She owned the world in moments like this. Sun on her back, wind in her hair, board riding the waves. She wanted to cry out her joy and spread her arms wide as she flew. Then the wave crested, and she sensed her demise a split second before the undertow took her.
Damn. Crash and burn. She didn’t panic as she went under. The experience wasn’t new. She’d wiped out many times before, even broken a bone once, and this didn’t hit with the same level of pain, despite her body grazing the bottom. Holding her breath, she fought to right herself and swim for the surface, but her bearings were all off.
Keeping her mind calm and focused, she concentrated and tried to figure out which way the surface lay. Her lungs were beginning to hurt, and she needed to get some air. She had not abided by the golden rule—always bring a surf buddy—and she cursed her stupidity now. But she’d seen the forecast and known this would be a perfect day in this most elusive of surf spots. So, she’d packed her gear and headed off on the thirty-minute journey.
Lungs screaming, she saw a shaft of light and headed for it, arms powering hard through the ocean. She broke the surface on a cry and gasped in lungfuls of air, but something twisted her legs out from under her. Some coiling, powerful current, almost malevolent in its strength sucked her back under. As she continued gulping in air, water rushed in as she went down once more.
Cold dread filled Gwen. Her lungs burned with the water as she choked. More salty, cold death rushed into the vacuum as she tried to stop the natural reflex of her body to expel the invader in her lungs. Fuck, she was going to die here. Alone, on this beach, she was going to die. She hadn’t even told her mum where she was going, letting her sleep in.
They were one another’s best friends. More than simply mother and daughter, they were the only family they had, and her mother would never get over her loss.
Something hard and tight grabbed her around her middle, and she panicked further. Thrashing her arms and legs, she tried to get away from the vise-like grip squeezing the last dregs of life from her. The grip around her only tightened, and then, oh, thank the gods, she broke the surface and coughed and spluttered and choked.
Water streamed from her eyes as fast as it seemed to be expelled from her lungs. The damn thing around her middle wouldn’t let go, and the panic still gripped her in its icy fingers. She needed to get away, to swim for the shore. Her legs kicked out again and hit something solid as a rock. A low grunt from behind her got swallowed by a string of curses.
“Stop struggling. I’m trying to help you.” The deep voice rumbled through her, and as if she’d been given a shot of benzos, it calmed her immediately.
Finally, able to think as the panic receded momentarily, she realized someone had a hold of her and seemed to be swimming toward the shore with her. Someone was trying to save her. Her head came back online, no longer clouded by her body shooting out endless jets of adrenaline, and she made herself go limp and loose. All the easier for her rescuer to get them to shore.
After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the shallows, and the man behind her moved his arms from around her waist to her shoulders, dragging her unceremoniously onto the sand.
He laid her down and rolled her onto her side, for which she was grateful as another set of coughs racked her body. Her lungs burned and her ribs ached. Foul water poured out of her mouth as she gagged onto the sand. Her eyes ran. Her nose too. She must look absolutely delightful.
Finally, once it seemed to be over, she flopped onto her back and stared up at the sky. Her heart hammered a hundred miles an hour, and she thought she might need a beta blocker or something because, surely, it couldn’t beat this fast and be okay?
“I can’t believe how stupid you were.” The male voice came from her side, breathless too, as if he’d run a marathon. “No surf buddy, no friend? You might be a dragon, but even Dragonea can die if they take stupid risks.”
Her blood ran cold. If she’d been panicked before, now a hot shard of terror pierced her. How did he know? No one knew what she was. She and her mother hid it well, lived among humans and had only sporadic contact with the dragon shifter clans.
She turned to look at her savior, and her heart sped up for another reason. Oh good Lord. The guy looked like he’d been sculpted by Michelangelo. He was beautiful. Truly fucking beautiful. With wavy blond hair, limpid blue eyes, soft lips, a Roman nose, and a masculine jaw stopping him from being too pretty. His body was smooth, tanned, and hard.
About to open her mouth, she took a deep breath in, the first through her nose since the incident began, and the world froze. Despite every crazy thing that had just happened to her, now only one thing registered in her fraught brain. Mate.
This man…this male matched her in every way. No mere human, her rescuer was one of her kind. Dragonea. And worse, his hormone profile complemented hers in the most glorious and terrible way. Because Gwen didn’t want a mate, never had and never would. She didn’t want to be tied down, owned, by the patriarchal males of dragon society. It was why she and her adoptive mother lived away from dragon life and did their own thing.
“That’s right, beautiful.” The man watched her as she ran through all the permutations. “What are the odds, huh? I’ve been all over the world searching for a female who matched me and my bonded male, wasted decades… And then I find her, but she’s so stupid she nearly goes and gets herself killed.”
Not liking his tone, she struggled to sit up, because it wasn’t easy sticking up for yourself when you were flopped out on the sand like a dying fish.
“Need a hand?” A shadow fell over her, and a giant of a man held out his hand. He must have been well over six foot, and whereas the Adonis to her left looked like he’d been sculpted from marble by some master craftsman, this specimen came chipped from the rugged rocks of the Cornish coastline itself.
She squinted up at him and swallowed, but she took his hand. The moment his callused skin touched hers, her whole body tingled and fizzed with heightened awareness.
Holy crap. She might not live among the dragon shifter clans of which she’d been born, but she knew the way they organized their society. Two males for one female. Males found and bonded with another male who matched their scent and hormone profile, and then they searched for, or waited for, a female mate who matched them both. It fit the society well, as there were more males than females. Otherwise, most males would spend their lives without a mate. Many still did.
She didn’t dare breathe in, because Pretty Boy matched her completely and utterly, and God knew what would happen if she got a whiff of Mr. Strong and Mighty. She might live a human life, but her dragon senses and biology were still a part of her, one screaming right now to be heard.
Finally upright, she blew out a long breath and shaded her eyes with her hand. Mountain Man hunkered down in front of her and fixed her with warm, light brown eyes. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, finding it hard to speak. His rugged face looked stern, even harsh, but those amber eyes softened him.
“I’m still a bit out of breath and shocked by…this.” She waved her arms between them all.
As a single female, she’d been approached by more than one dragon pair on the odd occasions she’d been back to clan territory with her mum. She’d never found it hard to say no. One pair claimed they were a fairly close match, but she’d been able to deny the inherent attraction, too scared of a life of servitude to the dragon ways to say yes. And she’d thought the myths about the strength of mate-matches were simply that. Myth. Exaggerations to try to build up dragon culture and make it oh-so-different from what they saw as mundane human society.
Now, though… Now she knew all her preconceptions were wrong. Horribly, inadequately wrong. Because she’d only just met these two men, and already she burned for them both. Her body, battered and bruised and sore as hell, was also pulsing with arousal. Lust at first sight existed. And it was a powerful and sneaky bitch that snuck up on you and sucker-punched you in the gut.
Mountain Man grinned, and it dried up the air in her lungs. “Me too, sweetheart. Not expecting this.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He pointed to two boards off to one side. “Same thing as you.”
No way. “You’re Dragonea, but you surf?”
She used the formal name for their kind, and he nodded. “We are, and we belong to the Cornish clan, officially. But we spend a lot of our time doing our own thing.”
She wondered then if they were together physically or were merely bonded males with a platonic but ultraclose friendship. Among their kind, there was no shame in two males being together. Sometimes they had to wait centuries for a female mate who matched them, and some of those males decided to be together sexually if their attraction was strong. Their lore went that if two bonded males were a perfect match and became physical, and then they found a perfectly matched female, that was the highest form of bonding dragons could achieve. A perfect triad. But she’d never been sure how she’d feel about it herself.
A while ago, she’d met one of the dragon females turning their society upside down. A group of sisters from an ancient and warlike clan long thought extinct. These females were latent like her, and the three of them who had been found so far had all mated males who were physically together too. She had no issues with it. She’d never been a bigot, but she’d always secretly thought she’d prefer her two males to be all about her. Not that she’d ever dwelled on it because she and Mum didn’t do dragon life. They did human life. Her mum painted and she surfed, and they traveled widely. She loved the way they lived.
Now, though, on a physical level, at least, it had all been turned upside down. She didn’t care if these guys were together, not together, dragon, human, or bloody Martian! She wanted them on a very primal level.
Determined to regain some self-control over her traitorous body, she mentally shook herself and reminded herself of what a life mated to dragon males entailed. Decades, centuries, living among closed-off clans, abiding by archaic rules. She knew how harsh those rules could be after an abusive childhood with a vile male as her father. It wasn’t a life she’d gladly walk back into. No, thank you very much. Their extended lifespan meant she wanted to enjoy her days in freedom with her mother. But what happens when your mother is no longer around? a little voice chided. She ignored it and focused on the man in front of her.
“I don’t do dragon life. I’m not a full shapeshifter. I’m latent. I can’t change form, and Mum and I don’t live in any clan or with any other dragon. We do our own thing.”
Mountain Man smiled at her. Not the full-wattage grin of moments ago but a gentler smile. One almost shaded by a tinge of pity, she thought. “You can’t resist this.” He gestured between the three of them.
Pretty Boy nodded. “Too strong a pull, sweetheart. You’ll go crazy. But I’m a patient guy. This one here, not so much. But he’ll wait too. I’ll make sure of it. You won’t be able to deny your destiny…your biology, forever.”
The arrogant bastard! Did he think her nothing more than a bag of hormones, unable to use her higher brain function? Yes, she might want them like a man dying of thirst wanted water, but she could and would walk away from it.
She pushed herself up onto shaky legs. Fuck, she wobbled about like a newborn foal. Gods, she was weak.
“I’m sorry. But this isn’t for me. I owe you, more than I can say.” She turned to Pretty Boy and smiled. “You saved my life. But I can’t be with dragon males. I hope you two are together…you know…fully.” She trailed off, and her cheeks warmed.
Mountain Man laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re already way too invested. You can come out and ask, you know? No, we’re not together. We’re bonded males. As close as can be, but we aren’t into one another physically. It’s simply the way we are, the way our relationship works for us.”
“Yeah, we tried it once, when some human female thought it’d be a blast.” Pretty Boy gave a small shudder. “His hairy chest does nothing for me.”
She glanced at Mountain Man’s chest, and it did have a smattering of dark hair covering those massive slabs of muscle. She wanted to bury her face in his chest and have his big arms come around her and hold her—safe and warm from the rest of the world. But there’d be no holding and cuddling.
She forced her rubbery legs to move and picked up her board. She almost dropped it immediately. Wow, her accident had really taken it out of her.
“How did you get here?” Mountain Man asked.
“I drove.”
“Where are your car keys?”
She unzipped the pocket of her board shorts and took out the waterproof bag with her keys, phone, and sun protection stick in it. Mountain Man grabbed it.
“Hey.” She tried to reach for it, but he held it aloft, out of her grasp.
His six-foot-five or so reach meant her paltry five-foot-four self couldn’t get to it once he held it high. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Give me back my keys.”
“No can do, sweetheart. I’m driving you home. You’ve had a nasty accident. You ought to come to the clan and see a healer, but I can tell you’ll think we’re trying to kidnap you or something. You’re all spooked, so you can go home. But I’m driving.” He turned to Pretty Boy. “You follow in our car, Jago.”
So, Pretty Boy had a name. A nice name too.
Mountain Man pulled her surfboard out from under her arm and began to stride across the sand. “You coming?”
“You can’t drive my car.”
He gave her a wolfish grin. “Well, you can’t drive it. You’re in a terrible state, arms and legs like spaghetti. It’s probably against some sort of human law or other to drive in your condition. And how would you feel if you had an accident and harmed someone, all because you’re being stubborn?” He sighed and his face softened. “I swear to you, sweetheart. I’ll drive you home, nothing more. I can’t leave without knowing you’ll be safe.”
She bit her lip, and his face hardened once more. “This isn’t up for discussion. It’s either me driving you home, or the three of us book a hotel room for the night and you sleep off the wobbles.”
She was about to argue with him when he threw another instruction at her, which took her so by surprise she snapped her mouth shut.
“And stop biting your lip like that. It makes me want to kiss you even more, and my control is hanging on by a thread as it is.”
Honestly, she was glad he was such a dick. It stopped all his hot handsomeness from being too much of a turn-on. So long as she didn’t let him touch her, or breathe in his scent, she’d be okay.
Too tired all of a sudden to argue anymore, she followed him off the beach. Jago walked behind them, carrying two surfboards.
“So, what’s your name?” Mountain Man threw her a glance. “I can’t keep calling you sweetheart. Well, I can, but I sense it riles you. So…what’s your name? I’m Cadan.”
She smiled at the traditional Cornish name.
“I shorten it to Cade a lot, though,” he continued.
“My name is Gwen. Short for Gwendoline.”
“Gwendoline, beautiful name.” Jago smiled at her, the first he’d offered since he’d dragged her out of the sea. “And you can call me Jay.”
“Thank you.” She slowed a little until they were side by side. “I really do owe you, so much. You saved my life. So if there’s ever anything I can do for you, let me know.”
He considered her for a moment, head to one side. “You know, the Chinese believe it is the other way around. Or so I’ve heard. That because I saved your life, I now owe you. I am bound to make sure you have a good life. A life well-lived.”
“You don’t have to worry there. I have a great life, thanks.”
“How so? What do you do?”
She shrugged. “I live with my mum. She’s a latent like me and adopted me as a single mum when she lived in the Welsh clan.”
She shuddered as she thought of her early life in the clan. “I was adopted at a later age than most dragon young. I lived with my birth family until age ten, but one of my fathers died. My remaining father, he hit my biological mother, my siblings, and me. Badly. The clan leader found out, and we were taken from the home. He was sent to prison for it. As far as I’m aware, he’s still there. Then Mum took me in, and we left the clan. She’d already decided not to hang around and wait for mates as she’d never met any males that matched. Plenty asked her to mate, but she didn’t want to. Once I got to around twelve years old, she decided to show me some of the world. We travel a lot. She’s an artist by trade. She sets up different aliases every so often and now sells her work online. That’s easier because, of course, she can’t get close to any humans for too long or they’ll notice the lack of aging.”
Her mother was in her sixties and looked about thirty. In fact, many people mistook them for sisters. And it would only get more apparent. A two-hundred-year-old dragon might look thirty-two, a thousand-year-old dragon may look sixty or thirty-five, it depended on their strength, the power they possessed, and all sorts of other things. Gwen was incredibly young, as far as her kind went, at only twenty-seven. She looked about eighteen, which meant she needed to carry her fake ID when she went to human bars and nightclubs.
“Okay, so you and your mum, you travel, she paints, you surf. You avoid humans as much as you can.” Jago repeated what she’d said.
She nodded.
He didn’t say anything for a long beat, but he watched her with those beautiful baby blues of his. Then he simply said, “Sounds lonely. You don’t live among dragons, but you can’t make any lasting human friendships either.”
She bristled. “It’s not lonely. We have one another, and sometimes we go and spend time in our birth clan in Wales. We haven’t turned our backs totally on our dragon brethren. We simply don’t want to live their life.”
“Us either. We travel a lot.” He glanced out to the sea. “And of course, we both surf. How many dragons surf? Not only do you match us so well physically that we fit one another like a glove, but we all surf. Something in common on top of the biological shit we’ve got going on. You ask me, those are crazy odds.”
Crazy odds, indeed. The whole past hour had been surreal and intense. She ached with fatigue now that the adrenaline rush had worn off, and she wanted her bed, a hot cup of tea, and a good book.
“Which car is yours?” Cadan asked.
She pointed to her battered old Jeep. He spun her keys around one long finger and held the passenger door open for her once he’d unlocked it.
Taking a deep breath, she clambered in, heart still hammering away. The journey was going to be excruciating.