what to do, but please hear him out. Give him a chance.”

A chance? He could turn into a dragon. Anytime he wanted to. That was crazy enough by itself. But she hadn’t known any of that. He hadn’t told her. He had this whole other life he lived, the biggest part of him, bigger than the scientist part, and she’d had no idea.

He’d been able to track down the aliens that were a threat. And then he’d been ready and willing to fight them, to physically wrestle them until they were subdued. Eli wasn’t the nerdy scholar she’d thought.

He wasn’t a scientist first. He was a dragon. And he had a family and friends, and they were all dragons, too. She hadn’t really known him at all.

They’d just decided to date the night before. Would he have told her eventually? Would she ever have known? If they’d gotten serious, maybe he’d have told her. Or maybe he would have ended things before they got to the point where she’d need to meet his family. That thought hurt more than any of the rest, that he’d have ended their romance before it ever really got started to keep his secret from her.

Ava pulled the car back into Nora’s driveway. Ava would have to find a way to thank her. They’d disrupted her life and put her and her husband in danger again. Ava’s frantic call in the middle of the night must have brought up a slew of bad memories. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

Nora’s hand landed on hers. “We’ll consider you family now.”

Warmth spread through Ava’s chest. “I’d like that.”

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

“Of course.”

She was really being presumptuous to even ask this, but she had to know. “If—and this is a really big if—if Eli and I were to have a baby, would it be a dragon shifter?” Right after she asked, she wondered if it was even possible for them to have a child together.

Nora smiled. “Yes, the baby would be a dragon shifter. And yes, I could see you wondering if it was possible at all.” She picked up her phone and turned it on. She held up the screen, showing off the photo of her own child. “I wondered the same thing. I didn’t know what would happen if a witch and a dragon shifter had a baby. But our little one is mostly shifter with a few of my traits, too. That’s been the same with our family members who are Fae as well.”

Ava’s chest tightened. She wasn’t sure what answer she wanted. She only knew that the thought of a little Eli that was part of her, too, was more than she could handle at the moment.

17

Eli

As Eli pulled up to Nora’s cottage, his mind was spinning.

He could feel Ava’s presence inside the cottage, and he was grateful that she hadn’t bolted. He wouldn’t blame her if she had.

It had taken him too long to figure it out, but Ava was his mate.

He loved her.

And he’d dragged her into the middle of a goddamn alien invasion.

She’d had to witness him transform into a dragon and fight those things that wanted to steal their DNA and manipulate it for their own sick purposes. They wanted to clone humans and shifters and use them for parts. His stomach churned again. He could throw up just thinking about it.

He desperately regretted that he’d had to leave her the night before, but he had to get the aliens away from Earth. That had been the priority. Not his own personal screwups.

He raked his hands through his hair. He was a mess. Of all the things he’d expected when he went to confront the investors the night before, their being aliens had not been one of them.

He hadn’t matched up their arrival with the signals he’d been getting from his extraterrestrial monitoring equipment because he’d treated it as a fun hobby and never really assumed anything would come of it. That was a mistake, and he knew better now. He hadn’t even really decided who to tell yet.

He probably wouldn’t attempt to tell any humans. But he would be notifying the Texas shifters, and he’d tell his own clan, including his cousin at NASA. And of course, Owen and Niall knew.

He looked over at the passenger seat where Owen slept. He hadn’t woken up even when Eli parked the car. Niall, however, had slipped outside the moment the car stopped moving.

The sun had risen over Nora and Niall’s quaint home. Owen had flown them back as soon as the aliens had taken off in their spaceship, and he’d insisted that Eli sleep, but his sleep had been patchy. There was just too much to think about.

He’d always been good at separating his issues into parts and making lists. He rested his head on the steering wheel and started trying to break down all the whirling thoughts in his mind.

Ava was his mate. He loved her.

She knew he was a dragon shifter.

He’d met aliens. They had been semi-hostile.

His monitoring equipment worked!

He’d barged in on his friends and forced them into a dangerous situation.

He now knew a Canadian shifter.

If there was anything else, he was too sluggish to think of it.

He wanted to run into the house and grab Ava, pull her into his arms, and tell her he loved her. He wanted to explain the concept of mates to her and beg her forgiveness.

But what would her reaction be?

She hadn’t signed up for any of this.

But she was so brave. Her naturally curious mind had obviously propelled her to follow him the night before. She’d called in Niall and Nora for help. And honestly, if she hadn’t done that, Eli might be dead by now. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to force the aliens off Earth by himself. Having Nora had been a godsend, and he credited Ava’s quick thinking.

She’d stuck around, even once she’d seen who he truly was. And instead

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