26. Corin

26

Corin

That night, he stoically dealt with half an hour of Maya tossing and turning in bed before rolling on top of her and holding her in place.

“ Ugh ,” she groaned, grimacing.

“That isn’t precisely the reaction I expect to pinning down my mate in bed,” he murmured.

“Sorry. And sorry for disturbing you. I just— ugh. ”

“Still haven’t come up with the perfect way to tell your mom about shifters?”

“I—” she winced. “I have a good idea of what we can do tomorrow? We can visit Lainie and Harrison, and the baby. Lainie will enjoy the company. We’ll be far enough from the main bit of town that Mom won’t see any magic she’s not meant to, especially if your cousins are sticking around. Tomás will probably stay in human form—he wouldn’t if we were visiting Jacqueline, because Tally is always turning into a seal and he follows suit, but the baby can’t shift yet so he should be fine?”

“None of that sounds like a plan for telling your mom everything.”

“I know. Believe me. I know. But…” Her face fell.

He stroked her cheek. “How long are you planning on delaying?”

“Until the universe collapses in on itself?” she suggested, and sighed. “Have you met Lainie yet?”

“The mayor’s wife? No. But I’ve heard of her. She’s human, isn’t she? I understand she moved to town a few years ago.”

He mentally ran through what he knew of Lainie Galway and her husband. Harrison had worked as a builder before running for mayor. Technically, he still held both roles, though fatherhood had clearly taken priority. The man had even deputized the task of running strange dragons out of his town to Apollo. Though it could be argued that the hearthfire dragon had more right to that task than the mayor…

“Her dad grew up here.”

Corin frowned. “Her father was a shifter?”

“And she isn’t. She—” Maya bit her lip. “She used to visit here in the summers as a kid. A non-shifter kid. And the whole town kept the truth about magic secret from her. Even her own parents and grandparents.”

“What possible reason could they have for that?” he growled.

“Hideaway Cove was established as a sanctuary for shifters. For generations, the people who lived here assumed the only way to keep themselves safe was to exclude any non-shifters. Even ones related to them. Lainie’s dad married her mom, who wasn’t a shifter, and when she was born, they told him that she couldn’t know the truth about Hideaway until she proved she was a shifter. And she wasn’t.”

“She never knew her own family were shifters?”

“Fucked up, right?” She grimaced. “About as fucked up as not telling someone their own grandkid is magic, even.”

He lowered his forehead to press against hers. “You are one woman, trying to figure out how to tell her mother that the world she knows is not the world that really exists. Not a town of adults lying to a child.”

“I know. But … it’s still not the right thing to do.”

He frowned, considering everything he knew about Gabriela. About the woman who’d raised his intelligent, observant mate. “You’re sure she doesn’t know already?

“I made very sure she wouldn’t. Which makes me as bad as Lainie’s grandparents, probably.”

He shook his head wordlessly. “How much time did she spend with Tomás?”

“So much.” Her face softened. “As much as she could, before and after work, weekends. I think she figured he’s the one grandchild she’s likely to ever have, so she’d better make the most of him. But after he started turning into a dragon—I—I … I still couldn’t tell her. As though the existence of magic was another embarrassing aspect of the whole messy ordeal.”

“She judged you for having him?”

“No?” She frowned. “That sounded like a question. No. She never did. She was always supportive.” She looked thoughtful. “She raised me by herself. Did you know that? I don’t even remember my dad. She moved across the country with him after they got married. Away from family. And after we lost him…”

“She didn’t go back after he passed?”

“And ask for help, like she couldn’t cope on her own or something? We don’t do that. We manage. She managed, and now I’m managing.” She laughed weakly. “And I never talked to her about any of it. Her life, or … or mine.” She hesitated, her expression caught between exasperation and exhaustion. “And she never asked. I guess it wasn’t just you and your granddad who made me the perfect assistant. We’ve never been a question asking family.”

“You merely drag the world into order, so that no questions need to be asked because everything is already arranged,” he said dryly.

“Exactly. God. Am I that transparent? But … I didn’t let her look after him by herself after that. She must have known I was freaking out, and the way she tried to help me through that was—”

“By not asking questions about what was worrying you?”

Maya hiccupped a laugh. “No wondering where I got it, right? Yes. Don’t ask questions, just figure it out and get on with things. She tried to help by being more present, and I kept trying to pull away, and … the last thing I let her do for me was pack up my apartment and send stuff to me here. And then I was gone.” Grief creased her face.

“And now she’s here.”

“And now she’s here,” she repeated. “I should be happy and, instead, I feel like everything’s falling to pieces in my hands again. And something’s worrying her, too. She wants to tell me but it’s taking her ages to work her way up to it, which means it’s important, so what if I do tell her about shifters and then she doesn’t tell me whatever’s wrong with her because I’ve turned her whole world upside down, and then it’s something serious and … Don’t look at me like that. I know I’m overthinking it.”

“You’re spiraling,” he said gently.

“Spiraling is one of my top skills.”

He kissed her gently. “Tell her tomorrow,” he suggested. “And then ask her what’s bothering her.”

“Oh, thanks, it sounds so simple when you say it like that.”

“Or I can ask her. Or my mother can. You’re not on your own in this, Maya.”

She gave a tentative half-smile. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to that.”

“There’s no rush.”

She buried her face in his shoulder, inhaling deeply. “Okay. Tomorrow. We’ll go and see Lainie—I have to, anyway, I was meant to see her a few days ago before somebody flew into town unexpectedly … and then…”

“Tomás will transform despite all our efforts, steal something large and impressive, and spoil the big reveal for you.”

She laughed. “Steal something large and impressive? That sounds like him. Remind me to tell you what happened the first time we visited Lainie and Harrison one day.”

“I look forward to hearing the story,” he told her.

Her expression faltered. “And I can’t stop feeling like Tomás’s biological father is going to show up and it will make everything ten times worse.”

“Only ten?”

She glared at him. “Twenty. A hundred. Your team are going to come back with a row of mugshots and it’ll be every dragon shifter who ever took a potshot at the Blackburns in the history of the world.”

It could be a Montfort. He hadn’t let himself think it, before, and took care not to let the thought show on his face now. There were several Montforts in the right age range. Saint-John Monfort had a granddaughter—obviously ruled out. Several great-nephews. The snake-like Robert Bonlieu, or whatever he was calling himself these days…

A shiver went down his spine.

“It wouldn’t matter,” he told Maya firmly. His dragon added a growl of defiance to his words. Tomás was his mate’s hatchling, and that made him Corin’s, as well. “But there’s something that, right now, takes priority…”

He kissed her, long and passionate, until she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him on top of her. They made love slowly, and he took a draconic joy in bringing Maya to the peak of pleasure and keeping her there until she begged for a break to catch her breath.

She was his greatest joy. His most precious treasure.

But even afterwards, as she slept peacefully, his failure to claim her properly rankled. Despite her telling him she didn’t need it. That he was enough for her.

It was beyond selfish, to have the woman of his dreams tell him he was everything she needed and still want more.

But he did. He was selfish. And she deserved more.