Kaiya wanted to say that Mrs. Jones must spend a lot of time at the beach, since she only ever bought chick-lit novels. But Kaiya bit her tongue. It was never a wise idea in a small town to offend the biggest gossip around. Kaiya glanced at the clock and held back a sigh. Ten minutes until closing time. With any luck, Mrs. Jones would be her last customer of the day and Kaiya could get out of here early.
“I’ll take these three, my dear,” Mrs. Jones said, handing three new releases from the chick-lit table over to Kaiya. Kaiya took the books and smiled.
“Excellent choices. I’ll get you rung up right away,” Kaiya said, heading back toward the front counter.
Mrs. Jones followed her, digging around in her purse for her wallet as she continued to blabber on about whom in town was dating whom now. She didn’t mention Drake, but Kaiya was certain she knew that he and Kaiya had been dating. Kaiya nodded and added the occasional “mm-hmm” as she rang up Mrs. Jones purchases. Finally, when the transaction was complete, she handed her a crisp receipt and gave the old woman a big smile.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jones. I hope you enjoy your vacation,” Kaiya said.
“Thank you, dear. Always a pleasure to see you,” Mrs. Jones said, turning to leave. But then she suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned back to look at Kaiya.
“Oh! One more thing,” Mrs. Jones said, her eyes sparkling with a mischievous look that Kaiya knew meant she was about to share a piece of gossip she thought was particularly juicy.
“Yes?” Kaiya said, trying to sound like she was actually interested.
“Did you hear that Griffin Moore was spotted back in town?” Mrs. Jones asked.
“Who?” Kaiya asked, her eyes widening. She had not expected Mrs. Jones to suddenly bring up Griffin. And she certainly hadn’t expected to hear that Griffin was in Persimmon Springs. Not after he had stubbornly insisted he never wanted to show up in town again.
“Griffin Moore!” Mrs. Jones said, and then a disappointed look crossed her face. “Oh, you’re probably too young to really remember him. He’s about five years older than you, I think, so you would have been a young girl when he started turning into a recluse. His father died when he was young, and the poor boy never recovered. Rumor has it he lives somewhere up in hill country and threatens to shoot anyone who comes near his property. He’s a strange one, that Griffin. I guess self-imposed solitary confinement will do that to a person, though. I wasn’t even sure whether he was still alive, but I heard he was spotted coming into Persimmon Springs just this morning. I never thought I’d see the day.”
Mrs. Jones was shaking her head in amazement. Kaiya could only stare at her, with her mouth hanging open. Was it true? Had Griffin really come back into town? Because if he had, that could only mean one thing: he had already decoded the journals, and whatever he had found wasn’t something he wanted to wait until the weekend to tell them.
Before Kaiya could form a response, the door to the front door jingled again. Kaiya looked up and was surprised to see Drake standing there with a serious expression on his face. When Drake’s eyes landed on Mrs. Jones, they darkened. Kaiya could tell he was in no mood to deal with silly gossip right now.
“Drake!” Mrs. Jones said, her eyes darting back and forth between Kaiya and Drake, delighted at the chance to witness them together for herself. “How lovely to see you.”
“You as well, Mrs. Jones,” Drake said, but his eyes never left Kaiya’s face.
“You’re off work early,” Kaiya said, raising a questioning eyebrow at him.
“I need to talk to you. Alone,” he said, then glanced meaningfully over at Mrs. Jones.
For once, Mrs. Jones actually took the hint, although she couldn’t resist adding a little comment about their budding relationship.
“Right, well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” she sang out. “Thanks for the books, Kaiya. See you later.”
As soon as the door had closed behind her, Drake locked it and turned the sign in the window so that the “Closed” message faced out to the street.
“You need to close up now, and come with me,” Drake said.
Kaiya didn’t argue. It was just about time to close the store up, anyway.
“Mrs. Jones said Griffin came to town,” Kaiya said.
Drake paused and looked at her, then turned to pull down the shades in the front window.
“He did,” Drake said. “And we’re meeting him at my place in fifteen minutes. He translated the journals.”
Kaiya felt her heart pounding with a mixture of excitement and trepidation as she nodded and then quickly began to close down the front cash register.
Chapter Fourteen
Drake sat at his kitchen table, picking at the label of his untouched beer bottle. Every seat at the table was filled. Next to him sat Kaiya, who also had not touched her beer. Theo and his lifemate Maddie were there, as was Zane and his lifemate Molly. Max and his lifemate Cassie sat on the barstools by Drake’s kitchen island, and Griffin and Levi took the last two seats at the table. Molly was bouncing Max and Cassie’s baby girl, Nora, on her knee, and every now and then the child would let out a small giggle. Otherwise, everyone in the room was silent, all staring at the box of journals that sat in the middle of the table, and waiting for Griffin to speak.
Griffin seemed to need a minute or two to collect his thoughts, and when he did start speaking his words were slow and deliberate.
“I imagine you were all surprised to see me show up in Persimmon Springs,” he said. “I had never intended to come back here, but once I translated these journals, I couldn’t wait until the weekend to talk to you all about them. And I wanted to discuss them in person.”
“You translated them awfully quickly,” Levi observed.
Griffin nodded. “I know. Once I got into a rhythm, the words came quickly. And I also didn’t want to stop once I started. I’ve barely slept in the last couple of days.”
Drake didn’t doubt that. The red rims of Griffin’s eyes gave away how little sleep he’d had since they last saw him. Before Griffin could open his mouth again, though, there was a slight knock on the front door. Drake swung his head around quickly, instantly on alert. Who was showing up now, in the middle of such an important meeting? Had someone discovered that they had the journals?
But before Drake could rise to go see who was there, the front door opened. Drake’s eyes widened with surprise when he saw his mother walk in.
“Ma?!?” Drake, Theo and Zane all said in unison.
Griffin was the only one in the group who didn’t seem surprised. “Ah, Mrs. Wilson,” he said as he stood. “I’m glad you got my message. Here, please take my seat.”
“Hello, Griffin,” Ma said, coming over to give him a hug. Drake saw tears brimming in her eyes. “It’s been so long. You look just like your father.”
Griffin coughed uncomfortably, and Ma greeted the rest of the crew with hugs before sitting down in what had been Griffin’s chair.
“You asked her to come?” Drake asked as things settled down.
“Yes, I did,” Griffin answered. “I thought she should know that the journals had returned.”
Drake felt a momentary pang of guilt. He’d been so caught up with figuring out what was in the journals that it had never occurred to him to tell his mother about them, let alone ask her if she knew what was in them. How could he have been so stupid? He might have saved himself and the others a lot of trouble if he had just gone to her first.
“It’s time you boys learned the whole truth about your father’s death,” Ma said.
Theo’s face darkened. “I already know the truth,” he said angrily. “He died serving as a protector. He kept the rest of the shifter world safe, but it cost us our patriarch.”
“I know you’re angry,” Ma said. “I was too, for a long time. But your father wasn’t working on any ordinary protection job when he died. He had been assigned to protect a special, ancient dragon relic that has extraordinary powers. Griffin’s father was hel
ping him. They died because they were leading a group of evil shifters away from the relic. They led them astray on purpose, and when the evil shifters realized that, they became filled with uncontrollable rage. They rose up and killed your father and Griffin’s father. The only record of the relic that remained was these journals. I couldn’t read them, but I knew they needed to be kept somewhere safe. So I passed them on to the unicorns for safekeeping. I thought perhaps the unicorns had destroyed them.”
“So he died protecting some ancient artifact?” Drake asked, his voice rising. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Not just any artifact,” Griffin said. “It was the dragon claw emerald.”
Drake saw Kaiya furrowing her brow in frustration. He knew she was probably twice as confused as he was right now.
“Can you stop talking in circles and get to the point?” Drake said, doing his best to keep his voice even and calm. “What exactly is this ‘dragon claw emerald,’ and why is it such a big deal? What do the journals have to do with it?”
Griffin turned sharp eyes to Drake, and Drake felt Kaiya give him a warning kick under the table. He knew he should be respectful of Griffin and not take his anger out on him. But right now he was having a hard time keeping his rage in check. His father had been dead for decades. His mother had been keeping this dragon claw stone a secret from him for some reason. Now, his dad’s journals about the stone had returned, and his lifemate had almost died because some sinister snake had wanted the journals so badly. Drake wasn’t exactly feeling reasonable or rational at the moment. He just wanted to know what was going on and why everything about these journals had been shrouded in so much secrecy.
“The dragon claw emerald hails from ancient dragon times,” Griffin said, his eyes still holding a fierce expression. “In the olden days, dragon shifters still retained quite a bit of supernatural power, like the unicorns of today. But over time it became clear that the dragon power was waning. Most say this was due to the increase in evil dragons. As those of you here who are shifters probably know, only a pure dragon bloodline free of evil could keep up the dragon power. When one of the ancient dragon kings realized that evil was taking over faster than it could be held back, he asked one of the dragon wizards of the day to take all his power from him and preserve it in a stone.”
“Dragon wizards?” Kaiya asked, her voice sounding slightly incredulous.
Griffin looked over at her patiently. “Back when dragons still had a lot of powers, there were dragon wizards, who were especially skilled in harnessing the supernatural qualities of dragons into powerful weapons.”
“I thought the dragon wizards were just myths,” Theo said, his voice sounding doubtful.
“I did too, until very recently,” Griffin said. “A lot of my studying has led me to conclude that the dragon wizards did exist. But in the last ancient dragon war they were all killed. The evil shifters made sure to get rid of them first, so they wouldn’t be able to cause trouble. By then, dragon powers had weakened so much that it wasn’t all that difficult to get rid of the wizards.”
“So what was the deal with the dragon claw, then?” Zane asked.
“Well, this ancient dragon king had the wizard drain him of his power and immortalize it into a giant emerald. Then the stone was hidden away for safekeeping. It was quite a selfless act, really, because the king lost his power. But the stone will always retain it. Whoever holds the stone holds great power in the shifter world. Naturally, the evil shifters have tried for centuries to find it. They’ve never been able to find it. In fact, even the good shifters, and the unicorn master shifters thought for some time that the stone had been destroyed. But a few decades ago your dad and my dad discovered it still remained.”
“How?” Theo asked. He still sounded skeptical, and Drake almost wanted to laugh despite the seriousness of the moment. Theo had always been a tough one to convince of anything.
“The journals tell the whole story,” Griffin said. “Your dad was actually working on a pretty mundane family history project when he discovered some information about one of his ancestors who had been in possession of the stone. Fascinated, he dug deeper and was able to find a lot of information about how men in his family had passed down the stone for quite some time. Eventually, hundreds of years ago, it was hidden away in a secret location. The only guide to where the stone supposedly was located had been written in ancient dragon tongue, and was heavily laden with riddles. The thing is nearly impossible to find.”
“But you know your father,” Ma said. “He always considered the word ‘impossible’ to be a challenge. He set off to find the stone.”
“And he found it just in time,” Griffin said. “It was at the height of the last great shifter war, when we were young children. The good shifters were having a hard time holding back the evil shifters. Your dad found the stone, and it changed everything. When the unicorns discovered that he had found the stone, and had used it for good, they asked him to be its protector. They didn’t want it to be hidden away for good anymore, you see. They wanted the stone accessible in case of emergency. But that turned out to be a bad plan. Because the stone is so valuable that as long as anyone knows where it is, the forces of evil will search for it. They will kill anyone who gets in their way. They will find the stone, or die trying.”
“So, what now, then?” Theo asked. “Do the journals tell us where the stone is?”
“Sort of,” Griffin said. “They give clues, but it will take a while to figure out.”
“But why did the unicorns bring these journals to us now?” Drake asked. “And should we even go after the stone? It sounds like a dangerous mission.”
Drake watched as Griffin’s eyes rested uneasily on the box of journals. “I think there is a war brewing,” Griffin said. “And the unicorns want the stone at the ready in case things get nasty. They don’t actually know where the stone is. Your father hid it away well, and the only map to get to it are the riddles in these journals. It will take a long time to find it. The journals with the actual riddles are very difficult to translate. I’ve barely managed to translate a page thus far. And even once everything is translated, we’ll have to decode the riddles. It won’t be easy.”
“Will we even be able to do all this in time?” Drake asked. “Or, should I say, will you be able to, Griffin? I’m not going to be much help on translating.”
Griffin gave a dry laugh. “I think the unicorns assumed you boys could read this ancient dragon tongue. They probably thought your dad taught you. It’s lucky for them that you know me, and knew I could read it. But it will take a while, yes, and I don’t know how imminent the war is. All we can do is the best we can. I’ll translate, and you guys can help with the riddles. In the meantime, we have to try to keep a low profile. Hopefully, that snake that attacked Kaiya was an isolated incident, but we can’t be too careful. Everyone needs to keep their eyes and ears open for trouble. If we all work together, perhaps we’ll find the stone in time.”
“And if we don’t find it?” Levi asked, his voice worried.
Griffin shrugged. “Then fighting in the coming war will be even more difficult. Either way, hard times are ahead, boys. And girls,” Griffin added quickly, looking around at the women lifemates who were also seated at the table.
“So that’s it?” Max asked. “The grand point of this meeting is that war is coming and we have to just hope we can find this stone or at least keep someone else from finding it first?”
“No,” Drake said, standing to his feet and slamming his fist on the table. “The grand point of this meeting is that we all have the opportunity to fight together, as brothers. There are those who would seek to destroy us, but we are stronger than them. Whether or not we ever find the stone, these journals, and the message they have brought to us, is that it’s important for us to all come together and work together. I’m ready to face whatever the future holds, as long as I’m facing it with all of you by my side. Who’s with me?”
�
�That’s my boy,” Ma said proudly, tears once again glistening in her eyes.
One by one, every single person at the table stood, and said, “I’m with you.” Even Griffin nodded his agreement.
“I guess I’ll have to come to town more often,” Griffin said with a sigh. “I have to admit it’s been good seeing all of you again. Just don’t expect me to actually move back. Let’s not push it.”
Everyone laughed. When the laughter had died down, Drake looked around at his friends and family and smiled. “This will be a long road, I know. But Dad would have wanted us to all work together to carry on his legacy. We’ll soldier forward, searching for the stone and protecting each other. Whatever trouble may come, we can handle it together. We are noble shifters after all. When we work together as a clan, we are mighty.”
There was a roar of agreement from the other men, and the women clapped. Drake looked over at Kaiya, pleased to see that she was clapping as well. This world might be new to her, but she had jumped in with both feet. He couldn’t have been happier or more proud. And he knew in that moment that his father would have felt the same way.
Chapter Fifteen
Several hours later, after dinner, a few rounds of beer, and some meticulous planning on what everyone’s next steps should be, the crew slowly bid Drake and Kaiya goodbye and left for their own homes. When Drake and Kaiya were finally alone, he turned to her with serious eyes.
“Kaiya, I know this is some heavy stuff. Are you sure you want to be part of this journey?” Drake asked.
Kaiya looked over at him and sighed, then slapped him playfully but firmly across the side of the face.
Lone Star Secret (Shifters in the Heart of Texas Book 4) Page 10