Eternal (Dragon Wars, #2) (10 page)

Her head fell back and she forgot to cover her mouth. Who cared? Let the universe hear her climaxing. Dougal let go of her ass and grabbed her neck instead. He stroked the side of her neck in time with his thrusts.

Caitlyn came. Her muscles jerked, spasmed and her whole body vibrated. She cried out his name.

He was fast behind her. She smiled at the sensation. Whatever happened in the future, this one moment had branded her forever.
Eternally
. Like the vows they made to one another on an island of death.

“You okay?” He caressed her rear end as he pulled out of her.

“Yes.” She yanked both her panties and pants back on. “You can punish me any time you’d like.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. When we’re both ancient and finally able to be in each other’s company again. I’ll paddle your ass all the time.”

She turned around and threw her arms around his neck. His mouth came to hers. Caitlyn shuddered. “I’ll be sure to misbehave all the time.”

He rubbed his finger along the slope of her nose. “Hide.”

She would. The only thing she could do was hope it wasn’t forever.

****

C
aitlyn was packed. Again. She finally understood why Dougal had made her stop at the cabin for a full week before he’d told her to run again. She needed a week to find her feet. Some time to work out her next move, to handle the dreams haunting her at night—the ones where Dougal died screaming her name while dragons flew overhead, laughing.

She scrunched down and pulled her hint out of the outside of her bag. He’d told her to hide a clue and she intended to do as he instructed. She hoped the pressed rose would make enough sense and he wouldn’t hate where she had hidden.

Darby County had the prettiest roses. He would know? Wouldn’t he? It had been so for years. To make it clearer, she wrapped a fishing wire around the rose. Dougal could search the cabins by the lakes in Darby. It was the best she could do to make it easier on him.

It wasn’t like they’d had a million conversations to get to know one another. Gods willing, she’d get the time to do so. He wouldn’t yet know she’d escaped during college to the cabins to study when she could no longer take the Female housing at the university.
Yip. Yip. Yip. Gossip. Gossip. Gossip.

Caitlyn had wanted to learn real things. One hour from where she went to school, those cabins had offered her respite when she needed it and she hoped they would again. The old man who owned them had died at the beginning of the war of a heart attack when his son had been slain by the dragons.

They’d stood empty ever since.

Or at least she hoped they still were.

If someone lived in them, she’d have to get all the way back to Dougal’s family’s cabin and leave another clue. She sighed at the thought. Caitlyn had woken exhausted and kind of nauseated too.

All she needed was the flu. Getting sick would really make this whole experience more special.

She left the rose in the corner of the windowsill. Someone else would think it was garbage. Gods, what if it got thrown out?

There were so many things which could go wrong with Dougal’s plan. Then again, he’d been inventing it on the fly. They hadn’t gotten a lot of time to confer over all of this.

“Okay, Dougal,” she spoke aloud. “We’re going to need a lot of luck.”

She took the bag and shut the door behind her. Mated. On the run from dragons she could apparently control. When she’d headed out to the dragon front lines she hadn’t seen any of this coming.

****

T
hree weeks later
.

She sat with her feet in the pond. Her feet were sore from all the cleaning she had done all day. Making the cabin she had no business staying in livable again at least occupied her days, if not her mind.

There were other factors taking all her brainpower. Like the fact she was pregnant. She closed her eyes. Of course she was. They’d taken no protection against conception. It hadn’t concerned her in the least and Dougal hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.

Mated on the front line. Sex behind soldier transports. Could two people ever have spent less time being careful?

Or maybe the times didn’t call for caution.

These were the questions keeping her awake for the last two nights. The baby changed everything. She couldn’t stay here alone in the cabin and have a baby by herself, could she?

Werewolves were supposed to raise pups in pack. A tear slipped down her cheek. And what if there was something wrong with him or her? What if her child couldn’t heal? What if the world scoffed? How could she protect her child?

“Dougal, today would be a great time for you to be discharged. Or for the war to end. Boom, all the dragons are dead.”

He wasn’t there so of course he didn’t answer. Instead, the distant sound of wings caught her attention. She jumped to her feet. Dragons? This far inland? No way. This part of the country had been protected. Other parts were gone, all the Werewolves relocated to what had become violent refugee camps. Wolves from formerly rival packs struggled to get along.

The dragons rarely got through. She stared upward to the sky. There, in the distance, flew a green monster.

“Totally green.” She spoke aloud.

What was it doing here?

All alone in her fishing cabin, Caitlyn knew she would soon find out. Her hand rushed to her belly. Eleven more months til she would meet the little person. One thought pressed in on her—those things were not going to hurt her baby.

D
ougal passed Brett another shot of vodka. He’d had to trade a tremendous amount of personal goods to get this much alcohol. If it rained he was in serious trouble having given away every single bit of rain gear he owned.

Brett wasn’t going to spill his guts without being stark raving intoxicated and he wasn’t going to get there on some shitty moonshine or whatever he could scrounge. Of course, if it turned out his gut had betrayed him and Brett had nothing to do with the mess which had denied Dougal access to Caitlyn for two months, he’d be really wet the next time it poured with no one to blame except himself.

Trying to figure out how to get answers had all but consumed his existence. He was twitchy and over the feeling altogether. Dougal hadn’t lived as long as he had in a war taking more Werewolves per day than he could count on two hands by being a bundle of nervous energy.

“To Werewolves everywhere.” Brett shouted at the top of his voice before he took another shot.

Dougal smiled and pretended to take another one too. Pretending to be drunk mostly seemed to entail shouting when Brett did and singing Werewolf songs. Much better to be actually drunk.

When this was over, he would get really shit-faced because he could. With his mate.

“Tell me something.” He pretended to slur his words.

“Brother,” Brett tapped him on the back, “you can ask me anything you want.”

“The drugs. I’ve been contemplating them for so long. Since my mate left.” He shook his head. “How do you think the stuff from the eggs is getting out there?”

“This is the shit you think about when we find vodka?” He laughed, throwing his head back. “Okay, fine. I’ll tell you, brother, let’s say someone got approached by the dragons.”

“The dragons? How would a dragon do such a thing?”

“Let’s imagine for a second they could.” Brett laughed. “And they told a person things could be arranged. Deals could be struck. Things done to make it possible for certain parts of our world to remain relatively untouched. The pack’s gone only maybe it doesn’t have to be totally decimated. Maybe there are things to be done.”

Dougal entwined his fingers.
Maybe there are things to be done
.

He could remember Brett so well from before the war. The boy had wanted to grow to be Alpha. The days of pack wars were behind them, or mostly. Sometimes territory rights flared up. Still, the pack mattered. The Alpha kept them safe, prosperous, and kept industry in their midst.

Brett had dreams of greatness.

Others used to tell Dougal he, himself, should be Alpha. It had been like a gag. He’d try to picture himself in the part. What young Werewolf didn’t want to lead? They were born to be strong, bred to be tough.

Alpha? He’d never personally sought the role. Other than the occasional thought he let pass to his family, he wasn’t still considering his pack.

What about Brett...?

The times for games were over. Besides, he wasn’t really good at them when it came to it. Leave the double talk to the politicians.

“Still playing Alpha, Brett?”

“What?” His friends smile fell a bit. “I think I must be really loaded. I didn’t follow.”

“Oh, sure you did,
brother.
” He leaned in close. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way you tell me what I ask. What we both know I already suspect. The hard way, we see which one of us would have ended Alpha. You remember how the challenge went, right? Two Werewolves fight to the death. Or one of them yells truce. Only if you yell truce, I won’t stop.”

“You never could beat me.” Brett growled.

“Which one of us has been out fighting while the other has been getting lazy behind a desk?” At Brett’s sharpest, Dougal could have taken him. Now was not the time for posturing. It was time to take a visit to answerville.

Brett fell backwards off the log where they sat. His clumsiness seemed to dawn on him and the other man turned two shades paler.

“Yes, you’re drunk. I’m sober. So tell me. Before I make this really hard. What deal did you cut with the dragons?” He thought he knew the answer only there was no room for questions. Dougal wanted to know explicitly what had been done.

“In exchange for helping them move all their product, they left our pack alone.”

Dougal squatted next to Brett. He almost felt sorry for him. “You know they didn’t, right? It’s not like our hometown is somehow paradise with the rest of the world falling apart. They may not have sprayed the area with fire, yet it will die all the same.”

“Yeah? Well at least I’m trying. I’m giving us something capable of being rebuilt when we get back.”

“Gods, Brett.” Dougal could almost not believe the other man had spoken the words he had. “To what? A drug addicted, worthless world where the war veterans are too drugged to function and the Females are beaten from trying to keep their society together.”

“No one makes them take them.”

This was a worthless conversation. “And I was collateral damage I guess? Leaving me on the island.”

“No.” Brett fisted his hands. Funny he should look more affronted about leaving Dougal to die than the millions of people who were losing their battle to the shit Brett distributed every day. “I knew you’d make it a little while. I had no doubt you could do it.”

“And my mate? Were you so certain of her fate?” How far into this rabbit hole did his friend go?

“Do I want the woman who works for a lab trying to destroy dragon drugs to live? No. If her plan works, she’ll burn all the eggs. They’ll be no more drugs, no more reasons to keep our part of the world safe. Yes, I hoped she would die out there. I thought for sure the dragons would get there. They seemed to want to, for whatever reason. Did you notice the day how they came for her?”

Dougal chewed on this new information. It didn’t seem Brett knew about why the dragons wanted her. He could take a deep breath. His main objective had to be to keep her safe. Of course, if he could make it a little less easy to get ahold of the drugs, well then, so much the better.

Gods, he never wanted to be a hero. Other Werewolves were made for acts of noble justice. All Dougal wanted at this point was to get home and start tracking Caitlyn.

If only he could get the military to decide to let him go.

War kept people from their loved ones. Since he actually had one and it stunk more than it ever did before.

Brett stood. He seemed decidedly more sober. “Did I have any idea you were going to mate that Female? No, of course not. Werewolves like her are kept away from us for a reason. So, suckers like you can’t accidently fall for them and mate with other Werewolves who have no business breeding. I mean who can’t fix a Gods-damned burn scar? Good job picking a real winner there, brother.”

His words were too much. With one grab, he had Brett by the shirt. “You think it’s so easy to heal from being burned? Such a simple thing for a body to come back from a full body plunge into true heat. I get it. Why don’t you have a taste?”

With a shove and not a moment of regret, he shoved Brett face first into the flames which had been warming them, the fire he’d shared with his so-called brother every night since they’d made camp as a unit near the ocean. Brett screamed and tried to pull himself out.

Dougal wasn’t going to make it so simple. Letting his own boot burn, he kicked Brett back each time the Wolf tried to rise. Who knew what chemicals were being used to clean their uniforms these days? They stunk and apparently they weren’t very flame retardant. Pretty stupid considering how often they encountered dragon flames. The soldiers had been complaining about it for some time.

Of course, Brett wouldn’t know about any of it. He spent his days behind a desk making plans to put others in danger. A worthy job if he had actually been helping, instead of using his time to create drug running operations.

Brett bellowed. “Let me go. Let me out of these flames, you sick fuck.”

Dougal stepped back. He wouldn’t keep Brett in the fire anymore. Someone was bound to notice if he kept screaming. Hell, maybe the rescue Werewolves were already on their way. If the commander arrested him, Dougal would be more than happy to throw Brett to the Wolves—literally.

“Go ahead, brother. Shift. See how easily you heal.” He shook his head. “Asshat.”

Whatever happened from there, he’d deal with it. Hell, maybe they’d decide he was no longer mentally well enough to serve. Send him home where he could spend the rest of his life making sure the Queen and her dragons never found his mate.

Brett stumbled away into the darkness, and his cries stopped. The other man probably shifted—it was the smart thing to do. Unless of course he’d died. Could Dougal be so lucky?