The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

“Come on now, Levi, let’s try and take this seriously, okay? I know you like to make a joke out of everything in life, but try and take us seriously this time.”

“Deal.”

“Deal?”

“Sure, deal. I’ll try and take this seriously if you try and say what you mean. No bullsh*tting, no beating around the bush. Just say what you’re here to say.”

“Watch your language, son.”

“Okay, sorry, Dad. I’ll watch it.”

“Right. Good, that’s good. Now why don’t you tell me son, which milestone birthday would you say is going to be your next milestone birthday?”

“Um, thirty?”

“Sure, thirty. And what do you think a man should have by the time he’s thirty?”

“I don’t know if there’s one specific answer to that question.”

“Of course there is,” his mother said, as if that were the stupidest answer in the world. He didn’t think she even realized it, how negative her tone was. He didn’t think she could even tell when she was being dismissive and when she was being kind. That was how much a part of her that side of her personality was.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What is the specific thing a man is supposed to have by the time he’s thirty?”

“A man is supposed to start building a life for himself. When he becomes a man that is his job. You were born into more of a life than most people ever manage to scrounge up for themselves but that doesn’t mean that you don’t build anything of your own.”

“I thought I asked for you to say what you meant? Because I’ve gotta say, Dad, that doesn’t sound like what this is. To be honest, I don’t have a clue what you’re trying to get at. Can you just tell me? Please? I think it’d probably be a hell of a lot easier. For all of us.”

“All right, then let’s lay all of our cards out on the table. You are the only heir to our family, the only one to carry on our legacy and our family name. Your mother and I talked about having another child, but it just didn’t seem to make sense for us. Perhaps we were being foolish, perhaps selfish, but there you have it. That leaves it all to you.”

“What? Are you seriously trying to talk to me about carrying on the lineage right now? This has to be a joke. I mean, right? You’ve got to be bullsh*tting me.”

“No, Levi,” his mother said with a stern, cold look in her eyes he could not remember ever seeing before. “I assure you, there is no bullsh*t at all in what your father is saying to you right now and I suggest you listen carefully. I suggest you take him seriously because the way you handle matters from this point on will go a long way in determining the rest of your future.”

“Please, honey.” His father patted his mother’s hand, made little shushing noises meant to comfort her. “Don’t get yourself worked up. I’ll handle this.”

“What is she talking about, Dad?”

“You’ve gotten old enough to start taking certain steps. We expect you to step up. We need you to step up.”

“Step up? You mean have a kid? Are you telling me I need to have a kid?”

“If you want to get your trust fund, your inheritance, then yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying.”

“Do you think this is something you might have been able to tell me a little sooner than this?! I mean for Christ’s sake, Dad! This doesn’t exactly give me a whole hell of a lot of time, does it? Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re asking for. That’s got to be it, right? You can’t really be telling me that you need me to have some chick knocked up by the time I turn thirty or I’m cut off.”

“That is exactly what we’re telling you. And yes, maybe we could have said something sooner, but to be perfectly honest we never anticipated it taking you such a long time to get your act together. We kept waiting for you to settle down and start a family of your own accord, in which case there would never have been a need for this little talk, but that isn’t how it happened, and so here we are.”

Levi could feel his world reeling, everything around him warping and rippling with colors that were much too bright, even with the sunlight streaming into the room the way it was. Visual distortion. Visual distortion brought on by extreme anger. This was nothing new for him. This was something he could handle, he just needed to block everything out for a minute and breathe into it. If he could focus in on his breathing for long enough he could keep himself from totally flying off the handle. It was an important technique for him to have, the ability to calm himself down.

Levi had been born a feisty child, the heart and temperament of an alpha the minute he arrived in the world. He had been known to fly into fits of rage when he was younger (hell, he was still prone to fits of rage; they were just smaller, less noticeable fits these days), temper tantrums of epic proportion. That wasn’t great in any kid, but for a shifter, especially a dragon shifter, it was worse.

It was more than the fact that the kid was acting like a brat. It was actually dangerous. Santa Fe and the state of New Mexico as a whole. were a lot more used to strange occurrences, a lot more forgiving than most places would be. That being said, the extremely dense population of shifters and the accompanying shifter sympathizers (people who had no problem coexisting with shifters; Levi didn’t know if there was an actual name for them so he had taken to thinking of them as sympathizers) still didn’t make it safe for a little boy to just turn into a dragon every time he got angry and decided to let out a little fire.

 So Levi had learned to control his anger instead of letting it control him and most of the time he didn’t even get worked up to the point of needing to call on his breathing techniques anymore, but the information his parents had just delivered was a pretty massive blow. It was a lot to take in, right? It would have been for anyone. You go to lunch thinking you aren’t getting anything more than some excellent margaritas and some uncomfortable conversation, only to find out your timeframe in which to deliver a grandchild had gone from hopefully someday to do it right now or else.