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I’m just very busy with my mate, even though I haven’t said he’s my mate.

Ha! I knew it. You’re completely wrapped up in him. That’s kind of cool. I’m proud of you.

I know. I just had to stop fighting it, didn’t I? But he’s been pretty casual about it.

Sloan glanced at him sideways, one huge glittering eye, giving him the judgy look. Dude, he asked you to move in after like one night. I don’t think that’s being casual.

Shut up. He couldn’t think of a better comeback than that, so he knew he wasn’t gonna get the last word on this conversation.

Seriously, you’re talking about a man — a dragon — whose best friend is Tyr. I know this guy. He and Cade fought for like a century over something stupid.

He blinked, trying to parse that. A century? Damn.

Yeah, and they lived here, within spitting distance of each other. Both of them had the same best friend.

Oh, he could get the last word here. Tyr has got to be the most patient dragon on earth, or Lunastra, whatever. I mean, friends with them and mated to you? He’s a saint. Saint Tyr of the Hives.

Very funny, ha ha.

He chuckled in his dragon form. It came out as a low rumble but he loved that for himself. He had gotten the last word.

They waved their wings in a side-to-side fashion when they saw some of the Rocky Mountain clutch out in their courtyards, working on spring cleaning their garden. A good many of the alphas from that clutch came to patrol with them regularly.

After they got a wave and cleared the area around the compound, they headed for the trees just to make sure nothing was encroaching on their outer borders.

There was a huge herd of carhyd feeding on the trees, the gigantic elk-like creatures lifting themselves up almost like a giraffe would and eating from the tallest trees before landing back on the ground with a thud. They were the biggest things, eight feet at the shoulder, with massive racks of emerald green antlers.

Harden had told him that there would be hundreds of small predators milling around the carhyd’s hooves, little quick cat-like things they called ennas. They would snap up rodents and bugs that the vibrations of the carhyd’s feeding brought.

It fascinated him, and the carhyd were surprisingly peaceful except for rutting season or if there were babies, which Brayden assumed was either happening now or imminent.

We’ll have to watch and make sure they don’t get too close to the village.

Sloan made an affirmative noise. Well, ask your mate what he suggests. That’s his job, right?

It is. He knows every animal in this area and what they do. He’s amazing.

You have it bad, brother.

I suppose I do. He and Harden fit together like he’d never expected to fit with someone. And Goddess the sex made him absolutely crazy. He wanted to knot the big dragon constantly.

Whatever you’re thinking, stop it. You’re sort of glowing like you’re about to release some fire.

Whoops. He said it, but he wasn’t sorry.

Suddenly, he could feel Harden, almost like a caress, just a gentle touch of wind that went the opposite way of the way he was flying. The sensation slid up his scales and over his wings like his mate knew Brayden was thinking of him.

It was the single most erotic thing he’d ever felt in his entire life.

In fact, it made his wings falter, and he wobbled a little in the air, panicky smoke coming out of his nose.

Which was when the wind lifted up under his wings and carried him up on a thermal, giving him enough room to swoop and dive and play with Sloan a little bit.

Sloan gave a mental whoop and joined him, the air just right for this kind of aerial acrobatics.

He glanced down, and there was Harden riding one of his ysidri, drafting them, hair flowing behind him, chestnut mixed with snow.

He swore he could hear the happy laughter.