Page 30 of Dragon's Midlife Secret Baby
“Corbin!” Chelsea called as she went inside. A draft moved through the entryway. She turned into the living room where they’d spoken with Sol previously. Most of the books were gone, even the massive one that’d been on the coffee table. Everything was cold and empty. “Where are you?”
Maeve moved through the house and let Lucille and Kristy in through the back door. “We need to search high and low. Sol has lived here a long time. There’s no telling if he’s got some sort of hidey hole around here.”
They called, and they searched. They opened every door and cabinet, checking from the attic to the basement. Chelsea grew more and more frantic with everything she tried, even yanking back the dirty rugs to look for trap doors that might lead to some unknown crawl space. Nothing. “I don’t get it,” she said, realizing just how sure she’d beenthat they would’ve found Corbin there. “There’s nothing here!”
“Nothing upstairs,” Kristy confirmed, her face still puffy from crying. “We checked everywhere.”
Her chest was getting so tight she could barely breathe. She’d known where Corbin was and who he was with for the entirety of his life so far. She couldn’t help but imagine him scared and alone, or worse. “What did he do with my baby?”
“We’ll find him,” Lucille promised. “Let’s get back to the house. We’re going to need some help.”
13
His dragon achedinside 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’smyproblem 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. “Youmean 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 isnotwhat 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. Iamthe danger.”
She let the silence between them ring out for amoment. “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.”
