by Eva Chase
“Thanks,” I said. “I guess I needed that.”
I heard Aaron’s smile in the shape of his voice. “Sometimes we shifters can get too caught up in the animal side of our natures. I think it’s important to remember we’re so much more than that. Our minds matter too. As enjoyable as certain animalistic impulses might be.”
A little mischief crept into his tone with that last sentence. I shot him a glance over my shoulder, and the slightly wicked smile he gave me then sent a wash of heat over me. So my Disney prince had a bit of an edge to him, did he?
The attraction burning between us loosened a memory—one from not that long ago. “Marco said something... He said in time we’d become ‘full mates.’ I thought we were already mates. Is there something else we need to do...?”
Aaron’s smile turned wry. “There’s no hurry,” he said. “You shouldn’t take that step until you’re fully comfortable with the idea, with each of us. The mate-bond isn’t confirmed until it’s consummated—that is, until the mates—”
“—have sex,” I filled in for him. “Ah.” My cheeks flared. “Yeah, I’m not sure how long it’s going to take before I’m ready for that. I... never have before.”
Because that wrenching, clawing feeling had always gotten in the way before. But I didn’t feel that with any of the alphas. I wanted to open myself up to them. At least, I thought I did. There’d been so many upheavals and revelations in the last couple days—how could I really be sure what I wanted? What was best for me?
What was best for them?
“You knew you were bonded without even understanding it,” Aaron said. His hands smoothed over my shirt to lightly massage my back. “It’s possible to be intimate with someone you’re not bonded too, but part of you is always going to balk. I won’t pretend I haven’t had desires and pursued them, to some extent, but the same feeling always held me back. Being that close with anyone else just didn’t feel right.”
So it wasn’t just me. The guys felt it too? I glanced back at him again, with a fluttering in my chest. I’d waited for them without knowing what I was doing. And he’d waited for me too.
“There really isn’t any rush to make that commitment,” he said, gazing back at me with those clear blue eyes. “We’ve only just found you. We can give you whatever time you need.”
Not everyone felt that way. My thoughts darted to West’s words earlier this morning. It must be the same for all of the kin-groups, including Aaron’s. The longer I held out, leaving him without a mate, the longer the rest of his kin had to go barren.
“Are you sure?” I asked before I knew I was going to. “I mean, that waiting for me is the right decision? What if...”
My voice faltered. My doubts jumbled awkwardly inside me.
Aaron leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me, tipping his face next to mine. “I’ve never been more sure of anything, Serenity. You’re everything I could have wanted in a mate.”
My back tensed against his chest. He drew back a few inches. “You don’t like people using your full name, do you?”
I grimaced. “It’s not so much that as—I just got so used to pretending it wasn’t my name. To feeling like saying it would be a dangerous thing.”
“Just one more thing you need to reclaim,” he murmured. “You are Serenity Drake. You are the last in the dragon shifter line. That heritage belongs to you and no one else. No one can take it from you.”
He pressed a kiss to the sensitive spot just behind my ear. A bolt of desire shot through me, right to my sex. I pushed myself toward him, and he eased me onto his lap. When I raised my head, his lips were right there to meet mine.
We kissed until I started to lose my breath. Aaron edged his thumb under the hem of my tee. I mumbled encouragingly, and he slid his hand right up under, over my bare skin. He teased his knuckles over my breast, making my nipple pebble. I moaned, kissing him harder. A tight ball of need formed between my legs.
Carefully, he eased the strap of my bra over my shoulder to loosen it. Then he dipped his fingers inside the cup to fondle me skin to skin. I gasped as he rolled my nipple under his thumb, drawing it to an even sharper peak. He bent his head and nibbled his way down my neck.
Every nerve in my body hummed at his touch. I was getting carried away again, but it didn’t feel quite so scary. I could do this. I could take this pleasure. And if I wanted to stop, I knew all I had to do was say so.
I shoved my hands up under Aaron’s shirt, needing to feel the hot, firm planes of his chest. All that coiled strength. I traced the lines of those muscles all the way down to the waist of his pants. Aaron groaned, squeezing my breast. His erection pressed against my thigh. So big and so hard, all for me.
The thought sent a flare of hunger through me, but it came with an icy splinter of panic.
I could have him. Tie him to me so he was mine for the rest of my life. If I said I was ready now, that I wanted all of him, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d give himself over just like that, for all time. To a shifter who couldn’t even shift, a dragon who couldn’t sprout her own wings.
I pulled back, my head dropping. Aaron’s hand stilled. “Far enough?”
I dragged in a breath to steady myself. The hunger still gnawed at me. My lips ached to feel his against them.
“Far enough,” I agreed. “But... we can stay here for a while.”
He grinned and brought his mouth back to mine.
CHAPTER 16
Ren
“WOW,” Kylie said, hugging my arm. “Shifters know how to eat, don’t they?”
We were standing at one end of the huge table that had been set up in the village common. It stretched across the entire space, and even then it wasn’t enough for all the villagers to sit down. Many were filling their plates from the bowls and platters set all down the middle and ambling off to find a spot on the ground or the extra chairs scattered around the common.
Delicious smells assaulted my nose: roasted meat and stewed veggies and fresh bread. I wasn’t drooling, but it was a near thing. Between working out and making out, I’d developed a healthy appetite for dinner. I grabbed one of the plates.
“I don’t think they do this all the time,” I said.
“Obviously.” Kylie rolled her eyes. “It’s all for you. You’re a celebrity!”
She said it teasingly, but the fact was it was kind of true. Every shifter we passed gave me a longer look than they aimed at anyone else. Several of the cooks dashed over to encourage me to try this casserole or those ribs. When we made for a couple of chairs off to the side, a middle-aged man stopped us and motioned us back to the table.
“No, no, you have a spot here, of course,” he said, dipping his head. “There’s always room for you at our table.”
I looked for my alphas, hoping one of them might step in and tell everyone to stop fussing, I wasn’t that big a deal. But then, they kind of thought I was a big deal too, didn’t they? West was busy stalking through the crowd, offering a greeting here and a friendly slap to the shoulder there. Marco was chatting with a few rather roguish-looking guys. Nate and Aaron had paused to talk down by the other end of the table. No help from any of them.
More of the villagers came around as I ate. As soon as I’d tried one thing off my plate, someone had brought me two more tidbits. They watched me eagerly, so I did my best to try everything, but before too long my stomach was protesting from being stuffed and from the pressure.
“What do you say we take a little stroll and walk off some of this feast?” I said to Kylie.
She nodded. “Yeah, I can see a breather might be a good idea. Being famous is hard.”
She elbowed me playfully as we stood up, but she cleared the way through the crowd, giving our excuses. “Just taking a little walk. We’ll be back soon!”
We ducked between a couple of shops that had closed for the evening, hurried past a short line of houses, and rambled out along the edge of the tree-spotted hills that surrounded most of the town. As soon as the so
unds of the feast had faded behind me, I exhaled in relief. Kylie linked her arm around mine.
“It’s weird, yeah?” she said.
“So weird.” I laughed, glad there was one person here who understood that. I might be a shifter by birth, but after all those years in the city, living like and believing I was only human, I didn’t belong here. Not really.
“But hey, at least that weirdness comes with four super-devoted and extra-super-hot guys.”
I gave her a little shove. “Three devoted guys and one who’s not sure I deserve the time of day.”
She snickered. “Oh, no. I’ve seen the way the Big Bad Wolf looks at you.”
“We’re still bonded,” I muttered. “He can’t help feeling something. That doesn’t mean he wants it to stay that way.”
“Oh, so you might only have three super-hot mates? I guess you’ll survive somehow. When you’re queen of all shifters, maybe you can find some extras to send my way?”
“You’d really want that?” Kylie hooked up with guys now and then when she was in the mood, but she’d never seemed all that boy crazy.
She shrugged. “Why not? If they look like that and worship the ground I walk on, I don’t see how it could go wrong.”
“I don’t know. You could find out that the entire future of the shifters depends on you. I was only just getting used to the responsibility of having rent to pay.” I glanced back toward the common, hidden beyond the houses. “All those people think I’m going to save them somehow.”
“Okay, I can see how that would be a bit much.” Kylie dropped her hand to squeeze mine. “You don’t have to do it, right? I mean, your wolfman is always going on about having a choice and making his own decisions. You get to do that too. If you really don’t think you’re up for the whole shifter queen gig, couldn’t you tell them you’re out, that they should go find some other mate?”
I paused. I hadn’t really considered that possibility before. “I guess so. But then the kin-groups will be on their own, nothing uniting them. From what they’ve said, it’s always been the dragon shifter doing that. And I’m the only one around.” Maybe the only one at all.
What would have happened if my older sisters had survived? Would I have taken on this role at all, or just watched from the sidelines? I hadn’t thought to ask that before, but now the question itched at me. I’d have to ask the guys the next time I had the chance.
Kylie waved her free hand in the air. “I’m just saying, you didn’t sign up for this. It’s your life too. Maybe when you find your mom, she’ll be able to help you figure things out.”
“If I find my mom. I still have no idea why she sent me down into that subway tunnel.” I dipped my hand into my purse and tugged out the crystal slab. It was the closest thing I had to a connection to Mom, so I’d been keeping it with me. But looking at its glossy surface only made me more annoyed. “Why couldn’t she at least have left me a note or something telling me what the hell I’m supposed to do with this?”
Had she meant to tell me more? Thinking back to the voice I’d heard in my head, she’d stopped so abruptly... Because that’d been all she had to say, or because she’d been interrupted? Maybe she’d had to tangle with vampires down there too.
Maybe she hadn’t made it past them, without a squad of alphas to fight beside her.
No. I couldn’t think like that.
I turned the circle, watching the light play off its faintly etched surface. “Let me see?” Kylie said. I handed it to her, and she held it up over her head as if examining the sky through it. She wrinkled her nose and passed it back to me. “Nope. Still not getting it. It’s a really nice piece of abstract art, though.” She waggled her fingers over it. “Maybe you need a little voodoo to activate—”
I registered the moving shadow from the corner of my eye only an instant before a black-furred wolf leapt out of it. That instant saved my life. The wolf lunged straight for my throat, and my reflexes kicked in just soon enough to spin sideways.
The beast hit my shoulder instead, teeth raking my flesh though my shirt sleeve, paws pummeling me to the ground. Pain splintered through my arm. With a gasp, I lashed out with the only thing close to a weapon I had on me—the crystal slab in my hand. I smacked it into the wolf’s skull.
The creature jerked back a few inches, blood dribbling from its mouth. With a snarl, it smashed its paw against the slab. The thick crystal didn’t break, but it jolted from my clutching fingers and tumbled across the grass.
A blur of motion whipped past me. Kylie shrieked. I caught a glimpse of flailing arms and two gray-furred bodies looming over her. Then the wolf snapped at me again. I kicked at its heavy body, slammed my elbow into its jaw, and screamed with all the panic and pain rushing through me.
“Help! Somebody help us!”
The wolf cuffed me across the temple, growling. My head spun. I jabbed out with all my limbs. As long as I kept moving, as long as I kept fighting back, I had a chance. It sank its teeth into my blocking forearm, and a sharper pain radiated through my flesh. A whimper broke from my throat. I kneed at the creature’s belly, but I couldn’t budge it. It scraped its claws across my abdomen with another sear of agony.
Where were those goddamned talons I’d managed to sprout this morning? If I could just shift into the scaled, fire-breathing animal I knew I had in me, I’d show this beast what real hurting was.
But the scrabbling inside me felt more desperate than determined. Every time I tried to reach for the power inside me, the wolf wrenched at my arm or gouged its claws into me again. I couldn’t focus on anything through the haze of pain.
Shouts rang out. The wolf flinched. It took one last bite at my throat, but I managed to knock its muzzle to the side with my throbbing arm. The stink of its rasping breath flooded my nose as its fangs nicked my chin. Then it was springing away.
A thunder of rushing paws echoed around me. A whole pack of wolves shot past me, snarling and snapping at the fleeing animals.
My whole body was on fire—and not the enjoyable kind. I rolled onto my side, toward Kylie. My shredded shirt tugged at my wounds, tacky with blood. More streaked down the hand I reached toward my best friend.
Kylie was sprawled in the grass, her face turned away from me, her arm twisted at an unnatural angle behind her. Her pink pixie-cut was streaked with red.
My fault. I hadn’t protected her. I hadn’t even been able to protect myself.
A few of the running bodies shifted back into human form around us. Nate’s warm hand pressed against my side. “Ren! Quick, we’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Aaron pressed a folded shirt to my side. The sting expanded, and I shuddered. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “You’re already healing. Dragons heal fast.” But even his mild voice came out ragged.
“Kylie,” I said. Marco dropped onto his knees beside me and clasped my hand to stop me from moving my arm any more than I already had. Four women had clustered around my friend. One scratched her own wrist with her teeth and dribbled blood over Kylie’s wounds. The others pressed bandages over them.
“She’s alive,” one of them said, catching my gaze. “We’ll make sure she stays that way. No rogue will take a life on our watch. I’ll empty my own body of blood before I let that happen.”
Alive. Kylie was alive. A small shiver of relief passed through me. Not enough to dislodge the knot of guilt in my stomach, but I finally let myself sag into the grass.
Aaron was right. A splintering heat was crawling up to my skin from inside me now, knitting my flesh back together. At least that part of my shifter powers didn’t need me to coax it into working.
The sensation hurt almost as bad as getting the wounds in the first place. My eyelids drooped as exhaustion rolled through me with it.
“What did they do to her?” a voice said from over me. Was that West? I’d never heard him sound so pained.
“Bit and scratched her up, but nothing too deep for her to heal on her own,” Aaron said. “They were clearly t
rying to do a lot worse. Did you catch any of them?”
“Not exactly.” West spat out the words. “A few of the others pounced on one of the coyotes, but they didn’t stop to ask questions. And he’s never going to be answering any now. The others took off too fast. Rogues.”
“They all looked like canine-kin,” Nate remarked.
“They aren’t my kin,” West snapped. “No matter what they look like.”
“Of course the rogue group would send canines for an attack here,” Aaron said. “They’d have been hoping you wouldn’t smell them approaching, since they’d blend in with the locals.” He smoothed his hand over my hair. I opened my eyes, and he gave me a tight smile. “Good thing we started on the self-defense lessons.”
“I couldn’t get it off me,” I murmured, my throat hoarse. “I tried—I couldn’t stop them—”
“Hey,” Nate said. “You stopped them from killing you. That’s all that matters.”
Marco straightened up. “So they already know we’re here. That’s a pity. We’ll have to assume they’re following our movements from now on.”
Were we going to move? I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want the guys to go. If they left...
My thoughts jumbled in my head. I ached too much to set them straight. I tipped my head, and my gaze caught on the crystal slab.
It was sitting in the grass, leaning against a rock where it had fallen. A splash of blood had splattered across its clear face. Splattered and seeped darker into the lines and dots of the etching. I stared at it, my vision doubling and steadying again as my body throbbed. A memory rippled past my eyes.
Mom, perched at our dining room table. Pouring over a map on her tablet. I’d glanced over her shoulder as I’d walked by, and she’d tapped the app closed.
What are you looking at? I’d asked her, and she’d said, Nothing for you to worry about. And two days later, she’d vanished.
The lines and speckles—I hadn’t seen their exact pattern before, but I’d seen patterns like them. They were laid out like a map’s roads, rivers, and towns. They’d looked so random before, but now, at that angle, with them drawn so starkly in my blood, the full picture swam into focus.