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Harry groaned as tiny claws used the back of his head as a perch and a small snout chewed on a wayward strand of hair. Another small figure was curled around the top of his head, one who hissed at the disruption by its nestmate and then promptly sneezed.
He groaned again—louder—when he smelled smoke and carefully sat up.
Green eyes glowered through the darkened room. Way too dark, which meant it was way too early. But it was doubtful that he would go to sleep anytime soon. He knew from experience that once the little ones were awake, they were determined to make sure everyone else was up with them as well. Besides, the spot where his Alpha normally slept was empty aside from a coiled form hidden underneath a blanket, only visible because its two horns had cut through the fabric, and now that Harry had moved, the warm spot his body left behind already had been occupied by a newly hatched Ruby Vanyx.
Carefully, he extracted himself from the room, moving inch by inch to make sure he wasn’t disturbing anyone—or anything—else. As he did, he counted.
A litter of six ice wolf pups that were still at the bottle-feeding stage, three baby nytura who had been found orphaned in various dragon nests and were the start of a new pack, at least three species of dragonets, a horned serpent that liked to burrow, and either four or five cabbits that were thankfully still in their basket.
Despite the smell of smoke, nothing was obviously on fire in the resting room, which he considered a small mercy.
He paused, then took the basket of cabbits with them. This litter was more cat than rabbit and they could hold their own, but bottle-fed or not, he didn’t necessarily trust the ice wolf pups not to test out their hunting skills now that their eyes were open.
He grumbled nonsensical words, eyes still only half-open. Four out of four days this week. Something had to be done.
He found his wayward Alpha in the kitchen, reading over newly-submitted requests and completing the required paperwork that kept their organization running. Ignoring it, Harry set the basket of cabbits on the table and crawled onto Kaloyan’s lap, burying his face in the taller man’s neck, grumbling all the while.
“Did they wake you again?” His Alpha didn’t even bother to hide the amusement in his tone.
“Kala…” Harry whined. When Kaloyan’s body shook under him in silent laughter, he huffed and bit into that broad expanse of neck. At first, it was only to make a point of his displeasure—both at being up so early and at waking up alone—but he quickly settled into a comfort feed, his grumbles shifting into quiet chirrs as a large hand rubbed up and down his back.
“They’re menaces,” he declared when he finally pulled back. When he turned his head toward the table, he discovered that the basket of cabbits had been whisked away and a cup of strong tea was next to his Alpha’s usual morning coffee, so he chirped a quiet thanks to whichever Pareya was on breakfast duty.
“They’re baby nytura, they’re supposed to be mischievous menaces,” Kaloyan replied in a dry tone. “And I did warn you about spoiling them.”
Harry made a face, because yes, his Alpha had warned him. He just hadn’t listened at the time.
And now he was regretting it.
“I think we need to rename the resting room to something like ‘nursery’,” he said instead. “There’s more animals than us at this point.”
“Only by one or two and only when you count actual animals. When it comes to actual species, there’s still two of us to one of them. It’s a perfectly manageable number.”
“… You sure you’re not related to the Scamanders?”
Muffled laughs came from the other side of the kitchen and Harry quickly took a drink from his tea to hide his own smile as Kaloyan rolled his eyes.
“Very sure. But if you’d like, I’ll try to explain things … again. But I’m not sure it’ll work more than it did the other times. They’re only babies, after all. Reasoning is a bit difficult at this stage.”
“Can’t be too complicated,” Harry muttered. He put his tea back on the table and shifted so he could rest his head on Kaloyan’s broad shoulder. “When the sun’s awake, you’re awake; when the sun’s asleep, you’re asleep.” Even if he could sleep until dawn, he could consider that sleeping in at this point. The baby nytura should have been able to understand him, since they’d done the whole blood-bonding thing with him right after they’d hatched, but when it came to things like sleep-time, they were very good at pretending otherwise. So… “Yes, do the Critter Chitter thing.”
He realized his mistake too late, only after claws settled on his hips.
“The Critter. Chitter. Thing?” Kaloyan asked, annunciating each word deliberately. “Is that what you call it behind my back?”
“No, nope, not at all,” Harry said quickly, but the denials didn’t save him. He twitched and devolved into laughs as the claws lightly scraped up and down his sides, digging in to tickle him. “Kala, Kala, no! I didn’t come up with it!”
“I’m sure I know who did,” his Alpha murmured against his neck, nipping at it lightly, but the tickling stopped after a moment. “And I’ll bring it up with him later. But for now, help me go through these requests and I’ll consider it payment for dealing with your three menaces.”
Harry easily agreed and took the files from the Alpha. He flipped the first one open and immediately paused at the photo, not quite sure what he was looking at. The bottom half was definitely some sort of cat but the top half… looked very similar to a raw chicken, red and hairless, with bulging eyes, featherless wings, and a small, very sharp beak. “Is this a griffin?”
“Newly hatched. The down won’t come in for another few days, so we’d have to keep it in one of the incubators.”
“I thought they would be more regal,” Harry admitted.
Kaloyan smiled at him. “The adult ones are. The babies are adorable, after the first week or so. It makes up for all the trouble they are, because they’re chaos incarnate. They have a tendency to rust any metal that gets in their way. Yes or no?”
Baby nytura that liked to gnaw on gemstones and a baby griffin that could rust metal. Their Pareya Mylakh was going to hate them for the next few weeks. But a griffin would be new for their Circle, so the answer was obvious to Harry.
“Yes.”