by Abigail Owen
With a combination of glares, dirty looks, and curious glances, mostly from the women, they dispersed, walking away to disappear down various human-sized corridors that all met in this place.
Except Cami didn’t get the memo to leave. Drake’s voice, the familiarity of those deep, rough tones, and something else, some strange awareness, drove her feet forward into his path.
The second his gaze landed on her, Drake stilled, though his expression gave nothing away.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Camilla?” Rune asked beside him, a million questions in his tone.
Only she didn’t look at him. Instead she stared at Drake, scrunching up her eyes like viewing him out of focus might help.
He remained still and silent while she studied him.
A harshly handsome face stared back at her—a slash of cheekbones, strong jaw shadowed in dark stubble, jet black hair, though instead of the warmth of dark eyes she would have expected, his were an unusual, intense reddish-brown shade.
Red dragon, a vague part of her mind identified. You could always tell by the eyes.
But, while Drake’s dark glower should’ve had her heading in the other direction—that bite sharper with him, darker—fear was not what she felt. What she felt was…almost like gratitude. Trust.
A warm little sun spot somewhere in the region of her heart and a voice inside that whispered. Only she couldn’t catch the words.
A brightening around her told her that the internal glow at the center of her chest had taken on a life of its own. The way his gaze dropped then narrowed told her she wasn’t wrong. Sparks would follow any minute now, but she didn’t care, for once.
She needed to know first. “Have we—”
Suddenly, Drake pitched forward, one hand to his knees, his breathing turning harsh and erratic.
Alarm pierced that warm familiarity. “Are you okay?”
She bent over and instinctively put a hand on his back in a gesture meant to comfort. Immediately he tensed, his muscles going so rigid under her palm that she jerked her hand away.
Only he didn’t snap at her, or straighten, or make a sound of any sort. Instead, the man fell to the floor in a tangled heap of limbs, convulsing for several agonizingly long seconds, before he stopped, lying so still that it almost scared her more.
Chapter Four
Drake opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling bathed in the flickering light of a torch stirring memories of a time before electricity and modern technology. Based on the rough cut of the rock, though, this was not his mountain in California. Not his room in the stronghold of the Huracán team.
Everything came back to him with the subtlety of a harpoon through the ribs. An experience with a whaling ship in the eighteen-hundreds that he hadn’t planned on repeating, even metaphorically.
Shit.
All of it sucked. Every damn thing about what brought him here.
His trouble flying, or more accurately his crash landing, on the way to the meeting with Rune. Telling his team—his brothers in spirit though not by blood—about his condition, the disease eating away at his body. They’d stared at him with shocked faces, and then he’d left them. No goodbye beyond a nod at each.
The best he could do.
He did regret not having a chance to tell his sister to her face. Lyndi would be pissed. At least he’d been able to give them the video he’d made. Mostly as proof for the Alliance to make sure losing one more team member didn’t blow back on his men. But that video was also a goodbye of sorts. He’d been carrying it around on a thumb drive for a year.
After that, the humiliation of having to fly on Rune’s back like a fucking human—a useless lump of carbon and water. Coming face-to-face with men who’d been on the wrong side of the laws he’d been sworn to uphold. Then, just to heap on more humiliation, he’d passed out like a Victorian debutante in front of the one woman he hadn’t been able to shake.
Cami was here.
Had he dreamed her up through the haze of pain and numbness taking over his body, or was she really here? The memory of her had lingered like the subtle flavors of a fine wine.
Or a hangover.
A small gasp had him jerking his head to the side to find her staring at him. She’d obviously been sitting on the cold, hard floor, resting her head on the mattress on which he slept, a crease from the sheet marking one cheek and eyes still droopy with sleep.
She blinked rapidly, then sat up straighter and cocked her head, studying him with the clinical gaze a nurse might give a patient. He didn’t like it.
“How are you feeling?” she asked. That sultry voice, no longer scratchy with smoke, filled the room, caressing his skin.
Drake battled with his body. It would not do to shock her with a raging erection that was sure to be evident given the flimsy sheet covering him. At least he was still in his utility pants and shirt.
She doesn’t remember you anyway, asshole.
He didn’t screw up things like wiping memories. Except the gaze she had trained on him held a spark of familiarity, as though she did. The fact that a small part of him leaned toward that familiarity with the notion that he’d like it if she did, set Drake back mentally. What was wrong with him? Was his condition affecting his common sense now? With effort, he shook off that trivial want. Impossible anyway. It wasn’t as though those memories went in a trash can on a computer desktop and could be retrieved. It was a permanent wipe. Gone forever.
Better for her. Better for him.
Probably couldn’t get it up anyway.
When he didn’t answer she narrowed her eyes. “My name is Camilla Carrillo,” she tried again. “Do you remember anything?”
When he didn’t answer again, she lifted a single unimpressed eyebrow, and he couldn’t help a stirring of curiosity. Women tended to run from him, not hold their ground and regard him with blasé pseudo-concern.
“You yelled at two of the other women who tried to take care of you,” she said. “Scared the crap out of them. Remember that?”
Drake’s eyes narrowed as he tried to access any memory before flopping to the floor in front of her like a fish on dry land. Nothing.
“Do you remember me from when you arrived?” she asked next. She lifted a hand and proceeded to wrap a long, black strand of silky hair around one finger, then unwind it, and wind it back up again.
Whatever familiarity he’d thought he’d seen was gone now, only vague curiosity staring back at him from warm brown eyes. If familiarity had been there at all. Looked like Rune hadn’t told her anything. Not that Rune had anything to tell. Drake, and Drake alone, knew what he’d done for this woman and her family.
This mate.
Mate.
That was the only reason she could be here in this mountain…with Rune and his people. Which meant she’d started showing dragon sign, and when dragon fire was applied to the nape of her neck, a mark would show there. The brand of her destined mate’s family.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Apparently, Drake had been wrong the day he’d saved her, or she wasn’t showing sign then, but she was a mate. That fire, the one that had destroyed her family’s home… Had that been Rune trying to flush out a mate?
Did she know that Rune had been responsible?
Her frown deepened, dark eyes filling with concern, pushing out her irritation. Usually by now, when he didn’t speak, people left him alone. When Cami levered off the floor, he expected her to do exactly that, or maybe go get Rune. Shock had him freezing when, instead, she crawled onto the bed beside him, a swirl of scents—crisp winter air, exotic jasmine, and an edge of smoke—surrounding him, smothering him, filling him up.
Drake held his breath and wished her anywhere but next to him on this bed.
Oblivious to his sour thoughts, Cami reached to put a hand to his forehead.
Onl
y he slapped it away before she could touch. “I’m fine,” he said on a growl.
Cami scowled, not remotely intimidated. “Then speak up and say so.” She backed off, but not much and muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like pendejo.
“I am not an idiot,” he muttered.
“Yeah?” The word burned with her scorn. “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been out? Two days.”
That explained why he had to piss so damn bad.
“Or is your default setting asshole?” she continued. “I’m trying to help you, and I don’t scare as easy as the others.”
Apparently, she already had him pegged. Drake grunted, then pushed up to sitting, hating the way his arms shook with that small task, a weakness that had him mentally swearing at the muscles. Hiding a grimace, he leaned against the rounded wall of the cave which served as a headboard for the mattress. The cool of the stone seeped through his thin shirt and into his skin, sending a shiver racing through him.
He scowled. Dragons didn’t shiver. They were impervious to cold.
Cami must’ve caught a nuance in his expression, because she narrowed her eyes. “You’re not okay, are you?”
She reached out again, and this time he didn’t stop her from laying her cool hand against his forehead, though he had to stop himself from leaning into her touch. She tsked. “You’re burning up.”
“All dragon shifters burn,” he said.
Cami shook her head. “No. I think this is different.”
“Because you’d know.”
She ignored his heavy sarcasm. “I should go get Rune.”
Drake shifted under the sheets that seemed determined to remain wrapped around his feet. “I’m surprised he left you alone with me.”
“He didn’t want to, something about you being a scary motherfucker. His words. He needed to sleep after flying all that way, and, after the yelling, and throwing a pillow—” She paused and shook her head at him the way a school teacher might scold a small student who’d thrown a pencil. “None of the others would come near you.”
“You should’ve listened to him.” Only he got the sense she wasn’t fully comprehending his words, whether willfully or naively he wasn’t sure.
“You were out cold.” She gave a negligent shrug, only confirming his concern. “And weak as a newborn giraffe, if I miss my guess. I’m safe enough.”
That newborn giraffe comment rankled and had him biting back an irritated growl. Did this woman have no sense of self-preservation?
In a swift move, he grabbed her by both wrists, rolling so that he lay on top of her, holding her hands over her head, pinning them against the bed in a forceful grip, weighing her body down with his own. He had to hide how that small move had him breathing hard, though. He glared at her as though nothing was wrong. “I’m not out cold now. Am I?”
Her heart thundered away against the inside of her ribs, the sound loud in the relative silence of the room and the flutter pulsing against his skin between their clothes. Her breathing pushed her breasts against her shirt. Against him.
Despite the fear pumping adrenaline through her system, she gazed at him with wide eyes that showed an inexplicable trust that grated against him like a sandpaper sponge bath.
“What are you going to do to me?” she whispered.
Almost like she was daring him.
“You’re a mate,” he said.
“So?”
“Mates are like catnip to my kind—an obsession, a driving urge to find our own. What if I took you now, claimed you, pushed my fire into you?”
Her lips fell open on a silent gasp, but fear didn’t reflect back at him even still. “You’d kill me if you aren’t my destined mate.”
So, someone had at least warned her of the deadly consequences should the wrong man try to turn her. Had she listened? He squeezed her wrists a little harder, pressing into her so she couldn’t mistake the heavy cock pressing into her belly. “Yes.”
“You’d lose a part of your soul as well,” she pointed out.
He allowed his lips to tip up in what he fully intended to be a menacing smile. “Perhaps it’s worth it.”
She stared back at him for a long minute. Then, suddenly, her heart quieted, her breathing slowed, her body relaxing under his. “Go ahead.”
She was fucking daring him. Inside his head, his dragon growled, but not a warning, more like approval. The animal side of him liked this woman.
That scared the hell out of him enough to have him fighting the foreign urge to scramble off her.
When he said nothing, she tipped her head. “Just like I thought. All bark.”
Bulls facing off against a matador in a ring dealt with less provocation than this woman was daring to throw at him.
“You talk a good game,” she continued. “But you won’t hurt me.”
Irritation spiked and swirled with a rushing need that had gripped him since the second she’d stepped in front of him in the hangar and he’d recognized her.
Drake slammed his mouth over hers, his kiss both full of frustration, but also determined to frighten her into some semblance of self-preservation. He kissed her harshly, wildly, even as he continued to pin her to the bed.
Except she didn’t whimper or turn away or struggle. Instead, Cami opened her mouth and licked the full seam of his lips, demanding entrance.
Fuck.
Gods help him, he opened, tangling his tongue with hers, reveling in the give and take. Her flavor melted across his tongue, sweet and tart at the same time, imprinting on his mind.
A glow vaguely penetrated his senses behind his closed eyes, followed by a burst of heat that seemed to be originating from her.
Almost as fast as it happened, Drake jerked back with a hiss, staring at a glowing spot under her white tank top. The source of the heat.
Definitely a dragon mate. Which meant off-limits. Another shifter’s mate.
With a groan he rolled away from her, flopping to his back, and flung an arm over his eyes, doing his damnedest to convince his dick to get its head out of the game. “You need to get out of here.”
Her harsh breathing taunted him. He wanted to make her breathe harder while he slid his body in and out of hers, made her scream his name, fucked that sassy mouth with his cock.
Damn, he’d really lost control.
The second the thought came, pain burned its way down a trail of nerves in his arm, lighting them on fire before turning them numb. Almost as though that kiss had held his disease off for a second, only to let it come crashing back over him. Not even a few minutes of reprieve. Rage and total helplessness waged war on him, beating against his chest.
“Go get Rune,” he snapped.
He needed her out of here. Now.
Not only because of what was ravaging his body, but because he still wanted her with an urgency that shocked the hell out of him. Before he gave in to those tempting desires and made them a reality, he needed her to leave. He couldn’t fuck another man’s mate, even if she didn’t know who that man was yet.
Drake hurled silent curses at the fates. He’d already been through this with Sera, who’d borne not only his mark, but also Titus’s, and Aidan’s. She’d so obviously been meant for the rookie of the team—the way they looked at each other had been all Drake needed to see to know that. Drake was beyond help anyway. So he’d stepped back, let her go. His last chance at salvation.
An extra helping of guilt layered over all the other roiling emotions passing through him.
He lifted his arm and turned his head to glare at Cami who watched him with those fucktastic lips parted in silent invitation. “Unless you want to wrap those pretty lips around my cock and finish me off, I suggest you get going.”
Cami blew out a harsh breath, but at least she got up, leaving the room without a word, though he still caught the way her hands
trembled as she opened the heavy oak door.
As her footsteps padded away down the hall, darkness pulled him back under on a riptide of unconsciousness he couldn’t fight.
…
Rune on her heels, Cami didn’t bother to knock before entering Drake’s room. She hadn’t told the black dragon shifter behind her about her exchange with the irascible man, or that searing kiss that had set her body alight with a need that still ached between her legs.
Drake was impossible, rude, arrogant, mostly unspeaking.
As soon as she saw the way he was lying—flopped over himself, limbs sprawled, one leg off the bed—she forgot about her incomprehensible reaction of kissing him back like that and moved to his side.
Unconscious again.
Rune moved around to the other side of the bed, pressing his fingers against Drake’s neck, checking for a pulse.
He was that bad? He’d damn well had a pulse when he’d been driving her body to that sweet ache that still lingered. Rune gave a nod and removed his hand.
The tight band around her ribs eased up a little. “He has a fever, if I’m not mistaken.”
Rune grabbed Drake by the shoulders and hefted him to lie on his back, then straightened his legs. “I don’t have a healer here, so he’ll have to work through that on his own.”
If he can. The words lingered on the air between them, unspoken.
“What’s wrong with him?” The man was so damn…vital. How could anything be wrong? Up till now, Rune hadn’t said much about it, insisting Drake would share and to do what she could.
Rune shifted his gaze from the man unconscious between them to Cami. “If a dragon shifter doesn’t find his mate by a certain age, he starts the decline to death sooner, battling with diseases of the mind or the flesh. It’s different for each man. Pytheios, our so called High King, is called the Rotting King, because his flesh is rotting from his bones.”
Cami grimaced. “And Drake?”
