The Dragon's Treasured Mate (Uncontrollable Shift Book Two)

by R. E. Butler

  His eyes narrowed, and the stems of the flowers cracked as he clenched his hand. “You don’t want to piss me off. I can make life very difficult for you.”

  She reached for her phone, her hands trembling as she opened her contacts and looked for the number for the alpha’s house.

  “Don’t threaten me,” she said, staring right at Jerris.

  His gaze darted to her phone and then back to her face. “Fine. I was just trying to be nice. If you’re going to be a bitch, then you can deal with the fallout.” He dropped the flowers and stomped his boot down, twisting his leg to grind them into the concrete. “I think you’ll be calling me for help before the day’s over.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  He barked out a laugh that made her skin crawl, and then he turned and walked away into the darkness. She stared until her eyes watered, wondering why he wouldn’t leave her alone. How many years had she had to deal with him? The man couldn’t take a hint. She looked down at her cell and the alpha’s contact information. All she had to do was press the call button and she’d reach Dale Irvine, alpha wolf. But Jerris walked away. He didn’t try to get inside, which because of his enhanced strength through his shifter genes, she knew very well he could. A glass door wouldn’t keep him out if he really wanted to get in. Deciding to talk to Andrea first, she closed the phone app and tucked her cell back in her pocket. For good measure she looked toward the street again, trying to make out any darker shadows, but she couldn’t see anything. He could still be out there, just out of sight, watching her. Waiting.

  She shivered and purposely switched her thoughts to happier ones. Jerris was an ass, but he’d never been violent. She had no reason to believe he’d suddenly do something vicious.

  Cecily returned to the kitchen and her donuts, gathering the ingredients to make her favorite sour cream cake ones with vanilla glaze. By the time she heard the key turn in the front door signaling Andrea’s arrival, she’d prepared five different donuts, a batch of apple fritters, and started the coffee.

  “It smells freaking amazing in here,” Andrea gushed as she walked in. “Wow, you’ve been busy!”

  Cecily gave her a hug. “I couldn’t sleep so I started early.”

  “This is it, babe. Your dream come true. How freaking excited are you? It’s not even my dream and I’m thrilled.”

  “It’s amazing. I can’t believe it’s finally here.” She followed Andrea out into the diner and glanced at the front door. “The weirdest thing happened this morning.”

  “Oh? Weird good or weird bad?”

  She frowned. “When is weird good?”

  “Like that time we were at the boardwalk and we got a yogurt bowl and it looked like baby vomit, but it tasted amazing?”

  “Ugh, yeah. You’d think they’d have tried harder to make it look appetizing. But no, weird bad.” Cecily explained about Jerris showing up and acting mildly threatening.

  Andrea growled. “He’s such a dick! But he didn’t try to get in? Not even rattling the door?”

  Cecily shook her head. “No.”

  “I wondered about those ruined flowers outside. I put them in the trash bin.”

  “Good. I didn’t want them, and I didn’t want to open the door while it was still dark out and I was alone in here.”

  “You should still call Alpha Irvine.”

  “I don’t want to cause trouble.” She chewed her bottom lip.

  “Hello! Jerris is the one acting out, not you. This isn’t just him coming around to ask you out, this is him saying that you’ll be sorry if you don’t work with him. It’s too creepy for words.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “Positive. He needs to know that his son is treating you poorly. When his mate was alive, she and your mom were good friends, and he promised your folks he’d watch out for you.”

  “Okay. After we’re done for the day, though. I think we’ll be slammed. At least, I freaking hope so.”

  At six on the dot, Cecily turned on the glowing neon sign that said open, and looked out into the empty parking lot. Pretty soon people from town would venture in to try her donuts and drink coffee.

  But by the time she turned off the sign at one p.m., they’d had all of seven customers, and it didn’t escape Cecily’s notice that none of them were wolves. She twisted the deadbolt on the front door and turned to face the glass counter with all the donuts she’d worked so hard to make that morning.

  She didn’t want to cry, but damn her eyes stung.

  “That. Bastard.” Andrea said, her voice a low snarl.

  “We don’t know for sure,” Cecily started to say, but stopped the sentence before she finished it. She absolutely did know for sure that Jerris was behind it. His threat made sense now – he’d offered to help and when she turned him down, he told the pack to stay away. He had enough clout as the alpha’s son to make a decision like that and the pack would follow. The town was mostly wolf, which explained why she’d had only a few human customers.

  “Call Alpha Irvine and ask him for help. When you told him that you wanted to open the shop, he helped get you a break on the lease because he knew the building owner. He wouldn’t let you invest all that time and money and then let his son piss all over things.”

  “You’re right,” she said, grabbing her phone and opening her contacts. “Hi, Alpha Irvine, sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you had a moment to talk? Something happened today, and I need your help.”

  Chapter 3

  Torrence opened his eyes and blinked several times until the blurriness faded. Instead of staring up at the sky, he saw a white tile ceiling. He opened his mouth, but his voice was raspy, and his throat felt like it was full of razor blades.

  “Sorna, come quick, he’s up!” Vanessa said, leaning over Torrence and giving him a worried smile. “Don’t try to get up, you’re hooked up to a bunch of things.”

  “What,” he managed to get out before she hushed him.

  “Don’t try to talk. Here’s Sorna, she’ll tell you everything.”

  Sorna was their clan’s doctor, who had studied in human colleges as well as learning about holistic and natural medicine. Dragons didn’t naturally get sick, but they could get injured. The older female smiled down at Torrence and then shone a penlight into both eyes. She clicked the light off and put it in her shirt pocket. He felt her cold finger on his throat, and then she lifted his wrist and looked at her watch for several seconds.

  She put his hand on his chest and patted it gently. “Torrence, you passed out after eating the mating fruit. Your throat closed, and you weren’t breathing. I had to intubate you and pump your body full of drugs to reverse the effects. I gave you something to keep you resting so your body could naturally heal itself. You were asleep for five hours.”

  Vanessa tucked her hand behind his neck and lifted his head enough that he could take a drink of ice water from a cup. He swallowed and groaned, both relieved to have the liquid and pained at the motion of swallowing.

  “I’ll give you something more for the pain,” Sorna said.

  “No,” Torrence said. “I’ll be fine. What happened?”

  Sorna and Vanessa exchanged worried looks, and Torrence’s concern strengthened. Sorna cleared her throat and said, “You’re deathly allergic to our mating fruit.”

  “I don’t understand. That’s impossible.”

  “It should be,” Sorna said, “but it happened to you. There’s no other explanation for why you were nearly killed after taking one large bite. I checked our archives, and there’s never been a case of it happening.”

  He struggled to sit up, and his mother finally gave up trying to keep him prone. His head swam but he pushed through. He had a needle in the top of his hand with two tubes out of it, leading to bags of solution hanging from a metal stand next to the hospital bed. There was a blood pressure cuff on his bicep and a heart rate monitor on his index finger. His palms were no longer covered with itchy bumps.

  He took the cup his moth
er offered and finished it. His throat was feeling better already. Handing the cup to his mother, he looked at Sorna. “How can you be sure it was an allergy?”

  Her brow rose. “Because the symptoms reversed with high doses of antihistamines. There’s really no other explanation.”

  “Poison?” he asked.

  “Who would want to poison you?” Vanessa demanded.

  Sorna put her hand up. “Hold on, hold on. You weren’t poisoned, Torrence. You had an allergic reaction to mating fruit. And besides, I ran a tox screen and there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Could this be a one-time thing?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” Sorna asked.

  “I mean, could I try again next year?”

  Neither female said anything for long enough that what little hope he had filled his head with about possibly trying again next mating season disappeared.

  “I’m sorry, Torrence,” Sorna said. “I barely got you breathing this time. There’s no way that I’d allow you to try to eat the fruit that nearly killed you.”

  He stared at Sorna until she fidgeted uncomfortably and left the room. Then he flopped back onto the bed and groaned. “Tell me this isn’t happening.”

  Vanessa sighed. “I wish it weren’t.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s on his way, I just texted him that you were awake.”

  Torrence closed his eyes as his mind spun over what had happened. He didn’t want to think about what being allergic to the mating fruit meant to himself and his dragon, but it was there in his mind. He’d never claim his dragon. He’d never be whole. And forget finding a mate. No female would mate a male who couldn’t claim her with his dragon. All the plans he’d had for his life had hinged on him finding his mate and claiming his dragon.

  * * *

  Torrence sat in his father’s den and stared into the empty fireplace. The coffee his mother had given him had long gone cold as he’d listened to his father and the clan elders discuss his problem.

  Problem was hardly a grand enough word for the epic disaster that eating a damn piece of fruit had thrown his life into. For all intents and purposes, he was considered human. A descendant of powerful dragon shifters who couldn’t so much as change his hand into a claw, let alone turn into the beast of his forefathers. His mother had hovered, clucking worriedly over him once he’d been declared healthy and released from Sorna’s care. His father had been stoic, promising that he would scour the archives until they found a solution, which was what had brought him to the den.

  “Did any of the males find their mates?” he asked finally, glancing at his mother who was sitting in the leather wingchair next to him.

  “Staz did,” she answered softly, “and two more from our clan, there were several from each clan who found their mates.”

  “Good.” He let out a deep sigh and set the still-full mug on the side table and stood. “At least it wasn’t a bust for everyone.”

  He turned to face his father and the elders. They’d been looking through the clan archives for something similar to what he’d gone through. It was the second time that the books had been read through since his reaction, and he wasn’t holding out hope that they would find some hidden secret that would make everything right in his world.

  His father looked up at him and Torrence could tell by the drawn brows and frown that there wasn’t good news to be had.

  “So that’s that, then,” Torrence said.

  “I’m afraid so. Without the mating fruit, you can’t find your true mate and claim your dragon.”

  It would be so much easier if he were a less complicated shifter, like a wolf. Wolves were born with the ability to shift at a young age, and simply scented their mate and claimed her. No crazy fruit required.

  “Thank you for looking,” he said. He nodded at his father and turned to leave, when he was stopped.

  “Stay, Son. Give us the room, please.”

  His mother joined his father at his desk. Benecio didn’t say anything until the elders had closed the door behind them. Then he cleared his throat. “You can still lead a full life without your dragon. This isn’t the end of your life, it’s simply that your life is going in a direction that you didn’t plan.”

  “Didn’t plan? That’s the understatement of the year.”

  “You have every right to be upset,” Vanessa said, “but in time things won’t seem so bleak.”

  He wanted to tell them both how off they were, but he wouldn’t throw their kind words back in their faces. He lived on a mountain of dragons. Unmated males had hope to find their females and their dragons in the future, but there was no hope for Torrence. He’d forever be a freak of nature. A dragon without a dragon.

  “I don’t think I can face anyone right now. I don’t think I can be here anymore.”

  “What about your friends?” Vanessa asked.

  “I’d just rather disappear.”

  It was entirely cowardly and a total bullshit move, but he didn’t care. He wanted to sulk in private.

  “If you’re certain,” his father said.

  “I am.”

  “Then you can go to my homestead in the Tomb Mountains. The cabin is small, and the town is mostly wolves. But if you want to get away from things to think, it’s a good place for it. The wolves don’t come up the mountains because it’s my territory. I’ll place a call to the alpha, and you can check in with him when you arrive.”

  His mother came around the desk and put her hand on Torrence’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. Just because you don’t have your dragon, doesn’t mean you can’t find love.”

  “I’m not interested in anything except getting out of here,” Torrence said bluntly.

  “I’ll make the arrangements,” his father said.

  “I’m sorry,” Torrence said, fighting the emotions that welled in his chest.

  “What could you possibly have to be sorry for?” his mother asked.

  “I’m sorry I’m a disappointment.”

  “You’re not,” she admonished. “Ben, tell him.”

  “This is out of your control. You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “Yeah, well. I should pack.”

  Kissing the top of his mother’s hand, he walked stiffly from the room and headed to his suite to drown his sorrows in a bottle of vodka and pack his things. His parents might believe he would come back to the clan eventually, but Torrence knew he never would. Without the ability to claim his dragon, he could never take over as clan leader, and he’d definitely never have a mate. Living alone in the mountains in the middle of nowhere seemed like a fitting way to start the next, terrible chapter of his life.

  * * *

  Three days later, Torrence arrived in Tomb, ignoring how fitting the town’s name was. His parents believed he was getting away to think and come to terms with his dragon-less fate and he let them believe that for the time being. In truth, he didn’t plan to return to his clan. How could he? He’d suffer the looks of pity from the others, and every year he’d be standing at the sidelines as males found their mates and claimed their dragons. He’d be an outsider for the rest of his life.

  Too depressing for words.

  Although he wanted to go straight to the cabin and lock the door, he knew he needed to see the alpha wolf first. It was simply a courtesy. The mountain itself was Torrence’s father’s territory, and no one but his father had any say in who could live there. The town of Tomb was a mixture of human and wolf. He had no desire to get to know anyone in town. He only wished to be left to his misery.

  He stopped his truck in front of the alpha’s home. According to Benecio, Dale Irvine was a widower with an adult son named Jerris, and had been alpha for nearly thirty years. Torrence had never set foot in Tomb, but Benecio had given him a map. He’d packed his clothing and food to last him for a few weeks.

  The front door opened and a male with dark hair stood in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes narr
owed.

  Torrence got out of the truck and walked up the sidewalk. “Alpha Irvine? I’m Torrence. My father called a few days ago to let you know I would be stopping by on my way to the homestead.”

  “Yes, come in,” he said, stepping to the side.

  Torrence entered the house and then followed the alpha to a sitting room. Four males were in the room, and one looked like a younger version of Dale, which Torrence assumed was Jerris.

  “These are my high-ranked males,” Dale said, gesturing to the group as he said their names and sat on a couch.

  Torrence sat on a side chair. The other males didn’t sit, but instead kept their gazes glued to Torrence. They were tense. He supposed if he was a furry wolf shifter, he’d be concerned with a dragon, but of course they didn’t know he had zero access to the beast. And he wasn’t planning to tell them.

  “I haven’t seen your father since he left to start his clan,” Dale said. “We haven’t had a dragon in Tomb since.”

  “How long are you staying?” Jerris demanded.

  Torrence shifted a look to the male and then turned his attention back to the alpha. “I haven’t decided how long I’ll be in town, but rest assured I plan to keep to myself.”

  “The pack runs the town,” Dale said. “One of our members is mayor, several make up the police presence.”

  Man, how Torrence wished he had his dragon right then, so he could give them a good flash of fire against their veiled threats. Instead, he simply said, “How nice for you. But the mountain isn’t part of the town’s governance.”

  Dale’s eyes flashed to dark amber. “I’m aware.”

  Dislike for the male filled Torrence, but he pushed it aside. It didn’t matter if the wolves were all jackasses, because he wasn’t planning to interact with them on a regular basis. The mountain was his through his father, and that was all that mattered.

  Torrence stood. “Thank you for the introductions.”