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Chapter 1
Evan
The worn path beneath my boots was familiar. The crunch of gravel. The scent of summer grass. I’d walked this trail countless times. Could do it in my sleep. What surprised me was that even after seventeen years, this forest deep in the Carey clan lands still felt like an old friend welcoming me home.
Home. Is that what this was?
“How much farther?”
I turned and saw Mariah standing at the bottom of the rock I’d just scaled, arms crossed as she gave me a dubious look. This last leg of the trail was particularly steep. I stretched out my hand and grinned down at her.
“I offered to give you a ride.” However, when Mariah thought of straddling me in dragon form, she insisted she could handle the hike.
Her eyes narrowed on my fingers, then she moved to the top of the rock before calculating her distance. “I’m starting to think I made the wrong choice.”
I chuckled, turning, then swinging my legs back over the rock, dropping nimbly to my feet in front of her, offering my back. “Climb on and I’ll carry you up.”
Her brown eyes widened, a small gasp escaping her lips. “I’m still not used to that. You were never like this back in the city.”
“Like what?” I arched and stepped closer, slipping an arm around her waist as I pulled her to me. I brought my nose to her neck and breathed her in. She smelled like sunflowers and summer, and my dragon stirred in my subconscious. He and I were both hyperaware of everything about her these days. Ever since the kidnapping, my dragon had grown more insistent. The desire to claim Mariah as our mate had sprung forth unexpectedly, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
She shook her head, fingers trailing up my arms as she mumbled, “Just this… untamed dragon beast.”
I burst out laughing, pulling back slightly and staring at her. “Untamed dragon beast?”
Mariah smirked, winding her arms around my neck and guiding my head back down. “I mean, you just jumped off a boulder and offered to scale it again with me on your back.”
“Or I could just fly us to the top,” I said. “The offer still stands.”
She looked even more wary at that prospect, the smile dropping from her face as she glanced at the boulder again. “You really think you can carry me up there?”
“I’m starting to think I should be offended. I’m not much of a dragon if I can’t carry my own mate through any obstacle.” The minute the words left my mouth, I froze.
I’d dismissed the intensity of my feelings for Mariah in the beginning, but as more time passed, I couldn’t ignore it. After the kidnapping, I’d known for sure: she was my mate. And I had no idea how she might feel about that.
“What did you say?”
I turned quickly and bent down, gesturing for her to climb on. “I’m offended. Were you just pretending all this time to be impressed by my dragon?”
Mariah’s warm laughter echoed off the rocks as she ran her hands over my shoulders before wrapping herself around them. “I think you know the answer to that.”
I reached back and gripped her thighs as I stood, then she wrapped her legs around my waist.
“Damn right I do.” I wouldn’t say Mariah had tamed the beast, yet my dragon seemed more settled since she’d come into my life. I once had to fuck my way through an endless string of women just to keep him at bay in a city where shifting wasn’t allowed. Now I had the only woman that mattered.
If she’d caught my little slip, she didn’t let on, and relief washed over me. This was something we needed to talk about, but I wanted to make sure I handled it correctly. I loved this woman with my entire being. The idea of overwhelming her with something as huge as the mate bond when we already had so much going on didn’t seem right.
In a matter of seconds, I was back atop the rock, but I didn’t lower Mariah to the ground. I continued along the winding trail, enjoying the feeling of her legs around me.
“You are different out here, though,” she said. “You’re more at ease. You let yourself relax.”
Relaxation was hardly what I’d call it. With Tomas Hawthorne still out there, waiting to make his next move, I’d been more on edge than ever. I’d die before I let him take Mariah from me again. Or Sofia.
“It’s because I don’t have to work so hard to keep my dragon suppressed. Shifting and flying regularly with the clan means I don’t have all this pent-up energy.” Not that it was helping with the growing need to protect Mariah in any way I could—like claiming her.
I had to keep reminding myself Mariah was safe here with me on these lands. The entire clan would protect her, and Hawthorne knew better than to breach our borders. That didn’t mean I wasn’t hypervigilant.
I glanced over my shoulder at my mate, taking in the way her hair floated on the breeze, the way her eyes sparkled with a light that’d disappeared in the days after she escaped from Hawthorne. The memory haunted me: her trembling form, the vacant stare when I rescued her from my sworn enemy. But with each day that passed since bringing her here, I saw more of the fierce, determined woman who’d stolen my heart.
