I cut through the clouds, my wings splayed and absorbing the heat of the sun. I didn’t mind my human form, and I preferred it around others, but my dragon loved to be free of the confines of the human cage. I felt free in this shape, and one with nature. It didn’t hurt that I could fly faster than anything invented by humans, and it didn’t cost me a thing but energy.

I was circling the ocean, trying to make a decision. It wasn’t an easy decision to make either. Continue to defy my father’s orders or reveal everything to him. I sometimes felt as if my soul was breaking in two, but when I was with Arista, I was whole again.

Arista.

Thoughts of her danced in my head as I flew through the clouds, moisture beading on my dragon face pleasantly. For a week now, I’d been visiting her in the dark hours, taking her to hotels and cabins lost deep in the woods. I had a problem, though, a wolf problem.

The wolf that attacked her knew she was a hunter.

“Why are you protecting the dragon slayer, dragon?” he’d asked me when I went in to question him the first day we’d had him in custody.

“She’s not a hunter, you’re imagining things.” I’d hoped my warning look would shut him up, but the sly man with the knowing eyes only grinned further.

“Don’t tell me you have a thing for the slayer, dragon? How can that be possible?” He’d been resting on the narrow bed in his dank prison cell, a throwback to medieval times, shackle around his ankle and all. I’d buried him in the oldest part of our underground prison, hoping none of the others of our security force would find him to question him.

“Look, she’s not a hunter or a slayer as you insist on calling her. She’s just a human, got it?” I stared at him, my eyes changing as the dragon threatened to come out of me.

He shrank back, his bravado gone suddenly. “Fine, dragon. You’d better hope nobody else finds me down here or I’ll tell them how you aren’t doing your duty.”

“It might buy you your freedom, but that freedom won’t last long if you do, wolf. I will hunt you down and turn you into ashes.” I knew he understood by the way he pulled his legs up and suddenly lost all signs of defiance.

The threat of not existing seemed to do the trick finally, but how long would that last? I’d taken the wolf his meals, cleaned his cell, and attended to his needs myself, all to keep the others from going anywhere near him.

My father could not know about Arista. My brothers and sister thought she was just a human woman the wolf had attacked. How they hadn’t sensed her dragon hunter status I didn’t know, but they hadn’t. I wanted to keep my mate off their radar as long as possible.

If father knew about her, he’d order me to kill her. So far, I’d managed to keep him happy by telling him the hunters were elusive and that I’d been unable to trace them. An uprising in the wolf world when their leader was taken prisoner and vanished kept my siblings busy so far, but I didn’t know how long that would last either.

I was in a mess of epic proportions and had no idea what to do about it. As the eldest, I normally held the answers to the problems, I was the one that took charge. In this instance, I didn’t know what to do. If Arista had not been my mate, I’d have followed my father’s orders, I’d have wiped out her entire clan, but she was my mate.

I could be ruthless, yes, but not with her. I couldn’t bring her to my world either. She had instincts, powers that she didn’t realize she had. Her strength, far superior to any other humans, was a sign of her status as a hunter. If I brought her to my world, her other instincts would kick in. I had to assume that she hadn’t killed me, or attempted to, because we were mates.

What would happen if I brought her to a world filled with dragons? Would she go mad and kill us all, or make a very good attempt to? I couldn’t chance her life, or the lives of my people on such a thing. No, it was best to keep her where she was, hidden away until I had to move her. I knew that time was coming, the wolf rebellion would be quashed within a day or two, then everyone would be looking for the slayers with me.

Father was already asking questions about why it was taking so long to find the hunters in such a remote area. I’d put him off, avoided him, and done everything in my power to hide her. I wasn’t surprised to find that I’d flown where my thought took me, straight to Arista’s house. I made myself as small as a crow and perched on a tree limb, letting the sunlight warm my leathery skin.

A squirrel screeched at me from its own perch two branches above me and I sent a little snort of smoke at it. The squirrel stamped its front paws at me and twittered some more. I squinted at it and gave it a little taste of flame. That sent it scampering off fast enough.

I didn’t want the squirrel’s tree permanently, I just wanted to sit and watch for Arista. She’d know I was here and she’d come out to find me eventually. I looked around at the forest and felt all the animals around me. Pine needles covered the forest floor, the leaves of maple trees and poplars protected wild mushrooms and other fungi from the sun. It was cool here, and the scent of the pine trees spiced the air.

I settled back onto the tree and waited with my dragon feet crossed. I could feel the dragon in me being soothed by having Arista so close. I closed my eyes and listened to the chirps of birds, the snort of a bear in the distance, and the voices of Arista and her mother in the distance. She would come soon enough.

I think I’d fallen asleep by the time she came. I startled and almost fell from the tree branch, catching myself before I did. I jumped down, in my human shape by the time I landed gracefully and stood. She had a wide grin on her face and I could see all of the lines that had aged her were gone now.

My presence healed her inside and out, and she was healthier than most people her age. Her aging process would slow down to match mine eventually, as mine would sync with hers, but we’d have a century or two to make sure she was never ill like that again.

“What are you doing here?” she asked me as she came near. She was in a pair of tight jeans and a black hoodie. The hoodie hid most of her, but those jeans looked as if they’d been painted on and sent my thoughts straight to what was inside of them.

“I couldn’t stay away.” I held my hand out to her, and she took it happily.

“I’m glad you came. It’s so lonely in the day without you.” I knew what she meant, the days were so hard without her near me. I guess that’s why I’d flown here without even meaning to. I was drawn to her, she was a flame and I was the moth. Dragon. Whatever.

“Mom’s questioning me, wanting to know why I’m better all of a sudden when Willow is only getting worse.” She came into my arms when I held them open, worry creasing her brows. “I hate lying to her.”

“I’m trying to figure a way out of this, my love. I just don’t know yet.” I pulled her deeper into the forest, to a dark place under the thick canopy of trees, a bower made just for us.

“I can’t get enough of you. I can’t think when you’re gone, I spend all of my time remembering you.” She spoke without condemnation or anger, only the truth.

“It’s going to get messy if we don’t find a way to keep our worlds from colliding.” I pulled her down to a natural bed of pine needles and leaves.

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said as she followed me down, her lips finding mine as she straddled me. “I just want to feel you.”

“We have to stop meeting like this.” I laughed, but the fire was already rising in me.

“We have forever to talk, Malcolm. I need you inside of me right now.” She gave a low chuckle as she pulled at my uniform, opening the button-up shirt to reveal my bare chest.

Our skin put out enough heat to keep us both warm, so I didn’t notice the chill to the air, even when her mouth left a wet trail down my neck. Her tongue flicked at a nipple and I hissed. Only she could make that feel good. I was hard and ready for her, but I knew she liked to be on top, so I left her to have her way with me.

Her nimble fingers pulled apart the laces on my pants and she soon had those off me, along with my boots. When she straddled me once again, her jeans and black hoodie were gone, and I drank in the sight of her tight nipples and supple body.

I couldn’t help but close my eyes as she sank onto me in an instant, her need too fierce for foreplay. I’d get my chance to make her scream my name for hours tonight. For now, we were taking an illicit moment to love each other in the daylight.

“I can’t get enough of you,” she moaned as she took all of me deep inside of her heat.

I had no words, only a groan as her hips began to dance on me, shaking my thoughts away as she rode me. Wet heat, Arista’s wet heat, was all I could focus on. My hands bit into her hips, holding her steady as she stroked us both in just the right way.

She was on fire, in a frenzy, as we moved together. “I love how you ride me, Arista. How you take every bit of me you can, but I know that greedy little pussy of yours would take even more of me if you could.”

I slid a hand between us, to the place where we were joined, and teased at her entry. She stilled as she looked down at me, a grin on her beautiful face. She bit her lip in concentration before she responded.

“What do you propose then, dragon?”

I hummed a deep sound of satisfaction at the way she growled dragon at me.

“I might be able to satisfy you, but you have to be brave.” I gave her a mischievous grin and my finger danced away towards her other secret place.

“Oh, I see.” She looked intrigued, but apprehensive.

“Come down here.” I pulled her forward, my hand stroking at that forbidden place from the other side now. She shifted once again, angling her body so that her clit would grind into me as she moved, but also so she could kiss me.

Our lips met, and she began to move again, but I kept my fingers still, only teasing her for now. Sometimes it’s the idea of something that thrills us, that makes our muscles go tight in anticipation and I knew that was probably the case for Arista. She wasn’t a virgin but I wasn’t sure she was ready for a full-on dragon session yet.

She groaned against my lips as her body started to respond to my touch, to her rocking against me, and I knew she was close, very close.

All I had to do to set her off, was push just a little bit more, just a fraction of an inch on her tight little ass, and she’d go over the edge.

Arista began to pant, her thoughts flown, her concentration solely on what she was feeling inside of her own body, and I loved it. I loved how consumed she became with it all, how she gave herself up to me, to her body, completely.

My dragon came out and devilishly began to tickle her nipples, just as the tip of my finger stroked her ass, just as her walls clenched around my cock, and she exploded around me in a rushing moan of surrender. Her walls sucked at me, milked me, until I was right there with her, losing myself in the white-hot shower of pleasure that stole everything from me, even my name, as we became one roiling mass.

Her soul wound around mine and we were one again. This was why we couldn’t get enough of each other, this was why we sought each other out, this mating that turned two into one, completely. One being without thought, without a name, only life.

I came back to earth with a crash as she gasped above me, her lips panting at my neck as she fought to catch her breath.

Maybe I could talk my father into seeing the sense of letting her live. Of letting the others in her clan live too. I couldn’t live without this woman, surely he would see that for what it was and let me be with her? I stroked her back as I considered this new thought.

I would go to him later and lay it all out for him. He’d have to see sense and call off the death order. I’d make sure of it.