I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing sleep would overtake me so I could stop thinking of her. I hadn’t been able to think of anything else since she showed up with Megan to look the house over. Her dark hair and exquisite figure had made my body respond in ways it hadn’t responded to anyone in a long time, and I knew she was meant to be my mate…my life partner. Just thinking of her as my mate sent my hormones into overdrive, and I hardened against the bedsheets. I knew I needed to get my thoughts under control before I ended up shifting and breaking my bed, or the house for that matter…again. Days like today, I hated being a dragon shifter. I had been searching for a mate for years with no luck, and I was nearing the time that if I didn’t find a mate, I’d go feral and become my dragon self for good. If that happened, I would be killed by members of my own clan. I had watched it happen to my father a few years back, which was why I was one of the youngest clan leaders that had ever been on the island.

    My clan had come to the island long before I was born, they had settled in with the hope of a new beginning. My father was a small child when they fled their home due to a hostile takeover by another species: wolf shifters to be specific. My grandfather was the clan leader at the time, and he did his best to make sure the clan survived. The war had wiped out a lot of women, and the ones that were left became slaves to the reigning species, so only the men made it to the island. From what my father told me, my grandmother perished in the fight for freedom. They had only been there a few months when the feral urges started plaguing my grandfather. Luckily, he found a mate when he saved a human woman from burning to death in a car. There was an instant connection, and even though he missed my grandmother, he loved what life had provided to him.

    They enjoyed many years together, and my father came to love her as if she were his mother. My father met my mother one day when he went to the mainland for supplies. He had brought her back to the island, and once she accepted what he was, she began helping them shape the island into what it was. She died in a boating accident when I was seventeen, leaving my father without a mate, and me grieving for a mother to guide me. Even though I was a teen, I still needed her to show me the softer sides of life. My father grieved her for a few years, and then the feral urges hit him, and hit him hard. I never saw it coming and wished like hell I could have done something to help him. There was a lack of humans on the island, and he never left. We tried our best to find him a mate before it was too late, but we weren’t successful. My father turned feral, and his inner dragon became the only version of him I saw...that any of us could see. A few members of the clan took it upon themselves to end his suffering, so I didn’t have to. I was thankful for that, but it hurt like hell. At that moment, I became the youngest clan leader in the history of our clan, and I knew I was going to have to change things to allow room for humans to move onto the island so that would never happen again. We had to put up with some of the male of the species who came with the females, but we learned to deal with them to have a better chance of finding a mate.

    That was three years ago, and even with the spike in the population, I had been left without a mate, and the feral urges were tormenting me. I knew I needed a mate, and I had given up hope of finding one until I saw her for the first time. I knew I had to have her, but I also knew that she most likely wouldn’t want me if she found out what I was. She would find out what I was since my dragon was becoming more prevalent, causing me to be a bit of an ass from time to time, even though I tried my hardest not to. I rolled over, looking at the clock and wishing I could finally fall asleep. My dragon was scratching and clawing, trying to escape yet again, and I fought against it. I finally felt it settling and dozed off, happy I was going to see her again. I knew I didn’t have much time to try to make a move, and that worried me the most.

    I woke up to my alarm blaring in my ear, and I roughly smacked the off button. I thought about staying in bed and going back to sleep since I hadn’t gotten much but decided to put my big-boy pants on and deal with the sleep deprivation. I dressed quickly and made myself some coffee; I welcomed its warmth and energy boost. I loaded my tools and the supplies I would need into my 4x4 Ford and drove to the house to begin work. It wasn’t a long drive; the house was located around two miles away from my home. We had all lived on the beach at one time, but when the wolf shifters started to become a problem, humans started moving back to the island again in droves and required beachfront property to make themselves happy. The humans occupying the island again had forced us dragons back into the shadows of sorts since we needed to hide what we were. Most of my clan lived in treehouses, but I had a log cabin.

Thoughts of wolf shifters pissed me off; they were horrible creatures that would rather kill a person rather than get to know them. They were part of the reason we dragons had such a hard time finding mates; they destroyed half the human female population when they took over thirty years back. They had tried to attack the island once and take the women that were ours, but they lost that battle, and they were the cause of my mother’s accident. Since then, any time I went to the mainland for anything, if I saw one of the mangy monsters, I killed it. Some might say that was inhumane of me, but I couldn’t help but hate those flea-bitten bastards. The wolves gave all shifters a bad name, and because of that, we had to keep concealed even more.

    I roused myself from my thoughts as I pulled up to the house. Lauren was already there waiting for me on the porch, sipping a cup of hot tea. As I looked at her, I felt my dragon lurch inside me, reminding me my time was short. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself before getting out of the truck. My body was already responding to her the same way it had yesterday, and I knew I had to control myself. She stepped off the porch as I got out of the truck, sticking her hand out for me to shake.

    “Good morning! I hope you’re having a good day so far. I thought I would come and see if I could be of assistance!” she said, excitement oozing from her body.

    “Good morning, ma’am, I hope your stay at the hotel is going well. If you have any problems, there just let me know. The owner is a friend of mine, and I will let him know. I welcome the help, but I don’t want you getting hurt, so I need you to follow my instructions to the letter,” I replied sternly, hoping she’d change her mind and go shopping.

    I could feel the tension rolling off her, and I wondered if she was feeling the same things I was. I imagined running my fingers through her hair and kissing her soft lips while pressing my body to hers. My body responded to my thoughts, and I felt my dragon trying to claw his way out. I pushed the thoughts from my mind and got to work ripping up the old floor. I could feel her eyes on me as I worked, and it made my blood heat up. I knew if I weren’t careful, I’d end up taking her right there, so I put her to work pulling up boards while I worked in a different room.

    Once she finished pulling up the old and broken boards, I climbed under the house and made sure the joists were in good shape and then started laying the new floor. We worked in silence as I fixed the floor and she began painting the bedroom. Once I finished laying the new subflooring, it was time for lunch, and I could feel it. My stomach growled loudly. Lauren looked at me, surprise on her face as she washed out the paint brushes and paint pan.

    “Wow, you must have a bear living in your stomach!” she said playfully.

    I grinned as I tried to keep from blushing with embarrassment. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. How about we stop for a bit and get some lunch?” I said, hoping she’d take me up on the offer.

    I watched her as she put the paint brushes in the sink to dry and nodded her head in agreement. We got in my truck, and I took her to the little café right on the beach. It sat on stilts to prevent flooding during hurricane season, but sometimes it flooded anyway.

The café was a special place for me as my mother had it built when she moved to the island, and she ran it herself with no help from Dad or anyone. I opened the door so Lauren could walk in, and the look on her face told me she wasn’t used to that sort of thing. The waitress seated us, and we looked over the menu in silence. I studied her face over the top of my menu and noticed just how beautiful she really was. I watched her eyes glide over the menu, and I found myself wishing her eyes would glide over me. Suddenly, her eyes met mine, and I knew I’d been caught. I felt my face heat with embarrassment as she grinned at me.

    Her grin sent electricity through me, and I felt myself hardening and pushing against my jeans. I swallowed hard and tried to get myself under control. I didn’t want the beast inside me to break free in the café. I was relieved when our lunches arrived and my mind switched gears. As we ate, her phone chirped from inside her purse. She reached for it but put it back in her purse after looking at the screen. I kept my nose out of it, and she didn’t offer any explanation, but I noticed that she was tenser for the rest of lunch. I wondered what had caused her to be so cautious and closed. Whoever had treated her that badly needed to be whipped with a firehose. No woman deserved to be treated as anything but a queen. I knew that if she were my mate, I would treat her exactly how she needed to be treated.

    Once we finished eating, I paid the waitress, and we headed back to the house. I got back to work laying the hardwood floor and she started painting another room. We’d been working for a while when I heard a loud crash and her screaming from the back bedroom that followed. I ran to the back of the house and found Lauren had fallen through a soft spot in the floor, and the ladder and paint pan had fallen on top of her, covering her in light pink paint. I rushed to her and pulled the ladder off her, assessing her for major injuries before moving her out of the hole. I picked her up and put her in my truck leaving for the emergency room.

    “Lauren, are you okay? I am so sorry, I didn’t feel anything wrong with that part of the floor. I should’ve checked better,” I said, unable to stop apologizing.

I felt it was my fault because I was supposed to have checked every inch of that place before she looked at it. That part of the floor had held all of my weight, but her on a ladder with paint must have been enough to send her crashing down.

    “I think I am okay, Dane; don’t worry about it. It didn’t feel soft to me either until I stood on the ladder,” she paused to take a breath. “I don’t think anything is broken, maybe just sprained or bruised,” she replied, her face soft with compassion.

    I pulled up to the ER doorway and grabbed her out of the truck. The automatic doors opened, and the nurses and orderlies came running out. I explained what had happened, and they took her to be examined by the doctor. I waited in the waiting room until a nurse came to get me once she was dressed in the hospital gown.

    “How are you feeling, painter girl?” I asked, teasing her a bit and relishing in the smile it brought to her face.

    “I’m okay. They are going to do x-rays to make sure nothing is broken, but they seem to think my ankle is sprained pretty bad, so I am going to have to stay off it for a few days,” she replied.

    Right on cue, the x-ray tech came and wheeled her back to radiology, and I was left alone in the exam room. I hoped it was nothing serious, and I decided when I got back to the house, I was going to go over every square inch of the place again. I was roused from my thoughts by the squeak of the wheelchair as the tech brought Lauren back in the room. I noted how bright her eyes look despite the pain I knew she had to be in.

    “The doctor will be in with your results as soon as the radiologist looks at the test. Take care of yourself, ma’am,” the tech said, smiling on her way out the door.

    I scooted closer to the gurney and took hold of her hand, “Hopefully it won’t be too bad, and you won’t be on bed rest for too long,” I coaxed with a smile.

    She smiled back, but before she could say anything, her phone rang. I handed her purse to her as I didn’t want to get the phone out of it myself and watched as she looked at the phone then put it back down with a look of disgust. I was about to ask who she was avoiding, but the doctor came in, and I knew it wasn’t rightfully my place.

The doctor sat down on the spinning stool and told her what I thought the problem had been all along: a bad sprain. He gave her crutches but told her she needed to stay off it as much as possible. A look of disappointment crossed her face, and I sympathized with her. I knew what it was like to be injured and not be able to do the things that needed to be done. I patted her hand and smiled, letting her know I had her back. I may not have known her for very long, but what I did know was that I was willing to help Lauren with anything that I could.

    She was silent on the drive back to the house, and I didn’t want to push her into conversation. I helped her from the truck and walked up the steps behind her in case she fell. I grabbed a camping chair from the back of my truck and sat her in the kitchen while I finished the living room floor. She watched me with a smile, as if she enjoyed seeing me work. Once I got it finished, we went to her storage unit, and I loaded her couch in the back of my truck. I wanted it to be at her house so she could be comfortable while resting. I knew the living room floor was strong enough to hold the weight of the furniture. I had checked it five times to make sure things would not go poorly. I was going to have to do some major work to the bedroom floor before her bed could be moved in. When we got to her storage building, she started to get out of the truck and protested when I shut her door. She finally relented and watched as I wrestled her couch into the bed of my truck.

    “Whew! You have a heavy-ass couch, woman!” I panted as I climbed back into the truck.

    “It was built well, I guess you could say.” She moved in the seat to get more comfortable. “It was my grandmother’s,” she added, a look of sadness shadowed her face for a moment before the smile returned.

    I wondered to myself what this woman had been through to make her get such looks, and I suddenly wanted to do whatever I could to make it better and see her smile all the time. When we got back to the house, I wrestled the couch inside and moved it where she pointed. I got it in place, and she sat down on it, reclining it to lift her leg. I couldn’t help but think of how beautiful she was, even with a bum leg.

    “Is there anything I can do for you before I get to work on the bedroom floor?” I looked around at the things I needed to do. “It’s most likely going to take me the rest of the day today and most of tomorrow to finish I,” I said, hoping she’d ask me to stay with her for the night, but not holding my breath at the same time.

    “No, I am good for now. I may need your help wrapping it up before you go home tonight.” She crinkled her nose. “They told me to unwrap it for a while to let it breathe. Other than that, I’ll be okay,” she replied, staring into my eyes like she was silently pleading with me to ask to stay.

    I turned and headed toward the bedroom, trying to calm the heat burning through my body. I wanted her, and I wanted her bad, but I knew I couldn’t have her. Not just yet; she had no idea what I was, and I was sure when she found out, she was going to run screaming from the island. Before she came into the picture, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to turn feral and my clan members were going to have to kill me, but once I saw her, I felt a bit of hope: more hope than I could remember ever having. I was too scared to make a move, afraid of rejection and afraid of scaring her off. I couldn’t risk her finding out what I was and running off and telling people what we were: not that I thought she was that kind of person. We had done a damn good job of keeping ourselves hidden and out of the spotlight, unlike the filthy wolf shifters. I wouldn’t jeopardize that for my people. I stopped working long enough to check on Lauren and found her asleep on the couch. I smiled as I watched her sleep, gently pushing the hair away from her face. I went back to the floor, working until Lauren woke up and told me I had been working long enough. I was grateful she wanted me to be finished working for the night, but I felt guilty leaving her there alone with nothing more than a couch and no food. I knew the rest of the floors would hold, so I knew she was safe in that aspect. I still didn’t want to leave her though.

    “Do you need me to help wrap your ankle before I go?” I asked, hoping she’d invite me to stay.

    “No, I think I got it. You go home and get some rest. Thank you for all you’ve done here. For the house, and for me. I really appreciate it, Dane,” she replied, sinking down into the couch as her pain pill took effect.

    I knew she didn’t have any of her stuff with her, so I went to the truck and grabbed a spare blanket out of the backseat and draped it over her before turning out the lights and locking her inside. All the way home, I fought with my dragon, trying to keep him at bay; he tried so hard to get out. I knew I needed to convince Lauren to be my mate or my days were numbered…there was no way of telling how long I had. I just didn’t know how to approach her with my situation. Was I just supposed to blurt out that I was a dragon and in need of a mate or I would become feral and need to be killed so I wouldn’t kill anyone else? I knew no one would believe that, not even her. I knew from how she reacted that she had been through a lot, and I didn’t want to make things worse for her. I knew I needed to woo her slowly, but I didn’t know how slow I could do things since my dragon was getting harder and harder to fight. Maybe the dragon within me would wait just a little while longer.

    I pulled into the driveway of my secluded home and jumped out of the truck just as my emerald dragon burst forth, a trail of green smoke flowing from my nostrils as I could feel the fire inside me spread. My thoughts were running wild as I took off for a nighttime flight. I flew past Lauren’s house, sure she wouldn’t see me, and noticed that the light was on. I swiftly swooped down low enough to see in the window but not low enough for her to see me. I watched as she hobbled back to the couch from the bathroom and turned the light back off before sitting down. I watched as she struggled to re-wrap her ankle and shook my head, realizing what a stubborn woman she was. That was okay though: I was a hard-headed man, so we would complement each other perfectly.

I flew back towards my place, trying to calm myself down so I could shift back. I had to get myself back into human form before morning so I could go work on her house more and make sure she had survived the night.

    As I flew back to my house, I realized it wasn’t just the job I was looking forward to: it was the company. I wanted to know her more, and I wanted her to know me. I truly wanted her to be my mate, not just because if I didn’t find one, I was going to die, but because I cared for her and I could see myself with her for the rest of my life. The hard part was going to be getting her to agree and not freak out when told who and what I was. By the time I got back home, I was calm and shifted into human form easily as soon as I landed. I had to make sure that never happened while working on her house, not until I was ready to let her know what I was. I wanted to keep what I was a secret until I found out if she had feelings for me as well. I went inside and laid in my empty bed, wishing she was beside me for reasons I could not explain. I had battled loneliness since the day my father was killed. I fell asleep excited to see her again.

I got up the next morning with Lauren on my mind. I went around the house and packed up a few things to take to her house. Some things she could eat and drink without needing a refrigerator. I walked out of the door with pep in my step. I wanted to see her so badly, I had to push my dragon back down once again.