by Abigail Owen
Drake choked on a laugh at the slang used primarily in Mexico. “You think I’m a tough guy? Or stupid?”
“Or a bastard, depending upon interpretation. I haven’t made up my mind.”
Drake grinned. A flash, but Cami stopped in her tracks, blinking at him.
Which was exactly why he didn’t smile often. Because it got that kind of reaction. Rearranging his face to normal, he took her by the elbow again. “It’s over here.”
“You have a nice smile,” she said.
Drake ignored her.
“Kinda sexy actually.”
He glanced over to find her eyeing him with a straight face, but a twinkle in her eyes that tipped him off. The woman was messing with him.
He needed to shut down this lack of wariness of him that she exhibited way too often. Normal women didn’t react like that. Even mates.
Sleeping with her had been a huge fucking mistake. Instead, it had left him energized in a way that had him questioning how, and wanting in a way he shouldn’t allow to continue. He sucked at this touchy-feely crap, but last night when they’d talked about her family a small part of him had wanted to wrap an arm around her middle and tug her body into his. Just to hold her.
Instead he’d fucked her. A couple times. He wanted to again, if his permanently swollen cock was any indication.
He stopped abruptly, turning to face her. “Sexy, huh?” He didn’t have to try hard to pitch his voice lower. He let his gaze travel over her body, remembering the dusky hue of her nipples and how damn sweet the sound she’d made when he’d sucked on them hard.
No surprise, Cami didn’t back down. “Like what you see?”
“Yes.”
Maybe because she could hear the truth in the word, her smile slipped a hair, though only for a second, but he caught it. That slip made him push this exercise in futility further. He stepped closer, close enough that her body heat penetrated through her top and jeans through to his combat pants and shirt to his skin, spreading from there. “You know what would make me smile?”
She swallowed but didn’t take her gaze from his. “What?”
Drake dipped his head to put his lips by her ear. “A long, hard…” He let the words trail off, the idea lingering between them, pulsing with a tension all its own. He was tempted to tell her what he really wanted. A long, hard fuck. But this was about teaching her a lesson, not starting something he shouldn’t finish, something he shouldn’t have started in the first damn place.
“Neck massage,” he finished. Then straightened and walked to the driver’s side of their mid-sized, nondescript, gray sedan.
Cami didn’t move. “A…neck massage?”
“Yeah. You up for it?”
“No.”
Drake had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning again. Twice in one day. Hell, in the last year probably. Must be some kind of record. But her expression was priceless—disbelief, irritation, and a hint of disappointment.
That smidge of wanting went straight to his cock which pulsed against his zipper. Adjusting himself didn’t ease the discomfort.
Maybe he shouldn’t teach her any more lessons. Maybe he should just keep his distance.
He tossed her bag in the back seat and she finally moved to get in the passenger side. Sure enough, the keys waited there for him. He started the car and tapped on the built-in navigation. “Which way?”
“We’re going to get you a bag and some clothes first,” she said. “Or my family will ask questions.”
He’d thought about having his team drop off any stuff they hadn’t already shipped to where Rune had told them. His old Beta hadn’t taken long to set up an entire network, had he?
The problem was, Drake wanted to leave his team out of this situation as long as possible. Totally, if he could. They didn’t need to be dragged into yet another conflict.
The Huracáns needed time to reestablish trust with the Alliance and the other enforcer teams, or they’d be useless as inside men. Plausible deniability was needed here. So, they were out. By now they had to have shared his video with the Alliance, and those men would believe him dead. He didn’t love how close they were to the headquarters but judged it far enough away to avoid being a problem.
He could handle this himself. Cami, while a mate, wasn’t a political nightmare. Not like Sera had been. Otherwise, Rune would’ve said so. Warned him.
Drake hadn’t asked about the mark on Cami’s neck. After last night, the thought of seeing another man’s family brand there made him want to punch something. Preferably the other man.
“Fine.” He put the car in drive. “Let’s go shopping.”
…
Rune stared at the message embedded in an anonymous, private chat room that he used to stay in contact with certain assets around the world. But what he was reading made no damn sense. Not the part about issues that the Blue Clan was having. They’d been in conflict with all the other clans ever since the new king, Ladon Ormarr, had forcibly wrested the throne from the previous king, Thanatos. That wasn’t what he was staring at. What had him tense was a tidbit, still unconfirmed rumor, about the king’s newest acquisition.
King Ladon had a phoenix. At least according to this intel.
But that was impossible. As far as Rune knew only one phoenix with powers ever existed at one time.
Since he already had a phoenix under his protection, another one was either a trick, or, at the very least, a warning. Did this mean the kings knew he had Skylar and were coming for her? Or was there a false phoenix out there? He’d never heard of such a thing, but Ladon would be smart to manufacture one. The existence of a phoenix at a dragon king’s side would immediately undermine Pytheios’s claim to the position of High King.
Shit.
With a series of keystrokes, he erased all trace of himself and the messages and disconnected the computer from the internet. Then he was out of his chair, out of his room, and headed down the series of dark tunnels that led to more residences. He paused at a thick wooden door and listened for a second but couldn’t hear anything.
He pounded on it with a fist. “Skylar.”
No answer. Not that she usually answered.
He pounded again. “Skylar. We have a problem.”
Again, no answer. He tried the handle only to find it locked. He could break into the room, but, knowing Skylar, if he did that she’d leave and Tyrek would leave with her, which was an unacceptable result.
“Damn it.”
Maybe Tyrek could get her to come out.
Rune stalked to a different area in the mountain, more remote, where Tyrek had chosen to ensconce himself. The man was even more paranoid than Rune. Not that Rune blamed him, given his history. In theory, Tyrek Amon was a ghost. A shifter who’d died with his family.
Rune paused at a door and knocked.
“Enter,” Tyrek called.
The ancient white dragon stood in the center of the sitting area. With Skylar.
At least she hadn’t just been ignoring him. Skylar turned her head to regard Rune with her usual forced tolerance. “Yes?”
Tyrek’s expression was more difficult to discern behind his long white beard.
“Do you need something?” Skylar asked. The edge in her voice made it more of a snap.
“Always lovely to see you,” Rune said drily.
Actually, he didn’t blame her for her hatred of dragon shifters, but it amused him to watch her scowl. Not much amused him these days. The woman could give Drake a run for his money in the pissed-at-the-world act.
Except Rune didn’t have time to dick around right now. “I think we have a major problem.”
Neither Tyrek nor Skylar reacted. “You always have a major problem,” Skylar said.
Not exactly untrue. “Are you the only phoenix?”
Both uncle and
niece stilled, their gazes settling on him as the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Given the way her eyes turned more white than blue, only being a creature of fire probably kept Rune from turning to a solid chunk of ice on the spot. He was almost surprised his breath didn’t crystalize on the air.
“Why do you ask this?” Tyrek asked in his slow, heavy cadence.
“Because the rumor mill has it that King Ladon has one.”
“No.” The word whispered from Skylar, but Rune’s excellent hearing caught it. More a whimper, except he couldn’t reconcile that sound with the woman in front of him. Whatever else Skylar Amon was, she was not a coward.
Tyrek squeezed her shoulder. To comfort? Or to hold her back?
Neither, however, immediately denied the existence of another phoenix. Which meant his informant wasn’t wrong. “Holy shit. There are two?”
How the fuck was that even possible? A phoenix gained her powers only one of two ways—her mother died, or her mother deliberately chose to give up the powers, passing them on to her only daughter. Until five hundred years ago, when both the mother and daughter died around the same time, that’s how it had always been. Since Serefina Hanyu’s death, phoenixes had been extinct.
Or so he thought until Skylar landed on his doorstep. Or, more specifically, was teleported to Tyrek.
Uncle and niece exchanged indecipherable glances before Skylar turned to him. “The less you know the better for you.”
Like hell. Rune dropped all pretense at civility, stalking toward the woman in front of him as he pinned her with a hard stare. “What do I need to know to keep this from landing on my doorstep? More than your life is at risk here.”
Rather than quake under a gaze that made most turn away, Skylar waved at him like she was brushing a hair from her sleeve. “You knew taking me in was inviting danger.”
“Yes. But if it’s coming now, I’d rather be ready.”
At least she grimaced, which meant his point got through. “What did you hear about this phoenix?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes, taking in the way she stood, so stiff, even as she schooled her features to curiosity. She couldn’t quite hide the panic in her eyes, though.
“She was found by a rogue dragon shifter who Ladon Ormarr hired.”
Tyrek frowned, his long beard twitching with the motion. “Not that gold rogue that came through about a year ago?”
“Brand Astarot.” Difficult to forget a man as hard as that. “I believe so.”
Skylar had been newly arrived, only staying with them a month or two, when they’d had to get her away quickly. Brand showed up looking for an “unusual fire creature” of unnamed type. It didn’t get more rare than a phoenix when they were supposed to be extinct. “He found a woman in the States.”
“Do you have a name?” Skylar asked.
Did her voice crack? “According to my source, her name is Kasia, and Brand took her to Ladon to be mated.”
Skylar’s eyes squeezed tight. “Oh gods,” she mouthed the words.
Tyrek placed a gnarled hand on her arm. “It will be all right.”
“No. It won’t.” She snapped her eyes open and at the same time her body ignited with flame dancing across her skin, like a living breathing thing, tipped in reds and whites—the heritage of both her red and white dragon shifter lineage. “I have to go to her.”
“No.” Tyrek shook his head so hard, Rune worried it might wobble off his neck. “I can’t let you. I’ll go.”
Skylar doused the flames and turned to her uncle. All the rage vibrating from her eased and she took his twisted hands in hers. “You can’t. They’ll kill you.”
“I made a promise to Serefina,” Tyrek insisted. He visibly shook in her grasp and wavy lines materialized around him, as though he wasn’t quite in control of the beast within.
Rune backed up a step, closer to the door. If Tyrek lost it, there was no telling what he’d do in dragon form.
Skylar was either unaware or didn’t care. Perhaps she didn’t need to fear. Blood ties might protect her, even if Tyrek went feral. Her father’s brother. Technically, both were the heirs to the throne of the White Clan—Tyrek as Zilant Amon’s only living blood kin and a dragon shifter, Skylar as Zilant’s daughter. Only her status as a phoenix put that in question.
She wrapped her arms around her uncle. “I know you made a promise. But this is my job. I can be as stealthy as any old black dragon.”
Rune held in a snarl at that, mostly because she was right.
“And I can get Kasia out of there.” Conviction filled the words and settled over her expression—a sort of calm fury, a storm in a bottle. “I have to protect my sister.”
Rune jerked forward. Sister? “What the fuck is going on?”
Skylar whipped around, though she kept one hand on Tyrek. “Kasia Amon is my sister, and no way am I sitting idly by while some asshole dragon shifter king wannabe forces her to mate him.”
Fuck. Rune’s head spun with the implications because he couldn’t get past it. Two phoenixes. Had such a thing existed before? Ever?
With the strange brands on the backs of some of the mates’ necks, and now this, perhaps the gods or the fates, or even evolution, was at work here. Changing the rules.
Still, some rules had yet to change. “She’ll burn him in the process,” Rune pointed out. “It’s too much of a risk.”
While a human mate was the one who perished in the mating if things went wrong, the legend about phoenixes was the woman got to do the choosing. If any man—dragon shifter, human, or otherwise—tried to mate her without her choosing him as a mate, he’d perish in her flames.
But Pytheios, given his rotting state, was probably crazy enough to try it. And Ladon, needing that upper hand against five other kings, might be too.
“Maybe,” Skylar allowed. “But then shifter after shifter will try. What do you call that?”
He didn’t even want to give the word the power of a thought. A nasty reality that Rune was fighting against for the mates in his care. Skylar wasn’t wrong. Was it possible both sisters had inherited powers? Or had only Skylar? If that was the case, Kasia would likely die when Ladon tried to mate her.
Damn the fates and all things that had made him the fucking poster boy of crusaders for the women inherently in danger in his world.
“I don’t have time for this shit.” Skylar stalked past him. “I’m going.”
“Then I go with you.” Tyrek followed, more like hobbled, after her.
Skylar turned on him. “You’re the only family we have left. I can’t let you.”
Tyrek pulled to his full height, white eyes turning to flame, suddenly every inch the dragon shifter he’d been in his youth. “You can’t stop me.”
Skylar stopped and did a good imitation of a growl. Staring at her uncle, she shook her head, paused, then shook it again, almost like she was arguing with herself. “Don’t make me use my powers to send you back here if you follow,” she said quietly. Reluctantly. Her gaze imploring.
Tyrek stared at her a long moment then caved, stooping back in on himself. “I promised your mother.”
Skylar slowly approached him and put a hand to his face. “I know, and I feel like I just found a piece of my father.”
Tyrek choked.
“But…” she continued. “I made a promise the day she died, too. I promised that I’d be the protection for our family that she was for over five hundred years while she hid us away, letting dragon shifters believe our kind was gone. My sister needs me.”
Tyrek lifted his gaze and perhaps saw something in her gaze, something beyond stubbornness. He nodded. “You should go.”
Skylar blew out a heavy breath. “Thank you, Uncle.”
Rune clenched his jaw against what he knew he had to do next. “I guess I’m helping you get to Scotland then.�
�
Skylar spun to stare at him. “I can’t let you do that. You’ve risked more than enough for me already.”
“True.” He smiled, though it felt tired, stretching his face uncomfortably. “But I’m not asking.”
Chapter Twelve
Cami sat beside Drake in silence as they drove the last miles to her home. Lost in a bazillion of her own thoughts, and grateful, for once, that he wasn’t a talker.
Despite her best efforts, her body still thrummed with aching awareness of the man beside her. He’d made her come into Target with him to watch as he grabbed a bunch of clothes, hardly stopping to check sizing, and tossed them in his cart.
“What if that doesn’t fit?” she asked, as a plaid shirt joined the pile. After all, his shoulders were pretty broad, and he was tall.
He’d shrugged. “They have a good return policy.”
Which meant he’d shopped at Target before. Somehow picturing him, or any of the dragon shifters she’d encountered, doing such mundane things just felt bizarre. I guess they have to get clothes somewhere.
After he got clothes, she got more shirts that would cover the glow in the center of her chest, since she only had room for a few in her bag. Then they’d checked out and headed…home.
Last night—getting lost in Drake and in herself in a way foreign to her until now—swirled in a congealed mess of thoughts in her head. Especially because this morning he’d gone into the bathroom, dressed, and come out acting like nothing had happened.
Except she wanted it to happen again.
But that wasn’t the only thing jamming her up. The closer they got to the ranch, the more her family was on her mind. Also, what he’d said the night before about sacrificial love still rankled.
Was he right? Was hurting her family now better for them in the long run? The mixer was still churning, the thoughts turning to the consistency of cement, as she sat in the car not really seeing what she looked at outside the window.
A familiar tree flashed by, one with a gnarled trunk that sort of stuck out.
“Take the next right,” she said automatically.
Drake nodded.
