Secrets of the Dragon’s Heart (Mysteries of Dragon’s Island #6)

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

***CAMERON***

C ameron woke with a start from a sound sleep, opened his eyes, and looked around the cave, disoriented for a second, then remembered where he was. Kennedy was sleeping on her side, her back pressed up against him. The rain had stopped outside, but he knew that wasn’t what had woken him. He lay there listening to the silence for a long time, his senses telling him that something wasn’t right, but the feeling slowly faded a few minutes later. Discarding the idea of going outside to check on the noise, he snuggled back up to Kennedy, closed his eyes, and drifted instantly back to sleep.

A few minutes later, a shadow drifted silently across the opening of the cave, then disappeared into the trees, but this time Cameron slept through it. When the man was far enough away from the cave, he broke into a run, determined to get back to the boat he’d stashed in a cove. He’d just captured the story of a lifetime, and he had pictures to prove it. He was going to be a very rich man.

The fact that he had Kennedy Fisher to thank for it rankled just a bit, but he wasn’t done with her. The story would be only the first step. He had a score to settle with the little bitch. No one, especially a woman, got the scoop on him. She had to pay for what she’d done. But first, the world was going to get a good look at the monsters that lived right alongside them, and he was going to be the man to deliver the message.

The jungle was a shimmering spectacle of light when they came out of the cave the next morning. Drops of water covered everything, refracting the sunlight and giving them a show as they walked away from the cave. “I’ll never forget this place,” Kennedy said, taking his hand. “This will always be our special place.”

“Anywhere you are is my special place,” he said, grinning at her. “You can take that any way you want to, by the way.”

Kennedy gasped, getting his joke, “Cameron, you’re terrible,” she said. “But on the other hand, that was very sweet.”

He laughed. “Come on, we’d better get back to the village and clear things up with Max,” he said. “He’s probably worried sick that you did something to me.”

“Well, I did,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him. “I turned you into a sex maniac.”

“Hey now, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “I just want you…all the time.”

“Behave yourself, mister,” Kennedy warned, stepping away from him. “I know that look. We’re not doing that out here in the open, so just forget it.”

“Oh, come on, the bushes will hide us,” he said, taking her hand and trying to pull her off the trail. “It will only take a few minutes.”

“I was just kidding about the sex maniac thing,” she said, but let him lead her off the trail into the privacy of the dense greenery. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life, Kennedy,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “You’ve been telling me to have more fun for days. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I didn’t mean…” Kennedy started to protest, but his hands were already busy with the button on her shorts, and the words died away with a sigh.

When they finally emerged from the jungle quite a while later, Kennedy’s cheeks were flushed, and she had a satisfied smile on her face. “Now we can go back to the village,” he said, grinning at her. “Unless you want to explore the jungle some more.”

Kennedy just shook her head at him. “Incorrigible, that’s what you are,” she said. “I created a monster.”

“But I’m your monster, so you only have yourself to blame,” he said, taking her hand. “And now you’re stuck with me.”

“I can think of worse things,” she said, smiling at him. “I hope Max understands why I did what I did. I don’t want him to be mad at me; you’re one of his best friends.”

“He’ll understand,” he said. “You haven’t really done anything wrong, other than telling a few lies.”

“I hope that you’re right,” she said, looking up at him. “I can’t believe how wrong I got everything. I can’t believe I thought you were a bad guy. Looking back at it now, I see that it seems so silly.”

“But it brought us together,” he said, smiling down at her. “Max is going to give the island all the credit, you know that, right?”

Kennedy was silent for a second, “Where do you think that tiger came from?” she asked. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t think of a logical explanation. Tigers aren’t native to these islands, and they're not even close. So how did one get here?”

“I wish I had a good answer to that question. I was completely convinced that all this talk about the island influencing people’s lives was just that, talk. I made that very clear when I got here,” he said, then shook his head. “Now, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m not so sure. Between the stories I’ve heard and our little encounter with the tiger, it’s getting harder to deny that it might be true.”

“It’s made me a believer, that’s for sure, that tiger was real, not our imagination and if you hadn’t shifted, it would have killed us both,” she said, then hesitated for a second. “Cameron, I think I should tell you that I was going to do a story about the island too. It was my editor’s idea at first, but when it looked like I might have been wrong about you, it started to sound like a good idea to me, too.”

“You said was,” he said, studying her. “Are you still planning to do the story?”

Kennedy shook her head. “Besides the fact that I’m personally involved, it’s not really my kind of story,” she said, then took his hand, making him feel the warmth of their love. “What’s happened to us since we came to the island is private, Cameron. I’m not about to share it with the entire world.”

“It’s going to be hard enough to tell Max; he’s going to be saying I told you so for the rest of our lives,” he said with a groan, then looked over at her and grinned. “I’m going to need lots of sympathy.”

“You’ve got that look in your eye again,” she said. “Behave yourself. I’ll give you plenty of sympathy when you deserve it.”

He laughed. “You drive a hard bargain, sweetheart,” he said, then looked up to see Max striding toward them, a mixture of anger and worry on his face. “But get ready for that sympathy. Here comes Max and he doesn’t look happy.”

***Kennedy** *

Kennedy’s stomach did a summersault. Max had every right to be angry with her, and he might not be as forgiving as Cameron. “What the hell have you two been doing?” Max asked when they were close enough, then looked at their joined hands and let out a groan. “I should have known, but did you really have to block out the entire mountain with that storm? Do you have any idea how hard that was to explain to the rest of the people on the island? I’ve been doing damage control since it started yesterday afternoon. I was just glad to see it was gone when I woke up this morning, not that I slept that much…”

“Hold on,” Cameron said, interrupting Max’s tirade. “It was a storm, Max. We don’t control the weather. I’m sorry we didn’t come back sooner, but it rained most of the night, so we came back as soon as we could.”

Max let out a huff. “The only place it rained was up on the mountain where you were,” he said. “Look around you. Does it look like it rained here all night?”

They both looked around and then at each other. “No, but you can’t blame us,” Cameron said. “Besides, even if it was our fault, I don’t know how we could have stopped it. By the way, there’s a slim possibility that there’s a tiger loose on the island.”

Max’s mouth popped open, and he stared at them in shock. “Cameron, that wasn’t the way to tell him,” she said, elbowing him in the ribs. “Now he’s even more upset, and I still haven’t told him the truth about why I’m here.”

“A tiger…on the island. This can’t be happening. I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Max said, then looked at the two of them. “My cabin, right now. We’re going to get to the bottom of this and fast. Do I really need to send someone out to look for a tiger?”

“It looked real enough yesterday,” Cameron said, a sheepish look on his face. “I might have been wrong about the island. There might be something to what you’ve been telling me.”

“You think,” Max said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go. I’ve got to call Mateo, he’s the only one I can trust with this. If there’s a tiger roaming around the island, he’ll be able to find it.”

“Okay, start talking,” Max said before the front door to his cabin was even closed. “Tell me about the tiger first. We’ll get to the rest later.”

“Do you think we could at least sit down,” Cameron said. “We just hiked five miles.”

“Talk while you sit,” Max said, leading them back to the kitchen. “What the hell happened up there?”

“We stopped for lunch about half a mile from the cliff. We were almost done eating when a tiger came strolling out from the jungle,” he said. “It was clearly thinking we were dinner, so I sent Kennedy for help, but of course, she didn’t listen and came back. I finally had to shift to chase it off. The storm started not long after that. We found our way to a cave and waited it out, and now here we are.”

Max studied them for a second. “I have a feeling there are a few details you left out, not that I want to hear them,” he said, holding up his hands. “I just need to know if you two are together now, because it sure would be nice if this was the end of it.”

Cameron looked over at her, then back at Max. “We’re as together as we can be,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to work out, but I’m not giving Kennedy up even if I have to cause a big scandal. You should know that right now. You know what my father expects, Max. This is going to be a fight, but I don’t see what that has to do with the island or you.”

“Oh, it will, just you wait and see,” Max said, then looked over at Kennedy. “Now, do you want to tell me who you really are?”

Suddenly on the spot, her stomach clenched with nerves. “ First, I just want to say that I’m sorry I lied to you, but as I explained to Cameron, I was trying to do my job,” she said, then let out a long sigh. “Now, it’s all a bit embarrassing, but I’m a reporter. I saw Cameron at a fundraiser, and well…I think I mistook attraction for the feeling I always get when I’m onto a good story. My editor and I cooked up the game show thing so I could come to the island and get close to him. Now I’m pretty sure I’m going to get fired when Steve finds out there’s no story.”

“She thought I was doing something illegal in the lab,” Cameron said, shaking his head. “I told her the truth. She knows everything.”

“I see,” Max said, studying her. “I hope we can trust you, Kennedy. You know secrets few regular humans know. It would be devastating if the world found out about shifters; it would be the end of our way of life.”

“I would never betray Cameron; I care too much about him,” she said, looking Max directly in the eye. “It’s probably going to cost me my job, but that’s a small price to pay for what I’ve gained since I came here, and I’m not going to risk any of it for a newspaper story. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Max sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. “This island is giving me grey hair,” he finally said. “I have a feeling this isn’t over, so you two better hope this thing between you is strong enough to weather what’s coming.”

His words sent a shiver of apprehension through her, but she kept the smile on her face. There were still a lot of obstacles in their way, and she knew that there were some big choices in their future. Their love was so new, so fragile, she couldn’t help but remind herself it might not be enough to get them through what was coming. Happily ever after rarely happened, especially not when everyone in Cameron’s life except Max would be against their love.

As if sensing where her thoughts had gone, Cameron took her hand under the table. “We’re going to fight to be together. I’m willing to give everything up for Kennedy if that’s what it takes,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, I hope you’ll be in our corner.”

“We’ll all be there for you if it comes down to that,” Max said. “The eight of us are family, and we’ll support you to the end.”

“Good, because I think we’re going to need it,” Cameron said. “Now, if you’re done grilling us, I think we’d both like to go take a nap. We didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Cameron,” she hissed, feeling her cheeks turning pink. “That was too much information.”

“I agree,” Max said, then shooed them away with his hand. “Go on, you two, I have to make a phone call and listen to Mateo tell me I told you so a million times before he goes to look for a tiger that he won’t find. I don’t know why I opened this resort in the first place.”