. Instead of heading toward the party he reached out for my hand. I almost didn’t give it to him. I almost backed down the steps and that might’ve been the best thing for both of us. It might’ve stopped everything in its tracks and saved the whole Frost-damned night. Only, I had to take his hand. That was moving on. Moving on was taking his hand in mine and letting him lead me to wherever the locals ran off to.

The tall, pink-haired, dragon still in the line wolf whistled again. I dropped Tritus’s hand and decked him. My knuckles throbbed as scales exploded to cover them and he swung back. I ducked, coming up while he was still off balance from the missed punch and tackled him. We slid down the stairs, grabbing and tugging at each other, skinning my knees and calves on the stones – his back couldn’t have felt much better. The crowd gasped, turning like a many headed beast.

“CASIMIR!” Tritus shouted but I couldn’t stop.

Pinky swung at me again. This punch caught my chin. Another explosion of scales. Then I punched him, holding onto his chest hair for leverage. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and tie tonight. Too bad for him. It might’ve saved him the free plucking I gave out while I beat his ass.

“CASIMIR!” Another voice cut in.

Not Tritus.

Someone younger.

Teddy.

Fuck!

Why couldn’t it have been Sunny? He’d have kept it to himself at least.

I punched the dragon again. He blocked with his forearm and both of our flesh pushed up more scales to defend us.

“It was a joke, buddy,” he laughed, and I punched him again.

Something hit my side hard, knocking me off the laughing, pink-haired dragon and pinning me to the ground. I grunted Teddy’s name, but it wasn’t Teddy. The person pinning me down with their knee was Tritus. I grunted at him to get off me, but he didn’t budge up. He waved away the pink-haired, whistling asshole. He trotted up the stairs, laughing as he joined his friends. He’d be sore in the morning, but it wasn’t a draconic party unless someone got punched.

“Is he okay, Tritus?” Teddy’s voice rang out above the chaos.

Someone else was shooing the other partygoers inside. Sunny’s scent joined the fray, and I bucked up gently against my mate. He moved his knee and flipped me onto my back.

“Guides are taught how to handle cave-dragons. He’s young. He’s dumb. He was having fun. He only did it a second time to get under your skin. It’s a familiar game: prod the alpha who just met his omega.”

“I’ll pro—” I stopped, thinking better of what I was about to say.

“No mounting for dominance, dumbass,” Sunny said, standing above us akimbo.

“Did you two just respond?” Teddy asked, nudging Sunny back and stepping in front of him.

“Not just now,” Tritus said, straddled over me.

He moved my hands to his thighs as if that might keep them busy. I missed the next few things Teddy and Sunny said. Under his pitch-black half-robe his thighs were muscular, and those muscles flexed under my hands.

“Is that true?” Sunny asked me.

When I didn’t answer, he squatted down as if I couldn’t hear him and asked me again.

“Is what true, Sunny?” I sighed.

Tritus’s hands found mine and my dragon swallowed down the fireball he had been considering shooting out.

“Did you respond to Tritus earlier in the day?” Teddy asked.

“Yeah. Had some stuff to do. To get ready,” I shrugged. “Some—”

“Don’t worry about my honor,” Tritus flashed them his well-practiced guide smile. “We’re together now and as long as the hatchlings don’t play their silly, little games it’ll be alright.”

“We’ll let the captain know,” Teddy said before Sunny could speak and pulled the other dragon away before I could ask where their masks were.

The line of partygoers moved at its own pace, but Tritus didn’t budge, and I didn’t try to make him either. I drew circles on his thighs with my thumbs, ignoring how hard I was from touching so much of him.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” I said when I couldn’t stand the silence buzzing in my ears any longer.

“You didn’t,” Tritus shook his head. “I’m a hard dragon to embarrass. Perhaps it was a bigger deal back on Earthside but here that’s not really much. It’s more common on 2 but it happens here too. You didn’t go for the kill. That’s all that matters in the broader scheme of things. At least to the flight.”

“Punching him felt good,” I shrugged.

“I’m sure he felt the same about you,” Tritus chuckled as the line dwindled down to nothing and the last of the partygoers slipped inside Starlight Hall. “Is that why you’re a closed book? You like to fight?”

“Never much liked it. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean I like it.”

“That’s not contrarian at all,” Tritus said, furrowing his brows together. “Not one little bit.”

“I can fight. I can break things. I’m a dragon.”

“So your dragon likes to fight?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying ‘No, he likes to fuck.’

“You should say it,” my dragon chimed into my thoughts but I shook him off.

Fucking led to the claiming vows and that wasn’t going to happen. At least not tonight. Not until I found some way for him not to see--- Well, anything.

“I can’t read your mind,” Tritus said, moving his hands to rest on my chest. “I can’t even pick up your thoughts over the flight link. It’s unnerving. While we’re training to be guides, we’re taught a bit of that but not even we’re good enough to shut it down like that.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked him, searching out his eyes for answers.

“I hope not,” he said, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Though, problems are meant to be overcome or incorporated as not problems. I know you Moonys seem to think every problem can break the world but you’re a Starscale too now and we solve our problems and we find middle grounds.”

“And if you can’t find them?” I asked.

“Then we bloody build them, mate. You think these three worlds were just waiting out here for us? We made space for ourselves.”

As he spoke, he lifted one of my hands from his knee and placed it over the baby blue star scale over his heart. My knuckles were still dotted with scales from fighting the whistler.

“We’ll make room for you too,” he said when I didn’t say anything.

Tritus shifted positions, until he lay mostly on top of me with his legs resting between mine and his head over my Ren-colored star scale.

“It’s not about Melon. We were never end game. It’s not even about her mate. I don’t trust them to guard the egg. I don’t even trust Castor to do that and I should given the state of affairs.”

“What about me? Do you trust me?” he asked.

I wanted to say yes. I should’ve said yes. The Starscale Dragon Flight trusted him to guard pieces of draconic souls and the flight’s long history. He was trustworthy. Hell, he even smelled trustworthy.

“It’s not always easy to trust strangers,” Tritus said.

“We’re not strangers. I’m not going to retell lore to a keeper of the past, but you know it.”

“It’s not lore, mate,” he said, pushing himself up enough to meet my gaze. “It’s real. Both of us have seen enough to know that. I don’t mind the word lore but I need to know that you understand the stuff in between lives is just as real, if not realer, than this life. That stuff between lives is who we are as an accumulation of all our lives.”

“Like I said, we’re not strangers. That’s the hard part, huh? Some time and some place that wasn’t here or Earthside we knew each other and chose each other and now I think you’ll regret that.”

He huffed and a ring of smoke wafted out of his nose. I fanned it away as he straddled me again. His eyes were darker now as they narrowed in on me.

“We have to talk about this.”

“About what?” I asked.

“I happen to think highly of myself and my judgement. Unlike a lot of dragons, I know what my other lives have been like. I know the folly I’ve fallen into. I know what we’ve gotten up to. We’ve made good choices and not so good choices but the choice to be together isn’t and will never be something I regret.”

“You know all our past lives?” I blinked at him.

“Probably not all of them but a lot of them,” he nodded. “I know enough. I know what I need to know.”

“And that is?”

“I know the man I chose. I know the dragon I love. Everything else is just a tangled thread to unravel and weave into what we need it to be this time around. So, we can go back to your place, or we can go to my place.”

“Not to the party, huh?” I teased him.

“Not the party because someone wants to fight an awful lot for a dragon who claims he doesn’t like it. You can’t punch your way out of this. You can’t clobber some heckling asshole instead of telling me what’s up. You can but I’m not going back in there tonight. Not because I’m embarrassed but because it’s not where we’re supposed to be. There’s a reason so many newly met mates sequester away together. My place is probably more private and we’re gonna need privacy.”