Chapter 2
Jace
It was hard to believe how cute these babies were. I’d never thought babies were cute, especially little wrinkled newborns. But since Anthony had proclaimed me Uncle Jace, nothing had been the same since.
Holding them was another story. I was terrified I was going to squish, drop, or otherwise do something to damage something so tiny and fragile.
“You look like you’re going to shit yourself.” Anthony chuckled and adjusted the baby in my arms. He was wrapped in blue, so I gathered it was little Sean I held.
“Listen, I’m great with kids. But they’re usually potty trained before I’m around them very much.”
The little bundle of terrifying joy squirmed suddenly in my arms and his eyes opened. “Uh, Skye?” I looked around for Sean’s mama. “It’s awake.”
Skye burst out laughing as she came over. “I would torture you and make you hold him longer, but it’s time for him to eat, and he’s probably a soggy mess. Want to change him?”
I grimaced as she took Sean out of my arms. “Nope, I’m good. I appreciate the offer, but no thanks.”
I watched her walk away and take the baby into the next room to nurse. “Doesn’t that one need to eat?” I pointed at the little pink bundle in Anthony’s arms.
He shook his head. “We’ve got them on an extremely strict schedule, and little Star eats exactly thirty minutes after her brother. She’s a pig, though, and keeps trying to ask for her food early. I’m just glad she’s still asleep.”
Shit, I still couldn’t believe the twins even existed.
A human and a dragon having dragon babies.
Who knew? It was a damn miracle that humans could mate with dragons at all, much less have kids with them.
We still didn’t know what unique traits the twins would have.
So far, they seemed just like regular dragon babies, if a little small.
Well, apparently Sammy knew. She was the one that helped us figure out that it would be safe for Anthony and Skye to bond and for Skye to take the mating bite. I watched Anthony stare in wonder at his baby girl, then nearly jumped out of my skin when Sammy herself just appeared in the living room.
“Jesus, woman!”
She grinned wickedly at me. She’d startled Anthony, too, which in turn had woken Star. “Did I scare you?” She reached down and picked up the fussing baby. “Hush, sweet girl, Aunt Sammy is here now.”
“I’m going to put a bell on you,” I grumbled.
As our clan witch, she spent most of her time meddling in all of our affairs. I was fairly sure that wasn’t supposed to be what being the clan witch was about, but it was what she did.
After she cooed at Star for a few moments, Sammy snuggled her close and fixed her glare on me.
Sammy had been acting weird lately. Something had been going on with her magic and she’d been stronger or something.
I hadn’t put my finger on it yet and was too polite to ask, but I was totally curious why she seemed so much more powerful all of a sudden.
“Have you told Anthony yet?” She arched an eyebrow at me, staring at me as if she were about to put a hex on me, totally terrifying even as she rocked back and forth, bouncing little Star on her shoulder.
I froze and glared at her.
“Told me what?” Anthony leaned to the side to look around Sammy at me. I leaned in the opposite direction and pursed my lips at Sammy, trying to get the point across that she needed to freaking can it.
She ignored me. Of course. “You’ve gotta tell him because my visions keep changing on me, and it’s really annoying.”
When Sammy realized Anthony couldn’t see around her, she stepped to the side and sank into the rocker-recliner, watching us with sharp eyes while I squirmed uncomfortably.
Finally, I had to meet Anthony’s gaze. “What is it?” he asked.
I sighed. I’d been wearing long sleeves since the night my tattoo appeared, outside my bar. The night I’d helped Bri get away from her asshole ex and everything had turned on its head.
It had been cool, the weather still wintry enough that it wasn’t odd for me to have on long sleeves or jackets.
I pulled on my shirt sleeve and tugged it up to my elbow, then turned my arm around so Anthony could see the tattoo forming on my forearm.
He gaped at it, then his shock turned to delight.
Oh, that would be a short-lived expression on his face. “Don’t get excited,” I said. “She’s human.”
His eyebrows flew up, and he looked stunned. “Whoa.”
“Whoa, indeed,” Sammy muttered.
I shot her a dark look. We’d only recently learned that dragons could mate with humans, now all of a sudden two of us in the clan had human mates. For me to find my mate so fast behind Anthony finding his, and for both of them to be human, well, it was all very alarming.
Sammy shrugged. “I don’t know what’s unlocked all this mess. But I can sense something has changed. I just can’t figure out what it is.” She hesitated and rocked the baby. Anthony and I waited, sensing she wasn’t done talking.
She wasn’t. “My magic is stronger, and the magic in the area is as well. My connection to this town seems to be growing. I can’t explain it, but it almost feels like there’s been a block on this clan.
” She shook her head. “I hesitated to say anything because I don’t know how to explain it or if I’m even right.
Something is different, though. Unblocked or opened up.
And I’m feeling all of it. My magic is changing with it. ”
“Who is it?” Skye asked. I hadn’t realized she could hear us from the other room.
“You can come in here,” I said. “Your nursing Sean won’t bother me.”
“Nor me,” Sammy said.
Skye walked in with a bundle of blankets at her breast. I looked at Sammy instead, not wanting Skye to think I might try to get a glimpse of her goods as she fed her son.
She sat on the other side of the couch, beside me, so she wasn’t in my direct line of sight anyway. I’d said I wouldn’t be uncomfortable, and I was determined not to be. Nursing was the most natural thing in the world.
“So,” she said. “Who is it?”
Ugh. I’d hoped she’d forget her question.
“Do we know her?”
“Or him?” Anthony grinned at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Her.” I sighed and this time when I didn’t look at Skye, it was because I didn’t want to see her reaction. “It’s Briana.”
When nobody spoke, I glanced around and realized Skye had fixed me with a glare as she shook her head slowly. “No.”
Damn it. I knew she’d be pissed.
“Jace, you know I adore you. You must know that.”
“I do.” What was coming next? And why was I so afraid of this tiny human?
“I know your track record.” I opened my mouth to attempt to defend myself, but she kept talking. I snapped my jaw shut and tried to look contrite. “You’re a playboy, and that’s putting it nicely. You run through women as easy as taking your next breath.”
She wasn’t exactly right, but also not exactly wrong. I did have a long list of partners behind me.
“Bri is a mother and a great woman.” She shook her head. “It isn’t my place to tell you what to do, but Bri is my friend and I just want to protect her from being hurt.” I understood that. “If you have no intention of being the man she needs in her life, then you need to leave that woman alone.”
After a few seconds, when I was more confident that she was finished, I spoke. “I have no intention of bothering Bri.”
Anthony sucked in a deep breath. “That pull is mighty difficult to ignore.”
I shrugged his statement off, even though I knew he spoke the truth.
“It will go away once my dragon realizes there won’t be anything coming from this, right?
All I need is for Bri to completely reject me and the pull will disappear.
That should be easy enough, just get her to reject me. I can do that.”
Skye glared at me. “That means you’ll have to do something to get her to spurn you. And that means hurting Bri.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“You’re an idiot,” Sammy chimed in.
I definitely didn’t know what to say to that.
Sammy froze and closed her eyes. I watched her, not sure what she was seeing, but sure she was checking her visions or magic or something.
“You’ve made your mind up,” she said. “I won’t interfere. For now, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.”
Everything felt so muddled. I was so sure I needed to let Bri move past me, but my emotions warred with my sense and my dragon fought against it all. “I’m going to go see Mom,” I said. “This is all overwhelming.”
Maybe dinner at Mom’s would help settle me. I knew that staying away from Bri was the right thing to do, but it made me feel miserable.
After saying my goodbyes and kissing the babies, I headed across town to Mom’s. She had a place on the far side of the town, on the outskirts as most of the clan did. We tended to buy places where we could get in a little private shift time on our own land.
I walked in to find Mom cooking dinner and my Aunt Missy chopping vegetables.
“Jace,” Aunt Missy cried. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
I ignored the surge of guilt that it had been so long since I’d seen her that she had to get this excited. She put down the knife and held her arms open, then squealed as I pulled her up into a big bear hug.
“It’s good to see you, too, Auntie,” I said once I released her.
She looked me over with her hands still on my arms. “You need fattening up. You got here just in time.”
Mom tapped my shoulder, and I backed away from Aunt Missy to give my mom a hug. I saw her all the time and didn’t feel guilty at all.
“Go take a break,” Mom told her sister. “Let me talk to my son.”
How did she know?
Aunt Missy winked at me. “Sure thing. I’ll go find us a movie to watch after dinner.”
Mom and Missy spent a lot of time together now that Missy’s husband was gone. Uncle Carmine had a massive heart attack last year. He died before he hit the ground, so she said. I wasn’t sure how possible that was, especially from a dragon, but he’d been quite a bit older than Missy.
Missy walked out of the kitchen and Mom waved her wooden spoon at me. “Sit. Spill. What’s wrong?”
I chuckled as I sat down. “You know me too well.”
“You’re my baby. A mother always knows. What is it?”
“Hypothetically?”
“Yeah?” She turned back to the stove and stirred whatever it was that smelled so good.
“How would you feel if I was mated to a human as Anthony is?”
The room was silent, the only sound the liquid in the pot sloshing against the side.
“I was never the type to discriminate, you know that. I love humans. And now that we know that humans can have our babies, I think it’s fine. I would support you, if that was the case.”
Well, that was good to know, even though I had zero intention of following through with this mating bond. “Okay, then, still hypothetically, what if the woman had a kid already?”
This time, the room went totally silent. I looked toward the stove and Mom had stopped stirring. She had her head up in the air and her eyes closed.
“Son,” she whispered. “Tell me you have not imprinted on some poor woman with kids.”
I gaped at her. “I said hypothetically!”
She set the spoon on the rest and faced me with her hands on her hips. “Taking on some other man’s child is a whole ‘nother ball game. Especially if you have no intention of actually being a father figure to that child. I’ve been through it enough not to wish that on any woman.”
She’d raised me without my father in the picture, but she’d never brought home a man. As a young teen, I’d thought she wasn’t into dating or something. “Did you date?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I did, you little fool.” She insulted me in a fond voice. Besides, I knew she didn’t really think I was a fool.
But maybe I was. Shit, I never realized she’d ever gone on any dates. “When I stayed with Aunt Missy?”
Laughing, Mom sat down beside me at the table. “You really never knew?”
I shook my head, feeling more and more the fool.
“Well, good, that was my intention. I didn’t want to introduce you to any man until I knew for sure he’d be a good father figure. But that man never came. Don’t be that disappointment to some poor single mother the way they were to me.”
“Mom.” I took her hands in mine. “This is hypothetical.”
She snorted, not buying my lies for a second. I’d never been able to lie to her.
“If it is only hypothetical then you need to think long and hard about how your actions will affect everyone’s lives because if I find out that you’re out there doing what your father did to me?” She scoffed and pushed my hands away. “I won’t be held responsible when I kick your ass.”
Chuckling, I leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “It was all hypothetical.”
She eyed me before getting up and going back to the stove, letting it go. “Stay and eat,” she said. “But send your Aunt Missy back in here, because you’re useless in this kitchen.”
“You know I run a bar and part of that is food, right?”
She scoffed. “Throwing stuff in a deep fryer does not a chef make.”
Still snickering, I went into the living room, but my laughter sounded hollow even to me. “Mom’s asking for you.”
Missy handed me the remote. “Of course she is. She can’t even make soup without me.”
“I heard that,” Mom yelled from the kitchen.
My talk with my mom solidified my decision to not interfere in Bri’s life.
I wasn’t ready to be a father or father figure.
It was best if I just left her alone and allowed our bond to die.
The next time I saw Bri, I vowed to be a complete jerk.
There wasn’t another option, not with my past, my father, and my track record.