Oh, the humanity.

I walked through the oversized store with a cart already overloaded with food. Six full-grown dragon shifters needed all the sustenance we could get our hands on.

I thought back to the days in Scotland, how we had to hunt to stay alive. A trip to Costco wasn’t unlike one of those hunts in many ways.

Was it ever not busy there? That was the first question which always came to mind when I entered the store. No matter the day of the week we chose or the time we ventured out, there were always throngs of people from all walks of life milling about.

I passed a woman wearing a smock and a nervous smile, offering free samples of some frozen concoction.

The shoppers gathering around her brought to mind a group of jackals at a watering hole. They practically elbowed each other out of the way in their greed.

The meat case was a free-for-all. People eyeing the cuts, considering their options, firing questions at the employees behind the window. Did they have anything better back there? Could they trim more of the fat off a ten-pound roast? What about cutting a pork loin into chops? I rolled my eyes and elbowed my way through.

Even though I knew very well why we couldn’t have supplies delivered, it never stopped me from fantasizing about how lovely it would be to let technology handle everything for us.

Simply picking up a delivery at the mouth of the cave every other week or so. Not ever having to come into contact with humans if I didn’t want to.

No such luck. A lot of good it would do us to announce our presence to the rest of the world. That was what my brothers and cousins were kind enough to remind me of the first and only time I tried to helpfully suggest we let twenty-first-century conveniences make life more, well, convenient.

“Sure!” Fence had yelled, throwing his hands into the air. “Let’s invite the United States Postal Service to the front door! Let’s put it on record that six men live in a fucking cave!”

The rest of them had laughed or sneered or scoffed, though I was willing to bet every single one of them had wondered at least once if they could get out of making the twenty-mile trip.

“All right, all right,” I had replied, trying to wave him off. “I get it. It’s a bad idea.”

The dragon inside me growled dangerously when I faced the prospect of choosing a checkout line. All of them were at least three carts deep.

I wondered if the risk of discovery was truly more dire than the threat of the dragon escaping my control and wreaking havoc. The human world would find out about us. They’d know all about us after I tore the building down and buried the occupants alive.

It was a fantasy, of course, but it was all that kept me sane whenever I had to interact with humans. They were all the same: greedy, lazy, ignorant. Obnoxious. They went out of their way to please themselves but very rarely thought of the basic needs of others.

I wondered how much of what they purchased and hoarded like starving vultures actually went to use. Could any family honestly find use for a case of canned peas? Or a carton of deodorant sticks? They bought, and they stored, and they guarded their stockpiles with the same vigilance as my family and I guarded the cache we’d been assigned to guard, locked deep beneath the mountain in which we lived.

But it wasn’t the same thing.

We weren’t greedy, and we didn’t live in fear of some far-off, unlikely doomsday. It was our job to guard it, as it had been ever since its arrival in the New World.

Naturally, it wasn’t considered the New World back then, over a thousand years earlier. Even so, the Vikings had buried their mysterious stockpile deep within the mountain and called on the world’s fiercest dragon shifters to guard it into eternity.

The tunnels and rooms in which we lived came later. The creature comforts we’d adapted to, even later than that.

“Having a big party?” The girl ringing up the items on the belt dropped a comical wink.

Like we were suddenly friends, in on the same joke.

“I enjoy buying in bulk. It’s economical.”

She didn’t seem to notice my flat, just-the-facts tone of voice—either that, or she chose to ignore it.

“You’re not much like most of the folks who come in here, you know.”

You have no idea, lady. “Oh? And how’s that?” I wouldn’t normally have asked, but her assessment was intriguing.

What did she see about me that I tried to hide from the world?

“You’re much better looking for starters.”

Ah. That. I should’ve known. Humans only saw what was right there on the surface, never what existed underneath.

“Thanks very much,” I replied, though it wasn’t much of a compliment.

I had gotten an eyeful of the inbred, bucktoothed, beer-bellied slobs who did their shopping there and was hardly impressed.

She wasn’t finished, either. “That dark hair, paired up with those beautiful hazel eyes?”

“Genetics,” I grinned.

“That body isn’t genetics,” she purred.

I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I’m just fortunate that way. I hardly ever work out.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.” And it was. My muscular build was common to all of my breed.

“Hmm. If you don’t spend your free time working out, what do you spend it on?”

I grinned as I handed over the cash for the sale. “I keep myself busy.”

She visibly deflated when I didn’t follow up with an invitation to see for herself what I did with my free time and handed over my change without another word or even a smile.

It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have liked to ask her out if I was into human women with overworked hair and too much makeup.

Hell, she might even have been a good time, and I could’ve used a good time. The dragon roared within me at the thought of having a woman.

But not just any woman, and that was the problem. The cashier was right about my looks and my body.

I could’ve had just about any piece of ass who crossed my path. And many had tried to get into my pants—a few had even succeeded. Yet it never ended well, because none of them were the right woman—my fated mate. So I’d stopped trying after a few hundred years. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

The rain was coming down in earnest by the time I finished loading the bags of food and other supplies into the truck, and the image of flooded roads flashed before my eyes as I left the parking lot and turned in the direction of the mountains. Of all the days to go out.

It didn’t get better the longer I drove—in fact, by the time I reached the winding uphill drive leading to the mouth of the cave, the road was little more than a massive mud puddle. I had the benefit of a heavy, four-wheel-drive truck.

The rusty little car in front of me, however, did not.

“What are you doing?” I called out, knowing the driver couldn’t hear me but needing to express my disapproval anyway.

The little two-door was barely managing the turns and kept slowing down when it hit particularly muddy patches.

I could’ve powered through much faster if it weren’t for those patches.

“Why did you bother trying to make this drive in this weather? And what the hell are you doing up here, anyway?”

That was a fair question, too, since there weren’t any campgrounds in the area that I was aware of. Perhaps one had just opened, or the driver had simply forgotten to check the weather forecast before taking a scenic mountain drive. Regardless of the why, the trip was becoming more dangerous by the second.

And that was when the road began to give way.

“Oh, shit!” I yelled, jackknifing as I hit the brakes and turned ninety degrees to avoid driving straight into the wall of mud coming down the side of the mountain and flooding the road.

The driver in front of me wasn’t so lucky, leaning on the horn in one last, desperate attempt to signal for help before the mud swept the car up and pushed it across the road.

I watched in horror as the car came to a stop just inches from tumbling over the edge of a cliff and hundreds of feet down to the forest floor.

My body started moving before my brain could quite catch up.

I was out the door and halfway to the car before I could question my decision. Not that there was a question of whether or not I should try to help. I knew I should—even if it seemed completely insane as I ran to the edge of the cliff.

“Hey!” I shouted over the driving rain which seemed to drown out everything but the thudding of my heart.

No answer.

The car was moments from falling over the edge. “Can you hear me?” I shouted louder, straining my voice. There was no way around it. I had to get closer.

My feet slipped on the wet, slick mud and I scrambled but managed to stay on my feet as I struggled to reach the car.

It was half-covered, with only the passenger door and hood still exposed.

I could just make out the shape of a girl behind the wheel. An unconscious girl with red hair and a nasty cut on her head. Blood trickled down her face, and I understood why she had leaned on the horn when I saw the way her body had fallen against the wheel.

She wouldn’t be able to get herself out of there.

I looked up at the side of the mountain, where the mudflow had started, to be sure there wasn’t a fresh wave coming my way before grabbing for the door handle.

A human wouldn’t have been able to pull it open with mud rising a quarter of the way up the side, but I’m not human.

I pried it from the car, metal screeching in protest, and threw it aside before reaching for her.

I caught a glimpse of the crumpled metal door sailing through empty air as it fell down, down, down until wind-swept trees swallowed it.

The car started to shift the moment I added my weight to it, and I felt it sliding inch by precious inch toward the edge and beyond. I tore the belt in pieces rather than fumbling for the button to release it, and wedged my hands under the girl’s arms.

“I hope you don’t have a back or neck injury,” I growled as I lifted her limp body from the seat and her head lolled against her shoulder.

She slid easily across the vinyl seat, her ass dropping into the mud the moment it cleared the inside of the car.

I heard the mud coming before I saw it, sounding like a freight train as it barreled down the side of the cliff above our heads and took trees, shrubs, and rocks with it.

And us.

It was coming for us.

The mud sucked at my feet and held me in place for just a second too long. That one second made the difference between getting me and the girl out of the way in time to avoid being swept over the cliff and getting caught up and thrown over the edge.

I let out an incoherent yell as we went airborne, hurtling off the cliff, and through thin air. I lost my grip on her and watched in horror as she tumbled, still unconscious, just out of my reach.

She hit a boulder and bounced off just before I did. I scrambled to catch any part of her, but it was no use.

Her red hair was like a flag as it billowed behind her, the only streak of color in an otherwise mud-painted world.

Once again, I started before my brain could catch up with what I was doing.

And what I was doing was shifting into my dragon, clothing shredding as my body swelled and expanded and lengthened, as my wings unfurled and caught air and allowed me to swoop down past the girl and beneath her, catching her on my back before she could hit the trees.

I sailed over the trees easily, gracefully, triumphant in the knowledge that I had saved her.

What I was going to do with her was another story.