“So,” Lucía said to Maeve, popping a grape in her mouth while they lay on a rolling meadow under the canopy of the stars, “you seem different tonight.”

Maeve froze. Keeping her eyes studiously on the twinkling lights above her, she cleared her throat. “How so?”

“I don’t know.” Lucía’s probing stare was a physical thing. “More relaxed, I guess?”

“Hm.” She pressed her lips together, trying hard not to squirm.

“You’re less tense,” Lucía went on. “I mean, not that you were super uptight or anything, don’t get me wrong, but you know I’m a shifter, and I just can’t help noticing people’s body language and scents—”

Maeve furtively clenched her thighs together. She’d showered and changed, but still…

“—and there was just this tension in you, like in a shifter who hasn’t turned into their animal for a while—we get, like, super intense when we don’t go for a run in our fur regularly—but now it’s like you’ve shaken that off somehow—”

More like rubbed it off. Heat flushed her face.

“—and I just thought I’d tell you, because I’m happy you’re feeling better. So, you know, whatever you’ve been doing, it’s looking good on you, girl.” She rolled onto her side facing Maeve, propped her head on her hand. “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing.” Why was her voice so dang squeaky?

“Uh-huh.” She plucked another grape from the bunch she’d brought, threw it into her mouth. “You do know shifters can smell lies?”

She cleared her throat. Again. Subtle, much? “Okay, so I may have…exercised a little.”

Lucía’s pale green eyes—glowing like her puma’s in the dark of the night—narrowed as she studied her. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed—and then her features slackened. Eyes wide, she gaped at Maeve.

“Nooooooo,” Lucía drawled in that tone of utmost disbelief paired with surprise, laced with a touch of excitement. “You. Did. Not.”

Maeve scratched her nose. “You’re right. I didn’t.”

“You so did.” Lucía sat up, a grin on her face. “With who?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, yeah.” She tapped her nose. “Lies. Scent. Remember?” Tilting her head, she frowned. “Speaking of which, I’m not smelling anyone on you…” Her frown deepened, her voice trailing away. “…except…” A gasp, her mouth forming a huge O, her eyes rounded once more. “Noooooooo.”

“You’ve…said that already.”

“No way.” She closed her mouth with an audible click. “You and Arawn.” Shaking her head, she held up both hands. “Now, I don’t want any details. That’d be weird. Super awkward, seeing as he’s like my uncle and all. But…good for you!” Grinning, she bumped her fist against Maeve’s shoulder.

Maeve fidgeted with the seam of her sweater. “We didn’t…I mean…it was just…”

“No details!” Lucía covered her ears with her hands. “But seriously,” she added a moment later, uncovering her ears again, “if you wanna chat—in non-detail form—I’m here. He can be really obstinate, so if you need to unload, I’m your gal.”

“It’s not…we’re not…” Gah, would she be able to put together a whole sentence again anytime soon?

“That’s okay.” An easy smile. “You’ll figure it out. No need to slap a label on it just yet.”

She hadn’t been aware of holding a breath until it rushed out of her. Opening her mouth, she was about to thank Lucía when the other woman’s eyes shifted to her cougar’s, her entire body going on tense alert in the way so innate in feline predators.

Lucía flowed into a crouching position, lifted her head and scented the air, her gaze on the night sky. Maeve looked up too, unease curdling her stomach. The forest around the meadow had fallen silent, not a single rustle of nocturnal animals to be heard anymore.

A whisper in the distance…floating near.

“Maeve,” Lucía said, her voice quiet but sharp. “Run into the forest. Call Arawn.”

“How…?”

Lucía tossed her a cell phone. “First one in the favorites. Go!”

A whistling breeze, followed by a gust of wind that whipped Maeve’s hair around her face. She backed away toward the edge of the woods, still searching the starlit sky, her finger pressing the call button on the phone. Heart in her throat, she listened to it ring, roll into voicemail.

Crap. Arawn was miles away for all she knew, tending to his business in some other part of his dominion, and short of a phone call, she had no means of—

An idea flitted through her mind. Maybe…

She reached down into herself, touched mental fingers to the bond—gave it a tug.

More whipping, tornado-like wind howling through the trees, flattening the grass on the meadow. Lucía now moved toward Maeve, away from the open field.

A shadow blotted out the stars.

“Run!” Lucía’s voice barely rose above the din of the storm.

Her ears buzzing from the roaring wind, Maeve sprinted for the tree line. Something huge slammed down in front of her, and the pressure wave of its impact hurled her back. She crashed down hard, pain shooting through her as she tried to break the fall using her hands and arms.

She lifted her head, fought against the dizziness that attacked her, glanced around. Lucía lay several yards away, unmoving, and there, in front of her…loomed a gargantuan, hulking beast.

Against the backdrop of the night, she couldn’t make out its form, the light of the stars not bright enough but to hint at the sheer size of the creature. A helicopter? A private jet? Something giant along those lines.

Fingers digging into the earth, she tried to calm her racing heart, to find at least a smidgen of courage to move. Her muscles didn’t obey.

And then her thoughts simply vanished in instinctive gecko-brain fear as the beast lunged forward. Talons rammed into the ground inches from her hands. Talons as big as machetes.

Shivering, she looked up, and up, and up, craning her neck until she could see all the way up to the creature’s head. Was that…a beak?

Something enormous stretched on either side of its massive body, rustling like…feathers.

The thing moved, a silken grace to its prowl that spoke of feline elegance despite its unbelievable size. Crawling backwards, Maeve pivoted with the beast, not exposing her back. Useless. That monster could crush her with one of its clawed paws.

With a flash of starlight on feathers, the beast lunged at her again. She shrieked, fell back, curled into a ball, her sight blinking out as terror speared her—

Heat and flames and roaring power.

She blinked, her heartbeat like thunder in her ears, her skin burning…quite literally. Unsinged by her own fire, she peeked out from under the arm she’d thrown over her face.

A ring of flames around her, and behind the flickering heat, the beast. The firelight illuminated what darkness had veiled before, and she stared slack-jawed, her mind uncomprehending.

Back half of its body that of a giant feline, feathered wings jutting from its powerful shoulders, the fur giving way to plumage covering its neck, front legs, and head…which was that of a huge bird of prey. And those front legs didn’t end in paws, but in taloned bird’s feet.

That…wasn’t…possible.

That couldn’t be a… Her mind drew a blank at the absurdity.

The beast regarded her with eyes that held a far too intelligent glint for a monster. Cocking its head—a move unmistakably bird-like—it took a step forward, beat its mighty wings once…and the powerful blast of air snuffed out the ring of flames.

Just like that.

She scrambled for her magic, tried to grab some of the fire that seemed so ever-present in her core, but she only encountered darkness and despair. She couldn’t call upon her powers at will. They were still bound. Erratic, uncontrollable bursts of flames were all she could manage, and only subconsciously.

Breath stuck in her throat, she could only watch with abject terror while the beast stepped over the line of ash, prowled closer. It stalked over her, a taloned foot on either side of her body, its size dwarfing her to an inconsequential insect to be carelessly squashed. The magic pouring off it raised the hair on her arms and neck.

Slowly, it lowered its head, and she couldn’t even see all of it hovering above her. It was just too huge. Its beak—if she wrapped her arms around it, her fingers wouldn’t touch, the girth that massive—loomed closer, closer, closer, until…

Sniff.

Her heart stumbled over its rapid rhythm.

Sniff.

She’d die here, wouldn’t she? Eaten by a giant monstrosity of a thing that shouldn’t exist…

A rumbling vibration, the beast cocking its head to the side, its eye—night-glow like a lion’s, and that was another absurdity in a string of bizarre impossibilities—now level with her face, so close she could have reached out and poked it.

Maybe…

She raised her hand on a flash of impulse—and found her fingers buried in softest feathers.

The beast had moved its head toward her touch, as if welcoming a caress. But…she’d intended to poke its eye out.

Transfixed, she slid her fingers through the plumage, the filaments tickling her. That rumbling again, vibrating against her palm.

And somewhere, deep inside her, an ancient awareness coiled and uncoiled, stretched in fire-edged darkness.

The words tumbling out of her mouth were foreign and familiar at once, her own…and someone else’s.

“Hello, old friend.”

An answering rumble, that piercing intelligence in its eye now tempered with a warmth that should be as inconceivable in a beast like this as was its existence.

The stars above winked out on a wave of darkness. The next second, power crashed down with the force of a missile, shaking the earth. Inky blackness over her senses, a blanket of magic so consuming, so enraged it stole her breath.

The beast screeched, tensed above her, flaring its wings.

An answering roar that made her quake from the inside out.

Arawn.

* * *

He slammed onto the ground on a wave of darkness and rage, and the earth groaned and cracked under his wrath.

The beast hovering over Maeve let loose a screech that shook the world, the span of its wings such it veiled the sky. Even otherworld creatures would run from a primal force like this, demons and shifters and fae alike.

He was none of those. Cut from the cloth that had shaped this world, he was fury made flesh, his singular focus on the beast that threatened what was his.

So he roared right back in his most lethal form, a panther as black as the night, his size enhanced by the sheer magnitude of his powers so it nearly matched the beast’s. When the Old One jumped in front of Maeve, blocking his view of her body, its talons digging into the ground as it spread its front legs in a defensive stance, the last threads of reason in his mind snapped.

Mine.

A wave of his magic lashed out, and the beast screeched, reared up on its hind legs, wings flaring wide as it took the blow, beat some of it back with a mighty flap of its wings. The muscles in his back and legs flexed in preparation for a lunge—

“Stop!”

Dimly, his mind registered the shout. He glanced to the side, to the flash of red hair in the dark of the night. Mine.

“Stop it!”

He narrowed his eyes, sent a tendril of his magic out to push her back, out of the way. The beast let loose an enraged cry as he shoved her—gently, with what was left of some heretofore civilized part of him—farther to the side. She landed with an oof on her behind, and he faced the beast again just as it launched itself at him.

They collided in the air, the crash of power rending the sky.

Thunder and earthquakes and a crippling tidal wave of magic.

Talons flashed, slashed, teeth snapped at feathers and fur, and they broke apart on another surge of power. Circling each other, a primal rhythm to their dance.

Faint yelling behind him. He ignored it. Prepared to lunge once more—but a yank on the bond inside him wrenched him back. He skidded several yards until his claws sank into the ground, found purchase. He glared at the fiery witch who stepped between him and the beast, her hands raised in each of their directions.

“I said, stop!” She glanced over her shoulder at the beast hulking behind her, its attention on him a lethal, writhing thing. “You, too,” she muttered.

And the beast…obeyed her. Remaining where it was, it did not attack him again. And neither did it pounce on her. It could have easily grabbed her and taken to the skies by now.

Her chest heaving with her fast breaths, she faced him. “Don’t hurt it. I think it…recognizes me. As a friend.” Her ginger brows drew together, as if she couldn’t quite make sense of it herself. “It wasn’t going to harm me.”

The Old One now paced behind her, wings rustling in the dark, its night-glow glance darting between her and him.

Arawn’s heartbeat pounded in his ears while the need to crush his foe waned. Slivers of logic and reason returned, and he remembered… This was not how he’d meant to handle an encounter like this. Bloody brilliant. He’d nearly ripped to shreds that which he intended to lure and ensnare.

Puzzled at the force with which all rational thought had fled him, he changed back to his human shape. Even though the beast now dwarfed him in size, his power still more than matched the Old One’s, and he made sure it felt the pressure of it in the air.

He took a step forward, eyes fixed on the beast, as he wove a whisper of his magic toward the creature.

You know me, that whisper said. You know what I am.

The ancient beast cocked its head, rustled its wings.

His powers twined around it, cajoling, soothing. Remember.

The Old One stopped its pacing.

Heed my call, as you once did.

Wings quivering, the beast stalked closer, closer…and lowered its head to meet Arawn’s outstretched hand. He touched its giant beak, stroked up into the feathers. The Old One closed its eyes on a sigh.

The night stood still for a breathless moment.

“Welcome home.”

* * *

Maeve stared. And stared. Her thoughts a jumbled mess, she gaped at the scene playing out in front of her. At the display of power that was all the more staggering for its quiet. If Arawn had been intimidating in his battle rage, the way he brought a beast like this to heel with nothing but dark magic hushing the night robbed her of breath.

He angled his head, glanced at her over his shoulder. “Check on Lucía.”

She started, rushed over to the slumped form of the other female who’d become more her friend than her guard over the past few nights, and touched her fingers to her neck. A steady pulse greeted her, and she breathed a relieved sigh. With no apparent injuries—all limbs accounted for and no blood—she was likely just knocked unconscious by the blast when the beast crashed down. She had been closer to the impact than Maeve.

“Still breathing?” Arawn asked.

“Yes.”

“Then she will be fine.” What could have been a callous remark was tempered by the affectionate confidence in his tone. He wasn’t dismissing Lucía—he was simply that sure of her strength.

After checking her friend over once more, Maeve went to his side, and the mighty thing that could have jumped straight out of a fantasy novel inclined its head to her as well. Shrewd, night-glow eyes studied her, seemingly to the bottom of her soul, and the creature who dwelled there stretching its talons toward it. Maeve reached out and caressed its feathers again.

“Tell me,” she murmured to Arawn, “that this is not really a griffin I’m petting.”

“You have grown up knowing magic and all sorts of creatures that humans would relegate to the realm of myths and tales. This is where you draw the line?”

“I’ve grown up hearing something like this being referred to as myth and legend by witches who fight demons every night. There are no accounts of beasts like this having ever been real.”

“Because you have been made to forget.” A murmur laced with an edge of age-old anger.

She frowned at him. “The Powers That Be?”

He nodded, his attention on the griffin as he stroked its mighty head. “They could not abide the beasts. Wanted them caged, their power leashed. But power such as this”—a languid caress, the griffin rumbling in response—“should never be shackled. Directed, perhaps. Guided. By those who know how.”

A shiver ran down her spine. “What are you?”

One side of his mouth tipped up. “The male to stoke your fire.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re being evasive.”

“And you are being nosy.”

She uttered a sound of frustration. “You’re not a demon, you’re not a shifter, and you’re certainly not fae.”

“Astute observations.”

“What else is there?”

“Given that you are still agape at this magnificent creature you did not believe existed before tonight, I would say the possibilities are myriad.”

“You truly are insufferable,” she muttered, turning back to the griffin.

“And you are sublime in your beauty when you climax,” he replied, his voice dark silk and lush seduction. “I want to see you like that again.”

Her heart jumped into her throat so fast she saw stars for a few seconds. Heat washed through her, centered throbbing between her legs.

Catching her breath, she asked, “So what other beasts are there?”

“What sort of myths have survived through the ages?”

She swallowed. “The one inside me…is it…?”

“You know its name.”

Her arms and legs tingled while an ancient presence breathed in darkness, in flame. “It’s a dragon, isn’t it?”

The smile he gave her was edged with feral appreciation.

Movement to the side, followed by a feminine groan. Silence, then— “If you guys wanted to adopt a pet, why not start with a damn puppy?”