TWENTY-FOUR
Morgan stood in the castle’s backyard and gaped at the hundreds of people milling about. Except for a sports venue, she’d never seen so many people in one spot. And she had to find a place for all of them to stay? Tonight?
How was she going to feed everyone? There were even children, families. Tor told her these were now her people; she had the fortunate luck of mating the first born Drachen. She didn’t recall reading this in the mating agreement.
The ground shook and many in the crowd lifted their noses into the air. Morgan did the same, but didn’t smell anything but fresh air and maybe outdoor scents. From the forest, dragon Tor and dragon Jae dragged out dinner for their guests. Cheers went up from the camp.
Large fire pits had been constructed and Morgan now understood what they were for. Cooking the meat. She also realized why the Drachen family owned so much land around the castle. It was to be the people’s homes. But what were they going to do while the homes were being built. Houses didn’t go up overnight.
Saying she was a bit stressed was an understatement.
Nana made her way through the crowd toward her. Seeing the older woman gave her relief. Nana would know what to do. Morgan ran to her and threw her arms around her in-law. She meant to greet her with words of being missed and glad to have them home, but what came out was “What do I do with all these people?”
The elderly woman laughed. “Don’t you worry about anything. They know how to survive and aren’t pampered into believing they ‘deserve’ to have nice things just because they were born. They work for what they get.”
“What are we going to do? Have them camping outside until homes are built?” Morgan asked.
Nana frowned. “Well, that’s not an ideal solution since they don’t have any type of covering. I’ll talk with the clan leaders to see what they think. Maybe the children can sleep inside on the floors—”
“The cold stone floors?” Morgan said in disbelief. “You can’t put children on that to sleep. They’ll get sick.”
“Morgan, honey, we’re dragons,” Nana said. “We don’t get sick by sleeping on the floor.”
Right. Dragons. Not sure how she could’ve forgotten that, but for a moment, Morgan had. “No. I have a better idea. I’ll talk to Mom. When her father passed away, he left her an apartment building he’d built from the ground up.
“Mom didn’t sell it. She recently vacated the building to renovate it, but it’s not like it’s in bad condition. She was just going to upgrade all the apartments and sell them as condos. But now…” she tapped her chin.
Nana raised her brows, staring at her curiously. “Now?”
Morgan grinned. “I think this is perfect for that building. We can furnish the rooms and there are about a hundred apartments they can all share. Nobody has to sleep outside. I’ll have Mom arrange for bedding.” She squeezed Nana’s hands. “Okay, I feel better now.”
Nana laughed. “You’re a gem, Morgan. But they could have slept on the stone floor.”
She gave Nana a horrified look. “Children? Over my dead body! Anyway, that’s settled. We are so glad you’re back. Everything go well?” At that second, a two-foot-tall light green dragon dashed past the two women.
Lexi’s voice rang from the castle. “Morgan, grab your child before he destroys anything else!”
Nana gasped. “Noah,” she called out. Hearing her voice, the little drangonling tried to stop suddenly and tripped over his feet, falling, then rolling on the ground. He twisted onto his stomach like he did in human form to get his legs under him and stand. Poor little guy had yet to learn that dragon arms were much shorter in relation to the body than human limbs. He had his feet under him, but with short arms straight down, his forehead was still on the ground. He didn’t have enough core strength to lift his top half.
Her baby dragon froze in the “downward-facing dog” yoga position, not knowing what to do. His little growl was as cute as anything. Morgan covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smile.
Nana called to him. “Put your tail straight out, Noah. Let it tip you backward.” When the boy didn’t move, a memory of the morning he went missing crossed her mind.
“Noah,” Morgan said, “stick out the snake.”
His tiny tail popped straight out behind him and his body started tipping backward, and as soon as his butt hit the grass, he took off for Nana. When he called out for his grandmother, a high-pitched rawr left his mouth. He immediately stopped, almost tripping over his feet again.
He tilted his head to the side. “Rawr?” he said quietly. Her little dragonling looked at Morgan and Nana, and Morgan swore the kid was smiling. His tiny green feet went into double time racing to them. “Rawr, rawr, rawr!”
Beside her, Nana said, “He’s just like his great-great-whatever-grandfather. So cute until he hit age 956. Then he lost his hair, but I still loved him.” Nana let out a big sigh. Then scooped up Morgan’s precious little dragon.
“Rawr, rawr, rawr.” Short arms flailed like he was telling an awesome adventure to Nana. When his head turned to the side and his tail flipped up, Morgan knew he was telling her about his snake.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. She leaned closer to the older woman. “Nana, you don’t really understand him, do you? I mean do they—is there a dragon language?”
“No, dear,” the grandmother said, “but he doesn’t know that, yet.” Morgan wanted to fall down laughing at how damn cute that was. “In his mind, he’s hearing every word his human brain is saying.” She turned back to the tot in her arms. “Is that right?”
Noah nodded.
“He shifted sometime yesterday morning,” Morgan told her.
Nana’s head whipped back to her. “Yesterday morning? Has he eaten anything?” she asked her voice full of concern.
“Well,” she replied with embarrassment, “besides me feeding him animal crackers, he doesn’t eat much. Stuff has a tendency to fall out of his mouth.”
“What about drinking? Has he had any liquid in the past twenty-four hours?”
Morgan’s head dipped lower. She had to be the worst mother ever. “We, uh, turned the water hose on and he put his head under it.” She cringed more. “I didn’t know what to do. He wouldn’t shift back to human and I couldn’t let him starve or get dehydrated. We took him for walks when it was time, to…you know.”
“I understand, but you should have told me the moment I got back. He’s not a dog or a house animal, this is a baby.” Nana shook her head.
Morgan’s guilt rose till she had tears in her eyes. “I know. I was distracted by all the people. I didn’t mean to walk him like a dog. He’s my baby, but I couldn’t have him doing nature on the castle floor, could I? Diapers didn’t fit right.”
“I bet he loved being outside,” Nana sighed.
“He did. It helped me feel less like the worst mother on the planet,” she sobbed.
Nana gave her a soft smile. “Oh, honey don’t cry. Really. Don’t feel that way, Morgan. I can tell you’ve been incredibly upset and stressed over this, but it’s not as bad as you’re thinking.”
Morgan sniffled, wiping at the tears going down her cheeks. “It’s not?”
“It’s all going to be fine.” Nana bounced the little one in her arms. “Nana’s here and we’ll have you back in your human form in no time. I really thought he wouldn’t shift so quickly after my dream. I’m getting old. We need to keep an eye on the other older ones. Once their inner dragons realize they can come out, they’ll be popping shortly after.”
Morgan wiped the moisture from her face and dried her eyes. The last thing she needed was anyone else noticing her tears.
Lexi joined them at that moment. “Isn’t he the cutest baby dragon you’ve ever seen?”
“Not to mention the only baby dragon you’ve ever seen?” Morgan said.
Tor and Clacher had delivered the fresh kill to the camp and were headed their way. Morgan called out to him in the distance, “What did Kermit’s mom say to his father when Kermit became a full-fledged frog?”
Tor’s brows came down like he thought she was a crazy woman and shook his head. Morgan smiled, then said, “Your son is green. Be proud.”
Tor’s eyes bugged when seeing who Nana was holding, then picked up his pace. Little lizard arms reached out for him when he and Clacher were close. “Rawr-rawr,” her baby said.
Her mountain of a husband melted. Morgan fell more in love with both her little and big guys.
Clacher met his mate with a kiss. Lexi grinned at him. “Have you been in touch with Ker since yesterday?”
“No,” he said with a frown. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Neither Morgan and I can reach Tiana nor Ker. We were checking on them since Tiana was really upset yesterday morning when they left. Wanted to see if they’d come to dinner tonight.”
Clacher looked to the side for a moment. Morgan anxiously waited as he and Tor tried to communicate with their youngest brother telepathically.
Tor said, “No, he’s not responding.”
“What does that mean?” Morgan asked.
Nana said, “He’s either sleeping or unconscious.”
“Unless he’s been sleeping most of the day, then…” Lexi looked worried. Morgan felt the same, but she’d been with her transformed son all day and more concerned with him turning into his human form. She prayed Nana could do what she said and get him back.
But now she worried about her brother-in-law, too. Could something have happened to him? Why couldn’t either brother reach him?