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“I promise, baby, I’m not keeping things from you. We just had a bunch of conversations while we were down at the seaside before Tyr had Melissa. Mostly about Freda and Penny.”

“Ah.” Harden did remember Poe telling him about his experience with the Black Dragon so maybe that was where it came from.

“Still, I’m very unhappy. I want things to be better.”

“I know. I’m sorry that he bothered you.”

Harden would hope so. It was Brayden’s job to assure strange unpleasant dragons didn’t bother him.

“I wish he’d just come and bothered me instead, babe.”

Harden wasn’t sure what good that would have done.

“Well, I’m not the pregnant one.”

He narrowed his eyes, letting his displeasure show. “Did you bring home breakfast?”

He hadn’t even had breakfast.

“No, I dropped it. I just flew off.”

Harden’s lips tightened. Someone was in imminent danger.

Immediate danger.

Braydon’s eyes went unfocused. “Riley’s down there. I can send him up with breakfast and the cart and everything.”

“That will be acceptable.” He and Riley weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies, and now Riley was going to be his child’s uncle, so he and Riley would become friends, assuming that Riley didn’t try to take his mate away to some strange place.

“Riley’s not going to take me anywhere. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Because I think I would chase you down and hurt you now if you left me.”

“I think you’ll find I’m not going away anytime soon. I also think you and Riley are going to become friends. He’s funny and he’s fun and he may be a little bit annoying and immature, but he’s got everyone’s best interest at heart.”

Harden could believe Brayden on that one, but he was the one who had always found it hard to make friends.

“Don’t say that about yourself. It’s tough in such a small village when everybody knows you from birth. You’ll be making a lot of new friends. In fact, I would like Samuel to come down. I think you and he would love to talk to each other. He is the bwostfal-meist for the Rocky Mountain clutch. He’s very interested to get to know you.”

“Samuel. This is the father of Sebastian yes?”

“Yes, love. You have an amazing memory.” Brayden beamed at him. “I don’t think you’ve ever met him. I know you’ve met Zeke and a couple of the others but Samuel’s kind of a homebody.”

“Because he must take care of the bwostfol. I understand this.” There was a rhythm to life with animals. While it was not as hectic as Tyr’s life with bees, it was definitely steady. All of the work had to be done every day.

“I think we should take a nap before breakfast. I’m feeling the rush of adrenaline wear off now.”

“Can you at least make me a bite of bread with honey on it?” His belly growled. “If I feed this growl inside me then I can take a nap.”

Brayden laughed for him at those words, stroking his cheek before kissing his mouth. “Of course I can, baby. You just sit there and I will make you bread.”

Brayden was dear to him, even when he didn’t deserve it. Harden was more than ready to forgive him for not being there when the black dragon had shown up. Still, he was grumpy that his nap in the sun had been interrupted and he didn’t like the idea of someone trying to take his ysidri.

So they were just going to have to be careful that it didn’t happen again.

Cade, Tyson, and Zeke paced in the land between Cade’s house and the Rocky Mountain Dragons.

Brayden sat there with Sloan, trying to remain calm and cool, but he felt the same amount of rage.