The Red Dragon's Baby (Shifter Dads #1) Read online

  Noah noticed Katie’s keys sitting on an end table and strained upwards with both hands.

  “No driving yet, either,” Katie said, and handed him a plastic ball with little shapes inside that moved when you turned it. He was immediately absorbed.

  “Mommy thinks she’s got a job writing for websites,” Katie said. This was an idea that had been growing in her mind since she’d made the decision to leave. If she could find some kind of online work, something she could do around taking care of Noah, she’d be able to support herself without needing Victor’s family money.

  She’d contacted an old friend who’d gone into web copywriting to finance her college studies. Tori lived halfway across the world now, doing something high-powered, but she’d taken time to put Katie in touch with someone who wanted ad copy for his vacation spots. The moment Katie had gotten the okay from him, she’d started packing.

  She hadn’t been able to stay in Victor’s family’s house another second. His mother and sister were always there, lounging around and making catty comments about Katie’s parenting and how noisy the baby was. It had been stressful enough that Katie had caught herself snapping at Noah once when he was whining. That was when she knew it was time to get out.

  But she’d also known that Victor wouldn’t let her go easily. They might not have had a single ounce of romantic feelings for each other, but Victor wanted to keep what was his.

  And Victor had more than just the regular, human ways of doing that.

  “Ah!” said Noah, throwing the ball. Katie shook herself out of her memories, and grabbed it and handed it back to him.

  “Okay. Time to send an email and see about getting an assignment. Good thing I didn’t forget my laptop, huh, kiddo?” Packing had been an extremely hurried affair, hidden from Victor and his family. But Katie didn’t regret anything she’d left behind, not even the little keepsakes. Noah was more important than anything.

  “Isn’t that right?” she asked her son.

  “Ah!” Noah threw the ball again, then didn’t want it back. He twisted around, looking for something more entertaining.

  “How about we go for a walk?” Katie asked him. “Let Mommy send this email, and then we can go explore the area.”

  It was still light out, after all, and it was a nice, warm fall day. Rita had said that the woods were completely safe. And she’d stay close to the cabin, on a clear trail, just in case.

  She wanted to remind herself that she really had gotten away. That she was out here in the clear, beautiful forest, not trapped in a city where Victor’s family was the biggest game in town.

  The forest did make her wonder if there were other...magical people around here. It had always seemed odd to her that Victor’s whole family could change into animals, but they chose to live in a city, rather than out in the wilderness where they could shapeshift and run around. But she’d never been sure how much she was allowed to ask.

  Finding out that magical shapeshifters existed had been enough of a shock. And Victor had made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to deal with a million questions.

  Maybe they could find some other shapeshifters someday. Nicer ones. People who could help Noah out if he grew up to be one, too.

  Noah got more and more restless as Katie typed out her quick email asking about the promised writing job. By the time she hit Send, Noah was trying to hijack her phone and getting very cranky about being denied.

  “Okay, time for a walk!” Katie said brightly. Noah’s face lit up, even though he probably couldn’t understand what Katie meant.

  Having a baby was like seeing the world through new eyes every day.

  Okay, and also like learning what the words “sleep debt” really meant. But mostly, it was amazing.

  Even if there were some particular things about this situation that were tough.

  “That doesn’t matter, though, does it, baby?” she asked Noah as she strapped him into the front-pack, so he could ride on Katie’s chest and look around at the forest. “We’re going to be great. Just the two of us.”

  Boy, she thought, it was good that Noah was a baby. Otherwise, he might’ve heard the slight hint of desperation there.

  Because no matter how firmly she kept saying it would be fine, there had been a constant creeping doubt, ever since she walked out of Victor’s door and left it all behind.

  Had she made the wrong decision? Had she given up a roof over their heads and food on their table for a wild scheme that could leave them broke and helpless?

  “You’ll be fine,” she whispered into Noah’s hair as she closed the door to the cabin behind them. The surge of love in her as she inhaled Noah’s clean baby scent was overwhelming. Love, and protectiveness, and worry. Always worry.

  A nature walk would distract her until bedtime, and hopefully by then, she’d have some news.

  As they set out, Katie was immediately struck by how beautiful the forest was. She’d been too distracted by looking for a place to stay, and then getting settled, to really notice it before.

  But the trees made a soft canopy of green above them, just starting to turn colors here and there for fall. Some of the trees were huge, stretching up so far she had to crane her neck to try and glimpse the tops of them. The forest floor was softly coated in pine needles, with bushes and the occasional huge stump or log.

  There was a trail leading out from her cabin, and she stuck to it, as much as part of her longed to strike out into the woods, tramp through the underbrush and explore.

  “Not with you here, baby,” she said to Noah. “Maybe when you’re older we can go camping together, huh? Mommy never got to do that when she was a kid. Grandma and Grandpa were too busy running their business to go on trips.”

  They’d always said they’d travel the world when they retired. Katie swallowed around a sudden lump in her throat, and set off determinedly forward. This was supposed to be a nice nature walk, not a depressing trip down memory lane.

  Noah, at least, did actually seem to enjoy the woods. He was staring around, wide-eyed, watching the leaves rustle and the squirrels run around.

  Noah had never been in a forest before at all, Katie realized. He’d spent most of his little life indoors. They hadn’t even really been able to go to parks or anything. Had her baby ever felt grass? Maybe not. Katie resolved to find a park as soon as possible and set Noah down to crawl through the grass.

  There were so many firsts waiting for them. Sure, it might be a little lonely, but they could keep each other company. All Katie had to do was make just enough money to keep them fed and housed. They didn’t need to be rich. They just needed to be safe.

  For now, they seemed to be making an okay start. A beautiful cabin, a lovely woodland to walk through, maybe even a new friend in Rita. Maybe it would work out.

  As she walked, enjoying the way the late-afternoon sun slanted through the trees, she started hearing a noise. A sharp, rhythmic thunk sound, repeated over and over.

  Was someone else around? Or was it some kind of animal? Curious, she kept going, and the sound got louder.

  The trail curved upwards as she walked, with roots occasionally sticking out through the dirt. Katie used them as makeshift stairs, enjoying the feeling of exercising her body after months of staying inside with Noah.

  She crested the little hill and looked down on a sudden clearing. Square in the middle of it was a little cabin like the one she was staying in, and just outside of the cabin was...a man.

  A shirtless man.

  A shirtless man dressed in cutoff jean shorts that strained around his powerful thighs. He was holding an ax. A real, actual ax. As Katie watched, he raised it over his head and brought it down hard on a chunk of wood resting on an enormous tree stump. The thunk was the noise she’d been hearing, and the result of the thunk was that the chunk of wood split cleanly in two.

  He’d clearly been at it for a while, Katie thought dazedly. Sweat was glistening on his chest, despite the relatively cool fall air. He must have had to strip off his shirt because he got too hot—

  Noah made a loud noise, waving his arms, and the man looked up sharply. “Who’s there?”

  Katie squeaked, moving backwards automatically.

  Her foot caught on a root as she retreated without looking, though, and she tripped.

  She had a moment where she could see exactly what was going to happen. She was falling backwards, her arms starting to windmill, her stomach dropping as she went into free-fall. She was top-heavy with the baby on her chest, and there was no way to save herself. She was going to fall all the way back down the hill, and Noah—

  Noah was coming with her, and Katie couldn’t get the baby backpack off fast enough to get him to safety somehow—she was going to have to curl around Noah and keep him safe, oh God what if he hit his little head—

  Strong arms caught her, and she jerked to an abrupt halt.

  “Are you okay?”

  Katie was hyperventilating, she realized. Panicking at the thought of falling with her son strapped to her. “I—I—”

  “All right. Breathe. Slowly. In...out.”

  His voice was deep and steady, and it was impossible not to listen to it. Katie breathed. In. Out. Slowly, her heartbeat steadied, her vision cleared, and she was able to look up at the man who’d saved her from the fall.

  He was big, even bigger up close than he’d looked far away. How had he gotten over here so fast? And how did anyone have eyes that color? They were a light brown that looked almost...reddish-gold, a kind of hazel she’d never seen before in nature.

  And they were staring down at her with an intensity that was unnerving her. She jerked her own gaze away to take in the rest of him.

  His hair was black and wild, and there was a lot of it: on his head, on hi
s chest, on his arms and—oh, wow—his big, muscular legs. The cutoff shorts meant that there was a lot to take in.

  “Um,” Katie managed.

  As if he’d been waiting for her to make a noise, he released her immediately. “Are you okay?” he repeated.

  “Um,” was all she could seem to say. Get it together! she thought at herself furiously. She was supposed to be on a daring adventure, using her wits to keep herself and her kid safe from harm, and instead she was tripping over roots, getting rescued by strangers, and losing the ability to speak altogether.

  “Yes,” she finally got out. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you. That could have been—thank you very much.”

  He didn’t seem interested in hearing thanks; he was looking out over her shoulder, scanning the woods around them. “Are you out here alone? You and your baby? Do you need help?”

  Katie shook her head immediately. “No, we’re—we’re fine, we’re just staying in one of Rita’s cabins. We’re on—vacation.”

  God, that was the least convincing lie she’d ever told, and she’d always been a terrible liar. From the look he was giving her, he knew it.

  “Vacation,” he repeated.

  Katie lifted her chin. “Yes.”

  Noah chose that moment to make his presence known. “Ah!”

  His eyes flicked down to the baby. Was it Katie’s imagination, or did those strange eyes soften?

  “Hi,” he said to Noah in a deep rumble.

  “Ah,” Noah repeated, clearly satisfied to have the man’s attention. He batted his arms, but their rescuer had stepped back and was too far away to make contact.

  He glanced up at Katie, then back down at the baby. “You seem okay,” he told Noah.

  “He is. We’re fine.”

  “You’re not in trouble?” His brows had drawn together, and he was looking at her like he could see right through her.

  “No, no—we’re just fine,” she stammered.

  Katie hadn’t thought hard enough about what to tell people who asked what she was doing, a single mother traveling alone. She couldn’t maintain a lie about a vacation or visiting family, not if she started looking for a place to settle down.

  Except now she’d committed to vacation with this man, even if he clearly didn’t believe her. Well, she probably wasn’t going to find a perfect place to live in the first town she stopped at, even if at least one of the residents was really nice.

  And one was a superman who could race across several yards of forest in a nanosecond to keep clumsy people from falling over their own feet.

  That was a weird thought. What if...?

  No, she wasn’t going to go there. She’d been disoriented. He’d probably moved just as fast as a normal person would, and it had seemed like an instant because she’d been panicking so hard.

  She couldn’t have found another magical shapeshifter this quickly. That would be ridiculous. She’d spent so much time with Victor’s family that she was making assumptions.

  “Well,” he was saying, his brow still furrowed in a way that made him look dark and foreboding, “if that changes. If your...vacation isn’t going well. I live right over there. Rita knows me. I help her out sometimes.”

  Katie had the weirdest vision: she imagined grabbing onto his hand and running forward to the snug little cabin with its pile of firewood, shutting the door, and settling herself and Noah right there. Not running any further, not scrambling around for any kind of tiny income, just...deciding that her home was here.

  She shook herself out of it fast. “Thank you,” she said, mustering up as much dignity as she could, “but we’ll be just fine. Let’s go, Noah.” She smiled at the man, meaning it to be polite, but got caught once again in those eyes, strangely warm in his chiseled, forbidding face.

  She tore herself away and turned back to make her way—carefully—back down the hill, on the trail back to her cabin. When she glanced back over her shoulder, unable to help herself, he was gone.

  Chapter 4: Ronan

  Ronan was kicking himself.

  He’d gotten so caught up in the rhythm of chopping wood—one of his favorite chores, because it let him completely lose himself in the repetitive physical activity, and there was a satisfying pile of evidence of his hard work when he was done—that he hadn’t heard the woman and the baby approaching.

  Dragon ears were sharp, but not sharper than his ability to pay attention.

  So he’d been caught off-guard, and had ended up startling her instead of saying something welcoming, something that Rita or Luis might say. And so she’d almost taken a bad fall. And then he’d somehow made her uncomfortable enough to lie to him.

  She sure wasn’t on vacation. Or if she was, it wasn’t going very well. Anxiety and stress were obvious in her voice, her scent, her posture, every part of her. When he’d first seen her, she’d looked like a frozen deer. She’d stared at him like he might attack at any moment.

  He’d wanted to reassure her that she didn’t need to be afraid. Offer to help her, maybe put her in touch with people who could really help. Sheriff Cohen, if that was the sort of thing she needed.

  He really hoped that beautiful woman and her little baby weren’t in the kind of trouble that needed a sheriff.

  She’d looked too cute to be caught up in anything dangerous. A little button nose, wide blue eyes, reddish-blonde hair cut short, just curling around her ears. Freckles.

  And the baby, with little wisps of hair the same color as his mom’s, blinking up at him with that thoughtful baby expression.

  It felt like the baby had looked right through him, if he was honest. Which was ridiculous, but there it went.

  Ronan had never spent much time around babies. He didn’t know how old that one was, but definitely young enough that the dad couldn’t be too far out of the picture, could he? Ronan hadn’t scented a man anywhere near.

  He hoped someone was taking care of them, though.

  ***

  Ronan finished up the wood, cleaned himself up, made dinner and ate it...and couldn’t stop thinking about that woman and her baby.

  Were they okay? What were they doing out here in the middle of nowhere?

  He tried to just sit down with a book by the fire and forget about it, but he couldn’t focus on the words. After getting through about three pages in half an hour, he gave up and went outside.

  The woods were dim, the fall air cool on his body. He crouched, concentrated and shifted.

  His dragon form took shape around him: wings, claws, scales, all a metallic red color that was exactly wrong for camouflage in this cool green forest. Ronan usually only shifted at night, to keep anyone from wondering why a giant fire-engine-red creature was flying around the forest. Even way out here, in a town where everyone knew the secret, it wouldn’t do for tourists or passers-by to see him, maybe take pictures with their phones.

  He was more comfortable under the cover of night, anyway.

  The flight to Rita’s was pretty short. He kept under the tree canopy, which made it challenging; his dragon form was big enough that he had to really watch out for the tree trunks. He let himself have the private moment of exhilaration, alone in his own head, dodging through the branches like it was a game.

  Soon enough, though, Rita and Luis’s place took shape on the ground underneath him. He checked to make sure no visitors were in the parking lot, and landed behind the building, shifting back to human and striding up to the door.

  He knocked, and just a minute later the door opened, Rita’s face appearing in a warm spill of light. Her concerned expression changed to a welcoming smile when she saw him.

  “Ronan, what a nice surprise! Come in, come in. I thought you might be our guest.”

  Ronan stepped into the house, but shook his head when she offered him a seat. If he sat down, she’d be bringing him a sandwich and a plate of cookies and a mug of tea, and it’d be two hours before he managed to extract himself. Sitting down in Rita’s house made it too easy to forget that he was trying not to make connections around here.

  “Your guest—she’s a woman with a baby? Little, red hair?”

  “That’s her,” Rita confirmed. “You saw her? Do you know her at all?”

  Ronan shook his head. “No, she just happened on my place when she was out for a walk with her baby. I wanted—do you know if she’s all right? She seemed scared. She said she was on vacation, but...”