Matthew: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  Matthew had a lot of rich friends. He only knew that because when they’d both been staying at Matthew’s family home, Rolland had gotten into his room one night. There were all kinds of pictures of him with his buddies. On skiing trips, at huge fucking Christmas parties, as well as other adventures that Rolland had never been on. It would have been nice, he thought, if Matthew had invited him along just once. But again, it wasn’t like they were best buds.

  Rolland did use that time to figure out a list of Matthew’s friends’ names. Until recently, he didn’t know what sort of information he could get from the list. In reality, it didn’t help him much, after he’d found a use for the list, in finding out which one of his rich friends knew where Matt was. But he’d had it, and that was the most important thing.

  You’re a putz. Rolland was sure that one of the men had come back and looked around for the person who spoke to him. I’m not there, you fucking dick, but at my home watching television with my family. However, that doesn’t make you any less of a putz. Did you really kill Horace Courtright?

  “I don’t know who that is. Show yourself right now, or I’m going to start firing my gun around the room.” She told him that he didn’t have a gun. “And how the fuck would you know that? You don’t. Just keep up this flow of conversation, and I’ll narrow it down to where you are.”

  Go ahead and fire off your imaginary gun. I’ll wait. I’m not there, so it matters little to me if you want to play with yourself. Get it? Play with yourself. He knew it was a woman then when she laughed. Yes, I’m a woman. A woman that you don’t want to fuck with. Do you have any idea how easy it was to find you? Easy, let me tell you right now. And Horace Courtright was the man you murdered when you found him going through the house that you’re currently squatting in. Where is Beta, the little faerie that was watching over you?

  “You mean the little bug? It’s dead. It took me some doing to kill it, too.” The woman told him that he lied, that he’d not be able to kill her creatures. “Your creatures? You know what, I don’t care. But it’s dead. And I have the stain on my boot to prove it.”

  Almost as soon as he mentioned his boot, his boots were lifted up from the floor. He watched as they were turned this way and that like something was actually looking them over. After the first one popped him in the head, he ducked when the second boot came at him. But he didn’t count on it hitting him from behind.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? That fucking hurt.” She told him that he’d not killed Beta. “I did too. I saw it smashed on the floor when I killed it.”

  You wounded her. Beta is not an it, but a real creature. When I call her to me, you’d better hope that she can be nurtured back to health. He felt his head hurt when a loud shrill whistle came through him. Did that hurt? Good. I’m thinking that it might not have hurt you as bad if you’d had a brain cell one in that empty cavern you call your mind. Anyway, you’re very lucky. Beta is going to be just fine. However, you’re not. There are currently three of my people in front of you. They’ll not be so easy to harm. But you go ahead and try. Not just yet. I want you to know a few things that I’ve found out about you first.

  The little people, he could see now, were standing on the table there in front of him. The three of them together were smaller than his hand. But he remembered what Beta or whatever her name was had done to him before. He still had open wounds on his body where she had messed him up.

  Now, as I was saying, you’ve killed one of the king’s men. I’ll not explain to you who the king is or what sort of creatures he rules, but you can safely bet when they come for you, you’d be better off going with them instead of pissing them off more. Also, and this one makes me giggle, you will have to figure out another way of eating. I’ve taken all the foodstuffs that you stole and put it back to where it belonged. I can’t take what you’ve eaten, but I would like to tell you that I hope you enjoyed it. Also, the power is going to be cut off there. Just like she’d flipped the switch herself, he was plunged into darkness. The silence of the house was scary too. Okay, you were having trouble with the date. Today is Friday the thirteenth. Oh, bad luck for you all the way around, I’m afraid. Tomorrow the house and contents are going to go on the auction block. I might have to run over there to see you scrambling your ass around, trying to get yourself new digs. They’ll find the body by then. Of the cop you killed when he tried to arrest you. There won’t be any place for you to hide when they see that you’ve killed not just one, but two cops in the last few days.

  “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Since there is no one listening in on us, I will tell you that I did kill that first guy. But no one else. Not since I moved into this house. I’m going to have to protest on that second one. I didn’t kill a cop.” She told him that he had. “I think that I would have remembered killing a cop, don’t you? I mean, they’re usually all dressed up and have a gun. I didn’t kill anyone else.”

  I didn’t say you killed him since you’ve moved into that house and made it your own. You killed him on the way there. And, like Horace, he was off duty. You’re two for two now in killing people that could get your sorry ass in prison. He thought about the man that he’d hit while he’d been running alongside the road. Yes, that’s the one. Imagine his family finding out that not only was the man out for a little exercise after his surgery but that you hit him with his own car and left him to die. He was alive when you hit him, and would have lived a good deal longer. But since you’re a putz and left him there, he died, and it’s all your fault. They’ve found the car, by the way. I was able to lead them right to it. You should be ready to get your shit together, Rolland. The police are nearly ready to break in your front door.

  The door exploded inwards. Not only did he find himself on the floor with several men shouting at him to not move, but the woman in his mind was laughing. Rolland had no idea why she’d find things so funny, but she could barely contain herself trying to tell him that he was going to jail. But his stepbrother would find him soon enough.

  It didn’t sound like a good thing for Matthew to find him. For some reason, he was more terrified of Matthew at that moment than he was the cops that were picking him up by his underarms and dragging his ass out of the house.

  Matthew didn’t have a temper; he knew that. So why he was so afraid all of a sudden was a mystery to him. Whatever came from this, from Matthew, Rolland was sure that he could talk his brother out of it.

  By the time he was in the back of the cruiser, he was sure that this was going to all blow over. They didn’t have shit on him; he’d made sure of that. The car? Well, anyone could have driven it into that other cop. He’d made sure that no one would find even a flake of dandruff on the seat when he’d finished with it. Yes, Rolland thought, he was going to be just fine.

  Then the woman started laughing again. There wasn’t any shutting her up either. When the little people landed on his knee, no amount of trying to get them to go away would work. Mother fuck nuts, these little things were going to cause him trouble, he just knew it.

  ~*~

  Aisling wanted to ask Bryce what she’d found so funny, but she was a little afraid of her. Not only had she been able to have an entire conversation with Rolland, but she’d made it so that she and Matt could hear it too. Then when Roxanna came into the room, telling them about the dead cop that had been involved in a hit and run, Aisling didn’t know what to think.

  “In answer to your unspoken question, I’m a witch. The grand witch, as a matter of fact. Roxanna, as you’ve heard, is a necromancer. She called for the young cop to come to her, and that was how she was able to find out who had killed him. Answer your questions so far?” Nodding at her, Aisling thought of something else. “I want you to feel like you can come to all of us, Aisling. Now that you and Matt are mated, we consider you as much family as we do anyone else. Kelly and Nicole didn’t come here to help out, because they thought that having us all around
at once would overwhelm you again.”

  “It does. I’m not used to people. Not just dragons and others that have a lot of power, but just people in general.” Bryce told her that she could understand that. “The others too. Lady Susanna and the rest of your families, they’re a bit much too, aren’t they? Not in a bad way, but just too much.”

  “I get it. But we’d never harm you. Not in any way. I know that you and Matt have been talking, and I won’t ask you what it was about, but I know that you’re no longer a white dragon, are you? You have a special power all your own that I can feel. I can use it too should I need to. I won’t steal from you, not ever, but if I were in need of it, I’d like to know that you’d not be upset with me.” Aisling told her that so long as she didn’t use it against her, she’d be fine with that. “I don’t think you mean using your magic against you, do you?”

  “No. I mean that if you want to tap me out, I’m fine with that. But if it’s not enough, or something that you don’t like, you don’t get pissed off with me about it.” Bryce told her that she’d never do that. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? In the event you don’t know this, I’m not terribly trusting either. It’s not just you, but as I said before, I feel overwhelmed by how much power there is just lingering after you guys leave a room. It’s a lot to get used to.”

  “You can feel the powers?” Aisling nodded, feeling stupid because she’d brought it up. “No, that’s wonderful. Do you use it or just let it linger?”

  “I don’t know if this is the right way to describe it or not, but I sort of absorb it into myself. I’ve always been able to do that. Somehow too, if it’s black magic—which there is a great deal around—my body can fix it so that it doesn’t harm me or my dragon.” Bryce said that was wonderful. Then she asked if she could see it too or just feel it. “Both. They’re colors: blues and greens, earth tones for the most part that are white magic. I often wondered why it wasn’t white, but that’s not really anything that bothers me that much. For darker magic, black magic, it’s degrees of black. I’m sure that you’re aware of this already, but how dark the magic is determines how dark it is in the lingering parts.”

  “I didn’t know that. I just assumed, like most I guess, that white was white and black was black. Can you see any dark magic in here now? If so, how dark is it?” Aisling looked around the room and spotted the source of the dark magic that was in Matt’s home. “Tell me what you see, please.”

  “That grandfather clock over there in the corner of the room. It has a great deal of dark magic surrounding it. It’s not black, but very close to it. I would say that something or someone put a spell on it at some time in its life, and it’s still there. At least enough that I can see it.” They both walked to the clock and opened the belly of it, the part where the chains hung to balance out the pendulum. “It’s the weights. Something is on the weights. It’s very black now that I can see where it is coming from.”

  Carefully, Bryce pulled the weights out and looked them over. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them, so she started to hand them to her. Aisling asked if she could try something first.

  “When I was looking for Rolland at the cave, Matt was able to see what I was when he touched me. I’d like to see whether if I touch you, you can see what I do.” As soon as she touched the grand witch, her arm tingled, and she knew that they could both see what was going on with the weight. “What do you see?”

  “This is fucking awesome. The man who made the clock was hit from behind by his son. It didn’t kill him, but the magic that his son used did. When he was finished getting rid of the body, the son put a spell on the weight that he’d used to kill his father so that there would be nothing to show that it had been used for such a deed.” Bryce asked her if that was it. Aisling asked her how she’d known that he’d been killed by his son. “I don’t know, really. It just came to me that he was related to him in that way. You see something else, don’t you?”

  “Yes. The clock has items in it that were hidden there just that morning. The man—Mr. Chime was his name, believe it or not—knew that his son, William, was greedy and would someday try and kill him. The parts of the clock that had been used for the murder were put into it by his son. The magic hid the real treasures.” Reaching into the belly, she felt around for the leather sack that had been in the clock for over a hundred years. “This belongs to Matt’s family. It was his father that the clock was being made for.”

  Bryce asked if she could open it. Since she had no idea, Aisling told her that she didn’t care. Once they were near the dining room table, Bryce pulled the leather ties apart, then dumped the contents on the table. Even knowing what she did about the things inside, Aisling was still amazed at what was there.

  “What do you know about these pieces?” Bryce picked up the first thing near her. It was a ring that had been made for a much larger hand. “I think that is a real blue diamond.”

  “It is. I can feel it. It was made for the clockmaker’s mother. She was a very large woman. The clockmaker, Mr. Chime, you called him, was dabbling in making things such as this when he realized that his son wouldn’t come and take over the business. The wood and the time was beginning to take its toll on him.” Aisling put her fingertip on the next piece she picked up. “This is beautiful. It belonged to his wife. She wore it every day until she passed away. It was also the very first piece that he had made that he was proud of. She loved it so much that she asked him to keep it around so that he’d remember her. Then to give it to their son when he married. That is so sad, don’t you think?”

  “It is, but also something special. The other jewelry, like the clock—it belongs to Matt’s father, correct?” Aisling told her that it did. “Then I guess we should ask what he wants to do with it. I mean, it does belong to him.”

  “Yes. But this piece belongs to Mr. Chimes’s great-granddaughter. Her name is Angel Mae Chime. Do you think you can find her?” Bryce told her that it would be her pleasure. “Thank you. You see if you can find her, and I’ll ask Matt’s father, all right?”

  “Ask Matt’s father, what?” The man standing there looked familiar. She didn’t know him yet, but when Matt came up behind the other man, she knew that they were related. When he spoke, she could even hear the resemblance between father and son. “My goodness. Matt said you were beautiful, Aisling, but you’ve grown into quite the lovely woman. Your father and I were good friends back in the day.”

  She didn’t know what to say to him about that, so didn’t say anything. Matt seemed to understand that she was speechless when he moved closer to the table and put his arm around her. The reassurance from him made her feel much stronger and more able to speak again.

  “What have you got there?” While father and son looked over the things that they’d found, Bryce told them what they’d been able to figure out. Matt loved the story with the necklace and asked his father what he wanted to do about it. “Nothing, son. It’s yours. I didn’t care what happened to the things in the house after your mother passed away. I have no attachment to it now. If you’d like to give it to Aisling, I’m fine with that. But I think that she has a wonderful idea to give it to the young woman. It might be all she has from her family.”

  “Wait—the son, did he marry later?” Bryce looked at her then. Shaking her head, Aisling said that he’d not. “Then how did you know about the granddaughter? I don’t care, but I’m betting you have a special kind of magic that can trace her lineage.”

  “The woman, Ashley Smith, gave birth to Angel Mae in a home for wayward women. She was the daughter of a very poor family, and William Junior raped her. No one adopted the child known only as Smith. It wasn’t until later, when Angel was able to figure out who her mother was, that she found out that William Junior had taken advantage of her mom. Angel Mae had her birth records changed when she could prove that she was indeed a Chime. There is another child left of the family, but he’s in a nursing ho
me across the country and has no knowledge of anything regarding his family.” Bryce nodded and looked at Matt and his father, Lord St. James. “There is something else you should know about the other pieces here. They all belong to someone that had asked Mr. Chimes to make it for them. None of the pieces left can be given back, as the family lines are no longer around. But I thought you should know that.”

  “You got that from a touch.” Aisling nodded at Lord St. James. “I’m sure that there are a lot of pieces in the safe in our old home that you could tell us about too. I, for one, would love to hear the stories behind them. Do you think you could do that for us?”

  “Yes, sir.” He picked her up off the floor and hugged her tightly. When she was set back on the floor, he looked at her. “If you’d not mind, I’d like some stories about my father as well if you could. I’m guessing since you knew him, you knew my mother too.”

  “I did. Is she still around causing trouble?” Aisling nodded to him. “I thought so. When Matt told me of some of the things that had been going on, it wasn’t until I saw you that I realized that I know Medusa as well. You have nothing to worry about when it comes to her, my daughter dear. We’ll take care of that bitch. Then we’ll get to know my family heirlooms. You are a rare treat for me, Aisling. I’m so glad that you and Matt have found each other.”

  “I think that I am as well.”

  They all laughed, and she felt her face heat up. To try and fix what she’d said would only make her feel more foolish. Pulling away from his lordship, she made her way to the upper floors, where Dak told her that the missus was resting. Anything to get herself out of her blunder, she thought.

  Chapter 5

  Julia was very weak, but she could sit up in bed now. When the knock sounded at the door, she bid them to enter. The young woman there was someone that she’d never met before. Smiling at her, she asked her to come in.