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I’m grinning when I tug her against me at the foot of the porch and kiss her forehead. “Come on, Aya. Your wolf needs a hunt, and I want to provide you both a fresh kill.” I lean back and push my lip out to match hers. “Please, baby?”

She stares at me, then huffs and takes my hand. That’s good enough. I thread my fingers through hers and lead her toward the tree line with a small duffel bag slung over my shoulder.

She eyes it. “What’s that for?”

“Just some extra essentials we might need.” I pat the strap.

Her scent heats as she ducks her face. My dragon has paced beneath my skin all day. Now that we’re finally doing this, he’s damn near purring.

“You are very prepared,” she says.

I steer her across the last stretch of the clearing and under the trees. “Well, it’s not exactly the typical date night humans have, but it’s still special. So I want to make sure everything is perfect.”

She giggles at that and quits dragging her feet. We walk until I can’t hear the community behind us anymore, only her breathing and pine needles crunching underfoot. Branches scrape our arms where the path narrows. I tuck her in at my back and take the worst of them. The trees open into a gap in the canopy where the stars are filling in. The night is mild, not that it matters to us. Our bodies are built for harsh weather, especially my mate’s. Wolf shifters run hot.

I drop my duffel at the base of a tree and strip. Aya stays where she is, enjoying the show. I toss my shirt on top of the bag and kick my sweatpants aside. It’s a good thing we skipped shoes tonight. I’m tired of destroying a pair every time I shift. I stand there naked while she looks her fill from my shoulders down to my feet and back up. Her scent thickens the longer she stares. My dragon preens under her attention. He’s taking all the credit.

“You never really bonded with my dragon,” I say. “Just me.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “Your dragon is always with you. I’ve noticed most of you rarely shift into your full dragon form. You always partially shift.”

I can’t argue with her there. “After the Great War, most of Ash Clan lost their will to fully shift. Dragons carry the blame for the betrayal. The ones who took part were executed, and the community never trusted the rest of us again. The full dragon was the form everyone feared, so the clan kept to itself for centuries and stopped wearing it. Then the world modernized on top of that.” I shrug. “We just don’t do it much anymore. We mostly only shift to hunt.”

She steps toward me with sympathy filling her scent. “Oh, Ezra…”

I put my hand up. She stops short of touching me. I don’t need her pity tonight. I want to prove I can provide for her, that I’m a good mate. This is shifter nature. As a wolf, she should understand that better than anyone.

“Can you please—” I try.

“All right, Ezra,” she cuts in. “I get it. You want to keep the tradition of the old ways.” She lifts her chin. “But let me ask you something. Is it you, or is it your dragon?”

“Both,” I answer without hesitating.

My dragon crowds the surface when she smiles. Heat rolls up my neck. My fangs ache to drop. I brace against him while she backs up and gives me room.

I quit fighting him, and the shift rips through me. My bones crack and lengthen. Scales split across my body in dark waves with a burn that races down my arms. My fingers curl into claws and dig into the dirt. Behind me, my tail whips out and carves a groove in the earth. My wings tear free from my back and blot out the stars. My jaw stretches long and fills with fangs. The world is sharper through my dragon’s eyes. He finds Aya standing small and beautiful in the gap between the trees. She isn’t scared of him at all.

He gets more out of her scent than I do. He can smell her wolf stirring and pushing toward him. When she comes closer, he doesn’t so much as twitch. He has no idea what to do with her.

“We’ve met before, remember?” she says. “When you were fighting my dad.”

My dragon winces and dips his head. She brushes her fingers over his scales. He shudders down to the tip of his tail. I shiver with him from the inside. She works her way up his neck and traces the grooves along his plates. He bows lower until she can press her hands against the broad, flat space at the top of his snout.

“Hi, Ezra’s dragon,” she whispers.

She leans in and plants a warm kiss between the ridges on his head. He purrs for her. He’s loved her as long as I have without ever getting to say so. She keeps her lips pressed to his scales. “I love you too.”

His heart takes off. When she pulls back, he whimpers. I didn’t know he had it in him. Mother Fate help me, the beast all of Wintermoon fears is whining over a kiss.

Aya giggles. “I’m hungry. Go get me something to eat.”

My dragon launches on hard wingbeats. I don’t even get a vote. The downdraft whips Aya’s hair back and scatters leaves across the forest floor. He punches through the canopy into the open sky, where the night air streams over his scales. I forgot how good it feels to fly in his full body. The woods spread out black beneath him and sway in the wind off his wings. A half-moon hangs low on the horizon, throwing silver light across the treetops.

He banks east toward the ridge where the forest grows dense. The bigger prey runs there at night. His nostrils flare as he sorts through pine and wet earth for the scent he wants. When he catches it, every muscle in him locks. It’s a healthy young elk moving along a deer trail near a creek bed.

He drops low and glides between the tallest trees with his wings drawn in. A forest hunt is nothing like the open sky. Up there no one can touch him, but down here he has to work for it. He squeezes his bulk past the trunks with his tail out for balance. Bark scrapes his scales anywhere the gap runs tight.

He spots the elk through a break in the branches. It’s a young bull pawing at the dirt near the water. He can hear its calm heartbeat from up here. It has no idea he’s coming. He circles above the tree line and waits for the right angle to dive.