Page 19 of Dragon’s Midlife Secret Baby (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #1)

His dragon ached inside him as he rushed up to the house.

It wanted to be with Chelsea. It’d been irritated as hell when he’d insisted on leaving, and it knew Beck was doing the right thing by coming back to her now.

Beck could only hope that this wasn’t the wrong decision.

He’d stayed away for a reason, but Chelsea’s frantic voice on the phone was enough to make him throw that reason to the side for the moment.

Maeve met him at the door, her face solemn. “It was good of you to come,” she said quietly.

He didn’t like the pit that opened in his stomach. “What’s happened?”

“I’ll let Chelsea tell you. She’s in her room.” Maeve waved him inside.

Several women were assembled in the living room, and they turned wide eyes to him as he walked through.

Chelsea’s terrified voice had been enough to let him know something was severely wrong, but the way they all looked gave him a deep sense of dread.

He knocked and went in, finding Chelsea sitting on her bed.

She was hugging Corbin’s stuffed animal and looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Beck,” she whispered.

He rushed to her side, pulling her close. Having his memories back meant there was no longer any need for awkwardness between them, a war between what his body and dragon wanted versus what he thought was expected of him. “Are you okay?”

“No.” She hugged the teddy bear even tighter to herself. “Corbin’s been kidnapped.”

“What? How?” His mind had run through all sorts of scenarios when she’d called him for help, but not this one. His little boy.

She gulped past her tears so she could speak. “I’d left him here with Kristy, and a man came and took him. We think he works for a powerful mage named Sol.”

He could barely control his dragon. “Who is this guy? Why would he do this?”

“We don’t have any solid answers,” she admitted.

Chelsea tipped her head back as she tried to catch her breath.

“He knows that Corbin helped us break the spell on you, a spell that was strong enough that the three of us shouldn’t have defeated it.

Sol has always been interested in powerful magic, so we assume that must be why. ”

“I don’t understand.” He’d been working so hard to get his mind straight, and this was only adding to the complication. “How would this person know that? And who is he?”

“My mom knew him from a long time ago. We went to him to see if he could help us track down the person who put the spell on you,” she explained.

“Holy shit.” Beck shot off the bed, fury rising inside him uncontrollably. “How could you do such a thing?”

“Excuse you? How dare you make this my fault!”

He closed his eyes for a second and clenched his teeth, but it didn’t relieve the frenzy inside him. “I told you that I’d get this figured out. It’s my problem that someone is after me. You went and endangered your and Corbin’s lives when I was trying so hard not to.”

Chelsea swiped away a tear. “You mean you ran away from the problem, while I decided to face it head-on.”

“That’s not what happened.” He moved over to the window, needing some distance, some time. “I went back to the clanhouse because that was safer for everyone. I didn’t need this unknown villain to come after me while you and Corbin were around. You don’t understand.”

“Me?” Her voice was closing in on a screech.

“Beck, what do you think I’ve been doing this whole time you’ve been gone?

My life has been dedicated to raising and protecting Corbin, no matter what the world wanted to throw at us.

I’ve been a single mom for the last two years.

I know what it’s like to get up day after day and face challenge after challenge, whether I thought I was up for it or not.

I never had a choice to turn my back on the hard things and wait for them to go away. ”

“That is not what I’m doing,” he ground out.

His chest grew hot as fires deep within him began to ignite.

They couldn’t come out right now, not while he was in his human form, but he was ready to torch the shit out of something when he had the chance.

“I’m not turning my back on the hard things, and I’m not running away from danger. I am the danger.”

She let the silence between them ring out for a moment. “I don’t believe that,” she finally said. “I never did, and that was why I wanted to get this over with so we could be together again. I can’t just sit around, Beck. That’s not who I am, not as a person and not as a mother.”

“As long as someone out there wants me, they can use Corbin to get to me.” He was still bristling, angry that she could possibly accuse him of doing anything less than what was needed for Corbin.

“And I’m sorry you’ve been all alone up until now.

Really, I am. But you know I would’ve been there for Corbin this whole time if I’d been able to. ”

“Yes, but you left us alone this time,” she pointed out. “You want to be the only one who rides into battle and makes the sacrifice, but who’s to say someone can’t fight for you, too? Things might’ve gone sideways, but that was all I was trying to do.”

“Good intentions haven’t gotten either one of us very far.” He swiped his hand over his forehead and turned away from the window. He’d been looking through it, but he hadn’t actually seen a thing on the other side of the glass. All he could do was think of Corbin.

A knock came on the door, followed by Maeve’s voice. “If you could come out here, we’re going to try something.”

Beck looked at Chelsea. She sat hunched on the bed, still clutching that bear to her chest. She looked cold, alone, and scared.

It was exactly how he felt inside, but he didn’t know how to get her to understand that.

Everything had gone wrong. There was a time he’d wanted nothing but her, nothing but to spend time with her and get to know her, to be with his mate.

He still wanted that, but the chances of it happening felt like they were slipping further and further away.

They stepped out into the living room. Jace and Erin had arrived, and Beck gave a nod of acknowledgment to the man who’d first brought him there.

Maeve addressed the group. “We believe we know who took Corbin, so the next thing is to find out where they are. I’m going to do a finding spell, but of course, there’s no room for error. It’ll take all of us. Chelsea, is that Corbin’s bear?”

She nodded, sniffed, and handed it over.

“It would be better if I had something of Sol’s, as well, but this will have to do.”

Lucille cleared her throat. “Well, I might have snatched this from his house.” She produced a slim hardcover book from a tote bag that sat at her feet and handed it over.

“Petty theft?” A woman sitting next to her, whom Beck assumed must be her daughter, elbowed her.

“Hey, I’ve never seen an antique copy of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake that was in such pristine condition. I imagine a man like Sol only has it because it came with other works by Scott, like Hermetica or Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft.”

“It doesn’t matter how or why we have it, only that we do.” Maeve moved to sit on the floor, putting the book and the teddy bear in front of her. “If someone would get the candles, please.”

Beck, feeling the brick wall of tension still up between himself and Chelsea, moved over toward Jace. He’d understood from Chelsea that though he’d married a witch, he wasn’t one himself. “What do we do?”

“Just stand back and let them do their thing,” he replied quietly. “If they need us, they’ll let us know.”

The women gathered in a circle. Maeve was touching the items. Chelsea sat next to her, her hand on her mother’s shoulder.

Her other hand held Kristy’s, and so on around the circle until it came back to Maeve again.

The candles burned brightly around them.

Someone had laid a few crystals out, though Beck hadn’t even seen that happen.

It was as though everyone else knew what was happening, and all he could do was stand back and watch.

He glanced at Chelsea, her eyes closed, her head bowed, tears dripping down her cheeks and into her lap.

This was how she’d been feeling, closed off from any choices, helpless.

He hated himself for getting angry with her.

There was no telling if they’d ever be able to make their relationship right again.

It was like the spell his captor had put on him had opened a chasm between them, and even his memories weren’t enough to build a bridge across it.

“Ancestors, guide us toward those whom we seek,” Maeve intoned. “Bring our family back together. We beseech you.”

The other women’s voices rose in a chorus around her as she repeated it several times, and then all fell silent. Beck could only hear the subtle hiss of the candle flames.

“I can feel Corbin’s spirit,” Maeve said after a moment, her brow wrinkling in concentration. “He’s unharmed. There’s a man with him.”

A frisson of energy ran up Beck’s spine. He wished he could leap into Maeve’s mind and see this all for himself. In the meantime, he swore he could feel the energy of the magic in the room.

“Is it Sol?” Chelsea asked.

“I’m not sure. He’s got some sort of energy block.” Maeve’s brows scrunched even harder.

“Let me try.” Lucille slid her hand down Maeve’s arm until she and her sister were both touching the old book. “Tall. Skinny. Even his face is too thin. Gray hair. Dark eyes. Mmm. And there’s that red pendant you were talking about.”

It couldn’t be. The energy zipping up and down Beck’s spine now turned into a gaping maw of despair inside him. He didn’t enjoy having certain memories back, and this was one of them. “With a little bump in his nose that twists it a little to the side,” he grated out.

Though Maeve stiffened for a moment, she didn’t reply to him. “We need a map.”

“I’m on it.” Jace strode into another room and returned with an old atlas. He laid the big book out on the floor in front of Maeve.

As the others kept their connection with her, she lifted her pendant over her head.

It was the same one she’d hypnotized Beck with earlier, and now she held it aloft just over the map.

It slowly began moving in lazy circles, wider and wider, and then narrowing.

She continued to work it over the map, keeping the teddy bear and the book in touch with it.

“I don’t quite understand. It’s out in the water.”

Jace was watching intently. “Let me see if there’s a better map that might help. You need something more detailed. There are numerous little islands out there.” He flipped through the atlas and then set it down again.

Beck remembered Chelsea telling him that Jace was a ship captain of some sort. He was the most likely to know the area. Everyone here was a little different. They had their own strengths and weaknesses, and they all worked hard to hold each other up. It was no different than his clan in that sense.

“It’s zeroing in right here, but I don’t see anything on the map,” Maeve noted.

Jace rubbed his hand along his jaw. “If we can mark that point, I can check some other maps I have, ones that are more detailed. My guess is that we’re looking at a small, private island, the kind that wouldn’t show up in an atlas like this because no one is allowed to go there.”

As the women broke the circle, Beck cleared his throat. “You said this guy named Sol has Corbin. The one who was supposed to help you find the person who’s after me.”

Chelsea gave him a distant look. “Yes.”

He knew what he needed to tell her, but the words stuck like a hard lump in his throat. After hundreds of years on this planet, it shouldn’t be impossible to say anything. He forced them out. “I believe they’re one and the same.”

The stunned looks that met him were almost as hard to bear as the truth.

“Sol was the one who did this to you?” Maeve asked, her voice harsh with disbelief.

He avoided the sorrow in Chelsea’s eyes, especially since he knew he’d put some of it there.

“I won’t know for sure until we see him.

My clan will help us.” Even with all the strength of the coven and the clan behind him, Beck felt sick.

He knew how horribly this person had treated him, and now Sol had his son.

Beck had only just become a parent, but already he was living a father’s worst nightmare.

“Well, then.” Lucille got up off the floor and dusted herself off. “Sounds like it’s time we go and find out.”