by Abigail Owen
“Better than nothing,” she muttered to herself as she sprinted across to the quasi-vehicle.
As she suspected, the keys were in it. She revved the engine and took off down a paved path that meandered through tall evergreens around the side of the building, hopefully toward the road.
“Hey!” A young man, no later than his early twenties, sporting the green shirt of a staff worker, ran out the front door trying to chase her down.
Cami half turned in her seat and waved to him an apology. “It’s an emergency,” she yelled back. “I’m sorry!”
She whipped around the side of the building, crossed through a small intersection, and peeled out onto the main road right in front of an SUV who laid on the horn. She lifted a hand in another apology and put the pedal to the metal. But a golf cart didn’t exactly go all that fast.
The bite of air should’ve been worse without Drake underneath her keeping her warm, but instead, Cami felt perfectly comfortable. If everyone she loved hadn’t been in grave danger, she would’ve grinned at the benefits of becoming a dragon.
The road curved, showing her another part of the valley, with Bridal Veil Falls off to her left and El Capitan at her six. But the gorgeous views—the towering spires of mountains and shades of soft blues and navies thanks to the gray skies above and the onset of evening with low puffs of clouds turning into mist lower to the ground—weren’t what had her stopping. It was the trail of red-gold fire across the top of one bluff, falling over the edge like another waterfall made of flame then burning a swath across the valley floor like the river Styx.
“Oh my God,” Cami whispered, the words jamming in her throat.
An overwhelming, horrible sensation of being completely fucking useless tried to squash her into the ground like an oversized boot crushing a worm. She’d been warned that she shouldn’t shift right away after she’d been turned, that she needed to settle into being a mate and the connection that gave her to her humanity before she ever tried to shift. If she did it too soon, she could lose herself to the monster she could become, going feral and never coming back.
So that wasn’t an option, not that she had the first clue how to do it anyway.
…
Drake had sprinted from the hotel, shifting the instant he hit a clearing large enough. As soon as he could, he sent a telepathic message to his teammates. “Where’s Cami’s family?”
“Coming in on the main road.” Levi was the first to answer.
Quickly, he relayed that information to Cami, knowing he’d regret it if something happened to her. But she was going to go with or without his help, and damned if he wasn’t fucking proud of that kind of courage.
“No time to explain,” he told the team. “Cami and I are mated.”
“Holy shit.” Rivin’s voice came back first.
“We don’t have time for holy shit,” Drake came back before Keighan could comment. “We mated. She survived. I’m healed.” Fuck that part felt good, even in the face of overwhelming odds. “Given the story we’ve fed the Alaz team, how do we want to play this? Am I with Rune? Or am I with you?”
“The Alaz team is already going after the grizzlies with your mate’s family.” Finn came over now. “That was that explosion. A warning shot. The grizzlies shifted and took off into the woods. How do you want to play it?”
“If we could come back into the fold, that’s what I’d want.” But they didn’t have any time to figure out an explanation that would make sense. Except… “Remember the porkins gambit?”
“That thing in Alaska?” Keighan’s voice came across.
“That didn’t work the first time, man,” Rivin said.
“But it could.” Drake didn’t have time to argue the points right now, though.
Hall came across next. “You and I remember porkins very differently.”
Silence. Then Finn. “What reason could we give for your mating?”
“I did it to keep her away from Rune.”
“It could work.”
He couldn’t jeopardize his team. “Seriously. Let this play out.”
Given all the other transgressions the Huracáns had against them… How Finn’s brother Fallon had run off with Maddie from their mating ceremony before it had officially been made complete. How Finn had mated Delaney without going through the mating process. And how Aidan had stolen Sera—a prize with the mark of the High King on her neck—out from under their noses and were still on the run and hiding, thanks to Rune… It wouldn’t escape the Alaz teams or the Alliance’s notice that Drake, too, had stolen another prize with the same mark. They’d have to figure this out as they went.
“What about your missing king’s mark?” Kanta asked in that always steady way of his.
“We’re not talking about this.”
“Accept him back,” Kanta said, ignoring Drake. “Let’s see what happens. No mark, and we stick with the original story, and he joined Rune. The mark shows and we figure it out.”
They weren’t listening. “No—”
“Granted.” Finn’s voice cut off his protest.
That final word hadn’t even finished being uttered when instant pain, like a white-hot poker being shoved under his scales between finger and thumb, speared through him. Drake grunted. Holy shit. “I think that worked.”
Did he sound as dumbfounded as he felt? Yes. Fuck yes.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“Scattered,” Finn came back. “Each of us is paired with one of the Alaz team who’ve gone after the grizzlies. All except Lyndi and Delaney who are scouting from above, and you. For now, you need to stay out of it.”
Lyndi was here? Drake shook off any reservations he had there. She was tough and trained. He couldn’t keep her out of the fight even if he wanted to.
“Where do you want me?” Everything in him protested the staying out of it part, but they had to do this as a team, or the flimsy situation would rip apart at the seams.
“Back side of the valley near Half Dome.”
Immediately Drake tipped his wings in that direction, zeroing in on the rounded monolith as he gained altitude.
“Uh, I hate to throw a spanner in the works, but is that your mate driving down the road in a golf cart?” Lyndi asked.
Drake whipped his head in the direction of the hotel and the main road leading out of it. Sure enough, her dark hair flying behind her, Cami was zooming as fast as she could, which was not exactly fast, toward the direction he relayed her family to be. In a fucking golf cart.
“Lyndi, go,” Finn ordered.
Every part of him rejected that plan. Cami was his mate, his to protect and keep safe. He shouldn’t have left her in that hotel room knowing she wouldn’t stay there.
“I’ll go,” Drake snapped. “She’s my mate.” He started to make the turn.
“No. We need you to stay back.”
Drake jerked up, flapping his wings to hover. Undecided. “Why?”
“Because the Alaz team has scented Rune’s team.”
Rune was here? How’d he travel that far that fast? Skylar must have sent them. The implications of their presence sank in. “We’re going to have to fight Rune’s people.” And make it look damn convincing.
…
A shadow passed overhead, and Cami actually ducked, like whoever it was wouldn’t see her in her golf cart.
“Keep going straight,” a feminine voice sounded in her head.
Lyndi?
Cami stuck her head out from under the top of the cart and looked up to find a gorgeous dragon colored similarly to the mountains around them, almost silver in the mist thanks to her coloring, a cross between a light blue and the natural dove gray of her eyes. She was also smaller and sleeker than the rest of the dragons Cami had seen, the spikes on the end of her tail more like thorns. That had to be Delaney. But where was Lyndi? That
had been her voice a second ago.
Sure enough, Delaney’s voice sounded in her head. “They are about a mile out. The grizzlies had to leave them, scattering into the woods where they fight best. We’ll stay above you the entire time but can’t get involved. We know about your mating, but the Alaz team doesn’t yet.”
We? So that had been Lyndi’s voice first.
Cami knew she couldn’t say anything back, because any dragon in the area could hear her, including the Alaz team. She couldn’t use telepathy, unless she shifted, and she didn’t know how. But damn was she grateful for the backup, at least a guiding eye. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so small and alone out here in this stupid golf cart. The humans who had been driving behind her through the park had all turned around at the sight of fire. Hopefully none of them had sighted the dragons.
She hit the gas, gunning her pathetic vehicle as fast as its battery-powered motor and little wheels could go. Cami didn’t take her eyes off the road ahead of her, not even looking for Delaney and Lyndi above though she knew her newfound friends were there, watching for her family.
Were they in a car? They had to be. The question was which one, and would she recognize it?
What am I thinking? They’ll be the only other people on this road.
“Shit,” Delaney messaged. “You’re not gonna make it. Nidhogg is dead ahead of me, and a hell of a lot bigger. I don’t know if I can take him.”
Cami racked her brain for a way to get a message to Delaney without tipping off the gold dragon out there. “You can do this, Cami,” she said to herself, as though speaking to herself to bolster her own courage. “You can do this on your own, without any help. You got your family out of a fire once, you can do it again.”
“Good thinking,” Delaney said. “I’m not leaving you to face that asshole alone. We have a plan. Drive straight and don’t take your foot off the gas, no matter what happens.”
She glanced off to her right to the river of flame creeping ever closer through the curling mist, that familiar scent of burning winding around her. Only this time she wasn’t coughing her lungs up. Was that from the Alaz team?
“Just get to your family, Cami,” Delaney said.
“Exactly,” Lyndi confirmed. “Don’t worry about the fire. We can keep it off you.”
They must’ve seen her glance. Nothing happened for a long beat, only the pathetic whine of her golf cart engine and the chilly air against her skin, still comfortable, as she willed her vehicle to fly down the road. From around a bend, a large white van appeared on the same road coming directly at her, going the wrong way on the split. That had to be them.
“There they are.” Cami gasped, though she couldn’t let herself feel the rush of relief. Not with the dragons out there.
She honked the horn, which sounded more like a dying duck, but she kept it up anyway, keeping one hand on the wheel while waving the other frantically. “I’m here. We need to get out of here. There is a fire!”
She didn’t need to fake the panic making her voice crack. The fire couldn’t hurt her now, but her family were still fragilely human. Vulnerable.
Closer and closer they came, closing the distance at a rapid pace. Almost there.
No shadow gave a warning this time. One second, she could practically see the dear faces of her family in the dim interior of the van. The next a massive gold dragon, his scales like the center of a flame—pale yellow in the center then darkening to a burnt orange at the edges—slammed down on the road directly in front of her, blocking her view. Wings outstretched, he opened his mouth wide, baring his teeth in a fearsome show of what exactly he was going to rend her with.
…
“What’s happening?” Drake directed the thought to Delaney only. He needed to know Cami was safe. The fact that he wasn’t dead yet was a good sign, but that situation could change in the turn of a dime. He hovered like a useless hole in the air, having yet to see another dragon anywhere in his vicinity.
“A bit of a snag, but we’ve got it.” Lyndi’s voice came across tight. Worried.
“Define snag.”
“Nidhogg is going after her.”
No one had shared the mating situation, so why was the gold dragon going for her? Didn’t matter. Drake didn’t trust that dickhead as far as he could throw him. “Don’t let him near her. I’m coming.”
He tipped his wings and angled his body to use earth’s gravity, tucking his wings back to shoot like a rocket in Cami’s last known direction.
“Don’t. We’ve got this,” Lyndi insisted.
“You can’t interfere, but I can.”
“We won’t,” Delaney said. “We’re pretending to be timid and scared.”
If she or Lyndi weren’t going to help Cami, then… “Who?”
“Hold on.”
Hold on? Drake pushed himself faster. He had to get to his mate.
…
Cami stared at the massive dragon in her path. Time for her to put on her own show.
“Oh. My. God.” The tremble in her voice was real, so was the fear pounding through her. Fear for her family. Fear for Drake, because if this dragon killed her, it killed her mate, too. Their bond was in place already. She’d felt it burn into her neck as the fire had consumed her body, scorching away everything about her that was human, leaving in its place something different. Something she was always meant to be.
Deliberately, she closed her eyes and muttered under her breath, supposedly to herself. “It’s not there. There’s not a dragon in front of you. You’re seeing things. You’re just scared because of the fire.”
“I’m real enough, little human woman,” a voice both deadly and beautiful feathered through her thoughts.
Cami allowed her eyes to widen fractionally, knowing his enhanced eyesight would allow him to see that small tell. “And now I’m hearing things.”
“So you’re that red bastard’s little human toy?”
Instead of answering him, Cami gripped the wheel tighter. She couldn’t press down any harder on the gas pedal. “Move,” she muttered. “Move, dammit.”
“You’re doing great,” Delaney said. “Don’t stop. No matter what happens next.”
I hope to heaven this plan works.
“I’m going to have to roast you like a pig over a spit just to see him suffer,” the dragon warned, his voice going raspier, meaner.
She still couldn’t see them behind his bulk. Had they stopped? Did they fully understand what they were seeing? Maybe she could give them time to run, hide.
Drake, I need you. She knew he wouldn’t hear her but thought it just the same.
The glittering creature before her drew his long neck back, sucking in air, the sound of a great bellows overpowering any other sounds around her.
Wait. Can dragon fire hurt me in this form?
She kept her foot on the gas anyway, trusting that Delaney and Lyndi were dealing with it before anything happened that couldn’t be undone.
The dragon opened its mouth and dropped to all fours. She could see the spark of fire coming up its throat and out its maw. Cami braced herself, like that would do anything.
But before the inferno left its mouth, a black dragon, almost as massive, slammed into him from the side going full speed. The two dragons tumbled over, carving a path of destruction through the trees.
Rune.
Cami sobbed in a choking breath of relief as she found the white van in front of her, at a complete stop, her family staring with frozen masks of horror. In seconds she made it to the van.
She jumped out of her cart. She didn’t bother to stop it, and the thing kept rolling off to the side and into a grassy embankment beside a frozen river where it tipped over on its side. Cami ran the rest of the way to the van, all banged up and smoke coming from under the hood. Her family opened the doors and poured out as she reached them. S
he flung her arms around her mother’s neck.
“Are you okay?” She pulled back to inspect her parent who appeared none the worse for wear.
“We are okay, mija,” her mother assured her while at the same time running her hands over Cami’s face and down her arms, as if conducting her own inspection of wellness.
Cami stepped back. “You are all okay?” She reached for her father’s hand as he nodded and then looked around at the familiar faces of the people most important in her life out there fighting right now.
“What is going on?” her father asked.
Cami couldn’t tell them, though. Not with dragons listening. “We need to get to safety. There’s a fire.”
“There are dragons,” her mother said in a tone that implied Cami must be losing it if she couldn’t acknowledge that fact.
“You saw them, too?” She called on the fear she still felt for her family like a blade lodged in her belly to add a tremble to the words.
Her father took her by the shoulders, his expression incredulous. “How could you miss them?”
Cami shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”
She turned to face the direction she’d just come from, frowning at the sight of flames flickering off the sides of the mountains and sending an orange glow into the cloud-covered sky. The fire was getting worse. “We can’t go that way. It’s a dead end. How does it look from the direction you came?”
“The fires haven’t reached that far,” her mother said.
Cami looked at the wrecked van. She did this. She put her family in danger again simply by the selfish act of wanting to be with them. “I guess we’re hiking out of here.”
Or running.
Chapter Twenty-One
That had been Cami’s voice in his head, calling his name. He was sure of it. His mate needed him. Drake shot through the air like a bullet from a rifle.
“Lyndi? What’s happening?”
Silence greeted his question. A fury of frustration fired through his blood, but he couldn’t make himself go any faster.
