Chapter 10

Chapter

Ten

W ade was freaking out.

He figured he had to try to be calm, cool, and collected for Morgan's sake, because Morgan was this close to a meltdown.

They still had power. They still had…incoming internet, as it were. But their phones weren't calling out, and their emails just kept bouncing.

They were cut off. Period.

And while Morgan slept, he and Daniel took turns tying ropes around their waists and trying to go outside, and to go explore past the hoard rooms in the old adobe.

Going outside didn't work at all, but the rooms in the adobe? Those were real—they had books, jewels, stores of food. Every time they found something new, it felt as if they were falling deeper down the rabbit hole.

"Who do you think this belongs to?" Wade asked, whacking a big carton that sat in the middle of one of the rooms. It looked like one of those wooden crates you saw in the movies, the ones they put on ships.

Daniel snorted. "If I knew that, I would feel a great deal better. None of it looks familiar to you?"

"No. Yesterday I saw a bookshelf that looked like the one from my apartment. You know, the one I used to have in London?"

"That was a century ago. Where did all that detritus go?"

"I have no idea. I had to leave it all behind and run, remember?" Eventually living in a city caused a dragon to have to flee.

"So…want to open it?"

"You're not serious, man." He raised a brow at Daniel. These things always contained the ark of the covenant or something.

"I absolutely am. Let's open it up. It's in our house, isn't it?"

"Ours." He had to let the other eyebrow lift.

"It is. I'm stuck in here. I get to have part of it."

Wade stopped, hands held up. "You have a point. I don't think that Morgan would argue."

"No, I don't think he would either. He always liked me." Daniel's eyes twinkled, the challenge there clear.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Wade rolled his eyes, but Daniel had a point. "Should we get a crowbar?"

Daniel put his ear up to the box. "I've seen Creepshow . I was around in the '80s. I want to make sure no weird man-eating monkey from the Arctic comes out of the box."

"We are not archaeologists. No one is going to ship a man-eating monkey from the Arctic." He hoped. For all that, Wade had his own worries about it. Shit, he worried about everything now that he had a pregnant mate.

"Yeah, are you willing to bet a finger on it?" Daniel asked.

Wade had to think about that. "What do I get if I win? It seems like it would have to be worth a pinky finger."

"Well, whatever I offer you, it has to be here in this house…"

He pondered this a little longer. "Yeah, you're right. There's just really nothing that you can bet me that is worth a pinky finger. That kind of sucks. I guess you can bet me your hoard. Wait, what did you hoard?"

"Diamonds. I have tons of them. Had. Well, tons is a bit of an exaggeration, but I have enough to get me through almost any economic downturn. Even before there was money, people liked shiny things."

Humans were like crows that way. They did like things that sparkled in the sunlight.

Dragons, on the other hand, could hoard dryer lint or such as long as it was theirs. They just didn't care. As long as they owned it. And provided that the hoard grew large enough over time.

Hoarding the things that humans liked was just a no-brainer, because then one could use what one had tucked away as money or whatever.

"So let's open the box." Daniel was actually bouncing with anticipation.

"God, you're such an asshole."

But Wade did want to open the box. He wasn't going stick his finger in, though, because what if there were spiders? If there were a bunch of spiders hiding in the corner, then they'd bite on him, and those under-the-scale bites itched .

"I am. Let's open the box. Now," Daniel said.

"Works for me."

They grinned wildly, then each grabbed a side of the crate and tugged.

They were dragons. They didn't need crowbars.

As they pulled, the crate creaked and cracked, and when the nails let loose, a shower of sharp, sparkly things filled the entire room, and—for a second—Wade thought it was glass. He ducked, because his human-form face was vulnerable to sharp things.

But then Daniel crowed, scooping up a handful of the brilliant sparkle. "This is my hoard. Look at you, beauties. Hello. Daddy missed you."

Wade realized there was a pile of diamonds on the floor, a significant pile of diamonds.

"How did all of those diamonds get into that little box?" Daniel asked.

It wasn't a little box; it was a significant crate. But still.

"Okay. How did all of those diamonds get into that significant crate?"

"Really good packing?" Daniel reached into the pile and pulled out a stone that glowed.

Suddenly, Wade could see it, see how this hoard sang to Daniel. It resonated with him.

Not that he had wanted it; he didn't care, but it was fascinating how happy Daniel was, now all these diamonds were here. They all vibrated together, almost making a humming sound that Wade felt at the back of his head.

"Well, congratulations. It's a bunch of bouncing baby shiny things." Wade deadpanned.

"Yeah, and it's mine." Daniel shrugged and actually kind of flushed pink. "I just…it's good to know that I have it."

"Of course it is." Wade understood that. "You know I'm just giving you hell, and I am kind of curious how all those diamonds got into that little crate."

"Significant."

"Right." He rolled his eyes. "What do you want to do with them? I mean, we can't just leave them here." It seemed—he didn't know—kind of tacky to just leave a bunch of diamonds lying about on the floor. It would be like stepping on Legos.

"Well, we kind of tore the crate to hell."

"Yes, we need some kind of a?—"

Wade realized that he had absolutely no idea what diamonds were kept in, exactly.

In the movies, they were kept in velvet bags, always in dark velvet bags, never in light velvet bags, or in things that were lined with dark velvet. "I don't suppose you know anyone who hoards dark velvet?"

"I need a few sets of drawers to start sorting them. I can fix them up however I need them."

"A few?" One of his eyebrows raised again. Daniel made that happen a lot. "You may need a few rooms…"

"Well, we have plenty of those." Daniel chuckled at him and rolled his eyes.

"No shit on that. Do you think there are going to be more rooms? It has to end sometime, doesn't it?" The expansion of the house was kind of a weird wonder, but it was also worrisome. What the fuck did it mean?

"Honestly? I don't know. It's…it's magic, right? It doesn't end." Daniel was a little wild about the eyes, and Wade could understand completely.

They were going to bring a baby into this insanity.

He and Daniel stared at each other, and he knew they were panicking in unison, forming a circle of utter worry.

It was Daniel who broke the spinning emotions by reaching out and shaking him good and hard. "Stop. I'm okay. You're okay. We're going to figure it out. The baby is going to be fine. We will figure this out. We're alpha dragons who have survived centuries. We'll get a grip on this."

"Do you promise?" Wade grabbed Daniel in turn.

"I swear to you. You've been my friend for centuries. I will never allow your child to be in distress. You have my word." Daniel took a deep, long breath and rolled his head on his shoulders. "But you let me worry about the rooms and all—you have to focus on Morgan. I don't think it's good for him to be scared, and worse, I'm not sure that it's good for the baby at all."

Wade nodded, because Daniel was right, of course. He needed to get his shit together for his mate.

Morgan's happiness was paramount because he was literally carrying the emotions of two beings right now. His mate was heavy with their child, growing their son, and there was no way that fear and unhappiness could make for a positive pregnancy.

"But how do I do it?" he murmured under his breath. "How can I possibly ease his fears when I'm terrified?"

"You trust in me. I've got your back, and together, the three of us will figure this out." Daniel managed to sound so very confident.

Wade was almost ashamed to argue. "Wendy couldn't figure it out. Morgan's brothers couldn't."

"But maybe they didn't know what they were getting into. We do. We can see that this magic is…is going somewhere. We just have to trust that it's going somewhere we can handle."

"Right, and if it isn't, then we stand together, and we defend the home." That was their job as alphas, after all, defend the omegas.

So Wade nodded to Daniel. "You're right. You and I will work at this together in private, and when I'm with Morgan? There is no fear." He made it a resolution, a vow, and for a moment Wade could swear he saw the words etched on the air.

"Exactly. There are enough of us. There doesn't need to be any fear."

They both knew that was a lie, but it was what it was.