Her Dragon Daddy

3

2

Maverick

The itching under my skin intensified as I turned onto the road toward my family home. I hadn’t felt so restless since my teenage years. I enjoyed my job as a sheriff’s deputy in Black Claw on most days. When we’d moved back to town, the department had been small and sad, and the crime in the town had risen enough to be concerning. With my family’s return, the citizens had voted my father in as sheriff by a landslide.

Being a deputy on his force had given me a sense of responsibility and purpose for a life that had felt restless since I was eighteen years old.

Today, all that went out the window. I felt like a teenager, wild and unsettled.

As I passed the road that led to the cabin I always glanced at, I saw lights through the trees.

“What the hell?” I whispered. The driveway was too long to see who was there, but I couldn’t resist pulling in. As soon as the woods parted enough for me to see through the trees, I shut off my headlights and peered at the cabin.

A big box truck sat out front, illuminated by the big floodlights. I’d installed those for the previous owner, many years ago.

Now they were being used to help a new family move in. I’d assumed the property had been sold years ago, but it had stood empty. My hands had turned my cruiser up the driveway many times over the last four years since we moved back. I told myself it was solely to make sure the property wasn’t being vandalized and to make sure no squatters had taken over the home.

In reality, I stopped to let the memories flood in, to remind me of the only person I’d ever loved.

If a new family had moved in, I wouldn’t be able to do that any longer—it would be an invasion of privacy. Plus, the house would change. New lawn decor. New curtains. Nothing would be like it was when she was here.

Damn it.

I let my dragon take slight control, enough to use the advanced hearing. Filtering out the sounds of the forest—a feat that had taken me years to accomplish, selective hearing—I focused on the home.

A small child, a girl, asked for Chinese food. A male voice, deep, but somehow immature sounding, interrupted her and said there was still pizza in the kitchen. I didn’t recognize either of them.

Two other masculine voices overlapped, talking about the boxes in the truck.

“You can put them in the kitchen, please.”

My breath caught in my throat like a rock. It couldn’t be. I was certain she’d sold the house. My dragon growled.

“Oh, sorry, I thought that was a kitchen box. Can you put that one in the downstairs bathroom?” Her laugh tinkled through my eardrums like butterflies had miniscule jackhammers. Soft and sweet, but also jarring, knocking my breath from me. Pull in. Go there. Now!

I grunted, barely able to process the sound of her voice. My dragon insisted I go to her immediately, but I had to think more rationally. I shushed him and listened closer.

“Mom!” the deep but immature voice yelled. So, she had a son. An older teen by the sound of it. Had she met someone immediately after I left? We’d been separated almost eighteen years. “Hailey is going to starve to death, I guess.”

“There’s pizza in the kitchen.”

Her voice. Holy s**t. We must go to her. She belongs to us.

I threw the car in reverse and turned in my seat to back away down the rutted driveway before my dragon’s urges overcame my good sense.

Rocks flew everywhere, dinging off the underside of the cruiser as I roared onto the main road, slammed on the brakes, and threw it into drive. I had to get home and control my shift. If I turned into my dragon, he’d go find her right away. That would be the worst idea. He’d scare the s**t out of her.

After driving around the house, I slammed on my brakes and left my car by the back door. I needed to be around my family, especially my dad and brothers. Their dragons would have a calming effect on mine. Once he was calm, I’d try to reason with him.

My mom jumped as I burst through the back door.

“Maver—”

“Did you know?”

She froze mid-stir as steam floated up from the pot on the stovetop. “Know what?”

“That Ava is back?”

Her jaw dropped and eyes widened. “What?” My mom knew what Ava meant to me. She knew what it did to me to leave her and then how hard it was to force myself not to find her. It was torture and something I’d never recovered from. “No,” she whispered.

“Yes. She’s there, right now. In the cabin, with what sounded like a teenage son and a young daughter.”

She shook her head in amazement and went back to stirring our dinner. “And a husband?”

“I don’t know. I heard men, but I think they were the people unloading their moving truck.”

My father walked into the room. His dragon, though he was beta to my own, made mine feel like a blanket of comfort had been draped over him. Dragons thrived in nests, and a lone dragon was prone to fits of rage and eventual insanity as it gave itself over to wildness.

Our family kept us sane. Whole.

“Dad—”

“I heard.” He walked over and put his arms around me. The touch and contact soothed me. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

When he released me, I looked at Mom as she wiped tears from her eyes. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I heard her voice. I’m positive it’s her.”

She straightened her apron and patted her hair. “Then we’ll figure it out. You’re not sure if she has a mate with her?”

“The only voices I heard belonged to someone who called her mom, and two men who asked where to put boxes. I think they were with the moving company. She didn’t speak to them in a familiar way.”

My older brother, Axel, walked in. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a husband.” He must’ve heard our conversation. That was a common thing in this house. “Just that he didn’t speak while you were listening.”

I nodded. “I know.” The thought of Ava with another man made my dragon want to rage, but having my brother there helped more than just dad. “What else should I expect? I abandoned her eighteen years ago.”

“I tried to find her,” Mom whispered.

“What?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “When?”

“When we moved back.” She sighed and turned off the stove. “This is ready when you guys are hungry.” She moved to sit at the table, and I followed.

She took my hand and continued her explanation. “I fought the idea of contacting her from the moment you took control again. Once you were back to yourself, fully, I argued with myself day and night. Then, you seemed to do okay.”

I hadn’t done okay, not at all, but I’d hidden it well.

“After a few years, when you showed no interest in finding a mate, the idea kept popping into my head, but I put it off. Then, when we moved back and I saw the house was empty, I had to try.”

“What did you do?” My dad set a bowl of meaty stew in front of me. I ignored it, my stomach in knots.

“I pretended to be interested in buying the cabin. I contacted the county registrar, the tax office, anyone I could think of. I did internet searches of her name. Heck, I even uploaded an old picture and tried to do a reverse image search.”

My eyebrows flew up. She paused and took a bite of the stew my father had dished out and put in front of her. “Needs pepper,” she murmured.

Axel jumped up to get it for her. Mom took care of us, good care of us, but we also tried to return the favor at any opportunity. It was the only way to treat the person who gave us life and sustenance.

“Mom,” I urged.

“Sorry, right. I couldn’t find anything. Nothing. It’s like she never existed.”

I blew through my nose, and a teeny bit of smoke came out. s**t.

Axel and Dad noticed and stood, walking around the table to put their hands on my back.

The touch helped. “Thanks,” I said. “I need this.”

“If you need a hug, just stand up.”

When I’d been ready for my first change, in the days before, the agitation and anger was so bad they had to sleep in bed with me. It was weird at first, but it was a familial love and comfort. The awkwardness passed quickly.

I breathed deep and the itchiness under my skin faded but didn’t disappear. “I think I’m okay.”

Mom squeezed my hand. “If I’d known she was moving back, I would’ve told you. I only found out today that someone was moving in the cabin, but I assumed she finally sold the place.”

I nodded. “Me too. I saw the cleaning service there last week, but never in a million years imagined she’d come back after this long.”

“We all felt the pain of losing Ava,” Axel said. “She was like the sister we never had. I know Jury would’ve felt the same way.”

Our younger brother had been an infant when we left. He was eighteen now and had just gone through his shift. As a beta, his first shift hadn’t been as bad as my own.

My mother chuckled. “It was like I’d lost a daughter.”

Dad squeezed my shoulder in agreement. “Yep.”

“So, now what?” I asked. “What do I do?” I knew I sounded like a whining child but fighting my dragon’s urge was taking all of my willpower.

“I don’t know,” Mom whispered. “I could go down? Take a pie?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“If she’s moved on, you’ll have to respect that.” Mom looked worried at the prospect.

“I will. But it won’t be easy.”

Go to her now.

I ignored my dragon instead of engaging him. Sometimes that was the best tactic, blocking him out.

Axel let go of my shoulder and returned to his food. Dad stayed in place.

“Brother, give it a week. Keep your distance. Let them settle in, then you can go by and see how she is.”

No.

“Plus,” Axel continued. “That’ll give your dragon some time to calm down and come to terms with it. I can sense his agitation.”

He roared in my head and I winced. “Stop it,” I chided him out loud.

He grumbled but settled.

“Okay,” I said. “But I’m going to need your help.”

“Eat,” Mom commanded. “Then we can watch a movie.”