Page 20 of Dragon’s Midlife Secret Baby (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #1)

“Aren’t we supposed to be riding on brooms?” Lucille cackled. “I’ve never tried it, but I can already tell you this is more fun.”

“We’re not here to have fun,” Maeve reminded her.

“What, you don’t think taking down some moldy old jerkwad and getting revenge for everything he’s done to our family is going to be fun?” her younger sister challenged. “Sounds like a fucking blast to me, and riding on a dragon is just a bonus. I love the wind in my hair!”

Beck listened to the three women on his back. Maeve and Lucille were constantly bantering, but Chelsea was silent. He didn’t take that as a good sign. They were going to get their son back. What would happen after that?

He turned instead to his fellow dragons that’d readily volunteered to come along. Lilith was on his right, her long gold body easily riding through the night’s wind currents. Kristy was on her back, along with Lucille’s daughters Amanda and Jamie. “Everyone all right over there?”

“We’re trying to be,” Kristy replied, her voice barely picking up enough to travel to him. “This is a new experience.”

“I feel a little sick,” Jamie admitted.

Amanda was sitting in the middle, taking deep breaths and not saying anything.

Beck was worried about the witches. It’d been determined that the fastest way to get to the island was to come in on their wings, but this wasn’t exactly normal. If someone got sick or fell off, they’d have even more problems on their hands. “Did Kendrick say when he’d be joining us?”

Lilith flexed her wings slightly to adjust for angle and elevation. “We gave him the coordinates. He said he’d catch up as soon as he found Griffin.”

“I wonder where he went,” Beck mused aloud. His cousin hadn’t seemed particularly excited about Beck’s return, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if Griffin declined to help them at all. While the majority of the Alexander clan stuck together, Griffin had always been a bit of an outlier.

“I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can,” Ewan assured him. He flew on Beck’s left, with Jace and Erin on his sleek blue scales. “He was concerned about bringing enough people to the fight.”

Beck had been concerned about that, too.

Sol was just one man, but he knew magic that was powerful enough to keep at least one dragon down.

They’d concluded that he must have some followers if he’d sent someone else to do the dirty work of kidnapping Corbin for him.

“What do we know about this island, Jace?”

“Not much.” The ship’s captain kept his arms tightly around his mate.

“It’s private, like we thought it might be, and it’s been owned by the same family for a long time.

No one has been invited out there for any geographical surveys or anything.

We do know that the sides are steep cliffs.

There are no sandy beaches there. I’m not even sure how anyone would get on it by boat, unless they were going to climb up. ”

“Then we’ve chosen the right way in,” Erin concluded.

“I agree. I think that’s it right there.” Jace pointed.

It was getting dark, which was to their advantage as they shifted into their dragon forms and took off.

Now, the deep cerulean of the water was blotted by a much darker shape, a rocky crag that stuck up out of the sea.

Waves crashed against the cliffs all around its base, sending up white foam that never quite reached the flat land on top.

Some trees had managed to grow there over the years, and they crowded around the old houses.

As soon as he could see the layout of the place, Beck once again had that same horrific feeling inside him that’d occurred when he’d realized he and Corbin had been kidnapped by the same man. “This was the place. This was where they kept me.”

Ewan craned his head around on his long neck. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” As things grew clearer, he had no doubt.

“There are a few houses and storage buildings toward the center of the island. They’re all very old, but that means they were built solidly enough to handle the weather out here all this time.

Stone foundations and timber frames. That’s probably where Corbin is. ”

“We need to make sure we land enough inland that we don’t just have our backs to the cliffs,” Jace reasoned.

A spinning ball of silvery fire whizzed past them.

“Looks like it’s time for us to figure out exactly where that right spot is.” With a grunt of determination, Beck angled himself down. He headed directly for the grassy area along the edge of the island, waiting to see where the attack had come from.

A figure in a dark robe emerged from the trees, sending another blazing sphere up into the air.

“We have to get him before he warns the others.” Maeve moved a little on Beck’s back as she hurled a fireball of her own.

“Too late!” Lucille announced as a new attack was launched over on the left.

“There’s a stone wall over there,” Beck recalled. “There could be any number of them hiding behind it.”

“We’ll swing around and get them from the other side of it,” Ewan volunteered, veering off to the left.

“Divide and conquer it is!” Lilith announced. She zoomed to the right, and at least one of the women on her back screamed a little as she banked back in toward the island. “Sorry,” Lilith said.

Fire burned in his chest, but Beck saved it for the moment.

It wouldn’t reach far enough to do any good at this distance.

Lucille wriggled as she spotted a young man emerging from the trees.

A nebulous blob gyrated through the air.

Reaching its target, it flopped down over the top of the man like gelatin.

He fell onto his side, his arms and legs moving slowly as he fought to get out of the goo that now encased him.

Tucking his wings, Beck came in for a landing. He tried to make it a gentle one, but he knew they didn’t have much time. They had to act quickly, taking out as many of their enemies as they could before they were spotted and word got back to Sol.

“We should head toward the houses,” he suggested. “There are at least two up there.”

“Lucille and I will take the one on the east,” Maeve offered. “You and Chelsea take the one to the west.”

Though he wanted to keep his scales, claws, and fire, Beck knew he wouldn’t slip through the trees and shadows with nearly as much stealth if he remained in his reptilian form. No longer burdened with passengers, he shifted back to two legs instead of four and made his way through the trees.

The moonlight made bright patches of silver on the ground where it leaked down through the leaves. “There’s a main door on the front, but that’s what they’ll expect. We’ll use the servants’ entrance around the side. Anyone we run into there is just going to be a grunt.”

“How many people does he have working for him?” It was the first time Chelsea had spoken to him since their argument in her room.

“At least a dozen, possibly more.” He caught a flash of light in the corner of his eye as Maeve and Lucille went after another lookout.

Beck had to trust that they were taking care of themselves.

“I’m surprised I remember as much as I do, considering.

The people often changed, but the layout is the same. ”

She hurried along behind him. Her fingertips glowed with a silvery light as she kept her magic at the ready. “Are you all right?” she asked quietly. “I know it can’t be easy to be here.”

It wasn’t. It felt like pure hell to go willingly back to this prison.

Beck had now seen with clear eyes just how far out into the water this island was.

He now understood the sheer distance his human form had been forced to swim to get away from these people, showing him just how desperate he’d been for his freedom.

Though the various spells and experiments that Sol and his acolytes had carried out on Beck had often rendered him unconscious and made it difficult for him to know exactly what happened, his body knew that this was a place of torture.

“I will be as soon as we get Corbin out of here,” he said.

They came closer to the old house, which towered like a dark shadow against the moonlight.

He ushered her around to the back entrance.

The mages, believing themselves to be alone on the island, had left the door unlocked.

Beck knew better than to see this as a win, but he opened the door and crept through the old kitchen.

A massive, colonial-era fireplace stood on their right.

Few updates had been made over the years, leaving the place looking more like a medieval tavern than a modern kitchen.

The good news was that none of Sol’s followers were in there at the moment.

Beck slipped quietly through a different door that opened into a long hallway.

The glow of light coming through a doorway up ahead told them where to go.

“What are you doing?”

Beck jumped slightly, but no one had come up behind them. This voice was a familiar one, though, and it froze his blood.

“What do you care?” This voice was also familiar but in a different way.

This was Sol. This was the man who’d taken control of his mind and body, who’d kept him trapped both on this island and in his human form.

He’d taken away everything Beck had in his life, and now he was threatening to all over again. Beck’s blood boiled.

“I paid you to do a job,” the first voice snapped. “You failed.”

They moved closer and settled just outside the open doorway. Beck angled his head trying to get a vantage point of the room. It was a library of sorts, with another massive fireplace. Sol stood with his back to the door. As soon as the other man’s face came into view, Beck’s fears were confirmed.

It was Griffin.

“I didn’t fail,” Sol retorted as he chucked a log onto the fire. “I did exactly as you asked. I took your rival out of the picture so you could take his place.”

It was hard to control his breathing as his anger grew. That bastard! How could he have done this?

“He came back,” Griffin argued. “Even worse, he knows exactly who he is and is now poised to take over the clan, just as the plan always was before.”

“If you really wanted him gone, you should’ve just had me kill him.” Sol turned away from the fireplace, but his pendant glowed even without direct light. If he only looked a little more to his right, he would’ve seen Beck and Chelsea in the shadows of the hall.

“I wanted my position in the clan. I didn’t need blood on my hands to get it,” Griffin growled. “You told me you were capable of making me the next Alpha of the Alexander clan, and now I’m bumped right back down into the fringes.”

“I did exactly what I said I’d do.” Sol took a step closer to Griffin and shook his finger in the air. “You wanted him out of your way. I wanted to see what kind of power I could pull from him. We had a fair exchange and never discussed how long I was to keep him here.”

Griffin crossed his arms. “I think you’re just embarrassed because you let him escape.”

“Ugh!” Sol tipped his head back. “Why is everyone around here so annoying and useless?” he cried.

At the sound, the wail of a young child broke through the air.

It shattered Beck’s heart, but he saw the look of desperation on Chelsea’s face.

He grabbed her with one arm and held her close, clamping his hand down over her mouth to keep her from crying out.

She struggled against him for a moment, full of anguish at knowing her child was so close at hand.

Finally, she stopped and nodded. Beck took his right hand away from her mouth, but he kept his left arm wrapped firmly around her waist.

“This child is constantly crying about something,” Sol grumbled.

Beck leaned a little further. He saw Sol pick up a bowl of crackers from a table and hand it over, but he couldn’t quite see Corbin. Only the boy’s toes were visible as he sat in a nearby chair. That was something, at least.

“Yeah, I think we need to talk about this whole thing, too,” Griffin said. “You were supposed to keep Beck here, not a little kid.”

Sol scrutinized the other man. “Just because you paid me for a job doesn’t mean you get to dictate my entire life. I don’t give a shit about your little clan and what you want. I’ve found something far more valuable in Corbin than in your money, anyway.”

“He’s just a child.” Griffin was now looking to his left, toward the chair where Corbin sat. “This is weird.”

“That’s only because you haven’t been listening,” Sol retorted.

“I was the one who put that mindwipe spell on Beck, and there are very few people in the world who are at my level and who know my kind of magic. That means it should’ve taken at least a whole coven of witches to break, but Corbin here was a functional substitute for several witches with far more age and talent.

If he’s this powerful before he can even read, then he’ll be unstoppable when he gets older. ”

“So?” Griffin pressed. “Are you going to try to drain all the power out of him or something?”

The slow smile that spread over Sol’s face was gut-wrenching.

He’d given that same smile to Beck just before he’d done something new and awful to him.

“There’s no need. Young Corbin here is going to give me free use of everything he has.

He’s going to stay here with me. I’ll raise him as my own, and in due time, he’ll forget that I’m not his true parent.

I can help him develop his powers, and he’ll be unstoppable when he gets older. ”

“That’s fucked up.” Griffin waved his hands in front of him as he shook his head. “I’m not going to let you do that.”

Sol laughed, a sound that made Beck want to vomit. “Do you really think you can stop me?”

“I’ll find a way,” the dragon shifter retorted. “I’m not a stickler for the rules, but I have to draw the line at using a child like that. I’m leaving with the kid, and if you try to stop me, I’m going to show you just how angry a dragon can get.”

“Just one dragon, though. Right?” Sol shrugged his shoulders casually. “It’s not like you can have the rest of the clan help you without revealing what you did, showing what a traitor you are.”

“Fuck off, old man. I’m not putting up with this bullshit.” Griffin crossed the room toward Sol, his fists curled and his shoulders bunched. His skin began to shimmer, showing that his dragon was close at hand.

Beck’s muscles tensed. They’d seen enough, and it was time to act.

Just as Griffin lunged forward, Sol swept his hand through the air.

The heavy crystal around his neck glowed in a flash of red that filled the room.

Griffin was swept backward, slamming into the wall with his feet off the ground.

He left a dent in the old plaster, and his eyes rolled in his head as he crumpled to the ground.

“Master!” A voice cried. “They’re here! They’ve come!”