Spawned By The Dragon: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Page 11

  Now at the checkpoint in the fading light of early evening, I realized I should have known there’d be major trouble. The drive up had been far too easy.

  Two uniformed, black-booted guards carrying assault rifles on their backs were refusing to let us pass and were also refusing to raise a series of fluorescent orange wooden guard arms designed to prevent vehicles from crossing to the bridge.

  This, despite the fact that I’d quickly explained to them that Tommy was a shifter child who was going to be taken by the US government if we didn’t get to safety. But, still, the guard who seemed to be the “senior guard” remained unmoved, almost even looking bored.

  After refusing for the third time to lift the guard arms, he made a lazy spinning motion with his finger. “Turn the car around, ma’am. I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “But you’re not listening to me. My son-“

  “Is a child dragon shifter. I heard you. I’ve heard it from many other women, too, women who’ve all turned out to be felons, fleeing from the law, every single one of them. So, unless you want me to call United States police on you-“

  “But I’m not fleeing from the law. I’m fleeing from the whole government, because they want to take my son to Washington, where they’ll-“

  “This is your final, final chance, ma’am. Turn the car around this second, or-“

  “Call your commander-in-chief. Please. David Iverson, right? Is that his name? Just please-“

  “No, we don’t bother Commander Iverson for border matters like this.” Still looking almost bored, Senior Guard looked at his fellow guard. “You want to call it in, Mitch? We’ve officially got a five-one-seven, and since it’s your first, you can do the honors.”

  Looking honored indeed, the guard who was apparently named Mitch nodded, grabbed some kind of a walkie-talkie thing from his utility belt, and began speaking into it. “South to base, we’ve got a five-one-seven. Requesting backup for situation involving an unauthorized hopeful crosser, female, possible felon, with small child, male. Please make contact with American law enforcement as well. Do you copy?”

  I’d already hit the gas before he’d even finished saying copy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Hold on, Tommy!”

  Hitting the fluorescent orange guard arms, one right after the other, actually wasn’t as violent an experience as I’d anticipated it to be. Tommy and I felt the impacts for sure, but they were each the same sort of impact that one might feel when hitting a small animal, like a squirrel, with a car. A definite jolt, but not necessarily a traumatizing one.

  Even though I hadn’t known the guard arms would be so easy to just crash through, and even though I’d thought there was a possibility that Tommy could even be hurt by the impacts, I’d felt I had no other choice than to do what I had. Not when the alternative was waiting for American police, who’d hand Tommy over to the government, who’d separate us, take Tommy to Washington, and do all sorts of experiments on him, possibly even killing him when he got older and came into his full dragon powers.

  Now, beginning to speed across the eight-mile-long suspension bridge, I took a lightning-fast glance in the rearview mirror and saw that I’d been absolutely right to do what I’d done. Flashing red-and-blue lights told me that the police must have arrived to the scene mere seconds after I’d put the gas pedal to the floor. Whether they’d been tipped off by the Dairy queen girl or a gas station attendant, I could only guess.

  Or maybe, after thinking things out, the government agents had simply come to the conclusion that I might try to seek refuge in the FDS. Didn’t even matter now. All that did matter was getting Tommy safely across the bridge.

  However, soon the police were on my tail, and the overworked rusty old sedan was now refusing to go faster than sixty. I didn’t let up on the gas, though. I just kept driving, silently praying that like the border guards, the police wouldn’t try to stop me via gunfire, possibly hurting Tommy in the process.

  We were maybe three or four miles down the bridge, police still right on our tail, when flashing red lights up ahead made me slam on the brakes, struggling to keep the car under control. Just up ahead, shiny black cars with red lights on top, possibly FDS police or something, were blocking the road, and blocking it completely and totally. With an anguished moan, I threw the car in park, knowing it was over. Over unless I could get some kind of a miracle to help me save my child.

  “Oh, please…please help me. I’ll do anything. Just don’t let them hand him over to the government.”

  “No, mama…no cry.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d uttered my prayer with tears streaming down my cheeks until I’d heard Tommy’s little voice. Sitting on the passenger side of the backseat, he had a profile view of my now-wet face, which the fading evening light apparently wasn’t yet dim enough to conceal.

  Sniffling, I turned around to look at him. “It’s okay, angel. It’s all going to be okay. Just remember that Mama’s always going to be with you, in your heart, even if-“

  “No cry, Mama. No.” Startling, Tommy suddenly whipped his gaze from me to his left and pointed at someone or something beyond the open car windows. “No, go ‘way! Go ‘way!”

  I whipped back around in my seat and saw a well-built, middle-aged man stepping toward the car, gun drawn, pointed right at me. “FDS border police, ma’am. Step out of the car with your hands up right now.”

  “No! No hurt Mama! Leave Mama ‘lone!”

  Bright white light had suddenly begun flashing in the back seat, and I didn’t even have to turn my gaze from the man pointing the gun at me to know that the light was coming from Tommy.

  “Go ‘way! No hurt Mama!”

  In his anger, he was trying to shift to defend me, whether consciously or not.

  “Go bye-bye! Leave Mama ‘lone!”

  The bright, flashing light suddenly intensified, and not just a little, and this was immediately followed by some sort of a startled, half-strangled yell from Tommy, as if he might have just noticed that he was “lighting up” again.

  The man with the gun had stopped dead in his tracks the moment Tommy’s light had initially appeared, and he now just stared, wide-eyed, at Tommy and not me. He still hadn’t yet lowered his gun, though, and it was this fact that made me shout, not wanting to scare Tommy but suddenly borderline enraged.

  “Put your gun down! Are you insane? There’s a baby in this car, and you’re just about aiming at him!”

  The man immediately lowered his gun, but then raised it again, though not at Tommy and me. The American police were now surrounding the car, also with guns drawn, and the FDS man was kind of aiming at them all in general.

  “Lower your weapons, and leave this bridge, all of you! This is FDS territory, and you’re in violation of an international treaty!”

  The way all the half-dozen or so police officers instantly exchanged glances might have almost been comical if they hadn’t been pointing guns at a car containing my precious child, my child who was now quietly crying, possibly having been scared by his “light show,” or all the men with guns. Or both.

  I’d had enough. Reasonably sure that no one was now going to shoot me, I unbuckled my seatbelt, got out of the car, and walked around to the other side, glaring at the surrounding cops, before getting Tommy out of the back and cradling him to my chest with his quiet crying nearly breaking my heart in two.

  Once I’d rocked him a little and had kissed the top of his head a few times, I lifted my gaze to all the American cops, who’d now finally lowered their guns. “You all…you all had better head back across the bridge to your own country. I’ve heard they don’t like American government or law enforcement too much in this one.” Pivoting a quarter-turn, I narrowed my eyes at the FDS lawman and several others who’d joined him. “And you all…you all had better move your damned cars and let me finish driving across the bridge to St. Ignace before I start shifting into a dragon.”

  They didn’t all move their cars so that I c
ould drive through; however, once the American police had retreated back across the bridge, the first FDS lawman who’d confronted me told me that he’d take Tommy and me the rest of the way across the bridge in his car.

  “Really, I have to, ma’am. Your son is clearly really a shifter child, but you’re just a regular American citizen in the eyes of our law for the time being; and we treat regular American citizens with suspicion for reasons of national security. I have to keep you in custody until you’re delivered to Commander Iverson. He’ll then decide what, exactly, to do with you.”

  “Fine. Take me to him, then. But just know that I won’t be letting my son out of my sight the entire time.”

  Once in the FDS lawman’s car in his car seat, right next to me in the back, Tommy pretty immediately fell asleep, clutching his teddy bear with the blue bow-tie, which was his favorite stuffed animal. After glancing up at me in the rearview mirror a couple of times, the FDS lawman cleared his throat and introduced himself to me as Chet. In a voice that I intended to be cool as possible, I told him my name was Alyssa, then fell silent, completely unable to muster even a mumbled nice to meet you.

  After a few seconds of silence hanging in the air, Chet cleared his throat again. “There is no St. Ignace anymore, you know. We still call it that, but the place we’ll be passing through is more of a ghost town now, really only serving as a guard post for some of our dragons who man the southern front.”

  “Great.”

  The rudeness of the single sarcastic word I’d spoken struck me like a slap, and now I cleared my throat, face warming.

  “Sorry about that. So, where does Commander Iverson live?”

  “Oh, he’s somewhere about twenty miles inland, roughly northwest, in our nation’s capital city, Everett, which used to be a town called…oh, I don’t even remember now, because I didn’t live there at the time. But then, when the FDS was established under our first commander, Commander David Bledsoe, he changed the town’s name to Everett to honor his father, whose first name was Everett. Then, the town was added-to and improved in different ways, and the Commander’s residence was built. We call the place Everett House and kind of think of it as our White House, though it’s not quite so grand or large. It’s not white, either, but instead more of a pale bluish-gray…something like the water we’re now above when the moonlight hits it just right.”

  Chet paused, as if wanting to let his imagery sink in, and in my mind, I couldn’t deny that it was very pretty, pleasing imagery.

  “So, anyway…it won’t be too long until we arrive at Everett House in Everett. And until then, feel free to rest with your son if you’d like. I’m sure you’ve had a very challenging day.”

  I had, to say the least. Not to mention that a slight, soothing southern twang in Chet’s voice had made me start to feel a bit sleepy, even after the heart-pounding ordeal I’d just been through. Which of course had been my second heart-pounding ordeal of the day, with the American government agents showing up at my apartment being the first.

  I put my head back on the seat and closed my eyes, and within a minute or so, I was out like a light, same as Tommy. Maybe a few minutes later, I briefly half-woke when I heard Chet’s voice, but it sounded like he was just quietly talking on the phone and not to me, so I immediately went right back to sleep.

  After what had probably been a twenty-minute nap but had somehow felt like an hour-long one, or even two, I awoke again when I felt the car slowing to a crawl. Opening my eyes, I saw in the dim light of full evening that we were heading up a long paved drive to some massive, well-lit structure, presumably Everett House.

  An upward-facing floodlight in the vast front lawn illuminated a large flag flapping in a gentle breeze atop a tall silver pole. Peering out the closed window to try to see better, I recognized this flag, with its centered black dragon against a backdrop of pure white, as the national flag of the Free Dragon State.

  The long driveway seemed to be shaped something like a crooked needle, with a circular “eye” looping around in front of the house, and after parking the car at the top of the “eye,” which was adjacent to a brick-paved main walkway, Chet turned in his seat to look at me. “I’ve called ahead and have explained things to Commander Iverson, and he’ll meet with you right now to discuss things if you’d like; although considering that you have a child, I think he’ll be patient if you’d like to put your son to bed in one of the spare rooms first, or-“

  “No. Thank you, Chet, but I’m really not letting my son out of my sight for a second. I’ll just carry him sleeping in my arms. I want to go speak to Commander Iverson right away.”

  Chet said all right, and soon he was leading me through a spacious, marble-tiled foyer, saying something about how the rest of the mansion was “just as nice.”

  “It’s all marble and mirrors and polished hardwood, but the east wing, which is really Commander Iverson’s private residence, is a little homier, because that’s just how he likes his private residence. That’s where you’ll be meeting him. He’s finishing his dinner right now, so he asked me to take you to his study, where he’ll join you when he’s finished.”

  “All right.”

  Chet led me down several hallways, then through a vast, ballroom-type room with vaulted ceilings, and then down yet another hallway; and after this one, we finally reached the east wing. Like Chet had said, it was homier than the rest of the house, with hardwood floors in a shade somewhere between honey and amber, plush, forest green rugs everywhere, and electric wall sconces that radiated soft, warm light.

  After we’d passed the kitchen area of the house, within which was an informal dining room, we passed a spacious living room, and then began down another hallway. We hadn’t gotten very far down it, though, when Chet brought us to a stop and pushed open a half-ajar door, revealing a well-lit study with a large polished wooden desk with executive chair, a tan sofa and matching overstuffed chair, and several bookshelves.

  “Well, here we are. If you’d like, I can have one of the maids bring you something to drink while you’re waiting. Maybe coffee, tea, or a soda?”

  Shifting Tommy in my arms, I shook my head. “Thank you, Chet, but no, thank you. I appreciate your kindness, but I don’t want anything at all right now.”

  Surprising me, he gave me the tiniest little wink. “Imagine that. A young woman going from threatening to shift into an angry dragon on me, to thanking me for my kindness. All in less than an hour.”

  Despite experiencing a bit of nerves related to who I was about to meet, I cracked a smile. “Imagine this. A man going from pulling a gun on an unarmed woman and her child, to actually being kind enough to be thanked for his kindness. All in less than an hour.”

  Cracking a smile himself, Chet gave me another little wink. “Touché. And good luck, Alyssa.”

  He started back down the hallway, and I went into the study and made myself at home, having a seat on the sofa, relieved to finally sit down with Tommy, who’d hardly even stirred since we’d come into the mansion. He’d only come-to just briefly, when his teddy bear, which we’d named Softie, had started falling out of his arms.

  Taking a few slow, deep breaths in an attempt to still a few butterflies, or maybe they were more like jumping beans, in my stomach, I reminded myself that DJ had told me that the Canadians considered Commander Iverson to be a reasonable man and a good leader. Which gave me hope that he’d allow me to stay in the FDS, along with Tommy.

  As politely as I could, showing all due respect that one should give a head of state, I was going to tell Commander Iverson that I was determined not to be separated from my child, no matter what. Meaning, that he was either going to have to forcibly send us both back to the US, which I didn’t think he’d do, since Tommy was a future dragon shifter and therefore one of Commander Iverson’s “own,” or he was going to have to grant us both permission to stay in the FDS. As a reasonable man, I hoped he was already of the thinking that a loving mother and a two-year-old child should never be sep
arated, for any reason.

  I’d only been waiting for a minute or two when the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the hardwood-floored hallway made me jump to my feet, partly because of nerves, and partly because I’d been thinking that it was probably protocol for a person to stand when the commander entered a room, even if that person was holding a sleeping child.

  However, when the commander actually entered the room after several seconds, I myself felt like I needed to be held, specifically held up. This was because my knees had become suddenly weak.

  I just stared at the commander for a long moment, hardly able to believe my eyes. “Gavin.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Like I’d done to him, Gavin just stared at me for a long moment, well on his way to becoming white as a sheet. “Alyssa. What…what are you…”

  “Doing here? Yeah. I could ask you the exact same thing.”

  It had taken all of about a half-second for my extreme shock to give way to anger.

  “And what’s up with the name change? You told me your name is Gavin, but now everyone apparently knows you as David Iverson. Is David the lie, or did you lie to me when you said your name is Gavin? Which was not too long before you lied to me by saying that you’d be coming back, if I remember correctly.”

  I’d thought that I’d forgiven Gavin. I’d thought that I’d let go of my anger toward him. Now it was becoming clear to me that maybe I actually hadn’t really done either of those things. Not fully. Not quite.

  In response to what I’d said, he just raked a hand through his thick, dark hair, glancing between me and Tommy with his face becoming even a bit paler. “My legal name is David Gavin Iverson, but among friends and family, I’ve always been called Gavin, because my uncle’s name was David, and things always got too confusing.”

  “Oh, what a likely story.”

  “It’s the truth. My uncle was David Bledsoe, the first commander-in-chief of the FDS. I’ll show you family photos if you’d like.”