Chapter Ten

Drake repeated the action over each wound. To Cami, each new douse left behind a cozy warmth, like how she felt as a child when her mother kissed her good night. Cosseted. Cared for.

The exhaustion that had taken hold of her after the attack, making it difficult to get words to form in her mind let alone emerge intelligibly from her mouth, receded in the face of a clearer, rejuvenated mind.

Miracle blood.

They could make a mint on this stuff if humans could take it.

Except halfway through, the warmth started to coalesce and spread, down her arms, then into her chest. Her nipples tightened, tingling almost painfully.

“Um.”

Drake paused. “Problem?”

Another ripple of sensation and a smidgeon of panic set in. “Did this Delaney person have any…side effects?”

Drake jerked his hands back from what he was doing. “What do you mean side effects? Does it hurt?”

Hurt? Another wave of sensation had a hysterical giggle punching from her. “Not exactly.”

Drake frowned. “What then?”

“I think I’m going to…” She had to pause, screwing her eyes shut tight to breathe through concentrated tingling in spots that shouldn’t be tingling right now. “Orgasm,” she finally managed through pinched lips.

Dead silence greeted those words.

Cami peeped open one eye to find Drake staring at her with an intensity that stole her breath more effectively than the waves of sensation washing through her body with growing intensity.

“You’d better finish up,” she prompted. “Before I…finish up.”

If she could get him out of the room, at least she’d be afforded a little privacy.

“Fuck,” he muttered. And, moving a hell of a lot faster, started dripping blood into the remaining open wounds. He missed a couple times in his haste, his blood trickling across her clavicle to trail between her breasts.

Cami let out a moan. Of its own volition, her hand went between her thighs to rub.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Drake muttered.

She opened her eyes, shocked to find that she’d managed to squish that hand down her pants, her hips pumping to the rhythm of the pressure she was applying.

And Drake was watching, fevered slashes of crimson marking his cheekbones and flames in his eyes casting glimmering light over the bathroom, turning the clinical space more…intimate.

“Keep going,” she panted.

He startled, which any other day would’ve made her laugh, then dripped his blood into the final wound.

Then, with a jaw so tight and hard he could cut diamonds with it, he spun and practically ran from the room, closing the door behind him.

The sensations didn’t lessen for Cami with his absence, though. They were still building and gathering and pulsing through her in electric shocks. With fumbling hands, she stripped her pants and underwear away, then spread her legs wide, getting off with her own fingers.

And the man she pictured with each shuddering sweep was the man in the other room. Only in her mind his hands were on her, that fevered gaze wasn’t tempered but allowed full rein, his heat threatening to consume them both.

That image seared in her mind as the tsunami of her orgasm crashed into her and through her, his name gasping from her lips as the sensation crested. Panting with her release, she rode the wave as it ebbed and flowed through her body, sweat covering her skin in a fine sheen. It seemed to take ages to slow, leaving her limp yet still strangely keyed up, and surrounded by silence.

Oh lord. Her eyes flew open. Did he hear that? Not just her orgasm, but his name on her lips?

Nothing she could do about it now, except ignore it. Drake definitely would. Feeling both wrung out and vitally alive at the same time, Cami forced herself up to unsteady feet and looked at herself in the mirror.

Then winced.

She looked like a woman who’d had sex. Her skin glowed. The fire inside the center of her chest pulsed the rhythm of tiny orgasmic aftershocks, gradually slowing and easing through her body. Meanwhile, the wounds on her shoulder appeared more like several-weeks-old scars.

“Amazing,” she whispered, tracing one slick pucker with her fingertip.

Needing to clean herself of blood and the scent of her desires, Cami took a quick shower. Wrapped up in the thin excuse for a towel, which barely covered her ass, she made her way back into the room to find Drake had kicked off his shoes and lay on the one side of the king-sized bed, as close to the edge as he could be without falling off, giving her plenty of space. The side closest to the door, she noted. He’d thrown an arm across his eyes, probably fully intending to do his damnedest to ignore the woman in the room with him.

No way was he asleep after all that.

“You know…you haven’t been showing any symptoms lately.” The thought had occurred somewhere in the middle of his getting her here and fixing her.

Even under his arm, she could see his face pull into a frown. “I guess not.”

“Is that good?”

“I doubt it’ll last. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come back anytime soon.”

Not an answer, but a good point. Also, the end of that conversation. But she had other things to figure out. “What was that thing?”

Now that the immediate problems had been dealt with, she wanted answers.

Drake didn’t remove his arm. “A ghoul.”

“A ghoul,” she repeated. “And, for those of us without a PhD in bizzaro-world, what the hell is a ghoul?”

He gave a twitch that she assumed was a shrug. “Sort of like vampires, I guess. They are humanoid, and feed on flesh—dead or alive.”

Oh. “Hence the daggers for teeth.” Got it. “Why did you go all weird?”

Under his arm, his mouth flattened. “Sort of like a siren, a ghoul can project an image of something to entice you close enough to rip into you.”

Cami shivered at the image. After all, she’d come damn close to being ghoul-food.

Something to entice. She mulled over Drake’s words for a second. “Who is Sera?”

Her stomach turned sour then twisted inside her as she waited for his answer. Because if the ghoul projected something Drake found enticing, then did he want this Sera woman?

“She’s Aidan’s mate.”

He wanted another man’s mate? Jealousy slithered through her like a writhing mass of black snakes, even as cold logic pierced the darkness. That didn’t sound like Drake at all. “Why is she important to you?”

“The ghoul made it seem like she was in trouble.”

Immediately, the knots loosened. She knew enough about Drake to realize the ghoul had appealed to his default mode. “You wanted to protect her,” she said.

Drake heaved a sigh that communicated his return to regularly scheduled irritation and dropped his arm away from his face. The second his gaze landed on her, he scowled. “Can you put some damn clothes on?”

Cami rolled her eyes but moved into the bathroom, quickly dressing. When she returned, Drake was back to the arm over his eyes.

“Do we need to be worried about another one coming for us?”

“Another ghoul? No. At heart, they are cowards. They stick to outside locations with as few live humans as possible—deserts, alleys, cemeteries—preferring to set a trap for one or two unsuspecting people at a time.”

“And the rat shifter?”

“He won’t have the balls to show his twitchy little face anywhere near me again.”

Cami nodded, not that he could see her, then forced herself to ask a harder question. “Were they after me?”

Was her secret already out less than an hour away from the safety of Rune’s hideaway?

“No. They were after me.”

“You?” She didn’t keep the shock from her voice.

He still didn’t bother to lower his arm which was starting to piss her off. She needed to see his face, his eyes. Couldn’t he tell she was still scared to death? A death she’d nearly met tonight. A stark shiver scampered up her spine like that creepy rat. “Why would they go after a dragon shifter?”

“A rogue dragon. One confined between buildings in a city with not enough time or space to shift. Open season, as far as bizzaro-world is concerned.”

He risked his life simply being here with her. “I see.”

At least that explained tonight. Though Cami doubted she could close her eyes without seeing that ghoul’s solid white eyes—blank like they were missing irises and pupils—or feeling the blades of its teeth sinking deep and the sharp pain that radiated to every nerve in her body.

Needing something else to distract her, she snatched the packet Rune had given her, from which she’d pulled their new identification, and sat down. The bed dipped under her slight weight. She wiggled, getting comfortable, then proceeded to go through the documents provided. She refused to admit that Drake’s presence—the smoky scent of him, the warmth of his skin so near her—had her on edge. That orgasm lingered in her memory, and her body. Like it hadn’t been quite enough to satiate a deeper need.

Don’t think about it.

“Huh,” she murmured.

Drake ignored her.

“I said huh,” she spoke louder.

He didn’t lift his arm. “So?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, not that he could see. “Any normal person would be curious.”

Drake sighed and lowered his arm. “Fine. What?”

“There’s an ID in here for you, too.”

She held out a small plastic card toward him. Like it was a snake that might bite him, Drake went up on one elbow to get a better look but didn’t reach for it. A picture of him looked back, with the name Yi Cheng. His eyebrows went up before lowering, almost meeting over his eyes.

“What the fuck?” he muttered and snatched it from her fingers. “No way could that fucker have known—”

She watched with interest as he mentally worked through some thought process.

“Rune,” he muttered. “That manipulative son of a bitch.”

Cami’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait. You think he planned for you to be here, too?”

“Yeah. He pointed out the shift change time at night, which I, of course, decided to take advantage of for my practice flight. He knew I’d find you there at the same time. I’m guessing Skylar told you when to meet?”

She nodded.

“Remind me to thank that asshole properly next time we see him.” He tossed the license at Cami and resumed his prone position.

“How on earth could he have guessed you’d choose to help me?”

“He didn’t. But he knows me pretty damn well.”

Cami thought about that. “In other words, Rune didn’t have to be a genius to know that you weren’t happy in the mountain and also wouldn’t stand by while I risked my still human backside.”

The glance Drake threw her—both irritated and speculative—told her she’d pegged that about right.

The bed shifted again as Cami stood. “Technically, I’m running back home.”

Drake sat and scooted back to lean against the faux headboard. “That’s not home anymore. You know that, right?”

She paused in unzipping her bag. “I understand it,” she said after a quiet beat. “But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it.”

She pulled a toothbrush and paste out of a side pocket and went into the bathroom.

“You’re going to have to accept it,” Drake called out from the bedroom.

She paused a second. Was he right? Abandoning them would hurt her family as much as her. Cami gave a shake of her head then resumed her brushing.

Turning off various lights as she went, Cami returned to the room and pulled the covers back on her side of the bed, climbing in beside him. Not looking at him, because she had the strangest urge to snuggle into his side and knew that wouldn’t end the way she was picturing, she reached over and turned off the bedside lamp with a soft snick. The only light came in through sheer curtains. Neither of them had bothered to close the light-blocking set.

“Should I close the drapes?” she asked, her voice seeming loud in the quiet room.

“No. I want to be able to see anything that comes at us, even if it comes through the window.”

“Oh.” There went any hope of sleep. Between the man at her back and the things he stirred inside her, and now the real concerns of something attacking—another ghoul maybe or that rat bringing his rodent brethren—would not let her rest.

Think of something else, she tried to tell herself.

“Why is everyone so determined for me to abandon my family?” Cami asked in a voice smaller than she liked, only she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to hear the answer. Drake, though, wouldn’t pull his punches. She’d hear his opinion straight with no chaser.

Was it possible for someone to bore holes in one’s back with only their stare? She didn’t need to turn over to know Drake was doing exactly that.

“That’s not it,” he finally said.

Something in Drake’s voice—almost an understanding as opposed to the more typical don’t-give-a-shit tone—had Cami turning over in the bed to face him.

Her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting a bit and she found him still sitting up, his eyes giving off a faint red glow as he watched her.

I should find that creepy.

Like freaky movies about demons and poltergeists and exorcisms creepy. Instead, she found herself staring back, fascinated, an odd answering warmth blooming inside her. Under her shirt, the constant glow of fire inside pulsed with light, more visible through the flimsy T-shirt than the thicker black shirt she’d borrowed from Skylar. The one in tattered, bloody ruins on the bathroom floor now.

She had another one for tomorrow, to hide things from her family. But maybe a shopping trip might not be a bad idea.

Drake’s gaze shifted from her face to her chest then back, his expression giving nothing away.

Just as she had when she’d looked out from her hiding spot in the hangar to find a massive red dragon staring back at her, when she looked at Drake all she could see was power and awe-inspiring beauty in a startling sort of way.

In that form, every hard muscle stood in stark relief, even under the coat of his scales. The crest at the back of his head rose sharply with spikes that she knew to be razor sharp at the ends. More deadly spikes lined his back. And those red eyes had glittered with a fire that was only a spark of the raging inferno that lurked inside him. A weapon held under his complete control. He’d practically vibrated with command, filling the cavern with his presence.

What would it take to really light those eyes up with flames? She’d seen it happen a handful of times with Rune’s men. Even Rune himself. But Drake seemed to be on a permanent low burn setting.

Watching the dragon tonight, her body had responded instantly, coming to buzzing life in all the wrong ways.

An inconvenient sensation that took up uncomfortable residence inside her now. Never mind the orgasmic session in the bathroom. If she was honest, she’d been brought back to that aching need when she’d lain on top of him in the alleyway. He’d felt hard and strong beneath her and her mind had been full of the news that he’d saved her family from a horrible death.

Should she tell him that she knew about what he’d done for them?

No. He’d hate her gratitude. “What is it then?” she asked instead, forcing her thoughts back to his comment about needing to give up her family.

Drake scooted down in the bed, and she expected him to turn his back and return to ignoring her. She swallowed when he turned to face her instead, close enough to see details. Details she’d practically memorized when he’d been unconscious and healing. Except his eyes. Now she could see, behind the swirling red, how darker specks graced the depths of his irises, which were rimmed in an almost maroon hue.

“You’re obviously loyal to your family,” he said.

She could reach out and touch him if she wanted. And she definitely wanted. She just didn’t want to deal with the rejection sure to come from him, swift and brutal, so she pulled the sheet up around her and resisted the urge.

“It’s more than that,” Cami murmured. “I love them.”

Drake stayed quiet at that.

“You don’t think that’s a good reason?” she asked.

“No.”

Cami gave a huff of anger. “Do dragon shifters even know what love is?” she lashed out, maybe as much from frustration with him as fear of losing the most important thing in her life. “As far as I can tell, dragons walk away from anyone they might care about with way too much ease—”

Drake reached over and covered her mouth with his hand, skin hot and a shade rough against hers. Shock dropped through her like ice followed by heat that crawled over her skin, making it feel too tight for her body. A pulse point started up at the juncture of her thighs, and she stared at him, waiting. Anticipation thrumming.

“You talk too much,” he said. But quietly. Almost like he was amused, though he didn’t smile. “And you tend to jump to conclusions. I wasn’t saying that your love for them wasn’t a good reason.”

He dropped his hand on the bed between them.

“What were you saying, then?” she asked, happy her voice functioned at all, coming out mostly normal, maybe a bit of husk to it. Hopefully he didn’t notice that bit.

“The kind of love you describe…” He paused, his eyes going vague as he seemed to have to search for words. “The kind where you would do anything for them, right?”

Cami nodded. “Anything.”

“Sacrificial love?”

She nodded again, more slowly. He was going down a mental path she wasn’t following yet.

“I’ve only seen that kind of love in two ways. The few mated pairs I’ve witnessed firsthand—my parents; Finn, my Alpha on the team, and his mate Delaney. My brothers and their mates.” He grimaced. “Sort of.”

Yelena had tried to explain it. Cami could see it whenever Yelena and Goret were near each other. Even after ages together, he still watched her like she was the most precious thing in the world. Witnessing them and their connection was part of the reason she’d stayed, she believed.

“What’s the other way?”

“I’m the youngest of seven brothers with only one sister younger. You would think I would have found that kind of love with my family.” He shook his head, his hair brushing against the pillowcase. Was it as silky as it looked? She was starting to mangle the sheet in an effort at willpower.

“We were too far apart in age for me to form those kinds of relationships,” Drake said. “Four brothers were already mated by the time I was born. I was a…mistake.” He bit out the word. “My sister, born not too many years after me, they saw as an even bigger mistake.”

Cami squashed the small sound of rejection that clenched her throat, but he caught it anyway, giving a small shrug as if it didn’t matter. But the way his lips pinched, she knew it mattered.

“Do you know about female-born dragon shifters?” he asked.

“They’re born sterile.” Cami wanted a family as big as her own. She couldn’t imagine being denied the chance at that from the moment she was born.

“Yes. My brothers saw her more as an embarrassment. Someone they’d be forced to take care of. When I left Nepal and came here to be an enforcer, Lyndi came with me. She’s my family. My real family. Lyndi and the men on my team. Men who’ve fought beside me and saved my ass more times than I can count. Men I would do anything for.”

Cami waited for Drake to realize he’d said more than two sentences and clam up, but she couldn’t resist asking the question that popped into her head. “Even Rune?”

The glow of his eyes flared. This close she could see definition in the flames, colors a spectrum of reds from so dark it appeared black to as bright as a laser beam.

As fast as the flames flared, they settled again. “Even Rune,” he said. “I’m still pissed at him. For a lot of reasons. Instead of trusting us, he abandoned us. Then made us fight against him until we figured shit out for ourselves.”

Right. The Huracán team were Rune’s allies now. But that implied that they hadn’t been. That had to have been hard. Cami understood that kind of anger, one tinged with love that made you want to scream at them, shake some sense into them. “I get it.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah. With my sisters, actually. They’re a lot younger than me. They’re off at college now, interested in boys and getting the hell away from ranch life. Part of me gets that. They’re young and have other interests. But the other part thinks they’re acting like selfish brats.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. She’d never voiced that particular annoyance. “I sound awful.”

His lips twitched. “No. You sound human.”

“Like that’s an excuse. Humanity sucks as far as dragons are concerned.”

“True. But we’re not exactly better.”

Cami twisted a piece of hair around her finger. Drake’s gaze dropped to follow the action, so she released the strand. “It’s almost like the love makes it worse when you’re mad at them.” Like tinder to a fire, the anger turning brighter, sharper. “Because you love them.”

He grunted what might’ve been an agreement, or even the closest thing to a laugh she’d heard from the man yet. “Yeah,” he said.

Cami sighed. “Why are you telling me this?”

Again, asking the question would probably shut him up, but no way did he not have a point with all this. Drake didn’t talk just to talk.

“Love like that…” He stopped again, grimacing like talking about feelings was torture. It probably was for him. “You should be willing to sacrifice everything.”

Cami frowned. “I am.”

He shook his head, and anger kicked through her. “Don’t shake your head at me. I’d die for my family.”

She almost had, that day when the fire had come, and he’d saved them. Drake had saved them. She was still having trouble wrapping her head around that reality.

Drake shifted closer, getting in her face, though not touching. “Would you live for them?”

Everything inside her stilled at his nearness, at the intensity radiating from him. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Would you leave them, make a life away from them, to save their lives? Even if it caused them pain? Even if losing them or imagining being the source of their pain is the worst thing you could ever experience yourself? Because what you are now, that’s a choice you have to make. You might have to make it tomorrow. I’m not sure we should risk anything like that ghoul following us and hurting them.”

Her harsh intake of breath was the only sound in the room. Even the steady hum of the air conditioner under the window shut off, leaving them in thick, aching silence.

Lord above, she hadn’t considered that, relegating the ghoul to something contained in the city at night. But to unleash that kind of monster on her family would be worse than watching them age and die as she continued on.

Could she do that? Hurt them now by pretending to disappear just to keep them safe? Sacrifice her connection to the most important people in her life?

Dawning realization had her letting go of that thought as she took in Drake’s expression, the hardness in his eyes, the way the light had died out in them completely, leaving them dull. “Is that what you’re doing? For your team?”

After a long, tense silence, he shoved away from her, rolling back to his side. “Get some sleep.”

I’m right.

Rather than close her eyes and do what he said, Cami had other ideas. “You know what could help me sleep?”

Beside her Drake breathed loudly through his nose.

She grinned but kept going. “A good orgasm.”

His back stiffened, the muscles bulging under his shirt in fascinating ripples. “You just had one.”

“Mmmm… Except it left me all keyed up. I need to…relax. You know?”

A beat of silence, then, “Go ahead.”

He was trying to call her bluff, huh? Well, they’d see who could out-stubborn who. After the kisses he’d laid on her in Argentina, she knew he wanted her, and she was done trying to hold back and figure things out at whatever pace she thought she was supposed to take.

Slipping her hands lower, under the back of her panties, she flicked a finger over the bundle of nerves still buzzing from her earlier orgasm.

Cami didn’t hold back a small hum of pleasure.

“Ah hell,” Drake muttered.

Before she knew what was happening, he rolled over to settle between her legs, his body hot and hard and ready.

“I was hoping you would—” He swallowed her words in a kiss that was all heat and unleashed need.

When he had her mindless and breathless, he lifted his head, pinning her with a look that shot tingles straight to her clit. “I couldn’t tell.”

Was that a joke?

Only he was kissing her again, so who cared. She grasped his arms, the heat of his skin over flexed muscles and couldn’t help exploring the contours of his arms, his back, his chest. She rubbed her palms over right, flat nipples and he shuddered against her, dragging his mouth away. “I need to be inside you.”

“No argument here.”

“You won’t get pregnant, and dragons don’t carry diseases. Got it?”

“Got it.”

With fingers turned frantic they got out of the rest of their clothes and returned to each other’s arms. Drake poised at her entrance, stopped, and pinned her with eyes turned to molten red flames. “Tell me you want this.”

Above her, his body shook with the effort to hold back, and maybe with the effort at all. So easy to forget he wasn’t a well man lately. With a grin, Cami shoved him back, rolling on top of him so that she straddled him. By some miracle she managed to keep him right at her entrance, and, with a shuddering moan, sank down his shaft.

Once he was seated deep inside her, heat going everywhere all at once, she looked him dead in the eye. “I want this.”

He grunted, almost as though in pain. But at the same time, those big, strong hands went to her hips to hold her there hard. Using a strength that still boggled her mind, he lifted her up then slid her down his cock in one long, penetrating stroke.

“Good,” he said.

Then he did that again.

Despite her position of power, Cami gave herself over to the sensation buffeting her body as he controlled the pace. She stared back at the stark, harsh face of her lover, knowing he could see every nuance of what he was making her feel. Knowing, and reveling in it.

With each measured stroke, waves of electricity pulsed through her, gathering at her core, making her feel like she was coming out of her skin. Those hands at her hips both brutally possessive and tenderly worshipful.

The glow of Drake’s eyes filled the room, mixing with the aura coming from her, giving it a darker edge, more intense. More beautiful. Brighter with each stroke.

“What if I cause a fire?” she panted.

“I’ll take care of it.”

The mere mention of flames seemed to alter him, and that possessive grip turned harder, just at the edge of pain as he increased the pace, impaling her on his cock. Harder. Faster.

Building the pressure, and the lights pulsed with the beat of her heart and the pounding of her blood. Building. Building. Until the pressure spiraled out of control and erupted.

Cami tossed her head back and screamed as an orgasm as powerful as the man inside her rode her body. Burned away everything she was and replaced it with a woman foreign to her. Wilder. Freer. More powerful.

Was this just a taste of what it would be like to become a dragon?

Cami collapsed over Drake, her head on his chest, and smiled.

He trailed a finger over the sweat-slicked skin of her back in soothing whorls as they both caught their breath.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” he said finally.

Cami lifted up to look at him seriously. “Maybe not.” She shrugged. “But I’d like to do it again.”

“What about finding your mate?”

Drake didn’t know about the mark on her neck, which only showed under fire. Rune hadn’t told him, and neither had she.

But the time wasn’t right to tell him. Not yet.

The sex was incredible. She bore his mark. And she liked him. Despite the glowers and the lack of words, she genuinely liked this complicated man.

But that didn’t make her sure.

This was still too fast, too new. She’d spent only a few months with dragon shifters. What she’d seen and how she felt with them… Hell, how she’d felt just now with only a taste of what she could become. She knew, in her gut, in a way that could never be explained or reasoned, that she was meant to be one of them.

That didn’t mean she needed to rush. No matter the danger of being found out by the Alliance or the clans. The danger to her family was another thing entirely.

“I’ll find him when the time is right,” she finally said. “Until then, I have no intention of living like a nun.”