Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Nathan

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Dad’s head rolled on the headrest, and he gave me a bored look. “How many times I gotta repeat myself, boy? He’s my old man. He’s reachin’ out to make amends. I’m gonna give him the chance to do it. Stop bein’ so paranoid.”

I bit back a growl. It felt suspicious to me. The dragon had been gone most of my dad’s life and all of mine without saying a word to us before now. Why, all of a sudden, was he trying to make amends? What was his goal?

“You gotta stop bein’ so suspicious, boy. Your time in the military ruined you.”

That made me flinch. I didn’t like talking about my military career. We were the government’s best-kept secret. Not even the president knew about shifters. Only a tiny branch of the military knew about our team, and only a select handful of that branch knew what we truly were. That kind of secrecy alone made me paranoid, but my job was rough and my dad wasn’t wrong. It changed me. I wasn’t the same relaxed, fun-loving guy who he sent off to boot camp. My animal was broken, and we were constantly looking for threats even when there weren’t any.

“It just seems odd for him to want something to do with his family all of a sudden.”

“Might have somethin’ to do with Tobias.”

I frowned, glancing at him before bringing my focus back to the road. “What does Uncle Tobias have anything to do with it?”

“Ah. Forgot to tell ya that part, didn’t I?” Dad mused. “Tobias lost his ever-lovin’ mind. Attacked Aiden and tried to force him to sign over the company. Tried to kill his mate, too. Huh… Maybe that’s it then.. Havin’ mates makes you go soft.”

Dad wasn’t making any sense, but that wasn’t unusual. He was one of the most mellow guys I knew. Even his tiger was mellow. The weed probably had something to do with it. He called it grown-up catnip. But even when he was sober, he was like that. As long as I wasn’t endangering myself or others, he let me get away with everything as a kid. I was basically feral.

“Wait. Start over. Tobias attacked a literal dragon. And he thought he’d win?”

Dad lifted a shoulder casually. “Greed makes people blind, my boy. That’s why I taught ya to love your life without spoilin’ ya. Didn’t want you becoming a slave to the corporations.”

That was funny coming from the son of one of the wealthiest men on Earth. Aiden may not have been around, but he provided for his children financially. Once Dad turned eighteen, he stopped taking Aiden’s money, but if he ever needed help, he had a pretty intense safety net.

I ignored that part, instead focusing on the important part. “And now he’s calling all his kids to make amends? After one attacked him and tried to kill his mate. Are you insane?”

“Nate…”

I cut him off with a snarl. “No, Dad. Did you even ask questions? Get more details on why he wants you out there? A dragon who literally was just attacked by his own child is asking you to meet him in the middle of the woods, and you just agree? Did you even put up a fight?”

“Now why would I go and do a thing like that?”

The frustration boiled over, and my tiger swelled, clawing to get out. He wanted to grab my dad and run as far from these mountains as possible. It wasn’t safe. For all we knew, the dragon was–

“Nate. Pull over. Now.”

I did as he asked, mostly because I couldn’t breathe right. I jerked to the side of the road, threw the car into park, and curled in on myself in an attempt to keep the tiger inside. If I shifted in here, I’d hurt Dad and that wasn’t what I wanted. I was panicking. I wasn’t violent.

A warm hand settled on the back of my neck, Dad’s voice calm and reassuring. “Just breathe, boy. Breathe. In… and out. Good boy.”

I leaned into him, a lump caught in my throat. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t this person. I was in the military for seven years without breaking. But then they switched my MOS and made me do things I couldn’t take back and…

“Dad… Please don’t go. It’s too dangerous.”

Dad rested his forehead against mine, a deep rumbling purr filling the car. His animal was calling mine, settling him in a way only my dad ever could. When I came home broken, he took me in without hesitation. He slept in his recliner with me on the couch until I could sleep through the night without waking up screaming or having an uncontrolled shift. He kept me stable enough not to be on the list of shifters to be put down. The list I was once tasked to deal with.

When I could finally breathe right, Dad’s grip on me relaxed, and he spoke in a calm whisper. “I know you think you ain’t ready for the world yet. If I could’ve left you behind to keep healin’, I would’ve. But you need to get back out there. You need to see not everyone is a threat. So we’re gonna go meet your grandfather. You’ll get to finally meet your cousin, too. And I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

I huffed out a watery laugh, readjusting to rest my head on his shoulder. “I’m the one who was trained to protect people.”

“And I’m still your old man. It’s my job to protect you. That don’t change just because you’re grown.”

He didn’t rush me to get back on the road. Dad never rushed anywhere. He took life slowly, so he could savor it. He said he didn’t want to miss anything.

Once my tiger settled and I no longer felt like I wanted to rip out of my own skin, I pulled away with a sigh.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

He hummed, relaxing back in his seat. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ve got a good feeling. Besides, even if it ain’t, we got each other. I’m not goin’ in alone.”

I flashed him an irritated look as I pulled back onto the road. “That wasn’t your original plan. You were just going to head out there without an ounce of caution.”

Dad waved a hand dismissively. “That don’t matter anymore, now does it?”

I could spend my whole life trying to instill caution into the old man. I doubted I’d ever get through to him. Hopefully, this trip didn’t prove me right. For his sake, anyway.

The mountain range was picturesque. With the drizzle coming down, it filled the car with the smell of earth and greenery. It was almost dizzying. We always lived out in the boonies, but I was used to salt and water, having lived by the ocean for so long. I wasn’t sure I’d seen this much green in my lifetime.

“Left there,” Dad said, pointing his finger at a little turnoff marked with a red ribbon tied to a tree. “Christian said this part is a little confusing and the GPS would lead us astray, so I got the directions printed instead.”

He pulled a paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out on the dashboard. He talked me through the turns, calm as always. Meanwhile, I was trying not to panic. I was in the car all day, and on a road so tight that I was pretty sure two cars couldn’t pass each other on it. Hell, I doubted if I parked in the middle that we could open both doors without hitting a tree. It was too much, and I was growling by the time we pulled into a large clearing. Towards the back of it was a modern building that looked a little out of place in the woods. It looked like it was made of glass, but there was a lot of construction going on, so maybe it wasn’t finished. It almost looked like a tree or something fell onto it, a big part of it smashed to bits.

I parked our car at the end of a long line of them and turned off the engine, but I couldn’t make myself get out of the car. Not until Dad gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“Now I know you ain’t wantin’ me to go in alone, right?”

“No!” I protested.

“So come on, then. You’ll see in a minute that there’s nothin’ to be afraid of. Just stick close to me and keep breathin’.”

Pushing out of the car, I grumbled under my breath. “What happened to moving at my own pace?”

Dad chuckled, leading me towards the house with a hand on my shoulder. “Boy, if I left you to do that all the time, you’d never have left your room. Sometimes, you need a push. Complain all you want, but it’s good for you to be here. To get some fresh air, at least. Your room was startin’ to smell.”

I rolled my eyes hard. “Shut up.”

He laughed, his loping footsteps sure and steady. Meanwhile, I was dragging my feet. This felt like a really bad idea. My eyes skipped to the construction again. For some reason, that crumpled part of the building put me on edge.

I almost asked myself what the hell was wrong with me, that I couldn’t walk past a construction site without being paranoid. But I knew why I was broken. I just wished I could do something about it.