“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Varis said. He cleared his throat and held his head aloft, as if he’d not been interrupted in the prospect of coitus.
“You’re not as fun as Asha. He blushes and stammers and runs off when I interrupt him and Rath.” Lapryda huffed. “When I find my mate, they will adore being seen under me. I assure you.”
“I’m new to the whole dragon thing, I’ll be honest. And I’m not ashamed. I’m flustered and attempting to start off on a good foot with my brother-in-law whom has denied me my day’s first arrival.” Varis glared at the male and earned a glorious smile, full of pearly fangs and bright eyes glittering.
“Oh, Ghreid! He’s perfect.” Lapryda rose to his feet and slid over, hands extended to cup the male’s cheeks, lifting Varis’s face up for a long stare. “Kalimanian! Those cheekbones… Dead giveaway.”
Varis raised a brow as Lapryda turned his face left and right. “Before you find your dragon, do us all a favor and haveSlatharpaint you, fair creature.”
“I’m not very fair complected at all.” Varis waved the male off as Ghreid beamed, the broad smile making Varis’s heart warm.
“No, but you are delicate in such a fine way I wish to have captured. Such clothes I will find for you, beautiful new brother.” Lapryda lifted Varis’s hand for a sweet kiss and raised it high for a twirl and pat of wandering hands that made Varis huff with surprise. “And what a seat you have.”
“Excuse me?” Varis pulled away, cheeks heating.
“Lapryda is rather handsy. He means nothing by it. It doesn’t raise my jealousy… I rather like him admiring my treasure.” Ghreid pulled Varis into his side for a nuzzle to the top of his head.
“Can he admire me without his hands, please? You may not mind your brother touching me, but I do. I feel immensely…uneasy. It feels as if I am committing some form of infidelity.” Varis shuddered.
“I admire with my eyes. I measure a body with my hands. My touch was perfunctory, I promise. I merely happen to eke sexual deviancy by breath alone. It is my curse.” Lapryda grinned.
“That’s Falustus. You’re appropriating the wrong sin, Brother.” Ghreid laughed.
“What is pride but appropriation of the talents of others?” Lapryda flicked his tongue in a way that should have been sexual, but the gesture seemed rather flippant, perhaps a social gesture that Varis would have to grow accustomed to.
“Wait, so all your brothers are sins? What abou— Oh.” Varis puzzled. Surely one of the brothers… Galatan? “Gala—”
“Gluttony.” Lapryda took a seat once more and examined his nails and hems as if the travel there had done great damage to them.
“Gala—ton—” Varis puzzled over the syllables and made sense of it. The shift of things from Elander to Kalish in his mind was near seamless. After all, he could even think in Elander, which was the sign of a language mastery, but some nouns still eluded him. Surely he couldn’t know anything, and even Elander speakers found new words daily for things? Varis banished the thought.
“I am not naming a child after a sin.” Varis waved them off. “If this is tradition, it ends with you.”
“We are each born in tradition and from seven great dragons, our souls came. We took not their names as mantle, as some do, but their embodiment. The thing each of us bears a skill with. I am skilled with pride, and your mate with greed. We take sins and make blessings.” Lapryda sighed fondly. “And I make sins look good.”
“They should have named you Arrogance.” Varis smiled and did not find any malice in the gesture. He genuinely liked the brother, as he felt like kin in his heart.
“But you are Avarice.” Lapryda’s grin was sinful in and of itself.
“Then what is Asha to Rath?” Ghreid huffed.
“A healing balm to his massive ego.” Lapryda waved his hand and deepened that grin, eyes glimmering. “But still… Let’s go see these mysterious silks!”
Varis’s heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t sure why he still wanted to focus on the things. The moment he had Ghreid, they seemed pointless, had fallen to the back of his mind. But there Lapryda was, ready to open them. “As you wish, Lord Dragon.”
“Please, young one. Call mebrother.” Lapryda rose to full height and held his hand out to escort the male away. Ghreid followed in tow.
Chapter Twelve
Ghreid
They sat in his cellar, staring at the leaden casket. With a careful application of heat over a dragon’s claw, Lapryda slit the seal around the casket, picking it apart to open with a hiss of stale air, inundated with fragrant herbs.
Not that Ghreid expected to see the cloth first, but the first thing he saw when opening the cask was a fold of paper piled with lavender and cypress to keep any gnawing pests and rot away. Lapryda nodded in approval as he settled the lid to the side and gently lifted the cloth one corner at a time to separate it from the contents. A layer of linen lay beneath that, gauzy and fine. That too slipped away as Lapryda leaned over the first of the silks.
“Goodness…” Lapryda pulled away and threw the cloth back over the pile before glancing around anxiously. “I need a clean bedsheet and to wash my hands.”
Ghreid fetched the bedsheet as requested and Lapryda returned, hands scrubbed nearly raw as he pulled the cloth away once more and stared at a roll of silk with such a fine sheen to it that the violent purple of it reflected other colors, purple a sea of violet and blue, a shimmer like magic that had nothing to do with the skill of power, and everything to do with the skill of a master.
