Page 3 of His Brazen Mate

“No,” said Drake, knowing that by honoring his father’s wishes for his funeral, there wasn’t a body to exhume. He continued, “That won’t be necessary. As you said, it’s probably my own grief. Thank you.”

Unwilling to be silenced, Drake returned to the distillery, the note clenched in his fist. He tried going through his contacts in the military but got nowhere. He didn’t necessarily think the authorities were trying to cover something up; it was more that they didn’t see any reason to investigate. Every attempt to push further was shut down, leaving Drake with more questions than answers.

He pored over the official report of his father's death, scrutinizing every detail. He was able to access some other official files, but most had either been restricted or redacted so heavily that he could get nothing out of them. There was something off, and the harder he pushed, the more convinced his dragon senses told him he was right. There were small gaps in the timeline, inconsistencies in witness statements, and the death certificate itself. The autopsy report looked like a child had gone over it with a permanent marker. Each discovery deepened his belief that there was more to know.

Drake knew he needed help and knew it couldn’t be overt or official. He needed someone who could navigate the digital shadows and uncover hidden truths. Drake reached out to Jasmine Chen, a friend whose tech-savvy skills had been invaluable in the past. She was based in Anchorage and agreed to meet him at the distillery, her curiosity piqued by the mystery.

"Jasmine, I need your help in accessing some sealed records," Drake said once she’d arrived, his voice a mix of urgency and determination. "There are too many inconsistencies in the official report of my father's death."

"I'll see what I can find. Give me a moment." Jasmine nodded, her fingers already flying across the keyboard. “Drake, I can probably get into the official files, but some of the files on your father’s laptop are encrypted. Do you have any idea what the password might be?”

“Not a clue.”

“You don’t mind me opening something he wanted to keep closed?”

“I want to know what happened to him. If his death was accidental, so be it, but if not…”

Jasmine nodded. “Got it. Can I take this back to my place in Anchorage? I have equipment there that will help me break the encryption.”

“Do I want to follow up on what kind of equipment and why you have it?”

Jasmine grinned at him. “No, you do not. What you want to ask yourself is, do I want my friend Jasmine to get into these files my father had encrypted?”

She’d left with the laptop after copying the files in question over to Drake’s system. Once she was gone, Drake's thoughts wandered back to the cryptic note and the authorities' lack of interest in helping him find the truth. His father’s death was beginning to look less like an accident and more like a carefully orchestrated event.

Several hours later, his computer alerted him to a video call from Jasmine, whose face lit up, indicating she’d been able to crack through the layers of digital security his father had used.

"Drake, you need to see this," she said, sharing the screen of his father’s laptop so he could see what she had found.

The screen displayed a series of documents detailing a sophisticated bourbon counterfeit and smuggling operation. The more he read, the more he realized his father had stumbled upon something dangerous, something that could explain his untimely death.

As the pieces fell into place, Drake felt a mix of anger and sorrow. His father's legacy was now tainted by the possibility of foul play. But he couldn’t let it end there. He would uncover the truth, no matter the cost.

That night, as Drake lay in bed, his mind whirling with the revelations of the day, he fell into a restless sleep.

In his dreams, he found himself in a mist-shrouded forest, the air thick with the scent of pine and earth. A figure emerged from the haze, a naked woman with flowing auburn hair and piercing green eyes. She reached out to him, her touch sending a shiver down his spine.

She stood, looking at him like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming truck. Drake raced forward, catching her upper arm as she turned to flee. Spinning her around, he pulled her against the hard planes of his body.

"Hands behind your back," he growled.

As sometimes happens in dreams, Drake found he was not only naked and aroused, he also had a piece of leather strapping in his hands. The woman hesitated only briefly before complying. He wrapped it around her wrists and secured her to a gnarled branch of a fallen tree. She pulled at the restraints as concern kicked in. The scent of her fear combined with her arousal was an intoxicating aroma.

"I'm going to fuck you," he rumbled, not sure if he was issuing a warning or a promise.

"No," she said, pulling against the restraints securing her to the tree.

"If you didn't want my cock, you wouldn’t have showed up here tonight."

"I don’t want it," she pleaded as he rubbed his cock over her pussy.

"Liar,” he chuckled, pushing her back so she was sitting on the fallen tree.

Drake rubbed her thighs with his hands, running them up and down as he pulled her legs further apart. As it was his dream, he wasn’t all that interested in foreplay. Holding her legs apart, he shoved forward sinking his hard dick into her wet heat. He wasn’t gentle, and he didn’t care. He slammed into her, drawing back to ram himself deep again. He was fucking her hard because he wanted to and because she wanted him to.

, He’d been an officer in the Navy, and that brought with it a certain level of decorum, but he was no longer in the Navy. He was a dragon-shifter, a wealthy dragon-shifter who was the alpha of his clan, which meant in his territory, he could do whatever he wanted.

His thumb began to rub her clit. “Come for me."

---