by Sophie Stern
“Mine, too,” she says. “I’m a shifter, too.”
“You’ve never felt this before?”
“Never. Have you?”
I shake my head. “I always supposed the stories my mother told me were just fairy tales, to be honest. She claims my father is her one true mate, and he says the same, but it never made sense until now.”
“I was scared when Tyrone told me he wrote to you,” Jessica confesses. “I was angry. I was just at his office this morning.”
“You were afraid I was going to take Brooke away and never let her see you again.”
“Yes,” Jessica nods. “I didn’t know you. I mean, I still don’t. Maybe you want to bring her somewhere else to live. I don’t know.” She shrugs. “The only thing that’s really changed is that we have this incredible connection now and somehow, that makes me feel like I can trust you to make the right choice.”
“Jessica, I’m not leaving the island.”
Her eyes go wide. “But your job,” she says. “School.”
“I graduated from law school last month,” I tell her. “I have a job, but I’m going to leave. I’ll come here. Surely Dragon Isle has use for lawyers. Brooke has been through so much that I can’t stand the thought of making her leave her home.”
“You’d give up the life you’ve built for her?”
“She’s my daughter, Jessica. I will do anything for her. I haven’t even met her yet, but I love her. I’m not going to tear her from her home. She’s just lost her mother and she’s about to gain a father, but I can’t make her change schools. I can’t take her away from the only community she’s ever built. Even if I have to change career fields, that’s fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for her.”
Jessica tears up then, and she wraps her arms around me.
“Matthew,” she says. “You are a good man: a good dragon.”
Then she kisses me again.
Chapter 6
Jessica
“We need to get Brooke soon,” I tell him. After our impromptu make-out session, Matthew and I talked for over an hour about our lives, our childhoods, and our pasts. We talked about Brooke and what she likes and what she doesn’t like. We played catch-up for the time we’ve spent apart, for the time we didn’t know we were destined to be together.
And now it’s time for the next step.
Just hours ago, I was determined to keep Brooke away from Matthew. He’s a man I considered to be a monster. I considered him to be unworthy. It’s funny how just a few hours really can change everything. Now I’m wondering how I managed to make it through Michelle’s illness and funeral without him. Now I’m asking myself how I’ve managed to make it this far in my life without him by my side.
Matthew is an incredible dragon and something tells me that he and Brooke are going to get along just fine.
“I’m nervous,” he says, pacing. “What if she doesn’t like me?”
“What are you talking about?” I move to him, placing my hands on his wrists. “She will love you,” I promise him.
“Does she look like me?” He asks.
“She has your eyes,” I tell him. “Her skin is darker than yours, closer to Michelle’s skin tone. Her hair is like her mother’s, too: wild and curly. Her eyes, though: those are all you, and her little button nose.” I tap his nose with my finger. “It’s obvious you’re her daddy.”
“You don’t think she’ll mind that I’m white?” He asks, shaking his head. “I know it’s stupid, I’m just…I’m nervous.”
“She won’t care,” I promise him. “Brooke doesn’t need you to ‘match’ her perfectly. She’ll just be glad to have you in her life. She’ll be happy, Matthew. I promise.”
Michelle had told me long ago that Matthew was different from her, but I didn’t realize that meant he was white. My friend had the most beautiful cocoa-colored skin on the island, and she’s passed that beauty on to her daughter. Dragon Isle is a pretty diverse place to live. There are dragons of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It’s interesting to me that he isn’t worried about being a shifter. No, he’s scared his daughter isn’t going to like that his human skin is lighter than hers.
“I’m just nervous,” he says.
“You don’t need to be,” I promise. “She’s going to love you, Matthew. Now let’s get going.” I grab my purse, take his hand, and lead him from the kitchen to the living room. When we reach the front door, I take a deep breath. This is it. There’s no turning back after this. The truth is that Brooke has no idea she’s going to meet her father today. She has no idea that everything is going to change for her now. Like it or not, she went to school today an orphan, at least in her mind. Now she’s got a parent who loves her and wants to adore her.
Apparently, Tyrone made the right call in contacting him. I make a mental note to call and apologize to the old dragon, but that will have to be later. Admitting my faults can wait. Right now, I just want to see this sweet girl united with her father.
Matthew and I leave the house. He takes my hand and holds it tight. Am I his anchor in this moment? I feel like I’m the one who should be the most nervous, the most scared. After all, Matthew is the one who has all legal ties to Brooke. If he changes his mind, he can easily take her away from me and I can’t do anything to stop it. I’m just her nanny, after all, but in my heart, I’m more than that.
I’ve practically raised Brooke. I’ve lived with her since she was born, looked after her when she was sick, and taken care of her while Michelle was away on business. For years, it’s been Brooke and me together. Now everything is about to change.
Matthew seems nervous, though.
Is he scared this sweet girl won’t like him because of his skin?
Is he worried she’ll feel like he abandoned her?
Although Matthew and I both feel like we’re mates, I can’t read his thoughts. I don’t have that ability, so I stop, and I turn to him, and I press my hands on his chest.
“Tell me,” I say.
“Tell you what?”
“What are you afraid of, love?”
Matthew looks at me. In those big eyes, I see pain and fear and nervousness. I see anxiety. I see a man who is so at the top of his field when it comes to law that nothing scares him but this. Nothing scares him but the idea of his only daughter disliking him. Michelle rejected him so many years ago, and now he fears their daughter is going to reject him, too. Is that it?
“I’ve let her down for years,” he says slowly. “And I don’t want to disappoint her. Chances are that she’s been dreaming of her dad. Maybe she’s been hoping he’d come back one day. What if I’m not what she pictured?”
“You’re going to be perfect, Matthew. Brooke is a good kid: a strong kid. She’s going to surprise you. I promise.”
“What do I do?” He asks. “Do I just go up and tell her I’m her father?”
“No,” I shake my head. “I’ll introduce you as my friend and we’ll walk home together. We’ll have dinner and share a meal, and then later, if the mood is right, we can tell her the truth.”
“And if the mood isn’t right?”
“There’s no rush to tell her, Matthew. We can take our time. There’s a guest room at the mansion you can stay in, or you can stay with me.”
“You’d be okay with that?” He seems surprised at the suggestion. Does he think I’m a virgin? I might be a nanny, but I’m no innocent. Not when it comes to men.
“Matthew, I can see you’re not convinced that everything is going to be all right, so let me tell you this.”
I kiss him hard and fast then. I kiss him deeply, and I reach forward and grip his cock over his jeans. We’re in the middle of my yard, but I don’t care at all. If anyone sees us, so what? They were young once. My mate needs to get out of his own head for a little while. He’s wound up tighter than a ball of string and he needs to fucking relax before he explodes.
His cock hardens. I can feel it through his pants. He groans as I deepen the kiss, rubbing him harder
and harder and harder, and then I stop and pull away.
His eyes are glazed over when I pull back, but he seems more relaxed and cam.
“Better?” I ask him with a smile.
He laughs and nods. “Better,” he agrees.
“Good. I’d hate to think I’ve given old Mrs. Watson a heart attack for nothing.” I jerk my head toward the house across the street, and Matthew turns and looks. There’s an old dragon woman at the window with a broom in her hand. Her mouth is open, forming a little “o,” and she’s not moving.
I wave and smile, and her mouth closes into a frown before she shakes her fist at us and leaves the window.
“I like her,” Matthew says, turning back to me. “She seems nice.”
Laughing, I take his hand and lead him away from the houses and toward the school. We have a few minutes before Brooke’s class lets out, but I’d like to be there before they release the kids.
“Do you walk Brooke every day?”
“I do. Rain or shine, we walk to the school.”
“Do you ever fly?”
“Not usually,” I tell him honestly. “If I have to go to the other side of the island for something, I’ll fly, but in town, I typically walk.”
“I always loved when my mother took me to school,” he says. “Sometimes she’d fly and I’d ride on her back. I thought I was so cool when I got to arrive at school on the back of a giant invisible dragon.”
“Invisible? Can you become invisible, too?”
He nods. “Impressed?”
“I am, actually. It’s rare that a dragon can do that. How did you discover it? Was it by mistake, or did you try on purpose to see if you could?”
“During my very first shift, I went invisible. I couldn’t figure out why everyone was ignoring me at first, honestly. I didn’t realize I’d gone invisible and I just thought everyone was being kind of mean to me by not admiring how big or beautiful I was in dragon form,” he laughs, and I do, too.
“I can picture it now,” I chuckle. “During my first shift, I was so much bigger than all of the male dragons that I felt powerful and strong. We raced around and I beat everyone. I was so much faster than them. It was a great feeling. I was pretty bummed when I shifted back to my teenage girl form and was small and tiny again. I felt weak.”
“You aren’t weak now, Jessica,” Matthew kisses my forehead as we continue walking. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do. Not many women could go through everything you’ve faced and still come out smiling. You know that, don’t you? You’re strong and brave. I’m completely impressed with you.”
My heart swells with pride at the compliment, but I don’t have much time to enjoy it because we’re at the school now. We walk up to the front of the building where there are several other dragon parents waiting. A few people wave and a couple of them shoot questioning looks at Matthew, but no one says anything. No one is rude or makes us feel uncomfortable. If they believe in true mates, too, I’m guessing they know finding yours can happen in the blink of an eye.
Matthew once again squeezes my hand.
“It’s going to be fine,” I tell him. A bell sounds and kids begin pouring out of the school. A few parents are in their dragon forms and they kneel down. Their children scurry up their backs, happily chattering about their days, and the parents take off flying.
“I’ve missed seeing this,” he says. “I didn’t think I missed Dragon Isle much at all, but even though I work with shifters and spend a lot of time with them, there’s something different about being around dragons. There’s something special about being able to soar through the sky and feel the wind on your face.”
He stops talking and I know that he’s spotted her.
Brooke is walking out of the school, happily talking with one of her friends. The other little girl spots her mother and runs off. Brooke scours the crowd until she sees me, and then she waves and starts running toward me. I crouch down, ready to wrap her up in a big hug, but as Brooke gets closer, I realize she’s not running toward me.
She’s running toward Matthew.
He’s just as shocked as I am when Brooke gets closer and jumps, throwing herself into his arms.
“Brooke?” He asks, but she just hugs him tighter.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispers. “I always knew you would come.”
Chapter 7
Matthew
She knows who I am.
My daughter, the mini-dragon shifter, knows who I am.
I don’t know how and to be honest, it really doesn’t matter because last week, I didn’t know I had a kid and now she’s wrapped up in my arms. I don’t plan on ever letting her go. I’m crying openly as I hold her, drawing a few strange looks from people nearby, but I don’t care. They don’t know how much I’ve missed this child I didn’t even know I had.
Brooke looks up at me and smiles.
“Don’t cry, Daddy,” she says. “This is a happy day.”
“Brooke?” I ask. “How did you know it was me?”
“Your eyes match mine,” she whispers, and she snuggles against me once more. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll take it. Maybe it’s instinctual because she’s also a shifter or maybe Michelle had a picture of me somewhere. I don’t know. All I know is that right now, Brooke and I are together and nothing is going to take this moment away from me.
I turn and begin to head back toward the house. Jessica is beside me, quietly protecting me as we walk. I know people are staring, but I can’t bring myself to care. I’m too happy, too relieved that Brooke just instantly accepted me. Who does that? What kind of a pure heart does she have that she just welcomed me into her life?
“Did you have a good trip?” Brooke asks. Her voice is bright and bubbly.
“It was a good trip,” I tell her.
“Did you take the boat?”
“For a little while,” I say.
“Was Kelsey mean to you?”
I laugh out loud. “Why would you ask me that, sugar? Is Kelsey usually mean to people?”
“Well, no, but she gets kind of fussy sometimes.” Brooke rolls her eyes. “You know, Mom always hated taking the boat because she said Kelsey was too nosey and way too fussy. Sometimes we’d just fly to the mainland,” she lowers her voice. “Even though it’s not allowed.”
The reason most people don’t fly from Dragon Isle to Nellenston is that it’s a big, open space where anything could happen. Poaching isn’t much of a problem anymore, but it was at one point, and you can never be too cautious. As an invisible shifter, I have an advantage in that I can easily move from one place to another without being spotted, but not everyone has that same luxury.
“She wasn’t fussy, but she did start asking a lot of questions about why I was coming to the island.”
“To see me, of course.”
“Of course,” I tell her. “But I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”
“What did you do, Daddy?”
“I jumped out of the boat and shifted.”
“You didn’t take your clothes off first? Did they rip?”
“Yep.” My favorite pair of jeans is now lying shredded at the bottom of the ocean, but I still feel like I got the better end of the deal. I can buy new jeans. I can’t buy this feeling that I have now that I’ve found my mate and my daughter.
Brooke shakes her head, like she can’t believe my silly decision to shift without properly preparing, but then she laughs and pats me on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” she says confidently. “You’ll get better. It just takes time and practice, Daddy.”
Now it’s Jessica’s turn to laugh.
“All right, you two,” she says. “Why don’t we head home?”
“Is Daddy going to stay with us?” Brooke asks hopefully. “At our house? Where we live?”
“I am,” I tell her, my throat suddenly choking up once more.
“Fo
r how long?”
“As long as you’ll have me,” I tell her.
I meant what I said.
I’m not planning on returning to my job, at least not for work. I’ll need to return to the city and pick up my things, close up my home, and return my keys to my landlord. I’m not going to leave them hanging, but maybe I can convince Brooke and Jessica to come with me while I close up my affairs. I don’t think Brooke leaves Dragon Isle too frequently, and I know for a fact that Jessica doesn’t.
It’ll be good for them to have a little trip and see what else is out there. I’m not planning on thrusting either of them into the world of humans full-time, but I think they’ll both enjoy being able to experience another side of life. Besides, I’m sure that even working on Dragon Isle, I’ll have occasional business trips that take me away, and there’s no way I’m going on those trips without my family.
Family.
It’s hard to believe that I really do have a family now. Despite everything else, I have two people who think I’m incredible, and it really just doesn’t seem possible.
I set Brooke down and we begin walking back to the house. Jessica and I are quiet, but Brooke walks between us, chattering away. We’re each holding one of her hands, and I like the fact that anyone who looks at us will see what we are: together. We’re a family, and we’re together. We didn’t even know how broken and how lost we were, but now we’re together.
Forever.
When we arrive home, Brooke runs up to her bedroom to drop off her backpack, and Jessica wraps her arms around me.
“How you doing, dragon man?”
“I’m blown away,” I tell her honestly. “I can’t believe she knew who I was. Did Michelle talk with her about me? I guess I assumed that if I didn’t know about her, that she didn’t know about me, either.”
“As far as I know, Michelle never breathed a word of who you were to Brooke. She only just confided in me recently, to be honest. For years, she just told everyone the father was not interested in being involved, and she left it at that.”