Once Upon a Dragon (Dragon Isle Book 9)

by Sophie Stern

  “But,” she shook her head. “Why would you do that for me?”

  “Your dad loved you,” Liam said, and Cadence’s eyes began to tear up again. “He would have wanted you to be happy, to be taken care of. If you like, I’ll take you to the island in the morning, and you can meet your birth mother.”

  “What? She’s here?”

  “She lives on the island. She’s a nice woman. You’ll like her.”

  “I…I..” Cadence put Mischief down and pushed away from the table. She walked around to Liam, and then she did something he was not expecting. She plopped onto his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and just hugged him. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she whispered.

  “I think you just did.”

  4

  Cadence sat in the boat across from Liam. She was wearing her freshly washed and dried clothes, courtesy of her host. She hadn’t expected for him to be so warm and welcoming to her. She wasn’t sure what she expected.

  Finding out that Willie was dead was an unexpected turn of events. She hadn’t been prepared for that, and wasn’t quite sure how she felt. Sure, she and her father had been estranged at the time of his death, but Cadence had loved him very much. She had many wonderful memories of her adoptive father, and she had thought of him often.

  The journey to Dragon Isle wouldn’t take long, so Cadence tried to relax. Liam didn’t seem to be much of a talker on the journey, but he occasionally pointed out things he thought were interesting.

  “You really love it here, don’t you?” She asked after awhile. “Living near the dragons, I mean.”

  “It has its perks,” Liam agreed.

  “But you want more from life?” She asked, trying to get him to open up to her. Cadence wasn’t sure what made her so curious about Liam. He was attractive, to be sure, and kind. She liked him instantly, and she could tell exactly why her father had hired him.

  He had a good heart.

  That was something that wasn’t easy to find in the world. Most people seemed to look out for themselves. Everyone was always in a rush and always trying to get ahead, but Liam didn’t seem to be that way.

  “I live a lonely life,” he said after a long hesitation. “And being a caretaker is often difficult. Much of my job involves the dragons, but there’s more to it than that.”

  “You have to keep the humans away.”

  “In part, but I also handle all of the shipments to the island, arrange transportation at all hours of the night, keep Emerson up to date on safety concerns, and pay close attention to the weather. It’s my job to make sure the entire island stays safe while in transit.”

  “It’s a lot of pressure,” Cadence offered.

  “Yes,” Liam said. “It is.”

  He fell silent and she tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help looking at him. His face was narrow and he had a strong jaw, but despite his handsome features, Liam looked very tired. She wondered just how lonely his job had become.

  Did he have time for love?

  Did he have time for friendship?

  Did Liam have anyone he could talk to about his experiences?

  Cadence had learned long ago that sometimes, the best thing you could do to work through a problem was to talk to someone. It didn’t have to be a very deep or in-depth talk, and it didn’t have to be scary, but talking with someone could help you come to realizations you might not have otherwise had.

  She was quiet, and she waited.

  Patience.

  She needed to show this human patience.

  She needed to show him that she was grateful for what he was doing, but that she was different from the other dragons he’d known. She wasn’t sure if they’d taken him for granted, but she certainly wouldn’t.

  How could she?

  He had saved her.

  “What are you going to ask her?” Liam said after awhile.

  “Why she gave me up,” Cadence said. “For starters.”

  “She’s a good woman,” he said again.

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t.” Cadence wanted to know what the woman had been thinking. How had she been able to give up her child? Her baby? How had she been able to give up her baby, knowing it meant her child might never know her?

  Cadence didn’t understand. She hoped talking with her birth mother would give her some answers. She wasn’t about to get any sort of closure. She knew that. Chances were that the woman wouldn’t want to talk to her. She hadn’t for all of these years, after all, yet somehow, Cadence held onto hope.

  She held onto the hope that everything was going to be okay.

  She held onto the hope that her world would be fine.

  She held onto the hope that no matter what happened, she would power through.

  Cadence was brave.

  She could do this.

  “Adoption is a tricky business,” Liam said.

  “You speak from experience?”

  “I know dragons who have adopted,” he said. “They raised a human girl on Dragon Isle.”

  “Seems a bit unusual.”

  “She’s an incredible person,” Liam said. “But life hasn’t always been easy. Sometimes, it’s normal to wonder where you came from. Discovering your roots, well, there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as you remember it doesn’t change who you are now, that’s all that matters.”

  “I guess part of me still feels betrayed. I wish my parents had actually told me they adopted me. I suppose my dad wanted to. It sounds like he wanted to, but my mother wouldn’t let him.”

  “Parents are strange,” Liam shook his head. “They always want to protect us. They always want to give us this idealistic worldview. I know they’re worried we’ll be hurt, but it seems like it would make more sense to prepare us for that, you know?”

  “Are you close with your parents?”

  “My parents are dead.”

  “Oh,” Cadence looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” Liam shook his head. “I said that more directly than I should have. Dragon thing, I suppose.”

  “You’re not a…?”

  “No, I’m not a dragon. Human through-and-through,” he laughed. “But I spend so much time around them, it’s easy to see I’ve picked up on some of their less palatable habits.”

  “Like being direct.”

  “Exactly.”

  She looked out at the water as they moved swiftly toward the island. They were getting closer, and it was becoming clearer now.

  “My parents were in a car accident, along with my little brother,” Liam said. “They all passed away.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cadence said sadly. “That must have been terrible.”

  “I was lonely, and broken after that. My sister and I were left behind, and we both dealt with it in different ways. She poured herself into her schoolwork and her job, but I didn’t really know what to do.”

  Liam gazed at Dragon Isle like it was a beacon of hope, and a small smile crossed his lips.

  “Willie helped me. He took me, a bedraggled, crazy, silly kid and showed me that I had a future.”

  “Willie was good that way,” Cadence smiled.

  “Willie was the best,” Liam agreed.

  He continued until they reached the docks at Dragon Isle, and when they stopped, he helped Cadence out of the boat. Liam nodded to a man who appeared to be guarding the docks. She wasn’t really sure.

  “Do you have to pay him to leave your boat here?” She asked, feeling stupid.

  “Not me,” Liam said. “One of the perks of the job.”

  He led her down a little road that seemed to go straight to the heart of town.

  “This is incredible,” she said, looking around. Beautiful buildings filled the little village. She saw a restaurant and a bunch of little shops. Some of them had second-floor living units and there were even some freestanding houses.

  “There’s nowhere like it in the world.”

  “All right,” Liam said, looking at the restaurant. “I don’t know about you
, but I’m starving. Why don’t we get some food, and then we’ll go find your mother?”

  5

  Liam shouldn’t have been so attracted to Cadence, but he couldn’t help himself. The dragon female was beautiful, kind, sweet, and compassionate. She was everything he wanted in a mate, and Liam realized with a frown that he wanted her.

  Needed her.

  He was a human: not a dragon. He shouldn’t feel a mating call. He shouldn’t be thinking of asking her to be his. That wasn’t how these things worked. He’d seen enough dragons fall in love to know exactly how this entire ordeal was supposed to play out.

  The dragons were the ones who felt they’d found a mate. That was their job: their thing.

  Him?

  He was human.

  He was all man.

  So why did he feel drawn to Cadence in a way he’d never felt before?

  He opened the door to Dragon’s Inn and they walked inside. Cadence smiled as she looked around, and a young woman showed them to a table.

  “This is incredible,” she said once they were seated. “And everything smells so good.”

  “My friend Victoria runs it,” he explained. “She moved here long ago after her mother passed away, and she really revived the place. She made it the incredible restaurant it is today.”

  Dragons Inn had been through some changes over the years, but Victoria had been true to her mother’s memory and had left many things the same. Namely, she had kept the décor style and the original paintings that hung on the walls. Victoria had recently remodeled the bar area, though, and some of the furniture was new.

  Liam loved this place.

  Everyone loved this place.

  “Can I start you off with something to drink?” Their server appeared and grinned as she looked from Cadence to Liam and back again. He knew exactly what the teenager was thinking. She wanted to know if Old Liam had finally found someone to marry him. He could see it in her mischievous dragon eyes.

  “Water,” he told Lucy. “Just water.”

  “Suit yourself,” Lucy rolled her eyes. “And for you?” She said sweetly to Cadence.

  “Hmm, I’m not sure,” Cadence scanned the menu quickly. “But I have a feeling I’m going to need something with alcohol.”

  “No problem,” Lucy winked. “I’ll surprise you.”

  Lucy headed off and Cadence looked back down at the menu.

  “There are too many choices,” she said.

  “There’s only one, as far as I can see,” Liam said, and when Cadence caught his gaze, he knew she’d understood what he was saying. She licked her lips, and his eyes shifted to her mouth. She had full, soft lips, and he wanted to touch them.

  He shouldn’t.

  He knew this.

  She was off limits.

  First of all, Cadence was Willie’s daughter. Oh, she could play the adoption card all she wanted, but Liam knew the old man had loved Cadence. What would he think about his little girl and Liam getting together?

  Liam hadn’t forgotten where he’d come from.

  He hadn’t forgotten his roots.

  He knew he was no good for a sweet girl like Cadence.

  He knew he was broken in so many ways.

  Before Cadence could say anything, Lucy returned with their drinks.

  “That was fast,” Cadence said.

  Lucy leaned in, like she was whispering a secret, and said, “Dragon speed.”

  Cadence’s eyes went wide. “Is that a thing?”

  Lucy burst out laughing and shook her head. “Sorry, love. I just had to. What’ll it be?”

  They both ordered and Lucy left, whistling a song as she moved through the restaurant.

  “You come here a lot,” Cadence observed.

  “Pretty regularly. I’m surprised they aren’t sick of me yet.”

  “How could anyone get sick of you?” She asked, and then Cadence blushed, as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

  Liam smiled, and his heart swelled. Cadence made him feel like he was interesting, and fun, and exciting. These were feelings he hadn’t felt for a very long time. The problem with Liam was that he was such a normal, run-of-the-mill human. His friends were all dragons, of course, which made him all the more boring.

  They could shift and fly and hunt and explore any part of Dragon Isle they wanted to.

  What could Liam do?

  Steer a boat?

  “So tell me more about realizing you were a dragon,” Liam said. He was curious about Cadence’s past. She had been gone for so long that Liam wondered how much she really knew about shifters. Had she been able to shift on her own? Had she ever gotten stuck in her dragon form? Was she scared about who she was?

  “I guess I didn’t. Not until my mom – my adoptive mom – died. When I found her journal, and I read it, everything just sort of clicked into place. I’ve always felt a little strange and out of place. This kind of explains it.”

  “I’m guessing you wondered why you had super-smell abilities,” Liam smiled, and Cadence laughed loudly.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Liam. For a little while, I thought I might be a secret superhero. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, your dad thought you were a hero.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Willie?”

  “Yeah.” She leaned forward eagerly. “I mean, I have so many great memories of him, but it’s been years since I last saw him, and now…” Her voice trailed off, and Liam knew she was internally plowing through her life’s regrets. He didn’t want her to do that. He didn’t want this sweet, precious woman to be wondering what she could have done differently.

  Thinking that way wouldn’t bring back Willie.

  It wouldn’t change the past.

  The truth was that Cadence had been dealt a crappy hand. Her mother had schemed to keep her from Willie, and it had worked. The one person who could have helped her deal with the dragon side of herself was gone, and now it was all up to Liam.

  He had mighty big shoes to fill, but he owed Willie.

  He owed him big time.

  “He was funny,” Liam says. “And kind. When I first started working with him, I didn’t know the first thing about boats.”

  “I find that so hard to imagine.”

  “It’s true. I didn’t know the difference between a rowboat and a speedboat. That’s how little I knew,” Liam laughed. “I must have made such a sight, but your dad was patient with me. He guided me, showed me everything I needed to know. First he taught me how to handle the harbor. He showed me how to track who came and who went. He helped me learn discretion when it came to the dragons, and then he taught me to sail.”

  “You like it, don’t you?”

  “I love being on the ocean. Willie loved it so much and he really passed that love on to me. There’s something to be said for feeling the wind in your face and the spray of the water on your skin.”

  “It sounds magical.”

  “It is,” Liam said, but he wasn’t talking about the water anymore. He looked at Cadence, and he wanted to reach for her hand. He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay. He wanted to promise her that no matter what happened with her mother, she would be loved, and cared for, and protected.

  He had been waiting for Cadence to return to Dragon Isle for a very long time, and she had finally come.

  6

  Cadence shouldn’t have been so attracted to the human, but she was. Liam was as sweet as honey and twice as fine. He was tall and lanky, and he had dark hair. She knew the years since her father’s death had been rough on him. It showed in his eyes.

  She wondered, for a moment, why he had stayed at his post for so long. Had he been waiting for her to return? Had he been waiting to complete this one last favor for Willie? He would likely never tell her, but Cadence had her suspicions.

  Her only regret was that she hadn’t come sooner.

  They ate together and made easy conversation. He talked about
his sister and his nieces and nephews. She told him about growing up human, but always feeling awkward. Somehow, talking came easily when she was with Liam. She was comfortable in a way that didn’t quite make sense to her.

  The words of her mother’s journal came back to her, and she wondered how much of what her mom had written was true.

  The journal had been something Cadence was never supposed to find, something she was never supposed to fully understand, but it had triggered something inside of her. She knew what she was now. She was a dragon, but more than that, she was a female dragon.

  The journal had talked about mates. From what Cadence could tell, it seemed like dragons each had one person they were supposed to end up with. That could be another human or a dragon or some other type of shifter, but it meant there was someone out there just for her.

  It was a comforting thought, one Cadence had to try hard not to dwell on. The truth was that if mates were real, she wanted Liam to be hers. She wasn’t sure if it was a myth, and she would ask her birth mother, but she had felt different ever since he’d first touched her.

  When Liam touched her, it sent shockwaves through her body. Her mind felt like it might explode and the rest of her felt like it was on fire. It was a good burn, though. It was something she enjoyed, something that made her feel incredible. It was something she wanted more of.

  Was this proof he was her mate?

  It didn’t seem like it could be that simple. Maybe the entire mates thing was a myth, anyway, and Cadence didn’t want to be weird. She didn’t want to say, “Hey, I know we only just met, but do you want to be with me forever?” Talk about a psycho girlfriend. No, she wouldn’t be that girl. She’d wait and see. She’d be patient, and she’d be cautious, and if she and Liam were supposed to be together, fate would work it all out.

  Fate always worked out, just not always in the way she wanted.

  They finished their meal and left the little restaurant. She was surprised when they didn’t charge Liam and Cadence for their meal. She pointed it out to him, but he just shrugged.