by Abigail Owen
Who cares? I’m still pissed.
She passed through several rooms. Normal rooms—a family room with a couch and TV, a game room with a pool table, even an office—until she reached the Von Trapp family-style foyer. There she paused. Her first instinct was to get the hell out of dodge. She’d walk her ass back to her family’s home if she had to, and screw dragon shifters. She wanted no part of them.
As if on cue, sparks spewed from her like a fireworks show.
“Shit.” She started to stamp them out then realized they weren’t catching anything on fire. Fire-resistant furniture? She rolled her eyes. Figured. She stalked off in the direction she’d been going, right back to pissed.
The thing that had her blood pressure set to a hard boil was Drake. And the fact that she didn’t want to leave him.
“Damn,” she muttered, standing at the entrance to the tunnel that led back to the “human” version of their base.
“Maybe we can help?”
She whirled at the sound of a female voice to find Finn’s mate staring at her, dove gray eyes soft and kind. Beside her, a miniature, female version of Drake, though much prettier, watched her with a similar closed-off expression to her brother’s.
The air whooshed from Cami’s lungs, anger dripping from her like a slow leak from a tire. “Sorry about making a scene.”
She’d actually slapped Drake. In front of his team. The implications of that alone rocked through her.
What the hell was I thinking?
Easy answer. She wasn’t thinking.
Delaney grinned. “Dragon shifters can be enough to make a saint curse.”
Lyndi’s lips quirked. “Especially Drake.”
Cami huffed a laugh. “He just makes me so darn mad.”
“But you’re not afraid of him.” Lyndi cocked her head, as if studying a specimen under a microscope.
She said that like it should mean something. “So?” Cami asked.
Lyndi shrugged. “So even the guys on the team can be wary of Drake.”
Cami paused and thought about it. She could see how that might be true. The man radiated a dark determination and the power to get shit done, blow through whatever he had to, even when he was bedridden and weak. But not once, not since he’d arrived in the Andes on Rune’s back, had she been afraid of him. Or intimidated. “Maybe my sense of self-preservation is jacked.”
Obviously, she’d sure been wrong to put any kind of faith in him.
Lyndi shook her head. “I can tell you to trust him.”
Cami snorted her derision.
Delaney grinned. “Even when he’s hiding things from you, he’s protecting you.” She gave Lyndi a pointed look and got a flat-lipped stare in return. “Not that it makes it right,” Delaney continued. “But trust is something you have to figure out for yourself.”
Cami glanced away. “Yeah.”
“Tell you what. It’s late and I’m not sure how long we’ll be discussing whatever went down. Why don’t you stay here tonight?” Delaney offered. “Drake can get you up early enough to fly you home before your family is awake.”
Drake would be down here, figuring out what to do about the Alliance. About her. From what she’d overheard, the team was in plenty of trouble as it stood. Maybe she should go back to Argentina. Wait this out.
Drake had been right all along. Saying goodbye to her family was the right thing to do.
Except now the Alliance expected a human to be around along with Drake. Which meant they couldn’t leave.
“Come on.” Lyndi beckoned her with a hand.
Cami caved, mostly because she didn’t want to have to answer the questions chiseling into her brain with ice picks. “I’ll never be able to sleep, but sure.”
Curiosity overtaking any residual anger, she followed the two women, who in five minutes had been more welcoming to her than most of the dragon mates Rune was protecting, up the stairs and around to the right to one of the doors which the other woman held open for her before following her inside.
Cami paused on the threshold, taking in what appeared to be a full apartment with family room, kitchen, dinette, and a hallway leading to what she assumed were bedrooms.
“Come on.”
While Delaney flipped on lights, Lyndi led her to the first door down the hall, and again Cami paused, the scene in here so achingly familiar, she had no trouble identifying the source. Even without the starkly masculine decor—basic bed with no headboard or footboard, solid black dresser with no mirror, and a black leather chair in one corner—the scent was unmistakable.
“This is Drake’s room,” she said.
Delaney’s lips hitched. “How’d you guess?”
“It smells like him.”
A flash of emotion lit Lyndi’s reddish-brown eyes before disappearing. Curiosity maybe. Speculation. But why? No one but Rune knew the mark Cami carried. “When they finish talking, he’ll track you down regardless of which room I put you in, and likely camp out on the floor. Drake takes his duties—”
“More seriously than the exact timing on a three-minute egg?” Cami supplied.
That drew a chuckle from Delaney. “Yeah.”
“Isn’t there another room you can put me in?”
Lyndi shrugged. “I could. There are a few other apartments like this and several bedrooms in this apartment.”
“But he’ll come find me.”
Another shrug as if to say, what can you do with dragon shifters in protective mode? “That, plus none of them have furniture. They’ve offered them to me and the boys, but we want to stay in our own home.”
Given how pissed she’d been a few minutes ago, she should be fighting this. But, for reasons passing understanding, the idea of sleeping elsewhere sat wrong anyway. Like a button-up shirt that didn’t fit her breasts, straining the buttons. Somehow, the strange sense of loss when he wasn’t around might be worse than the lack of privacy or distance she’d had since Skylar sent them north.
“We’ll let you get settled,” Delaney said.
They were almost out the door before Cami stopped them. “Lyndi? I’m guessing he didn’t tell you he was dying? Is that why you’re angry with him?”
Lyndi paused with her hand on the doorjamb, then looked over her shoulder at Cami. “I’m angry because he left without saying goodbye.”
The hurt radiating from the woman across from her had Cami hiding a flinch. Was that how her family would feel when she just upped and disappeared?
“Forgive him.”
Lyndi’s lips pinched. “Why? Because he’s dying?”
“No.” She shouldn’t be butting in, but she was going to anyway. Even if she was still angry with him herself. “Because he may have hurt you, but he did it trying to protect you. Because he’s your family.”
Lyndi stared at her, no give in her expression.
“Forgive yourself, too,” Cami said quietly.
That got her a confused frown. “What do I have to forgive myself for?”
“You didn’t notice. He’s been dying for a long time. By the time he got to me, he passed out for days, barely able to lift his head. And none of you noticed.”
Lyndi swallowed, and Cami hesitated only a second, because she didn’t mean to cause the other woman pain.
“You didn’t notice, because he didn’t want you to,” she said, hoping the other woman heard her. Truly heard her. “Forgive him and forgive yourself.”
After a long moment, Lyndi gave a jerking nod and left the room.
Delaney paused, though, eyeing Cami with a speculative light in her eyes. “Call if you need anything, okay? My rooms are one down.”
“I will…” Cami paused. “Delaney? Do you like it?”
Delaney lifted her eyebrows in question. “What? Being a dragon shifter?”
Cami nodded.
Delaney seemed to seriously give the question some thought. “I love flying. I love Finn so much it hurts sometimes, almost like a knife edge to the need, you know? But I also know that I’m loved in return in the same way. Maybe more because he waited so long for me. Hundreds of years alone and wondering if he’d die before he found me. At least, that’s how it feels to me.”
Cami nodded like she had any idea.
Delaney pulled a face. “The politics aren’t great, but then it’s not exactly spectacular in the human world, either.”
“True.” With technology the world had gotten flatter, and yet even more divided and hateful than before.
On the flip side, the human world didn’t have her dying if she chose the wrong man to mate. However, the human world wasn’t exactly kind to women in other ways. Women’s lives were at risk in huge numbers across Africa and the Middle East and parts of Asia. Human trafficking was still rampant. Even in first world countries, abusive situations and the lack of effective means of protection were a terrible reality. No man Cami knew ever looked over his shoulder or checked under his car or carried his keys in his fist, ready to defend himself. In general, women were physically smaller and weaker than the men they encountered. No matter how much equality they earned in other areas of life, they had to at least consider the danger. Science and statistics told them so, and it really blew.
And Delaney was damn right about the politics. Cami’s family had been on their land for generations and were far north. But as soon as talk of walls had lit up the presidential campaigns, her father had forbidden her sisters from going to San Diego schools for college. Too close to the borders. They all carried passports with them, showing their nationality, just in case. A situation that felt both doomsday ridiculous and scarily necessary. Worse in other states. At least California was a sanctuary state, which meant less persecution from law enforcement and narrowminded, racist assholes.
Was she substituting one situation of potential oppression for another?
“Do you feel valued?” she asked.
Delaney smiled. “By Finn? I know I make him better. And he makes me better. We’re each other’s centers.” She paused, considering. “By the team, absolutely. Yes, I cook, but only because it’s a passion.” She wrinkled her nose. “And they all suck at it. But my opinion is heard and valued and weighed with theirs.”
She paused again, and Cami stayed quiet, somehow knowing more was coming.
“By the Alliance? No. I didn’t come to that meeting tonight because I can’t stand the way they ignore me or leer at me, and Finn doesn’t want the physical reminder of his going around the law there.” She sighed. “There doesn’t seem to be an in between. I haven’t met many others. Just Lyndi’s boys, really. So I couldn’t tell you if my experience is normal or not.”
Right. The orphaned dragons Drake’s sister took in so they didn’t have to go rogue. He’d said on the way here that they’d all come to live and train with the team.
“Get some rest,” Delaney said.
Cami sent her a wan smile and the other woman left her alone, closing the door behind her with a snick.
Quiet descended—caves had the best kind of quiet—and Cami stood for a bit, allowing herself to reel a bit with everything she’d learned. No answers came to the questions flipping through her like a rolodex on a spin cycle, though. Eventually, she forced her feet to move. A quick search of the apartment showed several bedrooms like Delaney had said. Drake’s, with its basic but obviously masculine decor and larger size. The others were smaller. For children he might have had if he’d found his mate?
That thought sent black ribbons of an emotion she wasn’t ready to define through her, so Cami buried it, took a quick shower because the warm water made her feel better, and lay down in Drake’s bed, expecting not to sleep, expecting her brain to keep her awake as she churned over everything.
Before she knew it, a rough hand was shaking her shoulder, pulling her out of a dreamless slumber.
Drake. She wanted to reach for him. Pull him under the covers with her. Bury her face in his chest and sleep some more, wrapped in arms that would protect her.
“Cami,” he said, interrupting the lovely fantasy she was weaving. “We need to go.”
Chapter Sixteen
Cami rolled over, rubbing her eyes like a tired child, an action that inched its way under his skin. “M’Okay,” she mumbled sleepily. Then flipped the covers back and dropped her feet over the side of the bed, sitting up.
His bed. Damn, he wanted her to stay in it.
Especially after overhearing that conversation with Lyndi. Letting Cami fight his battles had been fascinating…and strangely relaxing.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Five. I want to fly while it’s still dark.” While he still could. If he still could. He made a fist with one hand, trying to flex the lethargy out of his arm.
“We need to get you back to Rune. We’ll act out you going back to Texas. You can’t be here when Tineen and Nidhogg arrive.”
Cami stilled. Because of what he’d said, or had she picked up that telling action? Not a lot seemed to escape her, which, while it irritated him like a mosquito bite, he also sort of respected it. She lifted her gaze to his face, eyes scanning him like she was a medical device honed to detect any weakness.
Sure enough, her eyes narrowed. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“I have to get you back or your parents will wonder.”
“Nope. You may be too stubborn to see it, but I can. You look like death on a bad face day. Did you sleep at all?”
No. But she didn’t need to know that. “I lay down shortly after you.”
On the couch in the family room of his suite once he’d located her. The distance made the wanting worse, but he’d kept his damn hands off her. Sort of. He’d spent the rest of the night battling the urge to wake her and burn every rule to the fucking ground. He still wanted to.
Cami snorted, not buying his story. “I’ll call my parents in a few hours and tell them we left early to go get some supplies.”
“Yeah? And what car did we take?”
That earned him a flat glare. “Fine. I’ll call and say you wanted to see the property, so we’re checking the outer fencing.”
Stay longer with her here, in his home. Tempting.
Drake wanted to shake something, himself included. His body was a traitor, and this sucked hairy balls. “Fine.”
Cami sat back like he’d grown two heads or something. “Fine?”
He greeted that with silence.
“Seriously? You must be feeling bad.” She popped to her knees and put her hand to his forehead before he could stop her.
Drake went to knock her hand away, then paused as a vague realization settled in him. A sensation, subtle enough that he could easily have missed it, radiated from her touch. He scrunched his brows, reaching for recognition of what it might be.
Except Cami pulled her hand away. “You’re a little warm, but you’re a dragon shifter, and what do I know.”
His chest tightened as the sensation dimmed without her contact. I have to be imagining this. It had to be from a night lying alone trying to drown out fantasies he could never give in to again.
But he had to check.
“Wait.” He took her by the wrist and placed her hand back on his forehead. Sure enough, the second he made skin-to-skin contact, that…easing…for lack of a better term…moved through him, radiating outward from the contact. His palm, wrapped around her wrist, skin to skin, did the same.
Had this been happening all along? He suspected it had, but every other instance of contact he’d been distracted by other things. Like fucking her.
She tried to tug away. “I don’t think—”
“Shhhh.” He slashed his other hand through the air in a gesture filled with impatience.
To give her credit, Cami quieted and didn’t try to take her hand away again.
Concentrating, Drake removed her hand from his forehead and placed it, palm down, on his knee. Nothing. Not that he could tell anyway.
Did they need contact without the barrier of clothing? He lifted the hem of his shirt and placed her palm on his belly, and had to swallow a groan—part need, part relief, and a hell of a lot of denial—as the sensation spread though him at the contact—like cold and hot at the same time, tension unknotting from his muscles even as that area affected felt odd. Fresher. Rejuvenated.
“Drake?” Cami’s quiet question brought his gaze to her eyes. “What’s going on?”
A slight tremble to her voice told him that his actions were starting to scare her. Inside his head, his dragon paced back and forth.
“Sorry.” He let her go like he’d been touching a live wire.
Exhaustion poured back into his body, replacing the revitalization that had seeped into him like blood poisoning water. Was she why he’d healed so quickly at Rune’s?
If she was, only one explanation presented itself…
She’s my mate.
The thought sparked in his mind, growing brighter by the second.
He tried to obliterate that light with a darkness. The fates wouldn’t be so cruel to them both. He was too far gone and would only drag Cami into his death. If their bond didn’t solidify before his disease took him, she’d be left alone. If it did solidify, she’d die with him.
She was too precious to risk it. He’d hate himself. Knowing he killed her would break him in a way nothing else had been able to.
“Drake?” she prompted again. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Stubborn had a look on Cami—small chin jutted out, lips flat, and eyes, usually so warm, hard and dark. “Don’t give me that crap. What was that about?”
Yeah, genius. Explain making her touch you in different places while you sat in stunned silence like a moron.
