Page 106 of Connor and the Dragons

“I thought Sky taught you tai chi? He said he did.”

Oallian rolled his eyes. “As if I’m supposed to remember the things people teach me.”

I walked around behind him and put two fingers against the small of his back, partly to correct his posture, and partly just because I enjoyed touching him. Then I stood off to his left and did the next movement with him so he had something to copy, slow and steady through a balanced kick that took every ounce of the focus Oallian did not have.

Vyranthos had been bad for the past few weeks, restless. Oallian said he wanted an egg to sit on, and didn’t seem to understand that eggs take time. I didn’t exactly understand it, either. Kessrin had been in heat for nearly five months, and according to him that was perfectly normal.

So I was teaching Oallian one of my favorites, twenty-four. Again. Because it occupied us both.

“Kessrin is impossible,” Oallian said, halfway through the third movement.

“Weight back.”

“He was up past midnight working on some seating chart for this party the Queen is throwing, when he should have been making sure he was being properly bred. With you writing your thingy—”

“My dissertation.”

“—yes, that. Because you couldn’t just leave it incomplete even if you don’t enjoy it. And then you had to go and assume the role of official cryptographer for Queen Delsynarea’s correspondence, no one has had time for sex.”

I shot him a look.

“What? We only had sex three times yesterday. And today only the once! And it’s two in the afternoon. Two in the afternoon, Connor.”

“Weight back, Oallian.”

“How are we supposed to make an egg if we only have sex once before two in the afternoon?” A note of whine had entered his voice that told me maybe what he really needed was a spanking.

“We must let nature take its course. Or magic. Or however dragon offspring are created, I’m still not one hundred percent on that.”

Oallian wobbled his way through snake creeps down. “Then how do humans do it?”

“The baby grows inside the mother. For nine months.”

“Inside her?” He lost the form completely. “Ew. Gross. How does it come out?”

“The same way an egg comes out of a dragon, I assume. I try not to think too much about it.”

“And your mother did this more than once? On purpose?” He looked shaken. “I am going to be so nice to her the next time she visits.”

He kept muttering complaints about party planning, and I let him, and soon the heat rolling off him had banked down to something I could stand next to without sweating.

We got through the form twice more when the courtyard door swung open with a hard crash. Delsynarea burst out of it at a dead run.

I had known that woman for six months, and up until this moment, I would not have thought her capable of moving so fast. Abstractly, I knew she was a great warrior capable of wielding unimaginable power, but I had never seen her move faster than a stroll. In fact, I was starting to suspect she moved unbearably slowly just to force everyone to match her pace, as a power play, or perhaps simply for her own amusement.

Nobody ran like that for their own amusement.

“What’s the rush, Your Majesty?” I teased.

“We have a problem. It is Kessrin.”

Everything in me dropped at once.

“Is he hurt?”

“Come. You must… I left him alone.”

She didn’t explain herself, but Delsynarea never did. She was already turning, clearly assuming we’d follow, as she took off running, headed back into the palace the way she’d come from.