Dark Embers (2 page)

He paused for a moment, sucked in a deep breath full of heat and sand and misery. Told himself it was no big deal. Part of him even believed it.

After four hundred and seventy years, he was damn good at lying to himself.

Shoving away from the small house with the cactus garden and the stone swimming pool in the front yard, he walked the deserted street rapidly. It was three a.m., and his only company was a scorpion or two. The desert was quiet, the night solemn.

And he had failed again
.

With each step he took, his conscience grew heavier.

With each footfall, his heart grew colder, until he was once again at that place without hope. It was where he usually existed, where he’d spent the last century mired in guilt and rage and a fear he refused to admit.

That he was here now was his own fault. It had been stupid to truly believe, even for a moment, that she might have been the one.

Agitation made him walk faster, until his boots were pounding the pavement in rhythm with his too-quick pulse. Self-disgust made him shut down inside, until all he could think of was the night.

The stars.

The moon shining brilliantly over the desert.

At least until his jeans sagged around his ass.

With a muttered curse, Dylan yanked the faded denim back into place. Slid the button through the tab, jerked up the zipper.

What did it say about him that this latest encounter had left him so desperate to get away that he hadn’t stayed long enough even to get his clothes on properly? Worse, he hadn’t bothered to say good-bye to Eve . . . Eva? Eden?

For a brief moment, he struggled to remember her name, what she looked like. Then he let it go, as it mattered less than nothing. It wasn’t as if he’d be seeing her again. Within moments of slipping inside her, he’d figured out that she wasn’t the one—none of the signs were there.

No instant connection between them, as his clan mates so often spoke about.

No burning as the tattoo around his arm shifted to reflect the presence of his mate.

No searing pain as a part of her soul arrowed into his.

Nothing but a mediocre orgasm that had barely given his powers a pulse. Before she’d rolled off him, he’d been plotting his escape. And by the time the shower had kicked on in the bathroom, he’d been halfway to the front door.

God, he was a fucked-up bastard. Cold as ice, despite the fire that raged within him. Hot as flame, despite the glacier that had taken up residence in his stomach. Was it any wonder, then, that he couldn’t find
her
?

He didn’t deserve her.

His laugh, when it came, was anything but humor filled. That had to be the understatement of the year. The decade. The new millennium, and probably the old one, as well. Why else would it have taken him so long to do what everyone else managed in the first two centuries of their existence? Why else would he be doomed to failure night after night, encounter after encounter? He had screwed up generations ago, and now he and his clan were paying the cosmic price. Big-time.

His boots ate up the streets in the sleepy little town as he struggled to put distance between himself and his latest sexual escapade. Wind whipped around him, played with the tail of his shirt, caressed his bare chest. But Dylan didn’t bother buttoning up. What was the point since he was headed right back to the bar to find yet another female shifter interested in taking it off?

Hope sprang eternal.

As he walked, he scanned the desert around him. Checked out every brush of wind against cactus; narrowed his eyes at the rustle behind a random pile of heavy rocks. Then shook his head as a low, deep howl split the air next to him. A lonely coyote was the least of his problems.

If someone had told him four hundred years ago that he would be here, in this place, he would have laughed at them. If they’d told him he would grow tired of night after night of hot anonymous sex, he would have told them they were insane. But youth was like that—arrogant, seemingly invincible, convinced the world was for the taking. Or at least that’s how his youth had been.

He’d spent centuries gorging on women, taking them each and every way he could. Glutting himself on their scent and taste and feel, until his powers reached staggering heights. Devouring whatever they gave him with a grin and a wink and a softly whispered “Thank you.”

He had plenty of time, he’d told his father when the man had advised him to settle down. He was trying to find the right woman, he’d promised his mother when she’d fretted about the future. And then, from one heartbeat to the next, everything had changed.

His brother had been murdered. His parents had died soon after. He’d been crowned king. And just that suddenly, his people, his legacy, were without an heir. Bad enough that the second son was now the king. That he couldn’t find a mate, couldn’t deliver on his family’s legacy, was a nightmare.

There were others—his sister, his niece—who could take his place if he fell. But it wouldn’t be the same. The line of succession, which had remained in his family for more than three thousand years, would fall with him.

One more fuckup from a man who had never wanted to be king in the first place.

Dylan shoved the thought away—what he wanted didn’t play into things anymore. What was best for his people did. And what was best for them now was that he provide them an heir.

He should already have done so, should already have guaranteed his people’s survival through this millennia and into the next. God knew he had tried—for nearly four hundred years he had tried. And he had failed.

No mate meant no heir.

No mate meant night after night of anonymous sex as he searched for her.

No mate meant a dwindling of his powers that was not just devastating, but downright dangerous—for himself and his people.

It was a precarious state of events for any centuries-old dragon, but for him it was an out-and-out disaster—particularly considering the state his clan was in.

Not that an heir would solve all the problems, but it would solve the most pressing ones—including the fact that it had been far too many years since a young dragon had been born to Dragonstar.

Far too long since they’d had something to celebrate.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and for one brief second Dylan considered ignoring it. The day had been dismal enough—any more bad news and he might just take flight and never return. The idea was far more inviting than it should have been, far more compelling than it had ever been before.

In the end, he grabbed his phone and flipped it open. Barked “Hello” in a voice he knew was far from welcoming. He was king of the Dragonstar clan, and as such could never be unavailable to his people. That didn’t mean he had to like it—especially tonight.

“Dylan, come quick.”

A shot of uneasiness worked its way down his spine at the panic in his best friend’s—and second-in-command’s—voice. As a rule, nothing fazed Gabe.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Marta. She’s—” Gabe’s voice broke. “She’s sick.”

His stomach plummeted to his boots. “Are you sure?”

His brother-in-law’s voice was hoarse. “I’m sure. I tried to deny the symptoms, to ignore them, but that’s not possible anymore. I don’t think—” His voice broke again. “I don’t think she’s going to make it through this.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Dylan was already running, his boots echoing in the deserted street as he stripped his shirt from his body. He didn’t bother with the pants or boots; they would take too long. His image blurred as he started to shift.

Pain—red-hot and intense—as bones broke, reshaped, grew longer.

Pleasure—acute and all-consuming—as he became what he was meant to be.

He ignored both sensations and concentrated instead on making it through the change. One more second. Two. And then he was in the air, his wings spread wide as he soared through the star-bright sky.

Not Marta, not Marta, not Marta.
The simple phrase was a mantra in his head as he sped toward his lieutenant’s house, making sure to stay invisible despite the panic racing through him. So many of his friends, so many of his clan, had been taken from him in the past years. He couldn’t stand to lose his sister—Gabe’s wife—too.

Please, God, not his baby sister, too.

But when he landed in Gabe’s yard, he knew his prayers had once again gone unanswered. He could smell the blood from outside the house, could hear his sister’s nonsensical mutterings through the walls of dense stone.

Marta was bleeding out.

Delirious.

Probably already paralyzed.

If her illness followed the same pattern as all the others had, she would be dead before the next moonrise. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Inside him the power sputtered to life, surged through him. The need to heal, to fix, to do what he was destined to do. But he’d tried it so many times before on so many of his clan members, and each time
he had failed
. This disease was an enemy he didn’t know how to fight.

Rage and anguish welled within him, crushed his lungs and twisted his spine into hard knots. Throwing back his head, Dylan roared with all his pent-up fury—then went inside to watch his baby sister die.

CHAPTER ONE

W
e are sorry to inform you
. . . Phoebe Quillum’s heart plummeted as the opening line of the letter popped out at her. Biting her lip, she tried to read the rest of the black printed words, but her hands were shaking too badly for her to focus.

Important research, but not enough funding . . . grant canceled . . . hope you can make other arrangements . . .
Phrases jumped out at her, combinations of words designed to bring her already bleak world crashing down around her head.

Carefully, as if one careless move would shatter her, Phoebe lowered herself onto her favorite lab stool. She looked around the lab she had put so much time and energy into for the past four years, the same lab she had sunk so many of her own resources into when she didn’t have time to wait for the school’s bureaucracy to churn out her request.

And for what? To have her funding pulled out from under her just as she was finally making progress? To lose everything just as she finally had a chance at finding a cure? Not treatment, but an actual cure.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her breathing for one second. Two. Again and again, until she felt her heartbeat slow and her hand steady. Only then did she open her eyes and read the letter in its entirety.

The news wasn’t any better the second time around. The university was yanking her money, refusing to fund her grant for another two years. She had—she glanced at the calendar she kept on the wall to remind her what month it was—exactly two months to find new funding or to vacate the university’s premises. Premises she had used numerous grants, and much of her own money, to properly outfit over the past four years.

Damn it.

How could they do this? How could they pull the rug out from under her? And in a form letter? The grant committee hadn’t even had the guts—or the courtesy—to send someone to talk to her about the mess.

She read the letter again.
Donations to the university are down due to the economy . . . forced to discontinue numerous programs of worth . . .
She would have bet her last two months’ funding that the football program hadn’t been touched. Or baseball or basketball or rowing. No, even here in the Ivy League, sports were sacrosanct. Untouchable. It was always education and research that took the hits.

She wondered idly how many of her colleagues had received similar letters that morning. Not that it mattered. Unless a miracle came calling, she—and her research into finding a cure for lupus—were SOL. Shit outta luck.

It wasn’t fair.

Life’s not fair, little girl
, her stepfather’s voice echoed in her head.
The sooner you learn that, the happier you’ll be
.

As if she’d needed the lesson. By the time her stepfather had uttered those fateful words, she’d already suffered her share of hard knocks. Her father had walked out on her mother, sister and her, had simply disappeared with a suitcase, three changes of clothes and all the money in their savings account.

By then her mother was sick, dying of a radical strain of lupus that ensured she would spend most of her remaining life in excruciating pain.

And not long after he’d spoken, her sister had fallen sick, as well—and Phoebe hadn’t been able to help her, either. Hadn’t been able to do anything but stand around and watch helplessly as her younger sister died from the same disease, her immune system and body ravaged.

Phoebe had spent her professional life searching for a cure for the damn disease, desperate to save women the medical establishment considered unsalvageable. And she was finally close to unraveling the mysteries of the disease—so damn close that she could almost taste it. Another six months, a year at the outside, and—

And nothing. At least not without funding.

No, life wasn’t fair, and neither were Ivy League universities. After fourteen years as a student and employee of such institutions, the realization wasn’t a shock.