Page 40 of Dragon Stepbrother's Secret Baby

“That’s all the more reason why they won’t be expecting it, but I don’t think it will come to that. They’ll send out their best fighters to defend the place and Cason is their strongest fighter. As soon as he shows himself, I’ll attack and finish him.”

They kept talking, but I turned away. I didn’t need to hear anything more. Kingston was planning to risk his own life to finish off his enemy—the enemy that threatened Connor.

What if Kingston didn’t come back? A pang of agonized love gripped my heart. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to Kingston. I would be as good as dead without him, and yet, I loved him all the more for taking this risk. He was a true leader.

If he left on this mission, I had to show him that I loved him. I couldn’t let him do this without showing him. If he didn’t come back, I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt if I didn’t make him understand beforehand how much he meant to me.

He’d been saying since the day we met that I couldn’t live without him. Now I knew it was true. I needed him beyond words. I needed him in my blood and in my body.

I strolled back to the kids’ playroom. Connor, Wilcox, and a bunch of the other kids sat on the floor building things out of blocks and Legos. Connor talked and laughed and his green eyes flashed as brightly as Kingston’s.

This more than anything wiped all doubt from my mind. Connor needed to stay here. He needed to grow up here. He needed his father and his Clan, but he also needed to be around other…..dragons.

God, was I really thinking that about my own son? He was a dragon or he would be very soon. Darian and all those teenagers…..they must just be discovering what it felt like to transform into dragons. They must be learning how to fly.

Connor needed the same support system. He would need people who understood what he was going through. He could never get that from me. He needed Kingston, not just because Kingston was his father, but because Kingston alone could guide Connor through the years ahead.

I walked back out to the platform. The sun was going down again and the air cooled. Dragons soared high in the sky, but they were all Hellers. None of them would bother me and the Danes wouldn’t bother me, either. They were after Connor and Kingston. They didn’t care about some powerless human.

This entire Clan rallied around Connor to protect him. How could I even think of throwing that away? What kind of nightmare mother would I be if I turned my back on that?

I would be a nightmare mother if I turned my back on Kingston, too. He loved me. He’d never done anything but love me and now he loved Connor the same way. I couldn’t ask for more than that.

I left Connor with his friends and climbed the stairs to Kingston’s apartment. It welcomed me back in ways the guest apartment never could. All my tension drained away the minute I walked in. This was the place, the place I belonged.

Connor would come back here. Kingston would come back here. What exactly changed between last night and today….besides the fact that I found out something about Kingston that I didn’t know before?

I turned the other way and peered into Connor’s room. His clothes hung in the closet. His pajamas waited in the drawer for him to put them on. Kingston did all of that. He made a home for Connor—and me. I would never be able to repay him for that.

I turned to the last doorway—the one leading to Kingston’s bedroom. I would have given anything to wind back the clock to last night and the blissful, peaceful safety of his arms. What actually was stopping me from feeling that tonight…and every other night?

Could I take the step to cross the threshold? Could I put aside everything that just happened and just….?

I tensed when I heard footsteps coming up the corridor. I didn’t have time to walk away before Kingston strode in.

He stopped dead when he saw me standing there. Those eyes…..those eyes meant something so much different now.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t know you were up here. I thought you were downstairs in the guest room.”

“I was.”

His eyebrows came together in the center. “Are you okay? I’m sorry you had to see that. I wanted to make it easier….slower…..I didn’t know how to tell you, but I never would have chosen to do it like that. I only did it because….”

“You don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry.” I didn’t know where these words were coming from, but I couldn’t let him apologize for saving my life. “I’m……”

I turned back to stare into his bedroom. How could I tell him that I really, really wanted to go in there? How could I tell him that I wanted nothing but to go into that room and be with him the way we were last night?

I needed to say those words out loud. I needed that like I needed air to breathe, but the words wouldn’t come. Did just looking into that room explain all the things I couldn’t say?

He didn’t move. He stayed so distant and guarded that the distance hurt. “I love you, Riley,” he choked. “I love you more than anything. I…..If you’re going to leave, just tell me now. Don’t torture me.”

“I….I can’t leave.” I gulped down the painful lump in my throat. “I belong here…..” I nodded into the room. “In there.”

The silence stretched to the breaking point. Did he understand? Did I really have to say it out loud?

Lightning quick, he came up behind me. His hot, powerful arms surrounded me the way they did on the mountain trail. “I love you!” he hissed into my ear. “I can’t live without you! Just…..let me love you. Please. Just give me a chance.”

My God! Did he really think that? He really thought I would walk out on him for saving my life—for saving my son’s life. He saved his own son’s life. How could I ever turn my back on this man?

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