Her Dragon Daddy, page 3
part #1 of Black Claw Dragons Series
I forced myself to speak. “I mean, what are you doing in Black Claw?”
“My family and I moved back about four years ago,” he said. He moved to the left as if to come around the potatoes, but I didn’t want him to come any closer. I couldn’t take it, so I shifted to the right.
“How have you been?” he asked. His eyebrows were furrowed in concern and his eyes wide and worried.
I glared at him. How could I answer that without opening the biggest can of worms canned worms had ever seen?
There was no way to answer him.
He signed and his shoulders slumped. A few choice sentences sprang to mind, full of words of insult about him, but then I heard my son’s voice.
No. Not yet. I wanted to introduce them in the right way. I’d imagined it for so many years, and this wasn’t in any way how I wanted it to go, out of the blue at a grocery store.
“Mom?” Maddox walked out from an aisle of dry goods, several feet behind Maverick. I froze with my eyes on my son over his father’s shoulder, and I knew that the instant Maverick turned around, it would all be over. They looked so much alike, I felt like I was watching a TV show that had found a doppelganger younger actor to play the scenes of the main character’s past.
Please don’t turn around.
Of course, Maverick didn’t listen to my internal pleas. He turned, coming face to face with my son—Our son.
Maddox didn’t notice at first and continued toward me, close enough that Maverick turned. I could see both of their faces now.
Hailey bounded forward, stopping her cart right beside me. “Mom, I’m up to twenty, but I want these granola bars. Granola bars are healthy, right? So, can that go in your cart?”
I didn’t hear her words. I just took the box of bars from her and dropped them into my cart as I watched my son notice Maverick.
“Mom?”
“Hush, baby. In a second,” I whispered.
Maverick’s face had paled, and he’d put one hand on the potato display.
Maddox’s face mirrored Maverick’s. He paled as well, and I blinked several times. I knew they looked alike—almost identical. Maddox’s sweet face had haunted me for nearly eighteen years. I didn’t love him any less, just buried the pain of him looking so much like the lost love of my life.
I pretty much forgot how to breathe as neither of them said a word. Maverick looked up and down, scrutinizing Maddox. Maddox just stared at Maverick’s face.
“Whoa,” Hailey whispered.
I tore my gaze from Maddox and Maverick to look down at my daughter. She’d figured it out.
I put my arm around her and pulled her close. “Yeah, sweetie. Whoa is right.”
4
Maverick
Blood pounded in my ears, and my dragon lost his shit.
He was already freaked out by being so close to Ava without any warning. Seeing our son made him rage. And I was sure he was my son. He looked like my younger self had hopped in a time machine. It took everything I had not to snatch the boy into my arms and roar my frustration at not knowing he existed before now.
He is ours. Take him.
As usual, I ignored my beast.
The boy turned to Ava and said something with wide eyes and a pale face. Ava responded, but I couldn’t hear them over the roaring in my ears and the sound of my dragon losing his shit.
Grab him. Son. Clan. He is ours. My skin tingled and burned, the urge to shift stronger than I’d had to fight off since the first time.
I sensed my son’s dragon, but he hadn’t shifted yet. The dragon was suppressed and couldn’t get out to let out his frustration. That would build up in the boy.
Dragging in a deep breath, I took in his scent and let my dragon analyze it.
He is ours. There is no doubt.
I agreed. But how?
The boy turned to me again with rage in his eyes. I recognized the pain in them. He didn’t know what was happening to him. How could he? If Ava hadn’t come back to Black Claw, the boy would’ve gone through his first shift alone. That could’ve been catastrophic.
This was why we were so careful to keep tabs on our young.
How could this have happened?
My knees wobbled, making me feel weak for the first time in my life. If I could’ve sat down right then, I would’ve.
The alpha in me wouldn’t allow weaknesses. I snapped myself out of it, shaking my head and fully registering the scent of my son. Family.
Our son needs us. Calm him, I told Zephyr, my dragon.
Many thousands of years ago, dragons had freely roamed the earth. They were familial beasts and always lived in large pods, usually deep in the mountains. They preferred to live away from other large beasts or humans.
Eventually, humans had hunted them to the point that they had to take drastic action. One dragon clan had befriended their local tribe of humans and worked out a great magic with the shaman—The dragon shifters were born. Every new dragon pregnancy was magically imbibed with a human one. When the last dragon died, he died knowing his species would evolve and survive. Now, they were a part of us. Every shifter was able to speak to his dragon, but Zephyr was me and I was him. I knew his inherent memories. They were born knowing certain facts and remembering certain events about their history and ancestors.
Equally, he was with me during every moment of my human life, even though before I had my first shift, we were truly one conscience.
I always liked to think of it like shifters were very adept at talking to themselves.
You are right. He did his beastly thing, that I understood only instinctually, and he embraced our son’s dragon. The boy wouldn’t feel a thing, except a sense of belonging and rationality blanketing him.
The boy’s face calmed. The pounding in my ears lessened as well and sounds filtered back into my brain.
Once Zephyr resolved himself to the fact that that we had a son, Ava’s scent hit us again.
Mate. He had a one-track mind.
Ignoring him once again, I turned to Ava and let myself process her scent. Damn. He was right, though. She was our mate, my mate, no doubt about it.
Fuck.
Of course, I had a fated mate. And of course, it was Ava. I’d always known it, but I’d pushed it away and ignored it. I knew I couldn’t have her, so there had been no point in imagining we’d been fated to be together.
Fated mates were rare, but they existed. And they tended to be more common for alpha dragons. Like me and Zephyr.
Ava narrowed her eyes at me. “I know this is a lot.” She returned her attention to her son. Our son. My son. Shit. “But we will discuss it all. For now, can you two go find a few more things we might need this coming week? Milk and bread and stuff?”
The boy’s eyes stayed on me as he nodded. He looked back and forth between me and his mom, his chest puffed out. “Shouldn’t I stay with you, Mom?”
I sensed the protectiveness for his mother rolling off of him. My chest swelled with pride to know he’d protected his mother so well.
“You have nothing to fear from me, son. I would never harm your mother.” I laced my words with a hint of alpha power. It would help him listen to them and know them to be true.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m pretty sure you harmed her eighteen years ago, but sure. I believe you won’t cause her any physical harm. Come on, Hailey.”
Damn. I wasn’t sure if I deserved that or not. She was the one that had given me a son without telling me.
The girl, Hailey, left her cart beside her mom and walked to her brother. They turned and walked the way they’d come. “Are you okay, Maddox?” she asked in a soft, sweet voice.
Maddox. My son’s name was Maddox.
A strong name.
Ava sighed once they were out of sight. “Well. Now you know.”
Emotions crowded for attention in my chest. My dragon was ready to lose it again, but he was focused on one thing.
Mate
“How could you not tell me I have a son?” I asked. That was the most important question. I’d left her, and I’d wished ever since that there had been another way, but that wasn’t reason enough to deprive me of my child.
Her jaw dropped. “How—” she roared but cut herself off when her voice came out at top volume. Only a few other people were in the store, and one was nearby. Old Man Jenkins turned and looked at us in reproach. I doubted he could see well enough to know who we were.
Ava sucked in a breath. “How…” she repeated through clenched teeth before relaxing them and breathing in again, “…was I supposed to tell you? You disappeared. You cut off your phones. You changed the locks on your home.” I’d forgotten I’d given her a key to the house, with my parents’ blessing. Before we left, we’d been nearing the time that we planned to invite Ava into our family as my mate.
“I stayed in Black Claw until Maddox was four years old. Then one day I’d had enough. I left, but I came back every year.” She paused and blinked. “Until my grandmother died. I stopped coming then.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and when a sob escaped her, she put her hand over her mouth. “Are you going to say anything?” she asked.
This is our fault. We did this.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I was flummoxed. She’d had a baby without me. We’d left, abandoned her.
“I—”
As soon as I try to say I didn’t know, she cut me off.
“Maddox knows about you. He knows your name and our story. I was honest with him.”
“So, he knows I didn’t do this intentionally?” So many men in this day and age were abandoners, leaving their families and responsibilities. I didn’t want him to think I ever would’ve done that.
I hadn’t known.
“Yes. He knows. I always told him that if you knew, you never would’ve let him leave you.”
My heart broke. She had to have been hurt, devastated by my leaving. We’d been so in love, it was disgusting. Nobody had liked being around us, because we were the definition of a gross new-love couple. It had cut me to the quick to be away from her. She’d had to go through it during a pregnancy, birth, and raising my son. My son.
Opening my mouth again to say something, anything to start to heal the hurt, she stopped me by raising a hand. “He knows about you. Do you still live in the same place?” she asked pointedly.
I nodded.
“Good. If he wants to explore a relationship, he’ll reach out. Whoever is at fault for all of this, it isn’t him. And going forward, how it progresses is entirely up to him. Can you agree to that?”
I hated it. I wanted to run to both of them and claim them as my own. But she was right; Maddox needed me now more than ever. He’d be going through his first shift in less than a year if I was right about his age. He would need me whether he liked it or not.
But I had time to be patient and let him come to the conclusion on his own.
I nodded again.
“Good.” She turned and walked away after grabbing the snacks out of the cart Hailey left and throwing them into her own. Disappearing in the direction that the kids had gone, she gave me one last look over her shoulder.
Mate! Go after her!
With a sigh, I ignored Zephyr and my shopping list and made a beeline for the front door. If I didn’t leave, I would’ve given in to his urgings and claimed her in the middle of Hoggly Woggly.
I drove home on autopilot with my heart pounding out of my chest. My dragon whimpered the entire way. His intense guilt made my skin crawl.
I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.
We’d left Black Claw because I was an alpha. Alpha dragons were rare, many clans didn’t have one at all. The first shift of an alpha was preceded by aggression, outbursts of temper, and unchecked emotions. I had been no exception. The night we’d left, we felt we had no other choice due to my actions.
As a result, we’d left Ava. Pregnant.
It’s our fault. Both of us were unable to contain the rage. Both of us nearly killed that boy. We share the guilt.
He roared in frustration. It is not right. That boy needs us.
I tried to send him soothing thoughts. He was ready to burst, but I wasn’t in a place I could let him loose just yet.
Thinking placating thoughts, and trying to rationalize with him, I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled onto our road. I barreled past the driveway to Ava’s cabin and tried not to think about it being there, so close to my home. If I thought about it, I’d go straight there, even without the urging of Zephyr.
I pulled around the back of the house and left the keys in the car. Turning and letting my legs hang out of the side of the car, I yanked off my boots and threw them into the yard.
The slam of the cruiser door was the only warning my family had that I was pissed, but I was sure they’d feel my emotions soon enough. By the time my dad got to the back door, I’d stripped out of everything but my underwear and shifted, letting Zephyr take the lead as my boxer briefs shredded around his scales.
As usual, the shift felt like a fast, intense orgasm. Another perk of being a shifter. I breathed deep, the heightened senses of my dragon taking over my mind. The smells and sounds of the forest assaulted my ears until I let him have more control. He was better able to filter out the important sounds and smells and ignore the irrelevant ones.
He roared into the night. Mate.
No, I insisted. If you go to her now, you will lose her forever…and our son.
He growled and then roared again, releasing a torrent of fire into the air and narrowly missing the surrounding trees.
We turned our head to see our betas, my father’s dragon, and my older brother’s dragon. My younger brother, Jury, ran outside, stark naked, shifting as he raced to join us. He’d only had his first shift a few months before, and it was still an exciting novelty to him.
With my clan around me, Zephyr calmed enough to be reasonable. In masses, humans became rowdy and unreasonable. Dragons calmed and became more human-like in their thinking and behavior the more kin they had around them. Especially when shifted.
We’ll do it your way. But I must hunt. Rid myself of this itch.
I let him have his steam and he launched over the forest. Our massive property gave our dragons plenty of room to explore and hunt.
There was no danger of discovery. The human government knew shifters existed and they knew if they ever tried to corral or control us, we would burn the world to the ground. They didn’t have nearly enough power to stop us and never would. For one thing, they had no idea how many of us there were.
The only concern had risen recently, with the invention of drones affordable enough for anybody to own. We’d begun the process of buying up more land to surround our own, hopefully giving us enough space to stay hidden. The dragon alphas had a meeting scheduled early next year to address the problem. I feared we would have to involve the witches, but that was a problem for another day.
5
Ava
My eyes were glued to Maddox every time he came in with another armful of groceries from the SUV. I would’ve offered to help, but he needed the movement. I thought about going back to town, to the small sporting goods store we’d passed. A punching bag or something like that might have helped him focus his anger.
It helped me to give him my worry and attention, and ignore the rage banked inside me.
That son of a bitch hadn’t even said one word about why he’d left, or how he’d left, or the fact that he’d left me pregnant. He’d just asked me why I hadn’t told him. As if I wouldn’t have jumped at the chance for Maddox to know his father! Up until the moment he left me, he’d been the love of my life.
He’d stayed the love of my life, even though I’d gone deep into denial.
I knew he’d been having aggression problems before he disappeared, and there had been times his affection for me had been too much, but none of the aggression had ever been focused at me. He’d never even yelled at me. And if he got to be too suffocating, I’d tell him to give me a few days to myself.
He’d done it without complaint. He’d said he knew he was intense and that he wished he could take a break from himself every once in a while.
Maverick had his issues, sure, but he seemed to have a handle on them—until he nearly beat a kid in his class to death. I was home, having dinner with my Nana, with no clue there was a little Kingston brewing inside me. Maverick had gone down to the local drive-in, a relic from our grandparents’ days. It still stood, though, and I suspected the teenagers still spent every weekend hanging out in the parking lot.
The next thing I knew, my grandmother told me over breakfast the following morning that the Kingstons were gone and that Maverick had put Roman into the hospital.
Hailey interrupted my memories of the last time I’d seen Maverick. “Mom,” she whispered. We watched Maddox go out for another load. We’d had to buy out most of the store since we hadn’t brought a single kitchen staple with us from New Mexico.
“Hush, baby. It’s a big deal, but we’ll talk about it over dinner. Go get your clothes and backpack ready for school tomorrow, okay?”
She pursed her lips, dying to talk about Maverick, but she did as she was told. Thankfully.
I hadn’t believed my grandmother when she’d told me the Kingstons were gone. As soon as I heard the news, I’d flown out of the house, running up the hill as I had done so many times for so many years.
The Kingstons had been a constant in my life every summer for as long as I could remember. Every summer, I stayed with my grandmother, but spent most of my childhood roaming the countryside with Maverick and sometimes his older brother, Axel. Jury, his younger brother, hadn’t been born until a few months before they disappeared. He’d be about a year older than his nephew. I wondered if they’d become friends.
When the enormous Kingston manor came into view, I knew Nana had told me the truth. The windows, always open to let in light, were shuttered. I’d pulled my key from my pocket, but it hadn’t worked.
