Cade awoke with a start, consciousness not slowly bringing him around but slapping him awake with rude urgency.
Bewildered, he sat up in bed, heart pounding, and looked around. Thank the gods. Gwen lay next to him, snoring softly, and his lips quirked at the unladylike sound. His mate was safe.
She was his mate too. She just didn’t know it yet. He’d already claimed her in his mind and would do every damn thing in his power to make her theirs.
Why the sudden awakening, then? His heart calmed, and he scratched his head with a yawn and contemplated sleeping a little longer, but the scent of coffee teased his nose, and he decided he wanted a cup more than he wanted more sleep.
Pushing the covers back, he climbed out of bed and threw on some jogging bottoms. Ambling into the kitchen a moment later, he sighed when he saw Lara bustling about. He liked the female well enough, but her place as Gwen’s mother made things tricky until he had Gwen where he wanted her—bonded to him and Jay.
Lara turned around and gave a tight smile.
“Coffee?”
“Yep, I’d love a cup, thanks. No milk, no sugar.”
“No surprises there.” She gave a more genuine smile.
He scented her arousal and her fear. The situation with Awen and Lucien was doing a number on her, but something, some sixth sense, told him she wouldn’t resist it. She’d go for the bond. It surprised the ever-loving shit out of him, after the way she’d kept Gwen away from males for years. But he guessed if one of the most powerful dragons ever to live came a-calling, most females would be quick to give in to the pull. And that thought only made him respect Gwen even more because she’d fought this thing between them and questioned it and still not given in to it. He liked her fight.
“You seen Jay?” he asked.
Lara shook her head. “Nope.”
Cade frowned. He wandered out of the kitchen and to the den where Jay often played on the Xbox. No sign of the male there either.
Five minutes later and Cade was genuinely worried. Jay was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’d gone for a walk or something, but it was nightfall now, and surely Jay would have left a note, texted him, or something before deciding to go for a stroll.
Jogging to his bedroom, Cade grabbed his mobile phone off the nightstand and called Jay’s number. No answer. With a frown, he headed back out into the corridor and for the front door.
Stepping out into the night air, Cade looked around, and then it hit. The scent of males, strange males. Not of their clan. Dragon for sure, though. One of the scents seemed oddly familiar. He sniffed the air again and tried to decipher why, but he couldn’t.
With a sinking stomach, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Jay’s number again. A jarring tune, one he hated, rang out from the scrub of bushes by the house. Shit! Jay’s phone lay there, the screen cracked, but the damn thing still clearly working. What the hell?
The only thing he could think was the one thing he didn’t want to contemplate. Someone…some strange males had taken his bonded male. They’d taken Jay.
Why?
And then it hit. Pain so deep it knocked him for six. Pain he didn’t expect. Because, yeah, he loved Jay like the best friend he was, but he realized in that awful moment that he loved him much more than that. Jay was more than his friend. He was the other half of him. A perfectly made match, and yet at the same time, the perfect foil. Losing him was like losing a limb. It cut deep, and panic began to hit as he bent over, taking in big lungfuls of air. Why would anyone take Jay? It didn’t make sense.
The door opened, and Lara stepped out to join him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
He couldn’t seem to find the words at first. He stared at Jay’s phone and tried to decipher the scents again. The oddest things struck him. The distant sound of the ocean, the scent of jasmine on the breeze, and the call of a fox from somewhere deep in the undergrowth.
Finally, his thoughts began to coalesce into something that made a semblance of sense. He turned to Lara.
“I think some Dragonea have taken Jay.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she looked around as if expecting to see the male. “What? Why?”
“Why? I have no idea. I don’t know of any enemies he has, and mine are from centuries ago. I doubt they’d bother to resurface now. But he’s gone. I have his phone.” He brandished it in front of him like some sort of shield to ward off the bad juju of his bonded male being taken. “This damn thing is attached to his hip. Drives me mad playing some stupid game on it all the time where he has to join up sweets.”
She laughed a little then. “You mean where he crushes candy?”
“What?” He frowned at her slightly, and she sobered and sighed.
Placing a hand on his arm, she looked to the path beyond their property, leading to the main settlement. “We need to go tell Awen. I will go if you wish, while you tell Gwen what has happened.”
“No way. I can’t let you go wandering off alone in the dark. Even if I didn’t care for your safety, which I do, Awen would have my balls for it, and rightly so.”
She sighed. “This is my issue with taking mates. I am a capable female.”
“It’s not your gender which worries me, Dragonea. You are latent. You can’t change. How could you defend yourself if a dragon meant you harm? One who could take their fire-breathing form?”
She smiled, raised her arm, and shot a lightning bolt straight out of the palm of her hand. Swear to the gods, a fucking lightning bolt. It even crackled and snapped in the air as it slammed into the shrubbery, causing it to catch alight. She flicked her fingers, and the flames died down. “I have the means to defend myself.”
Sudden rage hit him. He glanced behind him at the house, to ensure Gwen wasn’t in the doorway or the hallway, and leaned into Lara. “All these years, you’ve been aware you possess powerful magic, but you never trained Gwen? You could have given her the chance to protect herself.”
With a sigh, she shook her head. “Gwen isn’t my biological offspring, remember? She doesn’t possess much magic. She’s not powerful. I did try to train her when she first came to live with me, but she couldn’t do anything but the most basic magic. She finds it hard to even call forth a flame. I didn’t want her to feel a failure. She’s latent. That already puts her at a disadvantage to a degree in our society. She’s also from a family who are seen as being bad. Tainted by their father. Add in her lack of magic, and frankly, I envisioned nothing but torment for her if I lived within a clan with her.”
Understanding dawned, and he went from being irritated with Lara because of how she hid her daughter away from the dragon life, to seeing it from a whole new perspective. “You’ve been protecting her. All this time.”
“Yes.” Tears filled Lara’s eyes. “I don’t live the life I do because I want to be alone. It is true, I don’t care for the more archaic rules of our kind, but many of the clans are modernizing. However, I never thought there would be a place or a home for Gwen. I worried if I let any of the males who wanted to mate her have her, they’d start to belittle her as time went on. Her family is seen as the black sheep of the Welsh clan.”
He snorted at that, couldn’t help it. “This is the clan where Steffan lives in a cave and shuns most of what they do, and Gwen’s family are the black sheep?”
“Her father beat her and her siblings once their other dad passed away. He didn’t like the responsibility. He also hit Gwen’s birth mother. You know how revered females are in our world. His actions are deeply abhorrent, and he is one of the few dragons in prison. Will be there for a long, long time. So, there’s a stigma to her that she’ll always carry. Add in what he did to her…”
Things suddenly clicked into place for Cade, and he murmured, “Her scar.”
Lara raised her brows and pursed her lips, but a tiny smile danced at the corner of her mouth. He’d just given the game away and revealed they’d been naked together at some point.
Lara didn’t address the situation directly. Instead, she answered him. “Yes, her scar. She carries her father’s poison within her. He’s not strong, thank the gods, so it won’t do her much harm at all. It’s not like the situation was for that poor Havsa girl of Nathan’s when she got carved up by the crazy bitch from the Welsh clan. But put it all together. A bad family. An abusive, weak father. Latent. No ability to change or bear young, and as a final straw, such weak magic some have questioned if she’s fully Dragonea. I never wanted her to feel an outcast amongst her own kind.”
“So you made us both outcasts and lived a lonely life to protect me?”
Cade spun around at the husky, feminine tones to see Gwen standing in the doorway, her face pale in the light spilling out into the dark.
“Oh, my darling. I didn’t mean for you to hear any of what I said.”
If he hadn’t been so engrossed by what Lara was telling him, and so worried about Jay, Cade would have heard and scented Gwen’s arrival. He cursed himself inwardly at the hurt on her face.
“I’m glad I heard, Mum. I’m defective. I told you, Cade. You don’t truly want me. You’re a noble dragon. A powerful warrior, and you can’t shackle yourself to a loser like me. And, Mum.” Gwen turned to look at Lara with tears shining in her eyes. “I know… I know you want Awen and Lucien. Who wouldn’t? I won’t stand in your way. You’ve sacrificed your life for me. Now I want you to live for you. I’ll still come visit you, see you in your new home, but you need to go be with those males you want. I’m going to pack my stuff tomorrow and go on holiday somewhere. I expect to be invited to the mating ceremony, though.”
She wiped at her tears and walked up to Cade. “And I want you to find yourself a female worthy of you.”
“How noble,” he drawled. “Except there is a tiny flaw in your plan.”
“Oh, what’s that?” She cocked her hip and stared him down.
“Firstly, I want you. I’m not letting you go, because you want me too.”
Her eyes flashed with temper, and he bit back a smile at the spark in her. One her father and her lack of magic could never dim. Then he grew serious. “And secondly, Jay has gone missing. You don’t get to do the same.”
“What?” She blinked twice and looked from him to her mother, then back to him. “Missing? What do you mean?”
“I came out here looking for him and scented some strange males. Not of this clan. I don’t know them, although there’s something familiar about the way one of them smells. They must have taken Jay because his phone was on the ground over there, screen smashed. He’s damn well surgically attached to the stupid thing. No way he’d drop it and go off on a stroll.”
Lara’s phone rang out, jarring in the quiet night, and she walked a few feet away to answer it.
“It can’t be true. Maybe he doesn’t know it’s been dropped. He’s gone for a walk and will be back soon.” Gwen’s breathing became more rapid, and her heart beat so fast he could hear it pounding away.
Cade went to her, wrapping her in his arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, it’s true. Jay is gone, and I think he’s in trouble.”
He stepped back to look at her, flinching at the tears running down her cheeks, feeling he’d failed her somehow. “And these tears—” he brushed them away with his thumb “—they tell me you’re as invested in this as we both are. You are bonding with us. Falling for us. We need to get our boy back. But once we do, you’re going to be ours.”
She didn’t argue. Instead, she nibbled her lip and nodded, still letting silent tears fall.
When Lara hung up, she came over to them. “That was Awen. Not sure how the insufferable bastard got my number, but he’d called to check up on me, and I told him what has happened. He’s on his way over right now.”
Cade nodded and began to look around him again, using the light on his phone to inspect the ground. He counted what looked like five different pairs of footprints, but he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t a tracker. If he was correct, then four men had been here. Had taken Jay. He looked for some time, wandering around the back of the house and to the front again.
He kept scenting the air, plagued by trying to figure out why one of the scents seemed so familiar. Perhaps an old enemy of his had decided to take his revenge and take his bonded male? Or maybe Gwen’s father had something to do with this?
“Are you sure her father is still in prison?” he asked Lara.
She nodded. “He was two weeks ago anyway, and there’s no way he’s going to be eligible to be freed. You know how strict Dragonea law is against those who transgress our most basic rules.”
Footsteps sounded on the path, and Awen, Lucien, and Jay’s three parents joined them. Great, he’d failed his bonded male, and now his parents were here.
Lara turned to Awen. “Can you find out if Gwen’s biological father is still in prison? Cade thinks he may be behind taking Jay, as one of the males had a familiar scent. It could be there’s an echo of Gwen there, and that is why it’s familiar.”
Awen nodded, but Jay’s mother spoke up.
“Or it could be Jay’s father.”
“Excuse me?” Cade looked from her to Awen and back, confused. “They are here, with you.”
She shook her head. “We are not all Jay’s biological parents. I am his true birth mother, but neither one of these good males is his biological father.”
Cade’s mind spun. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t I know? Why wouldn’t he tell me? Many of our kind are adopted. There is no shame in it. But he always said you were his true birth parents.”
“Oh gods,” she sobbed and put her head in her hands.
Damian, one of her bonded males, put his arm around her. “You don’t have to talk about this, my love.”
“No. I do! Our lies and cover-ups have placed our beautiful child at risk.” She was crying properly, with tears streaming down her face and smudging the makeup she wore. “The truth about Jay’s father is shameful, and I never wanted anyone to know. I told Jay, but I made him swear he’d never share my disgrace. His birth father took me when I was a young female. Against my will.”
A quiet gasp from Gwen was the only sound. Rape? It was such a taboo among their kind. One of the things that separated them from the lowly humans.
Betrayal hit Cade hard. His bonded male had lied to him for the longest time. He began to pace, conflicting emotions warring within. His tight jaw and fisted hands must have given him away, because a tentative touch to his back had him spinning around.
Gwen watched him warily, but she didn’t let go. Her hand slid around his body as he turned, to end up placed right on his heart. “You’re angry? At him? I think you are, but he did nothing wrong.”
“He lied to me,” he seethed. “If he hadn’t done so, then maybe I could have protected him, but I never knew he might be in danger.”
“Don’t be angry with him. You can’t guess what it’s like. You’re…you. A famous, almost mythical warrior. Only a dozen or so of you left in Britain now. Males like you, Steffan, Awen, and Lucien, you’re like living gods amongst our kind. People such as myself and Jay… We’re viewed as nothing but trash by the less kindly elements in Dragonea society. Maybe he wanted to keep his promise, but perhaps he also couldn’t find a way to tell you.”
Her words made sense. Snippets of memories flooded to him. Jay sitting down, face serious and sighing, as if to begin a conversation but then brightening and turning on the TV. Yeah. Maybe Jay had wanted to tell him but didn’t know where to begin?
“And, after all, the important thing is we find him. Isn’t it? You can chastise him for hiding it from you then.”
She was so right. Such a smart female, this gorgeous creature of his. And she was his, as was Jay. They belonged together, and he would move heaven and earth to ensure they got to be together.
First, they had to get Jay back.