Hidden Embers

by Tessa Adams

  He backed off, content to follow her for the next few blocks until she turned into the driveway of the house Dylan and Phoebe kept for visitors. Most of the time they lived deep in the cave he’d spent most of his day in, which was a few miles from his own, but while Jasmine was in town he was pretty sure they would stay at the house. Very few people who weren’t true clan members were ever invited into Dylan’s private cave. This was as it should be.

  Still, he was almost disappointed when Phoebe came out of the house before Jasmine had even managed to turn her headlights off. He’d been looking forward to escorting her to the door and listening to her berate him as he did. It was sick and twisted, particularly for a man who wanted peace more than he wanted his next breath, but something about Jasmine brought out the masochist in him.

  He watched from on top of the roof as Jasmine grabbed her suitcase and a small, black medical bag from her trunk, then followed Phoebe toward the house. At the last second Jasmine glanced up at the roof and glared. It was a definite fuck-you, and it surprised him so much he almost lost his perch on the slanting tiles.

  How had she known where he was when he was invisible? Phoebe could have sensed him—dragons usually could sense other dragons, invisible or not—but she was new to their world, still learning their ways. She’d given no indication that she’d known he was there, and surely she would have waved if she had noticed him.

  No, somehow Jasmine had figured out where he was without Phoebe tipping her off. Maybe she’d just been guessing. After all, the roof was the best place for a very large dragon to land. It wasn’t as if there were tons of places to hang out where he wouldn’t be in the way, since even though he was invisible, his bulk still took up space. People could still walk into him if he was blocking the sidewalk and cars could still hit him in the street.

  That had to be it, he decided uneasily, as he heard the front door close. She hadn’t known he was on the roof—she’d just been playing the odds. Yeah, right. And if he believed that, someone probably had a bridge they wanted to sell him.

  God, mating had more nuances than he had ever imagined—and he hadn’t even told Jasmine they were mated. Considering her reaction to his attempt to heal her, he didn’t even want to imagine what she’d say about the whole bound for eternity thing.

  Deep in thought, he took the long way back to his own cave. He was tired, exhausted really, yet for the first time in a long time he was enjoying the night. The stars looked brighter than usual, the desert less stark and lonely. The night air felt great brushing against his face, his scales, and he closed his eyes, reveling in the beauty all around him.

  As he flew, he paid attention to his surroundings, to the night animals whirling through the sky below him and scampering across the dark desert sand. More than once he found himself wishing he could show Jasmine something amusing, only to remember that it was impossible. She wasn’t dragon. She couldn’t fly with him, and even if he carried her, her human eyes would never be able to see what his could.

  The dragon didn’t care about any of that. He just wanted her next to him as he flew, wanted her under him while he did all kinds of wicked things to her body. And he had to admit, the beast had a point. Jasmine was completely unsuitable for him and everything he didn’t want in a mate, but she sure as hell got his blood pumping.

  What he was supposed to do with her beyond that was anybody’s guess.

  The markers leading up to his cave—invisible to all but him—appeared below, and Quinn plunged downward. He loved this part, loved the feel of the wind as it rushed past his face. Loved the way the ground rushed up to meet him. Loved the pounding of his heart as he waited until the last second to pull up.

  The ground was looming closer and closer. He knew he should pull up. He was getting too close. But he just tucked his wings in and arrowed straight at the ground.

  Suddenly a huge red and bronze dragon came out of nowhere and knocked into him, hard. Quinn went spinning backward through the air. After a few hundred yards, he got his equilibrium back. When he finally managed to stop somersaulting, he dropped to the ground. He’d started shifting before his feet touched the ground.

  “What the hell was that!” he yelled, striding back to where the dragon was standing, watching him with fiery eyes. “You could have killed both of us.”

  The other dragon finally started to shift and Quinn waited impatiently as its wings folded against its back, compressing until they became muscle again. Next were the talons, followed by a shift in skin color and texture, the reshaping of the skeletal structure and finally, the rehumanization of the features.

  “I was trying to save your sorry ass!” Logan yelled back, completely unconcerned that they were both naked. It was hard to maintain any modesty among shifters. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that I like freedom and speed. I wasn’t going to do anything stupid.”

  “Yeah, well, too late. That was the dumbest stunt I’ve ever seen. There was no way you were going to pull up before you hit the ground, and we both know it.”

  “Do we?” baited Quinn. “I’ve done it before.”

  “Really? That means you’re even stupider than I thought. And I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Careful. You’ve already hit me once tonight. Keep pushing and I’ll start pushing back.”

  “Well, that would be an improvement, wouldn’t it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You think I don’t know you well enough to see what you’re going through?” Logan demanded. “You’re off your game, Quinn, and more fucked up than I’ve ever seen you.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Bullshit. You just don’t know when to ask for help. You’ve had a crap year, man. A crap few years. No one’s denying that. But you can’t do this.”

  Quinn’s fingers wanted to curl into fists, but he kept them relaxed with an effort. “Can’t do what?”

  “Can’t go getting all self-destructive, you know? Things are going to get better.”

  “Are they? Really?”

  “Of course they are!” Logan clapped him on the back. “It just takes time.”

  The slap on the back turned his tolerance to impatience. A man could be expected to take only so much feel-good bullshit, especially from another naked man. “Wow, you’re pulling out all the stops tonight. Where did you get that—a Hallmark card?”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed when he realized Quinn was messing with him. “Fuck you. I’m worried about you.”

  “Awww, that’s so sweet. Now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” He reached out and shoved Logan hard enough that his friend stumbled back a good five yards.

  “Shit.” Logan caught himself before his bare ass hit the desert sand, but it was damn close. Quinn couldn’t help being a little disappointed. Maybe he could get another shot in.

  “Don’t even try it, asshole.” Logan shoved past him and headed for Quinn’s cave. “And don’t ever say ‘warm and fuzzy’ again. It makes you sound like an idiot—especially when you’re naked.”

  For the first time in longer than he could remember, Quinn really laughed. It felt good. “Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. What the hell was all that ‘Things will get better’ bullshit, anyway?”

  “Excuse me for being concerned. I wasn’t going to watch you commit suicide—I was trying to be all sensitive and shit.” With the ease of long friendship, Logan strode straight through the outer chambers of the cave into the back section Quinn used as a bedroom. He yanked a couple pairs of jeans out of a drawer, followed by a couple of T-shirts, then fired one of each at Quinn.

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself, you moron.” Quinn quickly slipped into the clothes before heading back down the long and twisting passageway toward the refrigerator he kept in the front chamber. He didn’t light the way—let Logan do it himself or chance running into the sharp stalactites and stalagmites that protruded from the ceilings and floors.


  Once Quinn reached the front chamber that served as his living room, he grabbed a couple of beers from the cavern he had used magic to transform into a makeshift refrigerator and tossed one to Logan before settling himself on the long couch that stretched the length of his living room. Sometimes being able to wield dragon magic really paid off—especially if it meant you had a cold beer waiting for you in the middle of a cave.

  “Oh, really? Then what were you doing? Practicing for your next stint at the circus?” Logan eased onto a large gypsum formation that looked like a giant balloon chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  Quinn flipped him off. As he did, he remembered Jasmine doing the same to him. What was she doing now? Was she in the shower? Climbing into bed? For a moment, he tormented himself with images of his mate in a skimpy pair of pajamas.

  He felt himself grow hard and forced himself to banish the picture. Focusing on Logan again, he said, “I was just letting off some steam. Things have been tense around here for a while.”

  “There are better ways to do that than trying to break every bone in your body,” Logan answered with a really big grin.

  Quinn snorted as he kicked his feet up on the stalagmite formation that doubled as his coffee table. He wondered again about Jasmine.

  “I could set you up on a date, you know. There are a lot of women—”

  “I don’t need your pimping services.”

  “Not that kind of date. But now that you mention it…” Logan looked thoughtful. “When was the last time you got laid?”

  “About an hour and a half ago, thanks,” Quinn answered, and he had the satisfaction of watching Logan choke on his beer.

  “Well, hell. Maybe I should be asking you to set me up.”

  “Trust me. You couldn’t handle her.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Logan drained his beer, then went for another one. “Now I’m intrigued. Spill.”

  Quinn pretended to consider it for a second, then said, “No.”

  “Now that’s not right—you gotta let a guy live vicariously.”

  “Not after he knocked me out of the sky at two hundred miles an hour.”

  “God, you’ve gotten wimpy. It was more like a hundred and seventy-five. And I was trying to save your life.”

  “So you said. But since I wasn’t trying to die…”

  “Well, I didn’t know you’d just gotten laid. If I had, I would have left you alone. No guy kills himself after good sex.” He paused. “It was good sex, right?”

  “That seems like faulty logic,” Quinn commented, ignoring Logan’s question. “What if I’d just wanted one last before-I-die lay?”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, the logic stands. And don’t think I haven’t realized that you dodged my question.”

  “Wow, nothing gets by you.”

  It was Logan’s turn to flip him the bird. “Well, if you won’t give me any of the details—which really sucks, by the way—can you at least tell me who it is?”

  “What is this, junior high? Make me up a list and I’ll put an X in the box next to the right name.”

  Logan laughed, but let the matter drop. They sat in companionable silence for a while, drinking their beers and thinking.

  Quinn’s mind wandered to Jasmine and then to his own parents’ mating. Theirs had been a powerful connection—instantaneous, his father once told him. Much like Quinn’s and Jasmine’s. And like Jasmine, his mother had been a strong, powerful woman. It was her strength that had gotten her killed, leaving his father alone—and lonely—for much of his adult life.

  Was he destined to repeat his father’s mistakes? Waiting at home, healing, while Jasmine was out fighting battles she couldn’t hope to win? He didn’t want it to be like that, couldn’t stand the thought of following in his parents’ footsteps, but he was realistic enough to know that that was probably exactly where he was headed.

  He was so lost in thought, so worried about what the future might bring for him and Jasmine, that he was barely paying attention when Logan asked, “So, if you can’t tell me who she is, at least tell me what she’s like.”

  “Complicated.” The word popped out of his mouth before he even realized he was going to say it. “She’s very complicated.”

  “Come on, really? How complicated could she possibly be?”

  “You have no idea.” And in what was turning out to be his modus operandi these days—offering way too much information without thinking it through—Quinn lifted up his sleeve and showed Logan his recently altered tattoo.

  It took the other man a few seconds to understand what he was seeing, but when he did, his mouth dropped wide-open. “Jesus Christ! Is that what I think it is?”

  Quinn didn’t bother to answer, just let the arm of his shirt fall back where it belonged.

  “You’re mated, man? You’re fucking mated, and you didn’t bother to tell any of us?”

  “Yeah, well, it was a sudden kind of thing.”

  “How sudden could it be? You’re mated.”

  “You can stop saying that.”

  “I could, but then I’d lose any chance of wrapping my head around it. How could you be mated? Who is she—and don’t even bother with any of that keeping quiet bullshit. This is your mate. Your mate. Congratulations, by the way. That’s awesome.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Quinn snapped. “I’m still getting used to the idea.”

  “You keep saying that, but I don’t get it. You have to have been seeing her for a while—the mating thing doesn’t just occur randomly. Both of you have to decide—”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  Logan shifted forward in his chair, staring at him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means the band just showed up, the morning after we first had sex. I don’t know how or why—it just did.”

  “And what does she say about it?”

  “She’s not dragon—she doesn’t know what it means. Besides, she was long gone before the thing even appeared.”

  “Well, shit.” Logan shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “You mean, she’s gone?” The look of horror on his face underscored just how serious the situation was. Like Quinn needed someone to point it out for him. If Jasmine left him, he’d never find another mate, not while she was alive. He’d never be able to have children, never be able to form any kind of connection to another woman beyond the most basic, sexual one.

  Quinn had never been that guy. It wasn’t like he’d spent his life searching for his mate the way Dylan had, but that didn’t mean he liked one-night stands. He liked being in a relationship, liked caring about the woman he was sleeping with. If his mate rejected him, he’d never have that again.

  Not that he was exactly thinking about sleeping with another woman right then. Shit, all he could think about was Jasmine and how it felt to be inside her. How it felt to be held and kissed and touched by her. No, he wasn’t interested in another woman and doubted that he ever would be. Much as it was a huge pain in the ass, the universe had obviously known exactly what it was doing when it had paired the two of them up. At least on his side.

  “Wait a minute. You said you were with her tonight. How could she—”

  “It’s Jasmine Kane.”

  “Who?”

  “Jasmine Kane. The hematologist Phoebe called in.”

  “The blond hottie from the lab this afternoon?” Logan’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “You’re mated to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did this happen?” Logan sputtered.

  “I met her in a bar the night after Michael died. I didn’t know who she was.”

  “And she’s human?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you sure? She took the dragon thing pretty well.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Huh.” Logan stared at him for a second before adding, “And here I thought you were depressed enough to kill yourself.”

  �
�Depending on how this thing ends up, don’t rule it out.”

  “I guess.” Logan rolled his empty beer bottle between his hands. “Fate can be a real bitch.”

  Quinn lifted his beer to his mouth, drained it. “You have no fucking idea.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  He shook his head. “I have no fucking idea.”

  “Well, as long as you have a plan.”

  “Damn straight.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  He’d fucked the bitch. Right there in the laboratory like an animal in heat. It was disgusting. She’d been in the room right next to Quinn’s lab and had heard the whole thing. It had taken every ounce of self-control she had not to “accidentally” bust in on them.

  Shaking her head, she turned up her iPod and tried to lose herself in the music as she walked to work. It was getting harder and harder to do the deeper she got into this thing.

  Oh, she wasn’t afraid of being caught—she was too good for that and the rest of them were too stupid. Even Quinn and Dylan didn’t have a clue what it was she was doing, and they were two of the smartest dragons the clan had. As long as she could keep them in the dark, she was home free.

  She slammed open the door to the Dragonstar clinic and every head in the place came up. One quick glance at her and they went back to their business. Idiots. Sheep. They deserved what they were getting.

  Rage ate at her, making her movements jerky and uncoordinated. She told herself to calm down—the last thing she needed was for someone to remember her acting oddly. Not that it really mattered, she was totally covered. Totally safe. But still, it never hurt to be on the cautious side.

  She walked to the back room, where she stored her purse in her locker before heading up to the front to sign in. The head nurse wanted to chat a little, and though it was the absolute last thing she felt like doing, she stayed and spoke with her. After all, she still had a few minutes before she officially had to clock in, and it would look odd if she was the first one at her station, ready to go. She’d never been that employee.