Donovan grimaced at the ground racing up to meet him. The ground wanted him so badly. It always had. But it never got him. He pulled up out of the nosedive at the last second, flattening the prairie grass below him with the wind off of his humongous wings.

He swooped upward as easily as he’d plummeted down toward earth. Well, earth in the dragon realm. Which was pretty different than human earth.

Donovan felt the cool, squeezing pressure as he soared. The air thinned as he spiraled around the outside of a puffy cloud. He wasn’t really playing, he hadn’t played since he was a boy. But Donovan was a simple being, and little things like the feeling of sun on his scales, and the wet dew of a cloud on his tongue had always been able to please him.

He was at home in the air. In a way he never was able to be on the ground, in his other form. He felt his dragon form was a better reflection of who he was on the inside. Fierce, wild, instinctual, dangerous.

He'd never had much success in his human form. When you were human, people expected you to communicate with words. For hours. You had to do things like pick clothes, hold a job and make nice around a dinner table.

Most dragon shifters split their time between their two forms, striving for balance between the passionate dragon nature and the logical human nature. But not Donovan. He infinitely preferred the feral life of a dragon. Scrounging and hunting for food, defending his territory, resting when he needed to, flying the skies when he had energy.

He actually couldn't remember the last time he’d shifted back into his human form willingly. Most nights he was so fatigued from patrolling, protecting his land, that shifting back to human form wasn't something he really even chose to do. It just sort of happened as he stumbled toward his bed to pass out.

Patrolling was basically a full time job. He might not have cared so much about it if it weren't for the fact that his aunt and uncle lived in the same area of the mountain as he did. The three of them were the only dragons for a hundred miles in any direction. And Donovan wanted to keep it that way.

He and his family had good reason to be suspicious of other dragons.

So Donovan spent his days scouring the edges of their territory for signs of breaches. Signs of nosy dragon shifters. Signs that the king had finally found the last three dragon shifters in the Prodigo family line. 

He spread his wings and caught a current of air. He loved cumulus clouds. They were like castles made of a cool breath of air. Nothing more refreshing.

But it was enough fun for now. It was time to get back to patrol. Donovan dipped below the cloud line and scanned the horizon. No dragons as usual. Just him alone in the sky.

But then something whipped across the corner of his eye. Craning his long neck and dipping one wing to bank around, Donovan tried to make out what it was. Maybe an albatross? He'd seen plenty of those in the past and never had a problem. They didn't eat the same foods so they weren't competition. And they didn't speak English. So there was always that plus side.

Donovan caught sight of it again, still plummeting toward the ground. Was that? No. Couldn’t be. A human woman?

Donovan didn’t ponder the fact that humans hadn’t been spotted in the dragon realm in centuries. He didn’t wonder why she was falling out of thin air. He didn’t think about what he was going to do when he reached her. All he did was tuck his wings at his back and dive.

She was falling fast, toppling through the air. Her long black hair slashed out behind her like a flag. She plummeted through a shaft of sunlight and something tightened deep within his dragon chest. He tucked his head and glided even faster after her.

He was a very lean dragon, made for feats of speed. Dragon shifters don’t often feel things like gratitude when they are in their dragon forms. But Donovan did. He said a prayer of thanks to the whole dragon realm when he began to gain on her. He was fifty feet from her. Thirty. Ten.

The ground was there, waiting for him like it always was. But he ignored it completely, thinking only of the woman. At the last second, he shifted his body so he led with his open claws. One of them clamped firmly around her soft belly. He loosened his grip slightly, not wanting to hurt her, being completely unsure on how to touch a human. But he didn’t have long to dwell on it as gravity won.

Donovan tried to swoop back up into the air, altering their trajectory, but they were out of time. The ground was there, arms open for them. All Donovan could do was roll onto his side and back. Let his giant body take the brunt of the force of the fall.

His body hit with an earth shaking boom and slid along the ground, creating a ten foot wide ditch behind him. Donovan felt his bones rearrange. His scales ground against one another and he gnashed his teeth against the pain. But he was careful not to clamp down with his claw. The human was so delicate and his claws were so strong. He could crush her like a bug if he wasn’t careful. He laid his claw down and set her gently on the grass.

The two of them lay completely unmoving in the aftermath of their crash to the ground. It was like the whole world had gone still. Even the clouds in the sky held their breath. Their hearts in their chests froze mid-beat.

And then she moved.

The woman rolled to one side, brushing her hair out of her face. She pushed herself up and blearily looked around.

True mate.

The words flashed across Donovan’s brain as he watched her brush the dirt off her hands. Her inky black hair spilled everywhere, looking almost liquid. Her face was regal and straight, every angle precise, as if it had been planned out. Night-dark eyes blinked at her surroundings. She pursed her full lips.

True mate.

If he’d been in his human form, his logical brain would tell him that it was silly to think something like that. That there was no way to tell if a woman was your true mate unless she bore your child. And dragon shifters didn’t have human true mates.

But Donovan was in his dragon form. And his passionate dragon heart cried out again, this time a single word. This word he echoed out loud.

“Mine,” he growled. His dragon voice impossibly deep and gravelly from lack of use.

The woman jumped about a foot off the ground and turned to look at him. Her mouth dropped completely open. She scrambled to her feet and he thought she was going to bolt away from him. But she didn’t.

She took a step closer. And another. And another.

“Wake up, Felice,” she whispered to herself. She dropped to her knees next to Donovan’s gigantic dragon head, studying him. “On second thought, maybe keep sleeping for a minute.”

She’d called herself Felice. That’s funny. Didn’t she know her name was true mate? Donovan held completely still while she leaned forward, staring into the one of his eyes she was facing. The sun slashed across her face, making her eyes go translucent. He could feel the heat her body was throwing off. Except from where the puffy cloak thing she was wearing blocked it. He wanted her to take the cloak thing off. It was blocking her body from him. He felt her breath wash over him and he wanted to lean into it. Like a pet. The thought almost had him pulling away from her. Almost.

He didn’t move a muscle as she lifted a hand, moving slowly, but curiously, toward his face. Gently, as she thought she would startle him otherwise, she traced a finger over the scales on his snout. Donovan would have thought that he wouldn’t be able to feel a touch through the thick armor of his scales, but the heat of her finger seared him.

Apparently it did her too because she instantly whipped her hand back, holding her finger. “Ouch. Sharp.”

She looked down at her hand and Donovan followed her gaze. She was bleeding. From touching him.

Donovan had always been a particularly fierce dragon. He’d had vicious encounters with dragons who’d infringed on the Prodigo family territory. But at the sight of her blood, something new rose up in Donovan. A feeling so intense, so fierce, so protective, that Donovan could barely identify it. All his dragon heart knew was that his true mate was injured. In a field. Completely vulnerable and exposed.

“No,” Donovan growled. No to the whole situation.

“What?” she looked up from her wound.

“No,” he said again. “You. Home.”

“How?” she asked incredulously peering back up at the sky where she’d fallen from.

“NO,” Donovan growled even louder, furious that the idea of returning to her realm had even crossed her mind. “MY home.”

“Oh. Uh. OK.” She shrugged, and Donovan didn’t understand the bemused look on her face, but he didn’t care. She was coming back to his home now.

She stood and looked around, like she expected his home to be somewhere that she could walk to. Donovan stood, stretched and flexed his wings, making sure everything was in working order. He shook his mighty body, flinging dirt off of him in a great cloud.

He reached out for her with one claw and was surprised when she batted him away with her good hand.

“No way!” she said, something strong passing across her face.

He tried again with the claw. And again she slapped it away.

“Stop that!” she yelped.

“You stop,” he growled.

“No.” She stamped her foot on the ground. “You’re too sharp! Even the tiny little cute scales on your face cut me up.” She held her bleeding finger up and Donovan felt an agitation like he’d never known build in his chest.

He couldn’t touch his mate without hurting her. For the first time in his life, Donovan wanted to shift into his human form. But not out here, in the field. Not where they were still vulnerable. He needed to be able to protect her from anything.

Considering, Donovan walked over to one of the trees that lined the field, each of his tremendous steps making the ground shake. He yanked the tree up by the root. He couldn’t interpret the woman’s gasp that he heard come from behind him, but he hoped it wasn’t fear.

He brought the tree back over to her, laying it down flat on the ground. “Get on.”

Again, she shrugged her shoulders and crawled onto the tree. She hugged it around the middle with her arms and legs laced in with the branches. Reasonably sure that she was safe, Donovan gripped the tree on either side of her body with his claws. And with a great, heaving beat of his wings, he lifted her from the ground, flying her home.