Deep down, I had been hoping that MacKenzie would “go dragon” again and fly me back to the castle. The idea scared and thrilled me in pleasing ways that made my nerve endings tingle. But it turned out that the castle was just twenty minutes’ walk away, hidden from us by a jagged outcrop of rock that soared a hundred feet further above us.

While I was slightly disappointed, I tried not to show it, and, in fact, the walk back proved the better choice after all. For the first time since our “date” in the bar that had started all this, MacKenzie and I talked; not about saving a species, Dragon Shifter history or other huge subjects, but about stuff; silly, everyday stuff. It was the most comfortable conversation, and I could only wonder that I was having it with my dragon kidnapper.

A world can change a lot in a day. The other bonus to walking back was that MacKenzie remained naked and apparently unconcerned by it, and watching his nude body move, the impressive muscles wrestling beneath the surface, was a treat all of its own. When the ground became rocky, MacKenzie swung me up into his arms to spare my bare feet. Pressed against the contours of his chest I could feel his dragon heart beating against me. I tried hard to control my breathing.

Back at the castle, MacKenzie threw on a light robe that hung on a peg by the door, hiding his body from my prying eyes. He pulled on a thick, velvet rope that hung in one corner and, somewhere in the castle, a sonorous bell rung.

"Clan meeting," explained MacKenzie, flashing me his irresistible smile.

Taking my hand, he led me up through the winding staircases and wide corridors of the castle, till we reached a pair of solid oaken doors. He pushed through as if they weren't there, with me just behind. Duncan, Alistair and Callum were seated at a long wooden table, waiting for us.

"Where have you been?" asked Callum. "We were worried."

MacKenzie held up a hand. "Good news."

He went on to tell his clan brothers about our conversation and my agreement to “try”.

"There is one condition," I put in, as the brothers began celebrating—which was just so weird when I stopped to think about what they were celebrating.

"Yes." While my voice might have gone unnoticed, Mackenzie's carried an authority of tone that called for, and immediately got, silence. "Ella."

"I want to get to know you..." I began.

"Well, that's what we want, too," Duncan interrupted enthusiastically.

"Duncan, for the love of the clan, will you keep quiet for thirty seconds," admonished MacKenzie.

"I want to get to know you each," I stressed. "As individuals."

The looks of puzzlement on their faces reminded me of dragon cultural norms as described to me by MacKenzie. Dragons saw love and mating as a communal thing, the idea of one on one was curious to them. Well, they were going to have to get used to it, because I held all the cards in this deck and I wasn't getting onboard with the dragon way of doing things anytime soon.

Duncan raised a hand nervously.

MacKenzie rolled his eyes. "You don't have to ask permission, Duncan, just use your best judgmen... Actually, you're probably better off asking permission."

"I just wondered," said Duncan, voicing the question on all their lips. "How?"

"How about a date?" I said.

The brows became more furrowed. "Did she say ‘mate'?" Duncan asked.

"Date," I clarified, before the mating idea took hold. "A human way of two people getting to know each other ahead of... other stuff."

Callum smirked. "She means mating."

"I'd like a date with each of you," I went on. "Usually, it would be over dinner. And we talk about ourselves."

The idea finally seemed to take hold of the brothers to the extent that they were actually quite looking forward to this whole “dating” thing—it was good to try something new. They began to argue over who would be first, which was flattering, although the general feeling seemed to be that whoever got first date was also first in line for mating privileges, an idea of which I tried to disabuse them.

But as Duncan, Callum and even MacKenzie fought for ways to decide who got to have dinner with me tonight, I could not help noticing that Alistair took little or no part. With four men to watch, it was hard to take in everything that happened but I was now realizing that his enthusiasm had never equaled that of the others. Even when it had been announced that I would be helping – or, at least, trying to help—in their quest to save the dragon species, Alistair's reaction had been muted, a sharp contrast to the others' elation. Now, as I looked at him, I thought I saw something more in his chestnut eyes. Almost a pain. As if this whole conversation was hurting him somehow. Maybe he didn't want to do this? Maybe I had found my one ally in all this craziness.

"Guys..." I tried to get their attention, but my voice did not carry above the manly arguing. Eventually, I climbed up on the table and yelled. "GUYS!"

Callum and MacKenzie stopped talking to look at me. Duncan carried on a minute before realizing he was alone and turned his boyish smile to me. Alistair remained sullen.

"Since it's me you're having the dates with and since you can't make up your own minds, and since I will be having dates with all of you before anything else goes on—still reserving the right for nothing else to go on—how about I decide who I have dinner with tonight?"

There was a murmur of agreement that suggested all three of the arguing men were pretty sure it would be them.

"Alistair," I said.

It was hard to say who was more surprised; Duncan and Callum, who felt it was their turn since MacKenzie had already spent so much time with me; MacKenzie, who felt we had a connection and as head of clan had “dibs”; or Alistair, the only one not interested and the one I had picked.

"Well," said MacKenzie, "Ella has made her choice. How about we three go on a late night hunt so they have the place to themselves? We’ll be out of here in twenty minutes.”

The other two grudgingly accepted this as the next best thing, and yet still a poor substitute. It was hard not to get a little swell-headed regarding these extraordinary specimens of manhood, utterly devastated not to have dinner with me. Then Alistair brought me down to earth as he grunted, managed a vague shrug, and went off to prepare for our date.

"Is he okay?" I asked, once Alistair was gone. I don't usually assume that a man who doesn't want a date with me must have something wrong with him, but in these extremely specialized circumstances it did strike me as a little odd.

As soon as the question was out of my mouth, the other three, who had spent the whole meeting trying to catch my eye, suddenly found more interesting things to look at on the floor, the walls and the ceiling.

"I'm sure he's fine," muttered MacKenzie. "We should get ready."

The other two gladly accepted this excuse and headed out, Mackenzie leading. Duncan glanced back to give me an “I'd like to tell you” smile, his beautiful face creased in sympathy. "It's not my tale to tell."

Just before they left for the hunt a short while later, MacKenzie showed me to my new room.

"Where you were was a little sparse for a long stay," he said, apologetically.

This room was sparse, too, but it had a bed, a roaring fire—a fixture of every room it seemed—a wardrobe of clothes and, wonder of wonders, a bathroom.

"Should have everything you need," said MacKenzie, indicating a stock of toiletries that had clearly been accumulated by a man rather than a woman, but still by a thoughtful man.

I didn't press him about Alistair, respecting his silence. I would have the opportunity to ask for myself later. As I showered—the most delicious and necessary shower of my life—I wondered how to go about asking a question as arrogant as “why aren't you interested in me?”. It was a tough one to slip into a conversation but hopefully the opportunity would present itself. I also idly wondered how long all this was going to last. Dating four men in a few days was not my normal style but none of this was normal, and in a few days some people were going to start wondering where I was. I didn't want anyone, least of all my family, to worry. Could I get through all that had to be done here in two days? That raised some questions I wasn't prepared to answer and made me think some thoughts I probably shouldn't. I turned the shower to cold to clear my head, then got out.

The wardrobe was well stocked with clothes—old-fashioned but elegant—and I found a dress that looked pretty good on me. A distant bell rung, high and clear, tolling the hours. It was time for my date. I walked down the stairs like they were the Green Mile, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. On the one hand, I was going on a date with a man whose apparent desire was only and simply to “mate” with me, a man who was too strong for me to stop him should he take matters into his own hands. On the other, Alistair seemed the least interested in me. But there again, I felt safer with the other men, who seemed to like me—even if that like was largely based on a desire to mate—Alistair's distaste for me was a little scary.

When I entered the dining hall, he was there waiting for me, standing beside the table in a smart dress shirt and jeans, looking uncomfortable and like he would rather be anywhere else. On the table, incongruous and random, was a selection of KFC boxes laid out for dinner.

"Chicken?" asked Alistair, as if even asking me that was a bit of an effort.

"Thank you." I sat down.

Using a pair of tongs that might well have been silver, and certainly had not been made with the Colonel's secret recipe in mind, he plucked out a selection of fried chicken and placed the pieces onto a plate for me.

"Thank you," I said again as he put the plate down in front of me.

He helped himself to more chicken and sat opposite me. For a moment, it looked as if he might say something but the moment passed and he started to eat instead. I followed suit, the silence so achingly noticeable that I could hear myself chewing.

I was as attracted to Alistair as I was the other three, his rugged aspect and auburn stubble as appealing as Duncan's smooth features, his sinewy arms as sexy as MacKenzie's bulging muscles, and the same aura of charismatic sexuality hung in the air around him. But this darkness tainted it. Whatever it was, whatever was bothering him, it infected everything he did. It could not make him less of a gorgeous man, rough hewn and painfully desirable, but the fact that he obviously did not want to be here made my own attraction an uncomfortable one.

I decided to confront the question. "Are you as mind-fucked as I am right now?"

He looked up. "What?"

"Yesterday, I was wiping kids' butts and feeding Cheerios to the other end and now I'm..." I vaguely indicated my surroundings.

His mouth twitched in a way that could have been a smile but wasn't. "I imagine it’s difficult."

"Something's obviously bothering you," I forged on. "I wondered if it was the same thing. Minus the kids' butts."

"No. Do you like working with kids?"

I know a shut down when I hear one, so I let it go and talked about the kids and about myself, using it as a way to throw in questions about his life. But every question I asked somehow led back to me and I found myself doing all the talking while he got away with perfunctory answers and stony silence. He was great at deflecting questions and steering the conversation back to me and I let him without meaning to. I had to find a way to make this about me, and yet also about him.

"Let me ask you something." He had cleared the table and we were now seated on another massive fur rug in front of another roaring fire, each holding a glass of wine. "Why should I agree to what you and your brothers are asking of me?"

I thought that was a pretty clever question, because it was about me, but I was asking him.

Alistair gave an inexpressive shrug. "I don't know. Maybe you should be asking yourself why you're even considering it. I'm not sure if..." He looked away from me and my heart quickened. "I'm not even sure if it's what I want."

From his attitude, I had sort of known that this was the case but I still felt a little stab of hurt when he actually said it. He didn't want me. Maybe it was arrogant to assume that he would, and I would not usually have been shocked by a man not wanting me—why should I care? His brothers absolutely wanted me and three men really ought to be enough, so again; why should I care? Plus, I hardly even knew him. Why should I care? But I wanted him so much I could almost taste it, and so the rejection stung. Besides, wasn't he supposed to want me? What was going on? The situation suggested that there was more to this than a simple lack of attraction. I had to know why, however self-indulgent it might seem.

"How come?" I asked.

His eyes were fixed on the fire, his face set in a hard stare, and I felt I could almost see the decision being made in the subtle movements of his strong face.

"I had a mate." Only the crackling of the fire broke the silence between us. "She died before we could... She died."

I wanted to ask how and when but the words did not come. Instead, I felt tears welling up inside me. I felt a tremendous empathy for this poor broken man, put in a position he did not want to be in for the sake of his species, when his heart still belonged to another. And here I was feeling hurt because he didn't fancy me.

"I don't want to feel that pain again," Alistair continued, his voice low and strained. "I can't let myself. Even when I feel..." His face was a mask of tortured restraint and I remembered what MacKenzie had told me earlier, that the fierce desire I felt for these men was mirrored in what they felt for me, and more. It was not that Alistair did not want me—he did not want to want me. He was fighting his desire for me for fear of being hurt again.

"I'm sorry." Truly, the most useless word in the English language. But what else can you say, what else can you do?

I put a comforting hand on Alistair's shoulder. He turned to look at me. Our eyes met and I felt drawn to him by a force as inevitable as gravity. My lips parted as we kissed, and the world seemed to melt away.