Chapter 4
Blaze
Anthony’s power really surprised me. I felt it before I even got off the plane. An alpha this strong was rare indeed, and hard to miss. My tattoo started tingling harder as soon as I landed as well. Sammy was nearby.
When I exited the secure part of the airport, my eyes flew immediately to the alpha of the Bluewater Pack. I’d never seen him before, but there was no way this man, with this power, was anybody but Anthony.
I’d thought Gage was the most powerful alpha I’d ever met, but Anthony rivaled him. As much as I hated to admit it, he might’ve been more powerful. But that felt like a betrayal to my best friend.
I’d visited so many clans over the years that I’d lost count, and I’d never come close to finding someone with Gage-level power. And I was a pretty strong alpha in my own right. Or my dragon was. I had no desire to lead a pack or clan at this point in my life. Probably not ever.
Maybe it was because Anthony had Sammy as his witch.
My dragon bristled a bit at the thought of Sammy being Anthony’s anything, but I took a deep breath and ignored him. It was time to make nice, not make Anthony think I was challenging him.
He must’ve felt me coming, too, because Anthony’s gaze turned from the tarmac to me, and he grinned. “Blaze,” he said warmly when I approached. “Welcome to Bluewater.”
Gage had said they didn’t truly want me coming, but when Anthony shook my hand, I only felt warmth and maybe a bit of calm. Not even hesitancy.
“Thanks for hosting me,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
Anthony’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked me up and down, then put his hand on my shoulder and studied my face. “Sorry to act strange,” he said. I still felt only calm acceptance coming off of him, so I didn’t worry about the scrutiny.
“It’s no problem,” I muttered.
“No, it’s just that you are so familiar.” He shook his head. “Odd. I feel like we’ve met.”
Well, that was hard to believe. I didn’t have one of those faces that made people stop and mistake me for someone else.
I wasn’t really cocky, but I did know that Anthony would’ve remembered me if we’d met before. Plus, he wasn’t familiar at all. “Don’t know.” I smiled to show I wasn’t bothered by it. “Maybe in another life.”
He chuckled and turned toward the escalator. “Come on, let’s get your bag.”
I patted my backpack. “This is it. I didn’t check a bag.”
“Great. Ready to go?” He grinned and went in the opposite direction.
With a quick step, I caught up to him and followed out to the parking garage. He pointed to a truck, so I threw my backpack in the back seat on top of an empty car seat. “Kids?” I asked after we buckled our seatbelts.
Anthony’s face lit up as he grinned. “Twins. Sean and Star. And we recently had another baby, Jason Knox.” He blinked a few times and gave me a side glance, but then shook his head.
“Tell me about your town,” I said in a friendly tone. “Gage wants me to see how it is having two witches in the clan, but also what it is that has caused all of you guys to find your mates. He’d love to be able to help our pack find mates.”
Anthony sighed. “You know about that, then?”
I hadn’t been aware it was a secret. “Yeah, man, sorry to say I’m pretty sure it’s been the main topic of gossip for shifters the world over. Were you trying to keep it under wraps?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. We’ve had too many visiting clans over the past few years to really hide it, but I was hoping your appearance didn’t mean this is the first of many to come.”
I whistled through my teeth. “That’s true. Sorry, Anthony. But I’d say so. You’re going to have a lot of people curious how it happened.”
He shrugged. “Well, I doubt you know the full extent of it.”
Oh, interesting. “Okay.”
It took him a few seconds to talk. “I don’t like advertising this. I don’t want to be overrun with people trying to join my pack or bothering my witch.”
My dragon stirred his head at the mention of Sammy. “I don’t want Sammy bothered either,” I said in a dark voice.
Anthony chuckled. “I guess you don’t, do you?” He pulled off the highway and started down a smaller road. “It’s not just the human fated mate thing we have going on. My clan has all found mates, both fated and chosen.”
That was impossible. “All?”
He nodded and met my gaze quickly. “All. Everyone over twenty-five or so.”
“How many fated mates are we talking?” I couldn’t keep the sound of my shock out of my voice. This was too much. Impossible.
He hummed deep in his throat and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
“I think we’re up to ten if we count you and Sammy.
There are two witches, counting Sammy, one human who is descended of fairy, and four fully human women.
And we had one fated couple already in the clan.
They’re older. We’ve had two couples form fated bonds with other dragons within the clan, too. ”
I mouthed silently at him, eventually sputtering. “But, fated mates are supposed to be incredibly rare!”
Anthony nodded along as I spoke. “They still are, so far as I can tell. It’s something about Bluewater. We all figure it’s Sammy’s potent magic having been in the area for so long. I was the first to mate with a human and it set off a chain of matings after that.”
“So, how do the mates do with the pairing?” I asked, intensely curious. “With the bite?”
“Fine,” Anthony said. “Just like dragon women. They don’t bleed or scar. It heals right up.”
I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably, curious about one more thing but having a hard time saying the words. “Can the bite be given more than once?” There. He’d know what I meant, and I hadn’t had to be crude.
He shot me an amused look. “Yes. Just like with dragon women. And yes, it’s, uh, pleasurable during certain activities to do so.”
Interesting. “What about the children? You mentioned having three. Are they human or dragon?”
“Well, like dragon infants, they don’t shift, but all of the children born so far of human and dragon pairings have the typical infant dragon eyes. None of ours are old enough to shift, so we don’t know how it’s going to go, really.”
“I guess with Sammy and me being only the second pairing between a witch and dragon, you wouldn’t know about the offspring of a dragon and a witch.”
He shook his head. “No, but Livvie is pregnant, so we’ll know soon enough.”
That was true. The woman who had accompanied Sammy to Grove Holler had been pregnant. I hadn’t put two and two together, that her baby was half dragon. Stupid, since Sammy had told me that she had a dragon mate.
As I lost myself in thoughts about the possibility of kids, magic washed over me, and my whole body reacted. I couldn’t stop a gasp from erupting from my mouth as the strong power tried to steal my breath.
Anthony chuckled. “Welcome to Bluewater.”
Goosebumps had erupted the moment we crossed through the ward. “Does that happen every time?” I asked as I rubbed my arms.
“Yes, but you do get used to it. Or learn to ignore it, maybe.” He pulled up to a stop sign and came to a complete stop. “It’s a quiet town, but overall a nice place to live. We’ve got just enough entertainment to keep us from going crazy.”
I chuckled. “I live up in the mountains in Tennessee. I know small-town life.” More like no town life, most of the time.
We drove through the downtown area, and I tried to remember the places we passed. A party store, a bar, a deli.
“Livvie’s bed and breakfast is up that road,” Anthony said as we passed a side road. There weren’t that many roads leading off of Main. Not through here, anyway.
We reached the end of the strip of shops and Anthony turned left.
“When you enter the woods here,” he said as we drove under the canopy of trees, “you cross into clan land. It goes all the way to the coast and several miles north and south. You can fly on clan land at any time, and none of the dragons will begrudge you being on their property.”
“Thanks.” Most clans did that. The members bought their own land, but they all tried to buy land that connected to one another so that the overall clan roaming space was as big as possible.
If a human bought land in the middle of clan land, something that had happened a few times over the years, they’d pool their money if the alpha couldn’t cover it and make the human an offer they couldn’t refuse.
And if that failed, the clan witch would help matters along.
It was for everyone’s safety not to have a bunch of non-shifters living in the middle of dragon land. What a mess that could be.
Anthony pulled up in front of a large cabin a few minutes later. I jumped out of the truck and breathed deep, the salty ocean air a novelty for me. I’d been to the ocean several times, but not in a few years.
“Smells different from mountain air, doesn’t it?” Anthony chuckled. “Skye’s got the guest room all ready for you.”
I’d figured he’d want to host me here. Keep me close and all. It wasn’t customary for an alpha to always host a visiting dragon, but it also wasn’t unheard of.
Skye and three rugrats met us in the living room. Identical toddler twins and a slightly smaller brother who looked enough like the twins that if he’d been a bit bigger, they’d pass for triplets. “Hello.” I winked at the kids and crossed my eyes. “I’m Blaze.”
“Welcome, Blaze,” Skye said.
The little girl began stomping around the living room shouting. “Baze! Baze!”
I chuckled as Anthony scooped her up. “Aren’t you the little performer?” He kissed her neck, making her squeal. “Come on, Star, let’s show Blaze to his room.”
We left Skye and the other two kids and went up. But the toddler wiggled to be put down. She wandered off down the hall toward an open door with pink walls behind it. Probably her bedroom.