The Billionaire Dragon Shifter's Mate

The sun was setting, lighting up the fluffy summer clouds in pink and purple and gold. It reflected in brilliant orange on the river as it flowed down the center of the valley.

Cara Linley sat for a while watching the beautiful, romantic vista. It was gorgeous, but it was yet another thing she was seeing alone. There was a little town down in the valley, buildings clustered closely together around the river, but it was just another place Cara wasn’t from and wasn’t going to stay.

When she’d taken off running from her safe, boring, lonely life back in Iowa, Cara hadn’t pictured this. Changing everything hadn’t made her any less alone.

Cara shook her head and ran her hands through her dark hair, which fell in waves around her shoulders. Chin up. Tomorrow was another day, another chance for adventure instead of just driving somewhere.

She turned around and boosted herself up onto the railing she’d been leaning against, so that she was facing the parking area for this scenic overlook. It was empty other than her car, and led onto an unremarkable stretch of two-lane road.

The other side of the road was a steep slope. The road was thickly surrounded by trees everywhere but at this little patch of gravel with its view of the valley. She pulled out her phone and took a selfie—her road trip had given her plenty of practice at that. There was no one else around to take pictures of her at all the weird, beautiful, interesting places she’d seen in the last few weeks.

She stayed perched on the railing as she looked down at her phone to check the results. Getting a good angle on the beautiful sunset behind her meant her chin looked every bit as soft and rounded as it really was. At least she’d caught herself with a natural-looking smile that made her hazel eyes sparkle, and her cheeks were flushed pink. That was probably from sunburn, but it looked good in the picture.

She was flashing some cleavage, too, her scoop-necked red T-shirt having drifted down to show off a little more of her curves than she usually displayed. She didn’t bother to tug it up. Who cared? Cara was alone with the scenic overlook.

At that exact moment, a fast, low blur—some kind of animal—darted out of the trees and ran straight toward her. It was barking loudly.

A dog, it’s just a dog, Cara thought.

She flinched back at the same time she realized what was happening. Her phone flew out of her hand as she overbalanced. She hit the ground with a thump that knocked the breath out of her.

Then she started to slide.

Oh no, she thought.

She tried to grab at the grass and caught sight of the precipice she was headed for.

No, no this is not the kind of adventure I wanted.

***

The first Gus knew of the trespasser on Dragomir land was his brother Ilie’s voice in his head.

Gus? Mouse scared a woman. She’s stuck.

Gus knew that Ilie was referring to his dog, a half-grown wolfhound-mastiff cross whom Ilie had named when he was a much smaller puppy. Still, for a moment Gus pictured a woman standing on a chair, shrieking for fear of a mouse and unable to get down.

Then he considered that this meant there was a woman close enough to Mouse to be scared by him. She must be a stranger, an out-of-towner, or Ilie would know her name.

And if she’d been frightened by a dog, she was going to lose her mind at the sight of a full-grown dragon. Even the residents of Gray’s Hollow tended to stay away from Ilie, and most of them had known him since he was a kid, shifting into a stubby-winged dragonet. Gus had to get to her before Ilie felt driven to help her himself.

Gus jumped to his feet and ran for the door.

Ilie? Where is she?

Ilie didn’t bother with words. He gave Gus the picture of the spot: the scenic turnout off the county road, up above town. It was only a mile away from the big house. Gus could cover it fast enough on foot not to be worth going any other way. He ran full out over the familiar forested slopes.

Is she okay? Is she hurt?

Not badly, I don’t think, Ilie replied. But like I said, she’s stuck.

Ilie once again gave up on simple words as he showed Gus where.

Gus ran faster, telling himself again that it wouldn’t do any good to take wing. He had to be human when he got there, after all, and the lady would probably appreciate it if he was still wearing clothes.

***

“Okay,” Cara said, twisting to try to see the back of her own elbow. “Okay. That could have gone worse.”

Her hands were dusty, fingers stained green from digging at the grass. She had scraped her elbow and jarred herself badly enough to feel the shock pass through every bone from her heels to her skull.

On the other hand, she’d literally landed on her feet, on a flat grassy place too wide to call a ledge. She was maybe fifteen feet down from where she’d been standing. She didn’t know how she was going to get back up to the road, and she had even less idea where her phone had landed, but she hadn’t broken any bones or gotten concussed.

This was basically a win.

She looked up at the sound of enthusiastic barking and saw the dog who’d startled her in the first place. He was standing with his front paws on the edge, floppy ears cocked forward.

“No!” Cara yelped, waving her arms. “Get back! Don’t—”

The dog jumped. Cara instinctively opened her arms, darting over to catch him. She got knocked on her butt when she succeeded, while the dog bounced out of her arms and stood beside her, barking cheerfully and waving his curly tail.

He looked like a puppy, but his head was higher than hers when she was sitting down, and his paws looked practically as big as her hands. He had gray, curly fur and wore a black leather collar adorned with shiny silver plates. The one at the front was engraved: MOUSE.

“Cute,” Cara said, standing up again.

She immediately crouched to pet Mouse. He danced around her so happily that she couldn’t resist smiling, even if her predicament was all his fault.

“Nice to meet you, Mouse. I’m Cara.”

“I’m Gus.”

For a second it seemed like Mouse had actually spoken. He was looking up at her with his friendly brown eyes, and his mouth was open in a panting doggy grin.

Cara looked around and spotted the man who’d spoken. He was standing a few yards away, where this flat place vanished into the steep slope.

Gus was gorgeous. He was tall and leanly built but solid, wearing jeans and a perfectly fitted soft charcoal shirt. He had short-clipped dark hair going slightly gray at the temples. He was smiling warmly, making lines around his eyes.

She couldn’t see what color those eyes were, but for just a second they caught a reflection from the setting sun and seemed to blaze the same fiery orange she’d seen reflected on the river.

Cara felt that fire reflected somewhere lower down than her own eyes—she wanted him, with a sudden visceral heat that took her totally by surprise.

Adrenaline, she told herself.

That thought was immediately followed up immediately by a less encouraging one.

Oh God, he’s gorgeous and I’m wearing road-trip clothes covered in dirt.

***

Gus couldn’t take his eyes off her.

He had run up just in time to see the woman catch Mouse, obviously not realizing that he was made of puppy-springs and wouldn’t be hurt by that leap. Mouse had knocked her flat, but she’d come up smiling at the ridiculous dog.

Gus’s dragon, which usually stayed curled up in the dark inside him, had roared at the sight of that smile.

Even before she stood up enough for him to see her luscious curves outlined by tight jeans and a low-cut top, he wanted her. More than wanted her. He wanted to take her home, to hoard her like the treasure she was and keep her safe. She wasn’t just a beautiful woman.

She was his mate.

When she introduced herself to Mouse with that sweet, wry smile, Gus couldn’t help introducing himself to her. When she met his eyes, he saw that hers were green with a ring of gold at the center. He felt his dragon stir further. Fire rose in him along with the desire to possess; he saw answering desire in her eyes, quickly followed by shyness and uncertainty.

She was human, of course. She might have heard of soulmates as a romantic fantasy. She probably thought they were no more likely to appear in her own life than, say, dragons.

Gus couldn’t rush her. If she was just passing through, he’d find a way to meet her again. Some way that wasn’t creepy. He’d think of something, as long as he didn’t scare her off in the first minute.

“Are you all right?” Gus asked.

He walked toward her slowly, his hands held out a little to either side to show her he meant no harm.

“You’re on my property, so if you’re hurt you can probably sue me.”

“Yeah?” Cara said, brushing herself off with quick self-conscious motions as she looked down.

“I don’t think I can charge you much for my shirt,” Cara protested with a crooked smile. “Or my dignity.”

“On the contrary,” Gus insisted.

She looked up sharply at that. He was within arm’s reach now, and when she met his eyes, their gazes locked again. He tried to hold down his dragon, lest she get a glimpse of the fire inside him, but he couldn’t look away from the ring of gold at the center of her green eyes. He made himself smile, dragging out words to finish the thought he’d started before she looked up at him with those unfairly distracting eyes.

“Your dignity is priceless. You could charge me anything for it.”

Silently he promised, Everything I have I will lay at your feet.

Cara’s lips parted, almost as if she’d heard that, or sensed it. Gus took another step in, raising his hands. He had to touch her.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt? You didn’t bump your head or anything?”

Cara shook her head slightly, but when Gus looked down he saw red. Literal red, blood dripping from the point of her elbow.

“Cara,” he said, keeping his voice calm.

He reached for her arm with careful hands. He was already calculating how quickly he could shift to carry her down to the walk-in clinic in town if she needed stitches.

“Sweetheart, you’re bleeding.”

***

Cara was so distracted by this handsome stranger calling her sweetheart that she almost didn’t process what he’d said.

Then she twisted her arm, trying again to see her scraped elbow. It stung a little—and now she could see a line of red where blood was dripping down from the back of her arm.

“Oh,” she said, her voice going a little faint. “Hey.”

The red of blood seemed very bright, suddenly, and there was a funny hollow ringing in her ears.

Oh, she thought. No, this is the adrenaline.

Gus put a hand on her unhurt arm, and even through the sudden haze it felt warm and steady. From far off she heard him telling her to sit down. She let him help her down to the grass, and raised her left arm over her head when he gently guided it up.

Gus took out an actual handkerchief, brilliantly white and with a flash of bright embroidery in one corner. She only caught a glimpse of it before he pressed it against the back of her arm.

The ringing in her ears subsided after a few breaths. She was left with the awareness of Gus kneeling close to her, holding the handkerchief to the soft underside of her arm. Gus’s eyes were a pale silvery gray, and he was watching her with obvious concern.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t usually swoon. I’m okay, really.”

“You took a pretty hard fall,” Gus said gently. “Of course it shook you up. I’m just glad I was here to help.”

Cara frowned. “How did you…”

“I live near here.” Gus looked up toward the overlook and then away across the ledge. It wasn’t exactly an answer, but when he met her eyes again Cara felt that pull again, that spark of connection.

When she was looking into his eyes, it made perfect sense that Gus had been there just because she needed him.

“I hate to just put you back in your car like this.” Gus looked almost apologetic as he spoke. “If you don’t mind—you could come home with me. I could clean this for you properly and bandage it, and make sure you’re all right.”

Cara started to nod and then hesitated. She wanted to go with Gus—wanted to go anywhere with him, and more to the point wanted her arm patched up better than she could do by herself with the handful of Band-Aids in her little first aid kit. Especially since after a week in the car she wasn’t sure where the first aid kit was.

But Gus was still a stranger she’d met in the woods, and Cara knew better than to go home with some guy she’d just met. Didn’t she?

“If you’d rather not, I can get you back to your car—we’d have to walk almost as far to get a decent trail back to the road, though, unless you’re good at rock climbing.”

Cara looked up at him, but the expression on his face was patient and kind. He wasn’t pushing. When she looked at him, she didn’t feel like she had anything to fear at all. She was only worried when she listened to a lifetime’s worth of advice and rules and safety precautions.

Cara looked over at Mouse. “What do you think? Can I trust him?”

Mouse barked and wagged his tail and came over to them immediately. He pressed up against Gus, who managed not to be knocked over by his enthusiasm. Gus just bumped him with a shoulder when he tried to sniff at the handkerchief Gus was still pressing against her arm.

“Hmm, that seems like a yes,” Cara observed.

“I can offer better references than my brother’s dog, I swear,” Gus said, smiling. “Everyone knows me in town. I could give you phone numbers.”

Cara winced. “If only I hadn’t thrown my phone off a cliff when I fell.”

Gus made a sympathetic face and looked around like he might be able to spot it. “And I don’t have mine with me, or I’d offer it. So I guess I have only Mouse as a character witness.”

“He seems trustworthy,” Cara said. Dogs were supposed to be good judges of character, right? And Gus really did seem like a good guy.

“Okay, yes. Please. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me,” Gus said, giving her a dazzling smile that made her feel hot all over again. “It’s the least I can do.”

Gus peeled the handkerchief away from her arm, far enough for Cara to see a bright stain of blood on it.

“It looks like it’s slowed down, at least,” Gus said. “But we should probably keep it in place.”

“I left my medical tape in the car,” Cara said.

Gus flashed a smile. He was already reaching into the collar of his shirt with his left hand, pulling out a thin gold chain that hung around his neck. She saw at least two others that he left tucked under his shirt. They weren’t ostentatiously displayed, just held close, like they were precious to him.

“This one’s adjustable,” he said, unclasping it gracefully, one-handed. “I can probably get it tight enough to hold this in place for a minute.”

That didn’t seem like it should work, but Cara was willing to let him try. She held the handkerchief in place with her opposite hand while Gus wound the chain around her arm and the makeshift bandage. When he clasped it again it actually did stay in place, wound firmly around her arm but not painfully tight.

“Oh,” Cara said, taking her hand away and flexing her arm experimentally. Everything stayed in place.

“It’s perfect, Gus. Thanks.”

Gus smiled proudly but said only, “No, really, stop thanking me. Come on.”

He helped her up and kept his grip on her hand, leading her to the spot where she’d first seen him. She expected some hidden path to appear, but Gus just stepped out onto a slope that was the next thing to straight up and down. He seemed to think she was going to follow him.

“Uh,” Cara said, planting her feet. “Hold on. You said this wasn’t going to involve rock climbing.”

Gus looked back at her with an expression of concern, his feet planted at angles, his knees slightly bent.

“I’m from Iowa,” Cara blurted. “Where the ground is flat.”

Gus looked around. “You can kind of…as long as you stay on one level…”

“No,” Cara said firmly. She’d had enough of sliding down mountainsides today. “I can’t.”

Gus looked back at her and gave a wicked grin. “Guess I’d better carry you, then.”

Cara actually took a half-step back at that, but Gus’s smile didn’t dim.

“I won’t drop you, I promise. I’m stronger than I look.”

“I can try…” Cara said.

The last thing she wanted him to know was just how much she weighed. She pushed ahead determinedly, trying to angle her foot on the steep slope like he had his.

It went out from under her almost immediately. Before she could fall again Gus’s arms were around her, sweeping her up off the ground.

Cara was aware that she had made a noise, probably some kind of squeak. Now she couldn’t make a sound. She was held in Gus’s arms, staring into his gray eyes. She could feel the connection between them more strongly than ever. She wanted to stay here forever.

“I’ve got you,” Gus said softly.

Cara just nodded.

Then Gus took a step and she squeaked again, looking around wildly.

“Here,” Gus said, nodding.

Cara saw that they were now standing just up-slope of a sturdy tree.

“You’re going to put your back against that so you can hop up on my back,” Gus told her. “It’s easier to carry you that way if I’m going to take you all the way home. Like this you’re going to get branches in your face.”

“Okay,” Cara said, just because Gus sounded so confident that that was going to work. “Yeah, sure.”

Gus grinned. “It’ll work, trust me.”

It did work, though. Cara’s feet barely touched the tilting ground before she was wrapping her arms around Gus’s shoulders and her legs around his waist. Gus straightened up under her and started jogging, then running through the trees. He moved like they were on level ground and she weighed no more than a toddler.

“Oh my God,” Cara gasped into his ear. She was soon laughing helplessly at the speed of their run.

She heard barking behind them and realized that Mouse was following them, a low gray blur along the ground.

Gus laughed and started running faster, in bounding strides that somehow found all the clear spaces among the trees. They landed so lightly with each step that it felt like flying. Cara whooped like she was on a roller coaster and held on tight.

In no time at all they were bursting out of the trees onto a gentle grassy slope, and a huge house was looming up before them. It looked almost like a castle, an edifice of stone with an actual tower on one corner and steeply slanting roofs that met at various angles. She could just see a railing where there must be a walkway at the top of the tower’s roof.

Gus bounded right up onto the porch, spinning around and making her laugh harder. Cara raised one arm in the air and whooped in triumph, like they’d just won a race.

It was only when Gus stopped that she saw Mouse again. He was running away across the lawn, back toward the trees.

“Oh!” Cara said, feeling a little dizzy as Gus let her slip back to her feet. “Mouse—”

“He’s fine,” Gus assured her, grinning and seeming not even out of breath. “This whole side of the mountain is his backyard, he won’t get lost.”

Cara opened her mouth to say more, but then she saw the wet patch on Gus’s shoulder. She felt a weird instinctive bolt of fear, thinking Gus was hurt, and then she realized. She had bled through the handkerchief and onto his shirt.

“Oh, Gus,” she touched his shoulder and winced at the tacky wetness of blood. “I’m sorry.”

Gus glanced over at it and shook his head. “Don’t worry about that, let’s just get you patched up.”

Gus took her hand and led her around to the front doors. There was a name carved in stone above them: Dragomir.

“Dragomir? Is that your last name?”

“Uh,” Gus said, rubbing his free hand over his hair before opening the door left-handed and tugging her inside. “Sort of. Legally it’s been Gray for about eight generations—I’m Gus Gray, nice to meet you—”

“Cara Linley,” Cara offered, wondering just how old this house was, if Gus’s family had changed their name eight generations ago. Cara didn’t have a house to go home to back in Iowa that went back one generation.

Then she remembered the signs that she’d driven past, pointing her toward the little town in the valley, which she had bypassed in favor of the scenic overlook.

“Wait, Gray as in Gray’s Hollow?”

“Like I said, everyone in town knows me,” Gus said, sounding actually apologetic.

He tugged Cara through the foyer of the huge house. Her eyes skipped over the rich rugs underfoot, the gleaming wood of the floor and the staircase, the art on the walls and the little sculptures on side tables.

Gus led her to sit down on a padded bench at one side of the stairs and ducked into a door beside it that led to a bathroom.

“I’m also the mayor,” he explained. He reappeared holding a first aid kit and perched on the bench beside her. She raised her arm so that he could get at the cut. He kept his eyes on that as he spoke.

“I’m the fourteenth Mayor Gray in a row. It’s kind of feudal, but people keep writing me in on the ballot and my brother Radu refuses to come home and run against me, so. It’s the least I can do.”

“Radu,” Cara repeated.

Gus unwound the chain and dropped it into her right hand. The handkerchief he put somewhere out of sight.

“Legally Raymond,” Gus explained, and she thought he was trying to distract her as he swabbed the cut with alcohol wipes. “But he refuses to use his English name—Ray Gray, I agree, it’s terrible. His twin is Sorin, but everyone calls him Sunny.”

“Sunny Gray,” Cara said.

She closed her hand on the gold chain as she tried to ignore the sting of the cut under Gus’s hands. Gus seemed to falter for a second.

“There’s a contradiction,” Cara added, trying to show that she was all right.

“Well, that’s Radu and Sunny for you,” Gus said, getting back to it. He tore open a gauze pad.

“That picture over there, that’s me and all my brothers, can you see it?”

Cara looked up and quickly spotted the one he meant. She realized after a second that it wasn’t a photo with a fancy matte finish but a painting.

“We had it done about three years ago,” Gus said. He was taping the bandage in place now. “After our dad passed and it was just us boys.”

The picture showed five men standing side by side, all in gorgeously tailored suits. There was a little gap between Gus, who stood at the left, and the next brother. The twins, on the other hand, stood so close it was like they were trying to merge into a single person. There was another brother between them and Gus, who stood with his hands in his pockets, one elbow projecting into the empty space that separated Gus from the rest. At the end of the row, the youngest brother had his head tipped onto the happier-looking twin’s shoulder.

It looked like they were standing near the house, on the green lawn: the background showed the forest slopes rising behind them.

“There,” Gus said, patting her arm, and she realized he was done bandaging her up.

She stood up cautiously, but she didn’t get dizzy this time, and she took a few steps to look more closely at the portrait.

“That’s me,” Gus said unnecessarily, following her over to point to his own image.

“And the boys: Laurence, who visits exactly twice a year for no more than three days at a time, so we had to schedule this around him—Radu and Sunny, the twins, and Teddy. Teo. He insists he’s all grown up and we should call him Teo now.”

“What a handsome family,” Cara said, to keep herself from asking about that little gap, and the fact that the big house was perfectly quiet around them and even Mouse didn’t seem to live here with Gus.

“But I’m the handsomest,” Gus insisted, smiling brightly. “Aren’t I?”

“Of course,” Cara agreed, and she realized as she reached out to touch him that she was still holding the chain in her right hand. “Oh—here.”

She held it out to him, opening her hand to give it back, and his bright smile suddenly dimmed. He looked down at it like she was offering him a bloody piece of bandage.

“Did I,” she said uncertainly, still holding it out. Had it gotten damaged somehow? Should she offer to replace it? How could she replace anything that belonged to the man who owned this house?

“No, it’s—” Gus shook his head sharply. “It’s fine.”

He took it gingerly from her hand, shook his head again as if it felt fuzzy, and then said, “I—I should go change my shirt. Excuse me. If you want a phone or a computer or anything, the office is that door. Use anything you need.”

And just like that Gus turned away and all but ran up the stairs, leaving Cara standing alone in his beautiful home.

***

Stupid, Gus thought, stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course she gave it back. She didn’t even know it was a gift.

Cara was human, and not a human acquainted with dragons. She wouldn’t know what it meant for him to let a piece of his most personal hoard leave his body, how special a gift it was.

She’d had no idea how much it pleased his dragon to see her adorned with a piece of his gold. Gold that was not only adorning her but protecting her.

And she’d given it back.

His dragon was torn between hurt and rage. How could his mate reject a gift of gold so sweetly, so carelessly?

Gus knew better than Cara see him reacting that way. He couldn’t scare her away. He couldn’t. She had to know him better before she found out about his dragon. She had to trust him, so that she would believe that his dragon would never hurt her.

His swallowed down his instinctive reactions, pushing away the rage, struggling to be human. Even if she knew what it meant, it’s her choice to make. She gave it back. That’s all.

But when Gus opened his hand, the chain she’d handed back to him was nothing but sparkling dust.

***

After a moment staring in the direction Gus had gone, Cara walked down to the door he’d pointed out. The office had shades drawn over the windows and bookcases lining the dark green walls. There was a desk with a shiny new computer, a sleek new smartphone lying beside it.

She sat down gingerly in the leather desk chair, but it turned out to be sinfully comfortable, and Cara rocked back the few degrees it moved, reveling in it. She would have killed for ergonomics this good back at the firm where she’d worked as a paralegal.

She picked up the phone curiously, assuming she wouldn’t get any further than the lock screen, but it opened right up. She was tempted to look through Gus’s contacts or text messages, but she settled for opening up a browser and googling him.

Gus really was the mayor Gray’s Hollow, so that checked out. He was also, according to a couple of uninformative articles attached to stuff like annual lists of the world’s richest people, an intensely private billionaire.

Cara looked around the room again, wide-eyed. She’d realized somebody with a house like this must be rich, but Gus apparently had an inherited family fortune no one could really guess the size of. Except the billionaire part.

“Okay,” Cara muttered, setting the phone down gingerly. “Okay, don’t freak out.”

“Funny,” Gus said, and Cara looked up, startled. He was standing in the doorway. His new shirt was a soft blue that made his eyes look even brighter.

“I was just telling myself that,” Gus said. Whatever sudden distance there had been in his expression before was gone now, and she felt that pull toward him again.

“You were?” Cara asked. What on earth did Gus have to freak out about? He had everything.

He stepped into the office and then came over to where she was sitting and offered her his hand. She took it and he helped her up, and they were standing so close they were almost touching, and she ached suddenly to be even closer.

“Yeah,” Gus said softly. “I was telling myself, okay, you really want this woman to like you, and you think maybe she does, but try to play it cool for a minute.”

“We, uh,” Cara said, her gaze dropping to his mouth. She licked her lips. “We did just meet.”

“Exactly,” Gus said. “So I thought—dinner?”

Cara blinked and looked up at him.

Gus was smiling a little, almost shyly. Hopefully. As if he were offering a lot more than dinner.

“Sure,” Cara said. Her stomach growled, and she was startled into a laugh.

Gus’s smile widened. “With no delay. Come on, the kitchen’s stocked with at least three things I know how to cook.”

***

The kitchen was on the same scale as the rest of the house, a huge high-ceilinged room. The sun had gone down fully now, but when Gus turned on the lights it somehow still felt like a kitchen, warm and comfortable. Cara perched on a stool while Gus assembled the makings of a stir-fry.

Gus casually apologized for not having an actual cook on hand to cook for her. “I don’t bother when it’s just me in the house.”

He had said that one of his brothers only visited twice a year—Radu? No, Radu was a twin. Laurence. But Radu refused to come live here either; she didn’t see any evidence of any of his brothers living in the house.

Except—hadn’t he called Mouse his brother’s dog?

“Who does Mouse belong to?”

“Oh,” Gus said. “Um. He’s Ilie’s. Ilie always wanted a dog when we were kids—” and before Cara could remember which one Ilie was out of the tumble of double names he’d told her, Gus launched into a story about Ilie and Gus’s misadventures in “rescuing” a raccoon. It didn’t take long before she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

“What about you?” Gus asked. “Any pets? Or siblings?”

“Only child,” Cara said, shaking her head and feeling the pang she felt sometimes when people talked about their siblings the way Gus did. It was like having built-in friends who never moved away—well, not until they were grown, apparently, although Ilie must live somewhere nearby if Mouse was his.

Gus was waiting for her to tell him about herself, though.

“We did have a dog when I was growing up,” Cara said. “Sadie—she was one of those big sheepdogs, like Nana in Peter Pan, you know?”

Gus nodded. “Did she look after you?”

“I usually wasn’t much of a challenge, I liked sitting in my room reading books—if I was really adventurous I’d go outside and read books, and Sadie would sit next to me.”

Gus smiled. “Very loyal.”

“Oh yeah,” Cara agreed. “But one time, when I was nine, I decided to run away from home.”

She and Sadie had made it maybe half a mile before Sadie sat down and refused to go further. Cara had still been standing there arguing with the dog when her parents found her.

She told the story the way she always told it, so it was funny—the image of nine-year-old Cara trying to reason with a dog—and Gus laughed at all the right parts. But sitting there with Gus, Cara was more aware than ever of the truth behind the story. She’d never been brave enough to just run off on her own—not until Sadie was gone, her parents had move to another state, and there was nobody to tell her to stay anymore.

So she’d finally taken off running, and here she was. And now what?

***

Gus told her more stories as he cooked and as they ate, and she told her share back. His stories were all about growing up in a big, boisterous, close-knit family, in a town full of people who had known him since he was born. Hers seemed pale and lonely in comparison. She had grown up in a suburb where no one knew her outside of her block, and her parents had sold that house as soon as she left for college.

Still, Gus listened intently. He never interrupted her, never jumped in to tell his own, better story before she was finished with hers.

And all the time she was aware of being drawn to him. She wanted him, in a physical way that she had rarely wanted anyone. For once she felt sure that he wanted her too. He leaned in, closer and closer, as they ate. Not like a guy trying to crowd or intimidate her. It was just like he couldn’t stand to be too far away.

Finally, when they’d been sitting and talking over empty plates for a while, he said, “So, dessert?”

“Gus,” Cara said. There was only one thing she wanted for dessert, and it wasn’t anything in the kitchen cupboards.

She saw Gus’s eyes go dark and hungry, and he leaned across the table to take her hand. The contact jolted through her like electricity.

They were both on their feet suddenly, and Gus’s arms went around her. His hand slid into her hair as she tilted her head back to look up at him and his mouth lowered to hers.

Cara had never really understood what people meant about kisses setting off fireworks, but this one definitely lit a fire. She felt her whole body heat up at the first touch of his lips, and she opened up shamelessly to him, letting Gus’s tongue plunder her mouth. She was barely aware that she was holding on tight to him, pressing as close as she could get, until she realized that she could feel his cock pressing against her through the layers of their clothes.

That was enough to make her pull back a little, panting. Gus’s eyes searched her, and he gave her another kiss, just a light touch.

“Maybe I should…show you the rest of the house.” Gus murmured, stepping back and taking her hand.

He led her toward the front of the house. Cara’s heart was beating fast, excited and aroused and still disbelieving a little what she was about to do.

She did her best not to be distracted again by the contents of his house, but her eye caught on glittering brightness as they passed an open door. She tugged against Gus’s grip to look.

“Oh,” Gus said. “That’s…”

Cara towed him after her as she stepped up to the doorway of the room. There were lights on in the room, and the curtains were open, so it was probably bathed in sunlight during the day, which must make it shine even brighter. Tapestries with gold and silver threads shining among the rich colors hung side-by-side with children’s paintings doused liberally in glitter and paintings in gilt frames. The rest of the room held low shelves displaying everything from popsicle-stick sculpture coated in gold glitter to an actual tiara on a stand.

Cara turned and looked up at Gus, her mouth open on a wordless question.

He smiled sheepishly. “We call it the treasure room. It’s—there’s this tradition, people in town give the mayor gifts every year. Usually…shiny gifts. And they’re displayed in the house for a while after they’re given. There are crates of this stuff in the attics, we never get rid of any of the gifts.”

“Hoarder,” Cara diagnosed fondly, looking around the room full of sparkling things again.

Gus made a weird little choking noise behind her.

She looked back at him and smiled. “Oh, no, you’re rich, aren’t you. Rich people aren’t hoarders, they’re collectors. Right?”

“I might,” Gus murmured, dropping a kiss on the back of her neck that made her shiver, “be a little bit of a hoarder, actually.”

“Well, the first step is acknowledging that you have a problem,” Cara told him, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Come on, let’s continue the tour,” Gus said, and this time Cara didn’t resist as he led her to the stairs.

She wanted his lips on her again. Not just on the back of her neck. Everywhere.

“Second floor,” Gus announced as they reached the top of the flight of stairs and he led her immediately around to the next. “Not very interesting—art, guest rooms.”

Cara caught a few glimpses of yet more opulent rich-people furnishings, but Gus was already hustling her up to the third floor.

“The boys’ rooms are up here,” Gus said, leading her down a hallway. “None of them are home, so also not very interesting, but…”

Gus opened the door at the end of the hall. “This is me.”

The space revealed was a long open room, cluttered but bright, lined with windows that reflected back the room, hiding the darkness outside.

“We could stop here,” Gus murmured, gesturing to a comfortable sofa tucked in among the tables and shelves. “Or—if you wanted to continue the tour…”

Cara knew what he meant. They could try to hold back from this. He wouldn’t push her, even though he felt the same connection she felt, and the same desire.

She’d been looking for an adventure, hadn’t she? Here it was. The dashing stranger, the whirlwind romance.

“Let’s go all the way,” Cara said, reaching for his hand, and then she added mischievously, “upstairs, I mean.”

Gus laughed a little and kissed her softly again, holding her hand tight. She melted a little under it, but he pulled away enough to speak much too soon. “All the way, then. You’ve got it.”

They wound through the crowded room—there were all sorts of tables and shelves, piled with books and little boxes and yet more assorted artworks of polished metal and delicate ceramics and gorgeous colored glass and crystal that caught the last of the light. There were also some chairs and couches in amongst them, so Cara could see how this was, theoretically, a living room.

A narrow staircase at the end of the room led up to the next floor, which Cara realized must be in the square tower at the corner of the house.

The room at the top of the stairs was utterly empty, with windows on all four sides. It was a strange sight; Cara felt as if she must have suddenly gone blind, or if she’d stepped into a whole other world from the rest of the house below them.

“What…?”

“This room isn’t needed right now,” Gus said hastily.

He tugged her toward the stairs without meeting her eyes.

He led her up another flight to the top of the tower, which turned out to be his bedroom, once again full of shiny clutter and sumptuous fabrics. There were more tapestries here, hung between the windows, and another portrait that looked like it contained parents as well as a crowd of young boys. Gus didn’t give her a chance to look at it, nor at the huge wood-framed bed piled with pillows and soft, dark fabrics.

There was a spiral staircase in one corner of the room. Gus grinned and led her toward it, gesturing for her to go first as he finally let go of her hand.

“You did say all the way, did you not?”

They were five stories up already, but why stop now?

“All the way,” Cara agreed, and trotted up the tight spiral of the stairs. There was a trapdoor at the top, and when she pushed it back she emerged onto the roof inside the railing she’d glimpsed from the ground. It set off a square space, ten feet by ten feet, with the sides of the roof slanting down around it.

Cara scrambled out to let Gus follow her, turning slowly on the spot. She could see the lights of the town down in the valley, and the dark shapes of the trees. The next ridge was black against the dark, dark blue of the western sky.

Gus stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. He pressed a kiss just behind her ear. “Is this far enough for you?”

Cara shook her head and dared to reach back, looping her arms around his neck. “I said all the way, Gus.”

“Cara,” Gus murmured, his lips dragging against the point of her jaw and making her shiver. She kept her arms up, leaving herself open to his touch. “Cara, mine all mine.”

“All yours,” Cara whispered, and she closed her eyes as Gus’s hands started sliding up, traveling over the softness of her belly to cup her breasts.

The feeling was muffled by the layers of her shirt and bra. She arched her back, pressing into his hands and wishing she were naked already. She wanted to feel the heat of his touch on her skin.

She could feel her pussy getting hot and slick. When she pressed her hips back against Gus, his cock was hard against her. He kissed the side of her throat as he caressed her breasts through her shirt, thumbing at her nipples.

Cara moaned. “Gus, please, I need you.”

“Not as much as I need you,” Gus murmured, his breath hot on her throat. “Here, sit, let me touch you.”

He brought her over to a bench at one edge of the roof, where she could lean back against the railing.

“Look up,” Gus said, dropping to his knees before her and nudging her thighs apart. “How many stars do you see?”

Cara spread her legs, letting him move closer, his hands running up her thighs to her hips. She could barely tear her gaze away to look up into the dark sky. It was a clear night, and she could see plenty of stars. The Big Dipper, at least, and more she didn’t know the names of. “Lots.”

Gus’s fingers slipped under the bottom of her shirt, brushing over the soft skin of her sides. Cara raised her arms over her head in silent invitation and Gus grinned.

“Gonna make you see even more.”

Cara laughed, but she believed him. He rose up on his knees to peel her shirt up and off, letting the warm night air touch her skin. He pressed a light kiss to the bandage on the back of her arm, his fingers smoothing the tape at one corner. He dropped her shirt and leaned in to bury his face against her breasts, licking and nuzzling, tugging down the cups of her bra. At the first hot flick of his tongue over her nipple, Cara moaned again, grabbing his shoulders with both hands.

“Keep looking,” Gus admonished, and then he used his teeth, lightly.

Cara couldn’t help grinding her hips against the bench. She was so hot and wet, so close to coming just from Gus’s mouth.

She gasped a little when her bra came undone. She hadn’t even noticed Gus’s hands working behind her, but she leaned forward to help him slip it off.

“So beautiful,” Gus murmured against her skin, licking over her nipples, his hands coming up to cradle the weight of her heavy breasts. “So lush, you’re like velvet.”

Cara laughed breathlessly, thinking of all the rugs and tapestries that filled Gus’s house. “Another treasure, huh?”

Gus pulled back at that, looking up at her seriously, his silver eyes somehow catching the little light that was left in the western sky and seeming to glow silver. “The crown jewel, Cara. Nothing less.”

She shivered at that, because Gus wasn’t a man who let his treasures go. He kept popsicle-stick sculptures, what would he do with a crown jewel?

Never let her go, Cara thought, and the certainty she felt was all at once the scariest and the safest thing she’d ever known.

She wrapped her arms around Gus’s shoulders and brought his mouth back to her breast. Gus’s hands were on her hips again, and now one slid between her legs, pressing through her jeans. She couldn’t help grinding against it, needing the friction, the pressure. Needing more than that.

“Yes, Gus, please—more, more.”

“All you ask,” Gus said, flicking open the button of her jeans and drawing the zipper down. “Anything you ask, Cara.”

He pushed her jeans down, and she pushed up to wriggle out of them, letting him pull her panties down right along with them. They were stopped by her thighs, spread open to make room for Gus between them, but she didn’t want him to move long enough for her to get them off.

He didn’t bother trying. He slid his hand between her legs, stirring through the damp curls at her crotch to find where she was wettest and hottest. He stroked over her pussy while his mouth trailed down from her breasts over her belly, lower and lower, hot against her skin.

His tongue found her clit as the same time two of his fingers pressed into her, stroking just right. She tipped her head back, grabbing at the railing behind her with one hand and his shoulder with the other. He worked just right—not too roughly, but not shyly.

The heat she had felt between them raged now, already consuming her. She cried out helplessly to the dark, starry sky, coming on his fingers and tongue.

He moved up onto the bench with her, kissing her. She tasted herself on his lips and moaned, reaching for him. She toed out of her shoes and kicking her jeans off as she tugged at his clothes. She wanted more. She wanted everything.

“And how many stars do you see now?” Gus murmured in her ear, his voice warm and low.

She opened her eyes, and gasped. It seemed like every place she looked, the sky had filled up with the faint glitter of stars—every dark place she looked at, she could see another one.

“Gus, it’s beautiful.”

“It takes a little while for your eyes to adapt,” he murmured. “But feel free to believe I did that just for you.”

Cara laughed and turned her gaze back to him. His gray eyes seemed as bright as stars and much warmer. She tugged up more firmly on his shirt and said, “And what can I do for you?”

Gus grinned, wide and toothy. “Oh, sweetheart, you already are.”

He kissed her again and peeled off his soft dark shirt, revealing the jewelry that had been hidden beneath. There were two thin gold chains around his neck, almost delicate. A flat gold plaque dangled from one that reminded her for an absurd instant of Mouse’s name tag. The other had a dark round stone. There was another gold chain wrapped around his left wrist, twining up nearly to his elbow.

“You’re not just a hoarder,” she murmured, touching his sparkly things. He hadn’t put the chain he’d wrapped around her arm back on, but he clearly had plenty of others. “You’re a magpie.”

“I know what I like,” Gus murmured, kissing her throat while she reached for the button of his jeans. “Beautiful things. And when I find them I like to keep them close.”

“Closer than this,” Cara demanded, sliding his zipper down, feeling the press of his cock behind it.

She reached into his underwear without bothering to push his pants down, wrapping her hand around his cock. God, he was big. She would still feel him tomorrow, every time she sat down.

If I’m back in my car… She pushed the thought away.

She had Gus now, and he had her.

“I’ll get as close as you want,” Gus murmured, shoving a hand into the pockets of his jeans as Cara gave his cock a tentative stroke. He came up with a thin wallet and extracted a condom. “Only that far away.”

She wanted to tell him he didn’t have to be even that far, but she caught the words before she spoke. Sure, she had birth control, but she’d only met him today.

She nodded. Gus put the condom packet between his teeth and stood to shove his pants down, letting her see him properly naked.

He was gorgeous, his cock jutting up from a thatch of curly hair between his legs. He had only a little hair on his chest, and almost none anywhere else. She could see the lines of his wiry muscles all over his body.

He rolled the condom on as she watched. She couldn’t help dipping her fingers into herself as she watched him stroke his own cock. He made a little longing sound and ducked back in to kiss her at that.

“Let me carry you again, hm?” Gus murmured.

He sat down beside her on the bench and took her hand, pulling her over. She went where he wanted her, far past thinking of how she must look as she straddled him. His hands founds her hips as he pressed his face into the sway of her heavy breasts, licking and nuzzling again where they were oh-so-sensitive now.

He left it up to her to wrap her hand around his cock, steadying him as she slid down onto it. He groaned as she took him in, matching the sound she made as he filled her, deep and hot and hard.

His hands guided her down, silently encouraging her to take every inch of his cock. Gus filled her so thoroughly that she could hardly breathe without crying out, but she needed every bit of him. She needed to feel him deep inside her.

Cara tilted just so under his hands, until he was pressing exactly where she needed him. She felt already on the verge of coming again when she rose up only to slide back down onto him. His hands told her what he wanted, but she set the pace, riding him faster and faster.

She came on his cock with his mouth on her breasts, once and then again and again or maybe just once that went on and on. It seemed to last forever before he finally tightened his grip and arched up under her. He came with her name on his lips, and Cara kissed him through it.

***

Mine, Gus thought, when he found himself thinking in words at all, full of dragon-warm contentment and satisfied possession.

All mine. She said. All mine, and happy to be.

Dinner and sex might not be properly dragonish gifts, but he’d given them to her, and she’d accepted them. They could work up to gold.

Cara’s weight rested on him, surrendered in the aftermath of her last orgasm, her breath still quick against his shoulder. His hands roved lazily over the softness of her skin, the ample, unstinting curves of her body, generously curved and altogether beautiful.

She was his mate. His.

Soon she would understand, and then he would drape her in gold, jewels, everything she could want. Everything except clothes, which would only get in the way. Silk sheets, though…

Then his softening cock slipped free of her and he became aware of the condom he was wearing. It wasn’t just a sticky and unpleasant bit of business to deal with, but a reminder that she wasn’t his yet. Not entirely. Neither of them had promised anything. Not just yet.

The empty room down below—a vault with no treasure to hold, an unfilled chest—tugged at him. Still he stayed where he was, enjoying as much as he did have and could hold just now. Cara was warm in his arms, and her weight was trusted to his body.

When she stirred, he helped her sit up and accepted her soft, contented kiss.

“We should go in,” he murmured. “You don’t want to sleep out here.”

She nodded and stood. It was sooner than he would have liked to let her go, but he knew better than to hold her in place by strength.

When she was on her feet he stood himself, stepping aside to tie off the condom and toss it into the nearest sand bucket of the four posted at the corners of the roof. She was watching him, her weight shifted uncertainly onto one foot, her clothes in her hands.

He smiled gently and said, “I’ll go first down the stairs, so you can fall on me if you stumble.”

She smiled back and let him lead the way, but they both made it down without incident. He could still smell her sex. He liked that she hadn’t put her clothes back on, didn’t like that she was holding them, but it was up to her.

“If you want to clean up,” he said, and gestured to the bathroom.

Cara nodded, issued another shy smile, and disappeared inside, shutting the door softly behind her.

Gus went to the opposite door, his closet, and extracted a pair of silk pajama pants, pulling them on with nothing beneath. After a moment’s consideration he took the matching pajama top. It was cut generously enough to make a very short nightgown for Cara, if she wanted it. He laid it on the foot of the bed and then went to stand by the window, looking for a darker shape in the dark sky.

Mouse found her phone, Ilie informed him.

Gus narrowed his eyes to catch the curve of a wing, black on the black.

I’ll bring it over, Ilie said. If now…isn’t a bad time.

Gus snorted at Ilie’s politeness and glanced at the bathroom door just as he heard the shower turn on. All right. Come now.

On my way, Ilie agreed.

Gus jogged back up the spiral staircase to the roof. Ilie was gliding in over the lawn as Gus stepped out onto the roof, and Gus was shocked by the sudden burst of fury he felt, flame-hot.

Gus? Ilie inquired, veering away from Gus’s rage.

Gus pressed both hands—hands, not claws, not rending, not fighting to defend his mate—to his face. His human face. He must be human for Cara, and equally he must not shift with Ilie so close. He must not fight Ilie over Cara, or over anything else.

Sorry, Gus replied. She is my mate, but—she has not accepted any proper gifts. I must protect her against any who comes near.

Ilie said nothing to that, only flew further away in a few great sweeps of his black wings. When he was halfway across the mountain, Gus heard his voice again. I’ll send Mouse.

Thanks, Gus told him, feeling suddenly desperately lonely. He didn’t have Cara yet, not really, and until he did he couldn’t be near his brother, either. Just as well the rest of the boys were safely out of town now, though they usually were these days.

Don’t let anyone bother her car, will you? Gus remembered to ask.

No one will, Ilie assured him, and then he was entirely lost in the dark.

***

When Cara stepped out of the bathroom, Gus was nowhere to be seen. She was wrapped in a towel that didn’t cover much, her hair roughly dried and finger-combed, and she’d managed to tape a new bandage in place on her arm, though the cut seemed to have stopped bleeding.

She smiled at the sight of the pajama top left on his bed, exchanging the towel for it. It was sinfully soft against her skin, so smooth it felt almost liquid everywhere it touched. She did up a handful of the buttons, letting it just barely cover her breasts. The hem just skimmed the top of her thighs, but it still felt less precarious than the towel.

She took the towel back to the bathroom to hang up, and when she came out to the bedroom again, Gus had reappeared. He was standing in front of the family portrait she’d noticed earlier, wearing only a pair of silky pajama pants that matched the top she was wearing.

Cara walked over to him, and he smiled for her, reaching out to tuck her against his side. His smile was dim, almost the way he’d looked before he so suddenly turned away from her downstairs. He wasn’t going away this time, though.

She looked at the portrait and thought at first that it must be the loss of his parents that he was thinking of, but then she noticed something else.

There was no gap in the crowd of boys, and there were more boys than in the portrait downstairs. The baby—Teddy—was held on his mother’s hip, just a toddler, and the rest of them stood in age order. Gus was the tallest, maybe twelve years old, and there were two younger boys between him and the twins. The gap in the portrait downstairs was the space that had belonged to Gus’s next-younger brother.

Cara reached out and touched the image of that boy; his smile looked stiff and uncertain, but Gus and Laurence each had an arm around him.

“That’s Ilie,” Gus said quietly. “Eli is his English name, but he—he’s more a Dragomir than any of us.”

“He’s not in the portrait downstairs,” Cara realized. He wasn’t one of the ones whose names he had told her when he was pointing them all out. But Mouse was his, so he had to be here somewhere.

“He is, actually,” Gus said. “Just—further away than the rest of us, so he’s hard to spot. He’s different, but I hope I can introduce the two of you someday soon. He’ll like you.”

“Will I like him?” Cara asked, and then, watching to see if it was safe to tease a little, “Am I going to think he’s handsomer than you? Is that why you’re keeping us apart?”

Gus gave a startled laugh and turned to kiss her. Cara felt her body rousing to him despite the thoroughly satisfying time they’d had on the roof.

“I don’t know, you might,” Gus said. “I’ll have to make sure you’re really attached to me before I let you see him.”

“I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled,” Cara told him.

Whatever Gus might have said to that was interrupted by a dog barking.

It sounded far away, but Gus turned his head toward the noise, and Cara was reminded again of how quiet the big house was—how empty.

“That’s Mouse,” Gus said. “We should go see what he’s gotten into.”

Cara nodded, and Gus led her downstairs and down and down again—the tower turned out to have its own staircase that let out on the far side of the porch from where they’d come out of the woods.

Mouse was sitting right there, and when they appeared he set down something he’d been carrying in his mouth. Gus leaned over and picked it up, wiping it on his pajama pants before he turned to Cara.

It was her phone—with a huge crack in the screen like a lightning strike.

“If this is yours,” Gus said, “I’ll be happy to buy you a new one.”

“I thought it was gone for good,” Cara said, switching the phone on—miraculously, despite the cracked screen, it actually lit up, showing her usual lock screen. She raised her eyes to Mouse, trying to picture how he’d gotten to wherever her phone had landed, and how he’d known to bring it to her.

“Did he—did Ilie send him to bring it back?”

Gus opened his mouth, closed it, and then nodded. “Yeah. Ilie also saw you fall and told me where to find you, actually.”

That was…a little bit weird, but also sweet. If Gus hadn’t known to come and find her she might still be sitting on that ledge under the scenic overlook. “Well, then when we do meet I probably owe him a big…”

Gus gave her a dark look and Cara grinned. “Hug. Of course.”

“Go home, Mouse,” Gus said, wrapping an arm around Cara’s waist. “And you—tell me you’ll stay?”

“I didn’t really dress for anything else,” Cara said, hooking one bare leg around Gus’s silky one, feeling the material slide against the inside of her thigh.

“Good,” Gus agreed, and that was the last thing either of them said for a while.

***

Cara woke up in the middle of the night, tucked under Gus’s arm in his enormous bed. He tried to hold on when she squirmed away.

“I’ll come back,” she whispered, “go back to sleep.”

He let her go, and she was able to visit the bathroom without him protesting.

When she was finished with that she felt restless. Instead of going back to the bed where Gus was sleeping in a loose, invitingly naked curl, she padded barefoot down the stairs.

She stopped in the empty room below, even though the open space made her more conscious of her nakedness than she’d ever been. She put her chin up and walked all the way across the room, just because she could. She was rewarded with the sight of the moon rising out the eastern windows, casting a cool light into the room.

She leaned her forehead against the glass and looked out, wondering what she was doing here.

She was pretty sure that when Gus said he wanted her to stay, he meant stay. He’d grown up surrounded by people, but they’d all gone away from him, leaving him alone in this huge house. He wanted her here. He wanted—

Cara looked around the empty room again, and it suddenly fell into place; the little cluster of lines she saw on the windowsill were only confirmation. She knelt to look closer, and sure enough, the lines were labeled in lovely cursive writing: Augustin, 2 years—Ilie, 2 years—Teodor, Radu, Sorin, Laurentiu. Childish writing had corrected that last to LAURENCE.

This empty room was the nursery. Gus’s children were meant to sleep here someday. Gus had filled up every other room of his house; he would want to fill this one too. He would want a family like the one he’d grown up in, a pack of kids to fill up this place.

Cara ran her fingers over the set of names and thought about her own family. She hadn’t lost her parents, really. She visited them twice a year, for a sweltering week in the summer and a weirdly snowless Christmas. They talked on the phone once in a while, told her about their friends and their golf trips and their life that had nothing to do with her—like once she had turned eighteen and left the house, they were finished with her. She had no one.

But she could have Gus. She could have a family here, complete with a weird brother who lived in the woods and four more scattered around the world. Mouse. Kids. A life and a future where she had people to belong to, things to keep her in one place. Something to hold her.

She felt the emptiness of the room around her all over again, and she shivered a little and wrapped her arms around herself, wanting Gus’s arms holding her more than she wanted clothes. When she turned and found him standing at the bottom of the stairs, quietly watching her, it wasn’t even a surprise.

She hurried over to him, and he hugged her tight and then swept her up into his arms.

“Back to bed?” he murmured.

Cara put her arms around her neck and rested her head on his shoulder. “Where else?”

***

Cara put on the day before’s clothes just long enough for Gus to take her down to get her car the next day. He turned out to drive a pretty basic SUV, several years old.

“What, no BMW? No…” Cara couldn’t even think of a car fancy enough.

“A car’s just a car,” Gus said, shrugging. “Uh, also the hills out here are no place for expensive cars, especially in the winter. The good cars are at the house in Monaco.”

“…Monaco,” Cara repeated. “Oh. Of course.”

Gus offered her a nervous smile, like he was the one who might be found wildly inadequate. “I almost never go there. Laurence and Teddy—Teo—mostly use that house. I like it here. This is home.”

Home. Cara nodded, and looked out the window into the woods for the couple of minutes it took to get to her car. She kept looking into the woods as she followed Gus back to the house, searching for a glimpse of Mouse—or Ilie.

But she spotted nothing but trees and Gus’s bumper, and then it was time to get dressed and go to town to buy a new cell phone. Gus drove them down to the valley in his SUV, and parked it behind a pretty old stone building that turned out to be the Town Hall, where of course Gus had a reserved parking space.

“Do you need to go to work?” Cara asked, abruptly reminded that not everyone in the world had quit their jobs and run away from their whole lives. Gus was the mayor here. He had responsibilities.

“Not really,” Gus said, smiling. “Work always finds me when it needs me.”

Cara quickly found out what he meant: they didn’t make it a hundred feet from Gus’s car before someone called out, “Mayor Gray!”

Gus held on firmly to Cara’s hand as he turned. “Hello, Mrs. McCullough. Everything all right at the shop?”

“The shop’s fine, dear,” said Mrs. McCullough, who was at least eighty years old and whose sharp eyes were scanning intently over Cara.

“But how are you? I don’t believe I’ve met your friend.”

Gus shot her an apologetic look and mouthed small town.

“This is Cara Linley,” Gus said. “She’s from Iowa, she’s been looking for a new place to settle down.”

“Well, dear, you can’t beat Gray’s Hollow,” Mrs. McCullough said immediately, with a blinding smile.

“And you can’t beat Mayor Gray, either.” This was followed by a wink that made Cara blush a little, even though she agreed.

“Thanks for that vote of confidence, ma’am,” Gus said, and Cara could hear him struggling not to laugh. “But I just met Cara yesterday. Let’s not rush her into anything.”

He was holding on tight to her hand as he said it, though.

Mrs. McCullough shook her head. “Your mother and father decided on each other in the time it took her to pour him a cup of coffee, young man. I don’t know why you think you need more than a day.”

Gus shot Cara another sideways look, and Cara smiled and squeezed his hand.

“I’m not going to rush the lady,” Gus insisted, turning his gaze back to Mrs. McCullough. “Let’s give her until after lunch, at least.”

“You’ve dragged your feet long enough, Mayor,” Mrs. McCullough said sternly, but she added, “lovely to meet you, dear,” to Cara before she headed back across the street to a florist’s shop.

“Sorry,” Gus said, aiming them toward a surprisingly sleek-looking electronics store for such a small town. “That… might happen again.”

It happened eight times in the time it took Cara to pick out a new phone.

No one would let her have anything but the newest, shiniest one with all the best features, but there was some debate about exactly which one was the very best. She heard four different times about Gus’s mom pouring his dad a cup of coffee and the two of them basically being engaged by the time he’d finished drinking it.

She couldn’t decide whether that made her feeling of instant connection with Gus feel more or less strange. It did explain why he seemed willing to jump to the same conclusion, though. He must have been hearing that story about his parents all his life, and he’d been waiting for some girl to come along and give him a story of his own like that.

She couldn’t figure out why it was her, but as Gus introduced her to one person after another—always proudly, always holding on firmly to her hand—she couldn’t deny that he meant it.

No one, seeing her in her clean but still geared-for-a-road-trip clothes, seemed to think there was anything strange about Gus choosing her. Not one person made even the most veiled remark about how Gus could have had someone prettier, or skinnier, or richer, or more interesting.

The whole town took one look at Gus holding her hand and seemed to decide just as quickly as Gus himself had that they belonged together. Cara didn’t know how to react to any of it, but it was nice. Really nice. Fairy tale nice.

She didn’t have to go to Monaco to feel like a princess, apparently. Gray’s Hollow was already giving her as much of that as she could handle.

She wondered if Gus would mind her trying on that tiara she’d glimpsed the day before in the treasure room.

They’d barely stepped outside the electronics store, Cara’s shiny new phone in hand, when a woman hurried up. She was a couple of inches shorter than Cara with equally soft curves, though hers were firmly contained in a pantsuit. She had dark red hair caught up in a bun and wore sunglasses against the bright morning.

“Mayor,” she said sternly.

Gus squeezed Cara’s hand and, for the first time in the parade of interruptions and introductions that had been their morning, he sighed. “Cara, Deputy Mayor Hannah Cole. I did mention that work would find me, didn’t I? Deputy Mayor, Cara Linley.”

Cara couldn’t see Hannah’s eyes behind her sunglasses, but her smile seemed warm, and her voice was genuinely apologetic as she said, “I’m so sorry, Miss Linley, I just have to steal the mayor—it’s the state Board of Ed, Gus, and the school board is trying to punt everything to you again.”

Gus sighed once more and turned to Cara with an equally apologetic look.

Cara smiled and shook her head. “It’s fine, go. I’ll just—head back to the house.”

No way was she staying in town to be interrogated without Gus.

Gus reached for his keys, ready to offer them to her, but Cara waved them away. “I’ve spent enough time driving lately. It’ll be nice to go somewhere I can walk to.”

Gus gave her a warm, startled smile at that, and leaned in to kiss her softly.

“There’s a trail, if you don’t want to walk on the road,” he said, pointing to the end of the next cross street. “There’s a sign for the turn-off to the mayor’s house, you can’t miss it.”

Cara nodded, and Gus gave her one more kiss, leaning in to whisper, “I’ll be home as soon as I can, sweetheart.”

Cara bit her lip against the giddy warmth she felt at that, and only whispered back, “I’ll be waiting for you, honey.”

Gus grinned as he straightened up, and then he turned to Hannah and said dutifully, “Lead on, Deputy.”

Cara headed away down the street Gus had indicated, and though she felt plenty of looks directed her way, none of them seemed unkind, and no one pressed her. She’d nearly reached the trail when she heard someone running up behind her. She turned to see a teenaged boy, brandishing a colorful bouquet of flowers. They weren’t roses, but a riot of brightly colored lilies and orchids, rare and exotic hothouse flowers.

“Mrs. M says, welcome to Gray’s Hollow, miss,” the boy recited shyly, holding them out to her like an offering.

Cara resisted the urge to curtsey as she took them.

“Thank you,” she said. Gus had said something about people giving the mayor presents—did that extend to the mayor’s…

Her brain went a little blank at the thought of people in town already regarding her as the mayor’s—Gus’s—wife, and yet it seemed they almost did. She pushed the thought away and sniffed at the gorgeous flowers as she started down the well-tended trail, which climbed the slope up toward Gus’s house in a series of gentle switchbacks. She’d turned twice when she heard a familiar friendly bark, and Mouse popped out of the trees.

“Why hello,” Cara said, and she did try out a curtsey on Mouse.

He danced cheerfully in front of her, darting in to be petted when she reached out a hand. After a moment he settled in at her side, and Cara laughed.

“Are you here to make sure I don’t get lost?” she asked.

Then she realized—if Mouse had come to guide her safely up to the house, it was probably because Ilie was doing the same thing, somewhere out of sight, the same way Ilie had seen her fall and found her phone for her. As she neared the next turn up the trail, Cara looked around, trying to spot the shape of someone nearby in the trees.

“Ilie?” She called as she rounded the next turn. The path went straight up here—there was a flight of stairs, with a railing, and what looked like a larger, flatter clearing at the top. Cara took a deep breath and started up them, still looking around.

“Ilie?” she tried again. “If you can hear me, I’d love to see you. Gus said he’s excited for us to meet.”

Mouse had been keeping pace, right beside her, as they climbed the stairs, but a few seconds after she finished speaking he began to bark and went tearing off to the top. It was hard to hear over the barking, but she thought she heard something up above—something big, something that stirred the branches of the trees.

Cara ran, too.

She froze at the top of the stairs, clutching the railing and her flowers like they would protect her.

There was a thing, an impossible thing, in the clearing there. Wings, she thought first, and then she thought, dragon.

Just like in stories, just like in pictures, except that this dragon was undeniably real. He loomed over her, inky black with a blue sheen where the light touched, with silvery-gray eyes. His head, at the end of a long, sinuous neck, was held level with hers, and his wings were held half-open.

Mouse was still barking. Cara tore her gaze away from the dragon and saw that Mouse was dancing around in front of him, barking and wagging his tail, exactly as if he expected to be petted.

She suddenly remembered Gus saying, Ilie is different, and Ilie is more a Dragomir than any of us.

“Dragomir,” she repeated, finally getting it. She took a shaky step forward and then another.

The dragon dropped his gaze, ducking his massive head down to nudge affectionately at Mouse. The dog promptly rolled over, wriggling around on his back and still wagging his tail. The dragon obligingly rubbed his belly.

No, not the dragon. Ilie.

“Ilie,” Cara said out loud, and the dragon looked at her again. “It’s you, isn’t it? Gus is your brother. You’re Ilie.”

I am. The dragon’s mouth didn’t move, and the voice sounded human—serious and careful, but human. She heard it perfectly clearly and she knew she wasn’t really hearing it at all.

Cara laughed, from a combination of nerves and sheer delighted fascination.

You wanted adventure, she thought. You thought you felt like a princess from a fairy tale.

Gus’s brother was a dragon. Which probably meant that Gus himself…

Cara heard a roar, far away but coming closer, and Ilie spread his wings wide as she turned to look. She heard his voice, anxious and confused. Gus? She said—

The roar sounded again, so close she covered her ears, and she heard a voice that was unmistakably Gus, but furious as she couldn’t have imagined him. Get away from her!

She heard the beat of great wings, and then a silver-gray dragon, even bigger than Ilie, was dropping into the clearing like a hawk diving at its prey. The dragon’s claws were extended, his mouth open to show enormous teeth. He was throwing himself straight at Ilie, who was backing away, trying to make himself small, crying out in Cara’s mind, Gus, please!

Cara didn’t think. She threw herself in front of Ilie, spreading her arms wide as if she could shield someone the size of an RV with just her body.

Gus’s dive turned to an awkward tumble at the last second as he reversed direction to avoid hitting her. He came so close she could see every individual tooth and his gray eyes, wide with fury giving way to horror. He hit the ground so hard that it shook, and Cara stumbled back against Ilie as Gus righted himself. There was a frozen second where no one moved, and Cara could hear herself and two dragons breathing, and Mouse whining near her feet where he was cowering against Ilie’s body.

Then Gus roared again, and under and over the deafening sound she could hear him saying, She’s mine! Don’t touch her!

Cara flushed with fury and threw the only thing she had in hand—the bouquet of flowers, which hit Gus and shattered against his dragon snout into a hundred bits of bright orange and pink and green. “She’s right here! And how dare you attack Ilie when he was just talking to me!”

Gus reared back, looking down at her like he was shocked that she’d dared to argue with him, and Cara couldn’t take it anymore. She turned away from both of them and ran up the trail as fast as her legs could carry her, and Mouse ran by her side, his usual happy barking silenced.

From behind her she heard the sound of enormous wings. She tore off the trail into the trees and ran blindly into the woods where nothing as big as a dragon could follow. Her headlong flight seemed to go on and on, but she knew she hadn’t gone very far when she had to stop, gasping for breath and clutching a tree to stay upright.

What had just happened? How had she gone so fast from feeling like a princess down in the town, thinking about marrying a man she’d just met, to meeting a dragon to throwing herself between two dragons? And one of them was Gus? She felt tears stinging her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath.

Mouse came to lean against her leg, whining softly again. Cara dropped down to her knees to hug him. He’d been scared, too, but he’d stayed beside her.

Cara?

Cara jumped to her feet, but Gus was nowhere in sight. His voice sounded soft and hesitant, apologetic.

I’m so sorry, he said gently. Will you come and talk to me?

Cara looked around—and up—but didn’t see a sign of either the Gus she knew or the huge gray dragon. She thought about telling him to leave her alone, but she wanted to understand what had happened. And, she realized, she had no idea where she was.

“Where?”

Mouse will bring you, Gus told her.

Cara looked down. Mouse’s ears pricked forward, his tail coming up from its fearful tuck. He looked up at her and then started picking his way through the trees. It wasn’t his joyful race toward Ilie, but he wasn’t hesitating, either.

“I’m coming,” Cara said. “And you’d better be ready to explain some things.”

Anything you want, Gus promised, and then Mouse barked and darted ahead of her a little way. Cara realized they were coming up to another clearing.

For a moment she thought Gus was there already, sitting with his wings spread in the middle of the open space. But as she came closer she realized that this gray dragon was made of stone. She walked over to it, barely noticing when Mouse trotted away.

It wasn’t only a stone dragon—there was a sculpture of a woman perched on the dragon’s foreleg, sheltered under his wing. The carving was beautifully detailed, life-sized. Cara felt she was looking right into a person’s face, a woman maybe twenty years older than herself, and she could recognize the woman’s resemblance to Gus.

Was this his mother? And the dragon—his father?

She heard wings, and saw Gus land at the edge of the clearing. She stayed where she was, under the stone dragon’s wing, and watched him walk closer.

He was a little awkward on the ground, his wings and tail bobbing, his head held low. She had no doubt he could have covered the distance in a single leap, one flap of his wings, but he walked slowly to her, giving her time to study the softly shiny gray of his scales. She could see a fine, glittery line of gold around the base of his neck that seemed to be the same chains she’d seen around his neck in human shape; there was a tracing of gold around his foreleg too.

Of course he loved shiny things. Of course he hoarded them. Gus was a dragon.

When he’d reached her he curled down small—well, as small as he could. He brought his head down low enough to look her in the eyes.

I want to thank you, first, he said. For stopping me from hurting Ilie. I never would have forgiven myself.

It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “Oh. Well. Anyone would—”

No, he said. Anyone would run the hell away from two full-grown dragons. Anyone would scream and hide from the monsters in front of her. Anyone would assume one dragon could hold his own against another and get herself out of the way. You were incredibly brave.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, shaking her head at the thought of herself being brave, instead of just impetuous and half-crazy. When she left her safe life behind, she’d never expected to go this far in the other direction.

“Why would you attack him? He’s your little brother. You love him, I know you do.”

Gus ducked his head, his wings coming forward in something like a shrug, or maybe like he wanted to hide himself with them, before he lowered them again.

He was too close to you. I—the dragon in me—I recognized you as my mate from the moment we met. It makes me need to know you’re mine—but you’re not yet. My dragon can’t stand the thought that another dragon might steal you away. I know better, but I’m not always good at acting like a civilized human being—or any kind of human being. Not when it comes to my dragon instincts.

There were a hundred other questions she should ask, and at least half of them were just Dragons?!

But Cara said, “If you knew for sure that I was yours, would you calm down? You said you wanted me to meet him, was that just—wishful thinking?”

Gus shook his head quickly. Once I’m sure of you, I’ll be sure—mated dragons are much calmer in general. Even without a mate to fight over, my brothers and I can’t be around each other too much these days. If we were all mated, we could all live in town and never fight.

Gus made another little shrugging motion, and his mouth drew back in a dragonish smile, teeth glinting. Not like that, anyway.

Cara couldn’t help smiling back. “What would it take to make you sure?”

Gus shook his head harder this time. It’s a big decision. There’s a lot to talk about.

“We’re talking, aren’t we?” Cara said. “I don’t have anything else planned for today.”

Gus heaved an enormous sigh and nodded.

Hold on, he said. I need to change for this.

Then he curled in on himself—not just curling up but shrinking, Cara realized, when the sight began to really bend her brain. She shut her eyes and shook her head, trying to make the impossible sight fall into place. When she looked again Gus was standing there, naked except for the glitter of gold around his neck and curling up his left wrist.

He walked up to her like he hardly noticed his own nakedness, and he sat down in the grass at the feet of the stone dragon. She sat down facing him, at the feet of the woman. She noticed, when she sat, that the statue woman was also adorned with something shiny. There was a thick gold bangle around one ankle, more than an inch wide and sized so that it obviously couldn’t come off over her foot. Cara couldn’t resist touching it gently.

“It’s the same one she wore when she was alive.”

Cara looked up sharply, but Gus’s gaze was fixed on her fingers where they touched the anklet.

“Your mother?” Cara asked, though she knew already.

Gus nodded without looking up. “My father took it from her ankle after she died—death freed her of her promises. He buried her with all her favorite jewels, all the treasures he loved most, but not that. That was only for her memory, once she was gone, so he placed it here.

“Once the funeral was over he transformed,” Gus looked up at the dragon above him—his father, surely as recognizable to him in that shape as his human mother. “He never changed back. I became mayor, though he still kept the peace among us boys for that last year. But he couldn’t live without her, and it wasn’t long before he followed her. That’s what it means, for a dragon to take a mate.”

Cara felt herself reeling at the idea of Gus pining away for her. She was horrified at the idea of his death, even if it was after her own. “Is that—do you not want…”

Gus looked up for the first time, meeting her eyes with a startled look. “No, I—a life without a mate—without you—would be half a life. But you should know what you’re agreeing to.”

Cara nodded slowly. “Is that the worst of it?”

Gus shrugged stiffly, looking away again. “It depends on what you want. I—I want children.”

“I know,” Cara said, and suddenly she couldn’t bear not touching Gus while having this conversation. She scooted close enough for her legs to cross his, and set her hand on his knee. He immediately set his hand over hers.

Cara said gently, “The nursery is awfully empty, isn’t it?”

Gus glanced over, meeting her eyes, and nodded before he looked away. “Is that—do you…”

“I want a family,” Cara said. “You know I was an only child, and I’m not close to my parents or the rest of my family. I want more than that. I want to make a family with someone—with you.”

Gus’s hand tightened on hers, and he said, “Dragons usually have only one or two children—my pack of brothers is kind of a fluke. And the children you have—they’ll be like me. Dragons.”

“Your mother wasn’t?” Cara asked, though it seemed obvious.

“Perfectly human,” Gus said, and he lifted her hand up and curled forward to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Like you.”

“Did you love her less because she wasn’t a dragon? Did she love any of you boys less?”

Gus shook his head hard. “That isn’t—I don’t think you wouldn’t love them, but their lives might not be like you imagined.”

“They might be like Ilie, you mean,” Cara said, and the real meaning of it struck her for the first time since she’d realized who the dragon was. “He’s a dragon all the time. He can’t change back?”

“I think he could—my father told me once that he could force Ilie to shift—but he doesn’t. The younger a shifter is when they first change, the stronger the dragon is in him. Ilie was four months old. I remember standing over his crib—I was two or three, so it was around the time I first shifted.

“We would play together like that, trying to fly in the nursery, tussling around. But he shifted more and more often as he grew up—being a dragon always just felt right to him. And when he was thirteen he changed for good.”

“And?” Cara asked, looking up again at the sculpture they sat under, woman and dragon together. “Did that break your mother’s heart?”

Gus smiled down at their joined hands. “Not that I ever saw. I think Ilie was her favorite. But it’s—it’s something you should consider.”

“Gus,” Cara said. “I’ve considered things carefully for my whole life. I was always cautious. I always did the smart thing, every time. I got good grades so I could go to a good school so I could get a good job, and that job was boring and a little soul-crushing, but it was safe, and steady, so I kept doing it. I stayed with it. I didn’t date sketchy guys, I didn’t drink at parties, I didn’t go out alone at night—I didn’t take the chance, okay? I never took the chance.”

Gus watched her in silence, his gray eyes intent.

“But being careful has meant being alone,” Cara went on. “Having no one to hold me in one place. No one to hold me in my life, nothing to keep me there at all. That’s why I ran away, that’s why I’ve been on this road trip, because there’s nothing for me anywhere.

“I wanted to take chances, I wanted to—swing boldly. And you weren’t there to catch me, exactly, but you were there to pick me up and dust me off after I fell on my ass, and I knew the second I saw you, the same as you knew as soon as you saw me. I didn’t know it was possible, but that’s what I want. I want to belong with you—belong to you, if that’s what you want. I want this. If it’s hard later—we’ll be together, won’t we? We’ll face it together.”

Gus leaned closer and closer as she spoke. He kissed her when she’d finished, pushing her gently down onto the grass as he straddled her. He went on kissing and kissing her, and she was really, really aware now that he was naked.

Also his mom was watching.

“I love you,” Gus whispered against her lips. “God, Cara—you’re so brave, and I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she whispered back. “So how do I convince you that I mean it?”

Gus picked his head up, and his expression was decidedly rueful. He was actually blushing a little. “It’s…there’s a kind of ritual, for mating, when you’re ready to really mean it. It’s very…traditional.”

“Traditional?” Cara repeated, picturing a white dress, a church.

“Dragon shifter traditional,” Gus explained. He was definitely blushing a little now. “Every dragon shifter’s mate is his princess, in a certain way. Do you know how princesses usually meet dragons?”

It was Cara’s turn to blush, but the heat flashed from her face to her stiffening nipples to her pussy. “I’m…starting to have an idea.”

“I can show you,” he said hesitantly. “Where, and—what’s involved. If you don’t want to do this today…”

“I want you,” Cara insisted. “Show me.”

Gus kissed her again, long and lingeringly. He stood, pulling her up to her feet as he did. “It’s a long walk, but a short flight. I could carry you, if you want.”

Cara looked up involuntarily at the wings of the stone dragon, and back to Gus. “You—you could carry me? Flying?”

Gus grinned. “Would that be bold enough for you? I promise not to let you fall this time.”

“Yes,” Cara said, because there was no other possible answer.

Gus kissed her one more time before he turned and ran out into the open space of the clearing, his arms flung wide. They stretched impossibly wide, and then they weren’t arms, they were spreading wings. His fair skin was gray scales, neck stretching and tail unfurling.

He turned back to face her and he was a dragon, and he curled his wings tight to his sides.

All aboard.

“Oh, God,” Cara said, her eyes roving over him. “Where…”

The next thing she heard from Gus wasn’t words but a sort of sudden, vivid mental image, showing her exactly how. He extended a foreleg for her to climb onto. He boosted her up that way, onto his back, between the huge expanse of his wings. She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around the base of his neck.

Ready?

“Sure,” she said unsteadily.

Cara screamed in delight and wild rollercoaster fear as he leaped into the air with no more warning than that. His huge wings beat steadily, taking them up, up above the clearing, above the trees.

The view of the mountainside and the valley below were even more beautiful from here, but Cara was mostly conscious of the power of Gus’s body beneath her. She could feel the bunch and flex of muscles and the beating of his wings. And that was to say nothing of the fact that she was flying on the back of a dragon.

She’d barely gotten her head around it before Gus was gliding down to a gentle landing in another mountainside clearing. There was a small building in this one, looking like nothing more than a solidly built shed.

The time it took Gus to transform back was enough for her to notice that it did seem to have a very sturdy door, but the door opened at a touch from Gus. He obviously wasn’t hiding a key anywhere. The shed’s interior was dim, but Cara could see that it contained only a few things. There was a row of shelves, from which Gus took a pair of pants and slipped into them.

He led her to a staircase descending underground in a tight spiral.

“I’ll go ahead of you again,” Gus told her with a smile, and as soon as he stepped on the first stair, she saw lights turning on below. The lights seemed to be welcoming them into whatever was down there.

The stairs went down through a few full turns, enough to leave her a little dizzy at the bottom. That was definitely her excuse for leaning into Gus as soon as she got there, kissing him for a few long, slow moments before she looked around.

They were in some kind of tunnel; she could see arched openings on either side.

“Oh my God, caves,” Cara said.

“Well, like I said,” Gus grinned, “dragon traditions. We do keep a lot of our treasure in banks and things these days, but we like to keep some shiny stuff close.”

“And by some,” Cara said, as Gus took her hand and led her down the tunnel, “you mean…”

“A lot,” Gus admitted. “I mean—eight generations of magpie hoarders, this stuff adds up. The one I’m taking you to is the oldest, the first—the heart of the hoard.”

Cara tightened her hand on his, and he looked over at her and smiled.

“I would think there would be more locks,” Cara said. The openings of the caves to either side didn’t even have doors; she could see shiny glints inside as they passed. “Or, well…”

“A dragon guarding it all?” Gus asked. “I mean, that’s traditionally how it works. And that’s still how it works—there’s kind of a supernatural alarm system. If someone other than a dragon tries to come in… We’ve set it up now to mostly just scare people, because once every generation or so some kid from town gets the idea to try to sneak in and figures out a way past the lock on the door—”

“It wasn’t locked!” Cara interrupted.

“It was,” Gus assured her, wriggling his fingers. “There’s gold in the lock—we have a certain affinity for gold. It does what we ask it to. There are no keys for that lock, but I assure you, I unlocked it and locked it again after us.”

“So kids pick the lock—”

“They hear a roaring sound, see some fire,” Gus said, waving a hand. “And I’m alerted, so if they don’t come running out pretty quick they get a roaring sound from me, too, or Ilie. That…solves the problem, generally.”

“People in town know, then,” Cara said, but of course they must.

Had he gone running out of the mayor’s office when he realized Ilie was talking to her? Had he changed right in the middle of Main Street, taken wing in front of Mrs. McCullough and everyone at the electronics store?

“Yes,” Gus said. “My eight times great-grandfather founded the town—financed the first church and school and so on—and the people here have always known what we are. We look after them, they keep our secrets. It works pretty well for everyone, although I really do hope Radu will come back and be mayor soon. Hannah is going to lose her patience with me one of these years.”

“It’ll be easier when you have a mate, won’t it?” Cara asked, squeezing his hand. “Your brothers can be around more?”

Gus nodded, smiling hopefully at her, and tugged her forward. They’d reached the end of the tunnel, where it led around a little curve and into the last—the first—of the caves.

For a moment Cara thought they’d stepped outside. The cave was so dazzlingly bright that it seemed like they were standing in full sunshine. But after a moment her eyes adjusted, and she realized that what she was seeing was the reflection off a mound of gold that half-filled the little cave. It covered the entire floor and heaped up halfway to the ceiling.

She stepped toward it, wanting to touch, trying to see what it was made up of, other than gold. It looked like a jumble of coins and beads, and irregular little shapes like gold-plated gravel that must be gold nuggets. There were squared-off gold bars in a few places, golden jewelry, finer gold chains winding through.

She turned back to stare at Gus, who was smiling contentedly, here in the cave with his dragon hoard heap of gold.

“The light comes down from the surface,” Gus said, like that was the part that required explanation. “There are a couple of shafts up from here, and a system of prisms and mirrors so that it’s all sealed up but the light still gets down here.”

“Gus,” Cara said, looking helplessly back at the huge pile of gold. “Can I…”

“I wish you would,” Gus said.

When Cara looked at him again, she could see his eyes were dark with want, and there was a flush on his cheeks that was spreading downward. The sparkle of gold at his throat and on his wrist seemed brighter here, reflecting back the light of the hoard. It also seemed quite restrained, compared to the incredible profusion piled up.

Cara took a step forward and then, feeling only a little silly, she stopped and took off her shoes and socks. She walked barefoot into the pile of gold as if she were walking into the water on a beach, poking her toes into the surf of coins and beads. She waded in further, feeling the heavy, cool pieces of gold part around her feet and pile around her ankles. Every move set off little cascades as more gold rolled down.

She laughed, feeling like a kid in the shiniest candy store ever. There were piles of gold, just lying there like pebbles, sliding down around her feet. She looked around as Gus stepped in after her.

The golden light made Gus shine.

As amazing as he’d been in his enormous silver-gray dragon form, he looked even more otherworldly now. His eyes glowed with something that Cara knew wasn’t a reflection of the light that shone on them both. It was Gus’s own dragon fire, shining through. Shining at her.

And she had come here to promise herself to him, to receive his promise that he would keep on shining at her that way forever.

“What next?” Cara said, and her voice came out hushed.

Gus leaned in, his hands finding her waist as he kissed her in the warm glow. “I want to see my hoard shining on your skin.”

Cara nodded, raising her arms above her head as Gus peeled her shirt up and off. He ducked his head, kissing the top curves of her breasts as he unfastened her bra, and she was aware of the feeling of the body-warmed gold of his chains resting against her breasts as they were freed.

His hands moved down unhesitatingly, opening her jeans, and he moved slowly down to his knees, kissing his way down the soft curve of her belly. He slid her jeans down over her hips and helped her smoothly out of them. The gold around her feet made a soft musical sound as she shook each foot loose.

Gus ran his hands up her bare legs, his fingers moving reverently over every curve, and then he said, “Lie down with me, darling.”

Cara nodded and let Gus guide her down to lie on a slope of gold—it was cool under her, but not as hard or lumpy as she expected. It slid silkily under her, cradling her like the softest beach.

She gave a startled little laugh as stray coins and beads fell over her shoulders, spilling down over her breasts and sliding on her belly.

Cara looked up at Gus, kneeling beside her, and found she had an excellent view of his cock, pressing hard against the soft pants he was wearing. She looked up at his shining eyes and reached for the waistband of his pants. “What if I want to see your skin, too?”

“Then your wish is my command,” Gus said, grinning brightly.

He slipped somehow gracefully out of his pants, revealing his hard cock to her eager eyes. Cara reached for him, but Gus caught her hand, his hand circling her wrist gently but firmly as he pushed it down.

“Don’t distract me too much, though,” he said.

“Right,” Cara said, anticipation tingling over her skin as she raised her arms above her head again.

She let her legs slide open a little further, setting off more chiming cascades of gold around her.

“There’s a tradition, right?”

“Yes,” Gus said, and there was no ruefulness in his gaze anymore, only heat and desire. “You play the part of the princess. And a princess should be beautifully adorned.”

He rummaged among the gold around him and came up with delicate chains dangling from his fingers. Cara lifted her head to help him lower some around her neck, chains spilling over her breasts.

He picked up more, twining them around her hair to hold it up. He found bracelets for her wrists, kissing her hands and up her arms as he placed them, and more for her ankles, kissing his way up to her thighs. She parted them easily, welcoming him. Draped in gold, bathed in light, she was beginning to feel as if she really was his princess, something nearly as magical as he was.

“Now tell me,” Gus murmured, looking up at her from between her thighs, his breath just touching where she was wet and hot. “How does a princess meet a dragon?”

“She’s given to him,” Cara whispered. She had her hands up over her head again, offering herself.

Gus smiled, nodding.

“Or if the dragon is very, very lucky, maybe she runs away and gives herself. And if the dragon is a wicked dragon, she is a sacrifice, given to appease him. But if the dragon is good, then he won’t devour her. She will become the most precious of all the dragon’s treasures, and all his other riches will belong to her, because he will only care to possess the heart of his hoard—his princess.”

“Yes,” Cara breathed. “Gus, please, yes, make me yours.”

“Just a few more chains,” Gus said, moving up to kneel over her, rummaging again among the gold. “Just to be sure the princess is truly offered up.”

Cara couldn’t even speak, only offered her wrists to Gus’s hands. The bracelets he fastened now were heavy—single shining pieces, smooth and solid. When he stroked his fingers over them they seemed tightened somehow around her wrists so that they couldn’t slip free.

When she tugged at them she found them attached to heavy chains that disappeared into the hoard. She was held fast, chained down with a dragon’s gold. She felt molten inside, so hot and wet and ready for this.

“Cara?” Gus said softly, and she looked up and met his eyes. They were plain gray now, questioning. “Is this okay?”

Cara tilted her head back, arching her body up as she struggled to find words that were a little more coherently reassuring than yes, yes, now.

“Gus, yes,” she said, breathlessly. “Make me yours. Make me stay.”

Gus’s eyes lit again, glowing hot. He kissed her deeply, his hands again caressing her like she was more precious than anything else.

The heat of his body made her press up, wanting him inside her, and after a moment his hands pressed her hips down and he broke the kiss, his mouth trailing down her body until he was kneeling between her legs. He found the heavy anklets that matched the bands on her wrists and fastened them in place so that she couldn’t move at all. She could only squirm a little under his gaze.

“Gus, please. I need you.”

“Of course,” Gus whispered, but he pushed his fingers into her dripping wet pussy, still not giving her what she really wanted.

She threw her head back—the gold wound in her hair and under her head chimed softly all around her as Gus’s fingers worked inside her, soon joined by Gus’s mouth. Her cries echoed through the little cave as Gus brought her over the brink.

“Now,” she demanded, as soon as she could speak again. “My dragon, now.”

Gus made a rumbling sound that made her shiver in memory of his great roar, and he moved over her. He kissed her, and she could feel the heat of his cock against her thigh. He was bare, she realized. She hadn’t brought a condom down here, and he certainly hadn't had one in his pocket.

“Yes,” she whispered against his mouth. “Yes, Gus, now, I’m yours.”

He kissed her hard then, driving into her with a long, deep stroke.

She tried to arch up to meet him and only made herself more aware of everywhere she was held fast. She pressed up against her bonds just to know they were there as Gus moved inside her, filling her exquisitely. It wasn’t long before she was coming again.

It was drawn out this time, waves of pleasure making her feel as though she was soaring even as she was held so firmly in place. Gus kept moving in her and over her, dragging it out until he tipped his head back and roared through his own release, filling her completely.

His cheek brushed hers as he let his head drop, breathing as hard as she was. Then he reached up over her head, touching her wrists. Before she could protest she felt some pressure release, and she found she was able to move her hands, but the heavy bracelets stayed in place. He’d only detached them from their chains.

“Yours now,” he murmured, gathering her to him as he turned onto his side, so that she rested on him as much as on the gold. “You’ll wear them?”

“Always,” she whispered. “My dragon.”

“Always,” he murmured back, sounding as perfectly contented as she felt. “Always, my princess. My love.”