Dragons For Hire: A Dragon Shifter Romance

by Sadie Sears

  What if Glenda and Lila didn’t get the girls out in time? Could Cam hurt them? Surely, even spelled, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do that. He hadn’t been in his right mind, certainly, but he hadn’t been violent.

  I argued with myself over what might happen when I saw Cam again. Would I really give him the ring?

  Trusting him wasn’t the problem. It was knowing what Mary might’ve done to him.

  And I’d been so distant. I’d pretty much told him we couldn’t ever be together. I trusted him, but how could he trust me?

  But my intuition was pinging left and right. No matter how much I tried to focus on it, or to see if the spirits were trying to tell me something, I couldn’t quite make out what it meant.

  He wasn’t there when I got home. Nobody was, or at least they didn’t show themselves. But Cam was supposed to go shower at his house. That would take a few minutes. I prayed fervently that Theo was right about running water.

  Unsure what to do, I got out of the car and sat in the living room. But I couldn’t stand being inside and not knowing when everyone got there. I moved to the front porch, but that didn’t last long either. It was too cold out.

  Damn it!

  Glenda and the girls saved me by driving up. “Mom!” Shae yelled. She jumped out of the car before Glenda fully got it in park and tore up the porch to throw herself in my arms.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” I said. “But you’ve got to go.”

  Glenda paused as she rounded the front of her car. “Why?”

  “Cam is coming here, and something strange is going on with Mary. I think he’s got a plan that he can’t say out loud.” There was no other explanation. “Can you take the girls to Lila’s?”

  Glenda nodded. “Of course.”

  I kissed Shae repeatedly, then nudged her back toward the car. “I love you. Do as Glenda says.”

  Shae walked back to the vehicle much slower and sadder. I knew she wanted to stay, but it just wasn’t safe.

  “Stay with Zoe and Glenda,” I called. “I’ll come for you very soon, okay?”

  She nodded and waved.

  I walked inside and put on some milk for hot cocoa. I didn’t know that any of the dragons would want some, but shit, I had to have something to do.

  A thump out front made me jump. Shit. He was here. I turned off the stove and hurried down the hall to the front door. I flung it open to see Cam frozen on the other side, caught in the act of reaching for the doorknob.

  Cam recoiled and grinned nervously. “Heh, sorry.”

  He wore only a pair of jogging pants. “Come in,” I offered. “I know you dragons like the cool air, but it’s damn near freezing out there. Let me get you a shirt.”

  I turned away from the door and walked down the hall toward my laundry room but paused when I didn’t hear any footsteps behind me. “You coming?” I asked.

  Cam had his hands in his pockets and still looked strange. His demeanor was off. I tried to find that place inside me that would allow me to see his aura, but I couldn’t get there. It wouldn’t show to me. I just couldn’t get in the right state of mind.

  “What are you doing?” I waited for him to move before continuing my way down the hall.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Cam replied. He walked into the hall slowly, looking around as if waiting for someone to jump out and yell boo!

  Once he was inside, I hurried on and grabbed an old t-shirt from my clean laundry pile. “Here,” I said, once back in the hall. “Put this on.”

  The long sleeves were a little short on him, but it worked. “Now, what’s going on?”

  He took my hand and led me into the living room. He was still acting strangely, but I wanted to make sure he’d processed what I’d said in the woods. “Cam, Shae and I had a long talk, and we connected with Riley, and she’s on board with us. We can be together.”

  He smiled tremulously and then nodded. But his gaze kept going for the window. “That’s great.” His words were right, but his tone was distracted. He looked at my ring, then out the living room entry toward the front door.

  “Cam,” I whispered. “What is it?”

  He looked at me imploringly and I got the feeling again that he couldn’t say it outright.

  “Sophie, I need the ring.”

  I almost refused him, but my gut told me it was okay, even with as oddly as he was acting.

  As soon as I slipped it off my finger, the wind outside the house picked up enough that I heard it. Tree branches scraped against the windows as I held out the ring, and then as Cam held a little satchel open and I dropped my precious family heirloom into it, an enormous clap of thunder banged overhead, making me duck.

  Cam smiled, and lightning flashed, illuminating his eerie grin as the power went out.

  It was still daylight outside, so the house didn’t go dark, but the effect was creepy as fuck.

  I pulled back and tried to reevaluate the situation.

  What had I done?

  Cam stood and turned toward the hallway without a word to me.

  “Cam?” I turned and watched him walk away.

  “Trust me,” he whispered.

  Closing my eyes, I connected with my innermost self and sucked in a deep breath. My insides were shaking, but I nodded. This was right.

  “I do.” Jumping up, I followed him down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the back door. He stepped off my back porch and that’s when I saw her.

  Mary walked out of the woods behind my house. She held out her hands, and Cam walked straight to her. “Hello, my love,” Mary crooned.

  Cam stepped into her arms, and as she dragged her fingers through his hair, I wanted to vomit. He had my ring in his pocket. Was he about to hand it to her?

  I trusted him. Or I thought I did. But had I just been played? All over a stupid ring? My heart splintered as Mary looked lovingly at Cam and stroked his cheek with the back of her finger.

  My intuition went nuts, but I ignored it, focusing on the pain of seeing my mate being cherished by another woman.

  How had this happened?

  20

  Cameron

  The bluish-purple opal glinted in the sun when I retrieved it from the pouch. Mary smirked victoriously at Sophie over my shoulder, who stood on the porch looking horrified. Her sharp nails ran lightly across my scalp, making my stomach turn as I maintained a smile.

  “The first lesson any smart woman should know is to never trust a man.” Mary laughed and grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulling my head to hers. “They have their uses, I’ll admit, but they’re entirely too easy to manipulate.”

  I grinned in agreement because it was too true. Finally, the moment had come. I knelt before her as she let go of my hair and held out her hand. I grabbed it and slid the ring on, then manipulated the metal to fit her snugly. Her laughter echoed across the yard. I looked over my shoulder to see Sophie cover her mouth. Her pain radiated to me from back there on the porch. She thought I’d betrayed her. Damn it. I’d tried to give her little hints, but she hadn’t picked it up.

  I hoped Glenda had been right about this thing. If she’d been wrong, we were all likely dead. It would be bad enough if Mary killed Sophie and me, but my brothers were all around us, waiting.

  Mary froze in shock. She lifted her hand, but instead of the same skin I’d put the ring on, an old, decrepit hand snapped up. She looked at the ring on it, which I’d replaced with the witch stone in an impressive sleight of hand. I had to admit, I was pretty damn proud of being able to replace the stone on the ring for the witch stone I’d found in the river. I slipped another pouch out of my pocket and stepped away from Mary.

  “Sorry,” I said coldly. “You’re not my type.”

  I tossed the second pouch, and it soared through the air toward Sophie. She fumbled it for a second before latching onto the string. With a confused expression, she pulled the real ring out and instinctively put it back on her finger. She stared at it in shock. “What is this?”

  Her sh
ock turned to happiness as the wind died down, the creaking of the trees stopped, and the unnatural clouds rolled back. Sophie had put the ring back in its rightful place. She laughed as she looked at me and clenched her hand around the ring. Mary, however, trembled with rage and fear.

  “How dare you?” she shrieked. “What have you done? That spell should’ve lasted for days!” Even as Mary’s emotions heightened and her face turned redder and darker, nothing happened around us.

  Her magic had been subdued by the stone on her finger, and it would take her a while to figure out how to get it off. I’d tightened the metal almost to the point of causing her pain. I’d worried it wouldn’t work. She must’ve been elated with triumph, thinking she’d won, and hadn’t thought to make sure I wasn’t fooling her.

  “What have you done?” she repeated in a shriek.

  I rolled up my sleeves to show her. As soon as I’d stepped under the water in the shower, the roaring in my head had turned into my dragon’s consciousness, the running water weakening the magic in the ink she’d painted over my torso. When I’d realized what was happening, what she’d almost done, I scrubbed my skin until it turned pink. Mary had played on old insecurities while I was emotionally and physically weakened. Everything I’d seen, everything they’d done when I was lost in the darkness, had been all in my head.

  There were still faint marks in some places, but the magic had been disrupted enough to give me my mind back. The whole situation made me rethink a case we’d opened up a few months ago. My brothers and I had assumed that wizards had been behind manipulating a local dragon into believing he’d found his destined mate. The wizards we’d apprehended just before the dragon claimed the wrong mate had been experimenting with dragon blood, so it’d been the logical conclusion.

  Now, though, I wondered if it had been Mary testing that very spell, waiting for the perfect chance to strike at Sophie and Shae. The feelings I’d felt toward Mary under the spell were powerful, and similar enough to a destined mate calling that someone who’d never known their mate would’ve been fooled. My dragon had known, though. He knew what the real call felt like. He’d tried to warn me, but Mary had found a way to cut us off and without him, my human side was easy enough to control. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d been in a bad emotional state when it happened.

  Theo stepped up to my side and patted my shoulder. I looked behind me and noticed the others coming out of the woods as well. They’d been there for me after all. I’d tried to send them a message to come with me, but I wasn’t sure it went through. I’d had to be careful so that Mary didn’t sense it.

  Theo must’ve seen the magic on me when he suggested the shower and waited close by to make sure I was back to normal when I arrived. If he hadn’t suggested that and made it make sense to my manipulated self, I likely would’ve been under her influence for days, as she’d expected.

  Mary screamed as her skin wrinkled, knuckles gnarled, and eye sockets deepened. She tried to claw the stone off as her screams turned into a wail not unlike a large cougar, but the ring was too tight, and her knuckles prevented its removal. Her shriek intensified into the most unnatural sound I’d ever heard. I curled my lip in disgust as her skin sagged. Her muscles deteriorated and her clothes loosened on her thinning body.

  “Help me!” she cried, falling to her knees and reaching for us with grotesque hands. “Please! You’re protectors!” She gasped for air between each word.

  I turned away, disgusted, but also fighting the urge to help her. She was right about that much. We were meant to be protectors. But no. If I was going to end this, I was going to watch. I turned back to see Mary’s fingertips turn to ash and blew away on the breeze.

  That was enough. I snatched up the witch stone when it fell to the ground, then turned and looked at my mate. Sophie’s wild gaze snapped to mine as I walked toward her, Mary’s voice slowly dying down behind me. A single tear streaked down her cheek, and I brushed it away, slipping a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Cameron?”

  Lifting her chin, I kissed her long and hard. My dragon quieted in my head, and I felt at peace again. I’d nearly lost the game, but I came out on top in the end with my friends’ help. And now I had Sophie in my arms, and that was all that mattered. The witch disintegrating in the wind behind me didn’t deserve another moment of my energy or thoughts.

  A throat cleared behind me and we separated, Sophie’s cheeks bright pink, but she was smiling. “How in the world did you change that rock into a ring like that?” she asked. “It looked just like mine.”

  “Ether dragon trade secret, I’m afraid.” I laughed at her expression. “I can manipulate metals and most minerals. When I stopped by the house and washed off the spellwork, I remembered to grab the witch stone I’d picked up on our hike a while back. Glenda must’ve realized my plan, or had the same one, because she caught me before I left again and handed me an opal ring that sort of resembled yours. She told me that touching yours could potentially be bad, so I changed the metal in the band to match. I just had to wait for you to take the ring off, which I figured Mary could sense.”

  A hand pushed my head aside, and I smacked it away to see Vince grinning at me. “Finally get your head on straight?”

  “I think so,” I replied. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to get the ghost sensation of the shadow worker off of me. “Mary had me mentally blocked off from my dragon.”

  “We know.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Theo. “When we came to find you, he said he could hear your dragon protesting inside you, but your thoughts were blocked and hidden from him.”

  Sophie tugged on my shirt. “Hopefully all of that is over now? You’re back to yourself?”

  I grinned at my love and pulled her closer. “I most definitely am.”

  Vince inched away, shaking his head but smiling. In my periphery, I saw Taurus and Leath dispersing the ash pile in the garden and Theo wadded up the garments and shoved them into a bag. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for all of their help, but Sophie needed my attention more than they did right that moment. She squealed as I picked her up and carried her inside, whistles and hoots following us into the house until I kicked the door shut behind me.

  As soon as the others were cut off, her lips were on mine. I navigated to the couch with every intention of talking to her before we went any further, but as soon as I set her down, she yanked at my shirt. I growled hungrily and tore it off, keeping my mouth on hers, my fingers twisted in her beautiful golden hair. She drew away briefly to pull her top over her head, then came back for more.

  Her hands roamed over my chest and down to my pants. Just as she released the button-fly, the fireplace behind us roared to life. Sophie yelped and jumped into my arms, and I caught Dom’s grin and thumbs-up through the window. I huffed and stepped away from her long enough to yank the curtains closed, then turned back and froze.

  She’d already finished undressing. It was cool in the house and her nipples were hard. She lifted one hand and gestured to me with her finger—the silent come hither. I didn’t think I could stop myself if I’d tried. Her fingers grabbed my hair as I knelt and gently sucked a nipple into my mouth.

  “Cameron,” she sighed.

  I swirled my tongue around the nub and sucked hard. The scent of her arousal nearly drowned me. Moving on to the second one, I gave it the same adoring attention. Damn, I loved her breasts. I craved the taste of her skin. The smell of her. The sound of her moans. It was all so intoxicating.

  My lips trailed a path down her stomach, and I didn’t even give her time to prepare before plunging my tongue through her folds. She gasped, her knees nearly giving out, but I held her steady. Here, on my knees, I would worship her for the angel she was. Her light had helped me heal. Everything I’d dreamed in that forest had been a lie. Sophie believed in me, and it gave me the strength to believe in myself.

  She held my head for balance as I lifted her leg over my shoulder. I gripped her thighs as
she wobbled on one foot, but she didn’t have the breath to complain. My dragon stirred as the taste of her flooded my senses. I wanted more, needed more. My tongue circled her clit, then stroked back and forth, coming back to circle once more.

  “Cameron, if you make me come like this, I’m gonna fall,” she gasped.

  I released her leg, but not her pussy, and followed her as she carefully backed up to the couch while my tongue continued. As soon as she sat, she wrapped both legs around my head. I pulled her to the very edge, and she bucked into me.

  Opening my senses to her, I was nearly overwhelmed by the ecstasy and love flowing from her. My pants tightened painfully, and I shared in every feeling she gave off. I reached up and caressed her breasts, rubbing the pads of my thumbs over her sensitive nipples. She hissed and arched her back, pressing herself further into my touch.

  “Cam,” she moaned. “Please. Make me come.”

  I hummed, sending the vibration straight to her core, and she cried out. I would gladly make her come over and over again if I got to listen to the noises she made doing it. Her bliss was my bliss. I felt it all, and I would give her what she wanted. I’d never had a woman I desired as much as I did her, and it was more than that. I needed her like I needed to breathe.

  Her clit was swollen when I closed my lips over it and sucked. Her breath came out in short gasps. “Yes, Cam!”

  I used one hand to unzip my pants and freed my raging hard-on. Damn, she was sexy. Grabbing her thighs, I kept her from squirming too much and stroked my tongue hard across her sex, then latched back onto her clit.

  “Shit, I’m gonna come!”

  Yes, Sophie, come for me. I closed my mouth over her, my tongue stroking harder and faster until she squeaked, and her fingers tugged my hair painfully. Her hips bucked against my grip, but I held her still and slowed my attention until she came down.

  Sophie groaned and her legs slid bonelessly from my shoulders. I chuckled and sat back as she gave me a satisfied grin. Then she leaned forward and captured my lips with hers with a pleased hum. “There’s just something viscerally satisfying about tasting myself on your mouth,” she whispered, her blue eyes reflecting the firelight.