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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Settling His Dette

  Copyright 2022 by Lilo Quie

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-68361-738-9

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68361-739-6

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing LLC

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  By Lilo Quie at Decadent Publishing

  Twenty-five years ago I looked my doctor in the eye while he told me the worst news of my life. My final chance to prove that I could be a bearer for my drake was over, and I would be repudiated... marked barren. My drake said it himself, he'd turn me out and find another dette, so I made that choice for him and I ran away bearing two small blank eggs that I laid in suffering silence. For but a moment I hoped they'd be viably sized, but no.

  Having no other choice, I abandoned them and hid myself away in the mountains, joining the wild dragons.

  Still even now, all these years later, I have dreams about the only drake I found worthy. Even my dragon refuses to mate any other. Springtime comes and a scent of cinnamon catches me on the breeze, my fire-headed lover. "Sacha!" I want him so much, but I don't deserve him. He comes to me with nestblossoms and sweet words, taking me and the wild pups I've fostered into his forgiving arms and he tells me the saddest and most wonderful news. In his hands is a strange new device, something I've not seen before, a tiny computer, and it's filled with pictures of a small dette. "Leo," he tells me.

  Will I get my second chance? Will my pup understand why I abandoned him? Can I forgive myself?

  Settling His Dette is a MM Mpreg full of sass, crass, and a—eggs. Guaranteed full of steam, knots, and heat, sure to raise a few brows. If you like determined dragons who will do almost anything to achieve their dreams, download Settling His Dette today.

  Thank you for taking the time to read my book! Welcome to the world of dragons and rare flowers as we follow a new wave of headstrong dettes and their determination to equalize the playing field.

  Lilo Quie

  Settling His Dette

  Empty Nests Book 3

  by

  Lilo Quie

  Chapter One

  Sacha

  “What do you mean? How the hell did I end up in a pet shop?” Leo seethed, his temper peaking. It made Sacha’s heart ache.

  Green eyes as sharp as Felix’s ever were, common in the Dior family, shot back at him from Leo’s face. Gods, even the way Leo’s face contorted brought familiar memories. Sacha swallowed the ache down and buried the sins of his past. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I have the story firsthand. We’re still piecing things together.” Ryan glanced over at Sacha demurely but bit his lip, lost in thought. Hallr really should have told Leo already.

  Leo’s bitter gaze slanted towards Sacha. He held a lot of anger toward his father, mostly stemming from abandonment and a general stubborn streak a mile wide. Leo was gravid again, only one egg, and from his complaints, it was likely the single egg he carried would be a Drake from size alone. His laying wouldn’t be too bad though. Hallr took such good care of him after all. In his life, Sacha never witnessed a Drake that coddled his Dette so much. Leo seemed better for it, and they complemented one another so well. Both of them were as crass, vulgar, and quick-witted as the other.

  Hallr, over time, lost his ability to give a crap about the world. Leo never had parenting of any kind save for an alcoholic, gambling-addicted female past her expiration date. Though something was off about her. From everything they looked into, Maud didn’t exactly exist. Sure, the name existed. She owned things, but Maud had cropped up in the early 2000s with no trail before that. All the signs pointed to Maud being a shifter, or something close to it, and highly likely to have known exactly what Leo was.

  The Lochs mentioned on one occasion she’d referred to him as a “slimy lizard.” It startled him, but he’d forgotten about the slight. She was on his short list of people that might know something, but finding her was nigh impossible.

  “Alright, Pops, spill.” Leo stretched back, taking the pressure off his belly and his poor attempt at hiding it. All these years and he still didn’t know a Drake could smell it on him.

  Sacha moved to sit on a nearby chair and put his hands in his lap and sighed. “It’s a little upsetting.”

  “I’m already upset!”

  “All the time,” Hallr added helpfully. Ryan shushed him and smacked Hallr’s arm.

  Sacha took a deep breath. “So, I followed your records from the home. They noted you were a drop-off at a few years old. You were three or four, barely spoke, and were pretty snappy. When we started poking around, we found a shifter that had you for a few months in your first home and they worked to discourage your shifting, and by the time you’d grown out of being in scales all the time, they had to give you up.”

  “Okay, so I went into a pet store from there?”

  Sacha buried his head in his hands and huffed. “No.”

  Chapter Two

  Greg Morrison

  April 1998

  Greg Morrison inherited his pet store from his mother seven years ago, specializing in dour birds, reticent hamsters, and the occasional vicious guinea pig—the usual pet store fare. Greg didn’t only care for them though. He loved all things reptile, breeding corn snakes, rearing a tegu lizard, and he had a screened-in porch back home with a dozen iguanas hiding out on it.

  He opened the store early that morning, gathered a few bags of soiled wood chips and set about his morning duties of feeding all the animals. Today was the day that his corn snakes should start hatching! He was excited to see the color variants that would come of this clutch. He merrily danced about, tossing pellets into one cage then another.

  As he settled up his morning routine, he carried the bags of trash out back and opened his dumpster to reveal two large golden eggs, each the size of a Nerf football. They sparkled in the low morning light of the alley and when he picked them up, they were heavy and strangely warm. He’d thought them novelty toys at first, but something about their heft disturbed him.

  Out of sheer curiosity, he strolled inside the pet shop and stalked down into the basement, the two eggs wrapped in his arms. He opened one of the many cabinets lining the upper walls, rooting around for his flashlight. Occasionally he had to candle eggs, and this was as good of a time as any. He pushed the light flush to the rounded bottom of the shell and swore beneath his breath. A tiny mass of spidering red tendrils clumped near the surface of the egg, twitching away. He checked the other, easing it around, and found it to be the same, a little mass.

  “What kind of creature laid these?” They were nothing like any reptile he’d seen before, but they had to be reptilian. Maybe someone had spray-painted them? He scratched at the surface and a thin layer of bloom, dried laying fluid, gathered beneath his fingernail. His heart sped up, beating wildly in his chest as he gathered a soft towel and pulled the hatching corn snakes from the incubator. A few slithered along the edges of the container and he rearranged things. The corn snakes didn’t matter. He was relatively certain he was holding two enormous crocodile eggs, or an avian of some kind. The shells were too pliant to be an ostrich, or an emu, but he was no biologist.

  He thought he’d done well, candling the eggs every few days, cautiously watching as the cells grew, and then it happened. One day, he went to pick up the eggs and something changed. An image of flashing teeth shot through his head, a mental snap when he reached for the smaller of the two eggs. He reached for the egg again, hand trembling, and the same reaction. Anger and frustration. Curious, he reached for the other, the larger of the two, with a hint of silv
er to its hued gold shell. When he touched it, an image in his head of soft, warm, happy things flashed.

  Experimentally, he touched them both, and a meddled mixture of snappish anger and happiness met him. Then he pushed the eggs together, and they both calmed with a placid feeling. “What the living fuck?”

  Every day he touched the eggs, candling them regularly. They called to him at times, to the point where he had to bring an incubator home and guard his clutch there… My clutch? After a time, Greg talked to them like one might a cat, telling them about his day and feeling happy thoughts flick off the one he called “Leo.” The other he called “Scorpio.” Leo and Scorpio gained awareness in the summer months, making Leo’s name an easy thing to call him to pick, after the zodiac symbol. But Scorpio got his name to match his mental bite. And they were male. How Greg knew this, he wasn’t certain.

  He knew he should have called someone, planned to have the eggs looked at, or even an expert investigate them, but he needed to protect them in a way he couldn’t express. Touching them raised his hackles, making him secretive and anxious about anyone even seeing his babies. Their secretive feelings buzzed in his head, encompassed him and whispered emotions into his ear, eventually small words.

  Leo was easily his favorite, raising thoughts to greet him, and when bigger, he shuffled in his shell whenever Greg held him. Leo emanated curiosity and playfulness. Scorpio emanated murder on most days.

  “Scorp, be nice,” Greg said as flashes of hissing and teeth snapped through his mind.

  Not my bearer! A clear thought shot through his head and the egg jerked in his hands so hard that he nearly dropped it.

  A sadness wavered from Leo’s egg, a note of anxious and tentative love. They were night and day, the two. Greg decided maybe it was time to not handle Scorpio anymore. The mental bite got stronger over time, and it became unbearable. Leo remained happy, just as sweet. He calmed the other egg, but even if Greg lifted them together, Scorpio remained hostile.

  Leo grew as time went on, the free space in his egg becoming less and less until Greg couldn’t see anything but the tightly cramped figure within. He knew he should have found a biologist, a scientist, anything, but the eggs owned him in some strange way, until one day he didn’t even open the shop, and stayed inside to hold Leo to his chest until the sharp tapping of pipping met his ears.

  Greg didn’t know what he expected, a bird, a reptile, a monotreme? Hell, he may very well have had some sort of echidna egg or something. When the first black claw poked through, followed by silvery-gray scales, he gasped. The tiniest little creature crawled out. Pale-blue eyes squinted up at him and it smacked its wide, strange mouth. “Mrawp,” it chirped and wriggled in his arms.

  “A…dragon…” Greg nearly fainted as the tiny silver creature crawled over his lap and curled up, tail over nose. Cautiously, he checked the incubator where Scorpio sat, and the egg remained still. Leo struggled in his arms and scampered to his brother’s egg, clawing with snuffling mewls.

  “Come on, Leo. Leave Scorp alone. He’ll hatch in his own time.”

  Except he didn’t.

  When two days later he hadn’t hatched and Greg finally worked up the nerve to cut into the quiet egg, the thing within terrified him. It was still in its egg, a mess of pale flesh, dark hair and darker scales contorted into a grotesque shape. Leo keened and mewled with utter sadness as Greg dug a hole in his backyard and buried the creature in a Tupperware container wrapped in a soft towel. Nobody needed to see it.

  Leo took a few days to calm down and to figure out how to feed. He happily munched on the same frozen thawed rats that his pythons got but needed far more of them. His tail fattened when he had excess food, much like a gecko, but he grew fast. And Leo was so very smart. Still, Greg couldn’t make himself give the pup up. It was his pup. Nobody else’s.

  Greg snuck into the woods to teach him to fly and gave him free range of the shop’s basement and home. He even had a beautiful enclosure made for him with a little splashing pond and a fake plant to curl up with.

  The enclosure had to change over the first few years until it became more of a kennel for his husky-sized frame. He rubbed against Greg’s legs, wagged his tail, and chirped happy thoughts whenever he touched him.

  “You’re getting big,” Greg praised, patting over Leo’s flank and scratching his scales in a way that made his tail thump.

  “Mrrrahrr,” Leo said, but his mind chirped happiness.

  Chapter Three

  Leo

  December 2001

  Leo was a good pup, and the world was fascinating. Everything had smells! Colors were pretty and all his quiet siblings sat in their cages around him doing whatever snakes and lizards did best. Matilda, a large boa that slept in the cage next to him, stared with unmoving attention. Leo often tried to stare back, but Matilda never blinked.

  Leo had a Greg, and his Greg gave Leo rats. The black-and-white ones were his favorites.

  At 8 a.m. sharp every morning, Leo would wake up and bounce around his enclosure until his Greg opened the door to let him scramble around the stone floor. He made a piddle in his litter box this morning and pawed at his Greg’s leg while flapping his wings a bit with big pleading eyes. That always got him what he wanted.

  “Okay, we’ll sneak out after closing to fly, ok?” His Greg bent down and baby talked him. Leo knew if he kept whining that his Greg would close the shop and do it immediately, but Leo could be a good pup. Leo was the best pup. But Leo was the only pup, and that made him sad. He remembered his days in the egg, when he first hatched and there had been another voice with him, a brother, but he never got to see them. They stayed asleep in their egg. His Greg took him out back and he never got to see his brother. Sometimes he wondered what happened to his brother.

  The momentary pang of sadness shot through Leo and dissipated, replaced by happy, excitable feelings of play and flying. And, if his Greg was in a good mood, Leo might get to drive by the flower market with his head hanging out of the window where all the amazing smells met his nose. Leo loved flowers. The pretty smells and delightful colors made him yap and trill with happiness. In the spring and summer, his Greg brought him flowers to play with like some kids might get toys so he could destroy them and roll in the aftermath.

  His Greg leaned down and gave Leo a fat daisy, dyed some strange green color from the store. Leo knew the smells of those, and while they weren’t his favorite, he loved it all the same. Leo glommed the flower from his Greg’s hand and danced around the room on the tips of his claws, making happy yelping noises until the bell on the front of the store door jingled.

  His Greg ran upstairs, locking the door behind him. Leo scrambled up a shelf and onto a pile of overstock dog food. He loved the early parts of the month when the pile of food was high. If he was careful, he could peer right through a gap in two wall panels and watch the world through it. Today, it was a “Ma’am,” what his Greg called the other kinds of Gregs, with a little Greg in hand, toddling about at eye level with all the most fascinating things of the store. Cat toys, fancy mice, rawhide. Leo liked rawhide, too. It made his loose teeth fall out. He shed them often. With wide-eyed excitement, the boy spied Leo’s peeping eye and waved before toddling over, grinning. Leo had seen tiny Gregs often, but this one was the perfect size to play with Leo, and the excitement bubbled out of him until next thing he knew…he was a good deal smaller and blinked in surprise. The world around him went dull and dim. He tried to vocalize, but all that came out was a keening shout. Leo did not like it at all!

  He raised his claw and gasped, staring at his pink fingers, skin, little freckles that dotted his flesh. Leo clumsily staggered and slipped down the pile of bagged food and moved to the side of the enclosures to stare at his reflection.

  Am a Greg, too! He looked down at his strange fleshy body and stared at his groin.

  Gregs has weird tails.

  Leo jumped around on his four feet and remembered that Gregs walk on two. He stood unsteadily and took a few weak steps on rickety, thin legs. A long mess of red hair spilled about wildly over him and he giggled. “GEGG!” Leo tried to wag his nonexistent tail and flick his wings, but it startled him. He screamed and toppled over, whining as he turned back into a scaly Leo, staring at his claws angrily.