She just hoped no more of those wyvern things showed up.

  2

  Diesel cracked his knuckles for the twentieth time in half as many minutes while he waited patiently for nothing at all.

  The rock wyvern had been easier to kill than he remembered. Though, the creature was so ravenous it was no wonder it had gone running for the town, looking for something to eat probably.

  He exhaled, wondering what in fuck a creature like that was doing out here. And in this day and age, for that matter. He thought that he and the other basilisks had wiped out the destructive, mindless predators a long time ago. Long before people had come to settle the oddly lush land that sat nestled in the center of the small mountain range people simply called the Crater.

  He’d heard about smaller, lab-created wyverns from the double dragons. But from what he knew about them, they were nothing like rock wyverns, either in size or origin

  But that was neither here nor there now that it was dead and buried.

  But even with the fight over, a certain uneasiness refused to escape him. Like there was something unfinished. Like there was more to all of this than just keeping some humans safe from a legend that was probably more myth than reality.

  Though, when it came to shifters, Diesel had learned a long time ago to not take any rumor too lightly.

  After all, this wasn’t his first visit to the Crater.

  And this wasn’t any normal place either.

  He looked over his shoulder at several small bunches of people standing at the entrance to town a few hundred yards away, but he ignored them completely, not caring what humans thought about a monster like him.

  Instead, he turned his thoughts toward his friends, hoping to update them on the state of things.

  How are things going with the move? he asked Gunnar and Ajax as the ground rumbled beneath his feet.

  A unique ability of basilisks, to be able to converse over long distances as long as they were touching the ground.

  Good. It took a while for Reno to find a place that will work for us, but we’re almost done unpacking, Gunnar replied.

  We’d be done a lot faster if Gunnar could keep his hands off his mate for a damn second, Ajax added, and Diesel wondered if it was jealousy or something else causing the red-eyed basilisk’s words to be extra harsh today.

  Good to know, Diesel replied neutrally.

  Anything to report? You said you felt something moving underground earlier, Gunnar said, ignoring Ajax.

  Gunnar, the apex basilisk (or alpha) of their group, had been surprisingly unflappable in the weeks since they’d finished an assignment in a town called Clawson’s Creek, far from here, where Gunnar had found his mate, April.

  Diesel was jealous. But he knew better than to go assuming every woman was his mate now, after a few foolhardy attempts to make moves on women that were absolutely not his mate.

  But after so long waiting, hungering, who could blame him?

  Yeah. Caught myself a rock wyvern. A hungry one but an alive one, Diesel said.

  There was silence, then Ajax’s thoughts filtered in with more of a shaking of the ground than actual words. The hell?

  Gunnar spoke next. I thought we buried the last of those bastards forever ago.

  Maybe so, but something brought one to the surface. Probably from deep underground. Aside from being the strongest physically, Diesel also had the best senses of the three basilisks, able to feel the drop of a pebble from a hundred feet on a quiet day.

  Which was probably why he’d fought the dragons at Dragonclaw Ranch so many times over the years, what with all their cattle stomping around and the scent of dragon drawing out the monster inside him to fight for his territory.

  That was all behind him now, though.

  Do you think there’s more of them? Gunnar asked.

  Can’t say. The earth is quiet now, Diesel said.

  What about the legend?

  I think this land has a strange feel to it. It did back then too. But I’ll keep watch.

  Diesel was about to say more when he felt the ground moving nearby, perhaps the rumbling of a distant car. Or nearby footsteps. Either way, he wasn’t going to keep blabbing on and let someone get the jump on him.

  Gunnar kept talking. Good job saving the town anyway. It would have been bad if—

  But Diesel merely closed off his thoughts and got ready to scare the pants off whoever was stupid enough to try to bother a basilisk after a fight like that.

  Damn humans don’t know when to leave well enough alone after I saved their damn town, he thought with a growl as he whirled in the direction of the intruder, arms folded.

  What he saw was the last thing in the world he expected to see.

  “What do you wan—” He was about to finish when his words failed him altogether as he looked forward, then down at the person who’d been approaching him for the past two minutes.

  And his heart almost stopped right there.

  A woman. A human woman.

  But not just any woman. She was gorgeous as hell, the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his entire life.

  At first glance, she was shorter than average, maybe 5’4”, with a generous waist and curvy hips encased in black jeans. Chubby everywhere but especially in her lower half, and Diesel felt his hands immediately ache to touch her, to hold her, just to know what she felt like.

  When he’d first turned around, she’d flinched, but only barely, almost imperceptible to anyone but a shifter.

  But instead of running like any reasonable person would when staring up at a ferocious basilisk, she held her ground, maintaining a neutral expression even as he could see her body tighten slightly with its immediate fight-or-flight response.

  Someone not easily scared, which impressed him instantly.

  She didn’t speak, which gave Diesel a moment to look at her better. She had blazing red hair in an unnatural bright-crimson color that came down to her shoulders and light-brown eyes that were full of caution and wariness. Her face was heart-shaped, and she had a stubborn jaw, which only further accentuated her full lips and rounded cheeks, which were slightly rosy, either from exertion or something else.

  Fuck, he wanted to kiss her, right here, right now. Lose himself in the brown, honey-colored depths of her irises while he pleasured her senseless.

  Not every woman is your mate, you goddamn idiot. The warnings of Harrison, Beck, Gunnar, and other friends came to him in the back of his mind.

  After all, when he’d first awoken to the modern world, hungry for a mate, he actually had thought every woman was his mate.

  But even now, he couldn’t hide his intrigue at this brave person. How could she hide her fear when she should be afraid of him?

  “What can I do for you?” Diesel said, feeling oddly calmer around her even as her hackles seemed to rise more by the second.

  It wasn’t until she stretched a clasped hand forward that he noticed she carried a brown plastic bag full of something. Something that smelled like food.

  Nothing would satisfy his appetite now that he’d laid eyes on this gorgeous goddess, though.

  “This… this is for you,” the woman said tensely.

  “What’s your name?” he asked immediately, wanting to know everything about her. And without thinking, he took a step forward.

  She took a half step back, though her expression remained stern as stone.

  Had she seen the fight a minute ago? Or was there some other reason she was scared of him?

  Oh yeah, he was a basilisk. Everyone was scared of basilisks.

  “That’s none of your business,” she said with a slight frown. But in spite of that, Diesel saw her eyes flit down his chest in a quick glance that couldn’t entirely hide her interest.

  So at least she wasn’t completely repelled by him.

  Diesel stepped back, assuming a more relaxed posture, trying to help put the woman at ease. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t accept food from strangers.” He lied, hoping to keep her talking longer than it would take to merely take whatever she’d brought for him.

  To his surprise, she made to set the bag down on the dirt as if she were going to leave and go back to where she came from without another word.

  “Wait,” Diesel said, unable to hold back the edge of a growl in his immediate need to not have her leave just yet.

  The woman stopped, watching him warily.

  “My name’s Diesel. At least now you know who I am.”

  She appeared mollified by that, and she took a step forward, reaching the bag toward him as far as she could. Diesel came the rest of the way and grabbed it before she pulled away immediately. “Morgan. Morgan Seward. I own the gift shop at the front of the Crater.”

  Samson & Seward’s Gifts, General Goods, and Flowers. Definitely a mouthful of a name. He’d seen it yesterday when he’d come into town to scout the place. Quaint as hell.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Diesel said, trying to stay calm even as his monster seemed to buzz beneath his skin in interest.

  She just nodded, then looked past him toward the mounds of rocks and upturned earth where the fight had happened. “What was that all about?”

  “Oh, that?” He shrugged. “Nothing. Just a little incident that needed taking care of,” he said, borrowing some of Reno’s fancy wording.

  After all, he didn’t know what to tell her exactly. “I killed a rock wyvern that was trying to turn your town into lunch” didn’t seem like a very calm-inducing thing to say at the moment.

  And he didn’t want to give her another reason to run from him.

  “I’d say that was a little more than an incident, Mister Diesel.” She cocked a hip to the side and folded her arms, accentuating the outline of her sexy body.

  “Just Diesel.”

  “Diesel, as in diesel engines and diesel fuel?” Morgan raised an eyebrow at him.

  “You bet.”

  “I’ve never met anyone called that before.” She glanced at his chest again, then quickly looked back up at him.

  You can’t hide your reactions from me, Diesel thought to himself. “That’s because I’m one of a kind.”

  “I’ll say.” She paused for a moment, and the cloudy sky moved past them overhead as the wind pushed it eastward.

  Mate, his basilisk roared, almost deafening his ears.

  Morgan opened her mouth to say something, and time seemed to slow momentarily. But before the words could leave her mouth, a buzzing sound came from her pocket.

  Immediately, she took out a phone and looked over her shoulder, back in the direction of town. “I’m sorry, I have to go. My daughter’s waiting for me.” Her eyes went a little wider as if she’d said more than she’d wanted to, but she was already kicking up into a jog and turning her back on him as she headed in the direction she’d come from. “Thanks again, Mister Diesel. Hope you enjoy.”

  “Just Diesel,” he called back. “And no need. I…” His words trailed off as she started to get smaller, though he couldn’t keep his eyes off her delicious ass as she moved.

  Then he pulled his gaze away.

  Shit. Wrong again.

  She had a daughter, which meant she probably already had a mate.

  Granted, he hadn’t seen a ring on her finger, but he hadn’t been looking for it.

  Then why had he felt something instantly sizzling between them? Why had he felt her attraction even as his own toward her had threatened to tear through his skin?

  Diesel muttered another string of curses as he tried to not watch Morgan as she got back to the store and disappeared inside.

  But even as his brain tried to warn him logically that even the notion this woman was his mate was an utterly stupid one, he couldn’t stop the thrumming of his heart. Couldn’t calm the beast in him.

  It was probably just the fight.

  And he’d do well to just move on and keep to his mission to protect the Crater from more danger. To not get involved with a woman with more secrets than his basilisk had scales.

  His mate was out there somewhere.

  He just hated that it couldn’t be Morgan.

  3

  Later the next day, Morgan still couldn’t keep herself from glancing out at the horizon from time to time, just to see if the mysterious man named Diesel was still out there or not.

  All night, she’d been plagued by nightmares of vicious, dark creatures chasing her and Grace, leveling the town in their warpath as they ran.

  Then, right before she’d awoken, the sight of the huge basilisk she’d seen yesterday. And when it had looked down, its glowing blue eyes turned red, though somehow, the sight had been calming instead of scary.

  She needed to get to bed earlier; that was for certain.

  The door to the store dinged, and a familiar face strode inside.

  “I’m here to pick up that order of flowers I called about earlier,” Clark, the local Casanova, said as he sauntered up to the front desk.

  Today he was wearing expensive blue jeans and fancy brown cowboy boots along with a fitted gray T-shirt that probably belonged on someone younger than he was.

  Though, Clark had a way of making everything seem fashionable. At a height of 5’11” and with lean muscle covering him from head to toe, he looked like someone who’d modeled in his youth and was well on his way to being a lady-killer of a silver fox. His dark-black hair was salt and peppered with shocks of gray behind his ears and in his well-trimmed beard, and his blue-gray eyes always held a furtive smile, especially when appraising his next potential target.

  He had a reputation for slaying the hearts of any and all womenfolk who came within fifty feet of him, though she rarely saw him in town, if ever.

  But he wasn’t her type at all.

  “How are you this fine evening?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows up at Morgan as he leaned on the counter.

  Morgan just went to the back where the flowers were kept and pulled out a vibrant, multicolored arrangement, complete with a red crystal vase, and set it next to Clark.

  “Now there, you’ve gone and outdone yourself once again, Morgan,” he said with a smirk.

  “Save the compliments for your floozies, Clark,” Morgan said, unamused.

  He frowned charmingly. “I have more than enough compliments to go around, especially for you, Morgan,” Clark said as he pulled several crisp bills out of his wallet and set them on the counter. “As always, keep the change.”

  “Is there even a single woman you haven’t charmed the pants off yet, you philandering scoundrel?” she asked, amused by the momentary distraction from her own thoughts.

  Clark was unaffected. “Single or married, local or tourist, everyone wants to ride the Clark train.” He raised a fist, then made an absurd choo-choo sound as he pumped it before grabbing the vase of flowers and heading back toward the door. “Say hi to Grace for me.”

  “Thanks for your business,” she said finally as he disappeared outside.

  Heaven help whoever was the recipient of today’s flowers.

  Though in reality, Clark was sort of critical to keeping the business going. Since he came in at least every other day for flowers, chocolates, or some sort of gift, she was grateful for the income.

  Even if the company was a bit questionable.

  Several more customers came in for random things, and Morgan kept herself busy, trying to distract from the memory of Diesel’s piercing blue eyes and huge, rugged body as they’d faced off out in the desert last night.

  What had she been thinking going out there like that?

  In the background, on the little TV set that played reruns in the corner of the store, another one of those annoying ads played, drawing her attention.

  “Join the Children of the Crater today and be present when the almighty dragon arises to reclaim his home. And with it, receive the riches of a thousand years or be destroyed by the—”

  As the crazy man with brown slacks and a crisp blue shirt droned on in the corner of her vision, Grace emerged from upstairs, carrying one of her larger books in her arms.

  “Would you mind turning that off, please?” Morgan asked. With a thump, Grace set the tome-like book on the counter before going over to the corner and turning off the TV.

  As the screen went dark, Morgan sighed. The crazy cult that had just been a handful of zealous believers with flyers and posters more than a decade ago (when Morgan had first moved here) had become an actual organization seemingly overnight. And every day she was seeing TV ads or hearing announcements on the radio as they tried to recruit more people to their cause in the misguided belief that an actual dragon was going to appear any day now and award riches to the believers and destroy those who didn’t.

  Maybe they were just referring to the basilisk thing, though that didn’t really fit their story.

  “Those people bother me,” Grace said as she came behind the counter and sat on a stool. Then she opened the book and began to scan through pages.

  “What are you looking for today?” Morgan asked, both delighted by seeing her daughter lost in thought while also feeling dismayed that she was growing up so fast, retreating deeper into her books and solitude.

  Sometimes being a single mom was just too much to handle.

  “I’m trying to find a picture of the thing I saw yesterday,” she said, adjusting her glasses, utterly focused on the vibrant pictures of fantastical beasts portrayed in the big book.

  “What, the wyvern?”

  “No. The big one. With the spikes. I haven’t seen anything like it before.” She continued to read as if studying a manual or something and not Whistler’s Tome of Mystical Beasts, Creatures and Monsters, a complete work of fiction.

  Though, with what they’d both seen yesterday, Morgan wasn’t quite certain what counted as fiction or not these days.

  She wasn’t sure what she should say. She didn’t want to give her daughter even more ideas about things that didn’t, or at least shouldn’t, exist.

  “It’s not in here. I’ll go get another one,” Grace said, closing the book and running back upstairs for presumably another one of her compendiums.