Chapter 14
Porter
I parked at Jace’s house and sighed. Jace’s clan had a tradition of doing a big flight together every New Year’s Day. I was supposed to ride with him to the big cliff where they liked to fly as a group. Sammy would no doubt be there too.
Their clan flights were a lot of fun. I’d only been to a few, but they were just as close with each other as my old clan was. If I let my guard down, I’d fit right in. But for the most part, I’d been flying alone or with Jace.
But Anthony had specifically asked me to come along, so who was I to refuse the alpha of the clan I’d petitioned to join?
Jace and I drove through the winding mountain road to the meeting.
Anthony was waiting on us with a slew of clan members.
“Porter!” he called. “Jace. Glad to see you both.” He pulled Jace into a big, back-slapping hug, then to my surprise gave me one as well.
“Time for you to start feeling like part of the clan if you’re settling here.
” He pulled back and looked me in the eye.
“You’re still planning to stay, aren’t you? ”
I opened my mouth to say yes, then closed it. I was, I had been. But I hadn’t been in to sign the documents on the house.
Bluewater was as good a place as any. It was beautiful, welcoming, quaint. And it held my brother and his family. My family. Happiness was as likely here as anywhere.
“Brother,” Jace said. “You’ll find your place here. It’ll be easier when you do.”
I nodded. He was right. I’d figure it out. Energy flowed from his hand to my shoulder. The energy tasted and smelled like soil, like nature. It meant that Jace was connected to this land. This was truly his place in the world.
I knew that feeling. I wanted it back.
Should I have gone home?
Yes, my mother was gone. But the rest of my clan was still there. Still ready to welcome me with open arms. My home, my land. Where I belonged.
Anthony squeezed my other shoulder and walked toward the cliff face. “Welcome to the new year!” he yelled.
The clan cheered, and as we followed him toward the ocean, I clapped along as well. Pushing my doubts aside, I focused on the day and the fun of the flight. Time to feel like a part of the Bluewater Clan.
“I’m grateful to have all of you here today,” Anthony continued. “There is nothing more important than the love of our family and friends, and for me, that’s you guys.” The clan cheered and clapped. Clearly, they all loved their alpha, and with good reason. He was a great leader.
As Jace and I moved through the crowd, people I’d only met once or twice, or in a few cases not at all, squeezed my arm, patted me on the back, and greeted me. They wanted me to feel welcome and like a part of their family. It was touching.
They were one of the biggest clans in the states. I couldn't imagine what it would’ve looked like if someone spotted them flying from the outside. Probably pretty damn funny, actually. But if it happened, the clan witch would have to alter memories, and what a pain in the ass that would be.
We tried to avoid such things, which was why I spotted Sammy along the edges of the crowd, watching with a smile on her face. She was there to make sure nobody caught us, and she was one of the strongest witches I’d ever met. Her wards were impenetrable.
Anthony nodded at Sammy, and the clan turned toward her, most of them bowing their heads slightly or smiling, mouthing thanks.
She gave the crowd a silly curtsy. “Sammy has graciously done some work to power up her ward and extend our flying range. You’ll see the ward today since it’s outside of our normal range. Sort of a shimmer in the air.”
Most witches, if with a new clan—which didn’t happen much anymore—made their wards visible for the first several flights until the dragons knew their boundaries clearly.
The dragons began to disperse to shift as Sammy yelled one more thing. “Don’t get used to it! I can’t hold a boundary this big for long.”
She met my gaze and winked. Steepling my hands together under my chin, I bowed slightly, then took off running toward the cliff. As I dove off the side, I shifted, transforming into my dragon with a rush of adrenaline and endorphins.
God, the rush of the flight was amazing. There wasn’t anything better, except sex, maybe. It was debatable, to be honest.
I flew fast, stretching my wings and enjoying the fact that I didn’t have to be careful and stay close to the tree line. Soaring high in the sky was how we were meant to fly.
Damn. I had to come to more of these clan meets. Maybe this was what I was missing, the open flight, the freedom. The exhilaration. The… freedom. There was no other way to describe it. No better word for it.
After doing a loop-de-loop in midair near another cliff face, I shook out the dizziness and realized I was looking right at my car.
I’d flown back by Jace’s house. The shimmery boundary wasn’t far from Jace’s place on this side.
A couple more loops got my heart pounding again, and I turned just before the border to rush back toward the meeting place, intending to go right past it and to the far boundary.
As I turned and prepared to zoom away at top speed, movement near Jace’s house made me pause my takeoff. I beat my wings in place and watched a car pull in beside mine as my scales tingled with awareness.
Kaylee.
If a dragon could smile, I would’ve been. She couldn’t see me, the shimmering boundary stretched around Jace’s place near the cliff, probably intentionally if Jace knew Kaylee was coming over.
She wouldn’t be able to see me, or the other dragons flying over the open ocean farther away behind me.
I flew back and forth and waited for her to get out of her car.
She’d parked at an angle so that I couldn’t see inside the shadowy interior thanks to the very tinted windows of her new sports car.
There was just enough room for me to land and still be inside the barrier, so I eased myself down. I wasn’t sure that if I landed hard, she might be able to feel or hear the thump.
Kaylee got out of the car as Skye and Bri came out of the house. I wasn’t sure if they could see me or not though.
What was wrong with Kaylee? She was moving really slowly. “Do you guys see this?” she whispered so quietly, I didn’t think the girls could hear her at all.
Her eyes were enormous, wide and round, and her gaze pointed right at me. But then a roar behind me drew her gaze and she looked over me and gasped. “This is insane,” she said breathlessly.
Shutting the car door, she backed toward the house with her arms out, moving slowly.
“Kaylee, what’s wrong?” Skye called. Her gaze darted from her friend to me, so that answered that question. Once mated, the ladies could see past the wards.
Oh, no. Somehow, Kaylee could see me past the ward. Something had gone wrong with Sammy’s shield. Shit. I had to fix this.
I surged forward, and in the split second it took for Kaylee to recognize that I’d moved and to open her mouth, I was shifting.
When her scream erupted past her lips, I was fully human again and running toward her. “No, don’t freak out!” I yelled. “It’s okay!”
Skye and Bri hurried down the stairs and threw their arms around Kaylee, trying to soothe her. “It’s okay, we know.”
“What is happening?” Kaylee screeched. When I grew closer, she threw out her hands. “Stay back!”
I stopped; my arms still outstretched in a gesture to indicate I meant her no harm.
“Can you see the dragons?” Bri asked, looking from her friend to the dragons still streaking around over the water, blissfully unaware of the human freak-out here on land.
Kaylee laughed. “You can’t? I just watched Porter morph from one into himself and you’re saying that you didn’t see it?”
“No, I did. I just didn’t think you could.” Bri and Skye exchanged a scared look. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
Kaylee jerked away from both of them, her skin white as a ghost. “Did I really just witness you turning from an enormous reptile into a man?”
I sighed. There was no story I could make up, especially considering she could still see them behind me. “You did.”
Kaylee burst out laughing before her eyes rolled back in her head. I rushed forward and scooped her up as she fainted, a dead weight in my arms.
“There’s Anthony,” Skye said. She rushed toward the cliff, waving her arms, and he peeled off from the pack followed by Jace and landed. They both quickly shifted and hurried forward.
“Come on,” I said. “Before she wakes up.” Leaving them to follow and the ladies to explain to their mates what had happened, I carried Kaylee into Jace’s house and laid her out on the couch. “Where’s Hayden?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to explain this mess to a little girl.
Bri stuffed a pillow under Kaylee’s head. “At my parents’. We’re good.”
Sammy appeared beside us in Jace and Bri’s living room, making all of us jump.
“Bell, I’m buying you a bell,” Jace muttered, but Sammy ignored him.
“The wards are still up,” Sammy said as she stared at Kaylee in awe. “Nobody has crossed them.” She moved forward and tapped me on the shoulder. Reluctantly, I slid down out of her way.
With one hand on Kaylee’s head, Sammy closed her eyes. “There’s no reason that I know of for Kaylee to be able to see beyond the wards.”
“I knew there was something different,” I whispered as Sammy delved into Kaylee. “I felt it on her even before I developed feelings for her.”
Every head in the room except Sammy’s swiveled to look at me in surprise.
I shrugged. “I asked Jace once if he knew anything about her past because I kept sensing… otherness on her.”
Sammy hummed with her hand still on Kaylee’s head. My dragon growled just under the surface of my skin, and he knew how I felt about Kaylee.
My arm erupted in burning pain, making me hiss and clutch it, and as it did, the overwhelming need to protect Kaylee washed over me.
All I wanted to do was rip Sammy away from her.
Unbuttoning my shirt, I yanked it up and sure enough, the first outlines of the clan emblem had begun to tattoo themselves on my skin.
Sammy shot me a scathing look. “Do you think I’d ever hurt Kaylee? Especially knowing what she is to you?” She turned her head. “Not to mention how important she is to other members of the clan.”
I froze. Hell, I had no idea what all Sammy knew.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to read Kaylee’s DNA, but I can’t do it if somebody else is touching her.”
Anthony stared at Sammy with one eyebrow up. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“How do you think I knew what the twins would be?” she asked as she stared at my hand on Kaylee’s leg. “Could we?”
I sighed and stopped touching her, but it was physically difficult to do so.
Sammy sighed and went quiet as Jace pulled on my shoulders and helped me to my feet. “Come on, brother, sit down.”
I let him guide me to the chair closest to the sofa, near Kaylee’s head.
“You were right,” Sammy said several minutes later. “She’s something special. Something magical is inside her, but it’s not strong. That’s why I didn’t sense it before.”
Rocking back on her heels, Sammy shook her head at Kaylee. “Fucking pixies,” she muttered.
“I should have known with the blonde hair and blue eyes. A pixie trait. But her blood is really diluted.” She stood and brushed off the knees of her pants. “There’s enough magic in her that she could see past the ward. Small world.”
Kaylee groaned. She was waking up.