by Ophelia Bell
Yet attacks still happened, and that meant the poison was still out there, yet Simina still hadn’t been able to pinpoint its origin. Of all the samples she’d collected, they were each slightly different in maddeningly simple ways. How in the world could someone be manufacturing a poison so perfectly imperfect as to throw off her analysis?
This last sample was the remainder of the poison she’d been able to extract from Bryer’s blood nearly six months ago. His system was thankfully clear of the toxins now, and he’d made a full and spectacular recovery. At least some good had come of her research. She’d had a hunch that the poison’s interference with the animal link could be overcome more quickly if the patient’s animal had a good reason to synchronize with the man again. The draw of a mate often forced man and animal into cohesion when they otherwise might have remained split.
The understanding that it had worked pained her still. It just reinforced her theory that arena champions would have a bigger advantage if they were mated. However, the popular wisdom was that mated arena champions lost their edge, so most of them opted to avoid mating or put it off even if they found their mates.
She prepared her testing solutions with the heavy weight of that old anger sitting like a stone in her chest. Talon had believed it too. They belonged together. They’d both known it from the moment they set eyes on each other when she’d started work as a League physician.
If only he’d survived that match. Simina couldn’t help but grit her teeth at the idea that he might have survived if they’d been mated. His link to his animal might have been too strong for the poison to sever, and his wound would have healed. They might have been parents by now … He wouldn’t have even had to retire from competing, if he didn’t want to. She would never have forced him to leave the sport if his heart was still in it, and Bryer and Ignazio were evidence that arena champions could easily have successful careers even after they were happily mated.
If anything, the Hot Wings duo were more formidable opponents now than ever before. She’d heard about their success in the exhibition matches at the start of the winter season. Despite her attempts to avoid hearing about the current arena season in any concrete way, she still liked to follow her former patients’ careers, and had been giddy to learn that the duo had recently beat an up and coming trio of champions. Two against three, and winning? That had been quite a feat. If only Talon had been alive to witness it.
“Stare any harder and lasers are going to shoot out of your eyes.”
Simina jumped and let out an unseemly squeak at the deep voice that came from behind her. She spun around, eyes wide and heart pounding in her throat.
“Javin, you scared the crap out of me!” Her hand fluttered over her chest as she gave her boss the evil eye.
The chief of medicine at the Arena League Medical Institute lifted an eyebrow. “Your dragon would have heard me if you were in sync. For someone who preaches shifter synchronicity so much to the athletes, you aren’t very good at practicing it yourself. It’d help with stress too, you know.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have to go into the arena then, isn’t it? My job is to help make sure they stay in top form. I’m good at my job.”
Javin gave her a solemn nod. “You’re one of the best doctors on staff. Too bad you refuse to see patients. As great as you are at research, your skills are frankly wasted. You should be out there fixing them in person instead of down here staring holes through the equipment.”
Simina darted a look at the display she’d been watching while lost in thought. It would be another half hour before the results of the test were complete.
Her shoulders sagged. “I can’t …” She trailed off and let out a defeated sigh.
Javin pressed his lips together and eyed her for several beats. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’re not making it easy for me, Simina. You’re an amazing doctor. Probably the best we’ve got. But your duty is to your living patients. There are real men out there who need your skills as a healer. You’re giving me no choice.”
Simina’s neck prickled and her heart rate ratcheted up a notch again at the direction his lecture was taking.
“But I’m making progress on the poison. Real progress …”
Javin held up his hand, palm out to stall her. Nodding, he said, “I don’t disagree, but this work … you could do it in your sleep. You can delegate. You should delegate, instead of losing sleep and running yourself ragged here. You don’t even show your face to arena champions unless they’re already on your patient roster. Thank fuck Bryer Vargas was one of yours. If he hadn’t been, and you hadn’t jumped in when it counted, he’d be dead. We need you back on rounds, Simina. And if you refuse … Well, I’ll just have to …”
“Please, Javin. I need to do this. I can’t lose this job now. I’m so close to finding the key to this poison, but I just can’t see any champions.” She was too ashamed to articulate the reason, but Javin was no stranger to her dilemma. The fear of finding another mate among the athletes nearly crippled her. What if Talon wasn’t the only one for her? Worse yet, what if she fell for another champion and he suffered the same fate? She couldn’t bear losing another mate.
Javin shook his head and let out an exasperated huff. “I don’t want to fire you, Simina. What I want is for you to take a goddamn vacation.”
Her mouth dropped open and she glanced at the colorful readout on the machine displaying the chemical makeup of the poison compound it was analyzing. This test could be the one, but even if it only came one step closer to showing her the truth of the poison’s origins, she couldn’t stop there.
“Not yet … One more week.”
“One week of what? You’re out of samples. We haven’t been able to synthesize the poison for more testing. There is nothing for you to do after that test is done, except agonize over the results until another victim comes in. Take. A. Vacation. Two weeks, minimum.”
“But …”
He held up both hands this time to shush her. “No buts. We know what to do with the samples if they come in. We have all your considerable findings to refer to if someone else is poisoned. We’ve got this. If you’re that concerned about being gone so long, take your vacation on Earth. With the time difference, you can relax for two full weeks, and by the time you come home, you’ll only have been gone half as long. I’m more than certain we can manage without you for seven days.”
The readout continued to fluctuate and update, the results already giving her a hint of what she suspected—that she needed fresh samples to make any more progress.
“I need a breakthrough. I can’t be caught sleeping if something changes.”
“We need a breakthrough, Simina. Talon was my friend. He was my patient before he was yours. I want this as much as you do.” The gruffness in Javin’s tone betrayed the emotions he normally kept carefully hidden. “But he wouldn’t want you destroying your life over this. You need a break more than you need a breakthrough. If you say no, I will be forced to take more drastic measures.”
Deflated, she let out a sigh of surrender. “Fine, but promise me you will contact me if anything happens.”
“I’ve got your back,” Javin said, genuine relief filling his eyes. “Go now. I’ll handle the final analysis. I don’t want to take any chances on you changing your damn mind.”
Simina managed a laugh. “Fair enough. See you in a week.”
* * *
The problem with free time was that it gave her too much time to think. Without her work, her mind wandered to old memories, and while she’d intended to just stay home and do some reorganizing on her week off, all the mementos of her life with Talon haunted her at every turn.
It had been a year, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go through his things. They were all she had left of him. After one day of spinning her wheels at home, she finally gave in. She needed a new perspective, especially if she planned to return with enough drive to finally make some headway on her research. She doubted
she could get Talon out of her mind completely, but being surrounded by the remnants of their shared life certainly wasn’t going to help.
“He would want this,” she reminded herself as she packed. “Talon would want you to move on.”
The very idea made a hot knot of emotion burn in her chest. Moving on meant leaving him behind. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that, but perhaps there was a compromise.
While she didn’t think she was ready to find a new mate, she knew that was a prerequisite for what she really wanted. All Simina needed was to find a man who wanted to be a father as much as she wanted to be a mother. If their desires meshed well enough and their animals could be convinced to bond, a mating might just work. It wasn’t ideal, but Simina didn’t believe she would ever find the kind of bond she’d had with Talon in another man, even if their animals were willing. Theirs had been a once in a lifetime kind of love.
But a baby … that was a different kind of love, and Simina knew she had room in her heart for a child. More than enough to make up the difference.
She’d wasted too much time in mourning already. Now that she’d made up her mind to try, she was impatient to get on with it. Her trip took on new meaning as she booked passage through the wormhole to Earth.
It wasn’t about relaxing anymore. She was on a mission, and while she hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about finding the right man for the job, she knew exactly who to ask.
3
Veryl’s bandaged fist pounded into the punching bag, blow after satisfying blow.
“That’s right, brother. Let it out. Then it’s my turn.” Dez egged him on from his position bracing the bag with his shoulder. Veryl didn’t need his arena partner to elaborate on his own frustration. They were well enough in sync to be aware of the humiliation they’d shared the day before in the arena.
“Take a break, you two,” Cato said, hopping down from his perch at the edge of their sparring ring and walking toward the sheltered section of their practice pavilion. Beyond the other dragon’s shoulders stretched the entire practice arena they’d had built—an almost exact replica of the professional arena they fought all their matches in. But Veryl was beginning to feel like it had been a wasted expense when they got their asses handed to them so thoroughly by a duo.
Three against two should have been a cinch of a match. He landed one more ferocious punch in the center of the bag, then followed it up with a roundhouse kick that had Dez leaping back to protect himself.
“We need a fucking rematch,” Veryl said when Cato reached out to steady the swinging bag.
“You know they beat us clean,” Cato said. “We need to face the fact that the Hot Wings team is better than ever.”
“We need to be better,” Veryl argued. He glanced at Dez for support, and the red-eyed dragon nodded.
“They’re fucking invincible,” Dez said. “You’d never know Bryer spent the off-season recovering from that wicked mauling. They’re even better than they were in the spring, if they can beat a trio as highly ranked as we are in a goddamn exhibition match.”
“And we’ll get there too, with enough hard work. I have an idea.” A devious glint sparked in Cato’s eyes. “Let’s hit the showers and I’ll lay it out.” He nodded for them to follow, already stripping off his sweat-soaked shirt on the way into their private locker room.
Veryl’s dragon perked up at the determined set to the other man’s shoulders. As the trio’s team captain, Cato only had that look and that bearing when he had a plan to take their training to the next level, and it always resulted in an edge when they competed.
Mating would do it, Veryl thought, his gaze drifting down the tight muscles of Cato’s back to the flexing swell of his ass beneath his workout shorts. He’d heard the news of Hot Wings’ mating to the pretty human chef. Contrary to popular belief, it seemed mating had done the opposite of weigh the duo down. That had to be what Cato was about to suggest, and it would be Veryl’s chance to finally make a move and tell his partners how he felt.
Fuck, he had to rein in his libido for now, though. They reached the lockers and he kicked off his shoes and yanked off his shirt while imagining un-sexy things to cool off his raging erection. When he looked up after tossing his sweat-soaked clothes into the laundry hamper, he caught Dez leaning nonchalantly against his closed locker, buck naked and eyeing him with an eyebrow raised.
“Got something on your mind, brother?” Dez asked. “Some sweet little piece of shifter ass? Don’t tell me you’re breaking your vow of celibacy.” Dez’s gaze darted to Veryl’s crotch before sliding back up to meet his eyes.
Veryl’s face heated. He was still half-hard, the proximity of a naked Cato already standing under a steaming shower more than enough to have his cock on alert.
“None of your goddamn business,” he said, giving Dez a dirty look. “And you know I’d never break my vow. There’s too much at stake.”
The other dragon chuckled and moved into the second low stall of the shared showers, turning the water on to full blast and full heat. More steam billowed into the room, diffusing the light and lending a dream-like quality to the atmosphere.
Thankfully Cato had his face angled up into the water and his eyes closed when Veryl moved into the stall on the other side of him.
“We’d be a step ahead if you did have a female on the hook,” Cato said, jabbing the wash controls to activate the soap and darting a look at Veryl.
“You know I don’t. I haven’t been with a woman since we started competing. It’s what we all agreed on.” Veryl eyed his teammate curiously, feeling out of the loop on the conversation.
“I’m not talking about just any woman, though. A mate. That’s got to be how Hot Wings beat us. They’ve never been more in sync. With each other. With their animals. And you saw her on the sidelines. She was fucking invested, the way she cheered them on. I think her enthusiasm drove them harder from the inside out. We need that.”
I need you, Veryl thought, his dragon squirming in agreement, even though it still seemed to want to wait. For what, Veryl wasn’t sure. His feelings for his partners had been an ever-present ache for months, something that had grown bit by bit after one drunken night following one of last season’s many victories. In the thick of booze-fueled confessions, Cato had shared how he couldn’t live without the pair of them. “You two are my heart and soul,” he’d said, and the look in his vivid blue eyes had lit a spark in Veryl’s chest that had burned hotter as time went on.
“I’m all for it,” Dez said, as though the whole idea were a no-brainer. The man thought with either his stomach or his dick, so it was no surprise that the idea of landing his own curvy chef as a mate might appeal to the red dragon.
Veryl chuckled. “Of course you are, but do we really need mates? I mean, outside our trio … the three of us are practically mated in spirit. To each other, I mean. Why not …” He swallowed tightly, his head beginning to buzz with the momentum of the thoughts blasting from his mouth unbidden. It was all coming out now, wasn’t it? “Why not mate each other?”
Once spoken, the words hung in the room, buoyed on the steam like garish balloons he wished he could pop. Cato stared at him, one soapy fist hovering with his wash cloth over his crotch.
Dez let out a hearty guffaw. “You want my ass that bad, you just need to ask, buddy. Or did you want to give me yours? I’m game, but in case you haven’t noticed, our animals are all more content to play. If we were meant to mark each other, it’d have happened by now, don’t you think?”
Veryl frowned, irritated by his teammate’s logic, but unable to tear his gaze from Cato’s eyes. Something was churning in the other man’s mind.
Finally Cato shook his head and turned away so his front was facing the water again. “It isn’t that simple. Finding a mate is like alchemy. All the ingredients have to be in the right proportions. Time and place included, I think.”
“That’s just your theory,” Veryl argued. “We know our animals can be trained to follow
commands. Why shouldn’t it work where that’s concerned too? If I want it enough, I can make my dragon want it as well.”
Cato let out a heavy sigh and turned off the water. He toweled off his head and leveled a piercing blue stare at Veryl. “Well, by your logic, I’d have to want it enough too. I love you, Veryl, but what I want is more than this.” He gestured around the shower to the three of them. “What I want is a spot in the Arena League Hall of Fame. What I want is a solid team who has each other’s backs through thick and thin. And what I want is a family. That right there is something we can never give each other, no matter how much we make our dragons want it. Kids, brother. Don’t you want that?”
His words hit like a sucker punch. Cato didn’t wait for a reply, but Veryl couldn’t have given him an answer if he’d tried. He’d only ever thought about family in an abstract sense. Something to think about having someday. After his career, the way every other arena champion did it. It wasn’t even on his radar as long as he intended to continue competing.
But being faced with the question now, and by one of the two people in the world who mattered most to him, he had a sudden ache of longing for exactly that, and couldn’t reconcile his desire for his two friends versus the desire to be a father.
He stood stunned under the shower for several more minutes, only coming out of his head to register Dez’s wet smack on his shoulder.
“We all want it, brother. Not just because Hot Wings has it. Because it’s in our blood to want. Everything good comes from love, from family. You of all people should know that.”
But the question was whether he could love anyone else but these two men who filled his life so completely. He had to be willing to try. If Cato believed in it strongly enough, it had to be worth a shot.
Still a little dazed from the revelations, he toweled off and met his teammates back in the locker room where they were both dressing.