by Abigail Owen
“I need your mouth on mine.” She speared her hands through his hair.
But when Drake went to straighten, his body seized, and he dropped to one knee with a grunt.
Fuck.
How could he have forgotten for even a second? It seemed that, in his last days, he wasn’t even allowed this small flash of pleasure.
Cami’s hands fell to his shoulders. “You okay?”
He hated admitting any weakness, let alone showing it. “I’ll be fine.”
Only he couldn’t make his body obey his commands to stand up.
“Tough guy, huh?” She dropped to squat in front of him and wrapped his arm across her shoulders. “Come on. You can thank me later.”
Together, they hefted his useless lump of a body back to the bed. “I’ll go get Rune.”
Good. Give him a chance to calm the raging hard-on still swelling his cock and attempt to find a sliver of his shredded pride.
Instead of leaving, though, she leaned over and kissed him. Soft and lingering, their lips clinging even as she pulled back.
“I’ll give you this, Drake Chandali. You certainly know how to kiss.”
Then she winked and sauntered out the fucking door.
Chapter Six
Rune lifted his hand and knocked on the door to the room he visited at least once a day. For years. Ever since the man on the other side had found him, asking for sanctuary. Not long after Rune had left the Huracáns, over a decade ago.
Tyrek Amon.
Once brother to the king of the White Clan. Now a rogue, like the rest of them.
“Enter,” said a voice shaky with age and still heavily Russian in accent despite centuries since he’d last been anywhere near that country. At least according to him.
Rune walked into a room that, despite every other room being scraped together from whatever he could scrounge, still managed to look like an ancient palace…or harem, depending on your perspective. The same mattress on the floor everyone else got, but with blankets of rich brocades in teals and tans and reds, though faded with time and use. To the side, the cavern stepped down to a natural sunken room which Tyrek had strewn with large sitting pillows all around. He’d even found a desk with a vanity mirror, tarnished and blotched with age around the edges so that only the very center reflected back an image.
Rune paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the near darkness Tyrek liked to keep his space shrouded in. The man had chosen the room farthest from any and everyone else in the mountain, not even bothering to light the corridor outside. He rarely emerged, even to eat. Rune assumed he took his meals after everyone else had cleared out of the kitchen.
Even with his dragon’s sight, it took a second to locate the white dragon shifter on the other side of the room.
The man was old, even by dragon standards. Almost as old as Pytheios, but instead of his body rotting, like the High King, or the nerves degenerating, like Drake, Tyrek’s form of aging had been just that. Aging, but at an accelerated pace.
It had taken a while to get over the urge to compare the old man to cartoon characters of wizened old military men. White hair cropped high and tight. What had once been a tall, slender body with broad shoulders had turned boney and stooped in appearance. Skin thin and translucent, spotted with age and gnarled hands. Piercing white eyes looked back at Rune from a face still smooth, despite Tyrek’s age.
With a wave at cushions in the sunken living area, Tyrek invited him to sit. “What do you have for me today?” he asked.
“I’m hearing things out of the Alliance. Nothing official, yet. But I have a feeling the Huracán team will no longer take the lead on trying to hunt me down.” Too bad. Now that they were his allies, they could’ve made it look good, but still bought him time and information.
Tyrek nodded slowly. “They’re under scrutiny themselves, now.”
Rune propped his hands on his up-bent knees and waited for more.
Nothing had prepared Rune for that shock of this man. Zilant Amon’s younger brother had survived the purge of kings and their families. Zilant, who had been King of the White Clan, had not been so lucky. Neither had the Dagruns, who had ruled the Gold Clan, or, worse, the Hanyus of the Red Clan. The previous High King and his phoenix mate’s deaths were the catalyst to a gradual slide over centuries to what dragon shifters had become now.
According to Tyrek, he’d run when it had become obvious that Pytheios alone had been responsible for all those deaths, though the story believed by most of dragon kind didn’t tell it that way.
The heir-apparent to the white throne had been running ever since, having faked his own death.
As someone who’d been hiding his very existence, successfully, from the clans and kings for over five hundred years, the man had been an invaluable source of suggestions when it came to keeping Rune safe along with the motley crew of people he’d formed into a group. Tyrek wasn’t the only reason for Rune’s survival. But he was a big one.
“We knew this would happen, eventually,” Tyrek commented in that slow, methodical way of his.
“Yes.” Rune held back the snap of his impatience with practiced difficulty.
Tyrek’s keen eyes sharpened on Rune’s features. “When the time comes, do your people know what to do?”
The second he’d found this place, he’d been putting contingency plans in place. “Most of them do.”
Raised eyebrows was the most emotive Tyrek ever got. “Who doesn’t?”
“You.” Rune didn’t bother to hide the edge of concern in his voice. “The existence of your… Of Skylar is a—”
“Problem.” Tyrek gave a deep nod. “Yes. I thought that might be a fly in your ointment.”
Rune shifted under a gaze neither accusatory nor all that worried. How this man wasn’t scared shitless about what Skylar could bring down on them, Rune had no idea. Even leaving his own team to go rogue hadn’t caused him as many sleepless nights as her presence had for the last year.
“We will separate from you, if or when that should become necessary,” Tyrek stated. As casually as he might talk of leaving for vacation.
“It’s going to be sooner rather than later,” Rune warned.
While the Alliance seemed to have at least pulled back on their direct investigations of the Huracán team, his old brotherhood were still under scrutiny. That had made meeting with them extremely difficult, as the Alliance still had it out for Rune. His informant close to the council seemed to think they’d be coming for him, his rogues, and especially the mates under his care, any day now. At least the distance they’d have to travel to his mountain should give him fair warning.
“I can try to help…” he started to offer.
Tyrek held up a hand with a shake of his head. “No. It’s better if Skylar and I simply disappear.”
He’d be losing a valued ally, but Rune couldn’t say he would be sorry to see the back of the pair. “Do I want to know?”
Tyrek’s long mustache and beard twitched, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “No.”
…
The smell of burnt meat pulled Drake out of a light snooze. Someone was making dinner. He cringed. Or a semblance of it at least. Nothing like Delaney’s, he’d bet. Finn’s mate loved to cook and did so most breakfasts and dinners in their compound, claiming she’d rather make the mess and let the men clean it, than vice versa. Plus, none of them could cook worth a damn.
Not your team anymore.
Drake sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, though with the mattress on the floor, his knees jacked up in front of him. At least all four limbs were functioning this morning.
Easier than he expected, actually. Weird.
Still. He was an enforcer, dammit. Not some fucking invalid for others to take care of. That was his job. He was the protector, the fighter.
With a grunt, he got t
o his feet, then, not needing any of his tracking skills, followed his nose down a twisting mass of hallways, barely lit by torches from centuries ago.
With his body returning to normal, for now at least, Drake’s head had cleared, and he’d learned more about his new “home.” Immediately, Drake pushed away all thoughts of his old home. His team. His family. Instead, he focused on the here and now.
Rune had located his “new team” in an old, abandoned enforcer base deep in the Andes Mountains in Argentina. One of several. Thanks to a treaty with other shifters in this region of the world, the previous High King Hanyu—before Pytheios’s rein—had agreed to leave South America for the indigenous supernaturals in exchange for their help identifying dragon mates and sending them to the clans.
Pytheios apparently hadn’t seen any reason to break that treaty. Or didn’t care. Either way, it had been smart of Rune to hide here. Drake made a mental note to ask his old friend how he’d located the place.
After several twists and turns, Drake found what had to be the kitchen. More like a mess hall.
A tall ceilinged cavern, the space broken up by several large stalactites and stalagmites that had grown into each other, forming columns. The hum of the generator was louder here, and fluorescent lights cast a wavering purple hue over multiple wood picnic tables that were as basic as furniture got. Guaranteed splinters in his ass. To one side, along a wall with pipes and wires snaking down, was a rudimentary kitchen set up with a long counter formed by a tall series of tables with laminate tops, an old fridge with chipped, yellow paint, and an oven/stove combo that looked like it’d come straight from the 1960s. Avocado. Who the hell ever thought the color of baby shit would be a good idea for appliances?
He’d been silent entering the room on purpose, and so far, no one had looked over. With the same stealth—Rune would be proud—Drake moved inside the door, staying in the shadows. He leaned against the wall, observing and keeping to himself. He’d wait until everyone else went back to ignoring him. In the meantime, the one person he wouldn’t mind observing without her knowledge wasn’t in here.
He didn’t have to wait long, though. The soft tread of Cami’s feet on the floor was becoming a familiar sound outside his doorway. A sound he’d never admit, even to himself, that he was starting to listen for with something akin to anticipation.
She stopped beside him in the doorway and crossed her arms, looking over the gathered group. “I went by your room.”
He didn’t answer.
“Obviously I didn’t find you there,” she continued, probably knowing he wouldn’t speak. “Low and behold, here you are.”
Again, he continued to stare at the others, all of whom had lifted their heads or turned in their seats to stare. Anywhere but her, even as her winter-and-flowers scent wound around him, despite the air being filled with the smell of burning bacon.
“I learned how to get out of a choke hold yesterday,” she dropped casually between them.
Drake looked at her despite himself. “Why?”
“Because Skylar thinks I should learn how to defend myself now that I’m a dragon mate.”
Not yet, she wasn’t. Right now, she was only a human who had the potential to be turned. Still fragile. Still able to die in a dragon’s fire, or at his hand. Dragon shifters were a violent, aggressive race. This Skylar person, whoever she was, sounded like she knew what she was talking about.
Even if the thought of Cami fighting anyone made him want to crawl out of his skin and burn down the room. A stupid fucking response. He stuffed it way down deep.
“Are you going to hold up that wall all night?” she prodded.
He didn’t respond.
“They don’t bite, you know,” Cami murmured beside him, looking out over the room of people.
“I bite.”
He wasn’t joking, but the damn woman chuckled, the sound making his stomach clench. She walked a few steps into the room, then turned, walking backward so she could face him. “I might take you up on that offer someday.”
The image of sinking his teeth into the softness of her skin as he fucked them both into bliss tore at his mind.
Ten days.
That’s all it had been.
Ten days of her popping in to “take care of him” with her cheerfully ignoring his glares, and her snarky remarks about the other people in the mountain, and snide comments about society in general, and all he wanted was to bury himself in her and escape his own body.
Drake stayed where he was. Joining in wasn’t his thing. Instead he watched, ignoring the resentful, jabbing glares from the men, and the flirtation-lined curiosity from the women.
First, Cami stopped to speak to a man and woman sitting at the end of one table. The mated pair she’d mentioned maybe. After a second, she reached out and squeezed Yelena’s hand. It almost looked like a gesture of thanks. Except he hadn’t bothered to listen and so didn’t catch what it was about.
Then, with a grin and a nod, Cami moved to the stove where a stocky man with dark skin, black hair, and green eyes the color of jade in sunlight wielded a spatula with gusto. The guy reminded him of Hall, which already set Drake’s teeth on edge. Hall had always had a knack for that, apparently even when it wasn’t Hall doing the annoying, just a facsimile of his teammate. That and the guy smiled at Cami like she was dinner and he was a fork and knife, ready to dig in.
Except Cami didn’t smile back. Odd. If she smiled at Drake’s sour face, why not at this guy? Drake stayed where he was, watching the interplay as she kept her distance, holding her plate out in front of her like a shield, mouth set in a straight line.
She doesn’t like him.
Why that ignited a small spark of satisfaction, or seemed to settle his dragon side, he refused to consider. Maybe she had good instincts when it came to people.
Except she seems determined to like you.
Maybe out of sheer contrariness, though. Ten days of chatter designed to drag reluctant words from him, and he knew that much about her at least. Hell, the day he’d rescued her family… The way she’d stood up to him, challenged him, fought him. Contrary might be too tame a word for Camilla Carrillo.
Hall’s look-alike dished up what had to be the runniest eggs Drake had ever seen along with charred toast and bacon so black it would probably disintegrate when handled. Apparently, the man only cooked with two settings on that stove.
Cami turned away, and Drake had to keep his lips from twitching at the way she wrinkled her nose in total disdain as she stared down at the unappetizing food. She grabbed silverware from a caddy on the makeshift countertop and moved to one of the picnic benches scattered around the large cavern.
The only one that was empty.
Drake narrowed his eyes. The table where Yelena sat with her mate was full, but other tables had room for her. For someone so damn determined to talk his ear off when they were alone, he would’ve expected her to sit with one of the groups. At least the women, who had all sat together. They didn’t seem to pay her any attention, and Cami didn’t even glance over.
Something about her being so completely alone in a room with people snagged at him like the branches of trees when he flew too close, trying to take him down.
No way was he going to sit with her, even if his dragon was pushing inside his skull. The woman didn’t need encouragement, and damned if he was going to make friends.
Cami reached up and wound a lock of hair around one finger, then unwound it and repeated the action.
You have to eat, too, an insidious inner voice prodded. And damned if he’d sit with anyone else, either. That only left one other place to go. If he sat at the other end of the table, that wouldn’t be sitting with her exactly.
He went to take a step, then stopped himself, electricity shooting up one leg in protest at the suddenness of it. His body’s way of reminding him it was shit these days. At
the same time, a petite woman with dark hair pulled into a thick braid down her back, wearing clothes that whispered fighter, and who walked with a powerful grace that screamed fighter, sailed by him.
Drake settled back against his wall and watched as she didn’t bother to wait for Hall look-alike to serve her, wordlessly elbowing him out of the way to serve herself before taking her plate and sitting across from Cami.
This time, he listened, eavesdropping, thanks to a shifter’s sensitive hearing, and didn’t give a fuck.
“Tomorrow I’m going to teach you about a dragon shifter’s weak spots,” the new woman said.
Drake’s eyebrows met in a deep scowl. Learning self-defense was one thing, but why the blazes did Cami need to know about weak spots in his kind? And how did the woman across from her know anyway? Trying to be subtle, Drake sniffed at the air.
“You’re making my men uncomfortable.”
Drake clenched his teeth as Rune appeared at his side. Sneaky ass motherfucker.
He glanced over at the tables where the men sat eating. Sure enough, those resentful glares had turned more to defensive stares as they openly watched him. Too damn bad.
Drake looked away. “Who’s the woman sitting with Cami?”
Rune settled in a way that usually spelled danger, like his body had soundlessly gathered to lunge if he had to. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“She smells like a mate, but not.” She smelled…different. Smoky, yes, but with an underlying sweetness that reminded him of cinnamon.
“She is, though.”
Something in Rune’s tone pulled Drake’s gaze around to him, but Rune’s expression was as blank as a brand-new chalk board.
Drake narrowed his eyes. “Why is she teaching Cami about a dragon shifter’s weak spots?”
That brought a frown from his old friend, but Rune shrugged. “I’m sure she has her reasons. Can’t hurt, actually.”
Drake gave a small growl at that. “You owe her, you know,” he said after a moment.
Rune lifted a single eyebrow. “I owe her?”
“Cami. The ranch,” Drake pointed out.
