Liam’s shoulders began to tremble as he silently wept. First hesitating, Carla put down her mug, stood, and walked over to him. If she couldn’t release the anger and resentment she’d held all those years, she knew it would eat her alive and only serve to drive a wedge between her and Elain. Her daughter deserved to have her father in her life.
She stood in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’ll be all right.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face against her stomach as he cried.
Carla closed her eyes and tried to ignore the other old feelings still swirling around inside her.
After lunch, which overflowed their kitchen and tested the seating capacity of their already large dining room table, Brodey made an announcement. “Elain, we’re going to take you out to the pasture and show you some things.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Wouldn’t the bedroom be more convenient?”
“I—” He groaned as he caught her meaning. “No, babe. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“For once,” Cail added before taking a sip of iced tea.
Brodey shot him a glare. Ain didn’t intercede. He sat there with an amused smile and watched his brothers go at it.
“We’re going to give you a ‘Shifters 101’ class this afternoon,” Brodey said.
Elain wasn’t sure she was ready for more surprises. “Don’t you have to wait thirty minutes after eating before shifting?” she snarked.
Lina, sitting next to her, hooted with laughter and gave her a high five.
Brodey rolled his eyes, but trudged onward. “After lunch, you’re going to learn how to shift.”
“We don’t know for sure if I can shift.”
“True, but all the evidence points to the fact that you can. So humor me, okay? I’m going to take you out and teach you.”
“Yay,” Elain blandly said with more than a pinch of sarcasm behind it as she pointed her index finger up and twirled it around.
Elain didn’t bother fighting Brodey when it was obvious Ain supported the plan. Liam and Carla stayed behind at the house to do some more talking of their own. Ain and Cail returned to work at the barns because the business had to be tended to regardless of their crazy personal life. Micah and Jim were most likely boinking each other’s brains out in their bedroom. So Elain headed out with the others after lunch.
They took a couple of work trucks. When they reached one of the most remote pastures, where they stood no chance of being accidentally spotted, they parked the vehicles and piled out.
“So,” Brodey said with a twinkle in his eye. “What do you want to learn first, babe?”
Elain looked at Lina’s guys. “You three are shifters, too?” she asked as she pointed at Kael, Rick, and Jan.
The three men nodded.
“Can I see you guys shift first?” Elain asked.
They shrugged. “Sure,” Rick said. “We like it here, because we can shift to our largest form.”
Elain fought the rising heat in her face as all three men immediately began nonchalantly shucking their clothes.
She’d seen her men shift into wolves. But when the air appeared to shimmer around the three men, Elain let out a terrified squeak as she realized she was now staring at three large dragons.
Her jaw gaped as she stumbled backward a few steps.
No one said anything. Only birds and the wind through the nearby trees stirred the silence.
Elain stared.
After a few minutes, a concerned Brodey asked, “Um, babe? Say something.”
Elain stared. “They’re dragons!” she whispered, stunned.
Zack grinned “Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Dragons!” Elain said again. Even though Cail had once mentioned to her that there were other kinds of shifters, she really thought he’d been messing with her when he’d told her there was such a thing as dragon shifters.
Brodey stepped behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “No weirder than us shifting into wolves, when you think about it.”
Elain stared. “Wolves are real! You said they were shifters. But… they’re dragons!”
“Yep,” Brodey agreed, nonplussed.
They let her stare for another minute while her brain tried to absorb the sight.
Lina walked up to Elain and slipped her arm around her waist. “I actually fainted the first time I saw them shift. This is their largest form. When I saw them for the first time, they’d only shifted into their smallest form,” she said. “It was a shock.”
Elain looked at her in disbelief. “Ya think? That’s like the understatement of the…forever!”
Lina laughed. “I know. Hey, Brodey?”
“Yeah?”
“Original recipe, or crispy?”
He howled with laughter. When he finally composed himself, he snorted out, “Crispy, kiddo. Definitely crispy.”
Elain realized this had to be a joke between them. She waited for the explanation. By the time Lina and Brodey got the story out about how Lina fried Lenny the cockatrice in Yellowstone, Elain was laughing with them and finally getting used to the fact that she was now staring at three dragons.
“It wasn’t funny at the time,” Lina said, “but looking back at it, I can laugh my ass off.”
Brodey sighed. “You know, babe,” he said, slipping his arms around Elain’s waist, “Lina’s the reason I found you.”
“Yeah?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Yep. I’d forgotten it while it happened, but after the fact, I remembered. She told me we’d find you at a Highlands games festival.” He turned her around so he could stare into Elain’s eyes. “She gave me hope. When Lina and I first met, I was in a pretty low place emotionally.”
“After you broke up with Kimberlie?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“I told furface here to not give up,” Lina said. “That they’d meet you in a few years. And here you are.”
She broke free from Brodey and hugged Lina. “You feel like a sister. I never had a sister before.”
“Ditto. I’m telling you, adopted family is the way to go.” She laughed. “That way you can disown anyone you don’t like, and no one can guilt you about it at family dinners.” She thought for a second. “Well, they can try, but if you’re me, you can threaten to freeze or fry their ass so they think twice before giving you any grief about it.”
With the worst of Elain’s shock out of her system, Kael, Rick, and Jan took off. Literally. With each one shifted into their largest form, they launched themselves into the air and began soaring on the thermals.
Elain watched with her mouth gaping again. Somehow, it was easier to deal with the truth when the three men…eh, dragons, were sitting on the ground in front of her.
This took her sanity to a whole new level of strained.
“Aren’t they neat?” Lina asked. She lifted one hand to shade her eyes from the afternoon sun. “They love coming here because they can fly in the daytime without worrying about being spotted. Our property isn’t this big, and we’re pretty close to the interstate.”
Elain thought of something. She spoke to Brodey, but still stared up at the sky. “Brodey, do you guys have alternate forms, too?”
“Nope. Just wolves. Dragons are actually an older shifter race than wolves. You ready to try learning how to shift?”
She shook her head as she watched Kael do a lazy cartwheel fifty feet over their heads. “Nope.”
Zack chimed in. “Brodey, I think you need to let her settle into this new reality first before trying to teach her about shifting.”