Page 2 of Dragon’s Midlife Secret Baby (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #1)

“You don’t know?” Chelsea repeated. She’d dreamed of finally seeing him again so many times, but that was all they’d been.

Dreams. There’d never been a sign of him since he disappeared, no word.

And now here he was, standing right in her covenstead.

Her wolf jerked and twisted inside her, howling with confusion, shock, and excitement.

Beck shook his head. “No.”

It’d been two years since she’d seen that face, but she had no doubt that the eyes under that heavy brow ridge were the same that’d gazed into hers so lovingly, despite the fact that they’d seen so much.

She’d always liked how that slight bump in his nose disrupted the otherwise long, straight line of it, showing that he’d been in his share of skirmishes.

Then there were those lips. Beck had a hard face, one made of firm lines, but his lips were always so soft.

Those were the same lips that she’d kissed many times.

Despite all of these features, Chelsea would’ve known him no matter what he looked like because her wolf was crying out in recognition.

So many feelings rushed through her that she hardly knew how to get any thoughts or words out.

All the questions she’d thought about asking him over the past couple of years were mixing around in her mind, demanding answers. “Why did you leave?”

“I don’t know that, either,” he said slowly.

Jace cleared his throat. “John—I mean, Beck—had told me when I found him down at the docks that he’d been held prisoner. I think you mentioned something about an island.”

Beck winced. “Yes. I don’t know who it was. I just know I wasn’t allowed to leave and that it was hell being there. I finally slipped past the guard and swam to shore.”

“Holy shit.” Chelsea returned to the couch and sat down quickly, rubbing her temples. “I don’t know what to think about any of this.”

“Plenty of things can be solved with a bit of communication,” Maeve said gracefully. She swept forward and ushered Beck into an armchair. “We can talk about this, and I’m sure we’ll figure it all out. First, are you hungry?”

Beck blinked uncertainly. “Yes.”

“I’ll go warm up some leftovers,” Erin volunteered.

Chelsea couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

It was him. It was Beck. It was the ghost that’d haunted her very soul, yet he was changed.

There was a timidness about him, and it wasn’t just the gratitude he had for her coven sisters for offering him food and shelter.

When she’d known him, he’d been bold and confident.

This was the shell of the man she’d known, but not all of him was there.

“Thank you, Erin.” Maeve resumed her seat. “Chelsea, since Beck seems to have some issues with his memory, why don’t you tell him what you know?”

That made perfect sense, but it was the only thing that did.

She took a deep breath. Her mother was right.

When the world spun into chaos, you had to focus on the things you knew, the things you could control.

“Your name is Beck Alexander,” she began.

“You and I met not quite three years ago. We…dated. I don’t think we’d really decided on a label for ourselves, but we had a relationship.

Things were great, but we were taking it slow.

Or at least that was the plan.” She paused and swallowed.

Why was this so damn hard? She’d gone over every last detail a thousand times, trying to figure out what’d gone wrong to no avail. Saying it all out loud was too much.

“Here you are.” Erin returned to the room, carrying a plate laden with smoked turkey, roasted sweet potatoes, and steamed broccoli.

She handed the plate to Beck and put a glass of iced tea on the table next to him.

Instead of sitting next to Jace, she resumed her spot by Chelsea and closed her hand around hers.

Chelsea held on, trying to find strength in knowing her coven sister was right there with her.

“Thank you,” Beck said hoarsely. “I don’t think I’ve seen this much food in a long time.”

“Eat slowly,” Maeve cautioned in a motherly tone. “You’ll get all you need while you’re here with us, so you can take your time.

He was looking down at the plate in his lap, but he hadn’t yet picked up his fork. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” There could be any number of things he was apologizing for, and her muddled brain didn’t have the energy to sort it all out.

“For causing…” He waved his hand vaguely at the room around them, but when he raised his head, he was focused solely on Chelsea.

“All of this. Jace said the people here might be able to help me figure out who I am and where I’m supposed to be going.

I had no idea that someone here would actually know me, and it’s obviously causing you a lot of distress. ”

Her breath quivered as she let it out, trying to control the tears that wanted so badly to come. Tears of joy and relief, but also many of anger and frustration. “You could say that.”

“I don’t understand, though.” Beck picked up the fork and stabbed a sweet potato cube. “If you knew me, if I was a part of your life, then why didn’t Jace know who I was?”

“He and Erin weren’t together then.” She could see where this line of thought was going.

“No one else here would know you, either. We were together for a few months, but I wasn’t living here at the covenstead, and we were still getting to know each other.

My family knew of you but hadn’t met you yet. ”

“All right.” He gave a single nod of acceptance. “Will you tell me more?”

She closed her eyes and used Erin’s hand as an anchor as she allowed herself to drift back to a time she’d been trying to forget.

“Things were good between us, very good. Then one day, you didn’t show up for our dinner date or answer my phone calls.

I went by your apartment, but you didn’t come to the door.

The neighbors hadn’t seen you. It was like you fell off the face of the Earth. ”

When she paused, her mother’s voice chimed in to help.

“We tried to find you, Beck. Chelsea was concerned that something bad had happened. She said you weren’t the kind to just cut off communication like that, that you were the kind of man who would tell someone if they didn’t want to be around them anymore.

We tried some location spells and we reached out psychically.

Our coven isn’t huge, but we have quite the range of talents. We found nothing, not until today.”

Beck listened, quietly chewing. When Maeve was done, he shook his head. “I just don’t understand that. I don’t know why I would do that.”

“It sounds like maybe you didn’t,” Erin suggested, “or at least not on purpose. Jace said you were talking about being held prisoner somewhere. What can you tell us about that?”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead as if it could jumpstart his brain.

“I don’t know. It’s like my whole mind is a cloud, or at least it’s living in one.

What little I know is very abstract. I know I was hungry and cold.

I wanted to leave so badly. Some days, I was so weak, I could barely even think about leaving, but when I could, it was the only thought I had. ”

Maeve leaned forward. “Do you know who was keeping you captive? Or why?”

He gave it a moment, his eyes blinking and rolling a bit as he searched his memories, but again, he shook his head. “No. If they told me, then I don’t remember.”

“That must be very frightening,” Erin said sympathetically.

Though Beck didn’t truly move, Chelsea swore she saw him sink into the armchair a bit. He looked like a scared little boy, and that didn’t add up at all with what she knew about him. Something truly terrible must’ve happened.

“It is,” he admitted. “I really don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll help you in any way we can,” Maeve assured him. “Chelsea, maybe you could tell him a little more about himself. We’ll focus on small things instead of the big events over the past couple of years, which no one here truly understands.”

“I’ll try.” It wasn’t that she didn’t know.

It was just hard to say. Chelsea had wanted to see him again, but she knew now she should’ve been more careful in that hope.

This was the same man, yet he wasn’t the same person he’d been when she’d known him.

Once again, she forced herself to rely on what she knew, which was what her inner wolf was telling her.

This was him. “Like I said, your name is Beck Alexander. You’re a dragon shifter, and you’re nearly six hundred years old. ”

“Excuse me?” Pure shock had injected a bit of vigor into his voice, and he sounded more like Beck instead of some poor man off the street. “I’m a what?”

“A dragon shifter,” she repeated. “I guess that’s difficult to hear when you don’t know about these kinds of things.”

He looked around the living room. “And this doesn’t bother anyone?”

“We’re all shifters,” Jace explained. He pointed at himself, his mate, and then Chelsea and Maeve. “Black bear, bobcat, wolf, and wolf.”

“It’s more than just turning into the creatures,” Maeve offered. “They’re part of us, but it’s also like they live inside us, even when we’re in our human forms. We’re certainly not like other humans, though. Dragons in particular are quite rare, but they do live for a very long time.”

“Six hundred years?” Beck questioned.

“Five hundred and seventy-five, to be exact,” Chelsea murmured.

“You’re an Aries. Among other things, that means you’re strong, independent, and competitive.

You like anything that gives you a chance to win, whether it’s sports or board games.

Your favorite ice cream is butter pecan, but you don’t think any ice cream holds up to the gelato you had in Florence. ”

“I’ve been to Italy?” He was hardly eating anything now as he listened.

“At least he knows where Florence is,” Maeve noted.