“Really?” Kyle gives Bazzi a finger to wrap his chubby fist around as he points out, “Clyde is light and really rolls off the tongue.”
“Yeah, Clyde has a nice ring to it,” Clyde agrees with no irony whatsoever in his voice. “Basileios is some kind of tongue twister, and almost as heavy as not-so-little Bazzi-Baz himself.”
“Okay, well…” I quickly return to the previous topic before Clyde decides to threaten to call my parents if I don’t give in to his unreasonable request. “I just need some time with Damianos before my dads descend on this house and make this a huge thing.”
“Maybe because it is a huge thing?” Kyle points out. “You’ve mated and imprisoned their mortal enemy. Keeping it a secret…”
“Is the only way to keep us all safe,” I finish before he can.
“How is keeping a maniac who wants to kill all of us the safe choice?” Clyde demands. “You said it yourself, he’s been digging around inside my, Akwasi’s, and who knows who all else’s head. For all I know, he’s going to call me in there tonight to let him out of those cuffs.”
“I don’t think he will. I’m sure that mental connection was broken,” I answer, keeping my reassurance short. I still haven’t shared with them the full story about there being not one but two Damianoses. “And even if he does, that’s why I put the lock with the code only I know on the door. As long as you don’t look at the piece of paper with the code, we should be fine.”
Kyle shakes his head. “I want to be a King Poppa more than anything, but this feels dangerous. What if you’re wrong about him and everybody pays the price?”
Kyle has no idea how many times I’ve gone into hose food down my mate’s throat and wondered the same thing. But I keep my face stoic as I reply, “I’m not wrong. The dragon I fell in love with is in there. I know he is. And I promise you, everything’s going to be okay. I just need some more time.”
Kyle and Clyde exchange a look. Then Kyle decrees, “One more week. That’s all we can give you.”
“Thank you,” I say, even as I note he still speaks like a king. Possibly because instead of taking early retirement as planned, he’s been sitting in for the queen who disappeared on the night of her coronation.
I hold the baby whose full name I’m still having a hard time pronouncing close, seeking as much comfort as I’m giving. By the Fenrir wolf, what a mess. And I’m still not sure how I’m going to solve it.
But I’ve got to solve it. I made a promise, and I never break my promises.
Also, I believe every word of what I said to my uncles. Other Damianos and the one lying in the kingdom house’s master suite…they don’t act like the same person, and they for damn sure don’t treat me the same.
But the dragon who treasured me like solid gold is inside the one who was practically spitting venom when he finally woke up for real. He has to be. And I’ve got to find him.
For Bazzi’s sake and that of everybody I love.
Chapter Four
FENRIS
“I have brought a gift, just for you!”
Fenris held up the little yellow she-wolf, still sleeping as she had been for much of their trip from the village to the woods. Then he waited for his mate’s delighted reaction.
But it never came.
“Fenris, what is that?” she asked.
“Why it is a pup…” he furrowed his brow. Wasn’t that obvious? Also, why was she not rushing to his gift and cooing as she so often had over their subject’s newborns back when they lived in the kingdom village?
“She was brought to our village by a childless ever maid who had decided to take on a young pregnant girl as her servant,” he told Chloe. “The servant died in childbirth. And the ever maid was too old to take care of herself, much less a baby—which is why she had been desperate enough to take a pregnant servant into her home. But then the ever maid remembered the program you had announced across the land when you were queen of the North Wolves, and she brought the baby to our kingdom village to be adopted. Thus, is she ours now.”
This should be the place where Chloe jumped up and down with delight.
But she neither jumped nor danced. Only continued to stare at him.
“Ours?” she repeated in her heavily accented North Wolves tongue. “Would no one else take her?”
“Oh no, that is not the case at all,” Fenris answered, realizing she must believe the newborn to have some defect. “She is a kind little pup. Very docile and gentle. Many of the heatless she-wolves vied to take her in as their own daughter. Randulfsson thanked me mightily when I insisted she should be ours, as this was the first orphan he had received as fenrir of the North Wolves, and he had no idea how to make such a decision…”