Dragon's Nanny MatchMate

by Maia Starr

  Levi chuckled. “Ah! No, you see, I’m just a master tactician. I plan out my moves ahead of time. We’re playing chess right now, my friend, and I’m always one step ahead of you.” He stopped pacing and came to stand right in front of me, only a foot away. “Listen, I know you asked to meet up because you’re feeling the pressure. It’s completely understandable when you’re faced with such a superior opponent, yet I can’t help but feel sorry for you a bit.”

  He was trying to goad me into starting the fight so that all the blame could be put on me if things went horribly wrong for either of us. While his voice grated on my ears, I could keep myself restrained, just barely. The sight of Sandra smirking far behind him didn’t help my situation.

  “You want your girl back. You want your peace back. So you’ve come here to submit to me, haven’t you?” Levi continued. “There’s no shame in submitting to your better.”

  I scoffed. “You can’t be that stupid, can you, Levi? I’m not here to take anything back.” I eyed Sandra pointedly, and she scowled back at me. “I’m here to get you to stand down. Plain and simple. If you don’t, I’ll crush your puny attempts at trying to scare me.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the rest of my clan stood taller behind me, each taking a step closer, ready to back me up.

  Levi looked like he was ready to throw down, especially with his bulging eyes, but suddenly Sandra came forward and spat at my feet. “Pathetic,” she said. “Pathetic in bed. Pathetic as a husband. Pathetic as a father.”

  A vein popped in my neck, and I trembled at her jabs. My inner dragon only saw red at the moment.

  But then, suddenly, a new dragon soared overhead, one I had never seen before. My clan tensed, waiting for the dragon to attack, but instead, the dragon landed and shifted, not bothering to hide her naked body as she ran over to Levi. Levi and Sandra both grinned like fools until they saw the look on the woman’s face. “It’s over! We couldn’t kidnap the kid in time.”

  I blinked and looked between the two as they backed up. “Kidnap the...you mean you went after Fallon again?” I shouted.

  Levi snarled. “Plan’s off! Kill them all!” he screamed, turning about and running away, dragging Sandra along with him.

  All at once, chaos erupted, with my shifters and Levi’s charging into each other, some shifting and others opting to stay in their human forms. Because we were outnumbered, I quickly lost track of Levi and Sandra as three shifters came to fight me.

  Once I shifted, so did the three that came after me. They slammed into me, jumping on me and biting and clawing at my skin. I swiped and kicked them, breathing fire along the sand. Bodies, both human and dragon, went flying all around us, and I only added to the count as I took out my attackers one by one. When there was only one shifter left, I flew into the sky, taunting him and making him follow me. Once up high enough, I body slammed the shifter in midair and sent him sprawling to the water below, where he crashed and created a splash so huge, it rained on the beach, stamping out some of the fires that had taken hold.

  When I finally landed again, the battle was over.

  I shifted back to my human form, seeing the numerous injuries on both sides. Most of Levi’s clan had fled, though, leaving the majority on the beach to be from my side. Jeremy ran up to me.

  “It was a diversion! Levi and Sandra are gone,” he said.

  I grunted. “Obviously! Look after the wounded because I’m going to check on Fallon, okay?”

  Jeremy nodded and left me to shift and fly off. My thoughts swam with worry, picturing the destruction that could have happened to our new house. I wondered if Fallon had been hurt, or if Naomi had gotten caught up in it all. Had Amber been there to save them?

  So many thoughts swirled in my mind, yet all I could do was see they were okay for myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Naomi

  There’s no other way to say it: I was utterly stunned.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t put the dots together before; the whole thing had been staring me in the face the entire time. The fact that we met through the Nanny Hearts Service from Fiery Hearts Inc, a dragon-oriented company; the fact that Alec growled and felt like there’s a wild animal inside of him. I remembered the day I came to San Francisco, excited to be free of my past, and saw that video of two shifters going at it over a woman and child. I thought there had been something familiar about Alec and Fallon, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized it.

  Alec was one of the dragons fighting in that news video, and Fallon was the kid that was almost kidnapped by his mother. Both Alec and Fallon were dragon shifters, and so were the group that was protecting Fallon and me right now.

  I didn’t mean to glare at the woman named Amber, yet when she walked over and sat down next to me on the couch, I couldn’t help it. She seemed to understand my predicament and threw me a look of sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think Alec wanted it to come out like this.”

  “No, he didn’t want it coming out at all,” I said, my heart breaking in two.

  Amber hung her head but then peered at Fallon, who sat on a loveseat across from me. He was staring at me, his frown deepening as if we were having an angry face contest. “Are you okay, Fallon?” she asked him.

  He wouldn’t answer; he just kept looking at me.

  After a few minutes of silence, of listening to the three other shifters tap their fingers on the kitchen counter, Fallon spoke up. “Do you hate us?”

  It took me a moment to recognize he was talking to me. “You think I hate you?”

  He nodded, the hurt apparent in his downcast eyes. Guilt rumbled through me, and I reached forward with my hand, but he recoiled, shattering my heart again. “Fallon, I-no, I don’t hate you. Not at all!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Your dad lied to me,” I said, trying to sound as confident as possible. At any moment, I thought I could break down. Amber must have sensed it because she placed a hand on my shoulder. “I just...I wasn’t expecting...”

  “He was scared you wouldn’t want to help us,” Fallon retorted.

  Amber cleared her throat. “Fallon, your dad’s a good guy, but he’s got a lot on his plate. That goes the same for you, Naomi. It’s not exactly my place to tell you, but Alec isn’t any old dragon shifter; he’s the leader of the East Side Dragon Clan. Especially with Sandra leaving him and Fallon so recently, his mind hasn’t exactly been on...well, he’s got a lot to deal with.”

  “As if he’s the only one who does,” I said.

  Amber’s expression twisted as if she were about to tell me off, but just then, the harsh sound of a dragon flapping its wings resounded from outside. Peering through the windows, we saw Alec shift into his human form, in all his naked glory. Usually, I would have been excited just seeing that awesome body of his, but I couldn’t feel anything other than betrayed. It was like I was with Ken all over again, my love being abused as if my feelings and life didn’t matter.

  I put my head in my hands as one of the other shifters ran out to toss him some clothes. He took his time changing, probably because he was afraid of coming in and speaking to me. I wanted to laugh. What could the alpha of a dragon shifter clan be afraid of? How could he be intimidated by me? Or maybe it wasn’t that he was intimidated, but that he was wracked with guilt? There was no more hiding who and what he was. I felt sick.

  Alec walked inside, his eyes darting instantly to his son, and charged over, picking him up in an embrace. Alec kissed Fallon on the forehead at least three times. I didn’t blame him. While I hadn’t ever had a kid before, I’d had begun to love Fallon like my own son in a few ways, though I knew if there was any aspect of Alec I could still think highly of, it was his overwhelming love for his son.

  But then he turned to me, and all that anger came flooding back.

  “I take it you know now,” he said, peering into my soul.

  I jumped to my feet. “Oh, do I know you’re a shifter
now? Do I know you're the leader of a clan of shifters? Do I know that you’re in deep trouble with some other shifter faction that put both your son and me in danger?”

  He grunted and put Fallon down. “Listen, Naomi—”

  “No! I don’t want to listen. I don’t want your excuses. What did you expect when you hired me to be Fallon’s nanny? That I would just never find out what you really were? I didn’t apply to that nanny position because I wanted to be lied to and put in danger again, Alec.”

  He raised an eyebrow at my complaints, but I could see his face curl in anger too. “Naomi, what do you want me to do? I wasn’t expecting a conflict with another clan to go this far. I wasn’t expecting ever to have to deal with you finding out who I was. I wasn’t expecting to get this reaction from you if you did find out.”

  Now we were both shouting, the center of attention for the rest of the shifters in the house. Amber and the others wisely stayed out of it and let us ramble on, but Fallon looked as if he were about to burst. Cupping his hands over his ears, he scrunched up his face as if that would help him block out our shouts. Both Alec and I noticed at the same time, and his reaction deflated our shouting match.

  Instead, Alec ruffled Fallon’s head of hair and looked at me, pointing up the stairs. “Let’s go to my room and talk, and let’s leave Fallon out of this.”

  Part of me wanted to argue, part of me was afraid to go up there alone with him, but I pushed prejudice to the side and walked up the stairs. The steps creaked with every step I took.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alec

  When we finally stepped into my bedroom, I shut the door quietly behind us. My inner dragon was tame for the moment, especially now that I saw Fallon and Naomi were safe. I wanted to ask Amber about the details, but that would have to wait. Naomi was in a panic, and I wanted to show her she was safe here with me.

  Turning back to her, she had her arms crossed, and she stood at the opposite end, glaring at me. I didn’t necessarily blame her, yet my inner dragon wanted me to go over and embrace her and kiss her all over. But that wouldn’t happen just yet.

  “Let me guess: you’re going to try and make some more excuses, aren’t you?” she said, eyeing me critically.

  I smiled and nodded, coming over to sit down on my bed. I patted the comforter next to me, hoping she would, at the very least, come sit near me. Luckily, she sighed and consented, though she sat down at the very opposite end.

  “Well, here’s my first excuse...the service I used to find a nanny, to find you, was meant to be an experimental service by Fiery Hearts. Apparently, a lot of people fetishize being in relationships with dragon shifters, so there’s been an increase in shifter-human breakups. Humans come in and use the shifters for sex, and then leave to brag about it to their friends and family. They brag that they went to the dangerous side of life, that sort of thing. So, Fiery Hearts started a secret service that hid the true nature of its dragon shifter clients so that more personable, real relationships could be formed.”

  “Oh, right, and so they started it with nannies?” Naomi said, clearly not believing me.

  “Well, apparently, yeah. I don’t work there, but I can at least take a stab.” I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “My guess is that they wanted to start small, with less romantic relationships and more platonic ones.”

  “Because that worked out so well between us.”

  I grinned and looked over at her. “I don’t regret sleeping with you at all.”

  I expected Naomi to disagree, but instead, she looked away, blushing.

  “I was technically their first-ever client,” I said.

  “That’s still all bullshit,” Naomi said.

  “Obviously.”

  Now it was Naomi’s turn to keep the conversation going. “What did you expect to do or say when I found out your true nature? I mean, did you think you’d hide it from me forever? You can’t just keep something like that hidden for too long.”

  “Well, I was planning on telling you eventually.”

  “Uh-huh,”

  I shrugged. “Listen, I’m really sorry for keeping you out of the loop. I never thought you’d get caught up in all this crap. I never meant you to. Honest. All I wanted was for you to help me look after Fallon.”

  “Do you think this is the first time I’ve dealt with conflict, Alec? Do you think I can’t handle this?”

  I stared at her. “It’s not that. But, wait, what do you mean?”

  Naomi straightened, clearly not realizing the hole she’d dug herself. She glanced away, tucking a lock of her golden hair behind one ear. I watched her, waiting for her to continue. She kept glancing at me, her frown deepening. “What? Stop looking at me like that.”

  “You know I can’t stop staring at a beautiful woman sitting next to me.”

  “Oh, stop with the flattery.” She tightened her crossed arms and then rolled her eyes and slouched. “Fine. Look...I came to San Francisco to get away from my ex-boyfriend. He wasn’t the greatest person. He...hit me, he was abusive. Coming here felt like a new start to me. I’ll be honest, I thought shifters were dangerous too, and so far, I haven’t exactly been proven wrong. That’s why I was skeptical about applying for your nanny job. I didn’t want to put myself at risk.” She groaned. “And yet here I am.”

  “Here you are,” I said. I scooted closer. “You know, you’re safe here. With Fallon and me. My ex-wife is with my rival alpha, and that’s why Fallon is still targeted. I can’t deny that you’re a part of this little war of ours now. I’ll do everything in my power to protect you, along with Fallon. You have my word.”

  We exchanged a knowing glance, and I knew Naomi was realizing she was now too deep in this mess to crawl her way out of it. Levi’s clan attacked her and Fallon. They know about her, and they wouldn’t just let her live peacefully while she was with my family and me.

  “I believe you,” she said. “Just...no more lies, okay?”

  I placed a hand over my heart. “No more lies. I promise. Truce?”

  “Truce. So, what now?”

  I stood, rolling my shoulder. My body was still stiff from the quick battle earlier. “Now you and Fallon will lay low and keep trying to live normal lives while my clan and I deal with my rival. Amber and a few others will always be around to keep you two safe for the time being.”

  Naomi nodded. “Okay. I guess I’ll just have to deal with all of this.”

  “You will. Will you be okay to keep helping Fallon out? This is all taking a toll on him, and I can’t always be around to comfort him.”

  Naomi smiled at me. “Well, it’s still my job, isn’t it?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, it is. I have no idea when this whole thing will pass. It could be tonight. It could be a month from now. Maybe even a year.”

  Naomi rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t let this drag on to a full year, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Look, I’m gonna go downstairs and form a new plan with my clan. For the time being, relax and do whatever you need to do.”

  As I turned to leave, Naomi called out to me. “Wait, Alec...how is this going to end?”

  I looked back at her raising my brow. “What do you mean?”

  “Are you…are you going to have to kill your rival? What about your ex-wife? Will she just go to jail or something?”

  I hesitated. “I won’t know how it ends until I get there, Naomi. But...killing Levi is a possibility, especially if he continues to threaten my family.”

  She softened at my words and nodded, and then I left.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Naomi

  It wasn’t often that I found myself in this unique situation. Heck, it never happened until now.

  Of course, after moving to San Francisco to get away from the abusive conflict of my previous relationship, I would somehow manage to drop myself into another relationship I didn’t want to be in. Being with a shifter, whether I was just his nanny or not, was something I expressly didn’t wan
t to attempt. But lo and behold, here I worked for a shifter and his shifter son, surrounded by more shifters that were guarding the house because even more, nastier shifters could attempt to attack us at any second. I was practically in the middle of a dragon shifter war.

  Just my luck.

  It didn’t matter that it had been weeks now and that no sign of Alec’s rival clan had shown up since. That fact that we went about in peace didn’t get rid of the fact that the threat still loomed in the back of our minds either. Heck, I could barely stop thinking about it all the time. Every other time I glanced out a window, I would see one of Alec’s clan members standing around, either diligently standing guard and scaring off the neighbors, or casually chatting with another shifter. I could only imagine how boring standing guard could be for those guys, but honestly, at this point I was too shaken to even really care.

  It got so bad that I’d started to get lightheaded every so often, and I began to crave food to comfort my worries.

  The only ones I cared about were Fallon and Alec. If I hadn’t cared, I would have walked out and never looked back.

  But there was also the fact that I could have been hunted down by the other clan, now that I had been seen with Fallon.

  As I dropped my clothes into the washer on the second floor, the dryer already going wild next to me, I sighed at my predicament, wondering how long this tense stalemate would drag on between Alec’s clan and his rival’s.

  It blew my mind that I could go about my everyday life as a nanny. I mean, whenever I had to go get groceries or go anywhere outside of the house, Alec accompanied Fallon and me. And with all the other shifters like Amber around, I thought my usual routine would get all messed up, but so far, I’d managed to keep powering through it all.

  Bending down to pick up the softener and detergent, I wondered how Fallon and his father felt. Sure, I could complain about my situation all I wanted, but this was much more serious for those two, and the other clan members. Alec had a very personal stake in this game: that being the survival of his clan and son. And now me.