I had a moment of pure terror when I saw that fire about to engulf Merethyl. I scooped her up and raced outside, thankful that the blast hit me and not her. Even for me, that was painful. I’m pretty sure my back is scratched, and my wings are probably torn. It hurt pulling them in, but it would have hurt worse landing on them. Now, as she straddles me, watching the blazing inferno behind us, I feel like I need to do damage control. So, I revert to what always works for me. Arrogance. When I make a joke about her wanting to be on top, she responds as I expect. She practically leaps off of me. If we were alone, I might have considered taking a more flirtatious approach, but we’re not and there are still many injured out here in the forest where they are easy targets for hunters. We get up and I move to find Kayid. He had been unconscious when Merethyl had found him. Since I had smelled his blood on the hunters, I’m not surprised. As a shifter, he may have advanced healing, but it’s no

I realize my subtle attempts to see if Merethyl likes me, aren’t subtle at all. When she tells me she likes older men a lot, it actually has the opposite effect than what I was hoping. I had asked the question, hoping she’d say yes, meaning she liked me. But her response and the way she said it made me realize that my mate may have quite a bit of experience with older men. It immediately makes me jealous. No one touches what is mine. I watch as she strides away, full of grace and confidence. I need to get my jealousy under control. The potential that one of the elves in her troupe that are standing on the other side of this tree line from me may have touched my mate has me on the verge of shifting and roaring my claim over her. Not that it would matter. Elves can’t be claimed like that any more than a dragon can. I take a deep breath and walk out of the forest. Merethyl is already organizing her people to go back to their lands. I take the opportunity to go speak to the shifters. “Y

I took the opportunity while I was getting the dead elves out to the pyres made by Merethyl, to see if the bullets in their bodies matched the ones I saw in the hunters’ laboratory we just found. They don’t, which means, that while those hunters knew about this place and what happened here, they weren’t the ones to capture Mere’s brother and her brethren. Merethyl’s grief is palpable, and I knew that when it came time to say goodbye to her parents, she would struggle. One good thing about dragons is that we have good memories. Because her song was something that sounded like it came from the earth, I was able to pick it up easily, so on our final night of laying her dead to rest, when Mere couldn’t sing the words, I did it for her. Each night, after we’d send off the next group of dead, I’d curl up around her in the forest and we’d fall asleep. Tonight, as we lay here, I can tell that she won’t be able to sleep. I can almost hear the wheels turning in her head, keeping her awake. I

I about lose my shit when I show up on top of the mountain. Merethyl is gone and these hunters arrive telling me to give myself up. When I see her climb up the mountainside in my peripheral vision, I feel like I can breathe again. The moment the leader tells them to get me, Merethyl and I are in motion. I realize we’ve fought together before, but it’s like we’ve been fighting together for years. I go for the leader, and she goes for the minions. I see Mere take the first one by surprise. She throws him off the mountain. By then, I’ve jumped on the leader. He has weapons and if he is here, knowing what I am, then it is likely that they will be able to hurt me. I grab hold of his gun with one hand, swinging him around so he’s facing away from me before grabbing him by the throat. I look to make sure the Mere is okay before extending my claws and ripping the leaders throat out. I take the gun out of his hand as he falls to the ground, and I aim it at the guy that just turned from Mere

I begin racing after the hunters and those bastard scientists that are doing experiments on shifters, trying to create who knows what kind of creature. I’m still distracted by Merethyl moving me with her element. She shouldn’t have been able to do that. I’m a fucking dragon. I know I was in flight, but her ability to maneuver me mid-flight caught me off guard. For a moment, I thought she had decided to take advantage of the situation and claim me. She could have. She might have, if she had continued on the way she was. I had roared my fury at her and got her simple ‘sorry’ in response. Seriously? The woman has no clue how much strength she has and how much power she truly has over me. I almost couldn’t wait to get away from her, needing this time to calm myself. Of course, now that I’m away from her, I want to get back to her. Fucking mate bond. I hear cars starting in the distance and I realize the hunters and scientists raced to their cars, thinking they could out run me. Not a ch