Breath of Innocence (6 page)

“Sorry,” Erika said, shifting to focus directly on Eben. “Have you actually told her this?”

“Would it matter? She wants a baby. I don’t. How the fuck do I tell the woman I love that I don’t want what she wants?”

He glanced at Geva, who was looking at him with a peculiar expression.

“How do you not want a baby?”

Eben was dumbstruck. He stuttered out a reply. “Because I like my life without distraction?” He felt like a total shit as a result. Jesus, if he’d known dragons were so baby crazy he’d have never signed on.

Erika’s nudge turned him back to her. “Talk to her, dumbass. Now go. Go, go, go!” She smacked his ass as he raised himself out of the pool, resolute in his mission. Talk to her and hope she still loved him afterward. She already knew how he felt about kids though. She’d said as much. So why should he bother?

He glanced back at Erika and hustled. It didn’t matter, he’d talk to her. Talking was the goal here, regardless of the outcome. No pressure.

***

Camille was too peaceful to disturb when he found her in the vaults, her blonde head resting on a pile of ancient tomes and her hand still holding her automatic pencil pressed against her notebook. He remembered nights like that when he was too wrapped up in the research to care about anything else. Except he knew tonight and every night for the past few weeks were as much an escape for her as his nights sitting in the bath. She might have been focused on the work, but if they hadn’t pushed each other away that first night, she might have spared more time to talk to him.

Eben pulled a heavy wooden chair closer, making an effort not to make a sound. She still wore the ridiculous robes they’d given them, but the drapes of dyed linen had slid down her bare shoulder, leaving her bosom almost bare. She hadn’t bothered with the thin undergarments today.

She had a tendency to pass out when she was faced with intense emotion. He knew this about her, yet it still amazed him when he witnessed it. Maybe she was just tired now. He couldn’t imagine her work eliciting a panic attack. And she did just appear to be sleeping.

It was all he could do to avoid touching her, so he just watched for a time, settling back and enjoying her amusing little sounds. Soft snores that shifted in tone as the frequency of movement under her eyelids changed. What he wouldn’t give to be in her head right now, to see what she dreamed. Would he find himself there? Or some fantastic universe he couldn’t even imagine.

He was chuckling to himself over the idea when she sat up abruptly. “Eben? What are you doing here?”

“Watching you sleep, dummy.” He couldn’t help but smile a little at her bewildered, sleepy expression.

“Oh.” She fidgeted with her pencil and notebook, making a show of reading. Her eyelids blinked rapidly. She was still avoiding him.

“Camille, we need to talk. We should’ve talked a hundred times already, but I guess I was too stubborn to make the first move.”

Her expression drew in at that and she hunched over her notebook.

Eben placed a hand on her shoulder, letting his thumb caress the bare skin of her neck.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Her eyes clenched shut, and that subtle barrier between them broke his heart.

“Do you, really?” she whispered back, her voice barely audible even in the near dead silence of the place they were in. Before he could answer she said, “Because you seem pretty intent on making me miserable lately.”

He blanched at that. She didn’t understand, but it was his fault. He decided to lay it all out.

“I don’t want kids. Never did. We never got a chance to talk that detail out, so there it is.”

“So you hate children”

“I never said that.”

“You just did!”

He grimaced and hung his head. “I don’t hate kids… I just…Jesus, Camille, I know you want them so I want to make you happy, and I will gladly do that, but I fucking
hate
the idea of losing you to more needy souls. I still need you. Christ, I hate to admit it, too.”

She reached up and caressed his cheek, the touch almost reflexive. He gripped her hand and leaned into it.

“I don’t even know you, Eben. I never realized it until now, though. I mean, I
know
you intimately, but you’ve held back, haven’t you?

He could only nod against the soft brush of her hand.

“Tell me.”

So he did. He told her everything. He told her about his early life, the child of a single mother in a small town. One he did everything to get out of as quickly as possible. He told her about his experiences afterward, his failures in college before he’d met Erika and she’d inspired him to turn things around. It all seemed completely natural and somehow cathartic to let it all out. So much that he wondered why he hadn’t already. None of his past had seemed remotely relevant to what he shared with Roka and Camille now. But it felt so good in the telling that he knew he had to sit down with Roka when they were reunited and talk.

His chest tightened with a pang of longing when he thought of Roka. As private as this exchange had been with Camille, it still felt like an element was missing. The big white dragon was the missing piece of their puzzle. He had no idea how his conflict with Camille would resolve, but he knew without a doubt that Roka’s presence would have made a difference.

“You don’t want kids because you had a crappy childhood?” Camille asked, tentatively.

Eben thought about it, but the true answer was obvious.

“I don’t want kids because I want you more. The laws of physics say that two bodies can’t occupy the same space simultaneously. You two fill my heart. That doesn’t leave enough room for anyone else. You and Roka are my world right now. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’m just not ready to give that up.”

Surprisingly, she smiled and leaned in to kiss him. “You have room, trust me,” she said. “But we can wait.”

Chapter 6

E
ben collapsed to his knees and buried his face in Camille’s linen-covered lap. His arms snaked around her hips and gripped her tightly. The warm weight of his embrace sent a surge of tenderness through her. She brushed her palm over the silky blond hair on his head, still damp from the bath. Her fingertips were sore from writing and the cool softness of his hair felt good against the abused skin. He held her a little tighter and inhaled sharply when she dug her fingernails into the back of his neck and scratched along the contours of his skull the way she knew he liked.

“I love you so much,” he murmured into her belly, then turned his head to rest his cheek on her thigh.

She gazed down at the dark blond shape of his head, the beautiful profile with clenched brows, sharp cheekbones and long, straight nose. He was just like a child, seeking comfort from whatever tiny yet insurmountable turmoil he had encountered. For him it had been her desire to replace him. At least that’s what she realized he had seen it as. It had never occurred to her that either of her lovers might see a child as competition for her love. They were partners, the three of them. On the same side in all decisions. Or so she had believed. Now she saw a different angle. This did change things. Roka might be disappointed, but he would understand. And they had time.

Eben sighed and arched his shoulders up into the steady, soft scratch of her nails down over his bare skin. His head pressed tighter against her belly and she reflexively spread her legs. Her previously dormant sex drive resurged in full force. And hadn’t she fantasized about the two of them in precisely this position countless times before? They had never been in this particular situation before, however. Not outside of her dreams.

Without even opening his eyes, Eben pressed his face into the folds of soft linen that concealed her from him. He inhaled deeply, then opened his mouth and bit at the cloth that bunched between her thighs. The increased pressure against her core shouldn’t have been enough to even register with her—it was no more intense than the tightest jeans she’d worn, digging into her flesh. Yet it made her gasp and shift her hips toward him.

His hands gripped her hips with deliberate force and pulled her even closer. He burrowed through the folds of her voluminous robes, panting in frustration at not finding what he sought.

Finally he gave in and reached up to her neckline, tugged at the drapes of linen until they fell away, exposing her breasts.

Eben gazed with feverish longing at her breasts. He latched onto one pink tip and sucked, drawing her into him as though she were his sole source of sustenance. He took her other breast a moment later with as much zeal, until her nipple began to ache from his desperate attention. He switched back to the other breast, kneading both in time with his sucking, and his hands tore at her clothing, finally pulling the robes apart and pulling her hips closer.

Her pussy ached almost as painfully in the absence of his touch as her nipples tingled from his constant abuse. God, if he would only transfer that intensity a little lower…

That sweet dream came back to her as he pushed her thighs apart, bent his head, and slid his tongue between her slick and ready lips. The heat of his mouth was just as startling as it had been in her fantasies. Even though she’d had him like this before, this time the experience was so profound as to be transcendent. She rested her hands atop his head, one foot draped across the pile of books on the table beside her, the other foot resting on Eben’s bare shoulder. Her head tilted back against the chair and she sighed with pleasure.

We can wait
, she thought, and was about to say out loud again when the steady swirls of his tongue over her clit sent her spinning. Every thought that had been in her head became a cyclonic mess as she cried out and clutched his head against her throbbing flesh. The only thought left in her head was that first one. She would wait for centuries, if that’s what it took, as long as she had him.

***

Roka leaned against the stone wall of the corridor, listening while Camille came to pieces under Eben’s expert tongue. His own arousal was almost unbearable. He had missed them, but as much as he wanted to be with them now, their ordeal was only just being resolved, even after weeks away from him.

He had considered leaving again, letting the pair bask in their reunion without his interference, but after so long apart he craved them the way a dormant seedling craves the sun. Instead he climbed back to the moonlit breezeway above and waited.

Rafe’s silent, shadowy presence became gradually apparent, though there had been no signal that he had arrived. Without looking away from the glow of the silvery disc in the sky, Roka greeted him wordlessly. His friend broke the silence first.

“Rowan was here,” Rafe said. “Barely two days past. Darius confirmed it, though it was tricky enough to get the details out of him. He’s sure none of the others saw her was and she only interacted with him and Zak long enough to replenish enough to fly again. Darius said he believed she was a Court dragon at first, based on her size and remaining reserves of energy. She’d been flying for more than a week and only just stopped to rest.”

“Kris and Issa didn’t see her?”

“None of the other dragons did. Darius believed she was Geva out for a flyabout at first, until he greeted her and learned the truth. He wouldn’t have let her stay any longer than absolutely necessary, which I am grateful for. She had no idea how close she came to discovery.”

“That is fortunate, particularly to know we have an ally here. Kris and Issa would be, if they could, but they are too close to the Council to risk it. I haven’t even seen Issa yet, have you?”

Roka shook his head. The violet dragon’s absence had seemed odd to him, and Kris’s excuse unusually cagey. Then when he had greeted Geva and Erika, the pair had been more closed off and secretive than usual as well.

“Something isn’t right,” he said.

“You’ve sensed it, too?” Rafe asked. “Sometimes I think your intuition is as keen as Kol’s.”

“With all that I have shared with the other members of the Court and their mates, I would expect more honesty. Perhaps it’s only anxiety over finding the Verdanith that has affected them, too, but I get the feeling there are deeper secrets at play.”

“They can keep their secrets as long as they don’t interfere with me finding Rowan. Or with you getting what you desire…”

Roka smiled at his friend’s not-so-subtle insinuation. He was at least relieved that Eben and Camille seemed to have finally broken through their own barriers. Even now, he could sense their relief at getting their differences out in the open. Roka was only a little disappointed at the decision they had come to. Time was one thing they had in abundance, and if everything worked out with the plan Rafe and Kol had hatched, their entire race would have infinite freedom soon enough. Seeing that mission through to the end was far more important now than planning to have a child, no matter how much he wanted to produce such a treasure. Patience was something he was adept at.

A delighted yelp pierced the shadows behind them and he turned to the sound of running footsteps coming toward him. His heart leapt at the same instant Camille launched herself into his outstretched arms and began peppering his face with those sweet kisses he had missed so much. She embraced him so tightly he nearly lost his breath.

Eben seemed only slightly more subdued when he approached and placed a hand on Camille’s back and one on Roka’s shoulder. Roka gazed into his eyes, looking for that troubled uncertainty that had been there weeks ago when they parted. Relieved to find nothing but calm satisfaction, he gripped the back of Eben’s neck and pulled him close, kissing him fiercely.

Rafe cleared his throat and moved to leave.

“Wait,” Camille said, slipping out of Roka’s embrace and grabbing Rafe’s hand. Rafe gave Roka a startled look and moved to pull away while stammering out an objection.

“I’m not trying to suck you into our little trio again. There’s just something you need to know. I found it.”

Her statement stopped Rafe in his tracks and both Eben and Roka let out startled exclamations.

Camille waved them off. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone else yet, and I didn’t literally
find
the missing piece, just a solid trail picking up from where the Council lost track. There’s still about three centuries of lost time to find where it is now, though, so you still have time to catch up with her.”

“Where is it,” Roka said, tugging at her arm insistently.

She gave him an exasperated look. “It
was
in Paris during the seventeenth century. I found a name linked to one of the bonded families of the dragon who it used to belong to—the one that died.”

“It’ll take time for you to get there,” Rafe said. “So that gives me a head start.”

Roka grimaced. “No, friend. We have to tell Erika the news.”

Eben interjected. “And knowing her, she’ll want to have Dimitri pick up the trail right away. She’s even keener on finding this thing than the rest of us, I think. Completely blew my mind.”

“We can tell Dimitri the issue,” Camille said. “He’d understand.”

“No!” Roka and Rafe both spoke in unison.

“No one else can know, especially not him,” Roka said.

“But the Twins… don’t you trust Kol’s brother and sister?”

Rafe groaned and Roka chuckled. “Two people more unlike their brother you couldn’t even imagine. They are terrible at keeping secrets.”

Camille pursed her lips. Roka could see the scheming in her creased brow and lowered lashes.

“Then I’ll just give Dimitri one less clue to slow him down.”

Rafe startled them all by pulling Camille into his arms and kissing her deeply. “If I weren’t already smitten with a certain Red, I might steal you away. Roka is one lucky dragon.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s aware,” Camille said, her bright smile dazzling enough to rival the moon.