by Roxie Ray
To be safe, I pulled out my phone at a stop sign and pressed the speed dial to connect me to the police station directly. Stefan had me program it weeks ago, just in case I couldn’t reach him. I put it on speaker and set it in my console so I could continue my drive.
“Black Claw Police Department, this is Axel.”
Thank goodness it was one of the Kingstons. I wasn’t sure who all worked there, but I knew Maverick and their dad at least were apprised of my situation, so Axel probably was as well.
“Axel, this is Harley.”
He replied in a cheery tone. “Hey, Harley, what’s going on? You okay?”
“I think so, but I was hoping you could help me out. Do you know about my strange situation with the man investigating me?”
“I do.”
I turned down the road that led to my home and smiled in relief. It would’ve taken too long to explain. “I just got a strange call from my Nana’s nurse asking me to come home for a situation that’s not an emergency. On the off chance it’s something dangerous, could you be on standby to come?”
The line clicked, and Axel’s voice got louder. I must’ve been on speaker. “Carlos is on patrol, I’ll send him right over. He knows what’s going on as well.”
“Thanks, Axel. I’m probably being overly paranoid, but I don’t want to call Stefan. He’s at work and if he bails on Todd again, I’m afraid he’ll get fired.”
“I’ll update him. You just drive safe and call me when you know you’re not in any danger and your grandmother is okay.”
I thanked him and hung up, already minutes from pulling into my driveway. I didn’t know where in town Carlos was patrolling, but I couldn’t wait for him to get here.
When I pulled up, a strange car was parked beside Claire’s in the driveway. That didn’t mean anything dangerous, though, just that someone was over. It could have been a myriad of things.
I parked along the curb and hurried inside, unable to be patient to make sure Nana was okay.
When I opened the door, Claire and a strange woman looked at me from the living room sofa.
Nana sat in her recliner with a blanket over her lap, but she looked worried and sad. “Come in, dear. Sit down.”
Instead of sitting, I made a beeline for her. “Are you okay?”
She took my hand and patted the top. “Yes, didn’t Claire tell you I was fine?”
“She did, but I worried anyway.”
Turning to the stranger, I held out my hand. “Hello, I’m Harley.” My breath caught in my throat and I lowered my hand as soon as I took a good look at her. “Who the hell are you?” I asked.
Rudeness usually wasn’t in my normal routine, but this woman... she made me feel lightheaded.
Because she looked just like me.
Red hair, a thin nose, and her bottom lip was too big for her top lip. It had driven me nuts, feeling like one of my lips was plump and the other thin. She even had the same eyebrow shape, though her eyes were green and mine were sometimes blue, sometimes gray. She didn’t speak as she stared at me, giving me the same assessment.
Nana made a strange sound, pulling my attention back to her. I looked to see tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks. “Why are you crying?” I asked.
It was clear that the woman was a relative, on my father’s side if I was a betting person. My nana said my mother’s entire side of the family didn’t have a redhead to speak of. But my grandfather, Peter, he had red hair as well, so we knew my coloring had come from his side.
“My name is Abby,” the woman said at a near-whisper. “I’m your sister.”
Nervous laughter was the only response I could muster. “How?” I finally choked out. Stepping back, I sat on the arm of Nana’s recliner, rather than move to sit on the sofa with Claire and my doppelgänger.
She looked from me to Nana, then glanced at Claire. “We should be alone for this story,” she said.
Claire jumped up. “That’s fine. I can use this time to change Miss Juanita’s bed and do some cleaning.” She left the room and soon I heard the click of Nana’s bedroom door closing.
“Spill,” I demanded.
“Our father’s name is Richard Addison,” she said. “I have his picture here.”
She pulled a phone out of her pocket and held it out. I took it and looked at the picture. The man with his arm around Abby—who looked so like me that it was creepy—had a neat auburn beard and short dark brown hair. He looked my age, though. Maybe I had a brother.
Nana took the phone and peered through her glasses at it. “That’s him.” She shook her head. “He hasn’t aged a day,” she whispered. “He looks just like he did as a young man.”
As I handed the phone back to Abby, Nana broke down and covered her face, sobbing. I jumped up and turned to her, dropping to my knees beside her recliner. “What is it, Nana?”
She looked at me with watery eyes. “Oh, sweet girl. I haven’t been honest with you all these years.”
Alarm bells sounded in my head, and I rocked back. “What do you mean?”
She couldn’t answer, because a knock at the door interrupted her. I’d forgotten about Carlos. Hurrying to the door, I answered and smiled. He looked concerned and had one hand on his gun with the holster unbuttoned.
“It’s okay, it was a visit from a distant relative and the message was misconstrued.” I opened the door wider so he could get a good look inside.
He saw a redhead and my Nana and nodded. “Okay, good. Better safe than sorry. I’ll call and update Axel and Stefan.”
“Thanks, Carlos.”
He tipped his hat to me and walked toward his cruiser. I shut the door and moved back to the living room, this time sitting on the coffee table. I didn’t want to be too close to either Abby—my new mysterious sister—or Nana, who was about to admit a lie.
Nana looked at me with the most pitiful expression on her face as I waited for her to continue what she’d started. “Well?” I asked. “Who was that man? He was too young to be in a picture with this person...” I pointed at Abby. “And be my father.”
“That is our father,” Abby said. “I promise.”
“Why are you here?” I demanded. Nana had something big to tell me, but first I needed to get this person out of our house.
“Our father contacted me several years ago. He’s been trying to get in touch with you, as well, but said all his attempts had been denied.”
“All his attempts?” I asked and looked at Nana.
She just stared at me with pitiful eyes. He was her son, but she’d always told me he hadn’t tried to contact her.
Abby continued. “Yes, that’s why he sent Tyler. To see if he could learn more about you and find a way to convince you to let him in.”
Now I knew for sure who’d hired Tyler. “Why didn’t he just come himself?” I asked. “If he was so desperate to meet me, he knew where to find me. This is the same house he grew up in.” If I was so important to him, he could’ve tried harder.
Abby sighed. “He’s not allowed to set foot into Black Claw without permission.”
Well, that cleared things up, not at all. “What are you talking about?” Here I had a sister, there was no denying that, and she’d known about me for years, yet where had she been? “And why didn’t you come?”
“She doesn’t know,” Nana said. I looked at her and realized she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to Abby. “Harley doesn’t know anything about Richard.”
“And you do?” I asked incredulously. “I asked you for years about any information you had about him.”
Nana hung her head. “I’m so sorry. The safest thing for you was to keep you in the dark. I tried to deny Richard and did for the last several years, but I’m not long for this world. When he called this time, I wanted to give you an option to meet him. I knew that if he contacted you after I died... Well, I sure couldn’t stop it then, could I?”
Gaping at her, I tried to reel in my shock. She’d been keeping me from meeting my fathe
r for years, telling me she hadn’t had any contact with him. “Years?” I asked. “How many years?”
“A decade, that I know of,” Abby said. “Probably longer.”
“Much longer,” Nana whispered.
“When you were born, your father got into some trouble here. He was banished from the town—”
I cut her off. “Banished? Who even talks like that? You can’t be banished from an entire town.”
Abby just shrugged when I looked to her for any answers. “I’ll let her tell it.”
“Let me finish,” Nana said.
My jaw dropped, but I clamped it shut and nodded.
“He was banished from Black Claw. He’s not allowed to set foot in the town or county. He left to find work and a place to live a few towns over but never came back. We didn’t know why or how until a few years later. He was in a fight and hurt the other man badly. Eventually, the victim died of his injuries. Your father ended up in jail and back then, we didn’t have cell phones or even pagers. He’d tried to call us a few times but later I figured he probably called when your mother and I were both at work or out for some reason or another. Eventually, we got a letter from him, but by then, your mother had left and met Frank. She wasn’t interested in news of Richard. He’d broken her heart pretty significantly and left right after he did.”
“So, how old was I then?” I asked.
“Six, I think,” Nana said. “He called me as soon as he was out of prison. I told him I didn’t think it would be a good idea then for you to meet him. He couldn’t come here, anyway, and he was in no position to raise a daughter.”
My heart broke. “But he wanted me? Wanted to know me?”
She nodded. “You don’t understand, Harley, and I don’t even think you’ll believe me.”
What wasn’t to believe? “I understand. You thought you were doing best, but you kept me from my father. I didn’t have to live with him. Knowing him would’ve helped me feel worthy like he hadn’t rejected me and didn’t want to know me.”
More tears slipped from her eyes. “Harley… your father is a dragon.”
“I get it. He’s bad. He beat someone who ended up dying. But, hell, I could’ve talked to him on the phone, even if you were worried about me being around him.”
Abby leaned forward and put her hand on my knee. “She means it literally.”
A dragon. “I don’t understand.”
Nana sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t. Usually, it takes someone showing you for it to be believable.”
Abby nodded and laughed. “Yep. I had to be shown. But he can’t come here to show her.”
Nana rolled her eyes. “Oh, there are plenty around who can.”
“Take a damn step back and explain this thoroughly, because right now I want to take you both to the nuthouse!” I shouted at both of them, but what else was I to do when they were talking about seeing dragons?
“Okay. The world is full of creatures and sights and wonders that most people will never see. If they do see, they’ll believe they didn’t. And those that believe what they saw won’t understand. But for a select few, there is more to know. More to life. Shifters, you’d think of them as were, as in werewolves, do exist. Magic exists.” Nana had never seemed more serious or earnest in her life.
“Right, sure. And my father can shapeshift into a dragon?”
Nana nodded, as did Abby. “So could your grandfather,” Nana said. “As would you have been able to, had you been male.”
She was talking about her husband, my grandfather. “Your husband? Papa? He was also a dragon?”
She nodded again. A dragon, geez.
“That makes you one, too?” I asked.
“No. There is no science to explain it, not as far as I know, but the female offspring of dragons are mainly human. They have a few added features, so to speak, but still, humans. My father was also a dragon,” she whispered. “That’s how I knew about them, how I met Peter. I promised myself after Peter died, and then your father left, that I’d raise you as human and do everything I could to keep you from this mess.”
“Papa died before I was born,” I said. “In a mining accident.”
“That’s true. He was a miner. Back then it was one of the best jobs in the area. Harley, dragons live a very long time. Your grandfather, my Peter, he and I were married through an arrangement from our parents. We were not blessed with children, not for a very long time. I never found out why, but eventually, we had our son. By that time, Peter was well over a hundred years old, and I was nearing eighty.”
My eyebrows flew up. “You’re nearing eighty now,” I said. The insane information being thrown at me grated at my nerves. “Will you clear this up, please. None of it makes sense.”
“Harley, I am 125 years old,” she said. “And the only reason I’ve aged normally is because my Peter died. Otherwise, I’d look as young as I did the day your father was born, which was maybe forties, at the most.”
My jaw dropped. Before I could tell her I didn’t understand again, Abby jumped in. “Dragons claim their mates, and it gives the woman an extended life to match the dragon’s. Plus, as the daughter of a dragon, she would’ve had a longer life anyway, but nothing any other human might have raised eyebrows at. A hundred, maybe a few years more.”
Females couldn’t be dragons, but they’d live longer with a dragon parent. If a female mated a dragon, and he claimed her, she’d live as long as he did. That made perfect sense. Not. “How long can dragons live?”
Abby smiled. “Hundreds of years, if they don’t die from injury. Most diseases are burned off by their higher body temperatures.”
Higher body temperatures. Of all the… “What, because of the fire?” I chuckled and dropped my face in my hands.
“Yes,” Nana and Abby said at the same time.
“I didn’t know when I took you to raise that I would age this quickly. It started slow, and as I raised your father after your grandfather died, I didn’t age enough to make it concerning, but the more time went by, the faster it went. If I’d known, I would’ve told you about this sooner, because it’s clear to me now it was a futile effort.”
Keeping all they had told me straight wasn’t easy. “You said there are more shifters in this town?”
“Your father was banished from the town by James Kingston. His son Maverick is the alpha now, I’m pretty sure. I don’t know about dragon politics, and once Peter died and your father left, I asked James not to include me in dragon affairs. I wanted to be treated as a human. He respected my wishes.”
The Kingstons. My stomach dropped and heart reeled. My friends. How was this possible?
Ava and Charlotte. They had to know, then. “Who knows? Who all knows these creatures exist?”
“Only dragons, their mates, and offspring.”
“Do they always tell their mates?” I asked. If Ava and Charlotte knew without giving me any warning, I was going to be pissed.
Abby and Nana nodded. So, Ava and Charlotte did know, for sure, and they’d hid it from me. Maverick, James... that meant Jury, Maddox, and Axel.
What about Stefan? He spent enough time with the Kingstons to be family. Was he another being duped like me, or was he the one fooling me?
I was glad I was already sitting down. The room felt like it was swaying. “Is there any way Stefan knows about this?” I asked.
Nana sighed, but I kept my eyes shut. I couldn’t stand to look at her.
“He might,” she said. “Claire tells me he’s close to the Kingstons. I couldn’t tell when I met him if he was a dragon or not, but if he is, it seems likely he knows.”
After all this, he could’ve just been interested in me because he knew I was descended from dragons.
I burst out laughing. I was believing all this lock, stock, and barrel. I’d taken their word for it without a shred of proof. “I’m the most gullible person in the world.” I stood and shook my head at both of them. “I believe that you both believe this insane story. But I’m not
going to take the word of a senile old lady and a stranger.”
Nana’s brows furrowed. “I’m not senile, and I won’t have you be disrespectful. I made the decision that I thought would be best for you to give you the most out of life. It was the wrong one, but I made it out of a place of love and good intention. That has to be good for something.”
“Why’d he get kicked out, then? My father?”
Abby cleared her throat. “He got mixed up with some dragons that had moved here thinking the area would be good pickings.”
Nana looked confused. “I thought he challenged the alpha?”
Alpha. They had alphas.
“He did,” Abby said. “But only after he let the rogues convince him it would be a great idea. That’s who he killed. Their leader. After Dad challenged the leader here and was defeated, he banished him. They all had to leave, and the rogue leader was giving Dad a hard time. It got heated, they fought. Dad won, but the guy died, and the human police got involved.”
I nodded along, but the story barely registered.
“Okay,” I whispered. The walls of the room felt like they were closing in on me, getting closer and closer. I’d never felt claustrophobic before, but I didn’t know any other way to describe it. I had to get out of there. “I’ll be back.” I stood and stumbled from the room, grabbing my keys from the table where I’d put them without thought when I came in. It was the same place I’d laid them since I started letting myself in the house as a preteen with my very own key.
Before I backed out of the driveway, I pulled out my phone. I had a few missed texts from Stefan and Laura, but I ignored them and dialed Stefan’s number, praying he’d answer as I headed for his apartment. I needed answers and proof, and I knew deep down in my gut he could give them to me.
16
Stefan
As soon as Axel called to tell me Harley was having some sort of problem at her house, I took off. Halfway there, I got a call from Carlos. “Hey, I think it’s a cousin of hers that came over and the info got twisted when she was called. She seemed upset, but nothing to worry over. I would imagine it’s unrelated to the stalker.”
