by Anna Lowe
Cal tilted his head and caught Cynthia’s eye. Seriously?
She turned away, leading Joey by the hand. “That’s right. Let’s go.”
“Bye,” Joey called, waving as he went.
When the pair disappeared around the corner, Dell walked over to put away the can of nails. Then he paused next to Cal, looking slightly less murderous than before.
“She’s seriously teaching him all that dragon bullshit?” Cal asked.
Cynthia had once confided how she’d been forced to memorize dragon histories that went back for thousands of years. She’d even recited noble dragon bloodlines to him one night after making love. They’d laughed about it at the time, but he couldn’t summon a sense of humor now.
Dell sighed. “Yep. But we’ve gotten her to cut homeschooling hours down from four hours a day to two, so that’s progress. Poor kid.”
Cal looked at the lion shifter, who was just about his height and weight, though the bun Dell wore his golden hair in made him appear an inch taller.
Dell flashed a smile. “You’re good with Joey, I’ll give you that.” His eyes darkened. “But one false move…”
Cal stuck up his hands. “No false moves from me.” Then he scanned the skies and muttered, “But, yeah. Don’t let down your guard.”
Chapter Six
Cynthia flew over the plantation grounds, eyeing the ground below. Days had passed since she’d heard Cal’s haunting howl, and she’d been out every night since, looking for him.
No, wait. She’d been out every night honing her fighting skills, right?
Sure, her dragon murmured. Right.
Well, the fighting part wasn’t entirely a lie since she really had been out sparring. She’d even caught Jenna off guard often enough for her friend to go wide-eyed and say, Wow. You’re getting really good. You must be more of a natural than you thought.
Even Connor had been impressed. Holy crap, Cynthia. Have you been training on the side?
No, she hadn’t, but she’d been reading up on aerial combat in a book she’d borrowed from Silas’s library and rehearsing the moves in her mind. Cal’s arrival had heightened an inexplicable instinct to be prepared — something she’d felt for a while, but never as urgently as now.
Prepared for what? she kept asking herself.
But neither instinct nor destiny bothered filling her in. They just left her worried, wondering.
A gust of wind funneled between the mountains, and without thinking, she dipped, rolled, and shot off to one side. Then she blinked, realizing what she had done.
Wow. Maybe Jenna was right. She really had mastered her new moves. She glanced down toward the plantation house. When she pictured a foe swooping in, she couldn’t help spitting fire, if only briefly. She would never allow anyone to harm her son.
Once upon a time, that anyone had been Drax, the ruthless dragon who had murdered Barnaby and other members of the shifter establishment. Silas had finally killed Drax, putting an end to that evil. But a new force had arisen in Drax’s place — his mistress, Moira, who was growing ever bolder in her bid to rule the shifter world. Moira had gone so far as to stage several attacks on the shifters of Koakea, and it seemed only a question of time before her attacks escalated.
At the same time, a whole new threat was rising with the influx of evil dragons from the Old World.
Cynthia allowed herself to spit a little more fire. She wouldn’t let anyone harm her son. Not Moira, nor her henchmen, nor Kravik. And if they so much as tried…
For the next few minutes, she kept a sharp lookout and practiced her moves. Far in the distance, something glowed red, and she couldn’t help but picture dragon fire. But that was just Kilauea — the volcano over on the Big Island, putting on another display of Mother Earth’s power.
She turned her attention to the landscape below. A dark shape moved on the north end of the estate, and her heart rate rose. Was Cal out roaming on four feet? When she flew closer, she spotted Tim, lumbering around in bear form. She dipped her right wing and cut away, feeling foolish. She wasn’t a love-struck twenty-year-old any more.
But the moment she caught sight of a shadow in the hills above the plantation house, her pulse skipped, and her spirits soared.
Cal. Her dragon cheered. It’s him.
She headed for the mountains, flying at low altitude so as not to be seen. Then she circled around, watching.
It was Cal, and he was getting ready to howl again. She could tell from the way he braced himself on those massive paws and squared his shoulders. Then he took a deep breath, lifted his muzzle, and howled.
Aroooo…
The sound was long. Low. Mournful. His voice didn’t just sound sad — it was tragic. Every stretched-out note gutted her. Full of pain, sorrow, and regret. So much, she nearly joined in.
We could have had a life together, her dragon whispered. We could have had it all.
Cal’s voice cracked then steadied as his lament went on.
Aroooo…
Cynthia bowed her head. Why had fate brought her and Cal together all those years ago, only to tear them apart? And why had it reunited them now that it was too late?
Dragons didn’t cry, but her eyes sure did burn.
It’s not too late, her dragon insisted. It can’t be.
Aroooo…
Cal held on to another long note, giving his years of suffering a voice. But suddenly, he snapped around to peer south. His ears perked up, and one of his paws lifted off the ground.
Cynthia blinked, following his eyes. What had he sensed?
An instant later, Cal took off down the slope. Cynthia followed, keeping her distance. What had set him off? And why was he sprinting toward the center of the grounds? Sprinting toward her house, in fact.
At first, she watched, curious. Then his urgency jumped over to her, and a growing sense of fear made her joints tense.
Joey! she cried as Cal made a beeline for her house.
Precious seconds ticked by before she managed to shoot off in pursuit. Had Cal detected an intruder? Worse, was he after Joey? Her heart thudded as she raced along. But Cal had just enough of a head start to arrive at the house before her, and he sprinted up the front steps in wolf form.
“Hey!” Hailey shouted, jolting out of a chair. The hand she reached toward Cal started turning into a bear paw, but by then, the wolf was inside.
Fueled by a burst of adrenaline only a mother could summon, Cynthia rushed after Cal. The moment she touched down on the front lawn, she shifted and ran into the house. Up the porch steps, then the inside steps, where she hurried past Hailey.
Cal, stop! she wanted to scream, but her throat had seized up. He was sprinting right for Joey’s bedroom.
“Mommy!” Joey cried.
The wolf burst in a moment later, and time slowed down for Cynthia. Every step stretched into the quagmire of eternity, the way it did in nightmares.
“Joey!” she screamed.
She reached, ready to turn her hand into a dragon’s claw to fight the enemy — whether that turned out to be an intruder or Cal. But when she reached the open doorway of Joey’s bedroom, she froze.
“Joey?” she whispered.
Cal was there, still in wolf form, right by Joey’s bed. No intruder in sight, just her son, flailing in the throes of a bad dream.
“Mommy,” he wailed in his sleep.
The blankets had fallen to the floor, and Cal brushed up against Joey’s body — comforting her son, not threatening him. When the floorboards creaked under her uncertain step, Cal whirled and bared his teeth. Huge, ivory teeth that glinted in the shaft of moonlight illuminating the dim room. A drop of saliva extended from his canines, and the hair along his back stood in a sharp ridge.
Most of the time she’d spent with Cal, he’d been a surprisingly fun, tender lover, if a little short on the kind of social graces her family would approve of. She’d only seen Cal angry — really angry — a few times, and mostly when his possessive, alpha side came out t
o protect her around other men. But she’d never seen him look as murderous as now.
Come one step closer to this child, and you will die, his eyes dared.
She stared.
I will lay down my life for this child, those wolf eyes said.
An instant later, his eyes softened as he recognized it was her and not an intruder. Then they hardened again when Hailey appeared at the door in bear form.
Cal growled. Hailey chuffed a grizzly warning. Joey tossed in his sleep. Cynthia’s hands fluttered in the air, not knowing whom to calm down first.
“It’s okay,” she assured the others before running to Joey. She fell to her knees and hugged his slight, sweaty body. “It’s all right, sweetie. Mommy’s here.”
Her heart was tearing apart at the seams. Joey was afraid. Cal ached for something he could never have, and as for her… It was a good thing she had Joey to comfort. Otherwise, she might have broken into sobs as all the hopes and shattered dreams of the past hit her again.
Cal nudged the blanket toward Joey, and Cynthia spread it over her son.
“Everything is all right, sweetie. Everything is all right.”
But it wasn’t all right, because her heart was breaking all over again. All the more when Cal huddled his furry flank against her side.
Hailey chuffed in a question, but Cynthia waved her hand. “It’s all right. We’re good.”
If Hailey had asked her who we meant, Cynthia would have been hard-pressed to answer. Her and Joey? Her and Cal? All three of them? That shouldn’t be possible, because Joey represented everything that had driven her and Cal apart — as well as everything destined to keep them apart forever.
Joey flung his thin arms around her neck, crying. “Mommy. The bad dragons were back.”
Cal tensed and sniffed the air as she rocked Joey.
“It’s okay, sweetie. It was just a dream. Daddy fought the bad dragons, and they’ll never come back.”
The moment she said Daddy, Cal edged away, and the warm, powerful presence that had reassured her ebbed.
“Never?” Joey whimpered.
She gulped and cast an eye toward Cal, whose wary look asked the same thing.
Never would be lying, but she had to comfort Joey somehow.
“We’re safe here, with lots of powerful dragons to protect us. Bears, lions, and tigers. Wolves too.”
Her gaze snuck over to Cal, and their eyes locked. She’d meant the wolves of her pack, of course. But the image in her mind included Cal, and the oath in his gaze backed that up.
I will protect your son as I protect you, those smoke-gray eyes said. With my life.
Cynthia closed her eyes and went back to rocking Joey. It helped him calm down, and it helped her too.
Are you sure you’re all right? Hailey asked, shooting the question into her mind.
Cynthia nodded. Which was definitely fibbing, but heck. Even Hailey couldn’t help her now.
False alarm. Thanks so much. We’ll be okay, Cynthia replied.
Hailey’s hesitant step suggested she was weighing up the danger Cal posed, and again, Cynthia’s heart warmed. All her life, she’d been taught that dragons were superior to all other shifters. But few dragons exuded the kind of warmth Hailey and the rest of Cynthia’s packmates did. They were so unabashedly loving and loyal, they made her ashamed of her own species. Would a dragon race to the side of another shifter’s offspring at the slightest hint of trouble?
She gulped and glanced out the window. At least it was just a nightmare and not the real thing. Then she buried her face in Joey’s fair hair and held him tightly, murmuring, “Everything is all right.”
Her dragon huffed. For now, at least.
Chapter Seven
It took half an hour for Cynthia to get Joey back to sleep. By the time she wandered downstairs, Hailey had gone home, but a dark, brooding form sat on the porch steps, looking at the sky exactly the way the lonely wolf had not too long ago on that rock ledge.
Cynthia leaned on the doorframe, tightening her grip on the robe she’d thrown on. How did she feel about having Cal there? Happy? Sad? Intruded upon — or comforted? She gave up trying to decide. She was too exhausted to feel anything, which was probably a good thing.
Cal had only shifted out of wolf form a few minutes earlier — she could tell from the intense, woodsy scent. As always, silence was his companion. He just nodded and rested his head against the porch banister, watching her.
“You okay?” he murmured so quietly, the words were a whisper on the wind.
She hugged her robe closer. Dear, sweet Cal. Saying something for her sake, not his. She nodded dumbly.
“What about Joey?”
She nodded again. “He’s asleep.”
Cal’s chin bobbed, making her ache. It was an echo of conversations she’d once had with Barnaby. She would come downstairs after tucking in their son and take a seat across from Barnaby, doing her best to resign herself to her fate.
But now Barnaby was gone, and as for fate…
Cynthia gazed at Cal, trying not to think of what might have been.
“Does he get nightmares often?” Cal asked quietly.
Cynthia balled her fists, wishing she could let them fly at the bastards who’d traumatized her son. She nearly said yes, too, but when she thought it over, she changed her mind.
“Not so much since we came here,” she said, making a mental note to thank Dell and the other men. They’d made Joey feel comfortable and secure from day one. “He’s so resilient, it amazes me. This is the first time in a while.”
She frowned, thinking it over. Had that been just another dream or some kind of premonition?
Don’t be silly, she ordered herself. Still, she might ask Anjali her thoughts on that soon.
Cal stretched as if to stand, and her heart thudded. “Are you leaving?”
He shrugged. “You don’t need me, right?”
There was nothing rebellious in his tone, just resignation, and all the ghosts in their past seemed to rattle their chains at the same time.
“You can stay. For a second. I mean, if you want,” she said, stopping and starting, not managing to get anything out right.
“What do you want?” Cal’s voice was low and perfectly even, giving no hint as to which option he preferred.
She took a deep breath. “Stay. Please stay.”
The weight of her words surprised her, but Cal simply nodded, giving nothing away.
Cynthia bit her lip as another quiet moment ticked by. Why ask him to stay if she didn’t have anything to say?
Because he doesn’t need to hear anything, her dragon murmured. Because it feels good just to have him here.
It did, and she was too tired to be alarmed by the idea. Too tired, in fact, to think about why she went to the kitchen and returned a moment later with two glasses and a bottle of wine. Then she paused, looking between a nearby chair and the top stair where Cal sat.
Don’t be such a prude, her dragon muttered.
She sank down on the top stair, not too close, but not too far from Cal, and held out one of the wineglasses.
“I’m guessing you can use some of this too.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “Does it show?”
She tilted her head. “Does what show?”
His smile stretched as he took the glass, muttering a single word. “Good.”
She filled the glass slowly. Was Cal as emotionally drained by the evening — and the past few days — as she was? Or was he just plain old tired after years of wandering the world?
“A nice Spanish burgundy,” she noted as if Cal cared.
He accepted the glass with a noncommittal nod. Cynthia sipped her wine, trying to settle down, but her mind was spinning in circles.
“Stop overthinking,” Cal murmured, right on cue.
She sighed. “If only I could.”
He let a few seconds tick by before gesturing toward the glittering ocean. “Just look.”
She tri
ed. She really did. But she couldn’t.
“Look at what?”
“At how the light ripples over the water. How it sparkles — like there are stars mixed in with the waves.”
The man was a poet, and he didn’t even know it. She sighed and watched the light skip over miles of inky water.
“Now close your eyes and listen to the leaves in the trees.”
That didn’t sound promising, but strangely enough, it worked, and she found herself tuning in to the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, each one setting another off. And slowly — ever so slowly — a sliver of peace wiggled into her soul, pushing away some of the turmoil.
She swirled the wine in her glass and took another sip, then another. The glass was empty before she knew it, and she reached for the bottle. She offered it to Cal first, but he shook his head. His wine consumption correlated to the words he uttered — only a few and far between. She, on the other hand, refilled her glass and drank. It gave her just enough of a buzz to soften the hard edges of exhaustion. When she put the bottle down, her arm brushed Cal’s leg, and little tingles ran through her nerves.
“How have you been?” she ventured. Then she tensed. What if he told her how many relationships he’d tried his luck at since they’d broken up?
But Cal didn’t share much. Just a single “Okay” that could have meant anything.
“Where have you been?” she tried after another minute ticked past.
He motioned vaguely. “Here and there.”
Cynthia studied her hands. Had he remained in the Northeast, or had he toured the entire continent on his bike? Had he been through a string of rocky relationships, or had he stuck with Sheila?
Wherever he’d been and whatever he’d done, it had left his mark on him. His face was a little more weathered, his arms a lot more scarred, his eyes warier than ever.
“What are you really here for, Cal?” she finally asked, waving her glass at the view as if the ocean had swept him in.
Cal seemed mesmerized by the burgundy shadow the moonlight cast through her glass, but she wasn’t fooled. The man was thinking. Considering. Deciding how close to keep his cards to his vest.