The Enforcer (Fire's Edge)

by Abigail Owen

  She dropped her gaze to his face. Even in repose he appeared serious…strong. It seemed impossible that this hard man could give in to any weakness like that.

  “His nervous system is failing, causing pain and numbness.”

  She barely knew Drake. At this point she might know him carnally even better than she did as a person, his body speaking to hers in a way that drew a response she’d been unable to ignore or resist. Cami seriously doubted he’d put up with that kind of affliction for long.

  “Can he be…healed?”

  “In theory.” A grim undertone to Rune’s words had Cami lifting her head to regard his expression, trying to suss out what that meant.

  “How?”

  “If he finds his mate and successfully turns her.”

  A spark of emotion she couldn’t pin down pulsed within her at the thought. But the way Rune said that sounded…doubtful. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a problem?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Beyond finding his mate at all, even though he’s been searching and waiting for over seven hundred years?”

  That long? “Well…yeah. Other than that.”

  “Drake had an opportunity with a woman here recently, and he passed.”

  Something ugly that she refused to define slithered through her at the thought of this man mating some other faceless woman. “Who?”

  Rune shook his head. “That’s his story to tell. However, the ‘why’ I will let you in on. Drake believes that he’s too far along. That he’ll kill any woman he tries to mate either way. Either desperation will cause him to choose wrong and she’ll die in his flames. Or…”

  He paused, lips going flat. “Or they’ll successfully mate but it’s too late and she won’t heal him. When he dies, she will, too.”

  Right. She vaguely remembered this from Dragon Mates 101. Once the bond between mates solidified, and the mark on her neck appeared permanently, if one mate died, the other followed their destined partner to the grave. Something about the fates’ way of guaranteeing no mate ever lived without the other half of their soul.

  Drake had passed on a chance to save himself in order to avoid the risk of killing this other woman.

  Despite herself, Cami’s lips pulled up at one corner in a half smile. “Yup. All bark,” she murmured to herself.

  But Rune’s advanced hearing caught it. “Don’t you believe it,” he warned, going cold and hard on her. “His bite is way worse.”

  But not for me. Cami had no idea what made her so sure of that, but she was.

  Everything she’d been told led her to only one conclusion for that. “Am I his mate?” she asked Rune.

  The man’s jaw went stone hard, muscles working under the skin, and she could see the debate raging behind his fathomless eyes.

  These last months, she’d also learned that, the way the mating system currently worked for most dragons, a woman was not told who might be her mate or any information about the symbol that would appear on her neck under the burn of dragon fire. The idea was to avoid influencing her decision unduly.

  But Rune, obviously, had other ideas, given how he was helping her avoid the current system. Would he tell her the truth?

  “Maybe,” he said finally, the word dropping between them like a stone in a still pond, the ripples stretching across every inch of the surface of the water, disturbing everything in their path. “The mark on your neck is his family mark—Chandali. That said, he also has a large family with many branches. His is one of the most ancient lines. You already know that Pytheios himself is of this line, which means the Alliance will hunt you down if they learn of your existence before you are mated and give you to the High King whether you are destined mates or not.”

  Nausea rolled through Cami at the mere thought of simply being handed over to her death. An agonizing death by fire, based on the accounts she’d been given. Not to mention rape if she had to be forced.

  Rune leveled a serious gaze on her. “You have to be sure. Both of you. He won’t be, which means you have to be even more sure. Are you?” He glanced significantly at the man lying unconscious on the mattress.

  Was she? Could she be sure of a connection based on brief, and arguably contentious, dialogue and a quick tumble in the sheets that left her wanting more? No way was she risking her life on a maybe. On lust or her need to find her mate so she could get back to living her life without feeling like a forest fire waiting to happen.

  She barely knew this man.

  “No,” she said. The word was heavy on her tongue.

  “Then don’t say anything to him. Not yet.”

  Cami didn’t need a map to see where Rune was headed with that thought. She didn’t need to know Drake well to realize that if he was determined to throw himself on his sword, he would. “I understand.”

  “Do you?” Rune pushed. “He may be one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen, definitely the best tracker, and loyal to a fault to those he considers family. But…he’s not exactly easy.”

  “You mean he’s a stubborn, argumentative ass?” Cami asked. She dropped to sit on the mattress, tempted to take Drake’s hand. “I figured that out already.”

  And strangely sort of liked that about the guy. Weird.

  “He’d rather be left the fuck alone.” Drake’s dark voice curled around her, drawing her gaze down to his face and setting her heart off on a dead sprint.

  Shit. How much had he heard? She didn’t dare glance at Rune. “You’re awake. Again.” She almost rolled her eyes at such an inane comment. Obviously, he was.

  Drake didn’t bother to answer, turning those unusual reddish-brown eyes to Rune. “What is she still doing in here?”

  Rune shrugged. “Somebody has to care for your decrepit butt, and apparently she doesn’t mind your scowling face.”

  “I kind of like it, actually,” she said.

  Cami almost laughed as Drake’s expression descended into the exact scowl Rune had described. Fearsome, off-putting. She should run a mile if she was smart.

  But she’d come here with a total stranger who told her he was a dragon and she would be one too someday. Smart went out the door a while ago.

  “She talks too much,” Drake said.

  “She is sitting right here,” she pointed out with starch in her voice. “And she thinks you don’t talk enough. If you are in pain or about to pass out…” She gave him a significant stare. “Then damn well speak up.”

  “I don’t need a nurse.” He gritted the protest between clenched teeth.

  “No?” Cami was the one to challenge that idiotic statement.

  “Not yet, dammit,” he snapped. “I’m not on my deathbed, yet.” He glanced over at Rune. “I take it you told her.”

  Maybe he hadn’t heard too much.

  Rune nodded.

  Drake returned his glower her way. “I don’t want the others knowing what’s wrong with me.”

  “They couldn’t exactly miss you passing out,” she said in a dry voice.

  That only served to deepen his glare which he kept trained intently on her until she huffed a sigh.

  “Fine.” She lifted up one hand and made a zipping motion across her lips. “Soul of discretion right here.”

  “I don’t want your help, either.”

  “Too bad.” If she was going to figure out if they were destined mates, no way was that going to fly. Besides, the man wouldn’t take care of himself. Like every strong, independent, manly-man of her experience, being sick was a thing to be tolerated or ignored, not actually dealt with. Two years ago, her father had practically keeled over from pneumonia when he’d insisted he was fine and worked through a cold that turned to bronchitis, then filled his lungs with fluid.

  Men. Most of them deserved an eye roll or three.

  “Did we finally find someone who’ll put up with your shit?” Rune chuckled
. “I can see you’re in good hands.” On that pronouncement he headed for the door.

  Drake levered to his elbows. “Don’t you dare—”

  The door closed behind Rune with a quiet snick, and possibly another dark chuckle from the man as he walked away down the hall.

  Drake turned his glare her way. “I don’t want you in here.”

  “Okay.” She got to her feet.

  His eyebrows shot up.

  She had to hide a smile. “I do have better things to do than watch you sleep.” Not really, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’ll check on you later.”

  “Don’t bother,” he called as she followed Rune’s example, closing the door on his words.

  Chapter Five

  Cell phone to her ear, Cami paced the rough floor of Drake’s cavern bedroom, listening to her mother describe everything going on at home without her. Rune had brought the phone here, rather than making her come to the surveillance room to take the call.

  Meanwhile, Drake was still out cold. He’d barely woken enough to eat a handful of times over the last few days, but she couldn’t tell if he was recuperating or growing weaker.

  At least she wasn’t worried about him overhearing.

  The problem was Rune. Even as she tried to focus, the man pretending not to listen had her on edge, his metaphorical clock ticking loudly in her ear. He was timing this call, and she only had minutes. Paranoid was too gentle a term for him.

  Minutes is not enough time. Even hours wouldn’t be enough.

  After everything she’d learned—everything she’d seen and experienced these last months—she knew this mountain, far from home, was where she had to be. Hell, if that wildfire hadn’t taken out her family ranch, she would’ve with the sparks that tended to fly from her body when strong emotion stirred inside her.

  She glanced at Drake and wrinkled her nose.

  Her patient wasn’t helping that situation. If anything, her sparks going off had gone into overdrive lately around him. Both the question about them as mates, which she still wasn’t all that enamored of, and the constant attitude thrown at her when he bothered to wake up, didn’t exactly fall under the peace and quiet edict Rune said she needed.

  But no one else would go near Drake. Plus, inexplicably, a tiny part of her didn’t want to let anyone else be the one to take care of him.

  What did that mean?

  “What do you mean the contractor pushed back the date?” Cami demanded, yanking her focus back to the conversation with her mother.

  Being so far away from her family while they were in the middle of rebuilding their ranch was about the worst thing she could think of. The Carrillos were tight-knit.

  “Don’t worry, mija,” her mother said. “The weather is causing problems, that’s all. It’s been raining.”

  Cami put a hand to her head. Her family were packed into the one surviving house like quadruplets in a womb. Months to rebuild and needing to stay close by for the goats meant they couldn’t afford to stay in hotels all that time, even with insurance covering the costs of rebuilding and a portion of the relocation needs.

  “I should come home,” she said.

  Rune slowly raised his head and narrowed his pitch black eyes, made even darker by the dim lighting in the room.

  He’d been against her staying in contact with her family at all, but Cami had refused to come otherwise. This was their compromise. A fifteen-minute phone call on a burner satellite phone once every few days. She didn’t question how he got so many of the expensive devices.

  Cami made a face at him. She knew she shouldn’t even offer, but not being there hurt her heart. A physical pain that threatened to take her legs out from under her.

  “No,” her mother said quickly.

  Across the way, Rune relaxed against the wall—his sensitive shifter senses allowing him to hear that—and turned back to yet another device held in his hands. Why was he allowed a permanent device anyway?

  “What you’re doing is important, too,” her mother continued.

  The big, fat lie she’d fed her family loomed over her head like a tidal wave, stuffing up the air around her until she couldn’t breathe. She’d told them she was in Texas, attending A&M for a semester-long course on animal husbandry to help on their goat ranch.

  But she wasn’t in Texas, dammit. Instead, she was hiding with dragon shifters in a mountain in South America. Not quite the same. Even after she’d contacted him, it had taken Rune a solid month to convince her to come at all, and she still had a gazillion doubts buzzing in her head and her heart. In the end, the escalating situation with her sparking fires did it, not his arguments.

  Cami gritted her teeth to keep the truth from spewing out. She never lied to her mother.

  Never.

  But imagine how that conversation would go…

  “Mom. It turns out I’m a rare dragon shifter mate.”

  They’d probably laugh then, thinking she was messing with them.

  She’d want to show the glowing, maybe a few small sparks as long as they didn’t trigger a fire. Only she couldn’t force her body to do it as proof. She had zero control over the phenomenon or she wouldn’t be in this damn situation. Sparks tended to jump off her like fleas abandoning a drowning dog.

  The thing was, she’d believed Rune more easily than she would’ve thought, because, deep in her gut, she’d known her life was meant for…more.

  Something else.

  She’d always felt guilty about that because she loved her family and the ranch, and disappointed in herself because she couldn’t bring herself to go chase that dream.

  The likelihood of their believing her was about zip, except they trusted their daughter. If she managed to convince them—which would probably involve making them watch Rune shift into a massive obsidian dragon—risking giving her father’s weak heart a reason to stop, then there would be crying and yelling and arguing over what to do.

  Besides, humans weren’t allowed to know about dragon shifters. Apparently, Rune still stuck to a few of the laws of his people. Their people. Not that it mattered. Even if she could tell them, her new reality would only break her family.

  No. The lie was better.

  Necessary.

  “There’s no room to put you anyway,” her mother teased. “Maybe you’ll meet a young man—”

  “What young man?” Her father’s gruff voice could be heard in the background.

  Cami smiled. She could picture the two of them in the lemon-yellow kitchen with the peeling wallpaper she’d been meaning to replace for a year. Her father at the table eating lunch. Her mother standing near the sink, even though they’d replaced the phone that attached to the wall with a cordless one way back in the nineties. She always took her calls in that same spot, regardless.

  We still live there, she reminded herself. The fire may have taken a lot, but, by some miracle, it hadn’t claimed their lives or the main house.

  Again, Rune lifted his gaze from the screen in his hands and canted his head, giving her a pointed stare.

  Right. She should be playing up the “boyfriend” situation. A man was one of the reasons why she was here after all. Technically.

  She flicked a glance at Drake, then shook her head at Rune. He gave her a flat-lipped stare in return. According to him, the few mates he’d encountered who still had to factor in family found it easier to make a new relationship the reason for their new lives, blaming a “husband’s” job for taking them far away and so forth. Family swallowed that reason more readily. Cami dropped her head back to glare at the stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling, sort of wishing one would drop on his head.

  Lying to her mother, to her family, sat as comfortably as bugs crawling under her skin, and now she was doing it again.

  She cleared her throat, interrupting her parents’ good-natured discussion still
in progress. “Actually, I have met someone…nice.”

  Irascible. Stubborn. Silent. Maybe dying.

  “What?” Her mother’s voice rose on the word.

  “What did she say?” her father asked in the background only to be shushed.

  Cami could clearly picture her mother waving an impatient hand at him.

  “A young man?” her mother asked.

  That made Cami grin. “No. I was thinking of batting for the other team and falling for a woman.”

  “A young man is a big deal. Who is he?”

  Here was the difficult part. How to give details without giving details. She refused to describe Drake until she knew for sure. In the meantime, she didn’t want to tell her parents her “young man” had dark hair and eyes. What if he ended up blond and blue-eyed?

  Though, according to Rune, most red dragons were darker in coloring. Because dragon shifters mated humans from all over the world, they were mixed ethnicities. Red dragons were based out of Mount Everest.

  Still, better to stay vague. No way could her mother miss it if she said her new mate was one ethnicity and he ended up a different one. Or any other of a thousand details her mother would ask for.

  Her gaze strayed to Drake’s dark head again. Silken black hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes.

  “He’s one of the people in my new group of…friends.” That at least was true enough. Her mate would be a dragon shifter.

  “What’s his name? What does he look like? What does he do?” Her mother rattled off the questions like a stream of consciousness.

  “Give me that phone,” her father demanded. Then his voice grew louder. “Don’t make any hasty decisions, Cami. You make sure he’s worthy of you. Sí?”

  “Sí, claro, Papá. This is me you’re talking to. Not Isa.” Or Val for that matter. Her sisters, younger than Cami by seven years and only a year apart themselves, had a tendency to boy craziness. Granted, they were also still in their early twenties when romance still seemed…hopeful and fun.

  “That’s my Cami.” Her father was the only one who called her that, like his own pet name for her. Cami still had no idea why her parents had chosen her name, but she’d always liked it.