Matthew: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  Then with a snap of someone’s fingers, she was standing upright, her body no longer on fire. There was still a great deal of pain. Her body hurt like she’d been run over by a large boulder coming off the mountain top. Her face ached, and her hands were scorched. Before she could begin to figure out what happened, the second man who had come into her home uninvited stood before her.

  “I am Devon Wakefield, Tenth Marquess to the house of Wilkshire. King to all dragons. Judge of all those who would dare take the life of one of my own. Medusa Alexander, you are to die by my dragon. You will—”

  “Wait a fucking moment. Just wait. You can’t do that to me. I’ve been burnt once, and I think that’s plenty. You want me dead, then you have to come up with something else. Death by fire twice, that’s not even a way to kill someone. Not that you have the right to kill me, but you will not do it that way.” He cocked a brow at her, looking confused. Great. He should be. “Since I know that is the only way you’re allowed to kill me, King Ding Dong, then I will be on my way. You’re not worthy of me or my kind to be ordering anything of us.”

  Medusa was backing away from the king, feeling great for every foot she was away from him. When a dark cloud shadowed them both, she looked up to the sky to see what sort of storm was coming. Thinking the blue of the sky too dark to be anything good, Medusa moved away from the house. As soon as she could, she was going to—

  ~*~

  Patrick didn’t move from his seat when he was ordered to do so. He was ready for whatever was handed to him in the way of punishment for what he’d done. Killing Medusa for what she’d confessed to was something that he and Julia had talked about long into the night last night.

  Devon was seated across from him, trying his best not to laugh. Matt was sitting on the couch while he watched his mate. Aisling was pacing back and forth like she was going to drill a long trench in the stone beneath her and be done with them all. When she started speaking again, Patrick knew better than to answer her, or even to make a sound until she said his name. Doing that once was enough for him. She was scary enough when she wasn’t aiming her anger at him. Now she was scarier than the king, who got up to leave—he was laughing too hard to hold it in any longer.

  “Did you think that we couldn’t handle this?” Wondering if she expected an answer, he waited. “What made you even think that this had shit to do with you? Huh? You killed her. Why didn’t you mind your own fucking business?”

  “You are my business now.” He glanced at his son before he continued. “You’re my daughter. Being mated to my son, you became as much a part of my life as he is. Your children will be my grandchildren. Anything and everything that you do that might get you hurt or wounded, I will make it my business. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with that, but—”

  “I don’t. I don’t agree with anything you’ve done. You could very well be punished for killing a dragon’s mate.” He shook his head and said that Devon had already given him his punishment. “You mean the one where you have to teach history at the high school for ten years? You were much too happy with that. I think you should be drawn and quartered. By me. You fucking moron. What was I supposed to do if you were hurt? What do you think Julia would have said to me if she knew that in the process of killing off my mother, the fucking bitch, that you were hurt in some way? She would have hated me. I know I would have.”

  Matt made a sound like he was disbelieving her thoughts. “First of all, I’ve started calling Julia Mom. I know you won’t because the two of you have become great friends. Best friends. She could no more hate you than she could me.” Matt looked at Patrick as he continued. “What would you have felt like, Aisling, if it had been me that had stomped on your mother? Crushed her to the earth like she was nothing more than a rotten egg? Would you have been as hard on me for helping you?”

  “That’s not that same thing.” Matt looked at her then. “You know damned good and well that it’s not. She was going to face Devon.”

  “No. Medusa was right on that. He couldn’t have burnt her by fire to kill her. Medusa was as good as dead when I stopped the fire on her.” Bryce sat down next to Patrick. “I had hoped that she’d not know that rule when I suggested this as a way for both of us to get payment. Patrick was well within his rights to kill her for not just the reasons that he stated to you, Aisling, but for his friend as well. Your father wasn’t just a friend of his. He was his best friend. Even before you were brought to him.”

  “Is that true?” Patrick nodded at her. She was such a lovely woman that his heart broke for all that she was going through. And for all the wrong reasons too. “Devon could have killed you. You are aware of that, aren’t you? I mean, you interfered with his sentencing. He could have demanded your life for that. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You have to know that, Patrick.”

  “I do know that. If it gives you any comfort, Aisling, I had a conversation with Devon before I showed up there. I told him that I would be his second in all matters of dragons. So you see, the teaching job was just what I wanted. Being his second in trials of our kind? Well, it was a way for me to help you and Matt. So that for the rest of your lives, you don’t have to worry about anyone coming after you, seeking your bodies for science or gain. You and Matt, you’re my family as much as Julia is. I couldn’t stand the fact that you might have been hurt by the bitch. And she did kill Colin. He was a good man, as I’m sure you know.” She nodded as she fell into his arms and hugged him. “There you go, sweetheart. I have only your best interest at—”

  The punch to his gut made him fall to his knees. She hadn’t held back when she slammed her fist into him. Nearly sick with the pain of it, he looked at her when she told him to get up off the floor. He decided that he might be safer where he was.

  “What if that had been my mother? What if she’d conned you into trusting her? You think that hurt? I meant for it to, but she would have had something to stab you with, I’m sure of it.” He nodded. “You’re too fucking trusting. All of you are. Starting when we get back from our trip, you’re going to be working on ways to make sure that no one can take advantage of you. Christ love a duck; she could have murdered you without even doing much more than pretending that she was helpless. Well, you should know that I’m not helpless.”

  “I see that.” Matt was rolling on the couch, he was laughing so hard. “Has she ever hit you like this, son? I have to tell you, she’s strong enough to take both of us on.” The kick to his knee had him falling back on his ass. “What was that one for?”

  “For being nice to me.” He just stared at her; he was as confused as he’d ever been around a woman. “You’re a nice man, and I’m sorry that you’re so gullible. But the next time, you’d better be prepared for whatever happens. I’ll train you.”

  When she left them there, he looked up at Bryce, who was humming an odd tune. Patrick looked at his son. There would be no help there. Matt was laughing and complaining about the pain he was in from laughing so hard. Yes, he’d hurt himself more if he had to help his old man up off the floor right now.

  “You should know better, I’m thinking. A dragon your age pissing off a female. And she was right. You might well have been hurt by Medusa if she’d tried that on you. Right?” He told Bryce that he would like to think not. “Then you’re stupid. You would have fallen hook line and sinker if Medusa had gotten all teary around you. Think about it, Patrick. You wouldn’t have been killed, but Medusa would have put you in a world of hurt that would have been difficult for you to come back from. And I think I might well have let you. You really do need to become harder. Not like a stone, I mean, but a little less trusting.”

  “You know something.” Bryce nodded. “Something that I’m going to have to figure out on my own, or will you help me with it? I’d appreciate the assistance on anything that might be going on around me.”

  “I’ve not decided if I want to help you or not. But I will say this for y
ou—you’ve done well in hiding everything, haven’t you?” He didn’t like the sound of that and asked her what she meant. “Matt doesn’t know that your dragon is ill, does he?”

  He could have denied it. Patrick could have even taken the information from her mind—he’d done it before. But with her, with this woman, he was afraid of the consequences of trying to do something to her that would harm all of them.

  “It’s been a long while in coming. It happened when I was with Matt’s mother. She poisoned my dragon with iron long ago. It’s starting to eat up my insides now that I’m older. I think that was her plan.” She asked him what he’d done to try and get rid of it. “Everything that I can think of. I’ve been to every kind of doctor, witch, and healer. None of them can take it from my body because it’s been there for so long. How did you find out?”

  “My grandmother. She could smell it on you. Since she had contact with you before you were hurt, she could smell the difference. There is one person that you’ve not asked to help you. Why?” He didn’t know who she was talking about, because Patrick would beg anyone to help him if he thought he stood a chance. “Me. Why have you not asked me?”

  He laid there watching her, thinking of any reason that could come to mind why he’d not asked her. All he had was that he’d not thought of her as being someone that could heal a dragon. Again she asked him why he’d not.

  “I don’t know. I know that you’re a great witch. But I think a witch is what got me in this predicament anyway. Right?” She nodded. “I thought so. What would you demand of me? I know witchcraft well enough to know that there is always a drawback to having a witch help. Something that I have to willingly give up that I don’t want to live without. You can have whatever you wish of me except for my family.”

  “When I was first a witch, the counsel demanded two things of me. One, that I never tell where the body of a suicide victim might be, and second, my mother. She is, most of the time, what keeps me from killing every human on this planet when I’m having a bad day. They thought her a bad influence on me, when all along, she was the world’s saving grace. The first one, suicide victims, hurt me as well. A great deal. Now that I’m in charge, so to speak, I help whomever I want no matter how they died. For I know, as do many, that sometimes people have no hope. Or, and this is what has forever bothered me, they have no one that believes in them. Suicide is a sickness, but no one can see it on a person.” He agreed with her. When she handed him a small knife, he looked it over a great deal before he realized what it was. “That is the iron that was inside of your body. It will no longer burn or affect anything about you. Inside or out, in your human form or dragon. I want you to hold onto that shaft of iron, the amount of iron that was poisoning your body, and remember what Aisling said to you. You’re much too trusting, Patrick. Someone got close enough to you to fill you with two pounds of iron over the course of a year. Think of that when you’re with someone that wishes to deal with you.”

  When she left him there, Patrick continued to hold onto the iron. She was right. But more importantly, so was Aisling. He could have died. He had been ready for it. Then he’d met Julia, and his son had found his mate. Everything in his life, every breath he took, now would be to better himself as a man and a dragon.

  The first thing that popped into his head was what Bryce had said about suicide. Yes, he’d lost many of his friends to that. It would never have occurred to him that they were suffering. Their front was so good that he had no idea that depression was so deeply embedded into their life that they didn’t want to take the next breath. That death, even by their own hands, was preferable to seeing their families grow and expand, they were so despondent.

  He even knew that great amounts of pain could cause someone to lose all hope in their life. To never have an ending to the pains of life. The will to live getting harder with each passing day, with no relief in sight. Yes, Patrick thought. A pain so great that a person wished to die from it was no less sad than a person with a constant pain choosing to live with it.

  Standing up, he decided that in addition to helping at the high school, he was going to figure out a way to help people who suffered. Patrick didn’t know all the ways to help, but he did know people that would know. He was going to contact them as soon as today. He’d get something going soon so that there would be one less day someone wouldn’t have the help and support that they might need to get through it. Also, he thought that he might well want a place to be opened for people to walk in to. A place that he could work in too.

  Chapter 10

  Ryan stood in line at the bank to deposit the money from the sale of the house that her parents had lived in. It wasn’t much, not after the realtor took their cut, the taxes that they had to pay on it, as well as the money that they’d owed the hospital. The ambulance that took them to the hospital had said they wouldn’t charge them, which turned out to be a savings of about two grand. Who knew it took so much to bring two people to the hospital after they were already dead? Neither her nor her sister, that was for sure.

  When her phone rang, she answered without looking. The only person that had this number was Rylie, and she never called her unless it was an emergency.

  “Are ya at the bank yet?” She said that she was in line now to make the deposit. “Okay. Great. Two things before I have ta leave the house. There are still two boxes o’ pictures that we have to sort through. Do ya suppose we should wait on Dillon? I mean, I have no idea where he might be staying, and I don’t want ta have to talk ta his wife. She’s a nightmare.”

  “Sure, she is. You would be too if ya just lost your in-laws after knowin’ them all of a week and a half. That’s about how long they’d been married when Mom and Dad died, right?” Ryan took a step up when the women in front of her took one of the tellers. “I’m about done here, then I’m goin’ home. If you need me to swing by and get the boxes, I can do that. But I’m not sure where I can stash ‘em, Rylie. I’m only stayin’ in a hotel right now.”

  “That’s fine, honey. You just bring ‘em on by here. I got the room. I’ll just put ‘em in the room offered you when ya came to town.” It was a dig, and she knew it. Rylie meant well, and Ryan loved her to pieces. “You comin’ here for dinner tonight? I’ll get us a couple of subs from that place you love. It’ll be my treat.”

  “I can do that.” She took another step forward. “You said two things. Besides the boxes, what else did you want?”

  “Oh yeah. There has been this fellow callin’ here asking for you. Don’t know how he got this number, but I said you’d be by later. His name is Tanner or somethin’ like that. Sounds like a stand-up fellow if you’re a asking me.”

  Rylie had never gotten rid of her southern belle twang, while Ryan had worked hard on making herself sound Southern. It only worked when she wasn’t upset, which, to her estimation, was about all the time lately. It also happened to be the only way you could tell the two of them apart. As identical twins, people rarely got them right, even with a fifty-fifty chance at it.

  “I’m next in line, so I’m gonna let you go. If he calls there again, tell him to fuck off, I’m not in the mood.” Rylie laughed. Even her laughter sounded southern, and it made Ryan smile. “I’ll get the boxes and pick us up some salads to have for lunch. I have a job interview in town at two, so that’ll work out for me.”

  After hanging up, she took her place at the next teller. The woman looked like she’d been in a fight club someplace, but Ryan didn’t comment. She did, however, take note of where the bruises were, as well as the numerous cuts and stitches Deb, the teller, had on her face and neck.

  When Deb stiffened, Ryan turned to look behind her. A very large man with a ball bat was trying to make his way by the security that was out front. Knowing who it was instinctively, she told Deb to drop down behind her counter. As soon as she disappeared, Ryan told her to call the police.

  “I don’t have my phone. We’re not
allowed to have it on the floor. He’s going to kill me for sure this time. The police said that he couldn’t come close to me.” Ryan told her that it was their fault, then dropped her cell phone over the counter. “Don’t let him hurt me. Please don’t. I can’t stand it—”

  “Shut up and listen to me. Call the police right now.” She thought of her sister and how pissed she was going to be about lunch. “There is only one phone number in that phone. If I get hurt or killed, call it and tell her that Ryan has been hurt. It’s my sister, and she’ll know what to do.”

  “Who’s Ryan?” She told her that it was her and to shut up again. “All right. But you’re very bossy.”

  Rolling her eyes, she turned toward the man. He was a big fucker, weighing at least three fifty easy. It hurt him most because he looked like he might only be about five foot six. Walking up to him as he threatened someone in line behind her, she grabbed the bat by the top and asked him what the fuck he was doing.

  “Where is she?” Ryan told him that she was right there. “Not you. My wife. She’s here. This is where she works. She took out a restraining order on me, and I don’t like it.”

  “Did it ever occur to y’all that she might not like bein’ knocked around?” She could hear her twang shining through like a beacon on a lighthouse. “Listen, buddy. You’re fuckin’ nuts if ya think this is gonna end well. What the hell did ya think was going to happen when ya slid your fat ass through them doors with a bat? That people were gonna be happy to see your face? Not fuckin’ likely. Put the bat down before I hafta hurt you.”

  “You? That’s funny. Like you’re talking. What are you?” She told him she was human. “That ain’t what I meant. Where you from?”

  “Are ya a census taker? If not that, fuck off. Now, put the Louisville Slugger down, and we’ll—” He asked her what that was. “The bat, ya fucktard. The bat is a Louisville Slugger. It’s written right there in the wood. Ya can read, can’t ya?”