Hidden Embers

by Tessa Adams

  It had been a pain, but the good side of it was that it had kept her from ever being alone with Quinn. From the moment she’d dropped her theory on him and Phoebe, they had all been so busy that she didn’t have to worry about him trying to talk to her about being mates.

  Not that she figured she should be worried about that—after all, he hadn’t felt any need to talk to her about it to begin with.

  Now, however, the lab was mostly cleared out—only Dylan, Quinn, Phoebe, Gabe and Callie remained, though Callie had left for a while to run a few errands. Jasmine’s stomach growled like it had been twelve days, not twelve hours, since she’d last eaten, and she figured that leaving now was definitely the better part of valor—and discretion, for that matter.

  Pushing away from the lab table where she’d been working for the last few hours, she stretched and then snapped off her gloves. She debated telling the others where she was going, but their discussion looked so intent that she hesitated to interrupt them. They could be discussing the weather for all she knew, but it looked much more like they were planning clan strategy—maybe even world domination, she thought with a grin. Better to leave them to it.

  She’d bring them something back to eat. There were a few fast-food places within walking distance of the lab, which was perfect since she didn’t have her car, as she’d ridden in with Phoebe after she’d gone back to her friend’s house to change clothes that morning.

  After grabbing her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk, Jasmine swiped her ID card at the door—Quinn had instituted the highest security measures in the last few days and that included an ID check before entering any part of the lab—and listened for the telltale click of the lock disengaging. A quick trip down the long, dimly lit hallway, a small wave to Denny, the night security guard, another swipe of her card, and she was finally outside.

  Her first breath of desert air relaxed her muscles one by one as a quiet peace invaded her consciousness. She’d thought she was relaxed, that she hadn’t allowed herself to stress over the big fight they’d had that morning, but the second her tense muscles started to let go, she admitted to herself that she wasn’t handling it nearly as well as she thought.

  Compartmentalizing, yes, but she wasn’t actually handling the situation—not by a long shot. Being out here—unwinding for the first time since he’d walked into the lab so many hours before—proved that much to her.

  Glancing down the main road, she spotted a submarine sandwich restaurant a few blocks down to the left and headed toward it. At the moment, she was so hungry she was pretty sure she could eat a foot-long sandwich in a couple of bites. But how much food to get for Quinn, Dylan and Gabe? They looked like they could each put away a grocery store, easy.

  As she walked, Jasmine looked around the sleepy little town for the first time, although she supposed it really wasn’t all that little. Phoebe had told her last night that the population was close to twenty thousand and that just about everyone was a member of the Dragonstar clan. Which was pretty cool, except that Dylan and Quinn feared that all twenty thousand people might become infected by the virus from hell.

  What a nightmare Quinn had been living the past few years. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be a healer of his caliber and watching his clan members die, one after the other. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t told him to get the hell out of her life that morning during their huge fight. Usually, she would have been out the door before the first accusations started flying.

  She shook her head. She didn’t have a clue what to do about the whole Quinn situation. On one hand, she had a ton of respect for him—as a doctor and as a person. On the other hand, there was no way she was going to be able to put up with him trying to handle her, either directly bossing her around or keeping information from her that she needed to know.

  Like being his mate. How could he have thought it was a good idea not to tell her about that? Even if the idea made her break out in a cold sweat, she still had the right to know.

  Deep in thought about Quinn and their future together—if they even had a future, which was doubtful in her mind—Jasmine was almost to the restaurant before she realized someone was following her. Cursing Quinn for distracting her, she reached into her pocket for her omnipresent pepper spray and came up empty-handed. She’d been so frazzled that morning that she’d left her keys—along with the spray—sitting on Phoebe’s counter, figuring she wouldn’t need them since she was hitching a ride to work with her friend.

  Yet another big mistake. It seemed since she’d gotten to New Mexico she’d been doing nothing but making them. For a woman who prided herself on her competence and ability to think clearly under stress, it was a huge blow.

  She walked faster. Perhaps she was being paranoid—living in some of the most savage places in the world could do that to a woman.

  The footsteps behind her picked up, her pursuer closing ground, and Jasmine’s heartbeat raced. What should she do? she wondered frantically. Make a run for it and hope she made it? Confront the bastard?

  The only problem with those scenarios was that she’d seen the dragons move, and she didn’t stand a chance, either way. If she ran, he could catch her without breaking a sweat. If she fought, she had no doubt he could crush her without a second thought.

  She had just made up her mind to flee—she had to try—when a hand fastened on her elbow from behind. Heart pounding, she whirled around with her fists flying. The element of surprise was the only weapon she had.

  But the man wasn’t surprised—he was completely ready for her and caught the fist easily. “Whoa, Dr. Kane, don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.” He smiled in a way he no doubt thought was charming, but it made her blood run cold.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, looking up at his face. Was she ever going to get used to how tall these dragons were? This one was almost as tall as Dylan, which meant he stood a good seven or eight inches above her own six foot frame. It was insane.

  Plus, he was built like Quinn, with huge shoulders and heavily muscled biceps that strained against the sleeves of his white T-shirt. She was so screwed.

  “I just want to walk with you. Quinn and Dylan are tied up, and they take your protection very seriously.”

  She paused for a moment, considering. Sending someone to watch her back was exactly something Quinn would do—if he’d noticed she was gone. But he had been so absorbed in his discussion with Dylan that she wasn’t sure he had. Still, if this guy was one of Dylan’s sentries, she didn’t want to offend him. And if he wasn’t—well, then, pretending that she trusted him would buy her more time. Maybe she could get closer to the group of people eating on the restaurant patio about a block and a half up.

  She turned and started walking toward them without another word.

  He fell into step beside her, and after a second she turned and squinted up at him, trying to figure out if he was one of the shifters she’d met at the lab that afternoon, or if he was at Dylan and Phoebe’s house the night she’d first arrived. He didn’t look familiar, but then she’d met a lot of people, so maybe her memory was faulty.

  But she didn’t think so, especially since she didn’t get the same vibe from him that she got from the other sentries she’d met so far. Despite the huge dragon tattoo on his arm, there didn’t seem to be an ounce of warmth radiating from the guy—and that, more than anything else, convinced her that her first instincts were correct. Dylan’s dragons were tough, but they had also been nothing but extremely nice to her. This guy looked like he ate live animals for breakfast. Slowly.

  She started to ease away from him a little, but he gripped her elbow again, refusing to let her get more than a step or two ahead. His grip wasn’t painful, but the look in his eyes had shifted from simply cold to obviously warning. In a flash, Jasmine went from freaked-out to frightened. She could handle herself with men, but dragons weren’t technically men. She remembered how strong Quinn was, how easily he had lifted her while making love, and felt more than a
frisson of unease run down her spine.

  Her fight with Quinn came back to her, his warning that there were things a lot scarier than him in the dark. She was ready to believe it with this behemoth towering over her. What a way to find out that she really had acted like a total ass.

  Still, there was no use panicking—or at least, alerting him to her panic—if she could help it. So, not knowing what else to do, she kept walking, her only goal to get within shouting distance of the people up ahead.

  As they walked, Jasmine pasted what she hoped was a convincing grin on her face and said, “I’m sorry. Have we met before? I’ve been introduced to so many people these last few days.”

  “No problem. Dylan does have a lot of sentries, doesn’t he?”

  “Is that who I’ve been meeting? His…” She paused, as if considering his words for a few seconds. “His sentries? I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds important.”

  “Oh, it is. Most clan leaders don’t have nearly as many sentries as Dylan does, but then, Dragonstar is the biggest dragon clan.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Would he even feel it if she punched him? she wondered. Kicked him? Or would he merely laugh—then snap her neck in two? No, her best bet was to continue stringing him along. It might be suicidal, but she didn’t have many options.

  Except for the people at the restaurant and the occasional passing car, the street was pretty much empty. She had to keep him going for another couple of minutes, just until she got to the restaurant. Surely she’d be able to find someone in that crowd willing to help her.

  “Are you one of Dylan’s sentries?” she asked, trying to buy some time. Maybe if he thought she hadn’t picked up on the danger he’d be less likely to turn confrontational.

  His laugh, when it came, was ice cold and vicious. “Dylan’s a lousy king. There’s no way I’d work for him.”

  So much for stringing him along. “Well, if you aren’t a Dragonstar, then who are you?” she asked, making sure her voice was as frigid—and as tough—as his had been. Her hand curled into a fist in her pocket.

  He bent down so they were almost face to face, and she steeled herself not to react to the changes in his face. Gone was the man who had first approached her and in his place was someone who looked almost reptilian—as if he were so close to the dragon that his features were almost indistinguishable from it. This didn’t bother her when it happened to Quinn—but this guy’s dragon was as cold and ugly looking as his human form.

  “I’m someone who has a lot invested in watching the Dragonstars fail, and I don’t appreciate some little CDC doctor sticking her nose in where she doesn’t belong.”

  Fury whipped through her at his words and their implicit threat. It made her incautious when she should have tread lightly. But just the thought that his man was involved in the virus made her crazy. “Are you responsible for killing all those people?” she demanded fiercely. “Are you the one manufacturing that damned virus?”

  His eyes changed, grew unfocused for a moment, and then he blinked, long and slow. When he opened his eyes again she knew, for certain, that she was no longer talking to the man. The dragon was in full control, and he was about a hundred times more frightening than his human side.

  “That’s none of your business,” he hissed, low and mean.

  “You made it my business the second you grabbed me, so spare me the bad action movie dialogue. I’ve seen them all.” She yanked on her elbow in an effort to free herself, so angry at the thought of this man playing with so many lives that she no longer cared what happened next.

  His hand shifted on her arm, his grip tightening until his fingers dug into the muscles of her upper arm. “So you know how this ends. You come with me or I kill you.”

  “I’d rather you killed me.” She did her best to hold her ground.

  “Oh, you’ll get that wish soon enough—just not now. Not yet.”

  She glanced up the block to where a couple of people were watching her dilemma with interest. “Help!” she shouted. “Somebody help me!”

  They must have heard her, as a couple of them got up and headed her way. The man holding her didn’t seem upset, however, and the closer they got, the more she began to realize why. They looked just like him—cold and flat and reptilian. Her chances for escape had just gone from almost zero to well into the negative numbers.

  And isn’t that just fantastic?

  “Hey, Brock, having trouble with the human?” snickered one of them.

  “Not at all. I was just explaining to her—”

  He never got to finish the statement. Instead, he went flying about ten feet into the street, propelled by an invisible force. Unfortunately, his grip on her arm never loosened, and she went flying with him.

  Brock was off balance now, looking for whatever had dealt the blow, and she took advantage, bringing her knee up between his legs as hard as she could. He screamed and his grip loosened for a second as he fell to his knees. It was all she needed to yank her arm away and deliver a fast, powerful kick to the side of his head.

  Then she ran, heading for the lab as fast as she could go—which was pretty fast, if she did say so herself, considering her just-healed ankle, still-sore ribs and assorted other injuries.

  But she was no match for the dragons. With a roar, one of the men she’d called to for help—stupid her—landed directly in her path. She tried to hit him like she had Brock, but he sent her flying against the building with one careless swipe of his fist.

  She hit hard—harder than she thought possible from one punch. Her ears were ringing as she tried to right herself, to stagger forward. But he was already there, one huge hand closing around her neck as he slammed her into the building a second time. His fingers tightened around her throat and the world started going gray. She fought him violently, kicking and struggling as she tried desperately to pry his fingers away from her windpipe.

  Her back was flush against the building, and she felt a weird stinging in her arm from where she must have scraped against a piece of wood or a nail. Her ribs ached, her head felt like it was going to explode. She was only seconds from blacking out. She fought it—fought him—knowing that the second she lost consciousness she was dead.

  In a last ditch effort for freedom, Jasmine dug her fingernails into the hand holding her throat, but while the jerk grunted in pain, he didn’t loosen his grip by so much as a millimeter. Not knowing what else to do, she used her last burst of strength to reach upward and rake her nails down the side of his face, digging as deep as she could.

  He howled, dropping her as his hand automatically went to his cheek. She hit the ground hard, her legs too shaky to support her.

  “You bitch! You’ll pay for that!”

  She braced herself for a kick, but only one landed—square in her injured ribs—before the man flew backward. She watched in shock as his head twisted violently, his neck broken in one quick snap. But no one was there.

  Come on! She heard a voice in her head—dark and sexy and completely male. There are ten of them left—I can’t take them all on. We need to get out of here.

  She scrambled to her feet, looking around wildly, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.

  Jasmine, move it! Then a man was shimmering into solidity right in front of her. He reached for her hand and she recoiled, before realizing that she’d been introduced to him earlier. He was a friend of Quinn’s—and a sentry.

  “Logan?” she asked faintly.

  “Who did you expect, Santa Claus?” And then he picked her up and raced down the street to Quinn’s lab, ten dragon shifters in close pursuit.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  G oddamnit, Quinn, Dylan! I need you! Now!

  The frantic shout slammed through Quinn’s concentration like a sledgehammer. He reared up from his desk and headed for the laboratory door without a backward glance. Dylan was right behind him.

  Where are you? Quinn demanded of Logan.

  A couple of block
s north, with ten pissed-off Wyvernmoons on my ass. What the hell were you thinking letting your mate wander around town without protection? They damn near killed her.

  Quinn’s dragon leaped forward, breaking the choke chain of control he normally kept on it.

  “Mate?” Dylan demanded, as the two of them all but flew down the hall to the front door, ignoring the security measures in their haste to get to the battle. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

  “Later,” he growled, shifting as soon as he hit the nighttime air. Dylan did the same.

  “At least tell me who she is,” Dylan said, as wings burst through his back and scales rippled across his skin.

  “Jasmine.”

  “And Logan knew this before I did?”

  Quinn didn’t answer, he couldn’t, as the shift completed. He launched himself into the air, screaming for Logan. Where are you? Quinn demanded, never in his life more grateful for Logan’s odd psychic power, which enabled him to speak telepathically.

  Next to the library and moving fast.

  We’ll be there in a second, Dylan said. Call for reinforcements.

  Callie, Caitlyn, Travis and Gabe are on their way.

  Good.

  Quinn was barely aware of the conversation, barely aware of anything but the driving need to find Jasmine, to protect her. Terror was a frantic nightmare within him, the fear that he would be too late to save her. He pushed himself—and his dragon—faster than he had ever gone before. In some small part of his mind, he registered that Dylan was struggling to keep up, but it never occurred to him to slow down.

  I see you! Logan yelled, as he came around the corner and Quinn nearly shuddered with relief as he saw Jasmine, safe and alive, in his friend’s arms. Then a lightning bolt flew straight at Logan, followed by a second and a third.