Naomi woke with a start. The bed was empty. The cabin was still dark.

It wasn’t morning yet…well, actually it could be. Sunrise in January in this part of Alaska wasn’t until nearly ten o’clock.

She inched out of the bed and found her clothes, then her shoes.

“Col?” she called.

No answer.

She rubbed the back of her head where the bandage was wrapped tight. Nothing hurt. Not even a twinge.

Naomi hurried to the bathroom and pulled off the strips of purple fabric. She bent and twisted in front of the mirror enough to see that the wound on the back of her neck was gone. Healed. Just poof, it was gone. It hadn’t been a terrible cut. But there had been blood. There should at least be a scab. She ran her fingers over the smooth unblemished skin again.

Her bladder clenched, warning her she still needed to get outside and find the outhouse. Getting out here and realizing that everything north of the coastline was a dry cabin—well, not in the city—had been a shock to her city girl disposition. She could handle an outhouse, even in minus thirty-degree temps. It was just a more rustic porta-potty, right?

Her blue coat caught her eye where it’d fallen on the floor next to the sink. She pulled it on and went back out into the main room. Barefoot wasn’t going to work. She hunted around, finding one sock under the bed and the other in the far corner of the house.

A giggle slipped from between her lips. Had Col really been in such a hurry that her clothes had literally flown around the cabin? One of her rubber snow boots was on the couch. She pulled it on and searched for the other, jumping up and down a little like a toddler in desperate need of a potty break.

“Where the damn hell is my other boot?” Naomi looked down at her sock. No way was she getting her only sock wet in the snow. She clomped around and looked again, finally finding it halfway behind the couch. She rolled her eyes, yanked it from its hiding place and shoved her foot inside. Then she rushed for the front door.

Darkness spread out before her. Not pitch black, thanks to the stars and the northern lights, but still it was creepy dark for a girl used to the always-bright-never-sleepy city of New York.

At least at the cabin she’d rented north of McKinley Park, she’d had her cellphone and a flashlight. Here, she was totally cut off from the outside.

Naomi squinted and stared into the dark. First the left. Then to the right. A blockish dark form to the right could be it. She stepped out of the safety of the fire-lit cabin and toward the dark blob. “Please be the outhouse.”

She crunched through the deep snow, thankful that the resort guide had convinced her to go with the over-the-knee boots.

The dark shape got clearer as she moved closer. Definitely the outhouse.

Her heart slowed, and she released the breath she’d been holding. She was fine. Nothing had eaten her.

She pulled the lever down and opened the door, breathing another sigh of relief at the sight of a plastic tub with toilet paper inside it. Looking for paper inside the cabin hadn’t even crossed her mind. Naomi quickly closed the door behind her and relieved herself.

She was pulling up her jeans when a low growl outside made her heart leap out of her chest. “Shit! You scared me, Col.” She fastened her pants and pushed open the door. “Can’t a girl pee without—”

Another, louder growl blew hot air straight into her face.

A scream ricocheted inside the small building. It took a moment before Naomi realized the high-pitched cry was coming from her. She kicked at the enormous snapping wolf jaws in the opening and yanked the door closed. Her whole body shook as adrenaline rushed through her like a cabbie back home fighting rush hour, giving her enough strength to hold the door closed.

The wolf snarled and clawed at the thick planks of wood. Splinters broke off. It would be only a matter of time before he got to her.

“Col!” She hoped to God the dragon man was close enough to hear her. “Col, help!”

The outhouse rocked.

The wolf was huge.

Bigger than anything she’d ever seen. Bigger than a damn bear.

Tightness clawed at Naomi’s lungs. Her heart slammed against the inside of her ribs like a pinball bouncing against bumpers.

The creature was trying to push the entire building over.

“Stop it! Please,” she sobbed, hanging onto the lever on the door. It kept trying to swing open.

The outhouse rocked again, lifting her a few inches off the ground before it fell back, jarring her. She lost hold of the door lever and fell to the ground hard in front of the bench in the outhouse.

The door swung open and instead of a wolf, a huge man loomed over her. He was dressed like Col—bare chest, kilt-thing—but it wasn’t her dragon man.

This guy was six and a half feet of tall-dark-and-fang-bared monster. If she hadn’t been so scared, she might’ve thought he was attractive with his long black hair and hooded brow, but the menacing golden eyes and the teeth totally stole that opportunity.

“Col!” She screamed again.

The man lunged forward.

She closed her eyes and tensed, waiting for him to pull her out. Waiting for him to hurt her.

But nothing happened.

Instead, there was silence and then warm air being blown across her body.

She opened her eyes to an enormous black snout, bigger than the entire outhouse moving toward her. “Holy shit!” Naomi kicked at the giant nostril before her brain registered.

Dragon.

The black dragon chuffed another warm breath over her. Shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she’d just kicked him. He flicked his tongue out and moved forward again to nudge her.

“Where’s the other guy?” she asked, climbing to her feet and crawling out of the mess of broken planks.

The dragon licked his lips and his dark eyes glowed gold.

“You ate him!” Not that she wasn’t grateful. She’d been about to have been attacked herself, but that wolf…or man. Whatever he was had been trying to kill her. Her gut said she’d be dead if Col hadn’t shown up when he did.

Still, it was strange to think that the guy who had saved her was first, a dragon, second, he’d saved her again by eating a person in what…one bite?

He moved, nudging her again with his snout.

She patted the ridge of his muzzle and frowned. “I’m not kissing you with people guts in your teeth. Just so you know. How could you eat a person?”

Col shifted a second later. His bare chest illuminated by the starlight and tinted green by the northern lights. He ran his hands up and down her entire body. “Did he touch you? Why are you outside alone?”

“I had to pee.” She shivered as he continued to feel up and down her legs and arms. “I’m okay. You got him before he touched me. I’m just a little shook up. That was freaking scary…You ate a person!”

“He was Wolf Tribe and he was trying to kill you.” Like he thought that was a good enough reason to eat a person. “I couldn’t burn him. The flame would’ve hit you too. And I didn’t eat him.” He pointed off into the scrub. “His body is there. Should I drag it out to show you?”

Relief washed away a tiny bit of the bile in the back of her throat. “So… you didn’t eat a person?”

Col shook his head. “No, I did not eat a person.”

Naomi released a long breath and reached up a hand.

“You should’ve waited for me to return.” He growled, ignoring her hand and instead lifted her off from the ground and carried her back to the cabin door.

“I had to pee. You weren’t here, and I couldn’t wait.”

“I heard you scream and thought they’d found you.” The sigh that slipped from his broad chest, made her heart do a flip flop.

“Who? The other dragons?”

He pushed through the door and closed it with his foot. “They are close. I was spreading my scent to the west to keep them away from this cabin. To give you time to heal before we have to move.” Col let her down from his arms and helped her sit on the couch. He pulled off her big bulky rubber boots and then covered her with a blanket from the basket next to the hearth. “I brought food. Stay.” It was an order. One she didn’t mind following. Then, he disappeared back out into the night.

“Better not be chunks of that dude,” Naomi called out after his retreating form, somewhat kidding, but there was a part of her that wasn’t sure the dragon man wouldn’t try to feed her the flesh of his enemies.

He returned a moment later with a large haunch of meat. “It is not the man.” A glint of amusement sparkled in his eyes. “Other things will eat him. And the scent of his corpse should keep others from the Wolf Tribe from venturing close.”

“Good to know,” she answered, pulling the blanket closer. The near-death experience still had her a bit worked up. Just having Col back inside the cabin helped her settle. His presence soothed her in a way she couldn’t explain, except that it felt as though she needed to be with him.

Which again brought up feelings of guilt and betrayal. Like her being with Col was hurting Tommy. Which was unfair. She knew it in the back of her mind. She was being unreasonable with herself.

Everyone told her Tommy’s death wasn’t her fault. Except her own heart. Why couldn’t she forgive herself?

Col sat with the leg on the hearth and set up the spit inside it to roast the leg. He’d cut it to fit before he’d brought it inside.

At least she hadn’t had to watch him hacking at it or skinning it. Really, it looked just like a roast from the butcher’s shop down the street from her apartment back home.

The scent of the meat sizzling over the fire made her stomach rumble noisily.

Col turned to her and smiled. “Good to see the fright didn’t scare off your appetite.”

“Maybe you could just stay here for a while.”

“I will not leave you again tonight shuarra, but I had to make sure we were safe here, at least for today.”

“Guess the wolves didn’t get the memo.” She leaned her head against the arm of the couch.

“The wolves are always looking to strike against other tribes. They attacked simply because you are my mate.” He moved from the hearth and joined her on the couch. “I thought you would sleep until I returned.”

“I missed you.” Naomi’s feelings bubbled out like a spring before she could think anything through. She cuddled closer to his warm body and pressed her head into the crook of his shoulder.

His chest vibrated, and his arms tightened around her. He kissed the top of her head, pressing down all her wild curls. “I owe Fate for bringing you to me, Naomi.”

“I like the way you purr when you’re happy.”

“I do not purr,” he scoffed lightly. “I am not a cat.”

“Okay then, you hum,” she said, pressing closer.

Col grunted but didn’t object again. So, calling the purring noise he made a hum must’ve been acceptable.

“The meat will be done soon.”

She rubbed her cheek against his warm skin and dozed off, letting the worry and guilt and everything stewing in her mind disappear into the peaceful sound of Col’s heartbeat and the crackle of the fire in the hearth.

From her research, it was uncommon for cabins to have fireplaces, but she was glad the builders had broken the rule this one time.

The smell of the roasting meat was almost like heaven.