by Abigail Owen
“Can you get her to stop?” Drake asked. Growled more like.
“Why don’t you pick her up?”
Drake’s frown morphed to an expression closer to horror as he stared the tiny animal down. “Stop that,” he said, when she landed another of her fellow goats on its back.
Sensing he was talking to her, Clover flew back to his side, circling him and bleating. With a grrrr of annoyance, Drake bent and scooped the animal off the ground.
Immediately, Clover quieted and snuggled into his arms, tucking her nose into his armpit, practically like a damn cat.
Cami stilled at the sight, delight and something softer, more dangerous, taking hold inside her. Drake, however, turned to granite, his lip curled in irritation.
Cami couldn’t help it and burst out laughing. “That’s what happens when you save a life, I guess.”
She shook her head and went back to feeding the goats.
A hole of silence opened up behind her, growing until even the breeze through the trees stopped its soft rustle.
She finished what she was doing and turned to face him. Her lungs seized at the way he was watching her. An odd combination of wariness and reluctance…but with a shadow of relief in the way his shoulders had eased, his stance loosening.
“How long have you known?” he asked quietly.
“Rune told me before Skylar sent me to San Francisco.”
His eyes narrowed at that. “You didn’t say anything.”
She glanced away with a shrug. “I didn’t think you’d want me to. I get the feeling my gratitude would make you uncomfortable.”
The way he shifted on his feet at even the mention of it told her she was right. So did his next words. “I don’t need your gratitude.”
“No?” A spark of mischief had her wanting to mess with him a bit, just to see his reaction. But also because containing her thanks was a growing problem, making her damn antsy. “How about my undying devotion?”
Drake’s lips went flat. So did his eyes. “Not that, either.”
And she almost laughed then but managed to keep a straight face. Her dragon shifter was so easy to mess with. “Don’t I owe you some kind of life debt? I have to stay by your side until I save your life in return. Isn’t that how it works?”
“Save someone else.” Now his jaw was going all tight and the laughter bubbled inside her, contained like fizzy lifting drink.
“Can I at least say thank—”
“No.”
The teasing urge disappeared as Cami narrowed her eyes at his curt interruption. She strode across the pen to glare up at him. “No way are you getting away without at least a thanks.”
“I don’t want it.”
Stubborn man. She couldn’t simply sweep this under the rug, this huge thing he’d done, not only for her and her father, her uncle, and two of her cousins, but for Clover, and the other goats they’d had with them. A new urge rode in on the bubbles still trapped inside her. An urge she should ignore. Except she didn’t want to.
Just a small show of her thanks, then she’d let it go. Walk away.
Before he could guess her actions and stop her, Cami went up on her tiptoes. She took his face in her hands and placed a soft kiss on his stubble-covered cheek, the hair raspy against her lips even as his skin was smooth.
And warm.
And familiar in a way that made her heart ache.
She meant to step back, immediately return his personal space to him, but the heat of him under her palms, the feel of him, ensnared her and she paused, her face near to his. Lips a whisper away, because he’d turned his head slightly.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Her lips were close enough that she brushed the skin of his jaw. Barely, but boy did she feel it to her very core. A molten heat that poured to the rest of her.
Neither of them moved or said anything. They stood there, Cami on tiptoe, pressed against his arm, Clover still between them, their faces close, the sound of their breath mingling and twisting together.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Then he speared his hand into her hair, cupping the back of her head, and brought his lips down on hers in a soft, soul-possessing kiss that she felt to the bottoms of her feet.
Barely a sweep of his lips across hers, but the way she held her at the same time, so fierce…the dichotomy of the two sensations wrapped around her like a promise.
“More,” she whispered against his lips, her thoughts escaping in the hush.
As if compelled by that one word, he deepened the kiss, lips turning demanding and utterly possessive against hers.
Her body, already on that precipice when anywhere near him, came to throbbing, fizzing life as she opened for him, urgency bringing small cries of need up her throat. He swallowed every whimper and fed them back to her with deep groans of his own.
Lips that were always so hard, so unforgiving, were soft against hers. Soft but challenging. A combination that turned her on to the point of aching pain, like she’d come out of her skin at any second.
Clover, still grasped in Drake’s other arm, gave a plaintive baaah of protest and an awful stillness seized them both.
No. She wanted to wail the word.
She’d barely thought the word before Drake lifted his head, and any breath left in her lungs punched out of her at the sight of eyes fully ablaze in crimson flames.
“Fuck,” Drake snapped.
He released her and stepped back, glaring at her like this was entirely her fault.
“Dammit, Cami. We can’t be doing this.” He wiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth as if erasing the taste of her, the feel of her from his body.
That one small action sent a legion of arrows straight through her heart which took to bleeding internally. She lifted her chin to fire back. “Why not?”
If anything, the flames in his eyes glowed brighter. She could practically feel the ripples of heat disturbing the late autumn air from here.
“I can’t.” Under the words was a deep growl, no doubt the sound of his dragon barely leashed inside him.
She shook her head. “That’s not good enough.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
She clamped her lips shut and waited.
Mouth set in a grim line, he blew out a heavy breath. “I can’t ruin your life like that. It would haunt me to the grave.”
Cami’s arms fell to her sides as she stared at him with a dawning sort of frustrated awe. He cared. A lot, if she was reading this right.
Her stomach clenched at the realization.
Before she could even think of what to say to that, Clover lifted her head to complain at him, and Drake loosened his grip that had visibly tightened around the doeling. Then he stalked past Cami, still holding Clover.
Not turning, Cami closed her eyes. “I want you,” she said quietly. She knew the words were the wrong ones to use with this man. But he needed to know. She was so sick of resisting this.
A forlorn bleat had her spinning around to find Clover on the ground staring out the pen with a pathetic face, and Drake disappearing around the charred remains of the barn.
“Damn,” she muttered.
Chapter Fourteen
Drake made his way through the quiet house full of slumbering humans with all the silence his extra senses and training provided him, though not quite on par with Rune. But he managed to escape undetected. Outside, he stalked around the side of what used to be a smaller house, now a pile of ash, avoiding the barn because Clover would out him with her happy noises.
He needed something to think about other than Cami, who he’d left behind in a room smelling of her, where he’d lain in bed aching for her.
I want you.
Her words wouldn’t leave him alone, sweet as that ghoul’s siren song. Sweeter even. Because, whether she knew it or not, she could b
e his salvation.
He couldn’t deny the reality anymore, no matter how much he wanted a different reason. Too many clues pointed in the same direction. Hell, it was practically a neon fucking sign with an arrow saying, “Cami is the reason, dumbass.”
Cami staved off his symptoms. If he put too much distance between them, the tingling and numbness returned. Touch her, and his symptoms disappeared entirely. Which likely meant only one thing…
Unable to sleep, he’d decided to finish the damn fence they’d been working on. With irritation as his constant, uncomfortable companion, he gathered the equipment they’d been using yesterday. If he wasn’t going to shut off his brain, he could at least get shit done.
“What are you doing?”
The soft sound of Cami’s voice had him whirling with a snarl, the fire igniting in his belly in an instant, heat rumbling inside him like the pounding of drums. Strangely, his dragon didn’t stir, though. This was all Drake.
“Dammit, Cami.” He straightened, banking the flames inside him. “Don’t sneak up on a dragon shifter like that. I could’ve snapped your neck.”
She raised her eyebrows along with her hands. “Sorry. I figured you’d hear me. I wasn’t being quiet.”
No. He’d just been deep in thought. A stupid move, given Nidhogg’s presence. Drake hadn’t been as careful coming out of headquarters as going in, and Nidhogg had stumbled across him. The dumb fucker thought he’d covered his tracks with a skunk. Wrong. But Drake let him believe they were all ignorant to his presence. He hadn’t had a whiff of him all day today. That didn’t mean he wasn’t around.
Drake went back to gathering up the gear.
“What is up with you?” Cami asked. “I know it’s not just what I said to you.”
That was a part of it, and not only because it made him wish for things he couldn’t damn well let himself wish for.
Cami stepped closer and he tensed when she put a hand on his arm, stopping him from what he was doing. “I know talking isn’t your thing.”
She was right. It wasn’t. He shrugged out from under her tempting touch, though her warmth lingered like a physical ghost.
Cami kept at him. “I can’t fix it if you don’t talk to me.”
He stared at her. It’s not your job to fix this. It’s mine. Drake broke eye contact, gathered his gear, and started hiking through the trees.
Cami hurried to keep up, her steps sure and confident. This was her land. She probably could walk it blindfolded with noise-cancelling headphones and not miss a step. “You’re starting to scare me, letting my imagination get away with all sorts of horrible things.”
Drake halted so fast that Cami bounced off him. If she’d come at him with a knife, she couldn’t have made him hurt more. His job was to protect her.
Possibly his last job in this lifetime. Maybe the gods would allow him to come back as a hellhound. The infamous creatures were rumored to be great warriors with unfinished business. If he died now, this woman would definitely be unfinished business.
Drake slowly turned to face her, ready to put her doubts to rest. Ready to lie. Until he caught sight of her eyes, big and dark and full of a fear he’d never seen from his little mate before.
He dropped his gear, stepping into her to take her face in his hands. “I will never let anything happen to you. Do you believe me?”
She wrapped her hands around his wrists, not to pull him away but to hold him there, and held his gaze. “Yes.”
But the fear didn’t leave her eyes.
I’m so fucked. A groan ripped from his throat and Drake bent to lay his lips over hers with the idiotic thought that he’d give her one comforting kiss. No more.
But the moment her lips moved for him, parted so sweetly for him, he was lost. One kiss became two, then three, then he lost count as he lost himself in her. Soothing turned heated and then frantic.
With a haste born both of a desperate surging need and the horrible lingering knowledge that this couldn’t last, had to be the last time, they undressed each other, ending with him kneeling at her feet.
Even through the surge hurrying their actions, he took his time on the way back up, pausing to linger at a small birthmark shaped like a butterfly just above her left hip. He trailed a hand up to cup her mound. Then, as he inserted a finger inside her, testing her readiness, he pressed a soft kiss over the birthmark.
Drake smiled at the hitch in Cami’s breathing, and, if anything, she grew wetter.
Answering need surged and he rose to his feet, picking her up at the same time. He lifted her high only to impale her on his throbbing cock.
Cami’s head dropped back on a long, low moan.
But Drake was far from done.
Using strength that wasn’t failing him tonight, thank the gods, and speed all shifters could lay claim to, he held her up as he pistoned his hips.
Cami’s body milked him, squeezing him so tight with each thrust, a grunt punched from him each time.
“Oh. Oh gods. That’s so—” Cami chanted in his ear, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she held on for the ride.
His little mate was a talker during sex. A fact that, strangely, only had him growing harder with each word.
“Good,” she moaned. “So good. I’m going to…” She broke off to gasp. “I’m going to.”
She clamped her legs around him in a brutal grip and bore down on his cock, moaning her pleasure as she came apart around him.
Drake followed her into bliss, his own orgasm threatening to take his legs out from under them both as he came long and hard inside her. Thank the gods that dragons didn’t carry disease and pregnancy could only happen if both parties willed it.
As they rolled down from the high, their harsh breaths filled the calm night air. Cami dropped her head to his shoulder, burrowing into him, and Drake realized the wintry temperatures couldn’t be comfortable for her. “You have to be freezing.”
She shook her head against him.
“We should go back inside.”
Cami lifted her head to stare at him with an unfathomable expression. Then she dropped a soft kiss on his lips. “Not until you tell me what has you so on edge.”
Drake bit back an inappropriate spurt of amusement. He should’ve known this stubborn woman would only let sex distract her for so long.
He also knew she was right. To a certain extent.
“We should talk,” he said.
She should know about Nidhogg and the danger he presented if he knew about her. And that was only knowing her as a human. If the Alaz interrogator figured out she was a mate, all bets were off. That mark on her neck wasn’t just Drake’s. They’d already been through this nightmare with Sera and look where that had landed the team.
“Okay.” She drew the word out.
Could he risk what he’d need to do to have this conversation securely? Her not knowing everything they were up against could be worse. Especially if she talked openly about anything relating to Rune or dragons where Nidhogg could overhear.
Damn.
“Not here.” He lowered her to the ground. “Get dressed.”
They both did so in silence, then he grabbed Cami by the hand and tugged her with him through trees in a different direction, up and over two sets of hills to a clearing he’d seen on their way to repair fences.
“You got me here. Now what?” Cami smiled, though the strain around her eyes told him she was just covering for her own nerves.
Drake put a finger to his lips, an indication of a need for silence. “You stay under the cover of these trees. I’m going to shift and scout the area. If it’s safe, I’ll come back for you. Understand?”
Without hesitation, Cami nodded.
Damn if that kind of trust didn’t twist his insides up and scramble his brains, and his good intentions. Walking away from the team and his si
ster had been the hardest thing Drake had ever done, and he’d had years to prepare for it. Walking away from Cami…
Backing into the clearing, he shifted. For a split second, as he reached his full size, his dragon took over completely. He rushed closer to Cami and lowered his head to inhale her scent and nudge her with his nose.
Cami tilted her head and smiled, then laid a hand on his snout, with his massive teeth close enough she’d brush them if she leaned a little nearer. Only her scent told him that she held no fear. “I’ll be fine,” she whispered.
His dragon rumbled a bit then ceded full control back to Drake who turned and flew into the night sky. Fuck, that had been close. Not since his first shift or two had he been that on the precipice of losing himself to the animal within. The question was, had that been because of the disease slowly decimating his body from the inside out? Or because of Cami?
Focus.
Right. He needed to make sure he and Cami weren’t being watched before he took her to the Huracán headquarters. Only there could he safely tell her everything without having to worry who or what could hear, because no matter how many times he checked the area, he couldn’t be certain someone wouldn’t come during the conversation.
He planned to tell her about the monsters coming for the team, and, by proximity and what she was, possibly for her. Not that he’d let them near her.
Satisfied no other dragon was anywhere near them, he returned to the small clearing. Once he landed, he lowered himself to his belly. “You’ve ridden before?”
Cami emerged from the darkness. “Yes.”
“Hop on.”
Again, she showed zero hesitation, using his forefeet to climb up and wedge herself between one of the spikes he’d raised on his back, right at the juncture of his neck and shoulders, her small form hardly a blip on his back. Just the pressure of her presence, though, had his focus divided, half worried about her. Though she wore a thick jacket to ward off the cold of oncoming winter in the mountains, he stoked the fire in his belly, a trick Finn had used with Delaney, to warm her when she was human.
“Hold on.” Sending prayers to the gods and fates and anyone else listening in that his body wouldn’t falter, he took off.