House Of Dragons (The Cami Bakersfield Saga Book 1)

by Samantha Snow

  If the Egans have an idea that we’ve found Finn Keane’s daughter, we’re going to need to get her to bond to one of us, Dylan told Nicholas mentally, knowing his cousin could get the message without showing any signs of it. He sensed Nicholas’s agreement, wordless—sort of a mental nod—and took out his phone to start taking countermeasures against whatever the rival clan could come up with. Whatever else happened, the most important thing, Dylan knew, was to make sure the Egan family couldn’t get their hands on Cami. If they did, everything that he and his cousins were working for might come tumbling down.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cami

  Cami looked over the pile of bags that she and Alistair had brought into the Overton mansion and shook her head in slight disbelief at how much shopping they had managed to do in only two hours. At first, she’d focused on specific things she needed for the rest of the week: bras, underwear, socks that actually fit, and a few key beauty and skincare products that she preferred. But once that was done, Alistair had prodded her to go into any store she seemed to be even vaguely interested in, to try on or grab anything that took her interest for longer than two seconds. As a result, they’d come home loaded down with purchases.

  Now, hours later, she still didn’t quite know how to feel about the situation. She had dozens of questions but wasn’t even certain she wanted answers for them. And there wasn’t that much time left for her to figure out whether she did or didn’t want to know. Within a day or two, I’m supposed to start noticing changes and start changing into some dragon-person. And I don’t even have a clue what the hell is going to happen.

  When she and Alistair had come back from the mall, weighed down with bags, none of the other three Overton men had had anything to say about the Elders or their representatives coming to the house. There had been some jokes about the shopping spree, but mostly, Cami had thought, everyone was relieved that whatever they’d had to have her leave the house for had come and gone. She and Alistair had had lunch at the mall, talking over mediocre, generic Chinese food: sesame chicken and lo mein for her, General Tso’s and fried rice for him. It was still a few hours until dinner, which Elijah would apparently be taking care of, and Cami, staring down at the bags, decided that, rather than put her things away and try to come up with a lie to tell her boss to cover her absence at work, she would take a nap.

  She gathered up the bags on her bed and set them aside, shaking her head in residual disbelief at how many things she would eventually have to take home, many of them duplicates of things she already owned. Alistair had shrugged off the necessity and had simply said she should get whatever she would want for the next five days of her stay at the Overton mansion.

  “Besides,” he’d pointed out with a little enigmatic smile, “if you do decide you want to stay longer or come back, you could leave them behind, and they’d be waiting for you.”

  Cami took off her jeans and folded them haphazardly, setting them aside to put on whenever one of the four cousins came to let her know that dinner was ready. She pulled back the thick, heavy blankets and climbed into the big bed, thinking fleetingly—almost unwillingly—about the size of the bed and what Nicholas had said earlier about what the outcome would be if she decided she didn’t want to choose between them, that she wanted all of them.

  “Here I am, Ms. Single-McSingle, who stayed out late after a bachelorette party because I felt crunchy about yet another friend getting married,” Cami mused quietly to herself, already feeling the drowsiness setting in. “I should totally tell Jess that I could have four boyfriends at once.”

  She giggled sleepily and dismissed the idea. She wasn’t sure what she would tell any of her friends about what was going on in her life, but she was certain that the fact that she had four very good-looking men vying for her attention, wanting her to have their baby, was going to be hard to convince anyone of.

  Without knowing how she’d ended up there, Cami woke up to find herself in the big bathtub, soaking in perfectly steamy water, breathing in the scent of vanilla, cedar, lavender, and rose. She tried to sit up, tried to stretch, but the water swirling around her felt as thick as cold molasses, and even the air was heavy, holding her in place.

  “Well, that would explain part of how I fell asleep,” she muttered to herself, taking a deep breath and trying again to sit up.

  Even without the weight pressing her down, the bath was so perfect, the light around her warm and dim, she couldn’t remember lighting candles, but she could see them as she turned her head slowly, the mirrors scattering the flames out into infinity.

  “This is getting a little ridiculous,” Cami mused as she tried again to sit up, to get out of the water.

  “Want some help?” Dylan’s voice cut through the air like a cold breeze.

  Cami started, looking around for the source of it and instinctively moving to cover her nakedness with her arms. Instead of the heavy resistance she’d been feeling before, it was almost as if she moved too quickly; everything blurred, and her arms and hands were in place nearly as soon as the impulse to cover up came.

  “Are you seriously spying on me? I thought you four were all about respecting me and giving me my space,” Cami said, looking around for Dylan.

  She spotted him finally in a corner of the room she could have sworn she’d already looked at twice, leaning against the wall. He looked like a musician in a photo set promoting some band’s new album, his long, messy hair artistically draped around his face and shoulders, a loose tee shirt hanging from his shoulders and his jeans perfectly ripped and torn to give the most tantalizing glimpses of skin.

  “You wanted me here,” Dylan said. “Then, you fell asleep, so I waited.”

  Cami frowned. She couldn’t remember asking Dylan to join her in the bathroom or to watch her take a bath, and that didn’t sound like something she would even do.

  “Are you going to help me out of the bath or not?” Cami asked, irritable.

  Dylan chuckled and stepped forward, the candlelight making his skin glow as he approached the bath with a towel almost as big as Cami herself was.

  “You’re going to have a hard time getting out if your hands and arms are occupied like that,” Dylan pointed out.

  Cami scowled up at him, but she couldn’t deny that a little thrill went through her at the sight of Dylan’s obvious interest, the way his blue eyes widened just slightly.

  “You just want to see me naked,” she said tartly.

  “Are you forgetting that I’ve just been standing here, watching you soak in the water, fully naked this whole time?”

  Cami frowned. “Yeah, well” She couldn’t come up with anything to add after that, and brought her arms away from her body, reaching up to accept the hand Dylan held out to help her get out of the bath.

  Once again, the movement was startlingly fast; one moment, she felt utterly stuck in the hot water, and the next she was on her feet, inches away from Dylan, her hand in his. Fleetingly, Cami noticed that she didn’t have the usual sudden rush of cold that came with getting out of a tub; somehow, the air temperature was exactly the same as the water temperature had been. She knew that she should quickly grab the towel Dylan had, but some part of her had no interest whatsoever—anymore at least—in covering herself up.

  I think you want me to see you naked, Dylan’s voice filled her head, but his lips didn’t move.

  “Hey! You guys said you wouldn’t use your tricks on me,” Cami protested.

  “Just telling you something in my head isn’t manipulating you,” Dylan countered. “I can say it out loud if you want: I think you want me to see you naked, and I think some little part of you was disappointed last time that I didn’t peek.”

  Cami scowled at him. “Why was the first thing I tried to do when I knew you were in here watching me to cover up my bits, then?” Cami asked, tilting her head to the side slightly.

  “Why did you invite me here to watch you bathe? Why aren’t you covering yourself up now?” Dylan asked mock
ingly, tilting his head in the other direction.

  Despite her pique, Cami giggled. “You should be more careful about messing with me,” Cami pointed out, lifting one foot out of the tub and stepping over the edge. “After all, according to you, I can take your powers away once I’m fully active.”

  “You’d take away my ability to know exactly what you want? To be able to tell everyone else what you want even when you’re not sure how to phrase it?” Dylan asked.

  “Your telepathy doesn’t work that way,” Cami said.

  Dylan smirked. “You don’t know how it works,” he pointed out. “I could be reading your mind all the time, for all you know.”

  “Okay, that’s just creepy and off-putting,” Cami told him.

  Dylan snickered. “I’m not,” he admitted. “But if we were having sex”

  “You’re seriously bringing that up now?”

  Dylan grinned. “You’re naked, and you’re pretty clearly turned on,” he pointed out. “If Elijah’s emotion-eavesdropping, he’s probably started touching himself by now.”

  “I’m not turned on,” Cami countered.

  “I can read your mind,” Dylan whispered playfully, leaning in closer. “I know that right now, you’re wondering what it would be like to kiss me.”

  “That’s not the point,” Cami protested.

  “Really? Because it seems a lot like it is the point,” Dylan said. “Why else do you have me here?”

  Cami couldn’t think of a good answer to that question. “Even if I was wondering what it would be like, that doesn’t mean I want to actually do it,” Cami said.

  Dylan’s lips twitched. “You do, though,” he said. “Ever since the topic came up, some part of you at least has been thinking about what each of us might be like in bed.”

  “That’s just because it came up,” Cami said. She realized she still wasn’t feeling the chill of being halfway out of the tub, in the open air, and wondered at that fact. “Of course I’m going to think about it when I know all four of you want me to make a baby with you.”

  “You wanted to know what would happen if you didn’t choose, though,” Dylan pointed out. “That’s not just deciding which one of us to make a baby with.”

  “How else am I going to decide if I don’t try all of you?” Cami asked playfully. She could feel a knot of tension deep down between her hips starting to form, and as she brought her other foot over the lip of the bathtub, she could feel the unmistakable slickness along her labia.

  “I think you don’t want to decide at all,” Dylan mused, looking down into her eyes. His voice took on a slightly rasping, slightly growling tone, low and humming in her ears. “I think you want four men constantly at the ready to satisfy your every need. And I think you want me to be one of them.”

  “And what if I do?” Cami asked.

  Dylan’s smile shifted, and he leaned in closer until she could feel his hot breath on her skin. How could his breath be warmer than the air?

  “Just say the word,” Dylan told her.

  “Okay,” Cami said.

  She meant to ask what the word was, but the next instant, Dylan’s lips met hers, and his free hand moved to her waist, pulling her to him. A jolt worked through her body—electric, but not unpleasant at all—at the contact, and the knot of tension between her hips grew larger, tighter, as Dylan’s arm wrapped around her, pressing her body against his, and his lips sealed hers. She felt the slick swipe of his tongue and opened her mouth without even thinking; Dylan immediately deepened the kiss, tasting her mouth, exploring. He let go of her hand, and Cami shivered in reaction as he caressed her, trailing touches from her hip up to her breasts, from the base of her spine up to the base of her skull.

  “Are you sure he’s the first one of us you want to try?”

  Cami broke away from Dylan’s kiss with a shock at the sound of Nicholas’s voice. She pulled back and saw Dylan’s scowl at the interruption, as they both turned to look in the direction the voice had come from. Nicholas stood in the doorway to the bathroom, watching them, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans.

  “What the hell are you doing here? Spying on me?”

  Nicholas grinned. “You were so quiet after you came back from shopping,” Nicholas said. “Eventually, I figured your high-speed shopping spree might have tired you out and decided to take a little nap myself.”

  “Wait, what?” Cami stepped back from Dylan, instinctively moving to cover herself once more.

  “You’ve been naked this whole time,” Nicholas pointed out. “And while I missed seeing you in the bath, I’ve been here since Dylan started talking about you choosing someone.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Nicholas licked his lips, looking at her with a mixture of amusement and sympathy. “You’re dreaming,” Nicholas said.

  Cami stared at him, slowly realizing what that meant and putting together what he’d said before. “You’re actually in my dream right now,” she said. Nicholas nodded, and she looked at Dylan, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest. “Is he?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Not exactly,” Nicholas said. “I mean, he’s able to vaguely read your thoughts while you’re asleep, so if you’re thinking ‘at’ him, he can hear it, but he can’t project himself into your dream physically the way I can.”

  “This is becoming a nightmare,” Cami said, closing her eyes and rubbing at her forehead with one hand.

  “You don’t seem scared,” Nicholas pointed out. “In fact, you seem to be pretty ready to go.”

  “Why did you interrupt?” Cami asked, glaring at Nicholas. “I was having a perfectly good and reasonably innocent sex dream.”

  “And when you woke up, you’d have to deal with knowing Dylan could hear you moaning his name, without knowing what he did to you in your sexy little thoughts,” Nicholas said. “Why not have a sex dream with someone who can actually do things to you—with you—while you’re dreaming?”

  “Because wouldn’t that just be having actual sex with you?” Cami asked.

  Nicholas grinned. “Actual sex, but no risk of getting knocked up,” he said. “You could get an actual test drive—all of the features, none of the commitment.”

  “But I don’t want Dylan to leave,” Cami said, looking at the other man.

  “It’s your dream,” Nicholas said. “I mean, if you wanted, I could bring him into it for real.”

  “How am I even still asleep right now?”

  Nicholas laughed. “I’m able to manage that. If you want to wake up, you can. But why not take the opportunity you’ve created? If you really want to see what it would be like to be with both of us at once”

  “That’s not what this was supposed to be!” Cami said. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as she blushed. “This is all complicated now.”

  “It can be very, very simple,” Nicholas said. “Alistair and Elijah might be a bit miffed at getting left out”

  “No, I am not having a wild orgy in my dreams,” Cami said.

  Nicholas chuckled. “A threesome then,” he said. “You can keep your dream-construct Dylan here. I won’t interfere. But at least if I’m here, you can know what it would actually be like to be with me, instead of just what you think it would be like, with some occasional telepathic murmurings.”

  Cami looked at one man and then the other, shaking her head slightly. “When I wake up, there is going to be a conversation,” Cami said.

  “In fairness, we’re already past the point of no return on that,” Dylan pointed out. “Even if Nicky hadn’t interrupted, I’d have heard just enough to be able to tease you about it, and then this whole sex dream business would get a lot less innocent.”

  “This is getting too weird,” Cami said.

  Nicholas shrugged. “Why not just go with it, then? It’s still just a dream,” he pointed out.

  “A dream in which you’re an active participant and Dylan can eavesdrop,” Cami countered.

  “But a dream,” Nicholas
insisted. “The beautiful thing about that is you don’t have any limits here. Anything you do, say, want to try”

  “You’ll know about, and Dylan will too,” Cami countered.

  “But you can do, say, or try it without any of the real-world inconveniences,” Nicholas said.

  “If I was just a little bit less turned on right now, I swear to God I’d have you let me wake up,” Cami told him.

  Both Nicholas and Dylan chuckled. Why are you so afraid to have what you want? Cami looked at Dylan sharply. Yes, I’m eavesdropping. You’re the one who was thinking dirty thoughts about me; can you really blame me?

  “Fine!” Cami said. “Give me your worst. Or best. Or whatever.”

  The two men looked at each other, and Dylan stepped aside, letting Nicholas approach Cami without any obstacles. As Nicholas stepped closer to her, Cami felt a flash of something work through her arousal-fogged mind, noticing how muscular the other dragon’s chest was, and a tattoo he had on his right shoulder that she hadn’t seen before—a circle, with triangles and lines inside of it.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s an alchemical symbol,” Nicholas replied. “A family crest, so to speak. We all have them on different parts of our bodies; Dylan’s is in an interesting spot, you’ll see.”

  “How will I see, if he’s just what I’m imagining him to be?” Cami asked.

  “Because I’ve seen it, and I can inform your dream,” Nicholas replied.

  “This is getting complicated again,” Cami said.

  Nicholas smiled. “Let me make it much simpler,” he suggested, reaching out and pulling her to him in one quick, fluid movement.

  Cami gasped, trembling slightly—though not from fear, she knew—as Nicholas’s hands pressed her body against his, one moving up along her back to cradle the base of her skull. He leaned in and kissed her, gently at first and then more hungrily, one hand moving down to the curve of her ass. Cami briefly considered arguing, but Nicholas, she decided, had had a point: why complicate a perfectly good sex dream with a lot of questions? She melted into the kiss, reaching up to drape her arms around Nicholas’s broad shoulders, leaning into him as his tongue slipped past her lips and began to probe her mouth.