The shift back is agony.
Scales recede into skin. Bones crack and reform. Wings fold and disappear. The poison makes everything worse—every nerve raw, every muscle spasming as my body fights to purge the toxin.
I end up on my hands and knees in the churned earth, naked, bleeding, gasping for air. My shoulder and back are torn open, the wounds already trying to knit but struggling against the poison’s interference.
The dragon is still too close to the surface. I can feel it pacing, growling, wanting back out. My vision flickers between human sight and dragon perception. My hands flex against the ground, fingernails threatening to become claws.
Control. Maintain control.
Footsteps. Soft. Hesitant. Coming closer.
Run,I want to tell her.Run while you still can.
But when I look up, she’s not running.
She’s standing five feet away, holding something in her hands. A flannel shirt—one she’d been wearing over her tank top. Her face is pale, her breathing uneven, but her gaze is steady. Fixed on mine.
“You’re bleeding.”
Her voice is calmer than it has any right to be. I stare at her, waiting for the screaming to start. The accusations. The terror.
“You should be terrified.” My voice is still wrong. Still more dragon than man.
“I should be a lot of things.” She steps closer. Close enough that her scent wraps around me, wildflowers and fire cutting through the blood and poison. “Right now, I’m choosing practical. You need help.”
She crouches beside me. Holds out the flannel.
I should push her away. Every instinct screams that she’s too close, that the dragon is too near the surface, that one wrong move and I’ll lose what’s left of my control.
Instead, I take the shirt.
Our fingers brush. Heat shoots up my arm, straight to my chest. The dragon rumbles with satisfaction.
Mate. She touches us. She cares for us.
I tie the flannel around my waist, more for her comfort than mine. Try to stand. My leg buckles.
She catches me.
Her shoulder slides under my arm before I can protest. Her body presses against my side, warm and solid and impossibly brave. I tower over her, outweigh her by at least a hundred pounds, and she’s trying to support me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“I can?—”
“Shut up.” She adjusts her grip. “Lean on me. The cabin isn’t far.”
Bossy. Our mate is bossy.
I lean. Just a little. Let some of my weight settle onto her shoulders. She grunts with the effort but doesn’t buckle. Starts walking.
“Dragons.” She says it after a long silence, her voice strangely matter-of-fact. “You’re actually dragons.”
“Yes.”
“You just turned into a giant flying lizard and burned another giant flying lizard to ash with your claws.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m supposed to just... be okay with that?”
