“No. Well, yes, but it’s not a date.”
“Dad, since when do you have trouble saying what you mean? Has she bewitched you with her dragon?”
Harlan laughed. “No.” He took a deep breath. “Listen, can you order the pizza, and I’ll explain when I get there.”
“OK.” She took down the order.
“I also need you or Nevis to drive Fiona’s car back to her house.”
“And why can’t she drive it herself? Oh, goodness, she isn’t a drunk, is she?”
“No. Listen, why don’t you and Nevis come too. Add whatever pizza you want to the order, and you can come and help us straighten out the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
“Mess?” Chrysi sounded worried.
“Nothing bad. Look, I’ll be there in five minutes and explain everything.”
“OK, hurry.” She hung up the phone, but he could almost hear the million questions circling her brain.
During the rest of the journey, he tried to put everything in some kind of order. To anyone on the outside looking in, the whole situation would sound crazy. But that was not what worried him where Chrysi was concerned. She would understand his reasons, she would trust in his judgment. But would his daughter be unhappy about him adopting two more children, if that was what it took to keep the two girls safe?
Chrysi had been his child, his only child, for the last twenty years or more. It had been the two of them. Through thick and thin. Through school, and broken relationships, through to nearly getting kidnapped and finding her mate.
As Harlan pulled up outside the house she shared with Nevis, the front door was flung open and Chrysi came running out across to him. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her, but Chrysi did not look convinced. “There were some…developments I want to make you aware of.”
“Dad, we are not in a business meeting now.”
“Sorry.” He ran his hand through his hair.
“Come inside and tell me what happened,” Chrysi took his hand and pulled him into the house.
“Have you ordered the pizza?” Harlan asked.
Chrysi swung her head around to cast him a worried look. “You never eat pizza.”
“No, but you used to love it.”
“I still do. But this isn’t for me, is it?”
“No. It’s for the two girls Fiona took in.”
“Fiona is having a busy day,” Chrysi said, still concerned. “Dad, what’s going on?”
“I drove Fiona to work. She had word that two shifter children need to be placed in foster care urgently.”
“I know that much.”
“When we got there…” Harlan took hold of her other hand and made her face him. “I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”
“I love you too, Dad.” Chrysi shook his hands, as if trying to wake him up. “Tell me.”
“They were dragon shifters.”
“Dragon shifters,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“And who told you this?” Chrysi asked.
“Fiona.” He shook his head. “I can tell. It was obvious. In the eldest girl, Ruby, anyway.”
“She has the whole glowing eyes thing going on?”
“Yes.”
“And you are sure it isn’t makeup or special effects?”
“No.” He shook his head in denial.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that you have been chasing around Bear Creek looking for your mate. Then on the same day you find her, and she happens to be a dragon, you also find two other dragons. I mean, we have never seen another dragon before. Then you find three. What if they are trying to dupe you with an elaborate setup?”
Harlan looked down at her, seeing the pain etched on her face. “It’s real. You know how good I am at reading people.”
“Yeah, and I know how easy it is to get duped.” Chrysi was referring to her fiancé who had tried to kidnap and then ransom her before she met Nevis, who had saved her. Or at least helped her save herself.
“I’m not being duped.” Harlan let her hand drop and stroked her cheek. “They need our help.”
Chrysi’s jaw tightened. “As long as they don’t need your money.”
“They might. But not in the way you think. Their father died and their stepmother has taken control of their treasure and thrown them out of the house. They are homeless and family-less.”
“That isn’t even a word.”
“It doesn’t make it any less true,” Harlan said.
“So you are buying them all pizza?” Her face softened. Chrysi still remembered what it was like to be in the same position, with no one truly there for her.
“Will you come and meet them?” Harlan asked. “I think they could do with someone nearer their own age, someone who has been where you have been. You will understand them better than any of us.”
“That bad?” Chrysi asked.
“Hormones,” Harlan said with a wink.
Chrysi rolled her eyes. “Worse, teenage hormones.”
“So you’ll come?”
“You had me at pizza.”
Harlan wrapped his arms around his daughter and hugged her. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
Chapter Nine – Fiona
Fiona needed a drink. If only she had kept some of that single malt whiskey she had picked up in Scotland a few centuries ago. They didn’t make it like they used to. Old oak barrels…
“Do you have any straighteners?” Ruby asked, coming into the kitchen dressed in a robe, with her hair hanging wet around her face.
“Straighteners?” Fiona asked. “For what?”
“My hair.” Ruby grabbed hold of the ends and lifted it up. “It’s going to be all frizzy.”
“It looks beautiful.” Fiona wasn’t lying. Ruby’s hair was almost jet black, but a red tinge that shimmered across the translucent strands lifted it. “Your scales will shimmer like your hair.”
“I don’t want them to shimmer,” she announced flatly. “I just want straight hair. I mean, what century do you even live in? Looking at this place, I’d say the sixteenth.”
“Really. I thought I’d modeled it on the fourteenth century. I must have a word with my interior designer.”
Ruby glared at her, not interested in jokes. “I’m so glad you find the whole thing amusing.”
“Ruby. Calm down. Your life is not going to be ruined just because you have wavy hair for a night.”
“No, it’s ruined because we lost our treasure. Because that woman took it. She took everything. Why did she have to come into our lives? We were happy. Me, Sapphi, and Dad, we were a family.” Her bottom lip trembled, and Fiona’s heart ached. She remembered losing loved ones; she remembered the pain in her heart as if it was pierced straight through.
“I’m sorry,” Fiona said simply.
“It doesn’t matter.” Ruby spun around, preparing to stalk off when she caught her toe on the edge of a bookcase. It threw her over the edge.
Great racking sobs erupted from her slim body as she collapsed on the floor. Fiona had never experienced a purer maternal feeling than in that moment. She knelt down beside Ruby and wrapped her in her arms, not letting go even when she tried to pull away.
Stroking her hair, Fiona hummed a lullaby her dragon dredged up from their collective memories. As she hummed, she rocked Ruby in her arms like the babies she had never had. From somewhere, another body slipped her arms around Ruby, as Sapphire joined them. They sat there, as all the anger, sadness, and frustration erupted from Ruby. Her skin burned hot, and smoke came from her mouth in hot breaths, but neither Sapphire nor Fiona let her go.
The time melted away. Minutes or millennia might have passed, it didn’t matter.
When Ruby had cried herself out, Fiona and Sapphi helped her to the sofa, where she lay down, her head on a cushion. “Go fetch a blanket, Sapphi,” Fiona said.
Wordlessly, Sa
pphi headed out of the room and returned with a warm blanket, which she tenderly wrapped around her sister. “Will she be all right?” After losing everyone else, her sister was the most important thing in her life.
Fiona nodded. “She just needs to rest. Do you want to sit with her, and I’ll make us some hot chocolate?”
Nodding, Sapphi perched on the sofa, next to Ruby, and stroked her hair, humming the lullaby she had learned from Fiona. As Fiona left the room, she turned back and watched the two girls. Her throat contracted as she remembered the same scene, played out centuries ago. Only the two girls were different: one had blonde hair, the other brunette. But they loved each other just the same. They might not have been sisters, they might not have both been dragons, but Fiona had loved her best friend Molly; they had been inseparable, until death.
Fiona turned away, going to the kitchen. She needed to keep busy. She needed to block out all the ghosts from the past. But the floodgates had opened, and ghosts wanted to be heard.
Pulling a pan out of the cupboard, she set it on the stovetop and turned to get the milk. Concentrating completely on each action, Fiona managed to keep her memories at bay. A small part of her longed to turn back the clock to last night when she had done these exact same actions, but then it had been hot chocolate for one, and an evening curled up with a book.
Yet there was no denying her world had changed, and changed forever; there was no putting any of this back in a box and locking the lid. She was stronger than that. Her dragon nudged her mind.
They were stronger than that.
Pouring the milk into three cups, she stirred them well, and placed them on a tray, along with a packet of cookies. Harlan was right; this was not a time for rules and routine.
Going back into the small sitting room, she found Sapphi and Ruby talking quietly. They both looked up as Fiona approached. “Here. This will make you feel better.”
She set the tray down on a low table and offered the cups to the girls. “Thanks,” Sapphi said and gave Ruby a look that spoke volumes. Ruby might appear to be the stronger of the two, but she looked up to young Sapphire, following her lead.
“Thank you, Fiona,” Ruby said hoarsely. Her eyes darted to Sapphi, who opened her eyes wider and nodded. “For everything.”
“You are welcome.” Fiona took her own cup and sat down in her comfortable arm chair. She had owned it so long, the cushions were molded to her shape. She sipped her drink. “Do you want to talk?”
“About what?” Sapphi asked.
“Anything. What happened. What is going to happen. I want you to feel free to ask me anything. Or tell me anything.”
Ruby nodded. “Are we going to be able to stay with you?” Her voice held a vulnerability that prevented Fiona from making a sharp retort about Ruby’s earlier opinions of Fiona and her small sixteenth-century cabin.
“As long as you want to, and as long as social services will allow me. I am not on the register for foster parenting.” She sighed, not meaning to be dramatic. “But, if you want to stay, I will jump through as many hoops as I have to, to become a foster parent.”
“You would do that for us?” Sapphi asked surprised.
“Of course. We are the same, and there are not many of us left.”
“You mean dragons?” Sapphi asked. “Mom always thought she was one of the last. Sometimes we would hear her crying to Dad, about all of those she had lost.”
“What was her name?” Fiona asked.
“Emmie. Emerald.”
“Ah, you have a family tradition.”
“The colors?” Ruby asked.
“Yes, but you are also named after gems.” Fiona’s mind drifted off to the beautiful gems in her lost treasure. Treasure passed down from generation to generation, until Fiona. Her hand went to where that same ring had sat on her finger for so long, but it was no longer there.
“When we were born, Mom choose each of us a special gem out of her treasure. A ruby for Ruby, and a sapphire for me.” Sapphi looked up at her sister sadly. “If we can’t get the rest of the treasure, I would be happy with those two gems. And Mom’s emerald. And Muffin.”
“Muffin?” Fiona asked, knowing she didn’t really want to know, but asking all the same.
“Our dog,” Ruby hiccuped again and tears threatened. “That’s how she got us to leave. She said if we didn’t do as she said, she would take him to the veterinarian and have him…”
Great, a face licker. Why was it always a face licker? Fiona gritted her teeth and asked, “Where is he now?”
“Roxanne took him with her. I think she was taking him to the pound.” Sapphi, who had held it together, now began to cry too. “Can we get Muffin? He could live here too, we would look after him.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Fiona said. Dogs had never had a place in her heart. Not since they had given away the hiding place of Molly. A centuries-old resentment was hard to be rid of. She looked up. “I think the pizza is here.”
Setting her cup down, Fiona went to the front door and opened it. Sure enough, the headlights of two, no, three cars, were pulling up the road, and parking in front of the cabin. She recognized her own car, and Harlan’s; the other belonged to Nevis.
That could mean only one thing. Nevis was going to drive himself and Chrysi back to town, which meant Harlan planned to stay.
Heat rushed through her body at the thought of her mate sleeping under the same roof as her. Fiona tried to work up to being annoyed. After all, it was presumptuous of him to believe Fiona would let him stay. But knowing Harlan, in the short time she had, she was certain that he planned to protect, rather than serve.
Her dragon snorted fire. He sure could serve them in many pleasurable ways.
Fiona shut her dragon out and composed herself as her newfound family carried pizza and ice cream to the door. “I have never been a pizza delivery boy before,” Harlan said lightly.
“You are never too old to learn new tricks,” Fiona said. “Hello again, Chrysi. Nevis, we have spoken briefly before, at sports day.”
“Oh, at the school. You were handing out the trophies to the winners.”
“I didn’t realize you were a celebrity,” Harlan said with a twinkle in his eye.
“I am a good friend of the first grade teacher and her husband.”
“A woman of good reputation,” he said pointedly at Chrysi, who rolled her eyes at her father.
“Shall we get these inside? Or else the pizza will get cold and the ice cream will melt.” Chrysi held up the ice cream to make her point.
“I invited Nevis and Chrysi to dinner,” Harlan said. “I hope you don’t mind. I thought Chrysi might be able to help the girls. Since she knows what they are going through.”
“Although I was too young to really remember being abandoned,” Chrysi stated.
Fiona had a feeling Chrysi did not approve of her dad’s mate. Was she threatened by the new woman in his life? Or was it because of the two girls inside? Was she scared she would lose her father to them?
“But it must still be a part of you, subconsciously,” Fiona said, putting a warm smile on her face, which took some practice. “I would be grateful for any help you can give them. Poor Ruby had a bit of a meltdown.”
Chrysi’s face softened. “Is she OK?”
“She is now. Sapphi is her strength, her rock.” Fiona’s eyes lingered on Harlan. It had been an age since Fiona had someone like that to depend on.
“Pizza.” Harlan took a step forward, and Fiona nodded and turned around to lead them into her small cabin, that was fit to burst. Since she moved here, she had invited no one to visit; in fact, she had kept it a secret.
And you call me proud, her dragon snorted.
It was true, Fiona had been a little ashamed over the small size of her house.
“Hello,” Chrysi said warmly to Ruby and Sapphire. “You’ve had quite the day.”
“More than a day,” Sapphi confided. “Roxy made it clear she didn’t want us from the moment she
met our dad. She would have kicked us out sooner, but she knows how to play people.”
“Roxy. That’s the name of your stepmother?” Fiona asked.
“Roxanne Cunningham,” Harlan said.
“How do you know?” Fiona half accused.
“I spoke to my lawyer. We are going to need help with this. Legal help. The days of flying in and charring your enemies are gone, unfortunately. We have to play by the rules.” Harlan opened a box and offered the pizza to the girls, who both took a slice.
Fiona went to the kitchen and put the ice cream in her freezer, and then returned with drinks. She placed them on the small table and then helped herself to the pizza Harlan offered. “And what did he say? This lawyer of yours.”
“He said he would dig up what he could. He’s a shifter.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Nevis asked.
“Not right now. But thank you for the offer,” Harlan said to his son-in-law.
“Yes, thank you, Nevis,” Fiona added.
Harlan caught her eye and smiled, which she returned. It was difficult to accept all the help being offered. Fiona had been self-sufficient in all ways for so long. She’d worked normal jobs to provide for herself, living within her means, choosing never to draw attention to herself.
The days of the dragon hunts still lived with her. And always would. But those days were over.
Just as Roxanne Cunningham’s days would soon be over too.
Chapter Ten – Harlan
The pizza and ice cream went down well. Afterward, Harlan helped Fiona in the kitchen, leaving Chrysi to talk with the girls, while Nevis went outside for a run. He intended to scout the area, just in case. In case of what, Harlan wasn’t sure, but his son-in-law was just as protective as any dragon.
“Do you think someone followed us?” Fiona asked quietly. “Is that why Nevis has gone out?”
“I doubt anyone would follow us, but let’s take all precautions. Until we know what kind of woman Roxanne is, we need to be on our guard.”
Fiona set the plates down, and moved toward the back door, beckoning Harlan to follow. She opened it up and slipped outside, closing it behind them. “Do you think Roxanne killed their father?” Fiona’s question was blunt and to the point.
Silverback Dragon (Return to Bear Creek Book 6) Page 6
