Minach’s solitary Dragon soared through the chilly night air towards London’s distinctive skyline. The colour of an icy alpine lake, his scales shone like an errant star, beautiful, powerful and graceful all at once. Massive wings stroked the air, translucent like frosted glass. A series of pale spikes lined the back of his neck, a sleek mane of rock-hard scale. Armour shielding him against the few threats in the world that could take on a Dragon.

To look up at him, a passerby might have assumed that his silhouette was nothing more than a gliding bird of prey. Of course, he was far larger than any eagle. A jetliner would have been a more apt comparison.

A jetliner with a chip on his shoulder.

For decades, Minach had shielded himself behind his majestic déor, holding his Dragon at bay just beneath the surface of his human form, ready to burst out at a moment’s notice. Raging at times, emotionless at others, he had gained a reputation as a difficult, angry man, hostile to friends and enemies alike.

In recent months he’d calmed down somewhat, mostly due to the quiet truce that he and his twin had formed on the grounds of Glastonbury Tor after years spent locked in cold, quiet animosity. After their reconciliation, Minach had learned to keep his anger in check, at least a little. Sometimes, he even felt like a reasonable, rational man, his demons temporarily calmed. His Dragon, too, settled down on occasion.

Tonight, despite his earlier ranting and raging about Neko’s cries, both man and Dragon were calm and content. A brilliant night sky was where a winged beast belonged, not locked away in some underground fortress. This was a much-needed, peaceful flight after the long, gut-wrenching hours that he’d left behind under the Heath.

But while his déor soared happily onward, Minach began to turn over cynical thoughts in his aggravatingly human mind, his all too brief bout of contentment turning quickly to bitterness. All good things must come to an end, he told himself, sneering at his own inability to embrace anything positive for long.

It was nice, he supposed, that Neko had sprung a baby from her loins tonight, even if it had been something akin to torture porn for the Guild’s collective ears. Nice for Neko, nice for Lumen. Perhaps he would even find a moment to feel happy for them later, when he was alone and the sound of her screams had temporarily deserted his memory. The new family deserved the blessing of each Guild member.

But right now Neko’s and Lumen’s joy, their success in love, and their young family were nothing more to him than ugly reminders of his own failures. He had no mate. No prospects for parenthood, for the life that most shifters dream of for themselves. Hell, even Aegis, the Guild’s resident nerd-clown, had managed to find a lovely Dragon shifter partner and he seemed happier than ever, the lucky wanker.

Stop torturing yourself, a booming internal voice commanded, reprimanding the man for his petty resentments. Be pleased for your fellow shifter. Be grateful to be part of such an event.

Quiet, you, Minach retorted to the beast inside him. Your job is to get us home safe, not to tell me how to live my damned life.

Reluctant to let the flight end, he landed a few minutes later with a soft thud under the pale light of the street lamps lining Devonshire Street. He quickly threw off the shackles of his shifted form before striding over to his front door. It had to be three a.m. by now, and for the first time he realized how much energy he’d expended over the last few hours, a yawn stretching his mouth wide. His damned ordeal had taken a lot out of him.

Well, to be fair it was Neko’s ordeal, but at this point he could scarcely imagine that she’d suffered more than he had. So, as a reward for the excruciating agony he’d managed to endure, his greatest wish was to ensconce himself in a set of clean sheets and shut his tired eyes.

Okay. Second greatest wish.

There was one thing in the world that he desired more than sleep, and from the smell of things, she was close at hand.

He sniffed the air, catching a hint of her sweetness, the petals of a rose wafting on the breeze about him. As he drew in a long inhale, Minach’s lips curled into a rare smile. Ah, yes. The one thing he could never have had come to torture him with her presence, and like a masochistic fool, he welcomed the torment.

For all his gripes about women, there was one whose company he always welcomed. Craved, even, though he had never admitted so much to her or to anyone. Her gentle, sweet perfume filled him with frustrated arousal every time she was close at hand. But frustrating or not, he’d come to need her as a man in chronic pain needed his painkillers.

When he’d hiked the two sets of stairs up to his flat, he pushed his key into the lock and eased the door open, stepping softly inside to sniff the air again. His mind immersed itself in a swirl of emotion and arousal as her heavenly aroma hit him in a new wave.

Perhaps he would find a little bliss tonight after all. Better to be frustrated than to feel dead inside, he liked to tell himself. At the very least, she reminded him what it was to feel alive. She was the one joy in his life, one that came to him far too rarely, and always left him too soon.

Slipping down the hallway to the sitting room at the front of his elegant flat, he could see the dim glow of a table lamp casting a long shadow across the floor.

“Tell me how everything went,” she said before he’d even entered the room. Sweet voice. Sweet woman.

Devious woman, breaking in like this.

“Fine, aside from Neko’s wretched banshee-wails,” he said, stepping into the doorway to face her. Pressing his massive arms against the frame, he leaned forward. He was aware of the outline of his muscles, aware that her scent altered as her eyes met his powerful torso. Perhaps she deserved to be tormented by desire, just as she was tormenting him.

“Childbirth is painful, from what I understand,” she said.

“Yes well, pain is one thing. But you’d have thought the world was ending, given the horrific cacophony.”

“The world wasn’t ending at all. It was beginning, for one little shifter at least. Tell me more.”

Minach stared across the empty space between them, his eyes studying the beautiful woman who sat in the large, richly upholstered armchair by the window, warm lamplight giving her high cheekbones the illusion of a healthy glow. Her exquisitely expressive eyes were open wide, questioning and curious. An almost innocent expression inhabited her features in contradiction to years of what Minach knew had been a difficult life, fraught with pain and conflict.

The Dragon shifter could tell that Amara hadn’t slept in some time, but her insomnia likely had little to do with her concern for Neko. She seemed troubled, but by what, he would probably never know. She was too private, too reclusive a soul to let him into her heart. An enigma that he’d always wished to decipher. In that sense they made a good pair, or would have done, perhaps, in another lifetime. In this life he’d all but given up hope of ever getting close to her; she’d made it clear too many times that such a thing would never come to pass.

She rose to her feet and took a few steps towards him but didn’t touch, despite the fact that they hadn’t seen one another in over a month. No, of course she didn’t. She never touched him. She was too fucking virtuous to give in to desire for a Dragon shifter, or for any man. A sexy fucking celibate nun, that’s what she was.

“She—they—had a boy,” he said.

“A little boy,” she replied softly. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s good, I suppose, if Lumen wants to teach him to play football, but not so good for the ongoing survival of Dragonkind,” Minach replied. “Better to have more females about, as they’re in short supply these days. With Tryst betraying us, we still have only one female Dragon shifter around. We could use a few more to increase the herd.”

“Right, of course. You need more women to mate with.” Amara peeled her eyes away, fixing them on a street lamp outside the window. “More women for your sexual pleasure.” The words came as a sort of afterthought, a wistful observation about a world in which she would never live.

Minach stepped to the window, looking out to see what she was studying so intently. “Quiet out there tonight,” he said softly, ignoring her words.

She glared at him. “You’re avoiding my question.”

“It wasn’t a question, Amara, it was a statement.” Minach pressed his hands into the windowsill, tension visible in his broad shoulders. “You’re implying that we men are led by our dicks, or at least that I am.” The erection that pressed against his clothing only proved her point.

“All right, then, I’ll turn the statement into a question. You’d like more females about for your sexual pleasure, I take it? And yes, I’m using ‘you’ in the singular.”

“Nicely done.” He turned back to her and narrowed his eyes, hunger eating away at his body and mind. How dare she enter his flat at night and tease him with her intoxicating presence? Not to mention her cruel talk of sexual pleasure. If she only knew how much he craved her above all other women.

Cruel half-breed.

“The answer to your question is that I have no desire for a Dragon lady,” Minach said. “My own kind is of little interest to me, happily. Otherwise I’d be a desperately horny man, given that there are none of my kind about.”

Amara locked her gaze on his, challenging him with her dark eyes. “It’s a shame that you haven’t had an opportunity to mate,” she said, “because you’re a powerful man. Powerful men tend to create powerful offspring. You would be doing the Guild a great service.”

“Yes, well, this powerful man has always been content alone, and I don’t consider it my duty to put a baby in a woman’s uterus as a business venture.”

“Content alone? You have never seemed particularly content to me, Minach.” There was pain in her words, but its source remained a mystery. Had he been a better man, he’d have asked her to tell him what troubled her, would have offered to help. That was what decent men did.

But he wasn’t decent. He was guarded and suspicious. He was difficult. The last thing he wanted to do around Amara was to reveal his proclivity for worrying about others, including her. He didn’t want her to think well of him, because he didn’t deserve it.

Nevertheless, he softened a little.

“I am content when you’re here, Enlightened,” he said, the hard edge of his voice disappearing temporarily. A rare moment of fragility overtook his features. The truth was that he wished she were there every day. She gave him a sense of peace. She was his only vice, his only pleasure, even if she was a walking cock tease. “I wish you would spend more time with me, for both our sakes.”

“You know very well there are reasons that I can’t,” she replied. “As for time, I should go. Thank you for telling me about the baby. That’s the only reason I came.”

Hurriedly, she picked up a jacket off the arm of the chair and strode towards the door.

Minach was quick, though, and reached her in under a second, wrapping his fingers around her arm in a commanding grip. She was so thin, so delicate, a beautiful porcelain doll who could kill with a look. Shatter him with a word.

“Don’t go,” he breathed, his mouth too close to her neck. Her scent was wonderful, her arousal palpable in the air particles around him. God, why the hell couldn’t he have her? Why couldn’t he just open up and tell her how badly he wanted her?

“I must. It’s late, and I need to head home. Some of us have to seek work for a living, whether we’re members of an endangered species or not,” she said. “I have a meeting tomorrow morning.”

“You wouldn’t need to work if you stayed here, with me,” Minach growled, too consumed by arousal to confront the depth of meaning behind his words. “I would give you riches, Amara. I wouldn’t ask you to take on menial jobs.”

She stared straight ahead, her features tense as she tried to maintain her composure. “I know you don’t mean that. Besides, it’s not your riches that I desire, Minach,” she said. “I only wanted to know if Neko and the baby were all right, and now I know. You should go to bed; your mind is clearly exhausted.”

He pulled away abruptly, releasing her from his grasp. “No, Amara,” he growled, crossing his arms in a show of hostile body language. “My mind is just fine. I’m sorry that I spoke spontaneously; it was stupid. You’re quite right; I didn’t mean it. You are your own woman and as I’ve said, I’m very…content…on my own.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, a slight quiver in her voice. “Good night, then.”

His body taut with a sensation that wanted to explode from his chest, Minach whispered an inaudible reply and watched her walk away, as he had so many times before. So many nights she’d left him frustrated, alone. Part of him wanted to ask her not to return, not to torture him like this anymore.

But he knew that if she disappeared, it would kill him.