“Morning, Harlan.” Jason gave a brief nod that was met with a small friendlier smile.
“Jason. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected from you, but another dragon shifter is a little more than I would ever have expected.”
“Everyone thinks they are the last dragon,” Jason said as he waited for Shannon and Lorcan to sit down across the table from Harlan before he took the chair nearest the big male dragon shifter.
“True. We all thought we were the last dragon.” Fiona turned to face the room, coffee pot in her hand. “Until we found out we were not.”
Lorcan watched Fiona and Harlan with great interest, he was mesmerized by their presence. “I’ve lived my whole life not really knowing if dragon shifters were real. If I was real.”
Fiona set the coffee pot down on the counter and crossed the room to Lorcan. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she crouched down by his side. Ignoring the crack of her knees, she said, “You are very real. Very real indeed.” She blinked away tears as she stood up and went back to making coffee.
“As you can see, we get a little emotional whenever we meet a new dragon shifter.” Harlan reached out for his mate’s hand and squeezed it.
“I can’t believe it myself,” Shannon said. “Lorcan’s mom was a little crazy when she came into our lives. She was heavily pregnant and gave birth at home. She refused to go to the hospital, she was worried the doctors would know there was something different about Lorcan and take him away.”
“I didn’t know that,” Lorcan told his mom. “You never said.”
“I didn’t want you to grow up afraid to go to the doctor or worried that someone might think you were different,” Shannon confessed. “When I adopted you after Letitia passed away, I had a long hard think about how I wanted you to grow up.” Shannon glanced up at Fiona and Harlan. “I also didn’t know if Letitia was crazy. I had no idea if shifters were real or if she made the whole thing up. So I decided to ignore it.”
Fiona took a sharp intake of breath as she placed the coffee cups down on the table. “You chose to ignore Lorcan’s birthright?”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same?” Harlan asked his mate. “If you thought it was best for our son, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?”
Fiona chewed the inside of her cheek, presumably to stop herself from giving a smart-mouthed retort before she engaged her brain. Jason liked that about Fiona, she wasn’t afraid to speak even if she might offend people. However, in this instance, he was grateful she decided to spare Shannon her first thoughts. “We all try to do what is right for our children,” she conceded diplomatically.
“When Lorcan was young it was easy to let it go, to think of him as just a normal little boy. But as he grew up, I knew I couldn’t just hope that what Letitia said was make-believe. Over time I found out that shifters were real. Or that people at least thought they were real. I have never seen one and I don’t know if I’ve ever actually met one. At least, not before I came to Bear Creek.” Shannon glanced sideways at Jason. “Now, I think I’ve met more than I realize.”
“You have.” Jason picked up his coffee cup and took a slug of caffeine. “That is good coffee.”
“So why did you come to Bear Creek?” Harlan asked as he sat back in his chair and crossed his ankles.
“That is a long story.” Shannon’s shoulders sagged forward.
“A dragon hunter came to our house and demanded my treasure.” Lorcan’s short and concise answer caused Fiona to spray her coffee across the kitchen table.
Harlan immediately leaped to his feet and patted her back and helped her to a seat. “A dragon hunter?”
“And you brought them here?” Fiona glared accusingly at Jason.
“I had to help them,” he smiled apologetically. “I had to.” His eyes were drawn to Shannon. “I had no choice.”
“Oh, Shannon is your mate. Now I get it.” Harlan nodded thoughtfully as he continued to rub Fiona’s back.
“Get what?” Shannon asked.
“Why Jason would risk the wrath of two dragons to bring you both here,” Fiona answered shortly, although the tension in the air seemed to be dissipating.
“I still don’t get it,” Shannon replied. “Was Lorcan right, you want to be my boyfriend? Is that what a mate is?”
It was Jason’s turn to nearly spray coffee across the table. “Not exactly.”
“You and Jason are fated mates,” Fiona explained quickly. “Which means that fate has decided that the two of you are supposed to spend the rest of your lives together.”
“The rest of our lives?” Shannon’s eyes were like the moon at its fullest as she looked at him in surprise.
“Yes. Something like that,” Jason mumbled as he straightened up in his seat.
“Something like that?” Harlan asked. “It’s more than that. You are the most important person in the world to Jason.”
“You do know we’ve only just met?” She looked at Jason as if he was more out of place than a dragon shifter could ever be.
“It’s a shifter thing,” he offered up as a vague explanation. Just how did he explain to someone he’d just met just how deep his feelings ran?
“A shifter thing.” Shannon glanced at Lorcan. “Is this going to happen to Lorcan, too?”
“If he’s lucky.” Fiona sat down at the table next to Harlan. “We waited for a very long time to meet each other. A very long time.”
“But not until puberty,” Jason assured her. “He won’t shift until he reaches puberty and he won’t be able to sense his mate until then.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay then since puberty could happen in the next hour, day or month.” Shannon smoothed her hands over her hair and took a deep breath. “This is all new to me.”
“We all understand,” Jason said gently.
“I don’t,” Lorcan replied. “Are you trying to tell me that I have a mate out there? That there is some girl out there just waiting for me to come along?”
“Not necessarily.” Fiona leaned forward, her elbows resting on the table. “The thing is, Lorcan, she might be human, like your mom, and she will have no idea she is waiting for you to come along.”
“So she might get married, have kids and not even know I exist?” Lorcan’s expression told them all he was not impressed with this news.
Typical dragon shifter, thinking everyone is just waiting around for him to grace them with his presence, Jason’s bear said dryly.
He’s young, there’s still a chance he’ll learn, Jason replied with a smile.
“That’s not something you have to worry about right now,” Harlan waved his hand at Lorcan. “The more pressing business are these dragon hunters.”
“Right.” Shannon didn’t look at Jason as she nodded. “One of them came to our house.”
“So they knew where you lived?” Harlan asked. He got up from his chair and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the countertop. Sitting back down, hand poised over the paper with his pen gripped between his fingers and thumb, he looked like a secretary about to take notes.
“Yes, he came to our house,” Shannon confirmed. “I’d never seen him before.” She rubbed her fingers across her temple. She was scared.
Jason’s first instinct was to reach out, grab hold of her and encircle her in his arms. He resisted the temptation, not wanting to scare her off. This was an incredibly difficult time for his mate, and he didn’t want to pile more pressure on her.
“Have you always lived at the same address?” Harlan asked Shannon.
“No.” She shook her head. “I moved a couple of years ago to a new town when I got a new job.”
“I see.” Harlan glanced up at Jason. His concern was barely hidden.
“They kept tabs on us.” Shannon glanced from Harlan to Jason and back again. “It’s the only way they could have linked us to Letitia. They knew who Letitia was, they knew she was pregnant, and watched us until Lorcan was old enough to sense his treasure.”
“That would be my
guess.” Harlan sighed. “A messy business.”
“Very messy.” Shannon’s teeth worried at her lower lip. “At first I thought Lorcan had told his friends and it was a prank. You know, making fun of the boy who thinks he’s a dragon shifter.”
“But they weren’t. You’re sure they weren’t.” Jason hadn’t even considered that as a possibility.
“No, they weren’t.” Shannon didn’t elaborate on how she knew this for sure and Jason didn’t ask. Her tone was enough to convince him she was absolutely certain the dragon hunters were for real.
“What did he say?” Fiona asked, her eyes laser-focused on Shannon. “When the dragon hunter came to see you, what did he say?”
“He knocked on the door pretending to be from the utility company. He said there was a problem with my phone line. I assured him it was all working fine. When he realized I wasn’t going to let them in the house to check anything out, he told me they knew what my son was.” She paused as she watched Lorcan eat a cookie Harlan offered him. “I said, what do you mean and that’s when he said he knew Lorcan was a dragon shifter.”
“Mom tried to laugh it off,” Lorcan added as he crunched his cookie.
“I don’t think I was overly convincing. It was a shock after all.” She brushed her hand over her eyes. “It’s all my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Fiona said hotly. “There will be no more laying blame at anyone else’s door other than those who came to threaten you.”
“I just think that if I’d managed to convince him that they were wrong...” She buried her face in her hands and her body shook as she sobbed.
“Hey, Fiona is right, this isn’t your fault.” Jason didn’t hang back, he went to his mate and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done your best for Lorcan.”
“And it’s not good enough.” Shannon sniffed loudly as she looked up at him through her tears. “We should be at home getting ready for school, not tromping over the mountains in search of treasure that may or may not exist.”
“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Harlan put his hand up to stop Shannon. “What exactly do these hunters want?”
“They want Lorcan’s treasure. But we have no idea what that is.” Shannon reached for Jason’s hand and threaded her fingers through his as if she were searching for comfort and reassurance.
“So why come to Bear Creek?” There was an edge to Fiona’s voice.
Dragons do not like the thought of a threat toward their treasure being stolen, do they? his bear asked.
No, they don’t. I doubt they even like someone else even looking at their treasure. Jason thought for a moment. So how is Lorcan going to react when he finds his treasure and has to hand it over to those hunters?
Not well. His bear ground his back teeth together. Not well at all.
It seems we might be protecting the young dragon shifter from himself. Jason would do what needed to be done to stop Lorcan from hurting himself. Even if that means preventing him from hurting the hunters.
Sometimes we have to be strong for others when they can’t be strong for themselves. Jason’s throat contracted as pain and heartache pierced him to the core.
Others had once been strong for him…and paid the ultimate price.
Chapter Twelve – Shannon
Dragons were real and her son was searching for treasure. The kind of treasure told about in fairy tales.
Somehow, she’d been able to put up an invisible barrier between what Letitia had told her about dragon shifters and the small boy Shannon had adopted as her son.
Since she’d never actually seen a shifter in real life, and no one had ever seen a dragon shifter. At least no one ever talked about seeing a dragon flying in the sky, then she’d managed to convince herself that they were not real. On a subconscious level at least.
Now she was seated in the kitchen of a couple of dragon shifters talking about dragons and treasure and shifting as if it was a real everyday occurrence. Which to Fiona and Harlan, it was.
Oh, and she’d found out that shifters all had a mate, a person who they were bound to for the rest of their lives. A person who they would love and honor for eternity.
As Shannon sipped her coffee, she tried to figure out which was stranger. Having a dragon shifter for a son or having a mate.
“We came to Bear Creek because the only thing my mom had from my dad was a small keepsake from Bear Creek. You know, the kind you take home after a vacation.” Lorcan’s voice was like a jolt of electricity restarting her heart.
“So, you believe your father visited Bear Creek because of this keepsake?” Harlan asked.
“We had nothing else to go on, so we took a shot in the dark,” Shannon replied.
“But as we got closer to the town and the mountains…” Lorcan glanced out of the window at the mountains in the distance. “It was like something was calling me home.” His voice took on a whimsical quality as his eyes fixed on the tall peaks shrouded in cloud.
“A dragon’s treasure is like part of his soul,” Fiona said wistfully, turning her attention to the view outside. “It sings to you, pulls you toward it inexplicably.”
A shudder of apprehension passed through Shannon. If the treasure meant that much to Lorcan, how was he ever going to give it up?
“I need to find my treasure.” Lorcan shot Shannon a sidelong glance. “It’s important. Can you help me?”
“We can try,” Harlan assured Lorcan. “But since we can’t sense your treasure, then it’s really up to you.”
“I have an idea of where it is, but there doesn’t seem to be any way of getting to it.” Lorcan balled his fists in frustration. “There have been too many landslides and the way appears to be blocked.”
“Then we’ll have to unblock it,” Harlan reassured Lorcan. “If we can locate its position, I’m sure between dragon shifters and bear shifters, we can reunite you with your treasure.”
“Reunite me?” Lorcan arched an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen my treasure let alone touched it. I don’t even know why it’s mine.”
“Lorcan has never even been to Bear Creek,” Shannon explained. “We assumed his reaction to the treasure was like a sixth sense.”
“It is like a sixth sense,” Fiona explained. “And you don’t have to have ever seen or touched your treasure for the link to exist.” She glanced sideways at Harlan, her lips a thin line as her jaw tensed.
“What aren’t you saying?” Shannon asked. There was no time for secrets or half-truths. She took a sharp intake of breath which she smothered by sipping her coffee as a new fear entered her heart. What if the two dragon shifters intended to help Lorcan find his treasure so they could take it from him and add it to their own hoard?
Fiona looked uncomfortable as her eyes rested on Lorcan. It was as if she didn’t want to say anymore in front of him. “Lorcan might struggle to part with his treasure. Most dragons do.”
Harlan reached out and took hold of his wife’s hand. “Most parents give a portion of their treasure to their children when they are born. Then the child spends their life building the hoard.”
“Then, when a parent passes, their hoard is inherited by their offspring.” Fiona’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Shannon with a laser-sharp glance.
A small moment of clarity illuminated Shannon’s thoughts. Fiona and Harlan were trying to figure out if Lorcan’s dad was dead or alive. Was the treasure calling to Lorcan a small portion of his father’s larger hoard, or was it the entire hoard of a dead dragon?
“So, it’s true. My father is probably dead?” Lorcan had picked up on the part of the conversation that had remained unsaid.
“It’s possible,” Fiona agreed. “And since he’s never come to claim you, I would think it is more likely that your father is dead. A dragon child is more precious than any treasure. I’m confident your father would have found you if he could.”
“Are you okay?” Shannon asked Lorcan.
He nodded as he masked his disappointment. “How can yo
u miss something you never had?”
“Lorcan, it’s okay to be sad. I know you always lived in hope your dad would turn up one day.” Shannon slid her arm around his shoulder. “It’s okay to mourn him.”
“I know. But now is not the time. We have to find the treasure.” Lorcan leaned into her for a brief moment before he pulled away. “I’m ready.”
“Listen, why don’t we come with you onto the mountain?” Harlan suggested. “We might be able to give a different perspective on where a dragon might hide his treasure.”
“We also know the mountain ranges extensively and have knowledge of how the mountain has shifted and changed over a long period. So if the entrance to the cave where your treasure lays is blocked, we might be able to find another way in.” Harlan gave a lopsided smile. “You’ll also struggle to find any other heavy lifting equipment as versatile as two dragons.”
“And what is it going to cost?” Shannon asked bluntly.
Fiona’s head snapped back. “Nothing.”
Shannon’s cheeks burned red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to people helping out for no reward of their own.”
“We understand,” Harlan said gently. “For us, finding another dragon shifter is like finding a new kind of rare gem. There are so few of us left.”
“So we’ll do whatever we can to help you and Lorcan.” Fiona’s voice trembled with emotion. “All we ask is that you consider settling here in Bear Creek and become part of our extended family.”
“I always knew we had a connection,” Jason said with a wink.
Fiona rolled her eyes. “I suppose we will have to include you as part of our extended family, too.”
“Hey, you are both making a large assumption here,” Shannon replied. “I have not agreed to be your mate.”
“I’m afraid that is part of your fate that you will find hard to fight. Just as Lorcan will find it hard to fight his true nature,” Harlan warned. “You and Jason will be together, just as Lorcan will make his first shift one day very soon.”
“I’m not sure which scares me more.” Shannon glanced at Jason apologetically. “This is all still new to me.”
Jason - Silverback Redemption Page 9