Ian leaned over Geoffrey to kiss Matthieu on his nose. “I dare you to,chaton.”
Matthieu narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Geoffrey beat him to it. “What do you know of Snorre Jormun?”
“Me? Absolutely nothing.” Matthieu propped himself up on one arm. “But he sounds interesting. How is it that I’ve never heard of the oldest dragon alive?”
“I think Geoff was asking me, kitten. And not much. I remember Snorre being notorious. Didn’t he defile a royal garden somewhere?”
“He urinated in one of the gardens in the Forbidden City, yes. But that was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think what really upset the council were his lovers.”
Matthieu blinked several times. “Lovers? Did he have many? Were they scandalous in some way?”
“I’m not sure of the number of lovers, but I know he had multiple. I always wondered how Ingrid, his mate, could tolerate the others.”
“No, that’s not right,” Ian said. “I remember this. Snorre’s mate is male, not female. I’m trying to remember his name, but I’m positive it wasn’t Ingrid. Something Asian, but it escapes me. I just remember it being mentioned in passing once when I was speaking with Erik Jormun.”
“I don’t understand. Did his mate die? Did he find a second one?” Matthieu asked, his voice tinged with a bit of wonder, and also sorrow. Dragons often didn’t survive long after the death of a mate.
Geoffrey hummed. “Well, no and yes. If the rumors I’ve heard are to be believed, Snorre mated over four hundred years ago to Yinju, back when the council was headquartered in Beijing and the leader was from the Gold clan, but Ingrid still lives.”
Matthieu stiffened against Geoffrey’s side while Ian let out a soft gasp. “He abandoned her? No wonder he’s shunned.”
“As to that,” Geoffrey said, “No. What made Snorre so controversial wasn’t that he abandoned one mate and took another… it was that he took a second while keeping the first.”
“That’s not possible,” Ian protested.
“You can’t have more than one mate,” Matthieu added. He paused, then said thoughtfully, “At least, that’s what we were told. But that wasn’t the complete truth, is it?”
“Geoff, are you serious? Is it possible to have two mates at once?” Ian tried to keep his voice level and calm, but Geoffrey could hear the eagerness and excitement bubbling beneath the surface.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Geoffrey said.
“Opals. Aren’t they from Scandinavia? Will we get to see some fjords?” Matthieu sounded rather intrigued by the idea, and Geoffrey made up his mind to make time for travel. Ian was always pestering him to go places, and Matthieu clearly wished to see more of the world.
Geoffrey kissed Matthieu in apology. “One day we’ll go see the fjords, I promise, as well as anything else you wish to see. For now, though, a trip across town will have to do. It just so happens that Snorre is currently living in the Opal consulate with Erik.”
“Why on earth is Snorre living with Erik?” Ian asked, flabbergasted.
“I believe,” Geoffrey said, “that he said it was his turn to mind the old bastard.”
17
Matthieu
A colorful ball of feathers flapped and honked wildly at the windshield of Ian’s cherry-red SRT Hellcat as it rolled out of the garage. The bird—if something so outraged and affronted could be considered an animal at all—gripped the windshield wipers with his dinosaur-like talons and pecked angrily at the glass.
Tap tap tap. Tap-tap!
“Bugger,” Ian muttered—a colloquialism he seemed to have picked up from Geoffrey. “Killian is upset again, darling.”
“I promised him a sweater,” Geoffrey murmured. He leaned forward as far as his seatbelt would allow and tried to shoo the bird away with his hands. His attempts were less than successful. Killian stopped pecking long enough to glare at Geoffrey, then hopped across the trim molding to Geoffrey’s side of the car and continued his attempts to shatter the windshield and murder them all. “With everything else going on, I forgot to take time to make one. Of course he’s going to be mad. Bellamy pecked apart the one I made Killian for Christmas, and I told Killian I’d make him another. He’s well within his right to be upset. It’s been months. I’m a terrible father.”
Matthieu, who watched from the back seat, narrowed his eyes. “You knit sweaters for birds?”
“Goodness, no,” Geoffrey chuckled. “I have no patience for knitting.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise Matthieu. “Oh, well, of course—”
“I crochet.”
