Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Is there lots weird?” Klynn sounded hopeful for that, so I was glad I could give him the answer he wanted.
“Oh yes.” Thank goodness. “When I was little, we were posted in a small European country. They had lots of fun stories about mythical creatures but we found out they were real when my friend from school accidentally shifted when she was playing over at my house.”
I’d been a know-it-all, so I remembered my first thought being that I had to look smart and not react to the girl who’d basically turned into a large cat-like creature when she’d fallen over my toys. Looking back, her control had not been good enough for her parents to have allowed her to go to my house, much less a private school with lots of humans.
“Oh.” Wrapping himself around me, Klynn yawned as his fears seemed to fade. “That’s like a book.”
Laughing softly, I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. At the time, I called my mother to my room and explained that my friend ripped her dress because she’d become a monster. Not polite, but I was a kid and a bit too blunt.”
I hadn’t really grown out of that but I had learned to bite my tongue.
“Kids do that.” Klynn rubbed my chest and gave it a pat. “It’s okay.”
“Thank you.” Kissing his head, I took his cue and started rubbing his back. “But that kind of opened the door into knowing more about the more interesting side of Earth and actually allowed my parents to have more opportunities in their work.”
Life was weird.
“Because they knew all the stuff and not just the human stuff.” Klynn thought it made perfect sense.
“That slowly led to them learning about different groups of people on Earth and not just the nonmagical variety.” The plain kind. My mother didn’t like that wording but it was accurate. “It actually explained some of the old family lore that they thought was just relatives who’d drunk too much.”
We’d all owed Great-Uncle Henry an apology if he’d been still alive at that point…he wasn’t nearly as nuts as everyone had thought he was.
“Now, I don’t think they know any dragons personally as friends, they’ve met a few over the years. They just don’t work closely with the government for the most part because our government made some questionable decisions in the past and they have long memories.”
Ridiculously long memories.
Governmental historians were still trying to figure out if the Hatfields and the McCoys were dragons or mages or just humans that made terrible decisions too.
“They’re going to see you as their son’s partner first and someone who’s from an interesting place second. But you won’t have to hide who you are or edit how you explain where you’re from.” Not from them. “And we’ll figure out a reasonable backstory for anyone who doesn’t need to know those details.”
Letting out a long breath, Klynn settled against me and I could feel the stress leaving his body. “I’d make a good Florida Man, Daddy, but I’m glad I can be me as long as they like that.”
“They will.” Giving him a tight hug, I dropped my voice to a growl. “I’ll show them what an angry dragon looks like if they don’t.”
He giggled, shaking his head. “No, Daddy. We gotta be nice.”
Huffing, I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to be a dragon. That means I get to do whatever I want and then eat people who make me angry.”
Giggling again, he gave a very human-sounding groan and hid his face against my chest. “No, Daddy. We’re nice dragons here. We’re not the crazy kind.”
Oh, they had their moments.
“I’ll try to remember that.” My sighed-out response got another snicker from him but he patted my chest and even gave me a kiss.
“Good boy, Daddy.” He thought that was hilarious. “Naughty naked Daddy.”
Yep.
But since that seemed to be interesting more than sexual, I did my best to ignore it. “Your naughty naked Daddy.”
He seemed to like that response and I got another peck before he settled back down, basically on top of me at that point. “Story time, Daddy?”
Yes, before he fell asleep.
“My turn.” Doing a happy wiggle like an excited little got another silly giggle from him, but he was starting to relax even more with every breath, so I didn’t distract him too much. “Tell me about the castles.”
Because that’d been a European fucking castle.
There were a few pieces that were different but the modifications looked like logical ones if it’d been designed for a society where half were dragons.
“Once upon a time. Because that’s how stories need to start, Daddy. Once upon a time a great mage king knew…he knew a big…what’s that bad thing word…a terrible catastrophe was coming. The best mages had seen it coming and the seers knew the world was ending.”