Page 42 of Reindeer Flames
"Shit! No!"
Gold held the eggs to her chest and cooed at them while I placed the stones on the middle rack and warmed them up with my blue flames. Once they were back in the basket, Gold tucked the eggs in and grinned. "Now how's their nest?"
"Better," I admitted.
"Want to move them upstairs again?"
"No! I could have killed them! I'm such a bad father!"
She laughed and pulled me into a hug. "It's all right. They can go hours without heat. They're almost to where they'll be making their own."
"But the nest. I hate it, and I don't know why."
She nodded. "It's missing something important." She raised her hands to her ears and removed the diamond studs she always wore. "Here." She placed the earrings between the magical wicker strands at the top of the basket, and my dragon purred.
"How …" That wasn't in the video I'd watched about dragon eggs.
"No dragon would share secrets about their hoard," Gold reminded me. "The other shifters wouldn't understand."
"The vault." My dragon was supercharged by my words, and finally, I knew what our nest at home was missing.
Hart foundme in the bedroom when he got home from the first day of training. In the half-hour since I'd arrived, I'd completely dismantled the corner nest and piled everything on our bed.
He wrapped his arms around me from behind and kissed my neck. "What's all this?"
"I know what's missing!" Taking his hand, I led him down to the basement, where I'd placed the vault, Santa 30's housewarming gift. "It adjusts to the size of the space," I said. Here, I'd blocked out a three-by-three space with two-by-fours in the corner, and the vault had expanded to fill that space from floor to ceiling.
"You want to put the babies in the vault." Instead of the condescending sneer I expected, he smiled. "I love it. They're precious to you, and they belong in the vault with the rest of your hoard."
I exhaled and my shoulders dropped back into place. I'd turtled into them, expecting a fight with Hart. Instead, he gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. "Do we need to move everything upstairs?"
I shook my head. With one touch of a button, the giant vault collapsed to a cube I could carry in my hand. "It's Santa magic mixed with fae metalwork. My hoard is safe in there. When I touch the button again, it will rearrange everything to fit the space."
Hart kissed my cheek. "That's even better than I thought. Santa's a genius."
"He really is." I scooped the cube from the floor and pointed to the two boards. "Would you please bring those upstairs? I think we can use them again."
Hart scooped the boards into his arms and carried them upstairs for me. After a few measurements and Hart racing back downstairs to grab his square to ensure we had everything in the right place, I touched the button again. The vault filled the corner of our bedroom from window to window, a six-foot by eight-foot area. It would have been a tight fit for me to get into bed, but Hart hip-checked the footboard and shoved it to the opposite corner.
"We won't keep it like this," I said. "The bed should be under the window."
He laughed. "It doesn't matter to me. If you want to make it smaller when the babies are born, I don't mind having the vault in here."
"I do. What if I want to add something heavy?"
Hart shrugged. "I bet Santa planned for that, too."
"Maybe." I would ask him later. Now, we needed to move the nest into the vault.
I turned the wheel, and the door popped open. Inside, my hoard glistened along all four walls. The shelves started at five feet up, giving us plenty of room to build the nest on the floor. I filled in the corners with decorative pillows and bean bag chairs where we could sit during the final hours before the eggs hatched.
Hart and I stood in the doorway when we finished, staring at our handiwork. "It's perfect," I said.
"It really is." He kicked a few pillows aside in front of the egg basket. "Room for a cooler, and snacks. This is going to be the best show in town."
Light filled the vault and then sharpened to a spotlight on the eggs. We both looked up at the vault ceiling and grinned.
"I didn't know it could do that," I said. "I have so many questions for Santa." They could wait, though. With Hart busy at spring training, Santa would be, too.
