The Surprise (Secret Baby Bad Boy Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  Diana didn't move so he pushed past her. There was an armoire in the little bedroom, and if she was lucky, she might find something in it. If it fit, all that much better.

  "I'm not playing this game, Alex. You can't avoid telling me forever."

  "I can avoid it for a few more minutes," he said, distractedly. There was clothing, but it had a smell that he didn't like. They'd been in there too long and had started to take on an acidic smell. It probably wasn't all that safe, but then again it wasn't going to matter a whole hell of a lot if the only available alternative was to go out in the winter air without a scrap on. "Here, try this."

  She slipped the shirt on. It was hard to know for sure, without any pants on, but he suspected it would leave some midriff hanging out. But it was the best that he could do in a hurry.

  "Get out of my clothes. I'll do this. Which, by the way, now that I think about it, means that you can start talking. How about that."

  "I don't want to upset you," he said. His mouth was suddenly very dry, and all of this seemed like a remarkably bad idea. Why was it that she absolutely refused to listen to reason on this?

  "You're going to upset me if you try to play this 'keeping secrets' game much longer. Now tell me what the hell you and my father did."

  Alex set down on the bed. It was sized for a child, and he dwarfed it. He could only imagine what it had been like for Keleth, who even in his human form was perhaps a foot taller and had fifty pounds on him or more.

  "Are you sure we can't wait? There's still a red running around, one who's apparently quite committed to taking me out. Probably to taking you out, too. I wonder if he knows you're his, I don't know, grand-daughter. Wonder if that would put things into perspective."

  "You think it would?"

  He didn't answer that. It was just another train of thought that he didn't want to explore, and another thing that he had to pretend he wasn't thinking about for as long as possible, until she moved on. Hopefully, with time, she would.

  "It would be easier, if we moved along. Found someplace else to hide. Made a plan for how we were going to deal with this big dragon. We could run. You're alive. I'd like it if things stayed that way."

  "Staying alive yourself doesn't feature into it, huh?"

  "It hadn't crossed my mind," he lied. He didn't work to make it sound believable. It didn't matter if he lived, but if it didn't matter then he'd prefer it if he did.

  "I'm sure it hadn't."

  Diana started pulling on a pair of stretch pants that might have been a comfortable fit when she was four or five years younger, but as she pulled them up over her hips, it pulled tight and framed her ass in a way that was very appealing. More appealing than being killed by a dragon three hundred years or more his senior.

  "I don't want you to get hurt," he said again.

  "Then tell me what this is about. Why's he after you?"

  "Revenge," Alex told her.

  "A human and a dragon working together for revenge?"

  "I guess," he said. Then he shrugged. "It's an old story."

  "Old how?"

  "Older than you, that's for sure."

  "How old do dragons tend to grow?"

  "How long does it take to kill it?"

  Diana didn't seem to have an answer to that. But she got the idea of what he was saying, and he hoped that was enough to answer the question even if it wasn't a direct response.

  "Okay, so I'm young, then."

  "One of the youngest I've seen," Alex agreed. "But you've got time."

  "You're... how old?"

  "Didn't your father ever tell you it was impolite to ask people their age?"

  "Point taken," she said, and then rolled her eyes. "So, you're still avoiding the question. Revenge for what?"

  He let out a long breath. "Revenge for what we did."

  "Thanks," she said, the sarcasm dripping from her voice. "That still wasn't clear."

  "I'm really not keen on talking about this, in case it's not clear. You want to hear it, you're going to have to deal with the delays."

  "Fine. Get along with it, though. We don't have all day."

  "No, we don't. If anything, we've got to get the fuck out of here. Which is why we should talk about this later, when everything is taken care of."

  "No. You got me into this, and you're going to tell me what the hell I'm neck-deep in now."

  "Would you believe me if I told you that there was more to this than you had realized?"

  "Yeah, I probably would," she said. She probably didn't realize what sort of scale she was in for, and that was understandable.

  She'd been human all her life. Nobody had ever told her that she was supposed to be anything else. There was probably a block in her mind, something stopping her from ever realizing that she wasn't entirely human, just like everyone else.

  Dragon society was just a bad joke to her, and there was no way to bring her up to speed in the next five minutes, so what was going to come next was going to be a little ugly.

  38

  "I'd rather not say," Alex told her first, which was not totally untrue. He further knew that it wasn't going to cut it, and she wasn't going to accept it. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try. That was the best way to go. At least, he hoped.

  "I'd rather a lot of things," she said. She turned, finally wearing something approaching clothing. Anyone who looked would have known that she wasn't exactly clothed; the way that her chest jiggled pleasantly would have told them immediately that something was a little off about the entire outfit. "But I want to make something very clear here. You tell me now, or I will do everything in my limited power to make sure that you are destroyed.

  "My father is dead. I'm all alone in this world, and I've just watched his only friend in this world killed, and you're telling me to believe that he is the one who killed my father, after knowing him for more than twenty years. And all that after the first person to have been accused of anything was you, yourself.

  "So I have two suspects, and one of them is dead. The other one is telling me that it's the dead one, and he says that it'd all make sense if I understood something that had happened before I was born, and that would make it all clear to me. But now you want to try to tell me that you don't want to tell me what that thing is? I don't think so."

  Alex swallowed hard and leaned away from her. She was in his face, her voice low and hard and none of that did a remotely decent job of explaining exactly how furious she seemed to him. There was a moment where he thought that he might not be able to speak when he opened his mouth.

  "From the beginning, then?"

  "Go right ahead," she said. "Don't leave anything out."

  "I knew your father. I knew him for a long time; at times, by reputation, but as often as not, I knew him."

  "You make it sound like he was several different people over time."

  "A thousand years is a long time. You make it that long, and you'll be several different people yourself. Imagine it, for a minute. Living fifteen lifetimes. A human being could have children, and their children have children, and those children's children have children of their own. Fifty times."

  "But not literally a different person?"

  "Not literally a different person, no. So the only constant between us is... uh... you know how they say 'opposites attract?'"

  "Yeah, I'm aware of that. You're not trying to avoid answering my questions, are you?"

  "I'm trying to answer it. From the beginning. But there's a lot of history that's not immediately relevant."

  "Okay. So yes. I'm aware of opposites attracting."

  "The opposite is also more-or-less true. There were differences between your father and I, but there was more that was the same than was different. More than most dragons, before you think to answer that. You'd think we would have made good friends."

  "Not the case, though?"

  "Exactly right. But I respected the hell out of him. And apparently, they tell me, he felt similarly about me. Like we were
on the same team, competing for the same position. You get me?"

  "Okay, well, let's move it forward a little. Preferably within the last fifty years, if possible."

  "So you understand the position we're in. I... it was my fault, I guess. Politics are complicated, and in our world, they're a little more complicated, still. Things get personal real fast, and they stay trouble for longer than it's worth."

  "That doesn't sound that different from politics for everyone else," Diana told him; she said it like she was saying it more to herself than to him.

  "I was in trouble. Or, I guess, a little more accurate, I was in a fight I wasn't going to win."

  "With the red?"

  "No," Alex said. "That's still a puzzle to me. Not with the red. That's new. But I was in over my head, put out word on the down-low that I needed help, I needed it bad, and I needed it yesterday."

  "Okay?"

  "And who should answer but Keleth – your father."

  "Is that, what, his dragon name?"

  "More or less," Alex answered, purposefully ignoring the tone of her voice that was as dismissive as it could possibly have been.

  "And do I have one nobody told me about?"

  Alex closed his eyes. "Not that I know of. Not that anyone knows of. You're given it at birth, same as any other name. Dragon language stuff. Nobody learns it any more, and I haven't spoken it since I was a boy. But you get a sense for the sounds, at least."

  "And so, since I was raised as a human..."

  "You're getting off track, I think, but yeah. You've more or less got it. If you'd like to keep up with the distraction, though, I wouldn't mind one bit."

  "Oh, please. Do continue. So you're in over your head, and you decide... what?"

  "Your dad shows up, and we go work together. Two working in tandem can take out almost anything, if they try hard enough, and they work well enough together."

  The thought that she could work as his partner in the attack on the giant red had crossed his mind before, but the words as they came out made it sound like a better idea than it was. She wasn't experienced enough to know it, but she heard the implication. An implication he regretted almost immediately.

  "And then?"

  "We got this guy, big ol' black, off my back."

  "That doesn't sound that bad."

  "It wasn't," Alex said, hoping she'd leave it there. Diana had always been relatively sharp, but if he could have just one thing, he hoped that she wouldn't push it.

  "But you're telling me that there are people out there actively looking for revenge. People who have spent twenty years looking to kill you. And all because you roughed up a dragon and said 'and don't you forget it'?"

  "No, there's more to it."

  "Go on then. I'm not enjoying this twenty-questions game of yours."

  He laid back and looked at the ceiling. It wasn't a place that people thought a lot about, when they were excavating. You don't look at it very often, except when you're lying on your back. Even then, most people just close their eyes when they're on their back like that.

  The floor is important. You see it all the time. Practically nonstop. The walls are even more important. That's where your eyes naturally track, on four legs or on two, it's all the same. But the ceiling isn't.

  "Your dad build you this place?"

  "Sure he did," Diana said, impatiently. "But that's not an answer to my question"

  "I don't want to. I'd rather not. Please don't try to make me."

  "We're past that, now. Tell me, or I leave."

  He took a deep breath. "There was a roost. Usually is. We ran him off, together, and we went inside. He had a collection, same as most people. Hoard, I guess you'd say. Maybe a hundred, two hundred people, living around his place. Like a little town, and the whole thing was his. He took decent care of them, I suppose, but it was his thing. He owned it. That's a big deal, when it comes to dragons."

  The look on her face suggested that she was starting to guess where that could have gone wrong.

  "It wasn't too important to destroy every last part of that horde, but if you don't want to be fucked with, you take the horde. Take it. Destroy what you don't want. Am I making myself clear?"

  She let out an unsteady breath. "Then we went through. Together. Destroyed maybe another hundred eggs. Some of them were moving. It's not something I'm proud of, all this time past, but... whatever. Anything I say is just an excuse at this point, and I'm not going to make any excuses."

  "All those people? You killed them?"

  He let out a long breath. "It was necessary. But it wasn't long before we started regretting it. It should have brought us together, that night. He came and helped me, when I needed it. I was a proud dragon, and it hurt to ask, but when I did, I was able to count on him.

  "But there was more to it than just that. We started to regret it within a few days. I don't know how it went for him, but for me... couldn't eat, barely sleep. Nothing meant anything. It all felt... wrong.

  "So we both decided, independently but at the same time, that we'd walk away from that life. Walk away from that society. And I've been trying to pay for it ever since."

  Alex looked at his hands. They were broad and smooth. Not a worker's hands. Fleshy, too, nothing like a dragon's talons. The passage of time hadn't changed what he saw on them. Blood.

  39

  Diana's heart hurt. Her face hurt. Her eyes hurt. And most of all, everything felt strange. There was nothing in the world that made much sense. But she just leaned against the wall and said nothing for a long time.

  "So what do we do now?"

  Alex looked at her like she'd grown a second head. And, to make matters worse, he didn't give her an answer, which was what she wanted.

  "We have to figure out why this red's getting involved, for one thing."

  "Okay. How do we do that?"

  Alex thought about it. Hard. Then he rubbed at his eyes and let out a long breath. "Um. Without knowing their name, without knowing something at least, we don't have much to go on. So let's just... I don't know. Think."

  "And what if there's no time for thinking?"

  "Then we leave," Alex said. "We leave, we hurry the hell out of here, and we don't look back. Simple as that."

  "And go where? We've already tried to run. Tried twice. I say we fight. You said it yourself, if two dragons work together, there's not much they can't take down, two on one."

  "You've been a dragon for five seconds, and you're trying to tell me you want to go kill some big son of a bitch drake like that?"

  That was exactly what she thought. There wasn't much alternative, whether it was crazy or not. They had to get away eventually, and they couldn't keep running.

  "I've been human all my life, and now you're telling me I'm not. Now you're telling me, what, that I'm too human?"

  "I'm telling you that you barely know how to fly. You looked out that twentieth-story window like it was personally going to jump out and attack you. And now you want to go get into an aerial battle with a dragon who's probably been in as many fights as you have years in your life. We'll lose."

  She pulled him in tight and kissed him. Her body felt good against his, and she suddenly felt a fire light in her gut. She made an effort to ignore it. There wasn't going to be any time for anything like that today. They had more important things to worry about, besides.

  "What was that for?"

  "If we're going to get killed, I want you to know something," Diana breathed. "I think I love you."

  He looked at her hard, and Diana shivered. He looked like he was about ready to eat her right up in that hallway. But he didn't.

  "I love you too," he said. He looked almost surprised that the words came out of his mouth. "But right now we need to figure out a plan."

  The last word was clipped off by the sound of something else moving outside. Something landed, hard, on the earth outside. Something big. It made a dull 'thud' as it landed, and Diana could feel the landing in the soil beneath her ba
re feet.

  "Is that plan to run away?"

  "Look. We'll run, okay? We'll get out there, transform back, and fly off. Stay right behind me, you'll be able to move a little faster that way. If it looks like he might catch us, we'll figure something else out. There's one thing I want to make very clear, though."

  "What's that?"

  "No matter what, I need you to stay away from all the pointy parts of him. No risks. I mean that. If you're going to do anything then it's going to be a diversion. No attacks. You understand me?"

  "I understand," she said. There was no way that she was going to attack that thing. She would get herself killed, no question, and she wasn't exactly looking to get killed, no matter how much she loved him. If she could do something that wasn't going to put her in danger, she'd do that. If she could do something to help, she'd do that, too. But getting herself killed wasn't on the menu, not today.

  He swung the door to the front room open in time to see a shape step through. A man's body. He wasn't as big as Jeremy had been, but he wore a thick scar across his face, the eye whitened out. He let out a primal yell that made Diana's head go white with a sort of evolutionary fear, and started to move.

  She leapt back, and Alex followed, not far behind, pressing the door shut and wedging himself against it. There was a thump on the other side, accompanied by a yell. Alex motioned towards Jeremy's body, and waved for her to bring it to him. She did and he wedged it into the corner. It might hold for a moment. But that moment would at least earn them a few seconds, and that was going to have to be enough.

  Then he grabbed her arm by the wrist, dragged her through the door on the far side of the hall, and pulled it shut. She heard him whispering softly. "Can you transform again?"

  She nodded. It was easy, actually. Something in her felt like it had been knocked loose and it almost seemed harder to stay this way than it was to stay in the lizard's body. She changed back like flipping a switch in her head, and stared, waiting. He pointed at the hole in the ceiling.

  Could she get through that? The size was small enough, sure, but it was so high up. There was no way that she could just jump, and get out, right?