Chapter Ten – Jay

“You really met another dragon shifter?” Kim’s first question was not the one he expected.

“I did.” They had followed a trail leading from the house up into the forest. Jay carried Archie in his arms, since the terrain was too rough for a stroller.

“Why didn’t you tell me? When I first mentioned dragons?” Kim asked, an edge to her voice. She trusted these dragons, and had only seen their good side, their generous nature. So different than the dragon Jay had encountered.

“I didn’t want to upset you.” It was a feeble excuse.

“Upset me. Jay, I’m not a child. You have to be honest with me. About everything,” Kim insisted.

“I don’t know where to start. Or where this ends.” Jay stopped, resting against a fallen tree trunk. He still wasn’t completely recovered and he didn’t want to risk tearing open his wound.

“Just tell me something.” Kim leaned against him, her warmth seeping into him.

“I went undercover to find out who was responsible for my parents’ deaths. I told you how the official version was that my father killed my mom before turning the gun on himself.”

“Yes, I know you said he would never do that. And I saw your proof in the package you sent. Avery showed it to me. She thought I had a right to know you had succeeded in clearing your father’s name. Just in case you never made it back.” He hated Kim seeing the details of the murder. Even for Jay, a hardened police officer, the photographs and details he’d uncovered of his parents’ murders, and so many others, made his stomach churn.

“It took me a long time to earn the trust of the boss. Gregor Davelchi, what a piece of work. Paranoid as hell.” Jay picked up a leaf and twirled it in front of Archie. “Sorry, little man.”

“Go on,” Kim urged.

“I realized early on that Davelchi often had his employees followed. Unable to risk him seeing me meet with Guy, and unsure if he tapped phones, I dropped all contact with Guy and everyone else who knew me.” Long days of loneliness, of no contact with anyone outside of the people he was investigating, took its toll. Davelchi’s paranoia seemed to spread like creeping ivy, clawing its way into his head.

“Jay. It’s okay.” Kim’s touch brought him back to the forest, with the leaves rustling in the breeze, and the sun filtering down to dapple the ground, where birds landed, digging for grubs and worms to feed their young.

His fingers curled around Archie’s jacket, the little boy leaned back in his father’s arms and stared up at the sky above them. Jay was reminded of his own dad, the places they had explored, and the knowledge he’d gleaned from watching his dad work. Of running across mountains, and through forests with his father at his side, dependable, solid. Dead.

“I was willing to risk everything to bring him down,” Jay admitted. “I shut out who I was. I shut down the voice of my bear. I wanted to come to you so many times, it nearly broke me, but I couldn’t, because I knew one day it might be our bodies found on the living room floor. It might be me who was accused of murder-suicide, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not to you, not to anyone else.”

“And you did it.” Kim moved to stand in front of him and wrapped her arms around him. “Archie sandwich.”

Jay put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Archie sandwich.” He let her go and placed his finger under her chin, tilting her head back so he could stare into her face. The same face he’d imagined lying next to him for endless nights, only to wake up in an empty bed. “You did the right thing. Not telling me.”

“About Archie?” Kim asked. “It killed me. A little each day, not knowing where you were or if you were alive. But I’m glad you did it, Jay. I am. No matter what.”

Kim pulled away from him and went to stare out into the forest. Jay longed to read her thoughts, to know if she truly meant what she said. Was it the right thing? Did she forgive him?

“Kim, I have to meet Guy.” He scrunched through last winter’s fallen leaves, dried up and brown, rising in eddies as the breeze skimmed across the ground.

She nodded and turned to face him, tears misting her eyes. “I know.”

“If this dragon shifter is a threat…”

Kim closed her eyes as if trying to shut out his words. “I know.” When she looked at him again, his heart ached for the pain he saw there. “But you have to promise me, you won’t disappear for another year.”

“I promise.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips, and as he did, wet lips pressed against his cheek. He chuckled and pulled back. “Thanks, Archie.”

“Let me have him.” Kim held out her arms. “We want to see your bear.”

“Okay.” Jay clapped his hands together, making Archie jump. A burst of giggles erupted from the small boy, which infected his parents. Three voices joined together in laughter, the sound a celebration of their reunion.

“Are you ready to see a big bear?” Kim asked Archie. “Daddy going to change into a big bear?”

“He is,” Jay confirmed excitedly, and then the air shimmered around him and much to Archie’s surprise, his newfound daddy disappeared.

Archie pointed, and a small sob hiccuped out of him. “He’ll be back. Watch.”

Mom and son stared at the place where Jay had been only seconds before. Then, slowly, a large hulking shadow loomed, its outline consolidating, giving form to the shape, which grew in detail until a big grizzly bear stood before them.

Archie squealed and reached out for the bear. “Gently,” Kim told her son, as his little hands grasped the air. “We have to be really gentle.”

Kim approached Jay’s bear, keeping low and hanging on tightly to her son. Archie showed no fear as he dug his small hands into the bear’s fur and then buried his face in the soft pelt. He giggled, lifted his head and then repeated the action. More relaxed now, Kim stroked Jay’s bear, resting her head on his back. “I missed you, too.”

The bear turned his head and snuffled at her hands. If he could speak, he would be telling Kim he missed her, too. He would tell her of the days where he would sit listless, mourning for the loss of their mate. It wasn’t right not to see her, not to inhale her scent and feel her touch.

“Want a ride?” Kim asked, as Archie leaned over the bear’s back. “Is that okay?”

The bear nodded, this was his cub. The son who would continue his bloodline. A small boy his parents would have been proud of.

Kim lifted Archie onto Jay’s back, and showed him how to hold on, which meant digging his fingers into bear fur. Then, with Kim holding on to Archie so he didn’t topple off, they made their way back toward the trail, and headed downhill.

With each step, Jay assessed the damage to his shoulder. Last time he’d been in his bear form, the pain in his shoulder had been almost unbearable. Now, although a little uncomfortable, it didn’t bother him at all. He could walk, and more importantly, fight, without his shoulder causing him trouble.

Would he have to fight? Kim hadn’t asked about his escape from his boss. She didn’t know that the whole operation had fallen like a house of cards as soon as the police got the information and started raiding Davelchi’s premises. His men had scattered like rats on a sinking boat. Literally. Dragons weren’t the only shifters Jay had found while working undercover. Davelchi’s network was made up of several types of shifters Jay had never known existed. The guy was like a magnet to the worst kinds of shifters. Shifters who would do anything if the price was right.

Davelchi’s empire was built on the corpses of people, murdered for the right price, and goods smuggled all over the world. If the incentive was enough to make the risk worthwhile. People like his father, good people, who had tried to end corruption, had been cut down and framed. All in the name of money. The dragon shifter he’d seen meeting with Davelchi had deep pockets and was willing to spend his money to get his dirty work done by someone else.

“Wow, slow down there.” Kim’s voice alerted him, and he slowed his pace. Anger, which threaded through his veins at the thought of Davelchi, made him tense, and his speed had increased without him realizing. Not that Archie cared. His son was babbling fast, excited by his ride through the forest.

Jay concentrated on his son on the back of his bear and his mate walking next to him as they traversed the trail back to the house. When they were close, but still hidden by trees, Kim lifted Archie off his back and they stood back while Jay shifted back to his human form.

Archie’s excitement was barely contained when his dad stood in front of him once more. Archie reached out, and Jay took him from Kim, who cocked an eyebrow at them. “I guess boys stick together. I’ve been forgotten.”

“Never.” Jay slung his arm over her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing her cheek. “The three of us against the world.”

Kim frowned. “I hope not. I think we need friends. We need the dragons.”

Jay sighed. “I know. I need some time to get used to them, that’s all.”

“What about the house Harlan offered us?” Kim asked. “I trust him, if he says no strings, there won’t be any.”

“You say you trust him, but you’ve known him for how many days?” Jay asked.

“Enough days to know he, and his family, are genuine.” She bumped her hip into him. “The same as I knew you were the man for me, after two days.”

“Two days, I thought it was love at first sight,” Jay teased.

“Not for me. The first time I met you, I thought you were too intense. There was this brooding intensity that made me want to run away and never look back.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jay told her.

“Well, you didn’t ask,” Kim said. “You took it for granted that I was falling head over heels in love with you.”

“I was just hoping.” Jay stopped walking, and Kim paused next to him, her shoulders tensing.

“Is something wrong?” Kim asked, looking around.

“No. I just want to stay in this moment, where the three of us are together, and there’s no bad guy to find, no looking over my shoulder so I don’t get knifed in the back.”

Kim’s breath shuddered through her. “What if Guy asks you to finish what you started?”

“What I started?” Jay asked.

“You said some of Davelchi’s men fled. So they are out there. Somewhere.” Kim turned to face him, her hand on his shoulder. “Was that who shot you?”

“No.” He looked down at her, wanting to take away her pain and uncertainty, but he couldn’t tell her it was all going to be all right, because he didn’t know. Not for sure. “This was from friendly fire.”

Kim frowned. “You mean you were shot by the police?”

He nodded. “I didn’t want to give myself up. Not until I knew for sure they had Davelchi. So I ran, when he ran.”

“Did they get him?” Kim asked.

“Oh, yeah. I knocked him out mid-shift as he tried to get down into the sewers. You should have seen him, he was slipping out of this world, and I reached in and yanked him back.” He flexed his hand. “I got this massive electric shock, it knocked us to the floor. I got up first. Davelchi didn’t get up at all. I slammed my fist into his jaw, seemed to be the easiest way to make him stay down. As soon as I knew the cops were close, I took to the sewers and ran.”

“Why didn’t you wait for the police?” Kim asked.

“Because I still don’t know who to trust.”

As they walked on, Jay figured he was going to have to make a decision on that. When he saw Guy later today, he was going to have to decide whether he trusted his handler. Davelchi paid off a lot of people to keep his empire going. Bringing them down hurt a lot of people. And if the truth got out it was Jay who’d been behind it…

The bad guys might not be the only ones coming for him.

Maybe staying close to the dragons might not be a bad idea.