Piper looked around the house with a profound sense of regret. She had never had the chance to get to know her Aunt Jenna.
She hadn’t even known that Aunt Jenna was living in Shadow Point. No one knew where Aunt Jenna was, and no one bothered to find out.
Piper’s mom, who was Aunt Jenna’s sister, hadn’t had anything nice to say about Aunt Jenna at all. But Piper had the feeling that her mother wasn’t telling the whole story. Her mother had the habit of skewing facts to suit her purposes. Anyone who didn’t agree with her or do what she wanted them to do was cast as the ultimate villain and traitor.
And sadly, that was a role that Piper was very familiar with.
In her mother’s eyes, Piper was the evil, ungrateful daughter, while her twin sister Heather was the perfect daughter. Her sister, Heather was the golden child, the child who could do no wrong. Piper, on the other hand, could do no right.
But Piper knew that she hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, the reason her mother hated her was because Piper had chosen to do the right thing.
Piper and Heather had witnessed their mother, Fiona, running over their neighbor’s dog when their mother was driving them to school one morning. Instead of taking responsibility for what she had done, Fiona ordered her daughters to lie and say that it was some stranger who had hit the dog and sped off. Heather willingly lied for their mother, but Piper insisted on telling the truth.
Piper was only thirteen then, but Fiona never forgave her for that betrayal. Ever since that incident, Piper was seen as an enemy, a traitor and treated as such. Piper was made to feel like she didn’t belong to the family.
Fiona disinherited her completely when she turned eighteen.
Piper left her family five years ago, and she hadn’t heard from her mother or sister since. To them, she was as good as dead. Heather was her twin, but her mother had done a good job poisoning Heather’s mind against Piper. Heather saw Piper as a rival, a competitor and an enemy. With Piper out of the picture, Heather stood to inherit everything from Fiona. It broke Piper’s heart to realize that she no longer had a sister.
But as fate would have it, Piper found another sister. Not long after Piper moved to the city, she met Lisa, who was a few years older than her and the two of them bonded almost instantly. Lisa was also estranged from her family, and the two of them became closer than sisters. They helped each other through the most difficult times in their lives, and were always there for each other.
When Lisa got pregnant from a one-night stand, Piper was supportive of her decision to keep the baby. The baby’s father was out of the picture, and Lisa was determined to bring the kid up herself.
Piper brushed away a tear when she remembered how much fun they had shopping for baby clothes and toys, and choosing baby names.
“I miss you, Lisa,” Piper whispered. “I’ve kept my promise to you, sister. I’m taking good care of your baby, but I don’t know if I’m doing everything right. I...I almost couldn’t provide a roof over his head,” Piper said, swiping away her tears. “If Aunt Jenna hadn’t left me this house, Zander and I would be homeless. We were about to be evicted.”
Piper turned to watch Zander playing with his toy cars. She smiled as she stared at the boy’s golden blond hair and chubby freckled cheeks. He looked so much like Lisa. He had her blond hair, blue eyes and cute freckles.
When Lisa died in childbirth, Piper immediately adopted Zander. It wasn’t easy raising a little boy and holding down a job. Piper often had to apply for urgent leave from work to take Zander to his doctor’s appointments, and on days when she couldn’t get a babysitter, she’d had no choice but to call the office to let her boss know that she couldn’t come in to work that day.
But her boss wasn’t at all sympathetic to her plight, and Piper came in one morning only to be handed a letter and her final pay check. The company was letting her go.
And with no job, her savings depleted rapidly. Infant formula and diapers were expensive, and Piper used her rent money to make sure that Zander was well-fed and well-clothed.
Piper had been speechless with shock and disbelief when she learned that she had inherited a house in a small, remote little town. She had never been to Shadow Point, and she hadn’t had much contact with shifters and other paranormals. But Piper knew from experience that humans could be even colder and more callous than any other species.
Her own mother and sister had shown her no love and compassion. Piper had done the right thing and told the truth, and for that, her family had turned against her.
But—not all her family had turned against her. One forgotten member of her family had kept Piper in her heart and her will.
“Aunt Jenna,” Piper whispered as she gazed around the house. “I wish I could thank you in person. I’ve met you only once, and even that memory is hazy. Yet...you’ve helped me so much in my time of need. Thank you, Aunt Jenna.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Piper hadn’t had the chance to fully explore their new town. She and Zander had moved into her Aunt Jenna’s house barely two weeks ago.
Her aunt’s house was at the outskirts of Shadow Point. Piper hadn’t had much opportunity to interact with the townsfolk, but most of the people she’d met seemed nice enough. It looked like a safe place to raise a child.
Piper learned that her aunt had passed away about nine months ago but it had taken her lawyer some time to track Piper down. So when Piper arrived with Zander and their small luggage, they’d had to wade through a front yard overgrown with tall grasses and thorny weeds to reach the house.
All the furniture had been left in the house, and Piper found some of her aunt’s clothes, costume jewelry and books in the cupboards. As Piper gently packed away the clothes and books, she felt both sadness and gratitude. She regretted that she’d never had the chance to know her Aunt Jenna.
Like her, Aunt Jenna had been cut off from her family. Aunt Jenna and Piper’s mom were sisters, but Piper hardly ever saw her aunt when she was growing up. She had a hazy, fading memory of meeting her aunt once when she was very young, but that was it. And from what her mother said about Aunt Jenna, Piper gathered that Aunt Jenna and her mom weren’t on good terms. In fact, they weren’t even on speaking terms.
“Maybe Aunt Jenna did nothing wrong. Maybe she did the right thing, like me,” Piper had uttered aloud as she put her late aunt’s personal effects into a box.
Piper now knew from painful personal experience that the black sheep of the family wasn’t necessarily the one who had committed any offense. In fact, the black sheep was very likely the scapegoat, someone made to carry the guilt and shame of the real offender and cast out of the family so that there would be no one to tell the truth. The ones remaining in the family all had a vested interest to keep the truth buried and adhere to the offender’s version of the truth.
Piper was immensely grateful to her late aunt for remembering her and thinking of her. Maybe her aunt had found out that Piper had been kicked out of the family. Maybe her aunt had been trying to get in touch with her but didn’t know where she was. Piper would never know what was on her aunt’s mind, but it was clear that Aunt Jenna had kept Piper in her heart and thoughts.
Now Piper just had to save up enough money to get all the repairs done. After she got the front and back yards tidied up, she would have to get the roof fixed.
Zander came to stand beside her at the window. “What are you looking at, Mommy?”
“Just the weeds in front of our house,” she answered, ruffling his golden hair.
“Those are really big weeds, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.”
Zander giggled. “They are monster weeds!”
Piper agreed. Those weeds were truly monstrous. They had thorns and spikes all over, and they proved impossible to uproot. Spraying weedkiller all over the garden only made the weeds grow more abundantly. She could almost hear the weeds laughing at her pathetic and ineffectual attempts to defeat them.
“I guess Aunt Jenna wa
sn’t much of a gardener either,” Piper mumbled.
Piper pressed her nose to the window to look at the house down the street. The houses were spaced pretty far apart and her nearest neighbor was more than a mile from her. Her neighbor down the road, Mr Clark, was a widower who worked long hours in his clinic in the town center. He usually got home pretty late and left for work very early in the morning.
It was really quiet out here. They were far away from the hustle and bustle of the town center.
“I’ve got to find a job soon,” Piper muttered. “We have a roof over our heads, but I still need to put food on the table and Zander would have to go to school soon. I have some savings but...how long would that last?”
Piper pushed away her worries and smiled as she watched Zander play on the floor. The kid was revving his truck up the couch and making it fly towards the coffee table.
She loved him with all her heart, and she just wanted the best for him. With Lisa gone, Zander had no other family. She was his mom, his family, his whole world.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Her words floated out on a breath. Zander was on the other side of the room, crashing his cars and trucks noisily into a huge pile. He couldn’t have heard her.
But to Piper’s utter bewilderment and amazement, Zander whirled round and grinned at her.
“I love you too, Mommy!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Seath turned into the long, winding road and squinted into the gathering darkness. He had never been to this part of Shadow Point before.
This area was at the very edge of town and was near the forest. Seath could count the number of houses he drove past on just one hand.
“Geez,” he muttered. “Maybe these people like the peace and quiet out here. But...this is a little too quiet for me.”
He finally pulled up in front of the last house on the street. He got out of the car and a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the house and the forest beside it.
Seath could smell rain coming. He grumbled as he trudged up to the house. His nice new car would be spattered with dirt and mud by the time he drove home.
Seath whistled when he saw the front yard of the house. “This looks like a jungle,” he remarked, shaking his head. “No wonder the lady called us. There’s no way she can clear this place up on her own.”
Seath walked up the front steps and knocked smartly on the door. “Hello?”
A small face peeked out at him from the window. Seath smiled at the child. The boy had blond hair and bright blue eyes, and when he grinned, dimples danced in his chubby cheeks.
“Mommy! There’s a man at the door!” the boy shouted.
Seath heard a bolt being scraped back. The door creaked open and a young woman stood cautiously behind the door. He couldn’t see her face clearly in the dimly lit house.
“Ms Wylde? I’m Seath Fireblood, from Fireblood Landscapers,” Seath introduced himself. “You called and...”
“Oh! Yes, yes, of course,” the woman said quickly. “Thank you for coming.”
She opened the door wider and stepped forward.
Seath inhaled sharply as he felt his dragon stir for the very first time. This was the first time he could feel the coiled power of his dragon, and the dangerous fury and hunger of the rising beast.
Why was his dragon making its presence known now? This was a bad time. He couldn’t possibly let his dragon out right now.
His dragon snarled and pushed up, rising to the surface. Seath could feel his beast just beneath his skin, pulsating with power and primal hunger.
As Seath fought to control his angry dragon, he was aware that the young woman was staring at him in confusion and apprehension. A trace of fear flickered across her lovely features.
“Um,” she cleared her throat nervously as she stared up at him with mesmerizing amber eyes. Seath saw that the woman was only in her early twenties. She was a very young mother, and it seemed she was all alone in the house with her son.
Seath was aware that all his senses had sharpened, and he could clearly make out all the distinct scents in the house. He could scent that the woman was human, and he could detect no male presence in her house.
His dragon growled possessively as he took another whiff.
Her scent was intoxicating, and it was driving his dragon wild. The beast prowled closer and closer to the surface, threatening to break free.
CHAPTER SIX
Seath balled his fists, feeling his claws shoot out from his fingertips. He didn’t want to frighten this sweet, tiny human female.
He was more than a head taller than her, and he could hear a low growl rumble from his throat as he towered over her.
His muscles bulged with the strain of trying to leash his dragon down.
The newly awakened dragon inside of him was going crazy. But he couldn’t possibly let his dragon out now. Shifting into a fiery dragon now would terrify this beautiful female and her little boy. But his dragon wanted out. Now!
Seath didn’t know what to do with himself. He had been waiting so long for his dragon to emerge, but now that his dragon had awakened, he was trying his darnedest to push the beast back down.
Seath stood rooted to the spot, not moving and not speaking. He wanted to step closer to the woman, but he was afraid that he would lose control of his beast and hurt her.
The boy pushed out from behind his mother and peered curiously at Seath.
“Who is he, Mommy?” the boy asked. Before his mother could stop him, he flashed a cheeky smile and stuck out his hand. “Hello, I’m Zander.”
The boy’s confident, cheery voice and endearing smile seemed to calm Seath’s dragon down. The beast receded and settled down to watch and wait. Relieved that his dragon was no longer trying to rip out of his skin, Seath managed a lopsided smile. He made sure his claws were fully retracted before taking the boy’s hand.
“Hi Zander, I’m Seath,” he said. “I’m very happy to meet you.”
Zander beamed and looked up at his mother. “Can I play with Seath? He can play with my cars...”
“No, honey, Seath isn’t here to play with you,” the woman said gently. She turned to Seath and said, “Thank you for coming all the way out here. Shall we take a look at the yard? It looks like it’s going to rain soon.”
Zander tugged at Seath’s large hand and whispered loudly, “You know, it rains in the house too. And in Mommy’s room.”
The woman winced, looking embarrassed. “The roof’s leaking,” she explained. “We put pails in the living room and in my bedroom. It’s okay. It has only rained less than three times since we moved here.”
“Ms Wylde...”
“Call me Piper,” she said with a shy smile.
Seath didn’t know why he felt so protective towards this little family. He felt a very strong bond towards this young mother and her adorable son. The child looked nothing like his mother though. The kid was blond, blue-eyed and chubby, while Piper had wavy brown hair, amber eyes and a delicate, heart-shaped face.
Seath glanced towards the house and took another whiff. There was no one else inside the house.
Piper picked Zander up and carried him as she led Seath down the front steps to show him the yard. Seath breathed in her scent and his dragon rose to get nearer to the lovely female in front of him.
Seath scowled and clenched his teeth. He took a quick look at her hand. No ring on her hand.
But he needed to be sure.
“Is your husband, fiance or boyfriend home?” he asked tightly.
Piper shook her head. “It’s just me and Zander. I’m a single mom.”
His dragon rumbled, pleased. Seath let out the breath he had been holding and tried not to smile too broadly.
But as he glanced at the encroaching forest just beside the house, his smile disappeared.
Piper and her son were living by themselves in a leaky little house beside the forest. Snakes and other wild animals could get into the yard and attack them.
&
nbsp; “You’re not safe here,” he said.
Piper looked surprised at his stern tone of voice. But she didn’t argue with him.
“I don’t really like living so close to the edge of the forest, but Zander seems to like it,” she replied with a shrug. “We used to live in the city, and Zander got sick a lot. But out here, he seems a lot happier. I think he likes nature.” Piper smiled and added, “But we’ve only moved here two weeks ago. This was my aunt’s house.”
Seath nodded. So Piper and Zander were new in town.
He was about to say something when he noticed Zander eyeing him curiously over his mother’s shoulder. The boy’s nose was twitching as he sniffed the air.
Breaking into a grin, Zander pointed at Seath and declared, “You are like me, but different.” The boy took another whiff and asked, “What’s inside of you?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Piper frowned and shushed Zander. The boy was being really cheeky and mischievous.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Seath. “We, um, we don’t get many visitors, so Zander’s very excited to see you.”
“He’s a smart kid.” Seath smiled. “Go back into the house with Zander. I can walk through the yard myself and see what needs to be done. Go into the house before it starts to rain. It’s getting quite chilly out here and the kid might be cold.”
Piper nodded. “Okay. I’m thinking of building a fence around the house, but I will need to know the cost. I’m on a very tight budget, so...” She sighed and shook her head. “I can pay in monthly installments, right?”
“Don’t worry about the cost,” Seath said gently and steered her towards the house.
Piper went back into the house with Zander and watched Seath from the window.
Seath looked to be only in his mid twenties, but he carried himself with supreme confidence. He was very tall, muscular and he was ruggedly handsome with his short blond hair and intense green eyes.
Seafire Dragon Page 2