When his parents were young, three times meant that it was true, and he couldn't stop himself from leaning in and kissing her. The first touch of her lips to his were electric, and then he was pressing her against the car, claiming her mouth with a hungry need that seemed to stretch beyond his skin. She moaned underneath him, her hands coming up to clutch at his jacket, and it was only with a titanic force of will that he managed to pull back.
"Later," he said. "Later, not in your workplace parking lot."
"Aww, fraidy cat," she said, breathless. "But all right. We'll have dinner like civilized people, and then we'll find another empty lot to kiss in."
Val knew that he was grinning like a lunatic, but he shook his head, taking a step back from Norah before he could throw all of his fine words straight out.
"Whatever you like," he promised her.
He wondered if it was always going to be like this, Norah turning him inside out as she took her place as his true mate. Humans mated to dragons acquired their long lifespans, and he imagined the years ahead, years spent together. They could do whatever they liked, and he couldn't wait to show her the world.
He was almost back to his car, still walking on air, when a surprised shriek cut through the quiet night. It was like someone had poured strong coffee directly into his blood, and right away, he knew that that was Norah, his Norah.
Val turned on his heel, and even before he had completed that turn, fingers had been replaced with claws and red scales replaced skin. He roared, and his leathery wings came down hard to throw him up into the sky. It was a painful way to gain the air, wrenching and abrupt, but he didn't care about any of it. All he cared about was getting back to his true mate, to finding her and making sure that whoever had made her cry out like that was turned into a damned piece of kindling.
He went over the library rather than around it, and when he looked down into the employee parking lot, he saw Norah's figure tangled with that of someone much bigger, someone who had his hands on her, someone who was shaking her violently.
No.
Val roared again, and he struck the ground not five feet from where some asshole was attacking his true mate. He threw his head back, almost spat flame, but then he only leaped at the man who had now pushed Norah away with a violent shove and was backing away.
Didn't matter. Val advanced on the man with a low growl. Red dragons were smaller than some of the other species, but they were still a hair bigger than Clydesdale horses. Either way, they were deadly when they were angry, and Val was very angry indeed.
The man tried to edge away, but Val followed him, cutting off his escape. All he could see was someone who had tried to hurt his true mate, his Norah, and his mind and heart and dragon were all united in the fact that that would not be tolerated.
The man was sweating and terrified, which, good, and right before Val primed to make a final leap, a soft hand landed on his shoulder.
"Hey," Norah said softly. "Hey, it's all right."
Val twisted around to look at her, her touch like cool water on a fire, and suddenly he was massively ashamed of himself. He realized that he had been on the verge of butchering someone right in front of her, and while the dragon part of him was utterly fine with that, the human side cringed.
He tried to say her name, but of course he couldn't in this form. What came out instead was a stuttered grumbling whine as he tried to tell her that he wasn't always like this, he usually had much better control.
"I know, baby," Norah said sympathetically. "I know. It's okay."
He wasn't sure it was, but his bones unknit and his human side reasserted itself with a twinge of guilt and embarrassment. He regained his human shape just in time to see the man who had started all of this peel away in his car, and he roared, almost slipping his shape again.
"He's getting away!"
"It's fine, Val. It's fine, I promise."
"But –"
"It's fine because I took a picture of his license plate. That's why he came after me. It has a university sticker on it. The asshole goes to school here or works here. We'll find him.”
Val felt another rush of scalding anger flow through him, and he shook his head angrily.
"I can still catch him."
Miraculously, Norah laughed at that.
"I think citizen's arrest (or maybe that would be dragon's arrest?) isn't a great activity for date night. Come on. Why don't we step back inside so you can calm down for a little bit?"
"Calm down?"
"Yeah, you're still kind of smoky. Come on. A sit-down will do you some good."
Now that he was coming back down from his fury, Val could see the wisps of steam rising up from his nose and his mouth. His human shape could spit fire just as well as his dragon form, and he took a few cooling breaths of evening air before nodding reluctantly.
"All right," he said, and then more softly, "Are you okay?"
Norah smiled up at him, poking at her dress and the red dragons cavorting over it.
"Better than," she said. "I love a fairytale.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
∞∞∞
Most people upon seeing a red dragon swoop down on them would probably be terrified or appalled. There would be a lot of panicked thoughts about how such a thing could be, and where a dragon fit into a North American ecosystem, what it could possibly eat and where it could hide.
Instead, she was herself, and the first thing she thought was
