The scent was a dragon’s all right, and it smelled a lot like Draven. Zane made sure to keep downwind as he raced into the forest and up to Draven’s cabin to investigate.

He wasn’t going to engage. It was much too dangerous to do that on his own, especially with Gwen nearby. He would die to protect her, but he was worried that he would die and still not be able to protect her.

Dragons had the worst senses out of all the shifters. They could fly and breathe fire, so they didn’t have much use for a heightened sense of smell and hearing. Zane was going to use that to his advantage and sneak up on the shifter to observe him, and then report back to Draven.

His bear stirred and paced around nervously. He never liked the scent of dragons. It took him over a year just to get used to Draven’s.

Zane stopped running as he got deeper into the forest, slowing down to make as little noise as possible.

Draven never talked too much about his past and his family, but Zane had put together slivers of dropped comments over the year. He wasn’t sure what happened, but he knew that Draven was from one of the great dragon houses that ruled back in Medieval Europe. His family was torn apart by fighting and old feuds, and Zane knew that his half-brothers were trying to kill him.

Zane wasn’t sure why, but he knew one thing: if someone was trying to kill his alpha, then that shifter was a dead man. He didn’t care if it was a dragon, bear, or mouse shifter. He wouldn’t let a threat to his alpha go unchecked.

The wind rustled through the leaves overhead as Zane snuck through the forest, ducking under branches and stepping over exposed roots. It was pitch black under the canopy of leaves, but Zane could see easily. He never had a problem seeing in the dark.

The thick charcoal smell of dragon got stronger with every step that he took. His heart started pumping as he got a strong urge to turn back. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him: fear.

His bear whimpered and whined in his chest, thrashing his head around as Zane ignored the bad feeling in his gut and pushed forward.

He was no coward. Foolish, maybe, but cowardly, no.

His inner bear paced nervously when Draven’s cabin came into view up ahead. The dragon shifter was climbing out of the broken window in his human form and hadn’t noticed Zane creeping up on him.

It was Draven’s brother, all right. He would recognize that familiar smell from anywhere.

He slunk down behind a bush and watched him, wondering what he was doing here, wondering what he was looking for.

I should get back to Gwen. The date was going so well, but now she was probably furious at him.

Zane had seen enough. He really should have been getting back to Draven to report what he was seeing, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the man. He was tall and slim with bright gray eyes that sparkled like Draven’s did. Every movement he made was so graceful, so fluid. Dragon shifters always seemed to have a comfort with their bodies that could only come from spending centuries in it.

What is he looking for? Zane wasn’t sure, but he knew it couldn’t be good.

He gasped when the dragon shifter suddenly jerked his head around and locked eyes on him. His inner bear screamed at him to move, to run, as Zane stared in stunned awe at the shifter’s shining gray eyes. He had never seen anything so bright, or so terrifying.

Time to leave.

He turned and took one step, and in that short amount of time, Draven’s brother had leapt down from the balcony, crossed the vast distance between them, and was standing right in front of him.

Zane gulped as he took a step back, staring at him in disbelief. He had seen a lot of shifters throughout his years, but he had never seen one even come close to moving that fast.

“I smell him on you,” the dragon shifter hissed, sneering at him.

Zane felt his blood grow cold as he stared at the glowing gray eyes. He was in over his head. He knew it immediately. And the worst part was, he had put Gwen in danger. She wasn’t too far away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zane said, swallowing hard as he turned away. A strong hand grabbed his shoulder and held him in place.

Zane gritted his teeth as he turned around and looked at him over his shoulder. “Let. Go.”

“Where is Dravenous?” the dragon shifter hissed. “Where is my brother?”

Zane looked down at the powerful hand that was crushing his round shoulder. “Take your hand off me.”

The dragon shifter grinned, but he left his hand right where it was. “My brothers Terrowin and Valerius would kill me if they knew I was here,” he said. “But Dravenous is the true king. He deserves to be at the helm as we bring humanity back into the shadows of time.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Zane asked as a cold chill rippled through him. Whatever it was it didn’t sound good.

“It means it’s time for Dravenous to return home and claim the seat that he was born to claim.”

Zane had given him a warning, and he ignored it. It was time to shut this guy up for good. He squeezed his hand into a fist and spun on his heels, punching the dragon shifter in the jaw with every ounce of strength he had.

His thick fist landed flush on his chin, but he didn’t move a millimeter. Instead, the impact rocketed back up through Zane’s fist, traveling up his forearm and making him wince in pain.

I don’t—

Zane didn’t understand. He could punch through brick walls and boulders. He could lay out the largest and meanest shifters on the planet, and here he landed a perfect roundhouse on the guy’s chin and he didn’t even blink.

“Are you done?” the shifter asked with a grin.

Zane turned to run, but the dragon shifter squeezed his shoulder and lifted him off his feet. “Oh, shit,” he whispered as Draven’s brother launched him against a thick maple tree that must have been over a hundred years old. He sliced straight through it, and then through a smaller cedar tree before skidding to a stop in the dirt. All he could do was watch in horror as the two trees fell in front of him, one falling to the left, and the other to the right. The dragon shifter’s eyes were shining brighter than ever as he walked forward, easily jumping over the fallen tree trunks.

“Tell Dravenous to come home,” he said, staring down at Zane. “Or, we’ll come to him. And trust me, you don’t want that. That nice little town of yours doesn’t want that.”

Zane must have smashed some vertebrates in his back because he couldn’t get up. “I know four shifters that will die before we let you touch him.”

He just shrugged his shoulders. “Then die already and get it over with.”

Zane could feel his enhanced healing powers kicking in. He was already starting to feel some mobility in his back returning while Draven’s brother shook his head. “You non-dragons are like dust in the wind. Specks in the air of time.” He grinned as he approached. “Constantly changing like the seasons, while we remain eternal like the moon and sun.”

Zane was done with talking. This dragon shifter may have been able to out power him in his human form, but Zane’s Kodiak bear was a whole other beast. It was time to let him do the talking.

“Fine,” he said as he flexed his chest, urging his inner beast to rush forward and come out. “Tell it to my Kodiak.”

But for the first time ever, his bear resisted. ‘You got us into this, you get us out,’ he seemed to be saying. His bear had urged them to retreat after all. It wasn’t his fault they were in this mess.

He began to panic as the dragon shifter approached. Zane thought of Gwen standing there helplessly in the parking lot, and it gave his bear the spark that he needed to finally come charging out.

He exploded out of Zane in a frenzy—rising up on two hind legs and barring his vicious teeth as he stared the gray-eyed dragon shifter down.

Draven’s brother just laughed as the bear rushed forward and attacked.