“Tomorrow morning, beloved.” Ian thrust halfheartedly in an attempt to further plump the knot binding him to Geoffrey. “I’ve dined already. I’ll have something prepared for you in the meantime.”
“Mm.” Geoffrey yawned, then snuggled into Ian. Ian held him closer. “What would I do without you?”
Ian hummed thoughtfully. “Starve? Crumple beneath the stress of keeping your brothers out of trouble with the law? Spend your Friday nights crocheting campy novelty garments?”
“The boys need sweaters for the frigid winter months,” Geoffrey grumbled. “They’re not built for the cold. We’ve gone over this. It isimperativethat I supply them with clothing.”
“We found those tiny dog sweaters online that might work. I would buy them for you, you know.”
“The boys arenotdogs, Ian.” The tone of Geoffrey’s voice spoke of a nose wrinkled in disdain. “If they heard you say such things, they would be displeased. I wouldn’t even scold them for pecking you.”
Far from scolding the boys, Ian suspected that Geoffrey would be the one to egg them on, should they ever attack more than just his buttons or car upholstery. Geoffrey claimed he had no particular magical talent, but Ian, seeing how his love interacted with their little feathery brood, disagreed. There was something special there whether Geoffrey chose to acknowledge its existence or not.
Ian’s smile grew. He laid his head on the pillows and closed his eyes, letting the warmth of their encounter rush through him. After a long week, Geoffrey was back in his arms, and that was all that mattered.
“I love you, Geoffrey Drake,” Ian murmured. “The bed never feels right without you here in it.”
Geoffrey lifted Ian’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “And I, you.”
The feeling in Ian’s soul didn’t lie—Ian knew those words to be true.
If the years hadn’t managed to separate them, and their family’s hatred for each other hadn’t proved fierce enough to keep them apart, nothing would divide them. No man or reptile alive could keep Ian from the one he loved—from Geoffrey.
And woe be unto him who tried to prove otherwise.
1
Matthieu
“Matthieu Boudreaux. Do attend!”
Matthieu winced at the superintendent’s use of his last name. It was a purposeful slur, of course, as he was the only Matthieu in the room. To be human with a dragon surname meant only one thing, and Matthieu hated that it’d been thrown in his face his entire life, like his birth was a character flaw he could alter if only he tried hard enough. Matthieu couldn’t wait to be able to petition the court to have his name legally changed.
“Are you paying attention to me at all?” Superintendent Duran boomed.
He hadn’t been. What on earth was there to pay attention to? At twenty-four, Matthieu was a year away from aging out of the Pedigree, and he couldn’t wait. As far as Matthieu was concerned, there wasn’t a damn thing the superintendent could say that Matthieu needed to hear, or hadn’t already heard a million times.
“Disgrace,” he heard someone say in a carrying whisper. Probably Louis. He was such an ass-kissing douche.
Others snickered in response, as they always did. Like any of them were in better positions than he was, despite their untainted bloodlines. It had been two years since a dragon had deigned to visit their little cloister to inspect the Pedigree housed there for a potential mate. That had been one of the Emerald clan, in Southern France on holiday, and he had looked only at the girls and selected none of them.
Still, the lot of them seemed not only reconciled with being potential dragon sex chattel, but actually in favor of the idea. Matthieu didn’t get it, but it didn’t matter, because he would never in a million years be chosen by a dragon for anything at all. Most dragons didn’t like hiring Disgraces even to be servants, so Matthieu would more likely be struck by lightning than be selected by a dragon to be a consort womb.
Not that he wanted to be a disposable egg-laying chamber.
What he wanted was to move to Paris, go to the Sorbonne, and become an attorney. He just had to make it through one last year of draconian nonsense, and then he would be free. Granted, he’d be shuffled from the Pedigree to the Attendants, but one day he hoped to be free from that, as well.
Free from his name and the circumstances of his birth, and free from the rigid insanity of the constraints on his life.
And most of all, one day, free from dragons.
“Matthieu,” the superintendent barked out. “I asked you to attend.”
Ordered, more accurately, but Matthieu didn’t feel like arguing the point.
Again.
For the thousandth time.
