Page 4 of Dragon’s Midlife Secret Baby (Shifter Nation: Enchanted Over Forty #1)

Beck watched as the entire room tensed. It was just a little boy who’d woken up from his nap.

Why should that be such a problem? Immediately afterward, he realized that he was the problem.

Beck had wondered why Jace would’ve taken the risk of bringing him back to his family, witches or not.

They still wouldn’t want to risk having a small child around a complete stranger.

No, wait. Beck wasn’t a stranger. He felt like one. He wasn’t even sure he belonged inside his own body, but Chelsea had known him. The others, even if they hadn’t met him, had at least known who he was. Beck was struggling to keep up with everything happening around him and even within him.

The toddler took a few more steps into the room.

His brown eyes were calm and placid as he took in the other adults, though they zeroed in on him.

His curly brown hair had been swirled around his head in his sleep.

Moving past the couch where Chelsea and Erin were seated, he marched straight up to Beck.

Staring at him for a moment, he turned around and looked at Chelsea. “Who dat?” he asked again.

Beck watched the child, and something within him reacted.

It was that same sense he’d noticed when he’d spoken to Jace out by the docks, and it’d continued to speak to him here and there.

It didn’t communicate with words, exactly.

It was more of a feeling, a message he understood even if he didn’t know the language.

This inner sense now showed him pure acceptance for this little child, a belonging.

It was similar to the awareness he had for Chelsea, as though these people were connected to him.

Chelsea swallowed. “Corbin, this is Beck.”

“Beck,” the boy repeated as he patted Beck’s knee with his warm little hand. “Beck.”

“That’s right.” Beck leaned forward, overwhelmed with the urge to pick him up.

As he drew closer, though, he understood what Chelsea had been trying to tell him only a moment before Corbin had emerged from the bedroom.

He knew why everyone had reacted so strangely, and it was now clear exactly why he felt an immediate pull toward the boy. “Chelsea, is he?”

She nodded, still looking uncomfortable. “Yes, Beck. He’s your son.”

Hearing it was just as intense as feeling it. Beck stared at Corbin. His son. His son, and he was only just now finding out. What had he missed? What had Chelsea gone through? “I…I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t, either,” she replied softly, “not the last time I saw you, anyway. In fact, I got so caught up in trying to find you that I wasn’t paying attention to my body at all. I had some symptoms, but I thought I was just exhausted because I’d been putting so much energy into finding you.”

His heart cracked. This woman, this gorgeous woman, had grieved for him. She’d put herself through so much strain and stress, and she’d been pregnant on top of that. Chelsea was practically a stranger, yet the news had him all twisted up inside.

Corbin was still the only one in the room who wasn’t bothered by any of this. He stopped patting Beck’s knee and held his hands up instead. “Up? Up?”

Beck looked at Chelsea. “Is it all right?”

But before she could answer, Corbin had taken the matter into his own hands. Pushing against Beck’s thighs and using the chair cushion as a foothold, he hoisted himself up into Beck’s lap and giggled with pride at his accomplishments.

“I’d say it’s all right,” Maeve murmured with a smile.

Corbin squirmed around a bit on Beck’s lap, moving in closer. He reached up and touched Beck’s cheek, the soft palms running down the freshly shaved skin. “Beck.”

“He’s also your daddy,” Chelsea told her son.

At this, Corbin tipped his head slightly to the side. “Daddy?”

What small part of his heart that’d still been hanging on was now completely shredded.

Tears burned the backs of Beck’s eyes, and he blinked furiously to keep them from coming.

There had been so many nights when he’d let those tears flow while he was on that island.

That much, he remembered with clarity. He’d cried for something, something he’d longed for and needed, something he couldn’t get back to.

At the time, his mind had been too fuzzy for him to understand what it was.

He’d only felt the deep emptiness that consumed him.

Now, however, he had a good idea of exactly what it was.

Beck hadn’t known he was a father, but this thing inside him, this dragon that they’d told him about, it had known.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely, tentatively putting his hand on the boy’s back. “I’m your daddy.”

Corbin grinned as he reached over Beck’s shoulder and took a gentle fistful of his hair. “Your hair long.”

A few muted laughs went through the room, and a shot of pure joy moved through Beck. “Yes, it is. I’ll have to get it cut, won’t I?”

“I cut!” Corbin moved his pointer and middle fingers together and apart like an imaginary pair of scissors. Without any hesitation at being so close to a man he’d never met before, he extended his arm and made that little cutting gesture all over Beck’s head.

Those warm little fingers brushed his forehead and his ears. Beck could feel Corbin’s breath, his heartbeat, his very life.

“All done!” Corbin announced after a minute.

Beck made a show of patting his hair. “I like it. You did a good job.” Could this actually be happening? Could he have dragged himself through the water and come upon a life and a family?

Done with the haircut, Corbin’s attitude suddenly changed. He’d been happy and curious, but now his little forehead and nose wrinkled. He wiggled back and forth and scrunched his shoulders together, and he made a small noise that sounded like discomfort.

“Does your back itch?” Beck asked, suddenly realizing just how absolutely little he knew about being a father. It was one thing to sit still for a pretend haircut for a few seconds, but actually understanding what his son wanted and needed was a completely different issue.

“He might still be tired,” Chelsea explained, getting up from the sofa. “He hadn’t been asleep all that long, really. Do you want to go back to bed, Corbin?”

“No!” he said firmly as she reached for him, though he continued to squirm and wiggle. Then he pulled in a deep breath.

While Beck expected to see a temper tantrum, he instead saw the boy changing.

Odd spasms took over his body, making Beck close his arms around Corbin to keep him from falling off the chair.

Corbin’s fingernails suddenly grew long and sharp.

His skin took on a greenish sheen that quickly deepened and cracked as little scales formed all over his body.

With an alarming convulsion, a small pair of wings burst out of his back.

The sweet little face twisted and morphed.

Beck had been holding a little boy only a few seconds ago, but now he held a tiny dragon.

Chelsea gasped. “He’s a dragon!”

Everyone was staring at Corbin, and Beck realized he wasn’t the only one who’d been completely caught off-guard by this shift. “You mean, you haven’t seen him do this before?”

“No.” Chelsea knelt down next to Beck’s chair and ran her fingers down her son’s scaly leg. “Good job, buddy. Mommy’s proud of you.”

The young dragon’s nostrils flared as he lifted his head and sniffed the air.

Maeve came to kneel on the other side of the chair. She laughed as her fingers brushed her grandson’s wing. “He’s getting to see what the world is like through his animal senses. I wish I remembered what that was like my first time. It has to be incredible.”

“He’s just gorgeous,” Erin gushed. “Congratulations, you guys.”

All that talk about Beck being a dragon suddenly felt far more real.

That sensation inside him had grown, filling him up so that he felt like his body could barely contain it.

It was like his own dragon was trying to come out to meet this one.

Somehow, he managed to hold it back. He was holding a lot back right now. “He’s beautiful.”

“We’d been waiting for his first shift.” Chelsea had her left arm folded on the arm of the chair and her right one extended as she traced Corbin’s scales with her fingers.

“With the power and personality indicated in his birth chart, I thought he might do this when he was still in a cradle. Of course, not knowing if he’d be a wolf or a dragon, I didn’t know how that might affect it.

You’re the only dragon I’ve ever known.” Her eyes met Beck’s.

This was the closest he’d been to her since he arrived.

That urge he’d had to pick up Corbin moved through him again, but this time he wanted to pull Chelsea close.

In his mind, he could almost feel what it’d be like to wrap his arm around her curvy waist or run his hands through her hair.

The feeling intensified in those couple of seconds. Mine, the thing inside him said.

It was all far too good to be true. It had to be a lie, some construct that his mind had created to keep him from completely breaking down, yet he could feel the weight of Corbin in his lap and the slight breeze as the boy experimented with his wings.

He could smell Chelsea’s perfume, warm and sweet like coffee, vanilla, and flowers.

The taste of the delicious food Erin had brought him still lingered in his mouth.

If it were an illusion, it was a hell of a good one.

Corbin wriggled some more, and the little dragon began to recede.

His scales retreated into his skin, which flushed the fresh creamy shade of pink it’d been a few minutes ago.

The strong, reptilian arms and legs were once more the slightly pudgy limbs of a toddler, and his wild hair erupted from his head.

He balled his hands—which no longer bore long claws—into fists and rubbed them against his eyes.

“I think it’s time to get you back to bed.” When Chelsea reached for him this time, Corbin practically fell into her arms.

He laid his head on his mother’s shoulder as she carried him back into the bedroom. Those sweet brown eyes stared at Beck as he alternately scrunched his hand and then splayed out his fingers in a childlike wave.

“Goodnight, buddy,” Beck replied, waving back.

Maeve sighed as the bedroom door closed behind Chelsea. “Corbin has always known how to steal the show. We should probably get back to you, though.”

“Me?” Beck whipped his head around to look at the older woman. No, not older, not technically. Not if he was almost six hundred years old. “A boy turning into a dragon sounds a lot more exciting than some scroungy old man trying to recover his memories.”

“Ah, but you already mean a lot to that little boy,” Maeve countered quickly, her finger in the air as she made her point. “What kind of father can you be if you don’t even know who you are?”

“You have a point,” he said begrudgingly. Just as when Jace had first picked him up, Beck had the notion that he should be the one helping other people instead of the other way around. “You’ve already done a lot for me, though.”

“And so we’ll continue,” she replied. “I was thinking that perhaps we should try hypnosis. Theoretically, your memories should still be inside you somewhere. You might just need a little help recovering them.”

“How’s that going to work?” Jace asked. “I thought hypnosis was about being open to suggestion, like learning better habits or getting past anxieties, instead of just remembering stuff.”

“But the suggestion is that he lets go of whatever barrier is keeping him from his truth. At the very least, perhaps we could connect with his higher self even if he can’t.

” Maeve informed him. “I’m not saying it’s a guarantee, but I think it’s worth a try.

If you’re willing.” This last part was directed at Beck.

He glanced toward the door Chelsea had closed behind her. If this could mean being with the two people he held such an affinity for, he’d try anything. “Yes.”

“All right.” Maeve lifted a chain over her head, holding the deep purple crystal at the end of it like a pendulum in front of him.

“I just want you to watch this and listen to me. Try to keep your body relaxed, and let your mind go where it will. The secret here is not to try too hard at anything. Just listen.” Maeve began a slow, lilting chant of words he didn’t understand.

He focused his eyes on the crystal, which gently swayed and spun in front of him. His mind, however, wandered back to Chelsea and Corbin. Could he actually be lucky enough to have them? It was almost too much to wish for.

“Tell us who you are.” As he drifted off, Maeve’s words echoed in his mind as though they bounced off the walls of a cave.

“Beck Alexander.” It was his voice, but stronger and clearer. “Nephew of Kendrick Alexander, Alpha of the Alexander clan.”

“Good. Now I want you to go back to when you were living here in Salem, when you and Chelsea were seeing each other.”

“She has a sweet laugh,” the other version of Beck said. “I like the way she sees the world. I’ve waited a very long time to meet her.”

“And then you were taken away from her,” Maeve reminded him. “Tell us what happened.”

“Someone came to the door.” Beck heard the words, though no visual memories came across his mind.

He knew he was saying these things, but it was like someone else was telling the story.

“I didn’t recognize him. The world went completely black.

When I woke up again, I was in a room. Not my room.

Someplace old that I didn’t recognize. If I had shifted, I could’ve torn down the walls or the door, but my body refused. ”

“Tell us who brought you there.”

“I don’t know. There were several of them, but they never said their names. They caused me great pain. They wouldn’t let me leave. I wanted to go home. Sometimes they brought me to different rooms, different places, but I still couldn’t leave.”

“And you couldn’t shift into your dragon?”

“A few times, yes, but it wasn’t the same. It was painful, and I was weak. They were stronger than me.”

“How did you get away?”

“I bit one of them.” Suddenly, he tasted blood. “I got to the sea but couldn’t retain my dragon. I had to swim. It was such a long way.”

“All right. I’m going to bring you back now.” Maeve’s voice grew a little louder.

Beck started to feel his body around him, only now realizing that it’d disappeared from his awareness for a little while. He focused on the movements of his lungs and the way his muscles felt. It was like waking up without truly having been asleep.

Maeve looked at him curiously. “I don’t suppose you have any better recollection now?”

“I know what I just told you, but no,” Beck admitted. “I’m afraid not.”