Always (Dragon Wars, #3) (12 page)

Tatyana didn’t say what really weighed on her mind when she could think past the pain of her insides on fire. What if they didn’t reach Robert in time? What if he was already dead? Caitlyn had gotten the dragon to tell where they had taken Tatyana’s werewolf. The creature hadn’t known what the Queen would do with him. It hadn’t been in the plan to kidnap a werewolf, the dragons had done so spontaneously.

What happened to dragon prisoners the Queen didn’t specifically want?

“Don’t thank me. We’re family. In two ways, apparently. We share genes and you are going to be my mate’s brother’s mate.”

“I watched you when you were young.” Not as much as she had viewed Robert only enough to know the other woman talking to her. “You don’t deal in bullshit, so let’s not do so.”

Caitlyn nodded. “So strange to think about.”

“I know. Please know it was always with, at least on my part, the best possible intentions. I get that it’s strange and invasive. We were trying to understand your people better. The policy of watching was around long before me. For me, however, it always felt more personal than science, which is maybe worse.”

Caitlyn shook her head. “I’m not concerned with the ramifications of it. I’m more worried about you dying on the floor. When you survive, you can explain humans to me and I’ll try to make sense of it all.”

And there was the no lying part of Caitlyn Tatyana had wanted to see. “Will you tell him I didn’t suffer?”

“I thought we both agreed I didn’t do fabrication.” Caitlyn sighed loudly. “Okay, it won’t make a difference. Have you seen what happens to us when we lose our mates? We break. He’ll know I’m lying because he’ll smell it. Although it won’t make a difference to him ultimately. He’ll go wolf permanently, and then he’ll die within a year or less. That is what happens.”

“Never mind then.” She closed her eyes.

Tatyana had never wanted to be a wolf. As she obsessed over Robert she hadn’t wanted to join him in his shifting. On the floor, in her present situation, she’d do anything to sprout some fur.

“You don’t know what I’m about to tell you, Caitlyn.” She kept her eyes closed when she spoke. “And maybe I shouldn’t keep talking only I want you to know I care. When you were burned, years ago, my father snuck into your hospital room and gave you medicine, which helped keep you alive. He said you were too special to be allowed to die.”

Caitlyn gasped. “I had a dream of a person injecting me with something at night. They told me I imagined it.”

“You’re a dragon speaker. You’re the ones who stand between the dragons and the rest of the world. Don’t let them sideline you because you’re a woman.” She coughed. “Okay. Enough.”

Tatyana dragged herself to her knees and crawled from the bathroom.

Caitlyn touched her back. “Where are you going?”

When she’d made her way into her lab she stopped and looked around. The light was too bright and it made her head spin. “Damn it. Why is nothing easy?”

“I’ll answer your question if you answer my mate’s.” She jolted. When had Dougal come in the room? “What do you think you’re doing?”

She pointed at the cabinet in front of her. “See the second drawer to the left? Could you open it?”

Caitlyn crossed in front of Dougal and did as she asked. “All I see are syringes.”

“Grab one.”

Dougal shook his head. “Not until she tells us what it’s for.”

“If I haven’t shifted in twelve hours, dose me with the medicine contained in it.” She crawled toward the table where she had cared for countless patients, most recently Robert. “Help me onto the table.”

Dougal grabbed her with his one remaining arm. He was remarkably capable with only a single hand left. With his assistance she managed to climb onto the table. It felt good to have somewhere to stretch out which wasn’t the floor. Small things, they’d make all the difference in how the next few hours went for her.

“What will the medicine do?” Caitlyn again. Tatyana hoped they didn’t have too many more questions. What she needed was quiet.

“It’ll make me go to sleep. I used it on Robert and August days ago. You won’t be killing me or doing anything you’d later regret, I promise. It will put me to sleep and then, hopefully, I’ll simply be knocked out while I die.”

“Tatyana...”

She interrupted Caitlyn’s protest. “Twelve more hours and then I’m a lost cause. I don’t want to know its coming.”

“But...”

Dougal was the person to interrupt and she closed her eyes as he spoke. He sounded so much like Robert. All the Owens men had the same cadence to the way they sounded, scratchy, deep, completely male. Only Dougal’s wasn’t the version she wished she could hear.

Where was Robert? Was he okay?

Had the dragons harmed him? His capture was all her fault. She should never have gotten on the roof, out in the open as she had. What had she been thinking? There were steps to take, precautions to be made to avoid the detection problem. She hadn’t gone through her checklist, or worn her equipment. She was going to die and whatever was happening to Robert was likely worse. She’d never been able to see inside those dragon prisons, but the males who came out were never the same.

“She has the right to say she wants to sleep through it. We do the same, don’t we? Not with drugs but with the final shift, becoming the wolf, letting them handle things when we no longer can.”

“Dougal.” Caitlyn’s voice raised a degree. In the last day, Caitlyn had sounded so controlled. This was the first crack in her armor Tatyana had seen. “There has to be a happy ending for Robbie. He came back from the dead. You’re all practically calling him Alpha. It can’t have been for him to lose his newly found mate and then go off to die himself. Almost everything in the world is destroyed. Surely there has to be some kind of happiness for Robbie.”

How could Caitlyn still have hope? Taty closed her eyes and drifted. Dougal and his mate could figure out the whys of it all. Tatyana was dying. It was too late for her to fix anything. Her people had left, the shuttle taking them to the sky. Her sister would be so pleased to be done with the whole thing.

She was floating...somewhere. Her insides burned and it no longer mattered.

****

T
atyana came to with a start. She was drenched in sweat and someone was shouting. No, it was more than one person.

“If you stick the needle in her, brother, I’ll beat you within an inch of your life.” Robert snarled. He was here. She tried to raise her head to look at him only her neck didn’t want to work. Neither did her mouth.

“Injection is what she instructed me to do. Twelve hours and it would be too late for her to make the shift. For good measure, I waited thirteen because she was sleeping already and I wanted to give her every chance to make the shift. She didn’t and she’s dying. Caitlyn says the ones who didn’t shift end up burning from the inside out.”

Thirteen hours.
Yes, Caitlyn was right. She’d not make it. A tear slipped from her eyes from all the things she’d never done, never known, and never would. “Robert.” She croaked and seconds later he stood over her. His face was pale and lines she had never noticed before fanned from the corners of his eyes.

“Tatyana, you’re awake.” His voice cracked. “See? I told my brother not to give you the shot.”

“No, he needs to. Please, I don’t think I can take anymore.” Her hand shook when she tried to touch him and he laced their fingers. His grip was warm, the life in him flowing so strong and steady. “Don’t make me live for days as my body shuts off or burns me to pieces.”

“Tatyana, listen to me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Very carefully. I am not going to repeat myself. I killed the dragon queen. I was only able to do so because I thought you were gone from me forever. By some miracle, you’re not. I’m not going to lose you twice in three days. You are going to live, change into a werewolf, if for no other reason than I told you to.”

“I wish it worked like that but...”

With a growl, he bit her. She shrieked from the surprise, not because it hurt. Who knew what hurt anymore? Every bit of her stung already.

“You’re mine, little human.” He spoke in her ear.

The world shifted on its axis and she lost consciousness only not before she arched off the bed, her spine breaking when she did.

R
obbie never wanted to see anything as horrifying as Tatyana’s first change again for the rest of his life. He’d lost countless men to battle and torn dragons in two. His mate had been nearly dead when he’d arrived and his younger brother had been ready to knock her out so she wouldn’t ever wake again. He gritted his teeth and tried to let his anger go.

What happened next was so much worse. He didn’t know what possessed him to bite her. The need to do so had been overwhelming. She belonged to him and so help him she would wear his mark before she perished.

Somehow he must have known, deep inside, she needed it too. Tatyana thought it was the biting which changed humans into werewolves. He didn’t know the science, didn’t care to, only he’d lay money it was the mating bite which saved her.

He knelt before the small white wolf. All white wolves were unusual, yet the Knox family had many of them. A pretty genetic tendency his once-human mate shared.

With a crook of his finger, he called Tatyana to him. She stumbled twice, not used to walking on four legs. When she finally reached him, he let his hands explore her brand new fur for a few minutes. The touch would give her peace and strength. The acrid smell of her fear raised his own hackles, yet he had to maintain calm or she would never reach it herself.

He sat and patted the floor next to him. She should be able to understand him with basic commands. New werewolves, usually children at their first change, were often so overwhelmed by the experience simple gestures worked better. As she calmed, he would speak more.

Satisfying his need to touch her, he stroked her soft fur. “So, you becoming a wolf is quite a turn of events.” She groaned and he stared at her. “You can understand me already? Wow, fast learner. Close your eyes. You need to sleep. The wolf will take care of you. And when you wake we’ll see you changed back.”

His mate grumbled in wolf and closed her eyes doing as he instructed. With a low sigh, she settled against him and her head rested on his thigh. He heard a slight tap on the door and he looked to see who stood there. Tatyana didn’t stir.

Dougal popped his head around the corner. “Safe to come in? Are you going to take off my head?”

Robbie raised his eyebrows and didn’t answer. There was always the possibility he might take off someone’s head. Seeing Dougal with the needle over Tatyana’s arm was going to take a while to move past.

“You can come in.”

Dougal nodded and crept in softly. If she was going to wake she would have already. His brother probably didn’t have to be so quiet.

“I want you to know I wasn’t looking to harm her. I was trying to do as I thought you’d want, as she instructed. If Caitlyn were suffering...”

He held up his hand. “I get your intentions were on point. But, this thing that just happened, we’re never talking about it again.” Because if he thought about it, how close he had come to losing her...

“Right. I get that too.” His brother nodded. “So what’s it going to take to make you to come back home with us to lead?”

“I think home has two perfectly good Alphas without me.” Devon and Dougal handled things fine. Nowhere flourished anymore yet his home had stayed afloat thanks to his brothers. Why did they want him coming and mucking the whole thing up?

“Neither of us want the job. When I was young, I felt as if I could be Alpha.” Dougal shrugged. “Without my hand, and so much to rebuild, I don’t want the responsibility of everyone’s problems. I want my mate and our child to know the person watching out for us has our best interests at heart. Your men? They follow you into battle after battle, they never doubt you.”

He wanted to argue, but Dougal only spoke the truth. Robbie had often wanted someone else in charge yet who? Only Auggie would be strong enough to warrant the kind of allegiance needed for an alpha and his brother lacked the ability to communicate his intentions without pissing everyone off. His twin was much more of
a fuck you, do your job kind of a guy
which didn’t inspire others.

“I don’t know how to live in peace.”

Dougal shook his head. “Sure you do. We were raised in the same place. War couldn’t have undone all of it for you. I found it came back pretty quickly once I was home with Caitlyn and the baby. Thanks to you, it seems.”

“And your point is I should come home with my new mate and figure out how to lead in whatever world we’ll live in.”

“Well,” he grinned. “I’d really be appreciative if you would try.”

“We’ll see.”

That was the best he was going to be able to give. Dougal nodded. Truth be told, Robbie would do whatever Tatyana wanted. From then on, it was whatever she wanted.

Sometime later, as the sun pressed through the windows showing the afternoon sun, she roused. Her wolf eyes opened to stare at him. He was glad to see her and more than ready for her to return to her two-legged self.

“Hello there.”

She huffed, and he grinned at the sound of exasperation.

“We have lots to teach you about the new part of yourself. I’ve never instructed an adult before, but I imagine we’ll figure it out. To start, I’m going to tell you how to shift back. It’s...”

In front of his eyes, she shifted, her body reshaping, the fur on her skin receding and her human form reestablishing itself. He winced while he watched. The breaking and pulling was all part of the shift. He was used to it, and watching others do the transformation never bothered him. Until her.

His mate had enough pain. Days of it. She’d hung on. Waited for him.

“I think I’ve got the hang of it, actually. I visualized the change and it happened.”

Smart woman.
He took a deep breath, ready to tell her so. Only his mouth didn’t work. When he spoke, all he could manage to let out was her name on a sigh. “Tatyana.”

Whatever forces had brought them together he would always be grateful to them. How had he gotten to such a moment? They should both be dead.