Dragon dreamed of long limbs circling his waist and small breasts under his hands. All in all, not a bad way to heal from the effects of paralyzing poison and the deep cut in his hand.

The moment he woke, his body shifted back into his naked human form, and he found reality not as amusing as his dream. Something had roused his senses and forced a shift, even though traces of the drug still lingered in his system.

The square point of a boot was firmly pressed against his crotch, reminding him of the assassin’s presence. When he moved, the boot retaliated with a kick that only missed its intended target because Dragon was faster than any human. The wooden heel hit his thigh, though, and he cursed.

Sensing his master’s distress, Carellian came to Dragon’s aid, shoving the man back with a nudge of his oval head and sending him head-over-heels to the ground.

“Stop,” Dragon ordered Carellian when his loyal steed lowered his muzzle to pin the man to the ground. “Close your eyes.”

The cave plunged back into darkness, and a muffled oath escaped the man’s mouth, but even with his enhanced hearing, Dragon didn’t understand a word.

“Who hired you?” Dragon asked.

He didn’t expect an answer to his question but wanted to hear the man’s accent. In the meantime, he studied the wiry form, taking advantage of his skills. Besides his superhuman strength, his dragon shifter genes allowed him a few other tricks, like night vision and the ability to hold his breath for a long time. Only a few knew of the extent of Dragon’s powers, and he liked to keep them hidden.

At the moment, he could observe undetected what the other man was doing. Dragon gave credit to the mercenary for the calm accompanying the man’s every movement. The assassin now sat on the ground, his back straight, his legs crossed, and his hands palms up on his knees in a lotus position as if meditating. The man’s eyes were closed. His heart beat slowly.

Dragon stood to his full height and closed the small distance between them, keeping his steps as soft as possible. Only another shifter could have heard his naked feet barely touching the ground. Or this assassin.

The man’s head moved toward Dragon, and he opened his unseeing eyes, tilting his chin to the side. One hand reached inside his tunic, and soon after, he shifted from sitting to crouching and lunged at Dragon with a long knife.

Dragon mechanically deflected, chopping down the knife pointed at his heart. He grabbed the man by the lapel of his long outer coat and shoved him to the wall, where he proceeded to pat his body, looking for other concealed weapons.

He pinned the mercenary’s hands overhead with one of his. The man raised his knee to finish what he had started, but Dragon predicted this move as well and shifted to the side, only to press his large body against the smaller man a moment later, entrapping him from head to toe.

“Enough.” Dragon couldn’t help but smile. The man had balls.

Leaning away—but keeping his lower body flush to the man’s—Dragon used his free hand and made brief work of removing the assassin’s leather tunic and throwing it to the side. The garment produced a resounding clank when it hit the ground, revealing the presence of at least another knife. He kicked it toward Carellian and resumed his search for weapons, tearing open the leather vest. Sure enough, underneath, he found needles and a vial, probably poison. With a jerk, the vest followed the tunic in a heap at his draglet’s foot. He then grabbed the cotton shirt by the collar and rendered the fabric with a loud tear, uncovering a second leather vest, this one skintight and plastered to the man’s chest that rose and fell, betraying his fear.

At such a close distance, the man’s scent hit Dragon’s nostrils, sending his senses into a merry ride. His hand went to the remaining vest, and the assassin’s eyes widened as his heart beat loud enough for Dragon to hear the frantic staccato.

The assassin shook his head but kept silent.

Instinctively, Dragon’s head dipped lower, his nose at the mercenary’s throat. His sense of smell confirmed his hunch. “You are a woman.”

He jerked her mask away. Delicate traits were revealed, framed by cropped hair that would have made her pass as a man at a superficial glance. Before the assassin would take advantage of his surprise, he manacled her wrists once again in his hold and cursed under his breath, blood boiling in his veins.

Dragon was shocked at his reaction to the discovery, not because the assassin wasn’t a man as he had thought, but because the moment he scented the woman’s peculiar bouquet, his only thought was to kiss her.

To complicate an already uncomfortable situation—in a moment or two, it would be impossible to hide his growing arousal—his dragon paced inside his mind, making demands of his own. Unbidden, visions of mating played before Dragon’s eyes. A long growl formed in his throat.

Only the sudden look of panic in the woman’s eyes stopped Dragon from lowering his mouth to hers. Still, his lips hovered for a second before he could retain full possession of his senses.

He kept her wrists tightly in his hold, though, lest she try some of her tricks against him, and stepped away from her now shaking body.

“I won’t rape you,” he said and felt the worst cad in the whole Fifth Moon System for having to make that pledge.