12. Rune
TWELVE
RUNE
The wind rushing past them carried the scent of desert sage and ancient stone, but Rune barely registered the familiar landscape below.
Every nerve in his massive dragon body was focused on the woman seated between his shoulder blades, her hands gripping his scales with a reverence that sent molten fire coursing through his veins.
In five centuries of existence, no one had ever ridden on his back.
The very idea had been unthinkable—allowing someone that close, trusting someone that much.
Yet here was Maple, her body warm against his scales, her voice soft with wonder as she occasionally murmured appreciation for the landscape unfolding beneath them.
Through their mate bond, her emotions flowed into him like honey—pure joy, breathless awe, and beneath it all, a profound sense of belonging that matched his own.
She felt it too, this rightness between them, this perfect braiding of souls that defied every logical argument he'd constructed against the mate bond.
His dragon rumbled with contentment, a sound that vibrated through his entire frame.
For the first time in centuries, he felt fulfilled.
Not the hollow fulfillment of wealth and power, but the soul-deep satisfaction of finding his missing half.
The woman on his back wasn't just riding him—she was claiming him as surely as he had claimed her last night.
This is what I've been denying myself.
His logical mind attempted its familiar rebellion, trying to resurrect the walls he'd spent centuries building.
Remember what happened to your father. Remember how love consumed him.
But the warnings felt distant, almost meaningless against the reality of Maple's fearless embrace of his true nature.
As he continued flying through the desert sky, he could feel her pulse quickening not with fear but with exhilaration as they soared over a particularly deep canyon, her soft gasp of delight making his dragon preen with pride.
"Bank to the right," Maple's voice cut through his reverie minutes later.
The command snapped him back to their mission with jarring suddenness.
Right—they weren't flying for pleasure.
They were tracking Serena, trying to uncover the connection between Maple's academic rival and the men who had tried to run Ben and Maple off the canyon road yesterday.
He adjusted his flight path with fluid grace, feeling Maple's grip tighten as they changed direction. The pressure of her hands against his scales sent another wave of heat through him, but he forced himself to focus on her navigation rather than the way her body moved with his.
The sprawling city of Phoenix spread beneath them, glass and steel buildings glinting in the afternoon sun.
He maintained altitude carefully, high enough to avoid detection by human eyes while staying close enough for Maple to guide him.
Centuries of flying in secret had made stealth second nature—he knew exactly how to catch thermals to minimize wing movement, how to use cloud cover, how to remain invisible to a world that had forgotten dragons existed.
"Serena's lab is there," Maple called out, pointing toward a modern glass and steel building several blocks from his own Trigg Corporation headquarters.
Rune circled the structure with predatory patience, his keen eyesight scanning the area below. This felt like a long shot—they could wait for hours and Serena might not even be in the building. But sometimes surveillance required patience, and he had centuries of it.
"There!" Maple's voice suddenly rang with excitement. "She's walking out of the building now."
Perfect timing, Rune thought, hoping the satisfaction in his emotions would carry through the mate bond to her.
"Follow her," Maple instructed, and he obeyed, using every skill he'd developed over five centuries of remaining hidden.
They tracked Serena through several city blocks, watching as she walked with purposeful strides toward what appeared to be an upscale restaurant. But when a tall, elegantly dressed man emerged from the establishment to greet her, Rune's entire body went rigid with recognition.
The scent hit him even at this altitude—smoke and ash, the distinctive signature of a rogue dragon shifter. But this wasn't just any rogue. There was something calculated and cold about this one's presence, something that set every instinct Rune possessed on high alert.
"That man," Maple's voice carried a note of recognition that made Rune's protective instincts flare. "I think I know who he is. He's a museum curator—Dr. Elias Vorn. What is Serena doing with him?"
Elias Vorn.
The name meant nothing to Rune, but the dragon's scent told him everything he needed to know. This wasn't a coincidence. Whatever was happening between Serena and this rogue dragon, it was connected to the claim marker, to the attack yesterday, to the danger that now surrounded his mate.
As if sensing scrutiny, the man below suddenly stiffened and looked skyward. Rune's blood turned to ice—the rogue's senses were sharper than he'd anticipated.
Without hesitation, Rune banked hard to the left, putting distance between them and the restaurant with powerful wingbeats that carried them swiftly away from the city. He couldn't risk exposure, couldn't let this Elias Vorn confirm what he might have sensed.
The flight back to his canyon territory felt both endless and too brief.
Endless because every protective instinct screamed at him to turn around and eliminate the threat to his mate.
Too brief because once they landed, he would have to shift back to human form and face the growing intensity of the mate bond without the distraction of flight.
When he finally touched down in the clearing behind his mansion, lowering his great head so Maple could dismount, the loss of contact hit him unexpectedly hard.
Her warmth, her trust, the perfect rightness of her presence on his back—all of it vanished the moment she slid down his neck to the ground.
He wanted to keep her there, to spend the rest of the day soaring through his territory with his mate secure against him, exploring the vast canyon landscape together instead of dealing with rogues and conspiracies and threats to their newfound connection.
The transformation back to human form felt more jarring than usual, as if his dragon was reluctant to retreat. When the shift completed, leaving him naked in the desert air, he found Maple watching him with undisguised hunger in her green eyes.
Her gaze traveled over his body with the same reverence she'd shown his dragon form, and his cock responded immediately to her attention.
Heat pooled low in his belly as he bent to retrieve his scattered clothes, hyperaware of how her breathing had quickened and how her pupils had dilated with desire at his arousal.
His dragon snarled at him to forget the clothes, to pull her against him and finish what they'd started on the dining room table. The mate bond thrummed between them, stronger than ever after their flight together, demanding completion.
But his rational mind—what was left of it—insisted on maintaining some semblance of control. He pulled on his boxers and jeans with deliberate movements, then grabbed his henley and boots.
"I'm going to shower and get changed," Rune said, his voice rough. "I'll meet you and Ben down in the living room in an hour."
"Alright," Maple replied, but her voice carried the same breathless quality that had marked her responses during their lovemaking. "I'll go find Ben."
The way she looked at him—as if she wanted to follow him to that shower, as if she was remembering exactly how his hands had felt on her body—nearly shattered his resolve entirely.
Control, he reminded himself desperately. Maintain control.
But as he walked toward the mansion's back entrance, feeling her eyes on him every step of the way, Rune wondered how much longer he could keep fighting a battle he was increasingly certain he didn't want to win.
An hour later, water droplets fell from Rune's damp hair as he descended the mansion's grand staircase, the shower having done nothing to wash away the lingering sensation of Maple's body pressed against his dragon form.
Every muscle in his frame remained coiled with tension, the mate bond thrumming beneath his skin, demanding completion.
The living area stretched before him in all its ancient grandeur—soaring stone walls adorned with tapestries that had witnessed centuries of dragon history, artifacts from civilizations that predated human memory arranged with careful precision along hand-carved shelves.
The massive stone fireplace dominated the far wall, its hearth cold now but radiating the warmth of countless fires that had burned there over the millennia.
Maple stood before the mantelpiece, her fingers hovering just above a bronze ceremonial dagger that had belonged to his great-grandfather.
The afternoon light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows caught the gold in her green eyes as she studied the intricate engravings with the reverence of someone who understood she was witnessing living history.
She belongs here, his dragon whispered with dangerous satisfaction. Look how she appreciates our treasures, how she respects what we've built.
Ben sat rigidly on the leather sofa, his usual easy demeanor replaced by the fidgeting energy of a man desperate to escape an increasingly complicated situation.
His weathered hands twisted together as he glanced repeatedly toward the windows, as if calculating the fastest route back to familiar territory.
"Ben needs to get back to his girlfriend Jackie," Maple said, her voice carrying careful neutrality. "She's apparently losing her mind about him being gone without explanation, and I told him he can't leave because it's too dangerous."
Ben's shoulders sagged. "Jackie called six times in the past hour. She's convinced something terrible has happened, and honestly, she's not wrong."
Rune studied the man's genuine distress. "If Ben needs to leave, I can have a few of my men look after him until we figure out what's going on here," Rune said, forcing his voice to remain steady despite the internal war raging between his protective instincts and his need to maintain control.
Ben's entire body seemed to deflate with gratitude. "That would be really appreciated. I need to get back to Jackie before she does something drastic like call the police."
"I understand completely. I can have Zarik give you a ride back to the city after our discussion here."
"That sounds great," Ben said, then pulled out his phone with the efficiency of someone eager to prove his usefulness. "I was able to get a list of who's part of that dragon forum online. I sent it to your email—the one I found on your Trigg Corporation website."
Rune retrieved his phone from his pocket, noting how Maple turned from the artifacts to watch him with that intense curiosity that never failed to make his pulse quicken. The email sat in his inbox like a small bomb waiting to detonate.
He opened the attachment and scrolled through the names, his jaw tightening as familiar entries appeared on the screen. "Serena and Elias are on the list."
"We realized that before you came down here," Maple said, moving closer to peer at his phone screen.
Her proximity sent heat coursing through his veins, her citrus and rose scent making his dragon rumble with possessive satisfaction.
"But we still don't know what that means.
Why are those two on this dragon forum, and why were they meeting at that restaurant today? "
Rune forced himself to step back, putting necessary distance between them before his control shattered. "I don't know, but what I realized during our surveillance was that Elias is not human. He's a rogue dragon shifter."
Maple's eyes widened with genuine shock. "Are you sure?"
"Completely sure. His scent was written all over him—smoke and ash, the signature of someone who's abandoned clan loyalty for personal gain.
" Rune's voice carried the authority of five centuries spent identifying threats to his territory.
"Rogues are dangerous because they have no code, no allegiance except to their own ambition. "
Ben leaned forward on the sofa, his archaeological mind clearly working through the implications. "Well, the only thing that makes sense is if they're trying to hunt down dragon relics just like you were, Maple."
Maple shook her head, her expression troubled. "But they're both reputable academics. Serena's competitive, but she's never seemed like the type to chase dragons. Neither of them struck me as believers in anything supernatural."
"The world, as you've now realized, is not what it seems," Rune said, his tone holding the weight of five centuries spent protecting secrets from human discovery. "Clearly they're involved in something bigger. We just need to figure out what and why."
Ben stood from the sofa with renewed purpose. "Once I get back to the city, I can follow Serena. See where she goes, who she meets with besides Elias."
"That's not safe, Ben," Maple protested, her protective instincts flaring.
"I'll be careful," Ben assured her, then looked to Rune with the respect of someone who understood hierarchy. "Besides, I'll have Rune's men close by in case any trouble happens."
Maple's jaw tightened with frustration, but Rune could see her analytical mind weighing the value of surveillance against the risks. "Fine, but if you sense any trouble at all, you better not play hero."
"I won't," Ben promised.
Rune dialed Zarik's number, his loyal enforcer answering on the first ring with military efficiency.
"Zarik, I need you to come by with Caius. You'll be taking Ben back to the city and serving as his security detail for a while."
"Understood," came the crisp reply.
Rune ended the call and looked between Ben and Maple. "It's settled then. Ben will go back to the city and follow Serena with caution. Maple will stay here under my protection, and we'll investigate Elias further and figure out what the hell is going on."
Maple nodded her agreement, but Rune caught the flicker of something deeper in her green eyes—anticipation mixed with wariness, as if she too understood that being alone together in his mansion would test them both.
How am I going to survive resisting her now?
The thought crashed through his mind with devastating clarity. Every room would carry her scent, every conversation would pull him deeper into the mate bond's web, every glance would remind him of how perfectly she'd fit against him on that dining room table.
His dragon's response rumbled through his consciousness with smug satisfaction.
You're not.