It was late when they finally arrived back at their tiny little apartment. Stephanie’s mother had sent some leftovers and a bottle of wine home with them, but they were way too full to enjoy it just yet, opting to take a nap instead. When they awoke sometime later, they remained in bed, making love in that lazy way that defined how relaxed they felt now that their worries were almost over.
When they finally climbed out of bed, they were ready to snack on some of the holiday treats Stephanie’s mother had sent home with them. Stephanie warmed things in the microwave and sat out the cold dishes while Neil watched her from the other side of the counter, finally walking around to pick up the bottle of wine they had left chilling on the bar. He started to open it, but paused.
“Is this okay to open?” he asked
“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled by the question.
“I just want to make sure I’m not opening up an overly expensive bottle of wine without knowing what I’m doing,” he told her with a smirk.
“You’re a funny guy,” she responded, returning to her food preparations as he continued to open the wine with a chuckle.
They finally sat down to their meal, sharing bites of different food that tasted just as wonderful as it had the first time. There was something special about homemade holiday food from parents that set it apart from even the finest cuisine available in five star restaurants. It was only made more beautiful when you were sharing it with the one you loved.
After they ate their fill and shared a couple of glasses of wine, they discussed where to go with the business. Christmas was probably not the right time for talking shop, but it was their baby, their creation, and there weren’t many occasions that weren’t right for including it in their conversation. Neil watched Stephanie’s face as she talked passionately about what she foresaw as the firm’s future, and it all seemed so inspired. Watching the way her mind worked and interacted with her natural compassion just made him love her more.
Reaching across the table, he picked up the ring binder he had freed from its swatch attachments earlier and held it in his hand for a moment as Stephanie looked at him suspiciously.
“Why did you pull my swatches apart?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I was just tooling around with it and figured out that it opened up. They slid off while I was messing around, and then Mr. Higgins called and I laid it aside,” he said.
“So, now you are going to have fun putting it back together,” she asked as he stood up from his stool, looking down at the small metal binder ring in his hand.
“Nope. I don’t think so. I need it,” he responded, seeming a bit pre-occupied.
“What on Earth could you possibly need a binder ring for?” she asked.
“For this,” he told her, dropping down onto one knee and taking her hand. Her heart skipped a beat as he slipped the ring on her finger and looked up into her eyes. “Stephanie Carter, will you marry me?” he asked, waiting anxiously for her answer
“Um, in case you forgot, you already proposed, and I already said yes,” she said, pointing to the ring on her finger.
“Yes, but that was a bad day, and I want to ask you again on a day full of happiness,” he told her.
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” she exclaimed, jumping up from the stool and throwing her arms around him to kiss him passionately.
“I have another surprise for you, too,” he told her.
“What is that?”
“As soon as this is settled, my parents want us to come to Ireland with them to visit the family,” he said.
“Oh, wow. Ireland? I’ve never been. What is it like?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been,” he said.
“That seems odd that your parents would not have taken you back at some point to visit family,” she said.
“I agree, but I think there was a reason, and I think there is a reason for it now. They seemed a bit on edge when they told me they wanted us to go with them.”
“I guess we will find out,” she shrugged, not giving it too much thought.
Chapter Nineteen
A few months later, Neil and Stephanie found themselves staring at his parents in a state of shock. What had started out as a simple family meal in an Irish pub had gone off the rails when Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery had told them a dark secret that neither knew quite how to process.
“You’re just screwing with us, right?” Neil asked them, his look of astonishment fading away, replaced by a laugh as the four of them walked along a section of cliffs near the sea. They were just around the corner from where they had eaten, where the city lights faded into darkness and the sea could be heard lapping at the rocks below.
“I’m very serious, son,” his father replied.
“Dad, that’s just crazy. I mean, come on. Dragons?” he said.
“It’s not crazy, and I’m not teasing you, son. We never intended to tell you. I don’t know why, but with you getting married soon and all, we sat down and discussed it. Your children will be half dragon, and because you are marrying a human, they may have special powers beyond what either of us can imagine. We can’t let you go into that blindly,” his father told him, seeming completely earnest.
“Human? Did you just refer to Stephanie as a human? Are we aliens now, too?” Neil said, exasperated.
“No, son. Not aliens, just a very old species that time has passed by,” his father told him.
“You’ve both lost your minds. Why did you wait until we got to Ireland to tell me this? We’re standing in the middle of nowhere, looking out over the Mourne Mountains and you’re telling me that you are both dragons. I need to get you to someone you can sit down and talk to about whatever you’ve been exposed to that is causing this hallucination.”
“It’s not a hallucination, son,” his father replied.
Stephanie stood there, completely silent. She felt incredibly awkward and didn’t know what to say. It came to her that the best option was probably just not to say anything at all, so that is what she did, instead just holding Neil’s hand for support and listening.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” his mother suddenly groaned. “Just show him.”
Before anyone could say another word, both parents began shifting, contorting. It was gruesome and frightening, and Stephanie cried out, not understanding what was happening at first. Then her breath caught in her throat as she blinked away the disbelief and took in the figures of two enormous dragons standing before them.
“Neil…” she began to say, looking toward him, but he was just as frozen as she was. The look on his face was one of complete horror.
Footsteps sounded somewhere nearby, and both dragons suddenly turned and shot off over the edge of the cliff behind them. A couple passed by, nodding to Neil and Stephanie, apparently not having witnessed what had just taken place. Once they were out of sight, the two of them raced for the edge of the cliff and looked out over it, seeing nothing but the blackness beyond their field of vision.
A loud thud sounded behind them and the two dragons dropped onto the ground, causing them to whirl around in that direction. His father shifted back into his human form, covering his nudity at first, but then hiding behind one of his wife’s wings.
“Sorry about that. It’s been a long time since either of us shifted, and we forgot to warn you that it would shred our clothes.”
Neil and Stephanie stripped off their long coats, handing them to him. He slipped Neil’s over himself and then they turned around while Neil’s mother shifted and slipped into Stephanie’s coat.
“It’s okay now. We’re decent,” she told them.
If she wasn’t so stunned, the image of Neil’s parents standing there barefoot and in nothing but long winter coats might have been amusing to her, but Stephanie was too baffled by what had just taken place to wrap her head around finding any true humor in it.
“What is happening here?” Neil said slowly, his words almost inaudible.
“Let’s get back to th
e hotel and we’ll talk about it,” his father told him.
“I think I’d like to talk about it now,” Neil replied blankly.
“I’m sure you would, son, but you see, your mother and I don’t have on any pants. We’d like to get back in the warm and get dressed before we sit down for a long chat,” his father replied.
“Okay,” was all Neil could manage, looking like he was in shock.
Stephanie was concerned for him, though she wasn’t feeling much better about her own mental health after what just happened. The four of them walked back to the hotel together, several people giving them the eye as they passed through the lobby.
“We’ll get dressed and meet you in your room,” his father said.
Neil merely nodded, making a beeline for the next door as his father fished his wallet from his shredded clothes in his hand and retrieved his key card to open the door. Once inside, he made a beeline for the mini-bar and poured himself a drink, then poured another, knocking both back before he could even speak.
“What just happened?” he asked Stephanie.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like that,” she told him.
“Me neither. My parents turned into dragons. That’s what we just saw, right?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied.
Neil nodded uncertainly and then poured himself another drink before realizing he hadn’t offered her anything.
“Would you like something to drink, too?” he said.
“I’ll get it,” she told him, walking over to pour herself a glass of plain water and knocking it back without him even noticing she wasn’t drinking any actual alcohol, as he was too busy staring into space in an apparent daze.
“I think you might want to slow down. You’re going to want to be fairly lucid for this conversation,” she told him.
“I’m not sure I was lucid fifteen minutes ago when I watched my parents turned into creatures that don’t exist and fly off a cliff,” he told her.
“If you weren’t, then neither was I,” she told him.
“This is crazy,” he told her.
A knock at the door interrupted their conversation, and Stephanie went to answer, letting his parents in. The four of them sat around the small table in the room and looked at each other for a moment before anyone spoke.
“I know this is hard to understand,” his father told him.
“Ya think?” Neil said, his laugh a bit broken.
“I’ll just get right to it, and you can ask questions when I’m done. Okay?” his father said.
Neil shrugged and waved his hand as if to signal for him to go ahead. Stephanie looked down at her hands and waited, not sure what she was feeling or what she should be thinking as the story unfolded in front of them.
“Your mother and I grew up near here in a village with no name. It looks like any other town, but it’s not. All of the people who live there are dragon shifters. They’ve been around for centuries, and we are a part of the clan that live in that village.”
“There are no such things as dragons,” Neil said.
Stephanie wasn’t sure if it was just a statement to be debated or if he was trying to convince himself that he hadn’t seen what had happened earlier. She squeezed his hand beneath the table in solidarity.
“How many times in your life have you heard fairytales about dragons? How many times have you told them? Where do you think those stories really come from?”
“People with vivid imaginations,” Neil replied.
“No. They are remnants of a time past when people used to see the dragons flying over them. They were a part of their culture, and then they were forced into hiding, eventually dying out.”
“I just can’t believe that.”
“You are going to have to believe it, son. No one really knows what happened to the dragons. There are tales, but what is fact and what is fantasy can’t be sorted out after all this time.”
“There has never been any scientific proof that dragons existed. No fossils, no records.”
“I can’t tell you where there are any natural dragon remains, but when you are a shifter, you die as a human. That is why there are no dragon remains. Only in a handful of situations will a dragon retain its form after death, and our people have always been very careful to be sure those bones are cremated beyond recognition for what they are. They are placed on a funeral pyre and set aflame on the water to burn and sink into the water below.”
“This all sounds like some medieval tale. Why are you telling me this? Why now? Why are you telling me all of this now?”
“It is like we said before. We made a mistake. When we left the village and came to America, it was because we wanted to give you a chance at a normal life. We were tired of hiding who and what we were, and we didn’t want you to go through that. So, we brought you to the States and never told you what you were. We knew that if you didn’t know you could change, you most likely wouldn’t.”
“Most likely? You mean I could have changed into one of those…things…and not even realized it until it was too late?” Neil said angrily.
“It is possible, but unlikely. You have to really concentrate on becoming a dragon, and not knowing you could do that, there was little chance of you putting as much effort into it. You might play with your friends and pretend you are a dragon, but not to the extent that you actually saw yourself as one and became one.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, burying his face in his hands for a moment.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of, son,” his father said, causing Neil’s head to shoot up, his face a mask of anger.
“Are you kidding me right now? If it is nothing to be ashamed of, why did my parents whisk me off to a foreign land and not tell me what I am? I’m a monster! God, you’ve created a monster and then not even had the decency to tell him what he truly is,” Neil told them angrily.
“Son, I know you are upset, but we were just doing what we thought was right,” he told him.
Neil looked over at Stephanie and something in his face changed. The anger seemed to slip away and she could see only sadness.
“God, Stephanie. I am so sorry. I promised you that I would love you forever, and now look at me. I’m not someone you can be with. We can’t have children together. How can we build a life together like this?”
“Neil, you are just upset. We’ll work this out,” she said softly, turning toward his father to speak. “You said that if we have children, it might be even different from Neil and yourselves. What did you mean?”
Neil turned back to his father, the haunted look on his face back and more heartbreaking than ever. His devastation was written all over it as he waited for the answer.
“There is a rule in the village. Dragon shifters are forbidden to mate with humans or other shifters. It is an archaic rule, but it is meant to preserve the purity of the shifter bloodline. Of course, some would say that is more about the fact that when humans and shifters mate, their offspring possess powers well beyond that of a regular shifter, and that is something people fear.”
“What sort of powers?” Stephanie asked, feeling more frightened by the moment.
“I don’t know. It had never happened while we were in the village. I can’t really say that anyone ever told us.”
“Then it is possible that it is merely some sort of false legend handed down with no real merit,” she asked.
“Yes, it is possible,” I suppose.
“What difference does it make, Stephanie? We can’t have children now. How could I ever bring a child into this world knowing what it would become? How could anyone?” he said, turning back to stare daggers through his parents.
His mother smiled at him and then at Stephanie, reaching out to touch his hand with her own. “Tell him,” she told her future daughter in law.
“Tell me what?” Neil said, looking stricken again.
“Dragons have a very perceptive sense, at least most of them do. Perhaps not being exposed to
the natural environment to which you were born somehow threw yours off, but not ours. We noticed it last time you came over and it is what drove us to tell you this. It was something we had been discussing, but we thought we had more time to make a decision,” his father said.
“What are you talking about?” Neil demanded.
“Neil, they are talking about me. I was going to tell you after our trip, but I’m pregnant.”
“What? How did that happen?” Neil shrieked.
“Well, I could explain it to you, but do you really want to have that discussion in front of your parents? I’m sure they had some talk with you about how babies are made at some point in your life already,” Stephanie said, but her attempt at levity failed miserably as Neil jumped up and practically ran from the room. Stephanie started to go after him, but her mother stopped her.
“Let him go, dear. Let him wrap his head around this a bit, and he will be back. This is a lot to absorb in one night. I’m sure it is for you, too,” she said.
“I don’t know what to say about all this. It terrifies me. We’ve had such a hard year and things seemed to be looking up. Even when I found out I was pregnant, I thought he’d still be so happy about it. Now, I’ve just added to whatever he is feeling.”
“It’s not your fault, dear. It is ours. We thought we were doing the right thing, but it seems that we weren’t. I’m sorry for all of this,” his mother told her.
“You did the best you could, like all parents,” Stephanie said, though this was a big secret to have hidden and she wasn’t certain she could get behind it on their behalf.
“Tomorrow, we will take you to the village. We haven’t been there in years, but we still have relatives there. Our cousin, Aiden, is the dragon leader. He will show us around. Until then, we’ll go back to our rooms and let you have some privacy. If he doesn’t come back in a bit, let us know and we’ll go look for him with you.”
“Okay. Thank you. I’m sure he will be back when he’s settled down a bit,” Stephanie told them, showing them to the door.
Stuck in the Cabin (Exiled Dragons Book 8) Page 10