“Prrp?”

Lance went from unconscious to wide awake in less than a second. His muscles bunched, ready to spring, as his eyes tried to focus on the thing moving in front of him.

“Prr-rrp?”

His eyes weren’t following orders. The prrp-ing creature in front of him coalesced into a fuzzy gold-colored blob, but he couldn’t focus any closer than that.

The blob jumped closer and batted him on the nose. “Prrp!”

Lance sniffed. His nose told him what his eyes hadn’t managed. The hatchling. Of course. It was alive, and he was alive, which meant…

Mission accomplished.

Something deep inside Lance relaxed. One more win. One more step away from the brink.

He sank back, letting his senses continue their automatic check of his surroundings. His nose told him where he was at once: his own apartment. To be more precise, his bedroom.

Strange. He didn’t remember coming home.

My team must have brought me here, he thought. After…

Lance shook his head. His skull felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool and, now that he’d noticed that, the rest of his body chimed in, too. His bones were heavy as concrete blocks. Half his torso, from his collarbone in the front to his right shoulder blade, had the itchy, static tingle of fast healing.

Don’t worry, his snow leopard said lazily. I took care of everything. Since you were too slow to get out of the way of that bullet.

Lance stretched carefully. His accelerated shifter healing had done the job. He ached all over, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore.

But he was exhausted. Bone-tired and starving, thanks to the amount of healing his body had done while he was unconscious.

And something was still niggling at the back of his mind. Something about the lazy purr in his snow leopard’s psychic voice, and where were Yelich and the others, anyway? And—

He frowned. There’s something I’m missing. Something about the feeling of home…

“Prrp-eep-eep! Prrrreep!”

Lance shot upright. His weight felt strange, off-balance, but his senses were sure as he turned to find her.

Home. He was home. And it wasn’t just the familiar scent of his apartment that told him that.

It was her. Keeley. His mate.

The reading light above his bed was on its lowest setting, barely filling the bedroom with a soft, warm glow. It lit up his comfortable bedroom furniture: the pale wooden headboard and dresser, and the plush comforter on his bed and thick rug on the floor. And his mate.

That explained why he couldn’t sense the rest of his team anywhere nearby. Once they saw that he was healing safely, they must have quietly withdrawn to give him and Keeley some privacy.

She was standing at the end of the bed. Her coat was gone, and for the first time Lance saw what she was wearing under it. Some sort of uniform, he guessed: a black apron over a white blouse and black trousers.

She must have just left work when everything went down, Lance thought. His heart went out to her. There was no way she could have expected her night to end up the way it had. Thank God the others were here to explain things to her while I was asleep.

He raised his eyes to her face and frowned. Whatever the others had explained to her, she was still afraid and exhausted. Deep shadows haunted her eyes, and thick hanks of her dirty blonde hair were hanging around her face.

“You’re awake, then,” Keeley said, her voice harsh in the way that voices get when it’s either that or start to cry, and Lance’s protective instincts went into overdrive. The hatchling bounded off the bed and jumped up into her arms.

Lance didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it was clear Keeley hadn’t had a moment’s rest. Her hand shook as she pushed hair off her face.

He cursed himself silently. She had been attacked, discovered the existence of a world that must have sent everything she thought she knew upside-down—and he was lying around in bed. What sort of a protector was he?

Keeley cleared her throat. “Can you hear me?”

Does she think the bullet deafened me, or something? Lance thought. He nodded and swung his legs off the side of the bed with military precision.

And found himself on the floor in a pile of blankets, limbs, and… a tail?

Oh, shit. He was in his snow leopard shape. But—when had he shifted?

I told you I took care of everything, his snow leopard said smugly.

When? he thought, rifling desperately through his memories as he fought his way out of the blankets.

When you were too busy making eyes at our mate to notice you were bleeding out. Idiot human.

Lance shook his head. His legs wobbled a little as he escaped the tangle of blankets, but if he ignored his aching bones and ravening hunger, he was fine. And his snow leopard seemed content to sit back and radiate smug superiority while Lance tried to get its body under control.

Lance swung his head around to find Keeley again. The deep shadows under her eyes had been joined by a small tic at the corner of her mouth.

Time to explain everything, he decided, and concentrated. His body protested, but he focused on his human shape and in a few moments, was standing on two feet.

Keeley gasped, her eyes traveling the length of him. Lance straightened his shoulders. First, to check his human body was healed, too. Second, because of the way his mate’s cheeks went pinker the lower her gaze dropped.

“Keeley?”

Her name came instantly to his lips. The rest of the minutes before he’d lost consciousness might be a blur, but not that.

Keeley. His mate’s name washed over him like a cool breeze, soothing his aching body.

“Yes,” she said, her voice like sandpaper. “And you’re—? Lance—?”

“That’s correct.” Oh, fuck. Lance’s cock twitched at the sound of his name dancing on his mate’s tongue.

He cleared his throat. He was supposed to be a professional, damn it.

“Lance,” Keeley repeated, all the harshness gone from her voice.

Lance bit back a moan. Once had been bad enough, her voice sandpaper-rough and halting. But the second time, his name slid over her lips like softest silk, promising…

Gray shadows gathered at the edges of his vision. Lance was unconscious before he hit the floor.

The next time he woke, it was to the sound of whispered voices. Or rather, one whispering voice and one ear-splitting chirping and trilling.

“No, you can’t jump on his head again. It didn’t work the first time, did it? Leave him alone.”

Chirp, chirp, screech, chirp.

“Oh, for—here, play with this. And no more biting!”

A pleased prrp-prrp, followed by a low, happy growl.

Lance opened his eyes. He was lying on the thick sheepskin rug next to his bed. His mate, Keeley, was sitting a few feet away from him, staring down at the dragon hatchling in her lap with an expression that was half fond, half frustrated. She dangled something shiny in front of the hatchling’s face and laughed softly as it grabbed it.

Lance must have made some sort of noise, because Keeley looked up. A strange expression flashed across her face, and then she smiled uncertainly.

“You’re awake? Again?”

Lance smiled back at her. “Tentatively.” He looked at her carefully. She was still clearly exhausted, but her voice wasn’t cracking with stress anymore.

And she was smiling. That had to be a good sign, right?

“You’re not gonna pass out again?” she asked warily.

“I’m not planning on it, no.”

“Were you planning on it the first time?” she quipped.

Lance groaned and carefully pushed himself upright. He was relieved that his tongue had worked, and that the hands he pushed himself up with were his large, dark-skinned human ones, and not his snow leopard’s heavy paws. He hadn’t shifted again.

“A lot of things have happened tonight that I wasn’t planning on,” he murmured.

“Tell me about it.” Keeley’s voice was hollow, but there was a hint of wonder in it. Lance looked up to find her staring at him.

She quickly looked at the hatchling instead, but that wonder in her voice had definitely been when she’d been looking at him.

Lance’s snow leopard preened.

“I mean. Dragons. That’s a new one for me.” Keeley’s eyes were laser-focused on the hatchling, and her cheeks were going pink. “Never been almost blown up before, either, and I gotta say, it wasn’t exactly on my bucket list.”

“What about meeting a man who can turn into a snow leopard?” Lance’s voice rumbled, a hair’s breadth from being a purr.

Keeley’s eyes shot up. “Yeah. I guess I’m more used to people dying when they get shot, not turning into giant cats.”

Her gaze hardened, as though walls were going up behind her eyes.

“Prr-rrp?”

The hatchling looked back and forth between Lance and Keeley, confusion pouring from her psychic aura.

“Prrp!”

The hatchling darted forward, faster than Lance could react, and bit him on one hand before racing back to perch in Keeley lap. “Prrp!”

“Ow,” Lance said, shaking his hand. The hatchling’s teeth were soft and nubbly, but she’d bitten him hard enough to leave dents in his skin.

“Sorry. She’s a bit bitey,” Keeley said as the hatchling grabbed one of her fingers. Lance couldn’t help but notice that the hatchling was gnawing on her finger a lot more gently than she’d bitten him.

“I think I deserved it,” he said. “She’s very protective of you.”

“Prr-eep!” the hatchling agreed.

Lance leaned back against the bed.

“And very alert. I wouldn’t have guessed she’s less than a day old. Then again, they’ve been in their eggs for a long time. Perhaps dragons’ personalities start to develop before they hatch. That would explain…”

He stopped talking. Keeley’s face had gone frozen, with a side of frazzled. Lance groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose, noting that his glasses were missing.

That wouldn’t be an issue, so long as his snow leopard behaved and kept its short-sighted eyes out of his face. What was an issue, however, was him and his apparently endless ability to ignore what was important.

“Sorry,” he continued. “I don’t imagine you’re in the mood for a lecture on shifter biology. Why don’t we get out of my bedroom, and I’ll find us something to eat?”

“Your—?” Keeley’s eyes widened, and then she sighed and pushed her hair back off her face. “Well, that answers one of my questions. One out of several thousand,” she said at last, staring down at the baby dragon in her lap.

“You must have a lot of questions,” Lance said, and Keeley nodded slowly, her eyes still fixed on the dragonling.

“Oh, yeah. You could say that.” Keeley’s voice was soft with wonder. Lance reached out and brushed the back of his hand along her wrist.

She leaned into his touch so naturally he wasn’t sure she even knew she was doing it.

“Then I have a suggestion. Let’s go downstairs. I’ll make you breakfast, and you can ask me anything you want.”

Keeley turned to him. Her scent danced in Lance’s senses, sweet and salty and infinitely alluring.

She bit her lip. “Okay. But one more thing.”

“Anything.”

Her cheeks darkened. “Put on some pants, first?”