by Roxie Ray
I grinned. “I get it. It’s a small town, so you have to go seek out excitement. Let’s see. There’s Jace’s Place downtown. It’s a bar, mixed drinks and beer sort of place. Mostly they play music off a jukebox. It’s a good place to shoot pool and throw darts. And right next door is the only club in town, Blue Cats. It’s fun, but it can get too loud and overwhelming unless all you want to do is dance and drink.”
Normally, I didn’t get involved in any way with my patients or their families. But damn, this really was a teeny town. “Let me get your number,” I said. She seemed really nice, anyway. Something about her made me want to give her a shot. “I’ll text you and maybe show you around town one day soon?”
She beamed and rattled off her phone number, which I put in my phone. “Thanks. I’m glad I asked. I don’t know how else to make friends, and I can’t only be friends with the other teachers at my school. Besides, it seems like most of them are much older or much younger.”
I chuckled. “We have that problem in this town. Like the whole town skipped a generation. Everyone is either in their forties or higher or twenties or lower.”
We continued chatting as I walked her back before returning to clean the room. I got there to find Dr. Mason had already done it. He was putting the disinfectant up as I opened the door. “Well,” I said, shocked. Doctors never cleaned rooms. “This might be a first for me.”
He laughed and threw the paper towel away. “I’m not too good to wipe down an exam table.”
Could’ve fooled me. “Thanks,” I said brightly before whirling around to beat a hasty exit.
“Wait,” he called.
Sighing, I froze. “Yeah?” I didn’t even turn around to face him.
“I was glad to help, but we have schedules for a reason. I hope you’ll follow protocol in the future, so my schedule isn’t thrown off again.”
I managed to keep my frustration in check, barely. I gritted my teeth and sucked in a deep breath, channeling every inch of professionalism I had in me. “I didn’t mean to take up your precious time. I understand all too well that sometimes…” I turned to look at him over my shoulder, “you just have to run.” I didn’t miss his flinch before turning away, and I also didn’t feel the least bit bad about it as I walked away. It might’ve been eighteen years ago, but he’d kissed me and then took off. The moment his lips met mine was literally the last time I’d laid eyes on him until that moment in the conference room.
With my head held high, I walked out of the office and grabbed my purse. Dr. Mason didn’t follow.
What a dick.
4
Anthony
A coward. I was a damn coward. When my parents sent me to that school in London, I could’ve called. Sent a message. Hell, I could’ve written a letter. But contacting Skye would’ve meant defying my alpha.
And I was a coward who wouldn’t defy my father. As my alpha, it would’ve been physically impossible for me to, anyway. I hadn’t had a choice when I was sixteen. But what about when I was eighteen, about to go to Harvard? Or twenty-three, in medical school? Or twenty-nine, when I finished my residency? At that point, though I couldn’t have defied a direct order from my alpha, I could’ve talked to my father and tried to come up with a better solution.
But I hadn’t. And I hadn’t come home. Not once. Now that I was thirty-four and had to come home, I realized how much I’d denied myself and my dragon.
The only good news I’d had this week was that I’d found out that Skye was single. Unattached. If I’d come back a year earlier, I would’ve found her in a relationship with a doctor at the hospital. An asshole, apparently.
Skylar’s words stuck with me. They rang in my ears all night Friday, echoing when I woke Saturday morning. My running away from her had stuck with her, possibly as much as it had me. Had it thrown her entire life off-kilter as well? It certainly had mine.
I threw the blankets off with electricity running through me. It was the big day. The whole reason I came back to Bluewater Coast. I hadn’t really expected to move straight into a position at the hospital, but the way it had worked out, I’d be taking over the clan the same night I was seeing them again for the first time since I left.
Much of my family and extended clan members had visited Boston at some point over the years, but I hadn’t been with them as a group since my sixteenth birthday when everything went to Hell.
I was in store for a bunch of shit. Especially from the guys I hadn’t seen in so long. I’d kept in better touch with them than Skylar, at least.
As the day wore on, I did my workout, neatened up around my bedroom in my parents’ large home, and generally tried not to come out of my skin. By late afternoon, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Mom, Dad,” I called as I hurried down the stairs. “I’m going to go see Jace, calm down a bit before the ceremony. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Sure, honey. Your father is out flying, but I’ll let him know.” My mother was in the kitchen, likely making about ten times the amount of food we’d need for the big party tonight.
After escaping my mother, I drove downtown to Jace’s Place and walked in with a big smile on my face.
“Holy shit.”
Here it came.
“I’m seeing a ghost. Can anyone else see this guy? Or is it just me?” My best friend Jace stood behind his bar with a bottle of scotch in his hand, staring at me with his jaw hanging. “Somebody, anybody, tell me I’m not crazy?”
“Hey, Jace.” I slid onto a barstool. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Someone clapped me on the back as they walked by and I turned my head to see Phil, one of the older dragons in our clan. “Welcome back, son.”
“Thanks,” I called. Turning to Jace, I wrapped my hands around the glass that had miraculously appeared on the bar in front of me.
“You could’ve kept in touch better, you asshole.” Jace gave me a dark look and then poured an amber liquid into the glass.
“I know.” I took a sip of the scotch, surprised he’d given me the top-shelf stuff. “In my defense, medical school was pretty intense.”
Jace narrowed his eyes at me, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess it would be.” He grinned and filled my glass again. “I guess I forgive you. You’re here now.”
“That I am.” I looked around the bar, which had been Jace’s dad’s once upon a time. “Place looks great, Jace. You’ve really done a lot with it.”
The bar I remembered had been a smoky, smelly hole in the wall. Jace had remodeled, filling the bar with memorabilia related to dragons, though the humans in town wouldn’t be able to realize that. Accolades and awards that dragons had accumulated over the years. We tended to avoid things like participating in organized sports, but we loved coaching them. Phil had coached a college in Tennessee to a national championship in football before retiring. Rumor said they hadn’t had a win since he left.
Jace had that championship trophy up on the wall, next to a photo of one of our clan who was now a high-ranking politician in Washington. Of course, most people knew he was born and raised in Bluewater, not many realized he was a dragon.
“Thanks.” Jace looked around as if trying to see it with my fresh eyes. “It does look good, doesn’t it?”
We chatted a bit about the accomplishments of our clan and Jace refilled my drink one more time. “You ready for tonight?” he asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” I grinned. “We knew it was coming eventually.” Not that I was upset about it. Becoming alpha meant I’d be able to make some changes. Do things the way they should’ve been all along, instead of keeping our pack stuck in the Dark Ages. I supposed my father had done what he thought was right at the time. And maybe back then it was right. All I knew is that things were different now and we had to adapt.
“I never got the details of why you left. But I always thought it was Skylar.” Jace gave me a square look. “Was I wrong?”
I sighed and shook my head. “You’re not wrong. Skylar’s
my mate. Fated, destined, all of that.”
Jace’s jaw dropped. “I knew it,” he whispered.
“Hello, Anthony.” A woman’s sultry voice caused me to freeze with my drink halfway to my mouth. I looked to my right to see a gorgeous woman standing in a provocative pose, with her cleavage prominently displayed. She had long black hair and deep hazel eyes and a smirk that told me she knew it.
I’d known women like her all my life, although in this case, I’d known her all my life. “Hey, Tessa. How’s it going?”
She practically purred as she ran her hand up the outside of my right arm. “It’s good to have you back, Anthony.”
I let my arm turn over, displaying my mating tattoo, which hadn’t stopped throbbing since I stepped foot into the hospital the past Monday. Since I wasn’t physically near Skylar, it wasn’t actively burning, but a residual ache remained.
Tessa’s eyes fell on it, and she knew exactly what it meant. Her breathing quickened. “Who is it?” she whispered. I read excitement coming off of her. Did she think it was her?
“I’m not sure you know her,” I said. It was difficult, not rolling my eyes. There was nothing wrong with a woman who liked a good time, no more than it was wrong for a man to. But Tessa’d had her eyes on me since we were too young to think about such things. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to be cool when I saw her again. She had to make it weird. She didn’t just want a good time from me. If she had, I might’ve taken her up on it. She wanted a whole lot more.
“I know everyone in this town,” Tessa said. “And I know she was someone at your sixteenth birthday party.” She arched one eyebrow, challenging me.
“When I’m ready to talk about it, I will,” I said firmly. “For now, just know that as attractive as you are,” she preened at my words, but it didn’t last long, “it isn’t you.”
Her face fell sour. “Well, then, you’ve made a mistake.” Tessa flipped her silky black hair over her shoulder and turned away. “See you tonight.”
When she was across the bar, with plenty of talk and music confusing the sounds she could potentially overhear, Jace leaned one arm on the deep mahogany bar. “Can it even work? With a human?”
I sighed as my heart sank deep. Practically to the floor. “I have no idea,” I whispered. “My time away from Bluewater wasn’t only about training to be a doctor, you know. I also spent a lot of time researching it.”
Jace was called away to pour a couple of beers for some humans I didn’t recognize. While he was gone, I thought about the things I’d learned.
“So?” Jace asked when he came back. This early in the day, the bar wasn’t too busy. He had time to lean near me and talk. “What did you learn?”
“It never happens,” I said. “Dead end after dead end. If it happens, it’s kept so quiet I couldn’t find it. I contacted clans all over the world, traveled on holidays, the whole nine yards. Not a whisper.”
“Well, I know we can have sex with humans because I’ve done it over the years. A few times.” He leered at me with his eyes full of laughter. “Quite a few times.”
I shook my head at my old friend. Same old Jace. Half playboy, half jokester.
“But what about kids?” he asked. “No instances of half-shifter, half-human babies?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. If it’s happened, it’s been really well covered up.”
Jace shrugged. “Then why did your dad send you away?”
“Old prejudices, I guess? If it’s something more, he won’t tell me.”
“Well, still, if it’s happened to you, it stands to reason you’re not the first. You just haven’t found anyone willing to talk yet.” He filled a few more beers before returning. “So, what are the big plans now that you’re home?”
I gave him a weird look. “What do you mean? What do you think my plans are? I’m going to be the alpha and a doctor. What else would I do?”
Jace returned my look. “And that tat on your arm?”
Rubbing it absently, I rolled my shoulders and gave Jace an uneasy grin. “I’m planning a few changes, once I’m in place as alpha.”
Jace’s grin changed his whole face. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Time to shake things up again.”
We joked around until it got later, and the sun went down. Jace had a human part-timer that worked the bar at times like this when the clan got together. Jace and I walked together to the meeting, my nerves jangling all the way.
Our ceremony was scheduled to take place on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. We were a water clan, our strength drawn from liquid, especially the ocean. We had to live near large bodies of water. It was part of the reason I’d chosen Harvard and a hospital in Boston. It was right on the Massachusetts Bay and kept me near the sea.
We walked to the designated shifting spot. Our clan wasn't limited to shifting only during clan shifts, but if we were going to all do it at the same time, we had to have a cover.
That was where our clan witch came in. Long ago, dragon shifters and witches teamed up. We gave the witches protection. Real witches survived the witch trials, Salem or otherwise, and our clans tried to help as many of the humans as we could as well.
As we crested the hill, I breathed a sigh of relief when I caught the view of the ocean under the moonlight. “I missed this,” I whispered. There was nothing like this view, not anywhere in the world I’d been so far.
The rest of the clan followed us, some coming from the forest, some from the nearby fields, and a few flew in, shifting back to their human forms and landing on the cliff. My mother and father waited at the peak of the cliff, ready to get started.
“You got this,” Jace said.
I squared off my shoulders. I’d been waiting a long time for this. “I do have this.” As I nodded at Jace, I noticed Sammy, our clan witch. She sat in a lawn chair at the edge of the cliff. We couldn’t see it, but all of us were under a large bubble of protection. A ward.
My father put his arm around me as we faced the clan. “Tonight, we pass the alpha energy, in a time-honored tradition dating back to…” He looked at me with an amused look on his face. “The beginning of time?”
The crowd chuckled as they finished assembling in front of us, and as Dad talked about his time as the clan alpha, I looked at the people. My people. Soon, it would be up to me to protect them, make sure they thrived and succeeded; everything. Their survival as dragons would be on my shoulders, at least until I had a child and that child took over as alpha. I secretly hoped it was a girl. We hadn’t had a female alpha in a few generations, the firstborn coincidentally having been a male.
It looked like everyone had come, from the oldest—my mom’s great-aunt, Gertrude, 103 years old—to the youngest, Tessa’s sister’s new baby boy. Tessa held him off to the side, rocking him and patting his butt as she watched my father. She’d be a great mom one day, no doubt, just not of my children.
“Anthony, are you ready?” Dad asked.
I stepped forward and smiled at everyone. “Thank you all for coming. I know I’ve been away for a while, and I appreciate that you’ve all still supported me. And to everyone who sent cards and emails and such over the years, you’re so appreciated. It felt amazing to know I had the support of everyone here at home. I hope I’ll prove to be as strong a leader for you as my father has.” I wanted to keep it short and sweet before the actual handing over of power.
Dad took my hand and dropped to one knee. I had no idea how this would work. Dad always told me it was tradition for me not to know, that his father hadn’t told him, and the clan members who had been around at that time were sworn to secrecy.
“Anthony Mason, I submit as your beta. I will follow your guidance and will in all things. I trust you to lead our clan and make decisions for us all. You are now my alpha.”
The rest of the clan followed suit, starting with my mom, and ending with Great-Aunt Gertrude who slowly lowered herself with the help of her cane. “We submit as your clan,” they intoned as a group. Had t
hey planned this beforehand? How did they know what to say?
“We will follow your guidance and will in all things. We trust you to lead our clan and make decisions for us all. You are now our alpha.” As the words faded, the energy in the air shifted, and a weight laid on my heart. I knew, at that moment, that it had happened. I was now their alpha. The burden settled heavily in my soul. Not a bad burden, but there all the same.
They rose and stared at me in silence. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Dad got to his feet and held out his hand. “That’s it.”
I laughed and looked around as the hundred-odd clan members closed in on me. “That’s it?”
Aunt Gertrude cackled. “Now, you must command all of us not to tell the next alpha.”
“But why?” I asked.
“The pressure of the oncoming ceremony is enough,” Dad explained. “Your child, when he or she becomes alpha, needs to take it seriously. But it’s nothing major. There are no bangs or flashes. Responsibility comes to us all, son. And now the biggest one is yours.”
“Thank you all,” I repeated. “I know this is typically a hereditary thing, but it means the world that you all have accepted me. Unless something has changed, we’ve had no requests for transfers?” I gave my father a quizzical look.
He shook his head. “None.”
That warmed me. “There will be changes,” I said. “As with any new alpha. I hope to take the clan into the digital age, find ways for us to be modern and in touch with the rest of the world, but all that can wait for another day.” I didn’t mention other ways I wanted to progress the clan forward, either. Like mating with humans. That could definitely wait until after my very first night as alpha.
“For now, let us shift and enjoy our time together!” I yelled as my shift began.