“There’s a very nice bathtub in the guest room we put you in,” Nicholas suggested. “And plenty of different bath stuff you can use.”
“Thank you,” Cami said. “At some point soon, I’m going to have to let my friends know I’m not dead in some axe murderer’s deep freezer.”
“Here,” Nicholas said, taking a phone out of his pocket; it was hers. “I plugged it in to charge earlier; it’s still at 100%.”
Cami took it from him. Just like before, when her fingers brushed against his, she felt the electric frisson work through her body, not quite like getting shocked by static electricity, but a deeper kind of current caressing her nerves.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Justdon’t talk to me or anything until I’ve had a chance to figure some of this shit out.”
“We’ll be around,” Elijah said brightly, flashing a toothy grin.
“Yeah,” Cami said, turning to leave the room. “I just bet you will be.”
CHAPTER SIX
Dylan
“Well, I think that went about as well as anyone had any right to expect,” Elijah said, after Cami had been gone for maybe twenty minutes.
“At least we can safely assume she didn’t call the cops,” Dylan observed. He set his phone down and looked at Nicholas and Alistair. In spite of preternatural endurance and strength, none of the four cousins were feeling particularly great after staying up in shifts to make sure there was someone who would be awake when Cami first came to.
“Or it took them this long to track her down,” Elijah countered. Dylan snorted.
“One of us needs to talk to her,” Nicholas said.
“She specifically told us she wanted to be alone and not to talk to her until she came to us,” Alistair pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s a pretty clearly-stated boundary, as the therapists say,” Dylan agreed.
“I don’t mean right this second,” Nicholas said irritably. “I mean, when she’s ready to talk, I think it needs to be one-on-one.”
“Oh yeah, all four of us staring at her probably didn’t help matters,” Elijah said. “Of course, taking her clothes and putting her in cozy pajamas while she was asleep wasn’t the power move you thought it would be.”
“Shut up about that,” Nicholas said. “We got the main points across to her, and thanks to Dylan, we have a good incentive for her to stay.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t just open with the money thing,” Dylan said. “It’s so much easier when you can just say ‘hey, do this and we’ll pay you.’”
“Not all of us can afford to throw tens of thousands of dollars at a problem on a whim,” Elijah countered.
“Besides, her staying here for a week is just to activate her dormant dragon genes,” Alistair said. “Once she’s active, we also need to have her on our side.”
“We have a whole week for that,” Dylan pointed out. “For right now, it’s probably a better idea to take things a step at a time, you know?”
“So, which one of us is going to talk to her?” Elijah asked, looking at the other three.
Dylan snickered. “I’ll just bet Nick thinks he’s the perfect candidate,” Dylan said.
His cousin glared at him, and he knew he’d guessed right. Of course Nicky wants to talk to her. We all want to talk to her one on one. It was why, after he and Elijah had caught a quick peek of Cami before she’d awakened, none of the four cousins had wanted to nap too heavily—all of them had wanted to be around when she woke up, and not in the interests of reassuring her.
“I think I can speak for us all when I say that we probably all think we’re the ideal candidate,” Elijah said.
“Alistair is out,” Dylan said before anyone could vote on the idea. “I mean, she’s still pretty pissed at him for hypno-drugging her.”
“Dylan has a point,” Nicholas said.
Alistair looked like he might argue it but then grimaced. “Yeah, probably,” Alistair said quietly.
“It’s got to be either me or Dylan,” Elijah suggested.
“Why you two?” Nicholas frowned.
“Because you intimidated her and shit,” Dylan said. “Which, by the way, clearly, she doesn’t respond to.” Nicholas’s scowl deepened, and Dylan grinned.
“She did respond pretty favorably to getting paid,” Alistair pointed out.
“Everyone responds favorably to getting paid,” Dylan said. “Who’s going to turn down practically free money?”
“I’m not sure having her draconic inheritance activated and maybe eventually having a kid qualifies as ‘practically free,’” Elijah countered.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that part yet, so for her, it’s practically free money right now,” Dylan pointed out.
“So, what you’re saying is that you think you should be the person to approach her,” Nicholas said.
Dylan shrugged. “I’m harmless looking enough, and I might not have Eli’s puppy dog eyes, but I can smooth talk pretty well,” Dylan explained. “And I think she and I were really developing a rapport. She touched me when she handed me back my phone.”
Elijah and Alistair chuckled; Nicholas did not.
“If Dylan really thinks that he can get through to her, let him,” Elijah said. “We all want to spend some time alone with this woman, and theoretically, if he gets her to agree to stay here for a week, we’ll all have a chance. I’m willing to be patient.”
Dylan looked at Nicholas, who was the de facto family leader—his mother had been the matriarch, while she’d still been alive—and waited for his cousin to see he was outnumbered.
“Fine,” Nicholas said. “You can talk to her. Just don’t reveal too much too soon, and don’t push her away.”
Dylan grinned. “I think I can manage,” Dylan said. “I mean, you nearly let the cat out of the bag like three times when she was in here. I think I’m capable of winning her over without any of that.”
“Just be careful,” Nicholas told him, his voice taking on the firm, authoritative note that Dylan hated to hear from his younger cousin.
“So, you guys can all finally get some sleep,” Dylan suggested, sitting up in the chair slightly. “Might make things easier without you hovering.”
“You’re going to go stand in the hall and wait for her to need something, aren’t you?” Elijah looked at Dylan steadily, and Dylan held his cousin’s gaze for a few moments before shrugging.
“I’m not saying I won’t,” Dylan replied. Elijah snickered.
“I’m going to bed, if Dylan is going to be the one to talk to her,” Alistair announced, getting up from his seat.
“I’ll sleep out here,” Nicholas said. “The couch is actually pretty comfortable.”
“You just want to have a second chance,” Dylan observed. Nicholas looked at him steadily but didn’t deny it.
“Well, all this posturing is making me tired,” Elijah said, rising to his feet. “Good luck, Dyl.”
Nicholas took up his position on the couch that Cami had vacated a half hour or so before, and Dylan drifted toward the hall where the guest room was, trying to think of a good excuse to be there if Cami appeared. He walked up and down the hallway as silently as he could, playing the different excuses he could come up with through his mind as he waited for Cami to give some sign that she was ready to talk.
Wouldn’t it be funny if, after all this, it turns out she either doesn’t have the right genes or doesn’t want anything to do with us? Dylan mused, pausing at the end of the hall before he turned around. All four of them were falling over themselves to get at Cami, even without knowing her—just because of the fact that all of them knew the stakes, and all of them wanted to be the one to “win” for the family. The prophecy had been clear: Finn Keane’s daughter had to be activated, and she had to have a child—and the prophet had said it needed to be an Overton child—in order to preserve the dragon species.
Dylan felt a moment of sympathy for the woman; given her reaction to the limited information they’d al
ready given her, she was going to find the idea of being a draconic descendant hard to swallow. It would be even more difficult to get her to understand why she needed to have a child for them when it came to that. And of course, given her mixed parentage, it would need to be under exactly the right circumstances. Dylan spared a moment to smirk to himself, thinking about how that particular mating would go—whoever it ended up being with.
How do you tell someone who has probably grown up thinking that dragons and shapeshifters are all hokey fairy tale shit that somewhere in her genes, she’s got magic? Dylan shook his head. He decided that the more supernatural aspects of Cami’s education could wait until they needed to be addressed.
As he passed her door for the fifth time, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Dylan frowned when he saw that it was a text message from an unsaved number. Come into the room but stay outside of the bathroom. I need help. Dylan shook his head, trying to figure out the message.
Who is this? he replied, coming to a stop a few feet away from the guest room door.
It’s Cami. I have an app that lets me ping whatever phone is closest to mine. Dylan grinned to himself and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
“Coming in,” he said, opening the door to the guest bedroom. As requested, he stopped at the bathroom door. “What’s up?”
“Dylan?” Cami’s voice echoed from the bathroom.
“Yep, me,” Dylan replied.
“Okay.” He could almost hear the woman thinking. Won’t it be fun when I actually can hear her thinking, Dylan mused to himself. Dylan breathed in deeply and caught the scent of some of the high-end bath products that they kept in the guest bathroom: Cami had chosen a “Guardian of the Forest” bath bomb, and he thought she’d opted for the honey-rose shampoo and the lemon-peony body wash.
“You said you needed help?” Dylan asked.
“Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out” Cami sighed. “Okay. I forgot to grab a towel, and on top of that, I accidentally splashed trying to get out of the tub to find a towel, so the pajamas I was wearing are soaked.”
Dylan pressed his lips together to keep himself from laughing out loud. “So, you’re trying to figure out how I can get you clothes and a towel without coming in?” Dylan smiled to himself.
“Basically, yes,” Cami replied. “It’s okay, you can laugh.”
Dylan chuckled. “I can grab you a towel and a robe right away,” Dylan said. “Actual clothes will take me a bit.”
“A towel and a robe would be a big help,” Cami told him.
Dylan stepped out of the bedroom and crossed the hall to the closet for guest linens. He plucked one of the big, fluffy towels off of the top of the pile and crouched down to get to the lower shelf, where they kept a few bathrobes at all times. He chose a dark green one and folded it over his arm along with the towel before going back into the bedroom and closing the door behind him.
“If you’ll let me come in, I promise not to look,” Dylan said. “It’d probably be easier to hand them to you, instead of making you get out of the tub and drip all the way from there to the door.”
“You could put them on the floor,” Cami pointed out from the other side of the bathroom door.
“If I open the door, I have the same chance of seeing you as if I come in,” Dylan countered.
Cami stayed silent for a few seconds. “Okay fine,” she said. “Just don’t look. I’ve already had two guys see me naked without me being aware of it. I’m calling a moratorium on looking at me naked until I feel comfortable with it.”
Dylan resisted the urge to laugh again and opened the door, closing his eyes before he walked through it. He had spent almost more time in the clan’s stronghold than he had in his own home, so Dylan navigated the path from the door to the big, deep tub that the guest bathroom boasted with his eyes closed, stopping just short of a collision with the structure. He held out the towel and bathrobe in either hand, hoping that he was standing in the right spot for Cami to be able to just grab them from him. He heard her stand up, the water dripping from her body, and couldn’t help mentally picturing what his closed eyes were unable to physically see: the curvy, petite body with water sluicing down over it, dark hair sticking to her neck, her shoulders, messy but lovely. The temptation to open his eyes was almost unbearable, but Dylan knew that if he wanted to gain her trust, he had to show her he was someone she could trust, and that meant not peeking.
“Thank you,” Cami said, and Dylan felt her take the towel first.
“Want some help stepping out of the bath? I promise I’m still not looking,” Dylan told her playfully.
“Give me a second,” Cami said. His sensitive ears picked up the sound of the towel against her skin as she started drying off. Then, instead of asking for his help or accepting his offer, Dylan felt her hand on his unencumbered arm. The touch was like a shock—a sensation that Dylan had experienced countless times before, and if he’d had any doubts about Cami’s likelihood of being activated, they were gone. She pressed down slightly on his arm as she stepped over the lip of the tub, and then Dylan felt her take the bathrobe he’d brought her.
“Can I open my eyes yet?” Dylan heard Cami putting the robe on, tying the sash with particular emphasis.
“You can open your eyes now,” she said.
Dylan opened his eyes, and for a moment, all he could do was stare. The robe was a bit big for Cami’s petite frame, but there were still tantalizing glimpses of her collar bones, her legs—enough for Dylan to be powerfully aware that underneath the heavy material, Cami was completely naked, her skin still damp from the bath. It would be so easy to reach out, tug one of the ends of her sash, and pull the fabric apart, and then it would only take a moment to lay his hands on her delicious, curvy body.
“So,” Dylan said, forcing his brain off of the topic of Cami’s naked body. “Did you tell your friends that you’re safe and secure? Or should we be expecting them to show up on our doorstep in the next hour or so?”
Cami smiled slightly, stepping back from him. “I’ve had some time to think about it, obviously,” Cami said. “Believe it or not, the fact that you guys just kind of handed me my phone and let me go off on my own was major points in your favor.”
“Yeah, we figured that actually giving you space when you asked for it was probably a good idea,” Dylan said.
“I have some questions,” Cami told him.
Dylan nodded. “Do you want to sit down in the other room, instead of standing around in the bathroom?” he suggested, gesturing to the bedroom. Cami looked hesitant for a moment, and then shrugged.
“Probably more comfortable,” she admitted, stepping past him toward the guest room. Dylan followed her out of the bathroom and watched as Cami took one of the chairs, neatly tucking her feet under her. Dylan moved to the couch and sat down, taking up his usual awkward-but-comfortable position: heels planted on the seat in front of him, knees up to his shoulders, arms lightly draped around his legs.
“So,” Dylan said. “Questions.”
“First of all: what exactly is this testing going to involve?”
Dylan considered the question for a moment. He couldn’t give away the fact that the only real test they needed—the sense they all had of Cami being one of their own—was already done. They would need to take a sample of her blood and give it to the Seer, but apart from that, the week would consist of them spending as much time around her as possible to activate the ancient energies she’d inherited, locked away in her seemingly-mundane DNA.
“We are going to need to take some of your blood,” Dylan said. “But I figure that’s pretty standard when it comes to testing, you know?”
“As long as you’re not planning on taking it with some kind of ritual knife or from my jugular vein or something, I think I can handle it,” Cami said, smiling wryly.
“We’re probably going to be talking to you about different things, testing your heat tolerances, stuff like that,” Dylan continued. He was making things up, but he k
new that his three other cousins would play along; they had to find excuses to spend as much time around Cami as possible for the next seven days, if she agreed.
“Nothing that will endanger my life or potentially scar me?”
Dylan shook his head. “Nothing that would even mentally scar you,” he said with a grin.
“And you’re still willing to pay me the fifty-five hundred a month for the next twelve months?”
Dylan nodded. “Absolutely,” he said. “Family money—and for a good cause.”
“Then I guessfor a week, I can do it,” Cami said slowly. She pressed her lips together and looked at her hands for a moment, then at Dylan. “I know you only barely knew him, but what can you tell me about my father?”
Dylan smiled. “Not a lot, I’ll admit,” he said. “But even if I hadn’t known your name, I could have guessed you were related to him.”
“How?” Cami leaned forward slightly, and Dylan tried not to be too obvious about noticing that the robe opened a little at the top in reaction.
“You have the family eye color,” Dylan said. “And once you come into your abilities—we can help you with that—you’ll develop a certain feel, a way of knowing when you’re around one of us.”
“What’s it like?” Cami frowned slightly, and the space between her eyebrows wrinkled in a way that Dylan instantly found endearing.
“It’s like a jolt,” Dylan explained. “Not like static shock, something deeper.” Cami’s eyes widened. “You’ve felt that?” he asked. She looked away from him for a second before shrugging. She’s already further along than we would have thought, Dylan mused. This might be easy after all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cami
“Dinner’s here,” Cami heard Elijah call out from the kitchen. She put down the book she’d chosen at random from the shelf in the living room and looked around. It was dark outside; she’d spent the time, since she’d decided to go along with the proposal, getting to know the Overton mansion and settling in. Dylan had told Nicholas that she was willing to stay with them for a week, and finished up the escrow for her payment, and Nicholas had managed to get clothes for her. She’d be staying in the guest room, but Elijah had taken her on a tour of the enormous home, showing her where each of the cousin’s rooms in it were, explaining how the clan loosely operated.
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