Price
THREE
The words left my mouth before my brain had engaged, and damn the consequences. It didn’t get a vote. My dragon, on the other hand, was delighted with me for the first time in years.
Ours, he purred. You finally did something right.
The omega on the couch who, moments earlier, had flipped over the footstool and gone one round with the carpet, stared at me.
His cheek was red from carpet burn, and his shirt was more creased than before he’d fallen.
I mentally added “teach him how to wield an iron” on my to-do list, preferably with me behind him, pressing my body onto him, and my hand on top of his.
His distinct scent that reminded me of fresh honey was woven in with motor oil.
Not the kind of honey that came in a jar and sat on the store shelves for months.
This was the same sweetness from the honey the bees made in the woods behind the house.
Cam and his tantalizing scent smelled as though he already belonged here.
He does, my dragon insisted.
Minutes ago, I’d walked in and discovered a stranger in my house with my children.
My dragon had reared up inside me, ready to stream fire at the intruder, and I’d prepared to toss the guy out, while warning my beast not to destroy the house.
But scales had already rippled over my back and made a small tear in my shirt before that scent taunted me.
Until this moment, my life had been raising my late brother’s children, now my children, and work, in that order. And this human had invaded our family’s safe space and wrenched my heart out of my chest, before putting it back, entangled with his scent.
Mate. My beast was economical with words when he wanted to be.
Yes and no. Yes, he was my mate, and no, we couldn’t announce it, or worse, mark him. My dragon was used to me saying no about all the suggestions he’d made over the years.
Pfft.
“How can he be our manny?” Bea folded her arms.
She reminded me of my brother when she did that. She was only nine and she acted as though she was the family’s guardian, even though she’d yet to meet her beast. I worried that she carried a burden kids her age shouldn’t have to.
I’d been solo-parenting since my brother died, but my business was expanding and I needed to travel. Added to that, I had three fire-prone kids at home, and it was too much for me. But the plan was to hire a shifter, preferably a dragon.
“His name is Cam.” Jack flapped his plastic wings as if that settled the matter.
Isla tugged at my arm. “He can teach me to draw.”
But Cam clasped his hands together. “I’m so sorry, but there’s been a big mistake. And it’s my fault.” He pulled out a slip of crumpled paper from his pocket. “I was supposed to speak to someone called Ledger. Meara sent me, and I got the wrong house.”
Ledger was my friend Theron’s mate, and his house was on the same road.
Meara had lined up a potential manny, but he’d called and pushed the interview until tomorrow.
What any sensible parent would do was tell the children Cam was someone else’s manny, apologize to them for the misunderstanding, walk the guy to the car, and make sure he left our property.
Him being my mate was a minor blip in my life. My focus had to be on the children because they’d had enough uncertainty in their young lives.
You do that and I’ll make your life a misery until you find him again. My dragon wasn’t trying to ruin my life. He was acting on instinct, and I pictured him smiling but revealing his fangs.
“You're our manny. Welcome to the family, Cam.”
“No, no.” Cam was flapping his arms in time with Jack’s toy. “I’m a potential manny for some other family, one with a smaller footstool.”
I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it because he’d ruptured the tension, and it gave me a few seconds to consider how to move forward. Cam’s eyes darted around, and I imagined the scene from his perspective.
He was sweating from the heat, as we dragons needed a hotter environment than humans were used to. And I’d arrived ready to remove his head but had instead offered him a job. He was probably checking the exits and wondering how long it’d take him to flee.
Bea tilted her head to the side, possibly thinking I’d taken leave of my senses.
Isla was messing with her sketchpad, and those damned plastic wings of Jack’s were doing that irritating fake flapping.
I reached over and turned them off, hoping the batteries would die a terrible death, either that or I’d remove them.
I checked the kids’ wrists. They were all wearing their bracelets with the charms attached, so any dragon activity was contained within them. Bea would have made sure they were wearing them, but that should be my job.
My brother Allan had wanted these kids more than anything. I’d sat with him in the fertility clinic as he filled in the application. He’d built this sprawling house around the children, but what he hadn’t planned on was not being around to see them grow up.
I’d been Daddy for Jack and Dad for the girls for three years that included school runs, violin lessons, and bracelets on small warm wrists.
I still woke some mornings thinking I was getting it wrong and that I was just a stand-in for my brother’s life.
Was I enough for the children or just what was left?
I adored my kids, though I still experienced some guilt thinking of them as mine and wondering if Allan, wherever he was, was upset at me.
And now, I’d caught a scent from my fated mate and decided to move a new person into their lives. Maybe I was acting selfishly?
My dragon didn’t reply because I knew his answer.
Cam’s eyes kept going to a glass dragon on a high shelf. I’d made that piece years ago on a night I couldn’t sleep. But it was as though he was reading it and trying to figure out what it was saying.
He tried to stand but winced and fell back onto the couch. “I’ll leave now.” He pointed to the footstool. “I’m sorry about that.”
But I pieced together the car fumes on his skin, the unironed shirt, his too-prominent cheek bones and the tiredness in his slumped shoulders.
He has nowhere to go.
You’re right, I told my dragon.
“The agency is closed, and you have a sore ankle. Stay in the guest room tonight and I’ll call Meara first thing in the morning. We can deal with the paperwork, and you can meet Ledger since you came all this way.”
“But I can’t just stay here. You don’t know me.”
“Hmm, let’s see.” I held up three fingers. “You said you weren’t a burglar.” I put one finger down. “And that you weren’t crazy.” I curled a second finger. “And what was the third thing?” I tapped my lips.
“He’s not a kidnapper,” Bea and Isla shouted.
I shrugged and turned my palms up. “That’s four against one.” But as soon as I said it, I ran that sentence over in my head. Perhaps it was a little creepy, so I gave him an out.
“Unless you have somewhere else to be or someone waiting for you at home.” My voice lifted at the end of that sentence because I hadn’t considered the possibility Cam might be in a relationship, though if he was, they probably weren’t living together.
“A guest room.” He chewed his bottom lip. “That would be great. Thank you.”
Jack climbed onto the couch, planted a hand on Cam's shoulder, and delivered his verdict.
“You can read me a story. I like dragons.” He glanced around at the rest of us. “We all like them.”
We ordered takeout for dinner, and Cam didn’t say much.
He hobbled around, and I was pleased Allan had built a bungalow.
Cam murmured his thanks again and went to bed just after the kids.
I went into the courtyard. It was my favorite place to wind down, and I often sat here with my eyes closed, enjoying the tinkling of the fountain.
I should have called Meara. She always said to phone any time day or night.
But I didn’t want her to chastise me for hiring someone who walked in off the street, though she had interviewed Cam and sent him to speak to Ledger.
She must have been satisfied he was a good candidate, though she looked for manny qualities, not mate ones.
I’d have to phone her tomorrow and cancel the candidate she'd lined up for me. There were also the four pages of an NDA that Cam hadn’t signed and didn’t know about. I’d have to explain to Meara why I hired him because she could spot a lie from a mile away.
I had three children with dragons inside them.
Sure, they wouldn’t meet them until adolescence, but until then, their beasts could cause problems if the kids weren’t wearing their bracelets.
And added to that was our inner heat which was reflected in our warm skin and the need for our surroundings to be sweat-inducing for humans.
Working out how to hide my dragon and the kids’ dragon tendencies was something I’d think about tomorrow. But tonight, I allowed my beast and me to relish having a mate and that he was sleeping under our roof.