by J. K Harper
Gerard waved away Zuwena and Amani’s protests. “You can buy what you need when we’re there.”
Zuwena and Amani looked at each other, blinked, and shrugged. It was obvious that Gerard was going to get his way. They might as well go along for the ride. Zuwena went to throw away what was left of her apple.
Within 5 minutes, they’d left the house. Gerard was driving them to the nearby executive airport.
Just as he’d promised, there was a jet fueled and waiting for them.
Amani looked around the interior and just marveled at how the rich people lived. She supposed that Gerard was one of them. If she married him, she’d be part of this world, too. No more getting elbowed by random strangers during airplane flights or fighting over the armrests.
Within ten minutes, the pilots had completed all of the pre-flight checks. Amani sat back as she waited for the plane to take off. Zuwena was sitting next to the small liquor cabinet. It had a lot of ice and a bunch of small bottles of liquor. Zuwena took out one with a Jack Daniels label and began to drink it.
Amani smiled and almost asked for her own JD. Then she remembered that she was pregnant. She wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol.
The baby was making her so tired that she wanted to go to sleep again. She wanted to stay awake through her first jet trip, but the baby had other plans.
The second that her eyes closed, Amani fell asleep.
Limo
Amani
Zuwena was shaking Amani’s shoulder.
“Wake up, Amani. We’re in Vegas.”
Amani opened one eye, then a second eye opened.
“Okay.”
“Get up, baby sister. We’re heading straight for some chapel. I voted for an Elvis impersonator, but your future husband frowned on it, so I guess that we’ll try a normal chapel, or however normal it gets in Vegas…”
“You awake, sweetheart?”
Zuwena tugged Amani’s hand. “Come on. Let’s get you two lovebirds shackled. Then I’m going to go to the pool and ogle mostly naked men while you two take your honeymoon.”
She waggled her eyebrows. Amani just had to laugh at her sister.
“Okay, okay, I’m up.”
She unbuckled herself and slowly got to her feet. She stretched and yawned, then she went out the door.
Gerard was waiting there. A black limousine was sitting outside of a small fence.
“Let’s go, babe. We don’t want to be late to our own wedding.”
Zuwena talked about wanting to go to Vegas and play in the casinos, but Amani tuned her out. What she really going to do this? Marry a virtual stranger just because he had a big dick and made her feel like a goddess? Wasn’t he a panther? She didn’t know if that part was a figment of her imagination or not.
She began to sweat, but she didn’t know if she really could turn back the clock. She’d agreed to marry him, after all. He seemed very sure that she was his.
The limousine driver must have some kind of contract with Vegas wedding chapels, because he passed a few perfectly good ones before he came to a stop outside of one that was in a white home.
Gerard paid the bill while Amani and Zuwena headed inside, away from the Vegas dust.
Inside, it was very quiet. There was a cash register and a sour-faced woman behind it.
“We don’t do gay marriages yet.”
“We’re not getting married,” Zuwena smiled at the lady. “Her husband is just paying the limo driver.”
“I see. Well, fill out this form.”
Amani began to fill out the form, leaving the spots where Gerard had to describe himself blank.
In another minute, he was inside and Amani was handing the half-completed form to him. He sat down and scribbled in his answers.
“We require payment in full before the wedding ceremony is conducted.”
Gerard pulled out a black credit card and handed it to the lady behind the counter.
“One marriage coming right up.”
Two people and a celebrant came to the front. They must’ve been waiting in the back.
Zuwena cried during the short ceremony, which Amani thought was a little silly. But they said their vows and got their marriage certificate.
Now they were legally married, and Amani had only learned Gerard’s last name from the marriage certificate.
“Okay, the limo can take us back to the hotel. I’m going to charge everything to my room, Gerard is going to pay for it, and you two lovebirds can go at it like animals.”
Amani blushed furiously but Gerard just laughed and put his hand on Amani’s knee.
“Sounds about right.” He beamed at his new bride.
True to her word, Zuwena left the car as soon as it came to a stop. Amani watched her walk inside.
“We’re finally alone.” Gerard leaned in for a kiss.
The limo exploded.
Smoke
Amani
Amani knew that she had to get out. She pulled on the door by it wouldn’t open, as if the child locks had been set.
Amani thanked her lucky stars that Zuwena was inside the hotel and safe. Also, her door wasn’t child-locked. Amani reached for it and pulled Gerard’s unconscious body out of the car. She slung him over her shoulder — he was extremely heavy — and walked carefully into the hotel.
Already she could hear the wail of fire engines coming to the scene. In a place as dry as Vegas, fire could be incredibly destructive.
Amani carried him inside. The hotel staff clucked and circled around them before they pulled them into a first-floor suite for Gerard to recuperate.
Amani pushed back her tears. She’d just married him and the Sicarii still seemed to be after them. It seemed strange that their door had been locked when they tried to get out of the wreck.
Gerard woke up only two minutes later.
“Amani!” He coughed.
“Right here.”
His arms went around her.
“I was so scared that I would lose you.”
She kissed his cheek. “Nothing to worry about. We’re both in one piece. We’ll give police statements and everything will be fine.”
Gerard kissed her a little harder. “I certainly hope so. I’ve still been promised wild animal honeymoon sex that hasn’t been delivered.”
He purred as she stroked his glossy black hair.
“Maybe when you’re feeling better. And we’ll hunt the Sicarii then, too.”
Gerard grunted an affirmation before closing his eyes and laying down again. She lay down beside him, happy that they’d made it. Yes, there were still people after them and they had to be careful, but as long as she had her handsome husband, she could do anything.
And tomorrow was Christmas.
Bath Time
Amani
TWENTY-ONE MONTHS LATER
“Lautaro? Where are you? It’s bath time.”
She heard a soft sound as the baby went to hide under the couch. His little butt was sticking out, though, the bright neon blue of his pants acting like a beacon. He was still at the age where he thought that if he couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see him.
“Gotcha.” She dragged him out from under the couch.
He squirmed in her arms, but she held onto him firmly.
“Gerard!” she called. “I got him.”
Her husband was dressed to do battle. Early on, they’d understood that bathing Lautaro was only for the courageous. If you wanted to get wet, you just needed to step into a bathroom with an unwilling baby.
Lautaro loved getting dirty — he hated taking baths.
He would scream and fight as if they were murdering him when they put him into the baby tub that they’d bought. Gerard had to hold the baby down to keep him in place while Amani carefully wiped him down as quickly as she could.
When she got into the bathroom, Gerard was already running the water for his son’s bath.
“Okay, kiddo,” Amani said to their squirmy little Munchkin. “Time to get naked.”
He yowled, but Gerard deftly unsnapped his onesie and pulled it off of him.
“The diaper’s wet,” Amani observed.
“We’d throw it out anyway,” Gerard said, shrugging.
He undid the baby’s diaper while Lautaro let them know, to the full extent that he could with his tiny lungs, that he was displeased with being trapped in the tub, even though it had about an inch of water in it.
Their baby was finally ready for the next phase: the soapy washcloth.
Amani lathered up a washcloth and carefully washed the baby, trying not to miss anything. Considering how hard it was to get Lautaro to take a bath, they only did it once a day, no matter how filthy he got. So she had to be extremely thorough when she had him trapped in Gerard’s grip.
Twisting to the side, Lautaro pulled himself away from his father’s hands.
And then he shifted into a tiny panther cub.
“Oh, damn,” Gerard said.
Quick as a wink, Lautaro was leaping over his parents’ heads and toward the open door, which they hadn’t even bothered to close.
Amani didn’t know if she had recovered properly from the shock yet, but she needed to catch her son. She ran out of the room in time to see him climbing one of their bookcases to jump up to a decorative window that was near the roof.
“Gerard,” she called, turning to him. He put his arm around her waist. “Get him down! He’s not done with his bath yet.”
“It’s fine,” he reassured her. “I think that we should cut him some slack since it’s his first time.”
“But what if he falls?” Amani squeaked.
Gerard kissed her forehead. “He won’t. Panthers sleep in trees all the time.”
“Can you please get him down?” Amani felt tears threaten. She thought of her little boy falling all the way down from the window ledge and shattering his skull.
“How about this? We won’t sleep in our bedroom tonight. We’ll sleep in our living room, and I’ll stay up and watch him. If I think that he’s going to fall, I’ll go up and get him, okay?”
Amani hesitated, then she nodded. It was probably the best offer she was going to get.
She turned to survey the damage. There were wet, soapy paw prints everywhere, and she and her husband were all wet.
“What are we going to do about the mess?”
Gerard turned and laughed. “Leave it. It’s just soap and water.”
Amani tucked her face into his shoulder and smelled his masculine scent.
“How on earth are we going to bathe a baby who can turn into a cub and run away?”
“Easy,” Gerard said with a lot more cool assurance than she felt. “We’ll lock the door in the future. It’s not a picnic when you try to undo locks in panther form, believe me. And he’s too small to reach everything.”
Amani felt something inside of her ease. Her mate knew what to do when it came to panther cubs.
“Good idea.”
Gerard went to the sofa and pulled it out. “We’d be more comfortable in our bed, but we’ll be fine here. Go brush your teeth. We can take turns. Don’t worry, little mama. He’ll be fine.”
Amani went and brushed her teeth, changing into pajamas before she came back to the living room.
Gerard went into their bedroom and was back in record time. He brought their comforter.
She hopped into the pull-out bed. Gerard threw the comforter over the two of them, making them into a warm burrito on this cold day.
He kissed her softly.
“When we wake up in the morning, all of this will be fixed.”
She couldn’t deny that she was worried about the logistics of raising a panther cub, but she also felt safe, warm, and happy in her mate’s arms, even if they were sleeping on a very thin mattress.
“Goodnight, love.”
“Goodnight, darling.”
She closed her eyes and hoped for the best.
* * *
When she woke up the next morning, she heard a soft purr and felt a rough tongue licking her face.
She opened her eyes to see that Lautaro was licking her face with his tiny tongue.
“Lautaro!”
She sat up and pulled him into her arms. He was purring like crazy.
“The good news is that cats can wash themselves,” Gerard noted. He was already dressed in a suit, ready to start a new day. She felt like an absolute mess with her hair all over the place, notwithstanding Lautaro’s grooming.
“I guess we’ll look for whatever blessings we can get,” Amani said helplessly.
“Come here, you.” Gerard reached for Lautaro, who bounded into his father’s arms and began to lick him, too. He laughed and began to wrestle with him playfully on the ground beside the couch, which Lautaro absolutely loved.
Amani watched with a smile on her face. Yes, her family was unusual, but she wouldn’t trade them for the world.
The Dragon’s Christmas Baby
by Anya Nowlan
Chapter 1
Daelan
Daelan’s nose scrunched slightly in that trademark snarl of his as a faded sign pointing to Shifter Grove came up on the right-hand side of the road. Deep in the woods of Idaho, he’d been feeling like he’d stumbled into prehistoric times, with the only sign of civilization being the very road he was maneuvering his Camaro on.
Finally.
Smoothing his expression back, the dragon shifter fell back in his seat, leaning casually with one hand on the steering wheel and a bored set of jade-green eyes considering the woeful scenery.
“So this is the cradle of the Silvertip legacy,” he muttered out loud to himself, catching a glimpse of Snarling Dragon Mountain, teetering amidst other high mountains. “Would have expected it to be more…grand.”
Shaking his head, he turned up the music a bit. Here, in Idaho’s version of no-man’s-land, nothing but country radio could be heard, and even that was spotty. Daelan had switched to a memory stick preloaded with rock and allowed the tunes to flood out the rattle of the pavement and the thrumming of the rain that had been his constant companion since he landed in the Idaho Springs airport.
It had been a long road to Idaho from Monaco. The fact that he was here to begin with was a bit of a mystery to the young dragon, but as willful as dragons were, they’d learned not to ignore a few things. Their inner dragon’s whims, and the call of gold.
It just would happen that this time, he was here for both.
Night was falling fast, though it had looked like it for hours now, what with the constant slate-grey skies above him, and the endless rain. He didn’t mind. Endless sunshine could get on the nerves of most dragons, but especially a Silvertip. They weren’t called the hidden dragons for nothing, and it was a damn bit more difficult to remain undetected when the soft touch of a mid-day sun banished all the shadows around.
Thatches of what could be considered signs of inhabitation were slowly starting to appear as Daelan drove on. He was going a good thirty above the speed limit and taking the narrow curves and winding roads as if he was a born racecar driver instead. Which, incidentally, was something he had dabbled in quite a bit over the last few years.
A dragon without a hoard to guard or any responsibilities didn’t really have a lot to do with his time, after all. Parties, adrenaline and the occasional ‘just the right kind’ of woman was all he really had to keep him busy.
A painful twinge went through Daelan at that last part, making that snarl reappear on his expression. He forced it off quickly enough, studying the patches of felled trees and the occasional faded roads leading deeper into the woods and the mountains on either side of the pavement. Shifter Grove was coming up fast and he had no choice but to push away the thoughts that wanted to invade him.
The last thing he wanted was to drive straight into Shifter Grove and deal with the bullshit of asking
for directions and pretending to be just a lost traveler on his way to wherever. Odds are they could smell the dragon on him from a mile away, anyway.
Where are you hiding, cousin? he thought wryly, taking a deep breath.
He’d come here without a map, and that was how it was going to continue to be. Silvertips didn’t need a GPS to find their kin, even if they were the best at hiding away when they so desired. Try as they might, they couldn’t run from their own kind.
Daelan would know. He’d been running and hiding for decades now and yet here he was, voluntarily coming out of his self-imposed exile. Another thing to ponder over, later.
Going by instinct more than anything else, Daelan took a sharp left when an almost unnoticeable road came up, completely unmarked. It went straight and deep into the dark forest, the heavy pounding of the rain immediately muffled by the trees that now arched over the narrow path.
Begrudgingly, Daelan slowed down the Camaro, if for no other reason than the fact that it was not an all-terrain vehicle, and this place definitely required one. He wouldn’t let it slow him down much, though.
About ten minutes into the drive, the road suddenly and abruptly stopped at the base of the mountain. Frowning, Daelan had to slam down on the brakes to keep from driving right into a wide elm tree, standing thick and proud right where he had been driving. Leaving the engine running, Daelan stepped out of the car, grabbing his leather jacket on the way.
He was a tall man, 6’4’’, with sharp, hawk-like features and a head of thick, glossy black hair. Here and there, one could spot a bit of silver in it, primarily at his temples, though he looked nowhere near old enough to be going grey. His nose was on the longer side, but pristinely straight, complementing high cheekbones and a strong jaw.
Wide shoulders shrugged perfectly into the slightly faded-looking leather jacket, covering him from the rain, though he didn’t mind it much. He plodded a few steps in front of the car, his combat boots tracking in the mud, one hand shoved into his pocket. He tapped a fist to the trunk of the tree, as if testing if it was really there.
