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  In addition, every single one of them was sick. They were all on the same drugs. That was interesting. Where were they getting the supply? Everywhere else was running out. Auggie shuddered at the thought. Not everyone survived coming down from the stuff.

  Clarissa would. He’d see to it. That was his job as mate.

  Her welfare above all others.

  He straightened. If the Alpha of this pack wouldn’t give up Auggie’s mate, then Auggie would simply kill him. Dishing out death was part of his life. Anything that stood between Auggie and what was his was a threat. The war had taught Auggie what to do with threats.

  Eliminate them.

  He walked into the town. Some sort of fair was going on in the center and people wearing tattered, dirty clothing sold their wares. Jewelry. Bags. Clothing. Unusual baked goods. Auggie quickly matched faces to scents. This was his mate’s pack. This was how she’d been living.

  Auggie stopped short. Clarissa was in the corner of one booth, helping to hang signs to sell talismans and amulets—things that were supposed to keep away dragons or bring your mate to you. She swayed on her feet, and a woman much bigger than she was slapped her hard. The sound moved through the square, and Auggie swore he felt the sting of it on his own cheek.

  He growled, not trying to hold back the sound, and the square fell silent. Clarissa tried to turn around and had to grab the booth to do so. She was in bad shape. He rushed forward, his attention turning from wanting to kill the woman who’d slapped what was his to the shape his mate was in.

  “Auggie.” She held her hands out toward him, and he grabbed them. “How did you find me?”

  “That’s neither here nor there. Is this because you just used or you need to?”

  Clarissa laughed which turned into a moan. “She won’t give me any. The old witch is angry I disappeared for two days to care for you. This is her making me suffer.”

  “Who? The woman who slapped you?”

  Clarissa nodded. Death was in the air. Not just his mate, but everyone here. This wasn’t just sick. This was close to the end. He rounded on the crone.

  “Are you in charge here? Where is your Alpha?”

  The woman he spoke to was younger than she initially seemed. She’d prematurely aged, but so had many who’d live through the war. She looked down. “Our Alpha is dead. There is only me left. Until we get more of a supply, I don’t have enough for everyone. I can’t give her any more. Not when she’s been gone without warning for two days. We were delayed getting here because we waited for her.”

  “Give her some.” His wolf reared inside, and Auggie had to agree. Asking for the drug went against his moral code. But getting her what she needed to stay alive or standing on principle—there was no decision to be made. He’d just found Clarissa. He would keep her alive.

  “I don’t have to answer to you.” The she-wolf had claws. Auggie might respect it if she wasn’t between him and what his mate needed.

  He put his face close to hers. “You slapped my mate. She was gone for two days, caring for me. Give her what she needs, or you will know why I was so feared in the war that they made a separate squad just to contain werewolves like me. I was reported dead. Would you like to know why they thought it better people believed I was no longer alive?”

  She gulped. The scent of her fear, when combined with her already drug addled smell, made him want to gag from the sourness of the whole thing.

  “You think I care? What life is this? What life do any of us have anymore? There’s nothing. No point.”

  Auggie went very still. His brother Robbie was Alpha. Had been born to be. But all aggressive males were protectors. His father had raised them to channel those instincts into being good men.

  These people needed help. Not just his mate, although she came first.

  Unfortunately, this went beyond his ability to fix on his own. There were too many people. Auggie stopped to think. “Do you have enough to give every person here a small dose of the egg serum?”

  She nodded once, then looked away.

  “Then do it. We’re leaving here.”

  He hoped his brother would be glad to have him back, considering he was going to be arriving with at least twenty-five really big problems who were going to need help.

  “Would you be our Alpha?” The woman looked so hopeful. He wished he could give her good news. “You’re her mate. That’s wonderful. You smell like an Alpha.”

  In his arms, Clarissa shook. He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m too dead inside to be anyone’s Alpha.” Auggie was fairly certain that had happened before the wars and not after. Maybe he was just made wrong. No matter, what he had was Clarissa’s. He’d figure out a way to be good enough. “But I will protect you and get you to a good one.”

  Worst case scenario, Robert said no to taking in these twenty-five needy people. August would work out what to do then. One problem at the time. In the meantime, he had to get his mate high.

  Such a strange course of events.

  Oh, and there were dragons. A lot of them. In the mountains. Something had to happen with that, too.

  The smell of death had diminished, replaced by the sour drug smell. Clarissa had stopped shaking. Around them, night had fallen. Auggie had led them for a few hours before they had to stop for the night. He rubbed his eyes.

  “Clarissa, what were you doing alone down by the river?”

  She glanced at him from where she stared into the fire and met his gaze before looking down again. There shouldn’t be submission issues between mates. He was higher in the dominance game, but as his mate, she should not be intimidated. They’d see what happened when the drugs were out of her system.

  “I was considering going into decline.”

  That’s what he’d thought. Maybe it was the sadness radiating from her that had given him that impression. He put his arm around her, and she leaned against him. “Then I guess it’s good that a dragon kicked my sorry behind and I ended up in the river that day, too.”

  “Is it? You don’t even know me. I’m not sure I know me anymore.”

  Auggie shook his head. “Then we’ll both have to get to know you at the same time. Mating can be like that sometimes.”

  In the distance, owls called out into the night. He wasn’t going to sleep until he got these people home. Not one wink. There were still dragons in these mountains.

  2

  Of all the mistakes she’d made in her life, taking that first taste of dragon’s egg with her sister Elizabeth had been the stupidest one Clarissa had ever made. One taste. That was all it took. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration; maybe it had been the second one that had done her in. But saying yes to begin with had led to the biggest error of her existence.

  It was hard to remember through the haze that always overtook her mind why she’d done that. Oh there had been reasons. But they seemed… removed. Her parents failing health—they were in full on decline, no longer living as humans—the endless war that every male she knew died in, the starvation, the fear, and her job had been eliminated as unnecessary by the government. Then there was the fact her mate had been reported dead.

  She blinked and reached out to touch Auggie’s leg gently. She didn’t want to disturb him. He’d fought sleep for hours. But as the sun touched the horizon, he’d finally closed his eyes, his breathing shifting to a deep tone that told her he wasn’t awake anymore. He needed the rest. The infection that had nearly killed him days earlier was still at risk for flaring again.

  If she remembered nothing else from her days as a healer, she knew sleep was essential for recovery.

  Clarissa let go of Auggie without disturbing him. He was real. He wasn’t a fabrication of her deranged mind. How was that possible? That was what she didn’t understand. He was dead. For that matter, his brother who he said was Alpha, was also supposed to have been dead for at least a decade. How had Auggie found her after she’d left? What had he been doing in that river to begin with?

  Her wolf moved around ins
ide of her. This was the most awake her furry half had been in five years. No doubt it had to do with being so close to Auggie. It was their wolf sides that found each other first and the human half followed, unless they’d known each other since birth. Then, she was told, it was almost instantaneous.

  Thunder cracked in the sky, and Clarissa groaned. There was nothing she hated more than being wet. Auggie’s eyes shot open, and for one long second, he looked at her through wolf eyes. That was unusual. Then he blinked, and the wolf vanished from his gaze.

  “It’s going to rain.” He got up and stretched. Auggie was a beautiful man. She’d never really thought about it before. He had been so much older than her when she’d realized what he was to her. Then he’d left. She’d asked for stories over the years from people who’d known him well. The best she’d ever gotten was ‘quiet’ and ‘hard to get to know.’ Robbie seemed to have been more of a character, a jokester, the one people looked to for leadership.

  Smelling her mate now, there was no question he was an Alpha male. She could hardly hold his gaze; even thinking about it made her drop her eyes to the ground. She sighed. This was hard. So much harder than it had to be because she’d been weak.

  He stroked the top of her head. “Look at me, please.”

  She felt his energy, his wolf rubbing against hers. For a second, Clarissa stopped breathing. What was that? Auggie lifted his eyebrows but didn’t comment. The reports of his quietness were proving to be true. He seemed, so far, to only speak if there was a pressing need. Whatever he needed to see from her, he did because he turned to address the group.

  “Everyone up. We’re shifting. Better to be wet in our fur than drenched in our skin. I am personally done with being sick. I’m not going to run another fever any time soon. Shift. Come on.” The need must have moved him.

  The pack stumbled to their feet, Clarissa along with them. Shifting wasn’t such an easy feat anymore. That was why she’d gone to the river that day. She’d shift one more time, enter decline, and never come back. Her wolf would take over. She’d never have to know the pressing need to have to have the dragon serum again. She would simply stop being as she was until she wasn’t anything anymore.

  Had her wolf somehow known? Had her wolf known Auggie would be there and picked that spot accordingly?

  These were questions for a time when her limbs weren’t refusing to reshape. Some of her packmates were managing. Some weren’t.

  Auggie’s gaze landed on her. He hadn’t shifted yet. Was he waiting for everyone else to?

  “I can’t do this,” Jane, a female around her age, called. “I can’t.”

  “You can. Because I said you can and that is all there is to it. Period.” He snarled, and the others immediately shifted.

  Clarissa shook. She wanted to shift. She did. Truly. She wanted him to like her, to want her, to not send her away. Her wolf howled. Panic was a miserable mistress, and it made her want to use even more. Only, there was nothing left. They’d run out of their supply. How could everyone else shift while she couldn’t?

  August tapped her chin. “Look at me?”

  She raised her eyes to meet his dark gaze.

  “I was not yelling at you.” His words cooled the panic. “I have a short temper, a fast reflex to lash out at weakness. That is among my flaws. You’ll know them all in no time, I’m sure. But I am not upset with you. Never with you. I am disastrously upset that these are the circumstances with which we currently find ourselves. Someday, you will tell me your story.” A smirk moved across his face quickly. “And you’ll do it knowing that I am fast to get angry and that I have a hair-trigger when it comes to weakness. You’ll do it anyway. Because we’re mates.” He pressed his forehead to hers. It had been such a very long time since she had really been clean. Was her scent awful? He hadn’t said anything. They didn’t get invited, as a pack, to stay anywhere that bathing in their human form was an option. The river didn’t get the job done.

  August’s voice was low. A deep energy moved through her, and for a second, she could breathe. There was no need to feed the dragon serum need. There was just August Owens.

  “You can feel that. That’s my wolf saying hello to you. The essence of him. I can feel yours.”

  She found her voice. “You can?”

  “By the gods, I can. She is strong. She is why you’re still here.” He closed his eyes. “I am grateful to her. She doesn’t quit trying to move forward. She can be savage, but she’s a healer.” His eyes opened. “Like you must be. You’re a healer.”

  She sighed. “Used to be.”

  “And maybe will be again. She wants to shift.” His voice sounded certain, as if he knew. Was that possible? How was he understanding her wolf so well when she had no clue what to make of his or any idea whatsoever how to reason with her own? “Shift for me.”

  Suddenly, she could. The anxiety was gone. The movements hurt, and she cried out in pain as though she were an inexperienced pup. And yet, still the shift came. Clarissa raised her head to Auggie. He still walked on two legs. Wow, he smelled even better like this. Warm. Male. Hers.

  Mate.

  Her human words were failing her. That was good. She’d stay like this. It was easier.

  August stroked her fur. “Good girl.” He pointed a finger at her. “This is temporary. You’re not in control. Until Clarissa is strong enough again to lead, you’ll listen only to me.”

  Okay. That sounded good. Yes, she liked that. He was strong. He would take care of them when the need for that wretched stuff rode through her again.

  He looked up at the sky as the rain started. Auggie sighed. “It’s always something.”

  His shift came fast. How did he do that? Even when she had been healthy, she couldn’t shift like that. His ears were back. Auggie, as she’d seen him when she pulled him out of the river, was almost entirely black in his wolf form with some brown spots all over him. In her wolf form, Clarissa was completely brown. She used to resent how boring her form was compared to others in her family, who were beautifully colored. Not that she had time to think about that anymore. All she could manage was staying alive.

  August grunted at her then rubbed against her side. She whimpered. More. She wanted more of that. He did it once more then scampered around behind her to knock at her hind legs. His intent was clear. He wanted her to follow him, to move.

  She did as he demanded—always would—and soon, her pack followed suit.

  Clarissa had a love hate relationship with her pack. On one hand, they understood her. They didn’t judge her, didn’t make demands she couldn’t meet. On the other, packs were supposed to make each other stronger and that was not happening with this one.

  Thunder struck again, and the rain fell more intensely. She put her head toward the ground and followed August’s scent. For the first time in a long time, perhaps there was reason to be hopeful.

  Clarissa’s good mood fled fast. The longer the rain pounded, the harder it got for her to keep up. The dragon serum need had returned. Clarissa growled. It used to be she could escape it when she wore four legs, but no longer. It always found her, no matter what she did.

  Her mate detested weakness. He was being kind to her, but sooner or later, he was going to see just how lost she really was. He’d wish she’d found a way to go into decline and never burdened him with her existence. Wolves weren’t supposed to be like this.

  Auggie quit running, which made the whole pack stop. She shuddered. He probably felt her mood, knew she couldn’t go any further. He’d soon understand just how bad this was.

  He strode over to her and stood very close. He wasn’t even panting. How was that possible? They’d been running for hours. She lowered her gaze, and he nipped at her neck. She yelped. What was that? Auggie turned his head to the side, questioning her. What did he want? Clarissa really didn’t know. She huffed, and he waited for a second before he took off running again. It was going to be a long day.

  The rain stopped sometime after noon. They�
��d covered a lot more land than he’d told them they would, and Clarissa figured they had the rain to thank. They’d never have run this fast or far if they’d been comfortable.

  Paula, their leader since they’d lost their Alpha, collapsed onto the ground. She was done. Clarissa understood the feeling. At least she wasn’t the one to finally quit. August must have thought this was okay. He shifted back into his human form, and soon, everyone else was, too.

  She didn’t want to. This was easier. The need for drugs tore at her, but she couldn’t get any more if she stayed like this.

  Her mate walked over to her and stared. “We talked about this.”

  She harrumphed and lay on all four paws. He didn’t have to like it. Just because he was above her in dominance didn’t mean he would always get everything he wanted. She was going to stay in furry form if she damned well pleased.

  And… he sunk onto the ground next to her. “Grumpy, huh?”

  Well, yes she was. The smell of everyone’s need for the drugs wafted through the air. It stank. She knew she must stink like that, too, which only made it worse.

  “Do you remember Duncans Pond back home? Did you ever go swim naked there?”

  She had, actually, but she’d not thought about it for years. It was a rite of passage that the youth thought they were getting away with. The adults simply turned a blind eye because they’d done it themselves many times when they were young.

  August closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to say anything else? Why had he asked? Now all she could think about was Duncans Pond. The water was always cold, yet they’d leaped in joyfully and squealing. Most of them would sneak out and have sex. Unmated sex wasn’t forbidden, but the pack leaders didn’t look favorably upon it. Again, it was something most adults didn’t think about too much. A few months after they’d be given this freedom, females were quickly locked down again. No one wanted their daughter entering a mating as a tainted woman. Bad reputations lasted.