Page 41 of The Manny's Fiery Dragon Bond

I left the nest briefly to get him a washcloth so he could wash his face, and I brought him a bottle of water.

Within a few moments, Tavian and Kier were walking in the door, all three of their children toddling along with them

The three children, as if sensing the magnitude of the situation peered over the edge of the nest, wide-eyed and curious.

“Hello, my precious darlings,” Ollie cooed. “Come meet your... aunt?”

Ruby, Opaline, and Flint climbed in and took turns touching their hands and cheeks to the shell of the egg. They oohed and aahed over her.

“This is so beautiful.” Kier sniffled. Tavian had an arm wrapped around him.

Not a one of us had dry eyes.

Chapter 22

Ollie

Dragonsweresmartcreatures,and they knew no omega wanted to be away from their nest for long. And out of that understanding, someone had invented a contraption much like a baby sling, but for eggs. It worked perfectly. I could fit my egg snuggly against me when I went to work, which meant my dearest daughter was never alone.

At first, I’d been worried. What if I cracked my sweet daughter’s safe home? But then Mal came home with an ostrich egg. At first, I was confused, and then he gave me a challenge—break it.

He had me drop it, bang it against the counter, wear it in the sling and bump into random things. The egg was solid, nothing at all like a chicken egg. It wasn’t until I took out actual tools that I made any progress, and even then, it had taken a lot of work.

“See… broken.” I beamed at my success. Break wasn’t exactly the right word. I had chipped it, but close enough. Chipping our egg wasn’t a matter of wasting an egg that might eventually become food, it was harming our daughter, and I refused to let that happen.

“And how much effort did it take to manage that?”

I gave him my best stink-eye. “Not the point. It still broke.”

“And guess how many times harder a dragon’s egg is than an ostrich egg?”

I knew it was a trap, and I still walked into it, asking him for an answer. Five hundred percent stronger. It was 500% stronger. How was that even possible? But one thing was for sure, it made me feel better about carrying her around, but added a new fear to my plethora of new dad anxieties—how would they get out? Mal insisted they just did and not to worry about it.

That was so much easier said than done. But for now, the knowledge made my daily life exponentially easier. Staying home when I knew there was so much to be done would’ve been torture. My clan needed me, my grandbabies needed me. That still took a bit to get used to.

Our daughter’s three niblings got to know her very well. She joined in for every story time with the triplets, something her father and I both insisted on. He was a huge proponent of early literacy. It was one of his passions.

The kids babbled to the egg endlessly, asked it to play, brought it stuffies, and cuddled it frequently. And as adorable as that all was, all of it paled in comparison to their chirps. One day they started chirping at her, mimicking their father’s dragon, and a few times I could’ve sworn she chirped back—she communicated with them. How I wished I’d gotten that on camera.

“Those four are going to be trouble,” Kier said one night as we looked at the four of them nestled together in the triplets’ nest. We were playing music in the background, and they were “singing along” with the singer. They didn’t come close to getting a single word right, and that somehow made it more precious.

He wasn’t wrong about them being trouble. But what adorable trouble it was going to be.

Watching them spend the day together was always a delight. The three toddlers were so enamored by her. They snuggled around the egg like she was one of them. They babbled and played and brought her toys as if she could play with them. One of the kids was touching the shell at all times. And they knew how to be gentle. The three of them rough-housed outside of the nest all day, but when they were near the precious egg, they knew it.

It was a wonder to behold.

“We are going to be in so much trouble,” I agreed.

“I know. Isn’t it great?” He laughed. “We were hoping that they would get some siblings, and it turned out all they needed was an aunt.”

“We are going to be on our toes, that’s for sure. May the dragon scales help us all.”

I stayed for another hour before heading home and making dinner. I was dead on my feet. For whatever reason, today was the day all my being on the go caught up to me. If it weren’t for me knowing that Mal was going to be hungry when he got home, I’d have skipped dinner all together and gone straight to bed.

“It’s time we get some rest, sweet girl.” I bit back a yawn. “We can wait for your father in the nest.”

I nestled my egg into her spot in the home nest. Exhaustion weighed me down like I’d carried bricks rather than my egg. I might not have been carrying an egg in my body anymore, but chasing the triplets around all day and managing my additional responsibilities as mate to the clan leader took brain power that I wasn’t used to and was exhausting in its own way.

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