There were many things Julie Sawyer had come to expect in her day. Her son Tony trying to make a break for it whenever he could – he was a damnably fast one-year-old. Forgetting about her coffee because she got so lost in her morning reading session. Being late to work because wrangling a kid, her purse, her old and decrepit car, and her daily schedule was sometimes a tiny bit too much.

But she definitely didn’t expect a dragon on her back porch.

I must be losing my mind, she thought, shaking her head for the umpteenth time.

Standing in the middle of her living room in a suburb of Houston, Texas, Julie was staring out the glass door leading to her backyard. Tony was sitting inside, patting the glass with his chubby little palms, and a full-grown dragon was seated on her porch, seeming to make faces at the boy.

I didn’t know dragons were in the habit of sticking out their tongues, she thought idly through the lunacy of actually having one in broad daylight, in her backyard.

“Tony, get away from the door!” she yelled, though it didn’t do her any good.

The boy was staring transfixed at the big beast and Julie had plenty of reasons for understanding why he did it. With her stomach churning, she rushed to her son and scooped him up in her arms, backing away from the door immediately after. She didn’t make it more than two steps before the dragon, a large, copper-scaled beast that spilled over the sides of her small porch and seemed to be crouching down, tapped on the door with one long, ebony-black claw.

“I don’t know who you are and if you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police!” Julie yelled, flustered.

If dragons rolled their eyes, then this one was definitely rolling his eyes. Because of course he would. What exactly would the police do about a fire-breathing monstrosity from fairytales and most recently, the New York Times Most Influential People lists?

The only thought that rang true in Julie’s head was the need to get out. She didn’t know why the dragon was here, or what it wanted from her, but she was certain it couldn’t be anything good. It was never anything good when a shifter tracked someone down, and this time, Julie feared the worst.

She grabbed her bag, all the while Tony was trying to squirm out of her arms, reaching toward the back door. The dragon was considering them quietly, his large, golden eyes tracking their motions with almost bored disinterest.

The keys to the car were in a small bowl next to the front door. She scooped them out of the bowl and then unlocked the front door, yanking it open a second later. Breathing a sigh of relief at finding a certain lack of dragons in her front yard, Julie ran toward the car parked in the driveway. She wasn’t sure where she was going to go, or what she was going to do, but she knew she had to go. It was a feeling deep inside her gut.

This isn’t the right dragon.

“Come on,” she muttered, fumbling with trying to get Tony in his car seat as the boy fell into a high-pitched wail. “Be good for mama, please, baby boy,” she whispered in hushed tones.

Her ears were pricked, every fiber of her being listening, waiting. For a crash? For the sound of leathery wings unfolding and the dragon taking flight, only to descend upon her car like some nightmare? She wasn’t sure. All she heard were the usual sounds of a neighborhood slowly waking up on a Wednesday morning.

She didn’t even dare look up, knowing that she would see the ridges of the dragon’s wide back towering over her small, flat house. It was only when she realized that there should be a shadow right over her car if the dragon was still there that she actually panicked.

Seconds from sliding into the car and driving off to her would-be safety, Julie felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around, squealing. She came face to face with a tall, well-dressed man with dark brown hair that seemed to glint with copper in the early morning sun. He had cool, gray eyes and a smirk that looked far too much like the one she’d seen on the dragon.

He also looked just as unlikely to stick out his tongue at a toddler, yet the moment he glanced at Tony, he did. She could hear the boy giggling in the car. Inwardly, she groaned.

“Miss Sawyer, I believe you perhaps did not notice me at your back door,” the dragon-man-whoever said, arching his brow slightly.

His accent was thick, and so familiar it sent chills down her spine. Definitely Italian, with perfect English, but the tones of his motherland so evident in the way he enunciated, just as clearly as the warm Mediterranean sun had kissed his slightly tan skin. It was an accent she’d heard before, but not from this man.

“I don’t know who you are and you are crowding my space,” Julie hissed, hearing the uncertainty in her voice. “Now please, step back, whoever you are.”

The notion that she had not seen him was ludicrous, of course. Who could miss a dragon? But it was nice of him to give her a way out.

“I don’t think I can do that, Miss Sawyer,” he said, his voice almost sing-songy now.

He slipped past her and pulled on the handle to open the door to the back seat, finding an overjoyed Tony clapping his hands there.

“Hello,” the little boy muttered, reaching his hands out for the dragon.

“And who is this?” the man said with a kind smile, flicking a glance at Julie. “So very rude of me. I have not introduced myself. I am Giovanni Capirelli.”

Capirelli.

Julie closed her eyes, not entirely certain what she was feeling. Her stomach was in knots and her head felt like it had been plucked off her shoulders and flung straight into the clouds. A part of her, a very big part, had thought she’d never hear that name again.

“I guess you know who I am,” she said finally, finding Giovanni crouching next to the car, letting Tony squeeze his fingers.

The little boy had a look of absolute wonder on his face and Giovanni, with all his hard edges and slick suit, looked like any other man talking to a small child and enjoying every second of it.

“I do, Julianna,” he said.

“Julie, please.”

“Julie,” Giovanni echoed, and the way he said it struck through her like lightning.

It sounded so much like jewel, just the way he used to say it, that one night that seemed like forever ago.

“What is all this about?” she asked, clearing her throat before the emotions overwhelmed her.

“I am here to take you home, of course,” Giovanni said, standing up almost reluctantly, though he let Tony keep hanging onto his hand.

“I am home.”

“To your real home. To his real home,” Giovanni said, a note of sternness reaching his tone as he glanced at Tony.

“This is his real home,” Julie countered, feeling the color drain from her cheeks. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“This is not a request, Julie.”

“Are you… Are you threatening me?” Julie balked, crossing her arms over her chest protectively. “I am home. I’m in the United States of America, you can’t simply show up here and tell me that you’re going to take me… somewhere. I won’t go. My son won’t go, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

She felt herself shaking, a chill running down her spine. As much as she might have not wanted to admit it, she knew exactly what home Giovanni was talking about. Visions of marble floors and high columns danced in her memories, lit by moonlight that seemed to burn brighter that night than it ever had before. But not nearly as bright as his eyes had.

“Tutti e due, both of you will come with me. There will be no arguments. You have been hiding the son of the Dragon Prince, this cannot be allowed to go on further.”

And that was the moment her stomach sank.

“The… Dragon Prince?”

Giovanni nodded flatly, before leaning in to undo the clasps on Tony’s safety seat. The boy met him with glee, taking another chance at touching Giovanni, patting his face and cheeks as the man leaned over him.

It can’t be… it was just one night, he made it so clear he didn’t want to know anything about me. There was nothing there except for…

Except for what? The best sex she’d ever had? The only time she’d felt like she was truly connected to someone, existing in the same way, at the same time?

Except for a mutually beneficial night.

By the time Julie had come back to her senses, a large black SUV was pulling up behind her car, effectively blocking her in. Tony was already in Giovanni’s arms and he was walking toward the vehicle when another man scrambled out of it and came and snatched Julie’s bag off her shoulder. It was a diaper bag, doubling as her purse for the time being.

“Wait, NO!” she gasped, trying to grab the bag back.

She was basically dragged along on the gravel pathway behind the man as she clung to the strap of her bag, like she weighed nothing and like her presence was barely noticeable to begin with.

“I am not going with you, we are not going with you! You can’t take my son!” she screamed, letting go of the strap abruptly and running to Giovanni.

He’d already tucked Tony in a safety seat and the boy clapped his hands together happily. Giovanni spun around and faced Julie, towering more than a foot taller than she was. She was only 5’5’’, but suddenly she felt like she barely cleared 5’. All the joviality was gone from Giovanni’s expression, all the kindness as if washed away.

Suddenly, she could see the lines of the dragon beneath his skin very clearly, his eyes flashing gold.

“I will make this very clear to you, Julie. Your son will come with us. There is nothing you can do about this. If you want to stay… allora, it is your choice. I will not stop you. You are not the property of the Capirelli family, however the young one is. He belongs to his father, he belongs to all of us. And we have come to take what is ours.”

“He is my son,” Julie seethed, feeling at once powerless and more riled up than she had ever been.

Adrenaline surged through her and for a moment, she felt like she could take on anyone, anyone at all. But when three pairs of golden eyes looked at her, Giovanni with the two goons he had brought along, she was no longer so sure. The only thing she was certain of was that she would not allow them to have her son.

“He is the son of the Dragon Prince,” Giovanni said simply, shrugging his shoulders as if any disagreement on the topic was needless and insane. “No authority of your country could stop us. No officer of any law will come against the royal dragons. Perhaps you do not know this, Julie, but I am certainly willing to give you the opportunity to find out.”

He flashed her a grin and before Julie could think about what it could bring with it, she’d smacked him squarely in the face. It was like hitting hot iron. He didn’t budge, and her hand pulsed with radiating heat and pain.

Giovanni’s eyes narrowed and he held up his hand sharply, likely sensing the movements of his two henchmen before Julie ever could.

“We will not hurt the Dragon Mother,” he said sharply, to them, not to her. Then, he leaned in, coming level with Julie’s eyes. “The choice is yours, Julie. Come with us, or do not. These are the only options. To me, it matters little which one you choose.”

Yet when Julie Sawyer squared her shoulders and climbed into the back of the SUV, she could have sworn she saw Giovanni Capirelli smile.

Antonio is going to have to have a really damn good explanation for all of this, Julie thought, as the sun-drenched lawn on her modest home disappeared behind the SUV.