Dragon's Secret Baby (Silver Dragon Mercenaries Book 1)

by Sky Winters

  Of course, I hesitated. Walker just told me he was a goddamn werewolf. I should be running and screaming in the other direction, but my feet had become rooted to the spot. I wrestled with what I should do. This could be the part where the crazy man wanted to make me his bride or kill me. There were enough of those stories floating around in the world too.

  In the end, I decided to hear him out.

  Chapter 6

  Joker’s was quiet compared to the first night I was there. Walker dragged me over to a booth in the furthest corner away from the smoke and sensitive ears.

  “So now that we’re among ‘safe company’, are you going to tell me what this craziness is all about?” I demanded. Walker looked down at his hands. I couldn’t believe it. He actually looked nervous!

  “Have you ever heard the Native American stories about skin walkers? You know, animals that take on human form?”

  “No. Can’t say that I have.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you the short version. In the old legends, the skin walkers were the priests of the tribe that had gone astray down an evil path. They had killed a close family member so they were able to become animal at night.”

  I was skeptical, but told myself to keep an open mind. I always had the option to run away and change my name later.

  “Only part of that is true. You have to perform an evil deed, but you also have to have the bloodline to do it. Neither of my parents could shift, but I guess they had the ability to if they would have just killed.”

  “Wouldn’t they have had to kill their parents or one of their children to do that?”

  Walker shook his head and waved to the bartender. “No. That part of the legend is off too. I didn’t. I had been in a bar fight with the old president of the Wraiths actually. We both got loaded and I hit on his girlfriend.” I cocked an eyebrow at that salacious detail, but didn’t interrupt.

  “Naturally, he got pissed and things got physical. I had been in plenty of fights before, but something was different that night. I can’t really explain it since it was a feeling more than anything.” The bartender interrupted and took our drink orders.

  I was on the edge of my seat at that point and annoyed at her for the disruption. I didn’t want a drink; I wanted to hear the end. When the bartender left he continued, “I remember punching him in the nose and knocking him to the ground, there’s a big hole where I must have blacked out and then the next thing I know. I’m standing over him, his face looking like hamburger meat. I had beaten him to death.”

  I slouched back in my seat with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. That was a lot of information to absorb and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to. The father of my twins was a murderer. Sure he claimed to not remember, but I couldn’t be sure of that.

  “There’s another thing you should know about the babies…”

  “Walker Lewis!” A voice boomed through the bar, jarring me out of my thoughts. “Get your sorry ass over here and pledge yourself to me.” Danny had arrived to make the evening even worse for me. Great.

  “Hell no. In fact,” Walker stood up and composed himself. An air of authority had settled around him, “You get on your knees and pledge yourself to me.”

  The two men closed the space between each other and stood toe to toe. Danny had about an inch on Walker’s height, but Walker had the advantage of being roughly fifteen years younger. I should have wanted to giggle at the absurdity of the tough guy standoff, but the tension between them tossed the silliness right out of the room.

  “I ain’t pledgin’ nothin’, Walker. I’m the leader of this club and you will accept that. On your knees, now,” Danny growled.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Walker said evenly, “there is no way you are allowed to be the leader anymore. Tell me something. What is it that a true alpha should be able to do that the others can’t?”

  Danny scoffed and took a step back. “Get a human girl pregnant. Why are you asking stupid questions?”

  Walker tilted his head, making sure he had the attention of every person in the bar. He had Danny on the ropes and needed everyone to know it. “And how is that going for you and your wife? She’s totally human, right?”

  Danny narrowed his eyes and snarled. “That is none of your business, you piece of shit.”

  “Temper temper, Danny. We’re just having a talk.” Walker leered at his soon to be former alpha. “It sounds like, no babies then. Am I right?”

  Danny refused to answer. His faces had broken out in red blotches and he kept opening and closing his fists at his side.

  “My lovely girl over here just happens to be pregnant with twins, my twins to be exact. So tell me then, who should kneel to whom?” Walker’s face lit up in epiphany. “Hang on. This explains everything. You knew. You knew I was the true alpha, didn’t you?”

  Danny sputtered an attempted explanation, but Walker cut him off, “You spent the last fifteen years busting me down and running me out because I was a threat to your title. Oh, you motherfucker. You are good.” Walker smiled and wagged a finger at Danny.

  “Tell you what. All will be forgiven if you just hit the floor and pledge your unwavering loyalty to me.” Something in the room had changed just then. I looked at the faces of the other men in the bar. Most were focused on Walker, some were on Danny waiting for him to do something, and a few were scrutinizing me for signs that Walker’s claim was true.

  Danny made a move that caught my eye. He shed his jacket and dropped to all fours on the floor in front of Walker. His skin rippled and popped. In a blink a grizzled wolf was lying where Danny used to be. Walker followed suit and turned into the most gorgeous sable wolf I had ever seen. Danny had rolled over onto his back, exposing his belly in a posture of submission. While staring into the face of the older wolf he put one paw on his rivals belly and growled.

  I rubbed my eyes thinking they had suddenly gone bad. There was no way the two arguing men had just turned into animals. I looked around the room for the reactions of the others and while being glued to the story unfolding, none of them looked shocked.

  Oh wow. Walker was telling the truth. As hard as my brain tried to rationalize what just happened, it couldn’t. There was no rational explanation for what just happened other than it was something supernatural, which is batshit crazy.

  Now my life had gotten tangled up in it and I didn’t know what to do. I splayed a hand over my belly, what would become of my babies? If the realization that Walker was telling the truth and shifted in front of me was the warm up punch, then the realization that my little babies could be just like him was the knockout punch. I felt woozy and had to sit down.

  I stuck my head between my knees and closed my eyes. My breathing was ragged and labored despite my best effort to calm it. The insanity was too much.

  “Lyla are you okay? Do you need anything?” I could hear Walker’s voice, but he sounded fuzzy and far away. I shook my head in response. I didn’t want to answer him, not just yet.

  He bundled me into his arms where I finally broke down and wept. I just let him hold me there until his t-shirt was soaked and I was dried out.

  “Lyla, is there anything I can do to help?” Walker murmured.

  “Yes. Take me home.”

  Walker laid me down on my old threadbare couch. His concern for me was touching and warmed some of the icy feelings I felt for him in that moment. I had rolled over to keep my back to him. I just couldn’t look at him. He had told me the truth and yet I still felt betrayed somehow.

  “Lyla. Talk to me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. Honestly, you’re freaking me the fuck out.” I could hear the anxiety in Walker’s voice, but I still wrestled with how to handle this. I could let him know how I was feeling, but there was that other side that hoped if I ignored him he would just go away.

  I decided to talk to him. I rolled over and looked Walker square in the eye, he has to understand what I just went through. “You turned into a dog! I watched you drop on all fours and spro
ut fur. What I believed to be reality has been dashed to pieces so you’ll have to excuse me for being less than chatty.”

  Walker grabbed my hand and stroked my fingers. “You have every right to feel that way. If the roles had been reversed I would probably feel the same. If you want me to go, I will.”

  I sighed and sat up. “No. Don’t go. I’ll come to terms with it. I want you to stay with me.” I placed his hand over my still flat belly. “Our babies need you. I’m shaken, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you, Walker.”

  He freed his hand and slid his arm around my waist, pulling me to the edge of the cushions. “Oh? And how do you feel about me?”

  I leaned in almost close enough for our lips to brush. “I need you, Walker. I can’t imagine my life without you.” I was dangerously close to uttering the L-word, but had to proceed with caution. The goal was to keep him around, not to run him off.

  Walker stroked my face and grasped my neck. “I love you, Lyla. I’ll give you all the time you need to get used to my life, but I have to have you as a part of it.”

  I was elated to hear those words. “Say it again.” I whispered.

  “I love you, Lyla.”

  I lost myself and kissed him with all of the passion and love I had coursing through my body. This tough, strange, and special man loved me. He came out of nowhere and the one-night stand he was supposed to be was stretching into forever. It would take time to get used to the wolfy thing, but I loved him and in time would not only come to accept it, but embrace it as well.

  THE END

  The Grey

  Chapter One

  The house sat in the middle of a wooded area, surrounded by trees and a gravelled pavement that served as both road and driveway. Savannah got out of the car and stared at the quaint little house that was going to be her home for the next six months.

  “This is what I always imagined Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house to look like,” Savannah said, turning back to her parents.

  “Do you like it?” her father had taken to speaking very precisely for her benefit. She never needed to wear her hearing aid around her parents because she could read their lips perfectly.

  “It’s all right,” Savannah said reluctantly. In fact, she did like it. There was a sense of cosiness that clung to the house and the town that she had never experienced before. Still, she didn’t want her parents to know that, because she didn’t want them thinking she was happy about the move.

  She stayed outside and walked toward the trees that stood beside the house like sentinels. They had a strong, oaky smell, but there was an undercurrent of something else in the air. The back of the house faced a series of small hills that led up to larger ones. They were paved with grass and rock and Savannah could sense the difference in the air up there.

  A half hour later she went back into the house to join her parents. They had bought the house with the furniture included. The sofa was upholstered with a thick fabric that held a heavy pattern of flowers. Instead of blinds in the windows, there were curtains in a variety of mismatched floral patterns. There were floorboards and carpets instead of tiles, and a staircase, with block stairs, and an old-fashioned railing.

  “You could be right,” Savannah’s mother said, when she walked into the kitchen. “Maybe Red Riding Hood’s grandmother did live here.”

  Savannah smiled, grabbed her duffel bag, and walked upstairs in search of her room. It was nestled in the corner overlooking the mountains and the hooded trees. There was one large window that brought in all the light and bathed the sparse contents of her room in an ivory glow. She set down her duffel bag and examined her small four-poster bed.

  She couldn’t hear her father walk in, but she sensed his presence the moment he appeared at her door, and she turned around.

  “Remember when you were six and all you wanted was a four poster bed?”

  Savannah rolled her eyes at him. “Is this you coming through for me?”

  “It most definitely is.” Her father nodded.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Savannah signed to him sarcastically. “Twelve years late, but I’ll take it anyway.”

  He winked at her and moved on down the hall. Savannah closed the door and walked to her window. The light was already fading, and she knew it would be dark within the hour. She stuck her head out the window and closed her eyes so she could concentrate.

  The wind caressed her face, sending a comforting coolness across her body. The air smelled of smoky oak and fresh dirt. Savannah froze in place as some other unfamiliar scent washed across her. It was subtle at first, but then grew stronger. She had never caught that scent before; it was oddly pleasant and difficult to place. Savannah opened her eyes and looked around, but there was nothing to see save the different greens and browns of nature.

  Savannah had never thought she was unlucky. She had never experienced sound the way that normal people did, and couldn’t understand why it was so important as a result. She was finally able to hear sound with the help of powerful hearing aids, but she hadn’t been as thrilled as her doctors and parents had been. She liked her silent world, and the advantages it gave her.

  Ever since she was a little girl, her other senses had been heightened. She could smell more sharply, she could see more clearly, and she could feel more acutely, but it was more than just that. She had an intuition about things…about people. At least, that was what her parents called it–intuition. But for Savannah it was something more.

  She was almost nine years old when she realized people in the world had their own specific aura. There were many similarities between auras, but for the most part, everyone was unique in their own way, everyone was different. She could sense their moods and their character. It was stronger with some people in comparison to others, but it was always there.

  Sometimes she saw flashes of things in the back of her eyelids, sometimes she smelled an extra layer of scent hiding in the whole, and sometimes it was as simple as seeing what was right in front of her. It was a hard thing to try to explain, and it was hard to understand another person’s aura. Over time, Savannah began to assign colours to fit the emotions she felt coming off of people. It was then she realized that colour seemed to be as infinite as emotion.

  Her father had always referred to her as a military brat and her mother liked to call her little gypsy, but Savannah had always thought of herself as tumbleweed. She had no control over where she went when the wind blew, and she had no choice but to go where it pushed her. In her case, her parents were the wind, and she went wherever they did.

  Savannah had lived in four different countries, eleven different cities, and she had changed schools nine times. The downside was that she never had the opportunity to make friends. The upside was that she had met thousands of different people, each with their own unique auras. Very few things surprised Savannah and very few things stumped her. She had an instinct about the world, about people, and about places, and she was very rarely wrong.

  Which was why she couldn’t understand why the smell hidden just beneath the wind at her window seemed so unfamiliar. She stared up at the line of trees sitting on one of the shallower hills. They were thicker in that area and exposed very little. The secret scent was coming from that direction, but it still gave her no hints as to what it was.

  There was one thing she was certain of--the scent wasn't human.

  Chapter Two

  “Are you ready for your first day of school?” her father signed from the front seat.

  Savannah sighed. “This is my ninth first day at school,” she signed back at him. “At this point, assume I’m always ready.”

  “Aw come on,” her mother said, turning to face her from the passenger's seat. “You could sound a little more excited.”

  “Yay,” Savannah replied sarcastically.

  “Oh, all right,” her mother said. “I suppose you’ve earned the right to be a little…disinterested. Here are your hearing aids.”

  Savannah shook her
head. “I don’t want to wear them.”

  “Come on, darling,” her mother insisted. “Things will go a lot easier if you just wear them.”

  Savannah sighed in frustration, but she took them anyway. She knew her mother was right; it was just that she hated the first day of starting out at a new school. She always felt like a monkey in a zoo, even more so, considering that she sensed things that were normally a mystery to most people.

  “Can’t I just be home-schooled?”

  “Come on now,” her father said evenly. “It’s going to be great. Stay positive.”

  “I hate how chirpy the two of you are whenever we move someplace new,” Savannah said. “Just because you’re both so positive all the time, doesn't mean I’ll forget how much this all sucks.”

  “Honey, I know this hasn’t been easy for you,” her mother said gently. “And I know you’ve had to suffer for our lifestyle but--”

  “You can’t change it,” Savannah finished for her. “I know, I know. See you after school.” She got out of the car and headed toward the main entrance.

  Grey Mountain High School was probably the smallest high school she had seen in six years. It had that small town charm to it, but that also meant its student population was just as small, which meant that everybody’s eyes would be on the new girl who had transferred in the middle of the school year.

  Almost instantly, Savannah felt everyone’s eyes on her. She was thankful she had chosen to wear her dark jeans and grey hoodie. Hopefully she'd be able to blend into the earth tones of the town that way, and nobody would see her. The thought was so ridiculous that she smiled to herself before she realized she was actually smiling at a boy who was standing a few feet away from her.

  He was tall, at least six feet. He was leaning casually against one of the trees that led up to the building, and surrounded by a group of boys who seemed to be talking to him, but he wasn’t paying them the slightest bit of attention. His eyes were fixed on Savannah as though he'd recognized her. His black hair was on the long side, setting a fierce contrast to the pale grey of his eyes.