Forbidden Embers

by Tessa Adams

  But how could it be when the idea of being with him left her not just cold, but physically ill? Oh, he was good-looking, smart, even charming when he wanted to be. But he was also a man she had considered family for far too long.

  Is this how it’s going to be, then? she wondered feverishly. Would she have to give up any chance of experiencing passion or lust or truly magnificent sex? She had dreamed of finding a mate for decades, had dreamed of finding a man with whom she could willingly, openly share her body and her heart.

  Now, however, she was going to be forced to settle for a man who desired her even less than she desired him.

  She tilted her head back. Rested it against the wall and closed her eyes. Unbidden, an image of Logan rose behind her closed lids—huge and warm and so sexy that he made her toes curl and her mouth water. It had been amazing to be touched by him, held by him, kissed by him. Amazing and wonderful and so hot that it had sparked a fantasy unlike any she had ever experienced before.

  A tingling started in her lower abdomen at the reminder of how she had spent a large portion of the previous night, and then the sensation spread through her breasts and her sex until she was all but squirming with the need it evoked. The idea that she was going to have to give up all that passion, that she was going to have to live the rest of her life without ever finding out what it meant to be made love to by him—

  No, damn it! Just no! She sprang to her feet, stormed out of the house before she was even conscious that she had moved. But as she shifted—her clothes falling away as the dragon emerged—she knew exactly what she wanted to do. What she was going to do.

  She took to the sky in a headlong flight, speeding through the starry night with renewed strength and purpose and focus. She would mortgage her future, settle for a passionless marriage and an empty crown, all in an effort to save her clan. But she would be damned if she was going to do any of that before she’d found out what it was like to truly touch someone and be touched by him. And not anyone, either. It was Logan her body burned for, and Logan she would have, at least once, before she had to lock herself and her passions away forever.

  “I have to admit, I expected better progress from you,” Shawn said seconds after he flashed into existence about five feet away from where Logan was sitting, trying to get a grip on the anger working its way through him.

  “Keep doing that, asshole, and you’re going to end up getting gutted,” Logan growled. But he relaxed his fingers, slid the dagger that was never far from him back into its sheath. As he did, he forced his mental patterns back to normal. It took a few seconds, as he’d been prepared to dig into the enemy’s brain and rip it to shreds at the first sign of trouble.

  “Geez, you’re losing your touch. Usually you know I’m coming to see you before I do.”

  “So sue me. It’s not exactly easy to keep up the mental connection across a thousand miles.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve seen you do it over much longer distances before. You must be getting old.”

  Logan ignored him. Hoped if he didn’t talk to him, his friend would go away.

  But Shawn had always been notoriously thick-skinned, and this was no exception. Settling down on the ground next to where Logan crouched, he stretched out his legs in front of him before flashing in two bottles of beer. He held one out to Logan.

  Logan looked at the bottle for a minute, then shook his head before taking it. “Should I ask where these came from?”

  “My refrigerator,” his friend replied with an affronted look. “I’m not a thief.”

  “You don’t think it’s going to look funny—two beers out here in the middle of nowhere, floating in midair, since we’re currently invisible?”

  “Jesus, what put that stick up your ass today? I’m shielding them, so relax.”

  Logan popped off the top, then took a long swig of beer, wondering how long it was going to take Shawn to spit out whatever it was he had come to talk about. He figured less than a minute.

  But a few minutes passed with Shawn doing nothing more than companionably drinking his beer. So Logan turned his attention back to the asshole who had just made Cecily a proposal she had damn well better refuse. He figured she would, despite what she’d said when she’d shown him the door. The vibes rolling off her had been absolutely frigid. She’d been polite to the bastard, but she’d seemed upset by what he had to say, and Logan hoped that meant that she had seen through that whole smarmy act of his.

  He’d wanted to delve inside her head and see what she was thinking, but the shields of that guy—Thierren—had been almost impenetrable. It had taken all of Logan’s considerable talent to eavesdrop on his thoughts and the conversation, and he didn’t have enough power left over to tap into her thoughts.

  Thierren’s thoughts hadn’t been all that illuminating, at least not in terms of helping out the Dragonstars. They had, however, given Logan insight into how the factionnaires viewed Cecily. Within two minutes of being in Thierren’s head, he’d wanted to beat him, and everyone else on the Conseil, into unconsciousness. Men who treated women like these guys did—who thought that badly of them—deserved to have their asses handed to them.

  Logan scanned the areas around Cecily’s house, then widened his search, but the bastard had disappeared. Either he wasn’t thinking about anything, which Logan could believe, as he hadn’t exactly seemed like the sharpest tool in the shed, or he was deliberately shielding.

  Despite his opinions on Thierren’s intelligence, Logan had the feeling it was probably the latter. Which meant he’d either felt Logan’s scan, which he really hoped wasn’t the case, or he was with someone who had enough psychic talent that he’d felt the need to completely block himself.

  Shit. That was all he needed to deal with—another psychic dragon. His shields were excellent, but there was always somebody better out there. His life depended on the fact that a Wyvernmoon wasn’t that somebody.

  More than a little pissed off, Logan gave up looking. Though he kept the top layer of his consciousness focused inside the compound, he turned the rest of his attention to Shawn. His friend’s unnatural silence was freaking him out. Finally, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he demanded, “So, what are you doing here?”

  Shawn shrugged. “I came to check up on my best friend. Is that not allowed?”

  “Not when I’m supposed to be a rogue dragon, without friends or clan affiliations. And you practically have Dragonstar stamped on your forehead.”

  “Don’t worry about it. No one’s out there right now.”

  He didn’t argue, because he knew Shawn was right. He’d done a scan right before he’d arrived. The only thing currently moving around on the mountains was the wildlife.

  “So, seriously, how’s it going?”

  Logan shrugged. “As good as to be expected, I suppose.”

  “Really? Because you’ve been gone more than a week and you’re still sleeping in the hills instead of on the Wyvernmoon compound. Is that psychic mind meld of yours not working?”

  “I think you have me confused with Spock from Star Trek. I don’t even know what a mind meld is.”

  “Don’t go getting all technical. You know what I mean.”

  “I’m working on it. Things are complicated.”

  “Really? Do tell.”

  “Shawn—”

  “Come on. You know I like to live vicariously through you,” said the dragon, who spent most of his life juggling five women at a time, as well as some of the Dragonstars’ most dangerous assignments.

  Logan snorted. “I think you have that backward.”

  “Maybe. But it still looks like you need some help out here. So what can I do? Spill.”

  “I finally found my in. It’s just going to take a couple of days to make it work.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s her name?”

  “I didn’t say it was a woman.”

  “What do I look like—an idiot?” Shawn reached over and shoved his shoulder so hard he would have toppled over if he hadn�
�t been expecting it. “Who is she?”

  Logan took another sip of his beer. Weighed the consequences of letting Shawn in on his plan. Then shrugged. His king needed to know what he was up to, and telling Shawn was as good as telling Dylan. “Cecily Fournier.”

  Shawn choked on his beer, spewing the cold liquid all over the ground in front of him. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he demanded. “Your in is the fucking Wyvernmoon princess herself?”

  “Can you think of anyone better?”

  “That depends on whether you want to survive. The woman was raised by Silus, Logan. There’s no way you can trust her.”

  “I don’t have to trust her to do what needs to be done. I just need her to trust me.”

  “Yeah, but—” Shawn shook his head, then picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could. Logan watch it soar through the air before finally bouncing off the Wyvernmoon safeguards.

  “That was smart. Why don’t you just hand them an engraved invitation if you’re so eager to get caught?”

  But Shawn wasn’t listening. “Man, come on. If she finds out you’re double-crossing her, she’ll rip out your entrails and feed them to the fucking vultures.”

  “She’d do that, anyway, whether she invites me into the clan or someone else does.”

  “Have you never heard of a woman scorned? Dude, there’s death. And then there’s praying for death because the torture’s so bad. Guess which side of the line a betrayed woman stands on.”

  An image of Cecily’s face as he’d last seen it—through Thierren’s eyes—flashed through his head. Young, vulnerable, and so despondent that it made him hurt for her, she had looked nothing like he’d expected Silus Fournier’s daughter to look. There wasn’t a hard edge showing, and while he told himself it was because she was a consummate actor, the little skitter of uneasiness working its way down his spine said something very different.

  Was he making a mistake using Cecily? He hadn’t thought so when he first met her, but now he wasn’t so sure. Not that it mattered, he supposed. Whether he used her to bring down the clan or whether he used someone else, the result was going to be the same. Cecily would lose everything, and on this Shawn was absolutely correct: she would never forgive him.

  But he wasn’t going for her forgiveness. How she felt shouldn’t matter to him one way or the other. The fact that it suddenly did . . . Yeah, the fact that it suddenly mattered made him very, very nervous.

  He glanced over at Shawn, only to realize his friend was watching him with shrewd eyes. Fuck. Shawn was his best friend, and sometimes even he forgot that beneath the happy-go-lucky attitude was a force to be reckoned with. He braced himself for whatever was coming, knowing whatever Shawn decided to say, he wasn’t going to like it very much.

  But the other shifter just shook his head and grinned. “I guess you know what you’re doing, right?”

  “Right.” He relaxed a little at Shawn’s obvious understanding. “Absolutely. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured. That’s how you always play, isn’t it? Go big or go home.”

  Shit. Fuck. Goddamn. There it was, and he’d walked right into it. They both knew that if things played out the way Logan wanted them to, he wouldn’t be going home ever again. Hell, he wouldn’t have a home to go to.

  Dylan tolerated a hell of a lot, but blatant disobedience of this magnitude—not to mention the destruction of an entire clan when some of the members were innocents—was not one of them. If the Wyvernmoons didn’t kill him, he’d be damned lucky if Dylan didn’t do the job for them.

  “Is that why you came out here?” He shoved to his feet, strode away. “To rub my nose in it?”

  Shawn was right behind him, grabbing his arm and spinning him around so quickly Logan didn’t even have a chance to react. Damn, the fucker was fast.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Shawn looked him straight in the eye, and his face was more serious than usual. “You can go in there, steal the data and blow up the lab. That’s enough. More than enough, considering they’ll kill you if they catch you. You don’t have to throw your whole life away—”

  “I watched Marta die! And Michael! And how many others because of this goddamn virus and these goddamn motherfuckers who seem to think they have the right to play God? I can blow up the fucking lab today, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come up with something new, something worse, tomorrow. These bastards have no fucking honor, and they don’t give a shit who they hurt. They need to go down and go down hard, or we will spend the rest of our goddamn lives looking over our shoulders and watching as our clan mates die.” He knocked Shawn’s hand off his shoulder and stumbled back a few steps.

  “Gabe lost it when Marta died—he fell apart like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And Quinn? What do you think would have happened if he hadn’t found a way to save Jasmine? He was on the brink, man. You know that. Not only would we have lost a friend; we would have lost the best healer the clan has. How many other people have to die before it’s enough?”

  “Dylan—”

  “Dylan’s a king. He can’t make this kind of decision. He’s too goddamn honorable.”

  “You’re honorable, too, Logan. I think you’ve forgotten that.”

  “Bullshit. I’m a king’s bastard who’s spent the last four hundred years looking for a place to fit in. I’m practical. Honor is the least of my worries.”

  “Goddamnit!” Shawn roared as the last vestiges of good humor evaporated. “You need to listen before it’s too late!”

  “No. You need to listen and you need to hear me. It’s already too late. I’m doing this, and when it’s done, the Dragonstars will be safe. That’s all that matters.” He turned away, looked straight out into the darkness and willed his words to be true.

  “And what about you?” Shawn asked.

  He shrugged. “What about me? I’ll be fine. I always am.”

  “No. You just think you are.”

  “Damn it, Shawn! I—” He turned around to let his friend have it, but Shawn was gone. He was, once again, completely and totally alone.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He wasn’t here. Cecily had landed in the middle of her clearing, after working up a whole speech for Logan during the flight from her house. But now that she was here, standing next to what were obviously his tent and other possessions, he was nowhere to be found.

  And wasn’t that just typical? Her father had tried to sell it, but she couldn’t even give her virginity away. She supposed the joke was on her.

  She shifted back to her human form and prowled around the camp, trying to work off a little of her angst from her overemotional state. It didn’t work. Not when Logan’s unique scent still lingered in the air. Her beast picked up on the sea-and-peppermint smell right away, and Cecily drew it into her lungs. Wrapped it around her and promised herself that everything was going to be all right.

  He couldn’t have gone far or been gone long. Plus, the fact that all of his things were here meant that he obviously planned on coming back. But when would he back? Her beast wailed, itchy and desperate inside her.

  It was a question she couldn’t answer, so she ignored it. If her dealings with the factionnaires had taught her nothing else, they had taught her not to fret about things she couldn’t change.

  That’s why she was here, after all. Why she had come looking for Logan when, really, this was the last place she should be. But she couldn’t help herself. She wanted him, and while there were a lot of things she wanted that she now knew she’d never get—peace for her clan, prosperity, a rational Conseil—sleeping with Logan was one thing she did have control over. It was one thing she could take for herself before giving everything she had, everything she was, over to her clan.

  As she walked from one end of the camp to the other, she ran over the possibilities for where Logan could be. He could be sightseeing—maybe he’d gotten a sudden hankering to see Mount Rushmore. Though he didn’t exactly strike her as the tourist typ
e, she’d been wrong about a man before. Fourteen men, to be exact, so what was one more in the grand scheme of things?

  And if he wasn’t off doing the tourist thing, maybe he was around her still. Hiking, swimming in the lake he’d shown her yesterday, or maybe just going for a short flight to stretch his wings.

  If she really wanted to meet up with him tonight, she had two choices: she could go looking for him or she could pull up some ground and wait for him to return.

  The first option seemed vaguely desperate to her. Okay, it seemed completely desperate; nothing vague about it. And while she was desperate, it wouldn’t do to let him know that. Not if she wanted a shot at keeping the upper hand with him.

  For a second, she flashed back to the fantasy she’d had the night before, the one that had seemed so real she had woken up with sore muscles and tender nipples. If Logan was even half as dominant as she imagined him to be, then she was going to need every advantage she could muster.

  She shivered at the thought, a thrill of heat working its way through her at the idea of being at Logan’s mercy. She’d never fantasized about anything like that before, would never even consider giving herself over so completely to any of the Wyvernmoon men she knew. But there was something about Logan, something about the way he held himself, something about the mixture of kindness and darkness in his eyes when he looked at her, that told her she would be safe with him. Or if not safe, then at least unharmed. That was not a feeling she had ever had around her father’s factionnaires.

  For one second, thoughts of her future crept in, but she shoved them away. There would be plenty of time for her to think about that later—an eternity, really. Tonight she would think only of what she wanted and needed.

  Tired of walking the same stretch of ground over and over again, and growing cold without her clothes or dragon’s skin to keep her warm, Cecily stopped in front of Logan’s meager possessions and looked them over. His black sleeping bag was rolled up tightly and rested against one of the outside poles of the tent.