His Feverish Embrace - Celia Kyle Page 0,28

only reaction was blinking because he was frozen in place. How many surprises could a guy handle in the span of twelve hours? He’d never thought of Alice as anything more than the eccentric neighbor lady who was always losing her animals. Now this?

Charlie hurried downstairs to join them. “What’s wrong?”

“Now, sweetums, what makes you think anything’s wrong? Maybe this tall drink of water just came by for some coffee.”

Charlie wrapped an arm around Alice’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Nothing shy of an emergency would bring any of my team to my door at this hour.” He turned to face Thrett. “Isn’t that right?”

“I…” Thrett started, but there was too much to say. Too many details, too many thoughts. Best to just get it out there. “I’m a father.”

Charlie and Alice exchanged a look. Then Alice gave Thrett a sympathetic smile and headed back upstairs, leaving them to talk alone. The next thing he knew, Thrett was sitting at a wooden kitchen table while Charlie fussed over the coffee maker. The early morning light filtered in through the back door, casting surreal shadows everywhere.

Once the java was brewing, Charlie settled across from him and leaned back, getting comfortable. “Tell me—

“It happened eight years ago,” Thrett started, unable to wait any longer. Now that he had someone to listen to him, he was ready to talk. “I was in Florida, visiting friends, and she was a human co-ed on spring break. We met at a party and…well, one thing led to another.”

“So you had a fling that produced a child,” Charlie said so matter-of-factly it felt like a knife to the heart.

“No! It was… It wasn’t a fling. At least not for me. I imagined so much more with her, Charlie. It was weird. I hate to sound like a new-age wacko, but our connection was soul-deep. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

Charlie arched an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps she was…”

He let the implication hang in the air between them. Thrett shook his head.

“Have you ever heard of a human being the fated mate of a dragon?”

Charlie’s gaze dropped to his hands. “Well, no. But that doesn’t mean—”

“Anyway…” Thrett couldn’t go there. It already hurt too much that she’d ghosted him way back when, but to even consider his fated mate would do that was too much to bear. “She was gone by the time I woke up and all I knew about her was her first name and that she went to school back east. All these years, I thought she just didn’t feel the same way about me, but I learned last night that she’d panicked when she realized I was a dragon.”

Charlie frowned. “You didn’t tell her before…you know?”

Almost none of the world’s human population knew shifters existed, so it wasn’t really an easy conversation to have. Especially when every cell in his body screamed to take the woman standing before him and make her his own. Humans generally needed some time to wrap their heads around their new reality, and he couldn’t wait.

“I didn’t think…” he started and then realized that was the full answer. “Charlie, I didn’t think.”

His boss clucked at him as he stood to pour them big mugs of hazelnut coffee. On a normal day, Thrett would have breathed deeply and asked for some cayenne to shake on it, but taste meant nothing to him at the moment. He might as well have been drinking battery acid for all he cared.

“Fast forward eight years, and apparently I’m a dad,” Thrett said, running his finger around the rim of his mug thoughtfully. “I don’t even like kids, Charlie, but this kid. He’s special.”

A smile ticked at the corner of Charlie’s mouth. “You’ve met?”

Thrett couldn’t stop a broad smile from lighting his face. “Yeah. He’s smart and kind and just a great kid. Rylan has done a great job of raising him on her own.”

The hint of a smile turned into a frown. “Rylan? Rylan Wilson, the principal at Benningford?”

Uh oh. Thrett never considered how that might impact his assignment. “I guess I should have led with that. Is that a problem?”

“Is it for you?”

Thrett thought about it for a moment. “No. If anything, knowing my own kid goes there makes me want to find these assholes even more.”

With a satisfied nod, Charlie said, “That’s all I needed to hear. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I went from being a single man about town to a dad in the space