Chapter 35: Unwanted Courtship
The bite on Taichi’s shoulder had faded to a pale, silvery scar, but the memory of its claiming burn was a constant, low hum in his blood. It flared sometimes, like now, as he adjusted the sunhat on his daughter’s head. Sora gurgled, her tiny hand batting at the wide brim, her eyes—Ryuu’s exact shade of molten gold—squinting against the dappled light filtering through the wisteria.
“You’re just like your father,” Taichi murmured, securing the hat with a tender press of his thumb. “Too proud to accept a little shade.”
Beside them on the sprawling lawn blanket, Aki was determinedly trying to crawl toward the black obsidian fountain. His son moved with a startling, wriggling purpose, his diaper-clad bottom hiking into the air. A faint, barely visible shimmer of heat warped the air around his chubby fists whenever they pressed into the grass.
Three months. The textbooks Hana had smuggled to him, the ones about human development, were useless clutter in a drawer now. His children were the size of robust six-month-olds, alert and possessed of a quiet, watchful intensity that was neither human nor entirely infantile. They rarely cried. They observed. The deep cradle within him, that consecrated void, was quiet now, satisfied and full from the last ritual. But it was a patient silence. He could feel its latent potential, a dormant field awaiting the next planting.
The rhythmic click of garden shears stopped. Ryuu appeared from behind a sculpted yew hedge, wiping his hands on a linen cloth. He wore simple, dark trousers and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his forearms dusted with soil and something that glittered like powdered copper. He looked, for all the world, like a wealthy man tending his estate. Only the eyes gave him away.
“He’s going for the water again,” Taichi said, nodding toward Aki.
“Let him,” Ryuu said, a smile playing on his lips. He knelt, his presence immediately drawing both children’s focus. Aki changed course, crawling determinedly toward his father instead. “The waters of this fountain remember my grandmother. They won’t harm him. They’ll… recognize him.”
Before Taichi could unpack that, the familiar, cheerful voice cut through the garden’s ancient peace.
“Taichi! Oh my god, they’ve gotten so big!”
Hana picked her way down the stone path, a large woven bag slung over her shoulder and a look of stunned delight on her face. She was the only one from the old world who walked this path. Ryuu had allowed it, after a long, silent appraisal that had made Hana sweat. But she’d passed. She always brought gossip from the office, a scent of perfume and photocopiers that Taichi found he now cherished.
“Hana!” Taichi shifted, wincing slightly at the familiar, deep-seated ache in his hips—a permanent souvenir from the last clutch. “You made it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. The boss gave me a ‘special off-site assignment.’” She made air quotes, dropping her bag and immediately reaching for Sora. “May I?”
“She doesn’t bite,” Ryuu said, his tone dry. “Yet.”
Hana scooped Sora up, cooing. Sora stared at her with profound, golden solemnity before reaching a small hand to pat Hana’s cheek. “She’s gorgeous. And so serious! And this little man…” She glanced at Aki, now clinging to Ryuu’s leg. “He’s a mini-tornado. I can’t believe it’s only been three months. You look… good, Tai. Tired, but good.”
“I feel like a train station that never closes,” Taichi admitted, accepting the thermos of proper coffee she pulled from her bag. The estate’s herbal infusions were fine, but this was a taste of his past life.
They settled on the blanket. Hana launched into a story about the new department head in Accounting, her hands waving, making Sora blink. Ryuu listened with an air of detached amusement, his fingers absently tracing the line of Aki’s spine, soothing the visible heat-shimmer. The scene was almost normal. Almost.
The air changed.
It wasn’t a wind. It was a pressure drop, a sudden, dense weight that made the roses tremble on their stems. The black water in the fountain stilled, then rippled outward from the center against no physical cause. Hana fell silent, her arms tightening instinctively around Sora.
Ryuu didn’t stand. He simply looked up toward the sky, his expression shifting into something older and sharper. “Kaito is early.”
A shadow, sleek and immense, passed over the sun. It didn’t fly in any conventional sense; it slid through the air, coiling once above the gardens before descending in a coil of iridescent scales and suppressed thunder. The landing was soundless, a miracle of controlled power. Where the massive, serpentine form touched the grass, the blades didn’t bend. They simply glazed over with a thin, crystalline frost.
Then the form shrank, folded, resolved into a man.
He was as tall as Ryuu, but leaner where Ryuu was broad, all elegant, predatory lines. His hair was the colour of winter ash, his eyes a piercing, crystalline blue that held no human warmth. He wore impeccably tailored charcoal grey, looking for all the world like a visiting diplomat from a brutally fashionable nation.
“Ryuu,” the man said, his voice a smooth baritone that carried the hint of cracking ice. “Your sanctum’s wards are as subtle as a landslide. I felt the bonding shockwave from three territories away.”
“Kaito.” Ryuu finally rose, a slow, deliberate uncoiling of power. The two dragons regarded each other for a moment that stretched taut, then Kaito’s mouth quirked in what might have been a smile. They clasped forearms, a brief, hard grip that made the air between them waver with heat and frost.
Kaito’s cool gaze swept the blanket, dismissing Hana in an instant before landing on Taichi. The scrutiny was physical, a laser scan. Taichi felt it peel back his skin, trace the scar on his shoulder, dip into the settled warmth of the deep cradle. He fought the urge to cover his belly.
“So this is the conduit,” Kaito said, walking forward. He didn’t ask permission. “The human who holds your fire. Interesting.” He peered at the twins. “Two. First clutch. Efficient.”
“Taichi,” Ryuu corrected, a low thread of warning in his name. “His name is Taichi. And they are Aki and Sora.”
Kaito acknowledged this with a slight, indifferent tilt of his head. His eyes flicked back to Hana, who was trying to look small while still holding Sora. A new, different interest sparked in his glacial gaze. He took in her mortified expression, the death grip on her coffee cup, the way she’d inched closer to Taichi.
“And this?” Kaito asked, the question hanging in the air.
“Hana. My friend,” Taichi said, his voice firmer than he felt.
“A friend.” Kaito savored the word. He took one more step, close enough that Hana had to crane her neck to look up at him. The garden’s ambient warmth fled in a circle around him. “You keep fascinating company, Ryuu. First a breeding human, now a… friend.” He leaned down slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that everyone could hear. “Tell me, little friend. Are you next? He seems to be in a prolific mood.”
Hana’s face went through a spectacular journey: confusion, dawning horror, then utter, flaming incredulity. Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again.
“Absolutely not!” she spluttered, the words exploding out of her. “I am not—that is not—what is wrong with you?!”
A snort escaped Taichi before he could stop it. He clapped a hand over his mouth, but his shoulders shook. The sheer, absurd normality of Hana’s outrage in the face of a several-centuries-old frost dragon was too much.
Kaito looked amused, not offended. He straightened, his eyes never leaving Hana’s reddening face. “A definitive answer. For now.”
Ryuu moved then, coming to stand beside Taichi, his hand a warm, heavy weight on the nape of Taichi’s neck—a possessive anchor. “Hana is under our protection, Kaito. She is a guest.”
“Of course,” Kaito said, his tone implying anything but. His smile was thin and sharp. “Merely making conversation. Your mate has a pleasing laugh. You chose well for… resilience.”
The afternoon sun dipped lower, staining the fountain’s black water with blood-orange light. The visit continued, Kaito discussing arid territorial politics with Ryuu in low tones, while Hana vibrated with indignant energy beside Taichi, muttering about “archaic, frosty bastards” under her breath.
As the shadows lengthened, Kaito prepared to leave. His farewell to Ryuu was another of those tense, wordless exchanges. But as he passed Hana, who was stubbornly repacking her bag, he paused.
“It was… stimulating to meet you, Hana Ishikawa,” he said, his cold voice softening by a fractional degree. “Your vitality is like a shout in a silent hall.”
Hana just glared, clutching her bag to her chest like a shield.
Kaito’s transformation was faster than Ryuu’s, a blur of sudden scale and rising cold. The great frost dragon launched skyward, vanishing into the twilight.
In the ringing silence he left behind, Ryuu let out a quiet, thoughtful breath. He watched Hana fuss over Sora’s sunhat, a slow, familiar smirk touching his lips—the one he used before closing a difficult deal or claiming new territory.
He leaned close to Taichi, his words a warm brush against his ear, meant for him alone, but with a weight that seemed to hang in the cooling air.
“We’ll see.”