Cruel Daddy Dragon (Candara Dragon Ops #3)

Chapter 2 - Sarah

Another beautiful, ordinary day in Greyson Ridge. Ah, who am I kidding? We haven’t had an ordinary day since those dragons moved in, whether the regular residents realize it or not.

I walk down the sidewalk, the early morning sunlight sparkling off the sunlight at me. My cup steams in my hand, Gunn’s Diner’s finest instant coffee with the weakest cream imaginable. On my usual patrol, I pass by Lena’s little shop, but it’s closed and locked, which makes me a little sad. After she got pregnant, she tried to run the shop as usual, but I think with a combination of thick incense smells making her nauseous and the physical pains of her pregnancy, it just became too tough for her. And Cyrus… well, I can begrudgingly admit that he probably has better things to do than run it for her.

As I walk past it, my mind starts whirring about everything that’s happened lately. So much surreal stuff has hit our town that I’m sure I haven’t wrapped my head around everything, even though I’ve been trying. The fact that dragon shifters exist alone is mind-blowing, but they aren’t the only ones. Apparently, Creepy Tom turned out to be something even worse? A snake man?

It makes me feel a little nauseous thinking about it; Greyson Ridge has always been my home, my town, and I was its only sheriff. Before all this dragon nonsense, all I had to protect Greyson Ridge from was itself—kids being nuisances and Merl… well, Merl, just being Merl. Now, though… now, I don’t know what to do. If this dragon and magic bullshit gets out of control, how am I supposed to protect Greyson Ridge?

I turn a corner and almost walk straight into an elderly woman.

“Oh! Crap! Sorry, Mrs. Susan,” I startle.

“Sheriff!” she exclaims to me, “I was just looking for you!”

I huff a sigh and put the dragon thoughts to the back of my mind. Work mode now.

“What can I do for you? Has Roscoe stolen something again?”

“No, I was just wondering about Ms—sorry, Mrs. Lena’s shop over there,” she says, looking at Lena’s closed establishment.

“Oh. Do you need something? Lena’s pregnancy has been really hard on her—morning sickness, you see—so she’s shut the shop for a bit,” I reply, “But she can have what you need delivered to you.”

“I know,” Mrs. Susan answered, “The tea for Maurice’s arthritis arrived last Tuesday.”

She shuffles closer to me, a sparkle in her eye.

“I was just wondering about Mrs. Lena.”

Ah. She wants gossip. Of course.

“She can’t only be a few months pregnant!” she whispers to me excitedly, “That belly is too big! But her handsome husband only arrived a few months ago! It doesn’t make sense! Is he the father? Do you know?”

I just give her a taut smile.

“I’m not sure,” I reply curtly, “You’ll have to ask Lena yourself if you’re so desperate to know. But I think her belly looks that way because of her body shape.”

The steeliness in my tone makes her recoil a little; I’m sure a gossip like her is fluent enough in double-speak to know I’m not entertaining this.

“Okay, I will,” Mrs. Susan replies, “I’m just glad that some of you wild girls are finally settling down . I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that it took a mansion full of handsome young men to make it happen!”

I can feel how tight the smile on my face is. I know what’s coming next.

“When do you think you’re going to talk to one of those handsome young men, Sheriff?”

There it is.

“Oh, I’m far too busy for any of that, Mrs. Susan. Greyson Ridge only has one Sheriff. Who’s going to deal with Merl if I ever let myself get distracted?”

Mrs. Susan starts laughing, and I keep laughing as well.

“Well, on that note, I ought to get going on my patrol,” I say briskly, “Have a good day, Mrs. Susan.”

I start walking away. Now, my mind’s buzzing, but not with the dragon business anymore; she’s touched another raw nerve, and another dam has burst in my mind. It used to just be us single girls here. Me, Lena, Julie, Peyton, and Bernadette. I felt comfortable in our group—we were single, and we liked it. We were fine being girls unattached to men. Not belonging to a man…

Then Lena got back together with her ex, which was fine. Frankly, I was happy for her, and it was pretty obvious it was going to happen the second he was back in her line of sight. I could see it in how she changed as soon as she laid eyes on him again. But suddenly, Julie did a 180 and ended up in the arms of one of the other dragons. That I didn’t expect. When I asked Julie about it later, she just explained how it was like the kind of romantic love she’d only known in her “romantasy” books had swept over her in a powerful wave, taking over everything in her. It felt like Lena didn’t change that much, but Julie? She transformed from a shy bookworm whose only interaction with romance came from her novels into a girl who languishes in the arms of a man, just like how our little group playfully said we never would.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I mean, I’m happy for them, but there’s a part of me that… isn’t. It's selfish, but I miss our little group of single girls. It felt like I had at least a small bunch of people in this town who understood how I felt, and despite what the bridge ladies said, we didn’t need to be in a relationship to be complete. But now I’m losing my single ladies group…

If I’m honest with myself, there’s a tiny part of me that’s a little jealous of how happy they seem, but… it’s been made clear to me by the bridge ladies that once a woman gets together with a man, that’s all she is— his woman. I’ve worked too damn hard to earn respect in my job just to be known as someone’s wife or someone’s mom. I’m scared that if I got together with anyone, I’d just be shoved into the box the bridge ladies have been trying to push me into for years—the nice little housewife of whoever.

I’ve always wanted to be independent, ever since I was very young. I can’t lose that. I can’t.

Something flashes in front of my vision, and I look to see a teenager on their bike, barreling down the sidewalk.

“Hey!” I bark, “No bikes on the sidewalk! You’re going to hit somebody!”

The teen screeches to a halt, alarm widening his eyes.

“Er, sorry, Sheriff!” he yelps.

He loops his leg off the vehicle and starts sheepishly walking away. Reassurance warms my chest for a moment. I mean, he’ll probably be hopping back on that bike as soon as he’s out of my line of sight, but the respect in his voice soothes some of the raw nerves.

Maybe I don’t need to worry so much about it. No matter what happens, I’m the only female sheriff Greyson Ridge has ever had—the only sheriff it has right now.

I’m about done with my morning foot patrol, so I walk to the edge of town, where I left my cruiser. There’s someone by it. It looks like they’re peering in the windows.

Who is that? Merl? Sometimes, he comes sniffing around for a lift when he’s wasted.

But it’s a little early, even for Merl. Plus, after his accident, I think he’s been drinking a bit less anyway. I start moving toward the car, and the figure becomes clearer to me. What becomes clear is that I don’t know who this person is.

It's not the most unusual; Greyson Ridge has decent tourist traffic this time of year. I’m not sure why a tourist would be peering into my car like they’re planning to steal it, though. They sometimes ask for directions, but I don’t know if that would warrant them hanging around my cruiser when I’m obviously not there.

As he cups his hands around his eyes, looking in my car, I stride closer.

“Hey there,” I say loudly, “Can I help you?”

The stranger spins around on his heel and smiles lightly at me. I stutter in my walking when he does. Suddenly, a voice screeches in my head: Run. Run! Get out of there!

He just smiles at me for a moment. His eyes run down me—for a second, I get a horrible crawling sensation, but I realize he’s looking at my badge, not my chest.

“You’re the Sheriff, then?” he asks me.

“I am,” I reply, “Is there a problem here?”

His grin is even wider. The teeth are very, very white.

“None at all,” he replies.

I blink, and suddenly, he’s so close that I can’t properly see him anymore.

How’d he get here so fast?! Shit, he must be a dragon!

My hand snaps down to the handgun on my waist. A large, clawed hand grabs my wrist. Before I can draw my weapon, a sharp prick rattles down my arm. I cry out, and my leg snaps out. My foot hits his leg, and he grunts. The hand releases me, and I turn and start running. Behind me, his sharp laughter cracks through the air.

I need to get the word out! I can’t call on the radio about this—I need to… contact Cyrus’s team about this! I… need… to…

My thoughts start slowing to a crawl, and my vision wavers. My legs get heavier and heavier until it feels like I’m dragging lumps of lead.

Oh, god… That… prick… He must have… injected me… with something! Shit…

My legs can barely move. I’m stopping, even as my sluggish mind screams at me to run. I need to do something else.

I turn around as my body refuses to run anymore. The dragon hasn’t moved—he’s just waiting for me to drop. I draw the gun from my waistband and aim it at him. My vision is completely swimming, like the world I’m seeing is the reflection of a rippling lake. It’s blackening at the edges as well. I’m going to pass out soon—I just know it.

Oh, god. Am I… going to die?

I can’t see, but I fire the gun once in his vague direction. I doubt it hit. My hands start going numb, but not before I feel the gun drop. My limbs tingle. My knees buckle. Blackness creeps toward the center of my vision. The world jerks; I’ve fallen to my knees. The dragon starts nonchalantly walking toward me. The world tips sideways, and my head cracks against the floor as I collapse. Then, everything goes black.