by Kimber White
Her cousins, Leo, Erik, and Edward, patrolled the perimeter, fully in their wolves. Shae and Avelina had followed Grace to a small, abandoned cabin that would suit our purposes. Avelina stocked it with all the medical supplies she said we would need.
“We can’t take her to a hospital,” I said. “It’s out of the question. And Avelina’s done this before.”
Grace let out a scream that split my heart in two. I’d only stepped away for a few minutes to give her brother and father a report. It was almost time. I heard a new heartbeat in my soul. The tiny life within my wife was ready to make its way out.
“Stay here,” I commanded. “I’ll call you if we need anything.” The wolves weren’t the only ones on patrol. Kian, Loch, and Xander’s dragons soared high overhead, cloaking themselves and the area. Only Finn was gone and I felt a pang at his absence. Avelina had sent him on a mission she’d kept secret from the rest of us. But, we were safe. Still, Grace’s guttural cry nearly drove me to my knees.
I burst through the cabin door. Grace was on a pallet Avelina had made. Her contraction lifted her straight off the ground.
“She’s coming,” Grace gasped. Shae gripped her hand on the right. Avelina sat on her knees between Grace’s legs.
“Come on, Dad,” Shae said. “She’s going to need some help pushing this little girl out.”
I went to her, sliding behind Grace. Sweat pasted her hair to her brow. I brushed it aside.
“You’re amazing,” I whispered. “You’re almost there.”
“Lord, it’s so much easier for full-blooded dragons,” Avelina said. “Eggs are small when they come out. These live births are so messy.”
“Not helping!” Grace shouted. I marveled that she still had the strength.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked my mother for the hundredth time. I knew what I told Andre about hospitals was true. This was a mystical birth. No doctor in the world could help Grace more than my mother could. Plus, if anything went wrong, I knew my blood would heal her. It would be all right. We just...had no idea what the baby would be.
Cassia was half human. She was a normal, beautiful little girl. There was a hint of magic about her, but so far, she’d shown no signs of having any supernatural powers. I knew in my heart Grace was different. She came from shifters. Shae had no magic of her own. Grace did.
Grace’s next contraction came and I watched her abdomen swell, rising impossibly high. Avelina positioned herself, guiding my child into the world.
“Damn,” Avelina said. “Her shoulder’s stuck. It’ll be okay. On the next contraction, Grace, I want to push with everything you’ve got.”
She did. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped her hand. Grace was so strong. So fierce. The blood drained from her face, but she pushed. My fire burst out of me. It went into Grace. I hadn’t meant to do it, instinct fueled me. My mother’s eyes caught mine and she gave me a knowing nod. It was the right thing to do. Grace needed that last little touch of magic to bring the baby out.
She came out with a lusty cry and a pop. Avelina caught her in strong arms. Tears streamed down her face as she reached for a clean towel and wrapped the baby in it.
Grace started to cry. My own face was wet with tears as Avelina put the baby on Grace’s bare breast. I was almost afraid to look.
“She’s beautiful,” Grace whispered. “Oh, Gideon, she’s…”
“Perfect,” I said.
My daughter. She had a thick head of black hair already. Her eyes were still shut tight. She had a tiny, button nose and full lips, just like her mother. I reached for her. She curled her little hand around my fingers with a strong, healthy grip.
“Perfect indeed,” Avelina whispered. “You want to do the honors, Dad?”
Instinct took over once again and I let out a quick, concentrated blast of fire and severed the cord. I helped Grace sit up straighter. The baby rooted, searching for her nipple.
“Good appetite already,” Shae laughed. “You want me to go tell the rest of them? They’re going to burn that forest down around us if we make them wait another second.”
“Yes,” Grace said, smiling. “Tell them she’s...she’s...here.”
Avelina counted fingers and toes. The baby squealed and hiccupped, then she settled back down and latched on Grace’s nipple.
“Yow!” Grace cried. “She’s got an appetite like her father.”
“Hmm,” Avelina said. “I think that’s about all she’s inherited from her father. She’s the spitting image of you, Grace.” Avelina examined the baby with clinical precision. She kept her brow knit in concentration. As the minutes ticked by, it made me uneasy.
The baby fed for just a few seconds, then settled back down, exhausted.
“She has no fire,” Avelina said.
“Did you think she would?” I asked. “Cassia didn’t when she was born. Do you see something?”
Grace was almost asleep herself. When she heard us talking, she stirred. She sat bolt upright. I reached behind her and helped her get comfortable against the pillows.
“Have you thought of a name?” Avelina asked, deflecting my question. Grace didn’t seem to notice, but my heart hammered with unease. There was something. I could see it in my mother’s expression.
“Amelia,” Grace yawned. “We’re going to name her after my mother.”
“Amelia Brandhart,” Avelina beamed. “That’s absolutely beautiful. Have you told your father yet?”
“No,” Grace smiled. “I thought he’d like to hear it when he met her.”
“You ready for that?” I asked.
Grace nodded. “I am. Then I think I’ll sleep for days.”
Avelina laughed. “You should be so lucky. That’s a healthy strong girl you have there. She’ll keep you on your toes.”
Shae was back at the door. She knocked quietly on the wall. “You ready for some quick visitors? They promise they won’t stay long. Your father just wants to make sure everyone’s okay in here.”
“Yes,” Grace said. She peeled back the little blanket Avelina had given her and exposed Amelia’s round face.
Andre stepped in. Tears fell from his eyes. He went to his knees beside his daughter and kissed her on the cheek.
“Papa,” Grace said. She said the next words in flawless Russian. “Meet your granddaughter. This is Amelia Brandhart.”
Andre let out a choked sob of joy. He kissed the baby on the top of the head. My daughter squirmed in protest.
Is she here? Is she all right?
Loch’s telepathic question reached me. She’s perfect. Her name is Amelia. I transmitted back. I felt him circle and land. He would tell the others.
I sensed the wolves closing in. In another few moments, they’d want to meet their new family member as well. Leo, Erik, Edward, Milo, and Val heralded Amelia’s entry into the world with a chorus of howls that filled the forest.
Then, the air in the cabin went completely still. No one breathed. We all sensed the change. The baby squirmed and opened her eyes. They turned bright silver. She arched her back and shifted. Grace gasped as our daughter became a white wolf pup, threw her mouth open, and let loose a tiny howl of her own. Then, she hiccupped, burped, and shifted back into a beautiful little human baby and promptly fell asleep in her mother’s arms.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Avelina said. “The old witch was right.”
“What old witch?” Grace, Andre, Shae, and I all spoke together.
Avelina sighed. “The one who told me we might be able to use a dragonstone to tell whether Grace could mate with a dragon and live. She had a theory that your dragon DNA might be enough to override the curse put on female shifters. She wondered if it might let Grace be able to finally shift herself. Well, that didn’t happen, obviously. But, she told me there was a chance she’d be able to give birth to a female shifter baby. And it looks like she has.”
“She’s...she’s a wolf shifter?” Andre asked. He looked about ready to pass out. I knew how he felt.
&
nbsp; “Looks like,” Avelina smiled. She went to Grace and kissed Amelia’s head. “I’ve told you before. Only two dragons can produce a dragon. But thousands of years ago, when dragons mated with shifters of any other kind, their offspring were shifters too. If Grace had bear blood, Amelia would be a bear. It’s fascinating. But it’s also dangerous. You have to understand this is perhaps the most dangerous secret of all. If the wrong shifters found out...”
“It’s...it’s a miracle.” Grace was crying again. She touched her father’s cheek. “Oh, Papa.”
He spoke so fast in Russian, I couldn’t translate. Something about omens and fate and happiness...and keepers of secrets. Then, he hugged Grace one more time and rose to his feet.
“Come on, Grandma,” he said to my mother. “Let’s leave this new family in peace.”
Avelina put her arm around Andre. “Speak for yourself, Grandpa. It’s Avelina. And I don’t look a day over four hundred and seven.” Shae held the door open for them and the three of them slipped quietly out together.
I went to my wife and daughter. Tears still made Grace’s eyes glisten like jewels. Amelia opened her eyes and focused them on me. They were brilliant blue, then glinted as silver wolf eyes for an instant before she settled back down to sleep.
“It’s good her uncles are staying local to run their security company,” I said. “In the coming years, she’ll need guidance. I can teach Amelia lots of things, I can’t teach her how to be a wolf.”
“I love you,” Grace said, reaching up to touch my face. “Are you disappointed?”
I reared back. “Are you kidding? Am I...what? God, no. She’s magnificent. Just like her mama. And she’s perfect.”
“She’s amazing,” Grace said. “I love you, Gideon. You've given me...everything.”
“And you’ve made me whole. I’ve lived for three hundred years, but my life didn’t start until I met you. And Amelia is...Grace, I’ll protect her. I already know how strong she’ll be.”
I kissed Grace’s forehead and smiled. She’d already fallen fast asleep. “My brave warrior of a wife. I swear to you on my life. I’ll spend the rest of my days honoring the promises I’ve made you and now our perfect daughter.”
My family. My everything. I found heaven that night in the forest. And I heard the song of wolves and felt the heat of dragonfire. Amelia was the center of it all.
Epilogue
Finn
Trees, trees, and more trees. Loch would know them all. To me, they all looked the same. Pines spiraling up so high it looked like they touched the apex of Mount Shasta in the distance. It would be so much easier if I could just let my dragon loose and fly over them.
Avelina warned me though. She said she couldn’t be sure how well any cloaking spells I had would work way out here. I followed the riverbank, heading northwest, just like she’d told me to. The cool, crisp air filled my lungs, but I found myself longing for a jungle of a different kind. One made of asphalt.
This was wolf country. Or bears. I hadn’t sensed any other shifters in this wilderness, but I was so far away from my brothers or the lands we called home, I couldn’t be sure.
A twig snapped ahead of me. I crouched low, baring my teeth. If anything big enough to cause me harm approached, one blast of fire and I’d incinerate it. Of course, there was just as good a chance I’d set off a wildfire. The trees were so damn dense through here.
“This is nuts,” I muttered for the thousandth time. After finally finding the source of the dragonstone hidden in Chicago, I thought we were done chasing ghosts. The two fragments of fossilized dragon egg warmed in my pocket.
I’d known something was off that day after Gideon and Grace’s wedding. While everyone else enjoyed their food and drink at our favorite pub in Knoydart, Avelina had hung back watching. Waiting. When her eyes caught mine, I knew I was going to regret whatever she had to say.
She’d reached across the table when I came to join her. “One more,” she said, smiling. I didn’t need her to explain what she meant. One more mission. One more rumor to track down.
“The stone,” she’d later told me. “We need to know for sure.”
“We do know for sure,” I’d said. “It’s not one of ours. You didn’t hatch this egg.”
“But I don’t have the magic to tell you who it came from. No one does. But I do know someone who has the magic to tell us when it came from.”
“What good does that do? Every dragon but us is extinct. Who cares when they were born?”
“I know when you were born,” she said. “If this egg brought a dragon to life after that day, then it’s someone I’ve never seen. Someone who survived the purge. He or she might have gone into hiding like we did. We have to know.”
So, here I was, five months later in the middle of this godforsaken forest in northern California, chasing more rumors and ghosts. Avelina couldn’t come herself. Grace was too close to delivering her baby. So, it fell to me. Kian couldn’t be alone; he was too unstable. Xander and Gideon had mates to protect. It could have been Loch, but Avelina had something else for him to do. She wouldn’t say what.
A rabbit darted across my path. She stopped for an instant, her nose twitching as she picked up my scent. Then, she skittered under a bush.
“There is no one out here,” I shouted to the sky. I was so far off any kind of beaten path. I’d left the no trespassing signs about a zillion miles back. I pulled my phone out. No service, of course. I’d memorized the coordinates she gave me and checked my compass. X didn’t mark the spot. She had to be wrong.
I went a few hundred more yards and came to the edge of the world. The river churned, dropping off to a steep waterfall. X was right in the damn middle of it.
“Great.” I tucked my phone back into my pocket. I could head down the riverbank. There might be a cave or something beneath the falls. I had no doubt no man had ever gotten down those falls on purpose. He would have fallen to his death. But, I was no regular man. I scanned the tree line and listened hard. The rabbit a few yards back was the only creature who saw me.
I summoned enough of my dragon to go airborne then floated down the falls. Sure enough, I found a cave behind the rushing water. Beautiful. Dark. Untouched. It was also another damn dead end. There was nothing there. No magic portal. No clues as to where I might find this mysterious mage who Avelina swore would help us.
I climbed back up to the riverbank and managed to stifle the urge to scream.
The air shifted up ahead of me. A wind had kicked up then gone suddenly still. The hairs pricked along the back of my spine and my dragon rumbled under my skin.
Someone was watching me. I don’t know for how long. I couldn’t sense where. Then something moved in the trees on the other side of the river. I crouched low, ready to shift at a moment’s notice. I felt fire gathering.
Then, she came out.
I was dumbstruck. She walked slowly out of the forest and stepped to the edge of the opposite bank. She was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. Long, flowing blond hair, dark eyes. Full, pouty lips that she parted in the hint of a smile.
I raised my hand above my head. She had to be Avelina’s friend. I felt the static crackle of her magic.
Her clothes made no sense. She wore a long, white gown that shimmered in the sunlight. It was made of something see-through. The light caught it and I saw her dark, round nipples beneath it. Lust shot through me. A vision came, quick as lightning. She was under me, smiling up, her dress fell away and she parted those strong, supple thighs. I felt the heat coming off her as she raised a finger and beckoned me. She reached for me, stroking me. Oh, God. She felt so good.
Then, a column of fire shot straight through my chest and forced the air from my lungs. It knocked me backward and I landed hard on my ass.
The girl was gone.
Son of a bitch! I tried to say it, but I couldn’t make the words come out. I couldn’t move. Tendrils of lightning wrapped around me, binding me to the ground.
Magic.
Witch’s magic. Impressive. I could almost appreciate the power she must have summoned to catch me by surprise like that.
“It wasn’t so hard,” she said. She was everywhere and nowhere. Her voice was smooth, deep, and dripped down my spine like honey. “You might be strong, but you still think with your dick.”
She was right in front of me again. I summoned my fire, but my arms and legs were frozen. Holy hell, she was powerful! She was also stark naked as she strode toward me. She smiled, tilted her head to the side, and parted those luscious lips. She was right about one thing: she had me huge and hard; my eyes went right to her perfect, round breasts. They swayed a little as she came toward me. She brought her hand up, cupping it under her chin as she pursed her lips together, about to blow me a kiss.
Then, she let loose the second column of fire that hit me right in the heart and made the sun explode into blackness.
TO BE CONTINUED IN FINN’S BOOK
Marked by Fire
Up Next from Kimber White
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You won’t want to miss Finn’s story next. When he comes face to face with a gorgeous and powerful fire mage, their attraction is downright combustible. Marked by Fire - Book 3 in the Dragonkeepers Series.
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About the Author
Kimber White writes steamy paranormal romance with smoldering, alpha male shifters and kickass heroines (doormats need not apply). She lives on a lake in the Irish Hills of Michigan with one neurotic dog, her sweet, handsome son, her fire-breathing warrior-princess of a daughter, and the most supportive husband any writer could hope to have (seriously, he just took said son, daughter, and dog out for a boat ride so she could finish this book in peace!).