Xander, who worshipped his older brother with the blind devotion of a second-born who hadn’t yet figured out that he was slightly bigger, immediately abandoned his own food to check on Zayden. The two of them tumbled into a wrestling match that knocked over the water dish and sent Olivia into another bout of outraged squawking.
Four months of parenthood, and Riordan’s kitchen looked like a war zone twelve hours a day. The other twelve hours, the hatchlings slept—always in a pile, their small dragon bodies tangled together in a heap of scales and tails and tiny claws that somehow managed to be both the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing Riordan had ever seen.
“Jermon, can you?—”
His mate was in the doorway, one hand raised, purple magic shimmering around his fingers as he dangled a glowing orb above the wrestling match. Zayden and Xander both froze, their tiny heads tracking the light with predatory focus. They were genetically programmed to chase anything that moved, and their parents made use of that.
“Careful,” Riordan warned. “Last time you did that, you set the curtains on fire.”
“That was one time.” Jermon flicked the orb toward the living room, and both alpha hatchlings scrambled after it in a chaos of wings and claws and excited squeaking. Olivia, apparently deciding that if she couldn’t eat, she might as well hunt, launched herself off the feeding mat and waddled after her brothers with a determination that was pure Riordan.
Which left Harley.
Riordan’s youngest sat at the edge of the feeding mat, nibbling their food with delicate precision. Their scales shimmered baby-blue in the morning light—not the cream of their siblings, not any color in the dragon classification that Riordan or Jermon or anyone else had been able to identify. Justblue. Soft, pale, luminous blue, like a winter sky reflected in still water.
Harley looked up at Riordan and blinked. Slowly. Thoughtfully. With the watchful patience of an old soul peering through young eyes, assessing the world and deciding, with careful deliberation, what they thought of it.
Riordan’s heart clenched the way it always did when Harley looked at him like that—with a love so fierce and so complicated that it defied the vocabulary he had to describe it. He loved all four of his children with everything he had and was. But with Harley, the love came wrapped in an extra layer that was protective and anxious and tender, born from the knowledge that this child was different and the world had never been kind to different.
He sat on the floor beside the feeding mat and stroked Harley’s head with one finger. The scales were warm and impossibly soft, and Harley leaned into the touch with a small, contented sound that made Riordan’s eyes sting.
“Good morning, little one,” he murmured. “Taking your time as usual?”
Harley blinked again, then returned to nibbling. They had made it clear time and again they would not be rushed by anyone or anything, including gravity, sibling rivalry, or the expectations of dragon society.
From the living room came a crash, followed by Jermon’s “That was also one time!” and Wilmer’s measured “That’s the lamp. The lamp we just replaced.”
Riordan didn’t move. He sat with Harley and worried, the way he’d been worrying since the moment this child had hatched a color that didn’t exist in any dragon text and had refused to let anyone determine their sex or status.
“You’re doing it again.” Wilmer appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a dish towel over his shoulder.He looked like what he was—a man who’d been up since before dawn feeding animals, both the four-legged kind and the two-winged kind—but his eyes were soft as they took in Riordan on the floor with Harley.
“Doing what?”
“Worrying.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m sitting.”
“You’re sitting and worrying. I can tell because you get this line.” Wilmer touched the space between his own eyebrows. “Right here. It’s your worry line.”
“I don’t have a worry line.”
“You have a worry line. Jermon and I have discussed it.”
“You’ve discussed my worry line?”
“At length, but with love.” Wilmer crossed the kitchen and lowered himself to the floor beside Riordan, their shoulders touching. He reached over and scratched Harley under the chin, which earned him a pleased chirp. “What’s the worry du jour?”
Riordan watched Harley’s scales shift subtly in the light—the blue deepening for a moment, then lightening, responsive to stimulation in a way their siblings’ coloring never was. “Sando is coming by today. He has the results.”
“Ah.” Wilmer’s hand stilled on Harley’s chin. “And you’re afraid of what he’ll say.”
“I’m afraid of what it’ll mean. For Harley. For their future.” Riordan’s throat tightened. “We’ve known they’re different since they hatched. And I’ve been telling myself that different isn’t bad, that different is just different, and I believe that, I do. But believing it for yourself and believing it for your child are two different things.”
Wilmer was quiet for a moment. His hand resumed its gentle scratching, and Harley’s eyes half-closed with pleasure. “You know what I’ve learned from twenty years of veterinary work?”
“That goats are assholes?”
“That’s common knowledge, not professional insight.” Wilmer’s mouth curved. “What I’ve learned is that every species on this planet produces individuals that don’t fit the standard classification. Intersex animals, unusual coloring, atypical behavior patterns. And in my experience, those individuals aren’t deficient. They’re variations. They’re the species experimenting with itself, trying something new.” He looked at Harley. “Harley isn’t broken, Riordan. They’re new.”
