by Riley Storm
Sensing the impending collapse, Valla turned her around and with an easy effort, grasped her thighs and lifted her from the ground. Liz yelped at the sudden weightlessness but before she could do anything, Valla was laying her back onto the bed, climbing atop her.
“Valla.” It was all she had time to whisper before his mouth descended to cover hers in yet another fiery kiss.
They had stopped an untold number of times on the way home from the bar to kiss. Make-out would have been the better term really, because it was never just one or two kisses. Valla believed in doing everything thoroughly.
Very thoroughly, as she found out when his lips began to make their way south, seeming to touch every inch of her skin as he went, leaving no nerve ending not on fire.
She’d not been touched like this before, or at all, in a long time. But there was something about Valla.
Something different.
Taking a man home wasn’t Liz’s usual style, but she was hard-pressed to find a reason to dislike her decision.
Everything seemed to be going very, very right.
His mouth breathed hot fire over her clit through her thong, and the sensations that followed blasted all remaining thought from her mind except one.
Holy fuck! This is going to be good.
3
“You’re sure about it?”
Liz rolled her eyes, sitting back into the couch, nervously fingering at one of her loose strands of hair, pulling it tight, letting it curl and then pulling it tight again.
“Yes, I’m positive, Cheryl. Come on. Four times. Three different days. How much more certain can you get? That was a month and a half ago. I’ve been to my doctor since. He confirmed it. So yes, I’d say I’m pretty sure about it.”
“Sorry.”
Sighing Liz shook her head. “No, no don’t apologize. I just bit your head off for no reason.”
“I asked a stupid question,” Cheryl said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Of course, you’d be sure before you decided to tell me. I should be here to support you, not question you.”
“Thanks.” Liz wasn’t sure what else to say. “I…I want this, Cheryl.”
“You mean you’re going to keep it?”
“I debated that for a long time. A long, long time.” She rubbed at her eyes, still swollen from crying earlier, before Cheryl had arrived.
The two had become friends lately. Though Cheryl was her boss, they worked well as a team, and so far, things hadn’t been awkward at all at the workplace. It was also one of the reasons why Liz had called Cheryl first. She knew she could count on the other woman to understand.
“Don’t judge yourself for that,” Cheryl said, pulling her into a hug, as if sensing that she was on the verge of another breakdown. “Don’t judge yourself at all, Liz. It’s totally normal to have such thoughts. Even if you’d chosen to go the other way, you needn’t have judged yourself. It’s your life, your body, you get to make the decisions. Nobody else is in your decision.”
“I want kids,” Liz said. “I do. But I hadn’t envisioned this as the way it would happen. I thought, you know, husband, white picket fence, two-car garage. Dinner parties.”
“Straight out of the fifties, in other words,” Cheryl joked.
“Pretty much. I…I really never expected it would happen from a one-night stand either.” Liz hung her head weakly into Cheryl’s shoulder. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“You weren’t stupid. Stop that. You’re beating yourself up for allowing yourself some pleasure. Sex is great. It’s fun. You should let yourself enjoy it, and from what I recall you telling me at the time, you did enjoy it.”
Even now, Liz couldn’t stop from feeling slightly warm, nor could she completely hide the smile. “Literally the best I’ve ever had. Full stop. Not even close. I didn’t walk right for days.”
“Ew!” Cheryl giggled, both of them laughing.
“We used protection. I’m on the pill. Yet still…”
“Not to be a bitch, but like, it’s definitely his? You weren’t with anyone else?” Cheryl asked tentatively.
“You’re not a bitch. It’s a fair question. But no, nobody since, and far too long before him for it to be anyone else’s. Nope, mystery-man is the father.” Liz wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel comfortable giving out his name, even to Cheryl, but she didn’t. Perhaps it was a bit of embarrassment, at not even having a last name. Either way, she’d kept mum on the topic so far. “And I’ve not seen or heard from him since. Three months, and just poof. Nothing. He even knows where I live, but he never came by.”
“I’m really sorry.” Cheryl squeezed her knee. “It must be tough.”
“Actually,” she admitted. “I think it’s a little easier now that I’ve decided to keep it, you know? Like, that decision is past, I’m going to have the child. I can’t punish it for my actions, right? And who knows when I’ll get the chance to have kids again, if ever. Things just felt right about keeping it.”
Cheryl nodded slowly. “Of course. I understand.”
“But…”
Her friend didn’t even flinch.
“But what about Mystery-Man?” Cheryl supplied after a moment of silence.
“No, it’s not about him at all actually.” Liz grinned at the surprised look on Cheryl’s face. “He’s him. It’s been three months. He can’t know I’m pregnant with his child. But he has my number, and he has my address. If he wanted to see me again, he would have by now. No, he’s gone, and that’s that. I will not waste my energy trying to track down someone who so obviously wants nothing to do with me.”
Cheryl hugged her tightly. “I’m so proud of you. You’re going to make such a great mother. What is the ‘but’ about then, if not wondering where the father is?”
Liz shivered.
“What? Is everything okay? Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” she said, reassuring Cheryl that all was fine. “Not that you could know. Just…what do you know about my family?” she asked at last.
“Um. Nothing, actually,” Cheryl said, frowning as she answered. “We’ve never really talked about it before.”
“That’s ‘cause I don’t talk about it. Them. Whatever. Family life isn’t something I was graced with, growing up,” Liz said heavily. “It was…well, I don’t want to go into detail.”
“You don’t have to Liz. It’s okay. Whatever you do or don’t want to tell me is perfectly fine.” Cheryl was sitting up straight now, attentive, her focus fully on Liz.
“I just want to give this child better than I had, you know?” she asked, one hand subconsciously moving to touch her belly where even now, life beat within her. A second life.
“And you will, Liz. Oh, I know you will. You’re so strong and caring. You’re going to be a great mother. Nobody in their right mind would question that.”
“They will,” she said softly. “Because there’s no father. People will talk.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Cheryl said with a bit of a snarl. “Seriously, fuck anyone who judges you otherwise. You’re going to be a badass momma, and that’s all that matters. Your kid is going to know you love her—it’s going to be a girl by the way, sorry—and you’re going to give it every opportunity in the world to succeed. Anyone who knows you knows that.”
Liz blushed. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. “That…I appreciate that. But I worry I won’t be able to provide it all, on my own.”
“You will,” Cheryl said with an absolute certainty that made Liz more appreciative than ever to have her as a friend. “You absolutely will. There’s a greatness in you Liz, and I think motherhood is going to emphasize that for everyone to see.”
“Thanks,” she said again, feeling like she was repeating herself.
Hearing her friend voice her confidence—not only in Liz’s choice to keep the child, but also in her ability as a future mother—was reassuring.
But it didn’t dispel the doubts circling in her head. Liz knew that until the
child arrived, nobody truly knew if she would be able to be a good mother. After all, it was not as though she had any experience with the role. Even growing up, her best role model had been…well, not a role model at all.
“I don’t want to screw this up,” she said.
“Oh Liz.” Cheryl snagged her up in another hug. “You won’t. You’re going to be great.”
But Liz wasn’t so sure.
4
“Tell me again why I’m here with you?” Valla rumbled as they entered the municipal building.
“Because, as you demonstrated once before, you can’t be left alone,” Victor said, his tone tired and uncaring. “Since Aaric is off doing other things, that means I’m forced to babysit you.”
Valla bristled. He hated being thought of as a child.
“It was one time,” he said angrily, staring daggers at Victor’s back. “Nothing bad happened from it.”
“That we know of!”
When Valla had returned to Drakon Keep, the centuries-old home of the dragon shifters, he’d found both Victor and Aaric waiting for him. Neither had been happy. In fact, they’d been downright furious with him for skipping out before they deemed him ready.
Brash, they’d called it. Stupid, they’d said.
More than once in the days that followed, he’d heard them arguing about whether or not it had been wise to awaken one as young as he. Victor, he knew, thought it folly, though the water dragon and his mate had been the ones to awaken him. Aaric was unsure, but that didn’t mean he was any kinder.
His punch after Valla had shifted back had hurt just as much as Victor’s, after all.
“If something bad had happened, we’d know of it by now,” he said, tired of the constant berating.
“You landed in your other form in the middle of a neighborhood full of humans. Humans who could have easily recorded you shifting. Are you seriously that stupid that you can’t understand the potential ramifications of your actions here?”
“No,” Valla ground out through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to kick Victor down the hallway. It was close, and he almost caved to the temptation.
But that wouldn’t solve anything. He was still going to have to sit through a meeting about the building that his brothers were constructing in concert with the town. Not that Valla gave a shit about that. He had been awakened for one purpose, and one purpose only.
Hunt down the vampires.
Which was kind of hard to do when he was chained to the Keep and the grounds around it.
Ice dragons were the best hunters and trackers of dragon kind, and Valla was among the best of his kind, even at his young age. There was no question in his mind that he would find the vampire nest.
Once they actually let me start hunting!
“I could be finding the vampires while you do this,” he suggested, trying yet again to get Victor to cut him loose to do his own thing.
He didn’t expect Victor to agree, and in a way, Valla was okay with that. Though he was an excellent hunter, the prospect of being the one to track down an entire nest of vampires was more than a little unsettling.
They were supposed to be extinct, after all. Everyone knew that. When the shifters had risen to power, they had invaded ancient Rome and killed off all the vampires. Every last one of them, they had been told. The final battle had come in early 5th century. The shifters had stormed Rome itself. Killed the Senate, the Emperor, and all of their vampire lackeys. Not one had survived, at great cost to the shifters themselves.
But now, apparently, they were back? Not only were they back, but they could change. They could shift, like his kind. A new wave of vampires, it seemed, with new powers. No, Valla really wasn’t all that sure he wanted to find them. Not without a few dozen or more elder dragons at his back. Perhaps then, he would feel confident storming into the lair of the creatures, some of which could be close to two thousand years old by this point.
He shivered at the thought of how powerful they would be. A young dragon would be no match for their strength.
“Yeah, you could,” Victor said. “But if you reveal our existence to the entire world while doing it, that’s not exactly going to help us either, now is it? So quit whining. When you’re ready, you can go. Not before then.”
“I’ve completed your stupid course. I’m up to speed. Just let me do my job,” Valla pushed, coming to a halt as Victor reached for the door to a room. Apparently, they had arrived at their destination.
“Soon,” Victor said in a nicer tone. “But first, you need to get a better feel for who we’re working with. The people we’re protecting. Not to mention a more thorough understanding of everything that’s gone beforehand, while you were still asleep.”
Then he pulled the door open, assuming the conversation to be over. But Valla wasn’t about to give up that easily.
“You realize it doesn’t matter, right?” he asked, entering the room first. There were some humans in it, but he barely paid them any attention, turning back to face Victor—though he did lower his voice. “Seriously, none of that matters to me. I can find them either way.”
“Valla?”
He straightened as a feminine voice interrupted his arguments.
Victor, looking past him at the female speaker, letting his eyes narrow. “How do you know him?” he asked.
Swallowing nervously, Valla tried not to notice the thunderclouds forming on the water dragon’s face. Whispering a small prayer, Valla tuned his brother out completely and turned to face the speaker. A speaker he knew.
She was short. A few inches over five feet, with short hair that hung in loose curls. It was currently dyed red, though it was faded, a sign that it had been some time since she’d had it done. That felt about right, because when he’d last seen her, it had been freshly done, catching both the light and his attention.
The thick heart-shaped face he’d remembered as being all smiles and soft moans was gone, replaced by a hardness that had him fumbling for words. Although he yanked his eyes back before they could roam over her body, he’d caught enough to rekindle many memories of what she looked like without the dark jeans and black sweater covering up the lush curves he so desired.
“You!” she exploded in anger before he could even say a greeting.
Yep. She definitely was not happy to see him. Clearly, his first impression hadn’t been good enough for her, in some way. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.
Should I have stayed to the morning? Can she really be that upset over such a trivial thing?
“I take it, by the sounds of things, that the two of you have met before?” Victor asked casually.
“Perhaps,” Valla admitted out of the side of his mouth, still staring in shock at a face he’d only seen once before, nearly three months earlier.
A face he’d never expected to run into again. It didn’t make sense though. There had been no expectation that he would call. In fact, Valla had slipped out in the middle of the night, so as not to give way to any sort of awkward morning. He’d thought that was what she would have wanted.
Judging by the emotions playing across her face, however, he’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Care to explain to me how you managed that?” Victor was saying, keeping his voice low. “I thought you said you didn’t really make any impressions on anyone when you came to town.”
Valla cringed. He’d not expected to get caught in the lie. Certainly not so blatantly, at least. But now here he was, exposed.
“I don’t need to tell you everything I did,” he growled while the other people in the office all looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.
“Maybe you should have,” Victor suggested smugly. “Because it looks like whatever you did, it’s come around full circle to bite you in the ass.”
“No shit,” he said, keeping his voice so low that only Victor’s hearing would pick it up.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Liz asked from across the table.
/>
“About what?” was all he could think of to say, still not sure why he was being greeted with such hostility. It was not as if he’d done anything she hadn’t wanted. Or asked for. Over and over. To the best of his knowledge, he’d left Liz very, very satisfied that night. So where was the anger coming from, he wondered?
“About what? About what?” Liz sputtered, then came to an abrupt halt, looking around.
Valla, like several of the others in the room, just frowned at her.
What the heck was going on?
5
All at once, the stares of the other people in the room cut through her anger, reminding Liz of where she was. Of who she was with. Swallowing nervously, she glanced around.
Both Stephen and Tanya, the other two members of the team, were staring at her open-mouthed, unsure of what to say. Thankful for their ignorance, she tuned them out. Cheryl, on the other hand, was giving her a weird, unreadable look. Something screamed at Liz, telling her that whatever thoughts were hidden behind it were important.
There was no time to try and decode it, however, because yet again, her attention was returned to the giant standing in the room—standing with Victor, a man she knew very well. In fact, they had been working together for several months now, very closely.
“A friend of yours?” she asked, addressing Cheryl’s fiancé casually, trying to see if she could just put everything back in the bag.
You know that’s not possible.
“Everyone who hasn’t already, I’d like you to meet Valla, my brother.”
Valla.
Oh yes, she knew the name. The first name, at least. Now, however, Liz had that elusive missing piece of the puzzle. His last name.
Valla Drakon.
Everyone who hasn’t already, Victor said. Meaning he knows.
Everyone knew, that was clear. There was no stopping it now, she realized, so may as well own it.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, tilting her head down to the side to direct the words at Cheryl.
