The second Jonathan saw Reed raise the gun, the dragon within him took over.

The room was too small for his dragon to shift—he’d just end up with a broken neck. Even so, the powerful need to protect his mate at all costs took over. Without regard for his own safety, he hurled himself at Reed.

A heartbeat later, the iron scent of blood filled the room. But Jonathan couldn’t feel any pain.

Then, right in front of him, Sean crumpled to the floor with a stunned expression. Blood dripped from between his fingers that clutched his chest.

“I knew you’d meddle with this, too,” Reed said coldly, raising his gun a little higher to aim it straight at Jonathan this time. “But this is over now. Goodbye, ice dragon.”

Reed pulled the trigger. For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

Jonathan saw the bullet come hurtling out of the barrel—and in the same split second, the dragon within him broke free at last.

His dragon’s power crackled through his veins with the force of electricity, the air he exhaled turning to white clouds. The ice was his element—and now, at last, even though he had drained himself of his own power for so many years, it rushed out of his heart. It filled his body with energy, from the roots of his hair down to his toes.

It exploded out of him in a jet of pure ice, the beautiful, pristine cold that made flowers of ice bloom on windows and adorned houses with brilliant icicles.

Now it enveloped the gun with the cruel grip of winter. Ice surrounded the metal of the gun—and it also entrapped the bullet just where it had left the barrel.

“Fuck!” Shaking his hand, Reed dropped the gun to the floor, his fingers white with frostbite.

He looked up, his face a mask of rage—but as soon his eyes met Jonathan’s, he seemed to change his mind.

A second later, Reed turned on his heels and fled through the corridor.

Jonathan’s dragon was roaring in his chest to go after him. Instead, he raced back to Angel’s side.

He’d seen her take cover behind the plinth, so he knew she couldn’t be hurt. But even so, it wasn’t until she was in his arms that his dragon began to calm down.

“You’re all right!” she said, her fingers touching his face, desperate.

A moment later, her mouth was on his.

He couldn’t even say who’d leaned in first. For one breathless moment, they clung to each other.

And then a sound behind them made Jonathan reluctantly part from his mate.

When he turned around, he saw that Sean was still curled up on the floor, coughing weakly.

“Shit. We’ll need a doctor for him,” Jonathan said as he knelt down by the dog shifter’s side.

Sean was still alive. The bullet hadn’t hit his heart—but it had hit his chest. Even with fast shifter healing, that wasn’t a wound that could heal on its own overnight.

Shifter healing isn’t much help if he dies from blood loss first...

“Hey, can you hear me? Keep this pressed against the wound, okay? We’ll find you a doctor,” Jonathan said. He pulled off his scarf to bundle it up and press it against where blood was still dripping from the gunshot wound.

“Will he be okay?” Angel asked, staring down at Sean as if she still couldn’t believe that he’d fooled her for the past few weeks.

Jonathan hesitated for a moment. “No promises. But he’s alive now, which is good. If we can find a doctor in time to stop the bleeding...”

“Are you okay?” Angel asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “You look pale.”

Only now did Jonathan realize that he’d used up all of the power his dragon had regained. But there’d been no other choice. Not with Reed about to kill them all.

Shifting again and flying Angel back to the Snow Castle would be difficult—but still, they had no choice in that either. He wouldn’t leave the dog shifter here to die.

And he definitely wouldn’t try to hike back through the snow with a homicidal dire wolf still lurking around.

A dire wolf who’s made it more than clear that he wants all witnesses of his crime dead.

“I’m fine,” he said, then grabbed her hand. “Come. Someone needs to stop Reed.”

Angel stooped and picked up the gun Sean had dropped. She gave him a determined nod. “This time, he won’t surprise us.”

Together, they made their way back into the living room. It was deserted—but Jonathan could still feel the presence of the dire wolf. He was somewhere nearby. Maybe they could still stop him.

But as soon as they left the house, the sharp sensation of wolf that Jonathan could feel niggling at his senses suddenly spiked.

There was an incredible surge of power that came from somewhere nearby. As if Reed had suddenly, unexpectedly, gained a lot of power.

Or as if he’s no longer alone...

Jonathan pressed his finger to his lips as they slowly moved towards the corner of the house. There were tracks in the snow—tracks left by a single man.

Reed had left the house this way. But he hadn’t shifted and run off into the mountains surrounding them.

Why?

A sudden howl coming from behind the house made him narrow his eyes.

It was the howl of a dire wolf—a challenging howl. Had Reed sensed his presence and was preparing for another fight?

“Don’t worry,” Angel whispered, “you can shift if you want.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone here—”

With a fierce smile, Angel raised the gun she was still holding on to. “This time, I’m not unarmed.”

Jonathan hesitated for a heartbeat—but the strange sensation of growing power kept increasing. Whatever Reed was planning, there wasn’t much time.

“Be careful,” he said hoarsely—and then he took a step forward and allowed his dragon to take over.

Energy raced through his veins, making his skin prickle. The dragon within him was still bristling with protective anger at the threat to their mate.

This time, he wouldn’t let the dire wolf get away. It would end, here and now.

Ahead of them, the wolf howled again. Jonathan beat his wings, lifting off the ground.

The wind had picked up. Grey clouds had come racing across the sky. Even before he left the ground, the first snowflakes landed on his skin.

Another dire wolf blizzard?

By the time he’d made it above the house, the air was a flurry of white, the wind howling around him.

This time, there was no doubt at all that the storm was magical in nature. No blizzard would arrive within seconds.

It had to be the dire wolf’s power that had summoned the storm. He probably planned to use the blizzard as cover to get away.

But he’d thought wrong.

Jonathan was no longer the weakened dragon of their first encounter who’d just spent ten years frozen in the ice.

He’d recovered enough from that foolish decision to be able to use his own powers, just as the dire wolf did. And unlike Reed, Jonathan had a mate he’d do anything for.

He’d just begun to descend, trying to find the dire wolf in the storm, when he saw something that made him hover in the air in confusion. The storm tore at his wings, but he didn’t budge.

There wasn’t one dire wolf beneath him—there were two.

As he watched, the two giant wolves began circling each other. Their eyes glowed a yellow gold. Power seemed to rise off them.

And now, at last, Jonathan understood how the storm had arrived so quickly.

It wasn’t Reed trying to get away. This blizzard was nature’s reaction to two powerful dire wolf shifters using their powers against each other.

Something glinted red in the snow, catching his attention.

When Jonathan narrowed his eyes, he was able to make out the iron crown with its rubies, half buried beneath the rapidly falling snow now.

It rested on the ground between the two wolves. Every time one wolf tried to take one step towards it, the other increased its grip on the storm to force its rival back.

Jonathan opened his mouth for a silent laugh.

He still had no idea what was going on, but it didn’t matter. Let Henrik deal with the consequences later. Two dire wolves couldn’t mean anything good.

Like all mythological shifters, dire wolves were incredibly rare. And to have two of them here could only mean that he and Angel had interrupted some terrible conspiracy.

Jonathan breathed in.

Then, without forewarning, he folded his wings against his body and dropped down like a stone, coming straight at the two distracted shifters.

Once he was close enough, he parted his jaw and released his icy breath. Like a projectile of freezing air, it came barreling right at the two dire wolves.

A heartbeat before his attack hit the ground, the two dire wolves jumped back.

One of them was bleeding, Jonathan now noticed. Had he interrupted a fight for the spoils of their burglary?

It didn’t matter. They’d deal with it later.

Jonathan raised his wings, then swerved, flying a narrow curve to come straight at them again, this time much closer to the ground.

The bleeding dire wolf saw him coming—but instead of fleeing, he dug his claws into the ground and opened his jaw, revealing sharp fangs as he howled.

Jonathan inhaled deeply again, pulling on the power within him. It took effort this time. Something inside him ached, as if he’d put too much weight on healing muscles.

But that didn’t matter. Maybe his power wasn’t at a hundred percent yet—but he wasn’t fighting another dragon. And he’d be damned if he’d let a dire wolf get the better of him.

Drawing on the small, secret core of power within him, he felt the winter’s cold race through his veins once more. It spread through his body, filling him with the clear beauty of glaciers, the smooth hardness of a frozen lake, the relentlessness of a winter storm.

And then he exhaled.

His attack turned the air white. Like a lance of cold, it rushed through the air straight at the bleeding dire wolf. This time, the shifter was too close to run.

Jonathan spread his wings to soar—but then, even before his ice enveloped the wolf, the shifter howled again. It was a piercing sound of rage, loud enough to make Jonathan’s ears rattle.

At the sound, the blizzard picked up with such force that Jonathan found himself hurled back in the air, fighting just to stay afloat on the powerful gales that tore at his wings.

When he managed to finally stabilize himself in the air, he saw that the dire wolf had evaded his attack again.

The powerful wind had diverted Jonathan’s attack, and instead of hitting the shifter, it had hit the ground next to him, where a harmless patch of ice had spread.

Damn. If this lasts any longer...

He’d drawn on his power in the belief that this would be over within moments, and that he’d have enough left to easily carry Angel back to safety.

But already he could feel the toll the fight took on him. His muscles ached—and the power within him was dangerously low. He’d used up a dangerous amount of his newly regained strength.

I won’t let him escape again, no matter what.

One last time, he made himself turn in the air.

The wind was howling with increased strength now, summoned by the dire wolf’s anger. It took a lot more cunning to hold himself upright in the sky, with the storm tearing at him and constantly changing direction.

He inhaled again, ignoring the gales that drove snow into his eyes.

This was his element. The ice had always been his friend. It had sheltered him for ten long years.

I won’t be defeated by snow.

Something inside him ached as he began to draw on his power once more. It felt as if he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. When he parted his jaws to inhale, his lungs ached, something inside him feeling raw and sore.

He ignored the pain. He’d have to bring this to an end, one way or another, if he wanted to have any hope of bringing Angel back home.

This time, he won’t escape...

With the power of the ice filling his throat, he folded his wings, dropping from the air to come straight at the dire wolf.

The shifter had awaited him. With the blizzard swirling around him, the wolf bared his teeth, the wind picking up even more.

Where did the second wolf go?

The blizzard had turned the air around him into a chaotic vortex of white.

Jonathan roared, beating his wings, still holding his course—and then there was a sudden shot. The sound of it echoed even through the roar of the storm.

For one heartbeat, the wind grew in force until Jonathan couldn’t hold himself upright anymore. Desperately fighting against the iron fist clenching around his wings, he kept trying to keep himself in the air.

Then, just as suddenly, the wind died away.

The snow stopped falling. The blizzard was no longer roaring in his ears, blinding him with snow.

Beneath him, the dire wolf was on the ground, a patch of red blood spreading in the snow as the beast groaned weakly.

And there, just a couple of steps away, stood Angel with the gun in her hand.

Joy and an immense relief spread though Jonathan. Ignoring the ache of his sore muscles, he landed near her, shifting back as soon as he touched the ground—but Angel didn’t look at him.

Instead, she was still aiming the gun, her face determined. Her voice shook a little when she spoke, but her hand was steady.

“Step away from the crown,” she said.

He’d lost sight of the second dire wolf during the fight—but now he could see that the other shifter had just bided his time.

No—her time. 

He realized all of a sudden that the new dire wolf was female. She was standing over the iron crown, her expression grim, fangs bared—but not at him and Angel. She was growling softly at the other wounded dire wolf.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice suddenly said from behind them. “Drop the gun. Please.”

When Jonathan turned around, he found himself facing a human woman he’d never seen before. She was dressed in a warm, white parka that kept her nearly invisible in the snow.

She was also pointing a gun at them—but for all that she was threatening them, she looked strangely relaxed.

Very slowly, Angel turned around. There was a look of stunned disbelief on her face as she stared at the newcomer.

Then she let the gun drop.