Dragon Eggs Under the Tree (Starscale Mates #4)

Epilogue

The Next Yuletide Morning

Brender

Sleeping in the nest meant that Saer didn’t have far to go to crash into my stomach and yell, “YULETIDE!”

His wings were out and holding steady. I grabbed him and gave him a big hug before he could start hovering around and make Stellan worry about him crashing into the gigantic lavender egg in the center of the nest. He was shaping up to be a good flyer but even the best dragons hit a solid object sometimes if we weren’t paying attention.

This year, I’d dragged the tree all the way up into the nesting room where our little family spent most of the last year. Outside snow fell in big fluffy purple and white flakes covering the world in a blanket of winter. Under the tree sat paper mache eggs made by Oliver who still had more free time than I did. More so than even the year before when I was teaching full time. He was dating a guy from his video game guild, and I wondered how long that would last but he and Sterne seemed happy enough to game together. Whatever else they did, I didn’t want to know about.

“Happy Yuletide,” Stellan yawned as he sat up and pulled Saer over for a good morning hug.

Something smashed near by and all our heads whipped in the direction of the egg. A few days ago a falling holiday bobble set off a false alarm by wiggling off its branch and crashing to the floor.

“THE BABY’S FOOT FELL OFF!” Saer screeched and scrambled over Stellan to hide behind him.

He was half right. There was a tiny foot sticking out from the shell but a bit of squinting through the cracks showed that it was still one hundred percent attached to a baby.

“It’s alright,” Stellan laughed, his eyes alight with joy at seeing the first part of our baby. “The baby’s coming out!”

“They waited until today! They knew it was egg smashing day!” Saer said, climbing back over Stellan for a better look. He counted the baby’s toes and nodded approvingly as the baby thrashed around inside the egg. A few minutes later a tiny fist crashed through the lavender shell not far from the foot as if the baby had folded themself in half.

The holiday eggs sat forgotten as we watched the youngest member of our family wiggle and squirm out of their egg just in time for Yuletide. We’d talked baby names in circles the last few months. A boy would be named after my great uncle Basion who inspired me to be a teacher. A girl would be named after a dragoness named Nita who worked at the library when Stellan first started out there. She mentored him until he gained his footing. She passed through her door of life and death not long after Stellan laid our egg.

“NITA!” Saer cheered as his sister flopped fully out of her egg and blinked up at us as if trying to figure out who the heck we were.

As Saer and I cleaned her up and bundled her up, counting her fingers and toes as we went, I realized another Yuletide gift would never top her crashing out of her egg this morning. Our family grew and though we didn’t know it then, a couple winters from now, we’d have twins crash out of a single egg and double the amount of children we had.

For now, we were cozy and merry and forever grateful that I chose to become a wild dragon helper. Sometimes, doing the holly-jolly thing led you down the best snowy paths.

“She’s perfect,” Stellan smiled down at our little beautiful girl. “So freaking perfect.”

“Just like you,” I whispered and kissed his cheek as Saer started smashing into his paper mache eggs full of gifts.