by Amira Rain
Elated that Tommy wasn’t scared, I smiled. “That’s right, sweetie. Can you believe that’s Daddy? He’s a dragon.”
“Yeah.”
Tommy was already looking at Gavin again with his expression adorably and almost comically serious.
For a few minutes, Gavin flew around nearby us, and a couple of times, he even flew by directly overhead, doing some kind of a fast-rippling trick with his tail, making it produce a cracking noise, which delighted Tommy, who shouted into the sky.
“Yay, gagrin!”
Laughing, I hugged Tommy tightly and added a yay of my own.
The moment Gavin landed near us after a slow descent, Tommy waved at him with both hands. “Do more! Please! Do more!”
Dutifully, Gavin lifted off into the clear blue sky again, and Tommy shrieked.
“Yay, gagrin! Yay!”
Touching down on the ground every so often, shifting back into a human man a time or two, just to cement the idea in Tommy’s mind that the “gagrin” was really him, Gavin continued the air show for at least another half-hour, until Tommy finally sat down next to me in the grass and put his head on my shoulder, clearly getting sleepy.
Gavin soon landed and shifted back into his human form, and after I’d thanked him for such a wonderful show, smiling, I picked Tommy up, asking if he was ready for some dinner before bath and bedtime.
To my surprise, really almost my shock, Tommy didn’t even answer me, straining his arms toward Gavin. “I want gagrin carry me.”
Grinning just about ear-to-ear, Gavin took Tommy from me, then spoke near my ear in a low voice. “From uh-oh man to gagrin…I think I’ve just been upgraded. Maybe Daddy will be next.”
After returning Gavin’s grin, I said I hoped so.
On the way up to the house, Tommy rested his head on Gavin’s shoulder, eyes still open but drooping, and Gavin spoke to him in a low, soothing voice just loud enough for me to hear.
“See, Tommy? That’s what you will be able to do someday. You’ll be able to shift into a dragon and fly around in the sky. Right now, the little dragon part of you is trying to shift from a little boy to a dragon, but your body just isn’t big enough yet. But when you’re a big teenager, it will be, and then you’ll fly around up above the clouds.”
Gavin fell silent, and looking like he was thinking, Tommy didn’t respond, so I took the chance to ask Gavin a question.
“Do you really think his ‘light show’ stage will last that long? Until his teens? You don’t think he’ll shift into his dragon form at least once before then, ending all the ‘light show’ stuff?”
Gavin shook his head. “I don’t think so. The fact that he didn’t get sick after his ‘light show’ today makes me think that his shifting abilities are getting stronger…but still, the oldest shifter boys in the FDS are several years older than he is, and none of them have ever fully shifted yet. And the youngest any of us adult shifters became shifters was sixteen. I do think Tommy is going to grow to be an incredibly powerful shifter, though.
"Most of our shifter boys have only done a single ‘light show.’ A few of them have done two, usually a year or more apart. Chet couldn’t get over it when Tommy had done two so closely together…now wait until he hears Tommy has just done a third, just days after his first two. I think he’s definitely going to agree with me that the dragon part of Tommy is very strong…already trying furiously to make him shift at just two years old.”
Suddenly perking up a bit, Tommy lifted his head from Gavin’s shoulder to look at him. “Yeah. I gagrin. I no scared.”
Gavin grinned and told Tommy that was good, and that he was a very brave boy. “You’ll be up in the sky in no time.”
CHAPTER 16
A short while after Gavin’s air show, the three of us ate dinner together, and Tommy overcame any lingering sleepiness to the point that he was actually quite the little ham throughout the whole meal, teasing both Gavin and me by offering us little bites of chicken on his plastic kiddie fork before yanking the fork away at the last second, giggling. During dessert, which was peach cobbler that Ella had made, Gavin’s gaze settled briefly on my left hand, which was resting beside my dessert plate, and then he looked at Tommy.
“Can I hold Mommy’s hand now, little dragon?”
Tommy definitely didn’t look thrilled about Gavin’s request, but after a long moment or two seeming to be deep in thought, he finally nodded. “Okay, big gagrin.”
A short while later, Gavin began helping me give Tommy a bath in Tommy’s and my master bathroom, but he ended up having to head out to the bedroom to return several calls from Lieutenant Gray, also known as his right-hand-man Dan, also known as Nina’s husband and Kenzie’s dad. He’d called three times in fairly rapid succession, once during dinner, and twice just in the couple of minutes that Tommy’s bathwater had been running.
Before leaving the bathroom and shutting the door, frowning, Gavin apologized to me for the second time, saying he’d be just a second. However, maybe ten minutes later, when I was toweling Tommy off, he still hadn’t come back in the bathroom, and when I carried Tommy out to the bedroom, Gavin was sitting on the edge of the bed, phone to his ear, frowning so hard he was almost scowling.
“All right, Dan. Just keep looking into it. We’ll talk more later.”
Once Gavin had pocketed his phone, I asked him if all was okay, and he nodded.
“Yeah. All’s fine. I may have to head back out this evening, though, unfortunately. But not before I help put the little guy to bed.”
Tommy, who’d never had a trace of shyness about nudity, soon hopped down from my arms and the bath towel, dashed over to the dresser, completely buck naked, and grabbed a pair of underwear, before triumphantly holding them up to Gavin. “I get underpant.”
For all that Tommy’s grammar and use of language was improving by leaps and bounds daily, he still hadn’t yet gotten the hang of saying underpants instead of underpant.
Gavin didn’t correct him, just grinned and said he was very impressed.
Grinning back, Tommy stepped into his underpants and began pulling them up. “You get underpant, gagrin?”
Eyes twinkling, Gavin nodded. “Yes, I get underpants, too. They’re not as neat as yours, though. They don’t have cartoons on them.”
Looking pleased as punch, Tommy began rifling through the dresser drawers for a pair of pajamas.
A short while later, Gavin and I tucked Tommy into bed, and I gave him several kisses on the forehead, as I usually did. Looking just slightly hesitant, as if not sure how Tommy might react, Gavin leaned over the bed next and gave Tommy a kiss on the cheek and then forehead.
Eyes already beginning to close, Tommy grabbed for his hand and gave it a few sleepy, uncoordinated pats. “’Night, gagrin.”
With the corners of his full lips twitching with a grin, Gavin leaned over again and gave him another kiss on the forehead. “’Night, little dragon.”
Out in the hallway with the bedroom door closed a short while later, Gavin pulled me into his arms and I kind of melted into them, asking if he really had to go.
“Can you stay just a little while longer?”
Now that I was back in the strength and safety of his arms after three long years, I felt like I never wanted to be out of them again. Felt like it might physically hurt to be out of them again.
In response to my questions, though, Gavin frowned, with a low, quiet groan rumbling in his chest. “I wish more than anything I could stay. I wish more than anything.”
Moving his hands to the small of my back, pulling me even closer to him, he looked into my eyes for a long moment, then lowered his mouth to mine and gave me a kiss so tender I curled my toes into the hardwood floor. When he soon disappeared down the hallway, I watched him go, wondering if there was any chance he might return that night.
If he did, I was already sleeping and didn’t hear him, and when Tommy and I woke up the next morning, Gavin’s bedroom was quiet, indicating that if he had ev
er come home, he’d probably already left again.
That afternoon, shadowed by Chet and Mark, Tommy and I joined Nina and Kenzie at Everett’s annual summer flower festival, where in addition to breathtaking flower displays, there was an afternoon parade, complete with a marching band made up of students from the local high school and junior high.
They were followed by a couple of baton-twirlers, and then two teenage girls on roller skates, who carried large buckets of wrapped candies and tossed handfuls into the crowd every so often. When they tossed some our way, Tommy and Kenzie jostled with other kids to get a few pieces, and Tommy soon ran back to me, grinning, and showed me a small piece of candy in each hand.
“One candy Mama, one candy gagrin.”
Heart melting, I took the candies and put them in my pocket. “What a sweet boy. Thank you. We’ll give Daddy his candy when he gets home.”
After the parade, Nina and Kenzie went home because Kenzie was starting to get overheated and tired, and Tommy and I went down to the largest town park for a food fair, a continuation of the flower festival. After buying a large plate of food and a tall lemonade, I sat Tommy down at a picnic table, where we were soon nearly mobbed by teenage girls and grown women, all of them wanting to get a look at “Commander Iverson’s precious little son.”
One older woman lightly pinched one of Tommy’s chubby cheeks while he sat casting a hungry, sidelong look at our plate full of French fries, coleslaw, and pulled pork sliders with barbeque sauce.
A minute or two later, the crowd around us had only grown, with numerous teenage girls handing me their phone numbers on scraps of paper, offering to babysit Tommy for free anytime. Chet ended up kind of “rescuing” Tommy and me, dispersing the crowd by loudly asking everyone to please give us some space to eat.
Once all the girls had wandered away, some of them waving at Tommy and calling out to me that it had been nice to meet us, Chet sat down across from us and set a can of pop on the painted green picnic table.
“I don’t like that very much…when there’s a crowd like that around the two of you. Makes it hard for me to see exactly who’s around you and what’s going on.”
Glancing up from cleaning Tommy’s hands with a wet towelette, I smiled. “You worry too much, Chet.”
“Well, I do worry…but I don’t think it’s too much. There’s been trouble going on up north…more than usual…and I don’t think we members of your security team can be too safe.”
“Well…I do appreciate all that you and the others do to keep Tommy and me safe, but I don’t think we need to worry too much about teenage girls.”
Chet didn’t answer right away. “Maybe not. But the enemy can take all forms.”
“Well, maybe…but I really don’t see the Traitors using a human teenage girl to do any of their dirty work for them when they themselves are dragon shifters. And, besides…I’ve been thinking lately that you security team members should really probably be devoting more time to protecting Gavin than Tommy and me.
He is the one Cameron Asher would love to take out, from all I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that Gavin is an extremely strong shifter who can more than take care of himself in a fight, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t probably use all the extra security team members he can get.”
Cracking open his can of pop, Chet shook his head. “Well, my focus is going to remain on you and Tommy, because those are my orders from the commander. Not to mention that…well….”
Feeding Tommy a bite of coleslaw, I waited for Chet to finish, and when he didn’t, I glanced up at him.
“Not to mention what?”
Expression unreadable behind his dark sunglasses, Chet just shrugged. “I guess not to mention that to me, you and Tommy are personal. I’d protect you both to the very best of my ability anyway, but the two of you remind me of my daughter and grandson. Same ages they were and everything.”
The last thing Chet had said made me pause with a pulled pork slider halfway to my mouth. “They were the same ages? Did they…did something happen to them?”
Chet set his pop down, took his wallet from his pants pocket, and took out a picture, which he held it out to me. “I don’t like to think much about what happened. I like to think about them like this. Brianna had this picture taken on Nicky’s second birthday.”
I set my sandwich down and took the faded, wallet-sized picture from Chet, instantly developing an ache in my chest. In the picture, a pretty young woman with long, honey-brown hair just like mine held a smiling little boy on her lap. On his lap sat a white-and-gray stuffed dog, identical to one Tommy had.
After studying the picture for several seconds, I handed it back to Chet with a lump in my throat. “They’re both beautiful.”
He put the picture back in his wallet. “Thank you. I miss them every day.” He picked up his pop can and looked at me. “It happened not too long before the germ weapon was released and I became a shifter. It was down in Georgia.
Brianna’s husband. He used a knife on them, and a gun on himself. I blamed myself for not seeing the signs of the abuse…blamed myself for not being closer to Brianna so that I could see…and I still do. Maybe there was something I could have done. I’ll never know.
These days, I just like to think of them how they were in that picture…happy, smiling…and my new protection service job has been helping. I couldn’t protect Brianna and Nicky, but I can help protect you and Tommy. Makes me feel like there’s still some worth left in this fifty-nine-year-old bag of bones.”
Chet cracked a smile, and I tried to smile in return but found it difficult with such a huge lump in my throat. “Of course there is, Chet. Tommy and I appreciate you. Thank you for keeping us safe.”
In response, Chet just reached across the table, gave my hand the briefest of squeezes, and then changed the subject by asking Tommy how his slider was. Chewing, Tommy gave him a big thumbs-up and nodded. Smiling from Tommy to Chet, thinking that Chet was starting to feel to me like a good friend, or maybe like the caring, protective father I’d never had.
A bit later, while I ate my own slider while Tommy played in the grass nearby, Chet and I talked about Tommy’s ‘light shows’ and his developing relationship with Gavin.
Presently, Chet asked me how my own relationship with Gavin was going. “If that’s not too personal a question.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “No, it’s not…but you’re going to have to ask me that question again if and when the Traitors ever leave Gavin alone. I’ve really hardly had the chance to spend much time with him yet.”
He didn’t come home that night, or the next, but finally, late the following afternoon, he arrived home, and bearing a gift for Tommy. It was a little “t-ball” set, with a short plastic stand, plastic “baseball,” and an oversized plastic bat.
Seeing these items, Tommy gasped, hands flying to the sides of his face. “Oh, gagrin. You got bee-ball!”
Tommy and Gavin spent the rest of the afternoon playing “bee-ball,” and I watched from a blanket on the lawn with my heart feeling light as air.
Later, exclaiming how much fun “bee-ball” had been, Tommy bounced his way up to the dinner table, sitting next to Gavin and across from me. However, as the meal progressed he became quiet and started more picking at his food than eating. Gavin asked him if anything was wrong, and he just shrugged. I told Gavin he was probably just tired, and he really did look that way to me.
After dinner, Gavin left to attend a council meeting, and Tommy became even quieter still, curling up on the couch with Softie and a blanket, frowning.
Now becoming a bit concerned, I had a seat next to him, asking if anything was wrong. “Do you feel okay?”
He nodded. “Me okay. I okay. I jus’ want call Unca Zee-zay.”
Feeling like a bad mom, because it hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might be missing DJ, I pulled my phone from my pocket, saying that of course we could call Uncle DJ, and I began pulling Tommy onto my lap.
He resiste
d, though, squirming away. “No, Mama. I call Unca Zee-zay by myself. I talk by myself.”
I said okay, but that I’d just call DJ first, just talk to him for a second, and then hand the phone to him. “Is that okay?”
Tommy nodded. “Yeah.”
Fortunately, DJ was home, and after talking to him briefly, I put the phone on speaker and passed it to Tommy, across the couch.
Curled up with Softie and his blanket again, he held the phone right in front of his face to talk. “Hi, Unca Zee-zay. I love you, Unca Zee-zay.”
“Well, hi, and I love you, too, bud…so much.”
“I miss you, Unca Zee-zay.”
“I miss you, too, little bud. I wish I could give you a big, big hug right now.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” Frowning, Tommy paused for a long moment. “I have gagrin here.”
“You have a what, bud?”
“I have gagrin. He go up to sky. He gagrin. Big gagrin.”
“Oh…you mean dragon, buddy?”
“Yeah. I have gagrin. No Unca Zee-zay here. I have gagrin.”
Suddenly, Tommy’s little face crumpled, and his eyes shone with tears. My first instinct was to pull him into my arms, asking what was wrong, but I resisted, sensing that he was going to tell DJ first and maybe needed to.
“I scared, Unca Zee-zay.”
“Oh, no. Why are you scared, buddy?”
“I scared you get sad...’cuz I have gagrin here. No Unca Zee-zay. Gagrin. He play bee-ball. No you. Gagrin play.”
There was a long pause before DJ responded, with his voice sounding unusually husky.
“Well…that doesn’t make me sad, buddy. That makes me happy that you have a dragon to play bee-ball with. That makes me really happy. Now you have an uncle you can play bee-ball with in Michigan, and you have a dragon you can play bee-ball with at your new home. I’m so happy about that. Now you have an uncle and a dragon.”
Sniffling, Tommy peered at the phone. “You no sad? You happy, Unca Zee-zay?”
“Yeah, bud. I’m really happy. I’m so happy you have a dragon now.”
