Chapter Four

Drake opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling bathed in the flickering light of a torch stirring memories of a time before electricity and modern technology. Based on the rough cut of the rock, though, this was not his mountain in California. Not his room in the stronghold of the Huracán team.

Everything came back to him with the subtlety of a harpoon through the ribs. An experience with a whaling ship in the eighteen-hundreds that he hadn’t planned on repeating, even metaphorically.

Shit.

All of it sucked. Every damn thing about what brought him here.

His trouble flying, or more accurately his crash landing, on the way to the meeting with Rune. Telling his team—his brothers in spirit though not by blood—about his condition, the disease eating away at his body. They’d stared at him with shocked faces, and then he’d left them. No goodbye beyond a nod at each.

The best he could do.

He did regret not having a chance to tell his sister to her face. Lyndi would be pissed. At least he’d been able to give them the video he’d made. Mostly as proof for the Alliance to make sure losing one more team member didn’t blow back on his men. But that video was also a goodbye of sorts. He’d been carrying it around on a thumb drive for a year.

After that, the humiliation of having to fly on Rune’s back like a fucking human—a useless lump of carbon and water. Coming face-to-face with men who’d been on the wrong side of the laws he’d been sworn to uphold. Then, just to heap on more humiliation, he’d passed out like a Victorian debutante in front of the one woman he hadn’t been able to shake.

Cami was here.

Had he dreamed her up through the haze of pain and numbness taking over his body, or was she really here? The memory of her had lingered like the subtle flavors of a fine wine.

Or a hangover.

A small gasp had him jerking his head to the side to find her staring at him. She’d obviously been sitting on the cold, hard floor, resting her head on the mattress on which he slept, a crease from the sheet marking one cheek and eyes still droopy with sleep.

She blinked rapidly, then sat up straighter and cocked her head, studying him with the clinical gaze a nurse might give a patient. He didn’t like it.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. That sultry voice, no longer scratchy with smoke, filled the room, caressing his skin.

Drake battled with his body. It would not do to shock her with a raging erection that was sure to be evident given the flimsy sheet covering him. At least he was still in his utility pants and shirt.

She doesn’t remember you anyway, asshole.

He didn’t screw up things like wiping memories. Except the gaze she had trained on him held a spark of familiarity, as though she did. The fact that a small part of him leaned toward that familiarity with the notion that he’d like it if she did, set Drake back mentally. What was wrong with him? Was his condition affecting his common sense now? With effort, he shook off that trivial want. Impossible anyway. It wasn’t as though those memories went in a trash can on a computer desktop and could be retrieved. It was a permanent wipe. Gone forever.

Better for her. Better for him.

Probably couldn’t get it up anyway.

When he didn’t answer she narrowed her eyes. “My name is Camilla Carrillo,” she tried again. “Do you remember anything?”

When he didn’t answer again, she lifted a single unimpressed eyebrow, and he couldn’t help a stirring of curiosity. Women tended to run from him, not hold their ground and regard him with blasé pseudo-concern.

“You yelled at two of the other women who tried to take care of you,” she said. “Scared the crap out of them. Remember that?”

Drake’s eyes narrowed as he tried to access any memory before flopping to the floor in front of her like a fish on dry land. Nothing.

“Do you remember me from when you arrived?” she asked next. She lifted a hand and proceeded to wrap a long, black strand of silky hair around one finger, then unwind it, and wind it back up again.

Whatever familiarity he’d thought he’d seen was gone now, only vague curiosity staring back at him from warm brown eyes. If familiarity had been there at all. Looked like Rune hadn’t told her anything. Not that Rune had anything to tell. Drake, and Drake alone, knew what he’d done for this woman and her family.

This mate.

Mate.

That was the only reason she could be here in this mountain…with Rune and his people. Which meant she’d started showing dragon sign, and when dragon fire was applied to the nape of her neck, a mark would show there. The brand of her destined mate’s family.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Apparently, Drake had been wrong the day he’d saved her, or she wasn’t showing sign then, but she was a mate. That fire, the one that had destroyed her family’s home… Had that been Rune trying to flush out a mate?

Did she know that Rune had been responsible?

Her frown deepened, dark eyes filling with concern, pushing out her irritation. Usually by now, when he didn’t speak, people left him alone. When Cami levered off the floor, he expected her to do exactly that, or maybe go get Rune. Shock had him freezing when, instead, she crawled onto the bed beside him, a swirl of scents—crisp winter air, exotic jasmine, and an edge of smoke—surrounding him, smothering him, filling him up.

Drake held his breath and wished her anywhere but next to him on this bed.

Oblivious to his sour thoughts, Cami reached to put a hand to his forehead.

Only he slapped it away before she could touch. “I’m fine,” he said on a growl.

Cami scowled, not remotely intimidated. “Then speak up and say so.” She backed off, but not much and muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like pendejo.

“I am not an idiot,” he muttered.

“Yeah?” The word burned with her scorn. “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been out? Two days.”

That explained why he had to piss so damn bad.

“Or is your default setting asshole?” she continued. “I’m trying to help you, and I don’t scare as easy as the others.”

Apparently, she already had him pegged. Drake grunted, then pushed up to sitting, hating the way his arms shook with that small task, a weakness that had him mentally swearing at the muscles. Hiding a grimace, he leaned against the rounded wall of the cave which served as a headboard for the mattress. The cool of the stone seeped through his thin shirt and into his skin, sending a shiver racing through him.

He scowled. Dragons didn’t shiver. They were impervious to cold.

Cami must’ve caught a nuance in his expression, because she narrowed her eyes. “You’re not okay, are you?”

She reached out again, and this time he didn’t stop her from laying her cool hand against his forehead, though he had to stop himself from leaning into her touch. She tsked. “You’re burning up.”

“All dragon shifters burn,” he said.

Cami shook her head. “No. I think this is different.”

“Because you’d know.”

She ignored his heavy sarcasm. “I should go get Rune.”

Drake shifted under the sheets that seemed determined to remain wrapped around his feet. “I’m surprised he left you alone with me.”

“He didn’t want to, something about you being a scary motherfucker. His words. He needed to sleep after flying all that way, and, after the yelling, and throwing a pillow—” She paused and shook her head at him the way a school teacher might scold a small student who’d thrown a pencil. “None of the others would come near you.”

“You should’ve listened to him.” Only he got the sense she wasn’t fully comprehending his words, whether willfully or naively he wasn’t sure.

“You were out cold.” She gave a negligent shrug, only confirming his concern. “And weak as a newborn giraffe, if I miss my guess. I’m safe enough.”

That newborn giraffe comment rankled and had him biting back an irritated growl. Did this woman have no sense of self-preservation?

In a swift move, he grabbed her by both wrists, rolling so that he lay on top of her, holding her hands over her head, pinning them against the bed in a forceful grip, weighing her body down with his own. He had to hide how that small move had him breathing hard, though. He glared at her as though nothing was wrong. “I’m not out cold now. Am I?”

Her heart thundered away against the inside of her ribs, the sound loud in the relative silence of the room and the flutter pulsing against his skin between their clothes. Her breathing pushed her breasts against her shirt. Against him.

Despite the fear pumping adrenaline through her system, she gazed at him with wide eyes that showed an inexplicable trust that grated against him like a sandpaper sponge bath.

“What are you going to do to me?” she whispered.

Almost like she was daring him.

“You’re a mate,” he said.

“So?”

“Mates are like catnip to my kind—an obsession, a driving urge to find our own. What if I took you now, claimed you, pushed my fire into you?”

Her lips fell open on a silent gasp, but fear didn’t reflect back at him even still. “You’d kill me if you aren’t my destined mate.”

So, someone had at least warned her of the deadly consequences should the wrong man try to turn her. Had she listened? He squeezed her wrists a little harder, pressing into her so she couldn’t mistake the heavy cock pressing into her belly. “Yes.”

“You’d lose a part of your soul as well,” she pointed out.

He allowed his lips to tip up in what he fully intended to be a menacing smile. “Perhaps it’s worth it.”

She stared back at him for a long minute. Then, suddenly, her heart quieted, her breathing slowed, her body relaxing under his. “Go ahead.”

She was fucking daring him. Inside his head, his dragon growled, but not a warning, more like approval. The animal side of him liked this woman.

That scared the hell out of him enough to have him fighting the foreign urge to scramble off her.

When he said nothing, she tipped her head. “Just like I thought. All bark.”

Bulls facing off against a matador in a ring dealt with less provocation than this woman was daring to throw at him.

“You talk a good game,” she continued. “But you won’t hurt me.”

Irritation spiked and swirled with a rushing need that had gripped him since the second she’d stepped in front of him in the hangar and he’d recognized her.

Drake slammed his mouth over hers, his kiss both full of frustration, but also determined to frighten her into some semblance of self-preservation. He kissed her harshly, wildly, even as he continued to pin her to the bed.

Except she didn’t whimper or turn away or struggle. Instead, Cami opened her mouth and licked the full seam of his lips, demanding entrance.

Fuck.

Gods help him, he opened, tangling his tongue with hers, reveling in the give and take. Her flavor melted across his tongue, sweet and tart at the same time, imprinting on his mind.

A glow vaguely penetrated his senses behind his closed eyes, followed by a burst of heat that seemed to be originating from her.

Almost as fast as it happened, Drake jerked back with a hiss, staring at a glowing spot under her white tank top. The source of the heat.

Definitely a dragon mate. Which meant off-limits. Another shifter’s mate.

With a groan he rolled away from her, flopping to his back, and flung an arm over his eyes, doing his damnedest to convince his dick to get its head out of the game. “You need to get out of here.”

Her harsh breathing taunted him. He wanted to make her breathe harder while he slid his body in and out of hers, made her scream his name, fucked that sassy mouth with his cock.

Damn, he’d really lost control.

The second the thought came, pain burned its way down a trail of nerves in his arm, lighting them on fire before turning them numb. Almost as though that kiss had held his disease off for a second, only to let it come crashing back over him. Not even a few minutes of reprieve. Rage and total helplessness waged war on him, beating against his chest.

“Go get Rune,” he snapped.

He needed her out of here. Now.

Not only because of what was ravaging his body, but because he still wanted her with an urgency that shocked the hell out of him. Before he gave in to those tempting desires and made them a reality, he needed her to leave. He couldn’t fuck another man’s mate, even if she didn’t know who that man was yet.

Drake hurled silent curses at the fates. He’d already been through this with Sera, who’d borne not only his mark, but also Titus’s, and Aidan’s. She’d so obviously been meant for the rookie of the team—the way they looked at each other had been all Drake needed to see to know that. Drake was beyond help anyway. So he’d stepped back, let her go. His last chance at salvation.

An extra helping of guilt layered over all the other roiling emotions passing through him.

He lifted his arm and turned his head to glare at Cami who watched him with those fucktastic lips parted in silent invitation. “Unless you want to wrap those pretty lips around my cock and finish me off, I suggest you get going.”

Cami blew out a harsh breath, but at least she got up, leaving the room without a word, though he still caught the way her hands trembled as she opened the heavy oak door.

As her footsteps padded away down the hall, darkness pulled him back under on a riptide of unconsciousness he couldn’t fight.

…

Rune on her heels, Cami didn’t bother to knock before entering Drake’s room. She hadn’t told the black dragon shifter behind her about her exchange with the irascible man, or that searing kiss that had set her body alight with a need that still ached between her legs.

Drake was impossible, rude, arrogant, mostly unspeaking.

As soon as she saw the way he was lying—flopped over himself, limbs sprawled, one leg off the bed—she forgot about her incomprehensible reaction of kissing him back like that and moved to his side.

Unconscious again.

Rune moved around to the other side of the bed, pressing his fingers against Drake’s neck, checking for a pulse.

He was that bad? He’d damn well had a pulse when he’d been driving her body to that sweet ache that still lingered. Rune gave a nod and removed his hand.

The tight band around her ribs eased up a little. “He has a fever, if I’m not mistaken.”

Rune grabbed Drake by the shoulders and hefted him to lie on his back, then straightened his legs. “I don’t have a healer here, so he’ll have to work through that on his own.”

If he can. The words lingered on the air between them, unspoken.

“What’s wrong with him?” The man was so damn…vital. How could anything be wrong? Up till now, Rune hadn’t said much about it, insisting Drake would share and to do what she could.

Rune shifted his gaze from the man unconscious between them to Cami. “If a dragon shifter doesn’t find his mate by a certain age, he starts the decline to death sooner, battling with diseases of the mind or the flesh. It’s different for each man. Pytheios, our so called High King, is called the Rotting King, because his flesh is rotting from his bones.”

Cami grimaced. “And Drake?”

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.