“It’s cold,” Jax said as he looked up at the sunny summer sky.

Axel was a polar bear shifter and never got cold, but he could tell there was a chill in the air by the way the little hairs on Zane’s arm were standing straight up.

“Do you think it’s really… one of Draven’s brothers?” Jax asked with a gulp as he looked through the tall cedar trees.

“I hope not,” Zane answered as they slowly walked into the thick of the forest. “Maybe it was just a prank call.”

But Axel wasn’t so sure. There had been a few too many dragons flying around the town of Colwood, Montana lately for this to be a coincidence.

The three shifters had been busy finishing up the last of the firehouse renovations when they had received a call from a freaked out hiker who claimed that he had seen a blue dragon flying around the nearby Abrasoka mountains.

“Draven and Aleida said their brothers were in Europe,” Jax said as he looked around with wide eyes. “What the hell would one of them be doing here?”

“Maybe looking for Jarin?” Axel said as he stepped over a thick root. “Or looking for Draven. Or for Aleida.”

Jax swallowed hard as he looked around. “Let’s just hope that hiker was high on acid or something because we’re a little outgunned to face a mated dragon.”

The wind changed directions and the smell hit Axel’s nose, making him cringe. It smelled like a dragon, but at the same time, it didn’t. It was the same smoky charcoal scent that dragon shifters usually had, but there was a biting coldness to it that Axel had never experienced before.

“Just be ready for whatever it is,” Zane whispered as they got deeper into the forest.

Axel’s inner polar bear was already on full alert. He was ready to jump out and attack at the first sign of a dragon.

He could see by their flexed muscles and with the scent of fur in the air that Jax and Zane were ready to shift at a moment’s notice as well. If the dragon shifter that was spotted by the hiker was one of Draven’s brothers, he would be a mated dragon, which meant they were in big trouble.

Whenever a dragon shifter bonded with their mate, their core would ignite and their true power would be released. They had recently learned that Draven’s dragon shifter brothers were all mated, and they were planning on going around the planet, destroying every power grid they could find, so they could then rule over the ashes of civilization.

They had just faced one of the brothers, Jarin, and had barely squeaked out with the win. And that was with Aleida who was another mated dragon, Draven, and Gunner fighting alongside them. Axel, Jax, and Zane wouldn’t stand much of a chance by themselves.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Axel whispered as he looked up at the tall trees as they trembled in the wind.

It was much too quiet in the forest. On a normal day, the wilderness was alive with sounds of squirrels running through the trees, insects buzzing on the ground, and birds singing overhead, but it was like the forest had turned the volume off and there was nothing but an eerie silence looming around.

The sun was shining down from overhead on the hot summer day, but the further they walked into the forest, the colder it became.

“Look,” Zane said with a gasp as he pointed through the thick trees.

Axel followed his finger and jerked his head back in surprise when he saw what the Kodiak bear shifter was pointing at. There was a huge block of ice in the shape of a waterslide winding through the trees.

“What the hell is that?” Jax asked, squinting as he stared at it.

The three of them had stopped in their tracks, unsure if they should go any further.

“Didn’t Aleida say that one of her brothers was an ice dragon?” Axel asked, taking a quick look around.

“Valerius,” Zane whispered as his body shook with a shiver.

The three of them cautiously stepped forward, being careful not to make a sound. There was more and more ice the closer they got until they were standing in the middle of it all, surrounded by thick giant ice slides and frozen trees.

“I don’t get it,” Jax said as he ran his finger along a melting block of ice. “He sneezes out ice instead of fire?”

Axel had a heaviness in his chest as he looked around. The ice was definitely in the shape of dragon’s fire—long sweeping trails of ice that seemed to originate from the sky.

“I think he’s gone,” Zane said as he inspected a frozen tree. “The ice has been melting for a while.”

Axel swallowed hard as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a large piece of ice. “But what was he doing here?”

“Hunting,” Jax said with his back to them. “Check this out.”

“Holy shit!” Zane said, gasping as he walked over and saw what Jax was looking at.

Axel joined them as a sour taste hit the back of his throat. He didn’t like anything about this and the faster they could leave, the better.

“Is that a—?” he asked, staring at the shocking scene with wide eyes.

“A grizzly bear,” Zane said, staring at it in disbelief.

The huge body was broken up into chunks of frozen blood and guts as if the dragon had frozen the bear into one solid block of ice and then shattered him to pieces.

“If he can freeze that grizzly bear into a block of ice,” Jax said, swallowing hard.

“Then he can freeze us,” Zane finished.

“But can he…?” Axel didn’t want to finish the thought. Could Valerius really freeze and then shatter them like he did to that grizzly bear? The three shifters could heal from almost anything with their enhanced shifter healing, but they definitely couldn’t heal from that.

“We better head back to the firehouse,” Zane said, glancing back in the direction they came from. “It looks like he’s gone.”

“Hopefully for good,” Axel said with a nervous flutter in his stomach.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Jax muttered under his breath.

“We have to be careful,” Zane said, taking the lead. Their alpha Draven had left Zane in charge while he was away taking care of family business. “We have to be alert. If this Valerius is anything like his brother Jarin, we’re in a really dangerous position, and this time we don’t have two dragons and a crazy lion shifter to help us out.”

“We do have the town to help us,” Axel said. The town of Colwood, Montana was a makeshift haven for shifters and he knew that if they needed help they could rely on the shifters in The Clawed Squad, The Wilde Crew, and the four Vega brothers to come help. “We can call on a whole army of shifters to help if we need to.”

Zane gulped as he looked down at the grizzly bear’s severed head that was frozen in a block of thick ice. “I’m not sure how much help they’ll be against something that can do this.”

“Should we call Draven back?” Jax asked. “He’ll want to know about this.”

“Probably,” Zane said with a sigh. “But I have no way of reaching him. I was expecting to hear from him by now, but there’s been no word.”

“Lovely,” Axel said with a shake of his head. This wasn’t exactly what he had signed up for when he joined the firehouse crew.

He watched a drop of water form on the frozen tree in front of him and took a deep breath as it ran down the length of the trunk before dropping onto the floor of the forest below.

“Let’s just go,” Zane said, turning back. “There’s not much more we can do here. The sun will take care of this.”

Axel hadn’t realized how hard his heart was pumping until they were back in the normal, unfrozen part of the forest. They walked the rest of the way in silence until they arrived at the fire truck.

“I guess I’ll have to cancel my vacation with Gwen,” Zane said, cursing as he got behind the wheel. “She was really looking forward to it.”

Axel knew that Zane was looking forward to it too. The Kodiak bear shifter had booked a week-long vacation with his mate to visit the wineries in California. Gwen had been so busy lately with her muffin shop that she was looking exhausted and in desperate need of a vacation.

“Don’t cancel it yet,” Axel said, looking out the back window as the fire truck started rolling. “Maybe he’s gone for good.”

Axel looked up at the sunny blue sky, hoping that was the case, but the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach was telling him that it was wishful thinking.

The three shifters were each deep in thought on the drive home. Axel’s mind quickly switched from worrying about the dragon to thinking of Hadley.

I wonder what she’s doing right now.

Whatever she was doing, Axel was wishing that he could be right beside her doing it too.

Axel hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the girl since they first went on a date a few weeks ago. He had met Hadley when his alpha Draven had forced him and his fellow firefighting shifters to take part in a charity auction. The four of them were paraded on stage while horny women in the audience bid on them for a date.

Axel had been the luckiest of the four, landing a hot blonde named Hadley who he had hit it off with immediately. He had a whole romantic date planned, but they never made it to the restaurant. Axel had picked her up at her hotel and less than a minute later, he had his tongue in her mouth and she was pulling him inside while they were both pulling each other’s clothes off in a frenzy.

It had gone well.

But there had been no second date. Hadley lived in Philadelphia and was only in Montana on vacation. She had left Colwood the following day, but she had never left Axel’s mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

His inner polar bear had been in a constant state of agitation since then, and it was starting to drive Axel crazy. He could barely sleep anymore. He just laid awake all night, thinking of her.

He wondered what she was like and what her interests were. Axel and Hadley had barely talked during their night together and so their connection was purely physical. It had been one of the best nights of Axel’s life, but there was a small part of him that regretted not taking the opportunity to get to know her better.

“Hello???” Jax said, waving his hand in front of Axel’s face. “Earth to Axel. Are you in there?”

Axel shook his head, trying to clear the obsessive thoughts that were taking over. The fire truck was parked back at the fire station and both Zane and Jax were turned in the front seats, staring at him. He usually got so absorbed when thinking of Hadley that he often lost all concept of space and time.

“He’s thinking of that girl again,” Zane said with a laugh. “He always gets that look on his face when he’s thinking of her.”

“What look?” Axel asked, snapping out of his daze.

Zane laughed. “A hungry look on your face like a waiter just dropped a forty ounce T-bone steak in front of you.”

Jax chuckled. “Or like you’re about to get a lap dance from a couple of Playboy playmates.”

Axel just rolled his eyes and climbed out of the truck. These guys didn’t understand. Zane had gotten his girl, and Jax, well, Jax seemed to be better off alone. They didn’t get what he was feeling. Axel wanted to settle down with a mate. He wanted a family and kids with a woman he loved. What was so bad about that?

“Who’s hungry?” their neighbor Gwen called out as she made her way over with a huge platter in her hands. “I know my boys always get hungry after a call.”

Axel’s stomach growled and his mouth watered as the smell of Gwen’s freshly baked Bear Buns hit his nose.

“Ugh,” Jax said, turning away with his tongue sticking out. “I don’t know how you guys eat those. They look disgusting.”

Zane and Axel were at her side in an instant. Gwen owned the muffin shop next door to the firehouse and made the best thing on the planet as far as Axel was concerned. They were called Bear Buns and the bear shifters in town were absolutely obsessed with them. They were enormous muffins packed full of pieces of juicy elk, chunks of fresh salmon and they were coated in sticky honey.

They had single-handedly turned Gwen’s muffin shop from almost bankrupt to the hottest spot in town, at least for the bear shifters who lived here. Everyone else on the other hand…

“So gross,” Jax said, shaking his head as Axel bit into it.

Man, that’s good.

Axel could eat Bear Buns all day until he weighed five hundred pounds, and he would have too, if he could afford it.

“I’m working on something special for lion shifters next,” Gwen said to Jax. “I’m thinking some chunks of antelope and zebra.”

Jax perked up. “That does sound pretty good.”

Gwen rubbed her chin. “I just have to find a grocery store that carries Zebra meat.”

Zane laughed. “Good luck with that.”

Surprisingly, the mom and pop grocery store in the small town of Colwood, Montana didn’t have the best selection of exotic game meat.

“Excuse me, Zane,” Gwen said with her cheeks turning red. “Can you come help me with a… pipe that’s clogged?”

Jax snorted out a laugh as Zane nodded.

“Sure,” Zane said, trying to act casual. “Let me just get my tools.”

“He only needs one tool to clear her pipes,” Jax whispered to Axel as the two of them walked into the muffin shop. “And it’s in his pants.”

The lucky couple disappeared inside and Axel couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. He was happy for his friend Zane, but he wanted a mate too, and seeing them together just reminded him of what he didn’t have.

“I’m going upstairs,” Axel said as he licked the honey off his fingers. He had been waiting for an opportunity to get to his computer all day. He just always felt better after seeing Hadley’s photos.

“Have fun jerking it,” Jax said with a laugh. “I’m going into town to grab a bite to eat. Something that’s not absolutely disgusting like a Bear Bun.”

Axel waited for the lion shifter to leave and then he ran upstairs to grab his laptop. It was a such a beautiful sunny day in the small town of Colwood that he decided to bring his computer outside. He grabbed a coffee from the kitchen and sat down in his favorite chair, smiling as the sun warmed his face.

With his heart racing, he opened his laptop and clicked onto Hadley’s Facebook profile. He let out a contented sigh as he clicked on her photos, smiling as he went through them.

He was so absorbed in her beautiful face and hot body that he didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind him.

“Is that me?” an outraged voice asked, making him jump out of his chair. The laptop went flying into the air, but Axel managed to catch it before it slammed onto the ground.

Oh no. Axel’s chest tightened in embarrassment as he slowly turned around.

Hadley was standing behind him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Stalk much?” she asked, narrowing her eyes on him.

Axel gulped. How the hell am I supposed to explain this?