Harrison frowned. “Experimentation. In all my years, I’ve heard a thing or two about making shifters. I know tigers are created using dragon blood. So Dallas is part dragon like Beck, Clancy, and I.” He nodded at Dallas. “All the more reason that you’re part of our family.”
“I just want her safe,” Dallas said.
Reno smiled. “Spoken like a true mate.”
“Indeed,” Harrison added, eyeing Dallas with pride. “We’ll be here to help however we can, even if it means taking on a clan of mercenary, murdering cougars.”
Dallas nodded, grateful once again for Harrison and Reno and his whole family. They’d always been there for him, and they were here for him now, when he needed them most.
“Things will turn out okay, but in the meantime,” the dragon added, nodding toward the trailer, “go enjoy time with your mate. The more, the better.”
“Got it, Boss.”
Harrison laughed. “Call me Harrison, son. Keep us posted.” With that, he waved and turned to disappear back into the mist.
Reno smiled and gave Dallas a thumbs-up before he turned and followed Harrison.
Feeling much more reassured, Dallas took a deep breath and headed back over to the trailer and stepped in.
Thankfully, Mel was still asleep. He smiled at the way her curly hair was all soft and messy, covering half of her face as she slept, completely peaceful.
God, his mate was so wonderful.
As he got into bed with her, he couldn’t help but worry about how all of this would turn out.
How was he going to tell her?
Even more concerning… How would she react?
19
Mel yawned as she sat down at the table in Dallas’s trailer and began to go through all of her research one more time. Behind her, Dallas was standing before the stove, frying up some eggs and bacon. His muscles were deliciously indented against the soft shirt he wore to sleep.
As she sifted through the journal entries and other pieces of evidence, she realized that she had left her backpack in the truck. Hopefully, it was okay, as it had her recorder and camera in it.
Dallas curiously cocked an eyebrow at her as she got up from the trailer and opened the door.
“Just grabbing something,” Mel explained.
He nodded, then went back to his cooking as she stepped out into the cool morning air. She walked over to the truck and pulled the door open to get the backpack from the seat.
She unzipped the pocket for a second, eyeing the inside to make sure that her camera and recorder were there. When she was satisfied that they were, she zipped the pocket back up and headed back into the trailer.
When she opened the door and stepped in, Dallas handed her a steaming plate filled to the edges with eggs and bacon and gave her a quick kiss.
“I’ll be on the roof,” he said, smiling down at her for a second before he left the trailer.
Mel sighed happily as she held the plate in one hand and backpack in the other.
This was bliss.
How awesome would it be to wake up with him every morning? She could hardly imagine it.
Just a few more days of trying to make something come from this story. Then I can call it quits and focus on Dallas, she thought as she plugged her recorder into her computer. A few more days and there would be no more worries, just her and Dallas and blissful mornings, afternoons, and evenings.
Mel scrolled down the list of recordings, noting with surprise that her last entry was somehow almost twenty hours long.
Huh.
She must have left it on after an interview the other day. Oops. To this day, it still amazed her that something so small could hold hundreds and hundreds of hours of content.
It had probably caught some of their date at the carnival last night—if she was lucky at least.
Everything had been perfect last night, from the carnival games to the food to the rides, and it had all been because of him. He’d been there for every second, making her smile, holding her hand, showing her that he cared.
Just like he always did.
The whole evening had been magical, even if he had seemed a little on edge at the end of the night.
Had he noticed the tattooed guy as well? If he had, he hadn’t told her about it.
As she went to edit the recording down to just the interview, she noticed that somehow there was audio recorded at the end of the file.
That was weird.
Curious, she clicked over to it and put on a pair of headphones to listen. At first, she couldn’t hear anything except extremely muffled voices, but then after a minute or two, three voices appeared.
One was Dallas. The other two sounded like the men she had met at Dragonclaw. Harrison and the friendly one, Reno.
She frowned. What could they possibly have been talking about? Her eyes widened as the conversation unfolded.
Some of the parts were garbled, but there was more than enough for her to understand.
They were talking about shifters, mercenaries, basilisks, tigers, and dragons. They were talking about the very things she was investigating!
Like all of it was completely real.
Mel knew that she shouldn’t listen, that she should delete the recording, but at the same time, they knew things that she didn’t. Maybe she could learn more by listening.
The more she listened to the recording, the more she began to feel confused and lost. She knew that this wasn’t a conversation she was supposed to have heard, and it was true that she had stumbled onto it by accident, but she couldn’t help feeling slightly angry and betrayed.
Dallas knew about everything that had been going on but had deliberately kept it from her. Possibly even hindered her search.
Why?
At that moment, however, Dallas stepped into the trailer, empty plate in hand. It looked like he’d come in to
