A flare of witchy magic jabbed Liam between the shoulder blades as he bent over the Chevy’s bed, gathering the tools of his trade. Hot. Pagan. Wild. The sensation slid down his body like a naked vixen with a million fingers stroking his sensitive spots. The imaginary fingers fueled lust until breath caught in his throat and his cock shot to attention.

Not giving in to the intense desire tantalizing him was almost impossible. Almost, but he could manage it. If he curled his fingers around his burning, aching erection, he’d come the moment he touched himself.

And then the magic bombarding him would snatch up the scent of his semen, and he’d be lost.

It was that pesky witch. Pretty much had to be. She’d been making eyes at him for months. Not that she wasn’t striking. Tall for a woman, she had broad shoulders and powerful legs, probably from all the time she spent astride a horse. Hair the color of summer-wheat sheaves rolled down her back to waist level, and unusual hazel eyes with tip-tilted corners nested above high cheekbones and a strong, square jaw.

A visual of her astride not one of her Arabian stallions but him as a dragon made it tough to breathe. He fisted one hand and brought it down hard on the pickup bed. Pain stoked his arousal, and his cock jerked against his belly. If his trousers rubbed against him, it would push him past caring.

“Bad decision.” He gritted the words into the dark silence of his yard.

The vixen of a witch had been trying to seduce him for a long time. He hoped she’d given up, but apparently she’d only been taking a break before casting her dirty, sneaky spells.

Another blast of power caught him mid-chest, turning his nipples into red-hot points of need. His entire body transformed into a sexually charged mass of protoplasm, the desire as pervasive as if he were caught up in the dragon mating ritual. Not that he’d ever engaged in that particular aerial dance, but he’d borne witness to other dragons, their lust so palpable it made him horny for months. It was how he’d ended up seducing his cousin’s wife.

When he’d pled his case, the dragon council had told him lust wasn’t much of an excuse for his behavior. As a fully matured dragon shifter, he was expected to have better control over his desires. Goddammit to hell. All the sexual imagery wasn’t helping. His balls tightened, snugging closer to his body. Panic followed.

Did it count if he came spontaneously? Would any orgasm, no matter how it happened, bind him to sex with the witch?

“I cannot sleep with her.” Liam was back to talking out loud. “If I do, she’ll figure out what I am. Witches are notorious blabbermouths.

“Aye, but I was considering leaving Stillwater anyway. What’s the harm in a wee tumble afore I go?”

A low groan burst past his lips. Not only had he answered himself, the harm was obvious. Once he bedded the witch, when and how he left would be up to her. Giving in to her spell would mark him as weaker than her magically, and she’d think she could lead him around by the nose.

The thought was like a bucket of ice water. No fucking, bloody way was a dragon shifter weaker than a witch. Even as an exile, he sat at the pinnacle of shifterdom. Never mind that even a garden-variety bird shifter should wield stronger magic than most witches.

Galvanized into considering something other than his cock, still throbbing like a second heart between his legs, he shouldered his pack, grabbed his hardware belt, and schlepped everything into the miner’s cabin he called home. Neat by nature—all dragons were, else the elements in their hoards would get away from them—Liam returned everything to its customary spot.

His truck was the one spot where tidiness slid, but he mucked it out periodically.

When he’d taken over the shack, it had been decrepit, one side falling in, and the roof not much better than a sieve. After a surreptitious trip through the county records building that assured him no long-lost relatives were likely to show up to claim the cabin, he’d resurrected what there was of it. It might not be much with a single main room and a bedroom in back, but it was his. The kitchen sink had a pump affair that brought cold water from a nearby creek. Heating water was such simple magic he’d never bothered to repair the water heater.

He’d had an electric line installed, chinked the holes between the logs, and repaired the roof with new sheets of corrugated metal. The place was cozy and weatherproof. The closest thing he’d had to a home since being booted from Xara.

He closed the cabinet where he kept climbing hardware. Everything was put away. The enforced activity had rescued him from the brink of spilling his seed spontaneously, but his balls ached. At least the witch’s onslaught seemed finished. If that was her best shot, it was laughable.

I shouldn’t underestimate her. She got me pretty good.

Nah. Only because it was a stealth attack, he answered himself.

He left the cabin at a fast trot, headed for the mineshaft a hundred yards away. It was a lot of trouble to go to just to jack off, but he’d seal his presence deep in the mine with his own brand of magic. Once he did, he’d be invisible to her witchy charms, and it would be safe to indulge himself.

He hoped.

The wisest course would be to go to bed. His hard-on would be gone before morning, but he’d never been one to opt for safe courses. Liam plunged into the mineshaft, engaging his drakish eyesight to see in the dark. As if it knew what he was about, his cock pushed against the front of his pants, eager for him to wrap his fingers around its length.

“Not yet, but soon.” His breathing, which had begun to normalize, quickened again.

Two more twists in the tunnel, and he came to the cave where he’d sequestered his hoard. The gold and gems sparkled invitingly. For a brief moment, a different kind of lust took over.

Liam spun in a wide circle, scattering power as he went, until he’d sealed off the cave. With uncharacteristic caution, he tested his ward from the dirt floor to the rocky ceiling, not finding any weak places.

Satisfied, he knelt next to his pile of loot, hollowed out a place to sit, and unzipped his jeans. His unruly appendage all but jumped into his hand. If he gripped himself hard, a single stroke might bring him off, but he’d gone to a lot of trouble for this opportunity, and he’d be damned if it would be over almost before it began.

He ran a finger from base to tip, feeling his cock shudder beneath his touch. Another fingertip teased its way up the other side. So far, so good. He’d been afraid the witch, Aisha, would inveigle her way into his mind. If that happened, he’d have to quit, no matter how aroused he was. It would mean her spell had somehow penetrated his ward.

He licked two fingers and swirled them around the head of his cock where the skin was velvet-smooth. Heat spiraled outward from his belly, and he shut his eyes. Dragons winging through purple-hazed air danced through his visual field.

Mating dragons.

Satisfaction bit deep. What better fantasy to spin? It beat the hell out of imagining yanking Aisha’s riding pants to her knees, bending her over a hay bale, and driving himself into her.

Not that that didn’t get him going too.

“Dragons, back to the dragons.” His heartbeat sped up still more, and he’d wrapped a hand around his shaft without realizing what he was about.

The dragons—a black male and a red female—obligingly returned. The male’s cock was engorged, curved against the scales of his belly, and he bellowed his desire. The smaller red female did a flip midair that exposed her slit, the lips puffy and distended. The musky reek of dragon heat curled around Liam, and he stroked his shaft.

In his vision, he was dragon, not human, and his cock so large, it took both taloned forefeet to hold himself.

The female did another aerial somersault to display her sex. This time, the black bugled hotly and flew after her. At first, it appeared she might outfly him—smaller and more maneuverable, she could have except she wanted to be caught. The black drew even and dropped atop her from above, grabbing onto her shoulders with his forelegs. The next part happened fast, but then it always did with dragonkind.

The black jackknifed his hindquarters and drove his more-than-ready erection into the female beneath him. She squealed and writhed, clearly lost in ecstasy. The black thrust into her, hard and sure.

Liam pumped into his hand, holding his full-to-bursting erection as tight as he could. Breath tinged with flames shot from his mouth as he frigged himself, sunk in lust so pervasive his vision clouded over with hunger. He’d time this, goddammit. He’d come when the black did.

The red dragon shrieked her delight. She was driving her hindquarters back and upward, meeting the black stroke for stroke. Fire shot from both their mouths. Liam inhaled heat and lust and need.

He pushed his other hand between his legs, forefinger hunting for the magical spot just behind his balls. It pulsed beneath his touch when he found it. Eyes closed, head thrown back, he frigged himself harder, faster. Semen boiled from his balls, exploding in gouts of white heat.

The dragons forgotten, he lost himself in waves of lust rolling through him. Once didn’t come close to slaking his need, so he kept right on jacking himself, knowing he could come again, and the second time would be even hotter than the first.

Liam lost track of everything for a long time. When he came back to himself, he lay in a sweat-soaked heap atop his hoard, surrounded by a satiated haze and the salt-tang of his semen. At least Aisha hadn’t invaded his indulgence. Or if she had, he hadn’t noticed, which had to mean he’d won. His magic trumped hers. He’d outwitted her spell by hiding inside his own.

He curled to a sit, making a disgusted sound. Dragons did not hide. He’d merely done what was necessary to evade her underhanded ploy to seduce him. Nothing more. Nothing less.

If she’d been human, he’d probably have taken her up on her flirty offers. But she wasn’t. Anything he said would reveal he had magic, and then they’d edge around to questions like, which kind? If she had any level of power at all, she’d figure out what he was without much effort. Tough to hide power as strong as his.

A quote from Gide marched across his mind. Something about straight gates and narrow paths leading to temptation. Better to walk away than tempt fate.

“But I need a mate,” he muttered.

“A mate, not a witch,” he answered himself.

Liam got to his feet and released the magic holding his ward in place. Once it was gone, he walked slowly uphill to the mineshaft’s entrance and out into the chilly night. It felt marvelous on his overheated skin. He whistled a jaunty Gaelic folk tune as he covered the distance to the house and let himself inside.

Now that his lust was taken care of, he was hungry, and he made himself a sandwich and filched a beer from the fridge. He didn’t know much about how witchy charms worked, but she’d be in for a hell of a surprise when he didn’t show up on her doorstep with the mating light burning.

The image made him laugh so hard, he choked on a bite of chicken sandwich and washed the problem piece down with a slug of beer. No human could have resisted her, that was certain.

The implication hit him like a fist to the midsection, and he set the rest of his food back on the counter. She’d figure out quick enough he was immune to her spell, and she’d put two and two together. She might not know what he was right now, but she’d ascertain he had to be something.

Crap. Maybe his plans to pull up stakes and leave were more prophetic than he’d believed driving down the mountain road earlier this evening.

“I’m being an idiot. Who would she tell even if she did figure things out? Beyond that, no one would believe her. Dragons left earth eons ago.” With a huffing snort, he picked the remains of the sandwich back up, determined to finish it.

Insofar as he could tell, she was the only witch in Stillwater. It had surprised him. They usually hung out in covens, or they had in the Old Country. Out of all the backwater places where he’d remained for longer than it took to stop in at the local watering hole for a brew, Stillwater was the only one with more than one or two magic-wielders. At first, he’d assumed he’d stumbled onto a secret den, but the shifters and Fae and the lone witch were just as closemouthed about what they were here as they’d been everywhere else.

When he let himself think about how magic wielders had turned into pariahs, it made him angry. Humans were a tight-assed bunch of prudes. Anything unfamiliar scared them. They seemed to have gotten past the burnings and hangings they’d relied on a hundred years back, but it didn’t mean they wanted a wolf shifter living next door.

Not that they knew about, anyway.

He shrugged and tilted the beer back. Hell, he could barely solve his own problems. No way could he take on more global ones. Besides, his tenure here was drawing to a close. Maybe. Once he returned to Xara, he could give a crap less what happened with the magical tribe on Earth.

A muted yip from his cell phone drew his attention to the battered plastic case with its annoying electronics within. He considered ignoring it, but the caller ID said, SAR.

If Search and Rescue was calling him, they must need help. He wasn’t officially a part of their organization, mostly because the meetings bored him to tears and he didn’t have time for all their practice sessions, but he had told them he’d make himself available if they needed climbers.

He’d given his word, which meant he had to pick up. Clicking the accept icon, he said, “Aye?”

“Thank fucking God. I was afraid you weren’t there,” a male voice blurted.

“And you might be?” Liam pressed, smothering irritation he’d let honor win out over common sense. With his uncharitable feelings about humans, not picking up might have been the better choice.

“Andy. You know from the local SAR group. We met when—”

“I recall,” Liam cut in. “What do you need?”

“We’ve got a man stranded five hundred feet from the ground and three hundred from the top on The Spider. He’s scared out of his wits, and—”

“Why can’t he downclimb? He got himself up there.”

“Yes. Yes. But he’s in over his head. Called in a rescue with his PLB. Anyway, it’s a dicey wall. You know it. You hold the speed record for solo-climbing it without protection. It’s why I called you.”

“What precisely were you hoping I could do, mate?”

“Climb down to him and calm him. Maybe top rope him up from there.”

Liam shut his eyes for a moment, visualizing the wall. Not much of anywhere to top rope from. Not for a three-hundred-foot stretch.”

“You still there, Liam?” Andy’s words held a thin, strained note. It didn’t take magic to hear he was afraid the hapless climber was a goner.

“Aye, mate. I’m thinking. Do you have anyone but me in mind?”

“You were my first choice—”

“Not what I meant. Would I be by myself, or did you scare up a few other climbers for this mission?”

“Three more, plus a ground crew. Does that mean you’re in?”

Liam blew out a long, breath. “Aye. I’m in, but only so long as this is my operation. I don’t want to end up arguing with someone who thinks they know that wall better than me.”

“No arguments. How soon can you be there?”

“An hour. I have to pack a couple of gear bags before I leave.”

“See you there. And, Liam?”

“Aye?”

“Thanks. The man who’s stuck, he’s my brother-in-law. My sister is hysterical, and I don’t want to face her or their kids if Jerry bites it. As it is, they blame me for him climbing.”

Aha! The plot thickens.

“Don’t mention it. See you soon.” Liam disconnected. If humans weren’t such assholes, he could simply shift to his dragon form and scoop Jerry off the wall.

Fifteen minutes later, he backed out of his driveway headed for the popular local wall. Popular, but rarely climbed because of its complexity. He offered Jerry points for guts. Too bad they’d failed him at the crux point of the route. Liam ground his teeth. PLBs, personal locator beacons, were a scourge. A blight on the landscape. They gave you a backdoor out, so you didn’t try very hard.

Or at all.

Look on the bright side, he told himself. Tonight was an opportunity to climb, something he loved more than almost anything except flying. He fished out his phone and hit redial.

Andy picked up on the first ring. “You didn’t change your mind?”

“No, mate. I never do that. Just wanted to clarify. I’m driving the route up the back and going on foot from there to the top of the pitch. Faster getting to him that way than up from the bottom.”

“We’ll be there when you arrive.”

“Good.” Liam rattled off a series of instructions. He’d had time to think through the best way to approach Jerry while he tossed gear into backpacks.

Andy whistled long and low. “Brilliant. Gutsy. Never would have thought of that combination, but it should work.”

“Not should. If everyone does their work properly, it will.”

It was two hours past dawn when Liam made it back to his pickup. He’d had to hit Jerry with a shot of magic to calm him down enough to get him moving. Once the man was clipped into slings and ascenders, he’d scooted up ropes snaking along the face like a champ. He’d even taken the spot where he had to switch ropes in stride.

Of course, Liam had been right next to him the whole time, free climbing. And the last fifty feet were simple class-four moves. Jerry was feeling pretty good by then and finished that bit on his own. He’d thanked Liam profusely and told him a check for five thousand bucks would materialize in his office the following day.

Liam deferred, but Jerry had insisted. He ran the real estate office in town. Well-known and well-liked, he’d be great for Liam’s guide business.

Yeah. If I stick around.

He tossed gear into the back of the pickup preparing to drive into Stillwater. He often went out to eat, and this morning he’d decided on breakfast in one of the two town cafés.

Shaking his head, he lumbered into his pickup. One of the best things about this whole SAR saga was he hadn’t thought about Aisha once. A gout of smoke blew past his lips. He’d bet every ounce of gold in his hoard she’d thought of nothing but him since she cast her presumptuous spell.

He’d adopt his usual polite demeanor if he ran into her. Something like that was bound to blow her away. She’d have the devil’s own time sorting through where she’d gone wrong.

Chuckling, he backed the truck around, put it in low gear, and slipped and slid down the steep, rocky track toward town.