“I know.”
My hands tremble as I unlock the cuffs. From blood loss or this decision, I don’t know. The runes die. His power floods back. The air changes instantly. Thickens. Heat slams into me—not temperature, but presence. Dragonfire unbanked and surging.
My wolf throws herself against my ribs. Wanting. Desperate. I bite down on the response that wants to escape.
“Get down,” he says.
I do.
He stands. The shift starts before he’s fully upright.
I know I shouldn’t look. I should give him privacy for the transformation. Should do anything except stare as he strips off his jacket and shirt.
I can’t.
Scales ripple over his hands first. They spread over his knuckles, his wrists, up his forearms in overlapping patterns that look like armor forged by something ancient.
The sound is jarring. Not wet or organic. More like stone grinding against stone. Like tectonic plates shifting. Each scale locking into place with a soft click that I feel in my teeth.
His shoulders broaden. Muscle expanding beneath skin that’s no longer skin. His spine curves, elongates. I hear the crack of bone reshaping itself. It should be sickening. Horrifying.
It’s not.
Wings manifest. Massive things that unfold from his shoulder blades like they were always there, just waiting. Membrane stretched over bone. Darkly iridescent. Each movement sends ripples of color—oil-slick purples and greens across black.
His face changes last. Features elongating. Jaw extending. Teeth becoming something made for tearing. But his eyes—those stay the same. Pale gray going to burning white, but somehow stillhis.
Then the full shift takes him. Man becomes myth.
He’s easily twenty feet of muscle and scale and barely contained violence. Built for destruction. Every line of him screams predator. Apex. Unkillable.
And the scent—
It crashes over me like a wave. Dragon. Pure. Undiluted.
Mine.
The word surfaces, shaking me. My wolf recognizes what I refuse to acknowledge. My body responds before my mind canstop it. Heat floods through me. Not the simmering awareness from before. This is fever. This is need stripped down to biology and instinct and something that doesn’t care about grief or vengeance or hate.
He’s beautiful.
The thought should horrify me. Should break something critical in my understanding of who I am. Instead, I’m transfixed. Staring at scales that shimmer when he moves. At wings that could carry him anywhere. At power made visible and terrible and magnificent.
Dragonfire blooms in his throat. Blue-white core. Copper edges bleeding into gold. He turns toward the ridge and releases it. The control is stunning. Not a wildfire. Not destruction. Just enough to scatter the snipers. Precise. Lethal.
Even in this form, he’s thinking. His head swings toward me. Those burning white eyes lock on mine.
Now.
The word resonates in my skull. Not sound. Something deeper. Dragon speech that vibrates through bone.
How—?
He moves before I can form the question in my mind. One massive, clawed talon reaches for me. The smart thing would be to flinch, pull away.
I don’t.
He lifts me carefully. His grip is impossibly gentle despite talons that could slice through steel. He tucks me against his chest, where scales radiate heat like a furnace. His heartbeat thunders against my cheek. Fast. Triple time. Dragon hearts beat differently from human ones. Harder. Faster.
