by J. K Harper
It was.
“Where are you?” he called out, his voice low and slightly taunting.
The rain dribbled down his neck and hair, slinking down his path as it got under his collar. Exhaling, the sound of the music flooding out of the car and into his ears, Daelan closed his eyes. For a moment, he was perfectly still, focusing.
As if by magic, the tree disappeared from right before him, and the path that he’d been driving reappeared. When Daelan opened his eyes again, he could see it cutting straight for another hundred yards or so, before taking a tight turn upwards and into Snarling Dragon Mountain and then disappearing from sight as it wound around the jagged stone walls.
Grinning to himself, Daelan slicked a hand through his hair.
Once a Silvertip, always a Silvertip, he thought with some amusement, slogging his way back to the Camaro.
Once he drove down the faded road leading to the mountain, it disappeared behind him, and that elm tree was right there where it had been before.
Hidden dragons stayed hidden. It was simply what they did.
Chapter 2
Daelan
By the time Daelan got his rental Camaro to crawl up the mountain and park it in front of Donovan’s mansion, the elder Silvertip was already at the door. He was leaning against the frame, his eyes slightly narrowed and his arms crossed over his chest.
It was as close to a classic Western ‘you’re not welcome here’ pose as a dragon shifter with some breeding could get. And Donovan Silvertip had more good manners and well-nurtured Old World refinement to put most of the dragon aristocracy to shame.
Luckily, Daelan had none of it, so between the two of them, they’d even out nicely.
“Donovan,” Daelan called with a wide, strained grin as he grabbed his duffel from the back seat.
With long, easy strides, he crossed the courtyard and came to stand right in front of Donovan Silvertip. The smile had dissipated from his lips and he could feel the gold of his dragon swirling in his eyes, just as it was in those of his cousin’s.
Donovan straightened up and gave him a quiet once-over as Daelan threw his bag over his shoulder with a casual sling. The older Silvertip was an inch taller than Daelan was and in that very moment, it annoyed the hell out of him.
Standing face to face, they couldn’t look more different, though they were practically cut from the same cloth. While Donovan was dressed sharply in slacks, a black button-down with a vest over it, his hair combed back and his stance regal and unapproachable, Daelan was anything but that. His black jeans were ragged and artfully torn, the V-neck tee he wore ran a bit too low, and the gold chains around his neck were nothing but ostentatiously obvious.
“Which one of them are you?” Donovan asked dryly.
“Daelan,” he answered flatly.
Though there weren’t many Silvertips left in the world, there were enough of them to warrant the question. The fact that Donovan didn’t look the least amount surprised to see him there told Daelan that he had been as much expected by the other dragon as he himself had known that this was where he was coming.
“Figures. Come in.”
Quirking a brow at the back of his cousin as he stalked in after Donovan, Daelan shook his head. He slammed the door shut behind him, using his heel to kick it. Seeing the way Donovan’s shoulders hiked up just the tiniest bit at that brought a warm sense of satisfaction to the younger dragon.
Nothing like pissing off your elders.
“Nice digs,” Daelan remarked as they passed through the lavish mountain home.
It was a mansion worthy of its name. Though it was dark out and the rain was still pouring down, the home was warm and inviting, making one quickly forget about the dreary weather. Every piece of furniture was expertly picked, most of it looking vintage. Though the smell of money was heavy in the air, the mansion didn’t look garish or off-putting in any way.
Daelan had to hand it to Donovan. He knew how to keep a nice house. Or was that the wife he’d heard almost nothing about?
“You weren’t at the wedding,” Donovan remarked, as if reading his thoughts.
“I was not,” Daelan confirmed with a nod, being led into a small study with a roaring fire in the fireplace.
“Take a seat,” Donovan said, motioning at one of the plush burgundy leather chairs settled before the fire.
There was an open book on the table between two of the seats, bookmarked somewhere toward the back third. Dropping his heavy duffel next to him, Daelan shook out of his jacket and then grabbed the book. He leaned back and flipped it open, curious eyes – now back to green – scrolling over the words.
“Ancient dragonspeak, huh. You don’t pick light reading,” he remarked, accepting a glass of brandy from Donovan a moment later.
Though the man may not have welcomed him with open arms, Daelan couldn’t fault his hospitality.
“Do you read?” Donovan asked with a raised brow, sinking into the chair across from Daelan.
“I’ve been known to be somewhat literate,” Daelan snorted back.
“I mean do you read ancient dragonspeak?”
Daelan grinned, seeing the hint of cloudy annoyance pass over his cousin’s expression. If he’d ever seen the man, it was maybe back when they were both little more than toddlers. The family line had split decades ago, and while Donovan’s side had remained here in the foothills of nowhere, Daelan’s had conquered Europe and spread their wings there.
Well, spread, and then tucked back in, but that was a whole other matter entirely.
“I do, yes.”
“Impressive,” Donovan allowed with a nod.
“Impressive for the low-cultured offshoots of the great Silvertip line, you mean?” Daelan asked with a narrow smile.
“Impressive for any dragon our age.”
Donovan’s answered was perfectly cultured, not a speck of a growl in his voice, even though Daelan was sure he must have been holding it back. No dragon liked to be taunted, no matter if it was by family or not.
“What are you doing here, Daelan?”
“Oh, so we’re not going to do any more small-talk? You’re not going to ask when my father died, I won’t get to hear what’s the name of the new bundle of joy, and so on?” Daelan queried, leaning back and resting his head on the high backrest of the chair.
He let the brandy slink down his throat and join with the dragonfire slowly roiling in his belly. Taking a whiff of the air, he confirmed his initial guess from when he walked in the door. Donovan’s wife was here somewhere, and their firstborn had been born. Almost a year ago, it seemed.
One side of his mouth was cocked in a perpetual smirk as he considered his cousin, waiting for the moment when Donovan would have enough of him and offer to kick his ass down the mountain. He wasn’t even sure why that possibility seemed that inviting to him.
Isn’t this where you want to be? he asked himself wryly, knowing the answer would be a resounding no, had someone else offered the same question.
“I know when your father died. The boy is named Dorian. I doubt you came here to catch up, Daelan.”
Running his tongue over his lips, Daelan’s cocky smirk disappeared. He took another sip of the alcohol, but his fire was burning so bright that he couldn’t even taste the heat as the liquid went down. Averting his gaze from the other dragon shifter, he looked at the fire instead, shrugging his shoulders tensely.
“I had to come.”
“Ah,” Donovan replied simply, as if that told him everything.
It probably did.
“I thought you wouldn’t,” he added after a small pause.
“I thought I wouldn’t, either,” Daelan agreed with a nod, still gazing at the flickering red, yellows and oranges of the fire.
It was the truth. It had taken him months of wrestling with the idea before he ever made it anywhere close to Idaho. Nine months, in fact.
The call had been so strong that while he could keep it down and bottled up for a couple of months at a
time, it would always bubble up at one point. Then, he’d find himself flying across vast distances, powerless against the will of his dragon.
But then he’d get closer and it would fade a little, and he’d try to put distance between himself and the source of the pull once more. That all-powerful magnet that drew him to Shifter Grove would suddenly cease and he could take a breath again, like nothing had ever happened. He could party it up in New York, run to Asia, or maybe stray far too close to Massachusetts…
And then he’d be on an airplane, touching down in Idaho Springs, because he couldn’t be sure that when he shifted into his dragon mode, he wouldn’t end up in Boston instead of Idaho.
“I’ve been waiting for a while now,” Donovan went on, his voice easy and confident now.
I’m that obvious, huh, Daelan thought darkly.
The other Silvertip could probably smell his uncertainty on him, now that the guise of overconfidence had been unceremoniously lifted from around him.
“Nine months,” Daelan said with a nod, finally looking up. “Well, I’m here now.”
“You are,” Donovan conceded with a nod of his own. “Do you know why it is that you’ve been called here?”
“I have my guesses,” Daelan said, his mouth growing dry.
It was no secret that the Shifter Grove Silvertips were far wealthier than the rest of the kin. They were the keepers of the main hoard, and the rest were simply offshoots. It had never been more true than it had when talking about Donovan’s and Daelan’s fathers.
The brothers had grown up in the mansion together, but Donovan’s father had been the Alpha, the elder son. So Daelan’s had left to find his own fortune, building and losing it in Europe.
But as with all things dragon, nothing was ever quite so simple. Each dragon heir in the Silvertip line was entitled to a share of the hoard when he was ‘ready’ for it. When that time came was different for every dragon, something they were rumored to feel and sense, rather than distinctly know.
As far as Daelan was concerned, this could be the only reason why his dragon had dragged him, kicking and cursing, to Idaho of all places. And he was ready to take his gold and run right back where he came from.
In fact, the smell of treasure was so damn thick in the air that it was nearly suffocating to a dragon with very little of his own. His father’s partying lifestyle, which he had inherited, hadn’t exactly left much in the coffers.
“I can’t give it to you.”
“What?!”
Daelan’s voice strummed louder and lower than it should, the deep timber of his dragon coming through. In a flash, Donovan’s eyes were a deep, unsettling gold, his pupils slitted.
Though his body was still perfectly relaxed, Daelan could read his face easily enough. In the blink of an eye, the other dragon could shift and be ready to battle, if he thought Daelan posed any sort of a threat to his mate or dragonling.
Sensing the confrontation and wisely knowing it would not end well for either of them, Daelan took a moment to take a breath and calm his dragon down. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, while Donovan’s heart rate had barely spiked at all.
Reserved bastard, he thought grimly.
“Why?”
“Where’s your mate?” Donovan asked, pushing the tips of his fingers together before him and studying Daelan with interest that was sharp as a laser.
Daelan averted his eyes, going for the safety of the fire again. His dragon roused within him again, as if taunting him back.
Yeah, where is your mate?
“I don’t have one,” he answered, trying to keep his voice as even as he could.
“Bullshit.”
The curse coming from Donovan was so unexpected that Daelan thought he’d crack something in his neck from whipping his head around so fast.
“What did you say?”
“I said, bullshit. Yes, you do. Where is she?”
Daelan ran a hand through his hair, slicking it through the damp black mop. Now his whole throat felt dry, and his dragonfire was no more than a tiny little speckle in the pit of his stomach, a foreboding sense of familiar guilt threatening to extinguish it.
“She isn’t here. How did you know? And don’t give me that ‘I’m a dragon, I just know’ crap. It won’t work on me.”
Donovan chuckled, visibly relaxing. Of course he would, the prick. Now that Daelan was perched on nails, Donovan could lean back and enjoy the miserable viewing experience.
“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have one. That’s the only way this works. There is a portioned hoard set aside for you in these mountains. The magic that protects it would only call to you when you become worthy.
“As the Alpha son of a dragon that did not control a major hoard himself, it would be when you’ve come of age, found a mate and had your first heir. I assume the child’s with the mother?”
Daelan’s world ground to a halt.
Child?
He stared at Donovan in perplexed silence, his mouth practically hanging open. Donovan’s sly amusement evaporated and he frowned, leaning forward.
“Daelan, you do know you have a son, right?”
Suddenly, it became so damn clear why staying away from Boston had been a herculean effort these past nine months.
Marley. Shit. What have I done?
Chapter 3
Marley
“Shh, honey, it’s okay,” Marley hushed, slowly running her fingers over the thick black hair of her nine-month-old baby boy. “I’m going to tuck you in and it’ll be okay.”
Deon fussed in her arms, keeping his mouth in what seemed like a permanent pout. At his age, being a shifter child, he was more than capable of talking, but currently he chose not to do so.
Just like his daddy, getting the dark and broody thing down as early as he can, Marley thought with a swallowed sigh, walking Deon back to the nursery.
The nursery being one of the two rooms in her cramped Boston apartment, with the other being her bedroom-living room-storage room-dining room-general place for everything.
“Are you going to be a good boy for Mommy now?” she asked gently as she put Deon down in his crib.
The boy stared down at her with dark green eyes, mottled with wide flecks of gold, looking more adult in his animated discontentment and sleepiness than most grownups. That pout was very close to turning into a snarl, Marley knew. Before she tried her question again, she reached up on her tip-toes and grabbed a black plush toy from the high shelf next to the crib.
Deon’s eyes lit up immediately and he stretched out his hands, trying to reach for the dragon toy in Marley’s hands.
“Please!” he announced loudly, followed immediately by a yawn.
“Of course,” Marley chuckled, giving him the toy.
It was a plushy of Toothless the dragon, Deon’s absolute favorite cartoon character. He pulled the toy against his chest with both hands, yawning again loudly as he plopped down on his back and then rolled on his side, clutching the dragon like it was a lifeline.
Marley leaned over the side of the crib and kissed his temple, tucking him in with one smooth move. By the time the blanket nuzzled around him, Deon was already fast asleep.
Marley stood there for a moment, leaning on the side of the crib, watching the little boy. She’d done the exact same thing an hour earlier, and after a twenty-minute nap, her escape-artist of a son had somehow climbed up the side of the crib, swung himself over the edge, dropped down and tottered into her bedroom right at the most inopportune time.
It was a good thing that being a mother came with the added power of superhuman hearing, or Marley would have been stuck finding ways to explain things far over Deon’s age range about what she was watching on her laptop when he walked in. That was not a conversation she wanted to have for a long time.
Leaving the door to her bedroom ajar, she padded back into bed, which just happened to be a foldout couch. Her laptop was still waiting for her on the pillow, slammed shut and pretending like i
t hadn’t just been a vessel for porn, featuring a man who looked curiously alike someone she’d only known for a weekend.
Someone who had given her the greatest gift of her life, and then disappeared forever.
“Marley, you know this isn’t healthy,” she told herself out loud, picking up her now lukewarm mug of tea from the living room table next to the couch.
It was a habit she’d picked up from constantly talking to Deon. Even when he wasn’t in the room, she was still voicing most of her thoughts. If she had to analyze it, she’d probably realize that it was an attempt at filling in the silence that was left behind, now that she couldn’t listen to music at full blast anymore.
The whole room was a jumbled mess of stuff and things. Not only the modest furniture she had – one cupboard, stocked with her clothes, the couch-bed, a recliner and a table – but boxes and boxes of gear. If she’d wanted to, she could have set up a whole radio station in her apartment, which was exactly what the stuff was for – a small station.
Just that all of it had been sitting in boxes, gathering dust for the last year and a half, while she worked a dead-end job for a minor radio station. Her whole job consisted of writing one-liners for the two hosts and fetching them coffee.
It was a job that had seemed oh so great as a starter position, just to get her toes wet in the world of radio when she was straight out of college. Now, three years later, it didn’t seem so glamorous or great anymore. With a baby boy to care for, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere.
There weren’t that many employers that would be cool with a toddler spilling apple juice on their mixers and throwing stuffed animals with the strength of an adult male. Deon had almost knocked Hank, the guy who ran the afternoon show and who was coincidentally the owner of the station, off his balance with a well-aimed flying Toothless the other day.
