Chapter 4

FOUR

F or the hundredth time that evening, Talon Draker caught himself tracking Asher Andrews’s scent through the building. He’d developed an embarrassing talent for it over the past six months since she started working for his company - catching traces of brilliant mind and fierce determination mixed with something uniquely her that made his dragon stir every time she came within fifty feet of his office.

Which was exactly why he’d started taking the far stairs whenever she approached. Eight hundred years of perfect control meant nothing when it came to Dr. Asher Andrews and her infuriating habit of challenging his decisions in board meetings while looking at him with those sharp, intelligent eyes.

His dragon had known the moment she walked into her first budget meeting. Mate . The recognition had hit so hard, he’d cracked the conference table’s edge. He’d spent the next six months burying that knowledge deep, exercising iron control while she systematically dismantled his financial projections with devastating accuracy.

Now, watching her through the security feed enter her lab at 11:47 PM, that control was about to snap completely.

“Mr. Draker? We have a problem.”

Dr. Bennett’s panicked call came too late. Talon had already watched Asher ignore multiple calls from her friends and family and seen her prepare the injection with steady hands that betrayed none of the fear he could scent even through the video feed.

Two months ago, his mother had warned him: “Keep an eye on Dr. Andrews’s research. She’s working on something that could change everything.” He’d dismissed it as his mother’s usual cryptic meddling, though his dragon had been suspiciously alert ever since.

The moment the needle pierced her skin, his world imploded. His dragon, after months of increasingly vocal protests about avoiding their mate, roared to full consciousness with such force that Talon’s carefully maintained control shattered.

The realization he’d been fighting crashed through every barrier he’d built: Not just his mate—but his dying mate. He’d seen her medical files, tracked her deteriorating condition that she hid so carefully beneath sharp wit and brilliant work. She wasn’t being reckless; she was fighting for her life.

His phone buzzed. “What?” he snapped, already moving toward the executive elevator.

“Your mate is terrifying,” Levi blurted. “I mean, Dr. Andrews is—wait, did you feel that? The energy spike when she—oh, shit.”

“Security center. Now.”

Talon ended the call, his focus entirely on reaching Asher. The building hummed with residual energy from her experiment, but all he could sense was her fading consciousness three floors below. For the first time in centuries, he let his dragon push him faster, harder.

He found her collapsed beside her workstation, dark hair spilling across scattered notes. Even unconscious, she radiated power that called to his dragon with impossible intensity. Every time he’d caught her scent in meetings, every moment he’d had to leave a room before his control broke - none of it compared to this.

“I’ve got this, Dr. Bennett,” Talon said. “You go on back home. Thank you for keeping an eye on her.”

His phone buzzed again. “Unless the building’s on fire—” he growled.

“Worse,” Levi’s voice cracked slightly. “Her two friends are here. The scary tech genius just disabled our outer defenses while drinking a Red Bull and complaining about our outdated encryption. I’m both terrified and impressed. Mostly terrified. She just smiled at me again. Why does she keep doing that?”

“Focus, Levi.”

“I am focused! Very focused on security and not at all on how she just quoted ancient Norse texts while dismantling century-old protection spells. Who even knows ancient Norse? Besides us? And why is it so attractive—I mean concerning. Security-wise.”