“I don’t want him! You keep him!” Adrian shouted.
“Drayce, stop this! Adrian isn’t trying to steal Cael,” Rayne commanded in an impressively stern voice, even if it did have a small quaver to it.
“Asshole!” Caelan shouted. A second later, a shoe bonked Drayce on the back of the head.
Adrian blinked. Did he see that right?
He ripped his gaze away from Drayce to see the king tearing off his other shoe and throwing it at Drayce’s head. It hit and the part dragon, part man turned toward Caelan, a wounded expression on his face while he rubbed his injury.
“What did you do that for?” Drayce whined.
“You’re scaring the shit out of Adrian and pissing me off!” Caelan snapped.
“But you said you were going to bond with him. You’re mine.”
“He did warn me that dragons can be possessive,” Adrian offered.
That did not help Caelan’s angry expression in the slightest. Adrian’s brain was starting to wonder exactly who might win in a battle between a dragon and a godling. Adrian was putting his money on the godling.
“And what? You think bonding with Adrian is going to be the same as us getting married? Is that what you think I’ve been doing with all these gods for the past seven months? You think it’s been one big fivesome orgy?”
“No, but…” Drayce denied, his voice failing him.
Caelan looked at his feet as though he was searching for another shoe to throw at his boyfriend. “Asshole. Just a fucking asshole,” the king muttered under his breath.
Adrian slowly lowered his gun as Drayce’s scales disappeared and he shifted into his fully human self. Drayce hurried over to Caelan’s side and wrapped his arms around him. With his face buried in Caelan’s neck, he murmured apologies that Adrian couldn’t fully make out, which was fine with him.
As he holstered his gun, he turned to Rayne, who was swiping a trembling hand through his hair. “Any chance there was some booze stashed on the boat?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Rayne flashed Adrian a weak smile. “But dinner…or rather breakfast, will be ready shortly. We can eat and then get some rest.”
Adrian sat on the ground again, but he remained on the other side of the fire with Eno.
“Look at what you did! You scared Adrian,” Caelan grumped as he flopped onto the ground.
Drayce wince at Adrian. “Sorry, man. I wasn’t gonna—”
“What? Eat me? Rip my head off?” Adrian snapped.
“Yeah, that. I just kind of lose my mind with Cael. It took us so long to get together, and he’s constantly dying.”
“I am not!”
Drayce dropped to the ground, sitting behind Caelan so he could wrap his arms and legs around him while resting his chin on his shoulder. Poor Cael. It looked like it was going to be a while before he was able to detach himself from his fiancé.
“Back to what we were talking about,” Eno said, redirecting them from Drayce’s dragon-y outburst. “Can you do that? Bond with Adrian?”
Caelan shrugged. “The other gods did it. Why can’t I?”
Rayne groaned from the opposite side of the camp, but he didn’t add any further comments. Adrian had a feeling this was where Caelan’s plan broke down a little bit since the newborn god was still figuring out his powers.
“My plan is to keep it light, like the sort of bond Rayne has with Tula or the bond Kaes and Shey have. I imagine it like tying a thread of power to Adrian’s soul. We’ll be only slightly connected, but he’ll be able to follow that thread to wherever I am.”
That didn’t sound horrible.
But that was assuming Caelan could figure out how to do it in the first place.
The king closed his eyes and leaned against Drayce, while the dragon tightened his hold on his mate. Adrian understood why Drayce had become so upset. A bond did sound kind of intimate, but there was really nothing between him and the king. Only loyalty, respect, trust, and maybe the solid start of a deep friendship.
“Okay. When are we going to do this?” Adrian asked.
“After we eat,” Rayne instructed.
“Actually…” Caelan drawled, a grin lifting the corners of his mouth slowly. “I’ve already done it.” He opened his eyes and stared at Adrian across the fire.
“What?” echoed several times around the campfire, but Adrian barely noticed. His entire focus was on the tiny tug he felt somewhere in the middle of his chest, pulling him in the direction of the cocky god wrapped up in his dragon.
“You did it,” Adrian whispered. “I can feel it. It’s a rope tied between us.”
“We can test it out later, but you should be able to follow it.”
Rayne brought over a couple of bowls of noodles, handing them to Caelan and Drayce, while Eno grabbed one for himself and a second that he gave to Adrian.
“Why can’t I sense Tula in the same way?” Rayne inquired, still standing over Caelan.