Page 14 of Cowboy Dragon's Rose

Max Leeds, Alpha of our Motley Crewd. One of the few men I’d willingly follow into a fight. The guy’s a Jersey Devil.

Yeah, those Jersey Devils.

I didn’t even know they were real until I met him. Thought they were a local cryptid myth people used to scare tourists.

Then he showed up.

Now he’s mated to Penny, sweet as pie but tough as nails, and they’ve got a pair of twins, Melissa and Matthew, who shift between Devil and human with the kind of chaos only magical babies can pull off.

They’re growing at twice the rate of human offspring. Which means twice the mischief in half the time.

If I had a dollar for every time those two somehow managed to magic a couple of Jed’s prized goats into their nursery? I could buy myself a second ranch.

And that’s not even the half of it.

Dante? Grizzly Bear Shifter. Rosie too. That’s his and Avery’s first cub, and yeah, she prefers to stay fuzzy these days.

Avery’s expecting another, and judging by the size of that baby bump, the new kid might come out already Shifting.

Kian’s a Bull Shifter. The big, bodacious bovine is recently mated, and surprisingly into sourdough starters. Don’t ask.

Emmet? That guy’s part Hellhound, part Wolf Shifter. Walks around like a nightmare waiting to happen.

But the minute Jezebel, his mate, walks into a room, he’s nothing but a puppy with murder in his eyes for anyone who so much as looks at her wrong.

Jezebel is a Psychic Medium with a side gig in Necromancy. She’s still figuring that part out. Let’s just say the chickens won’t go near her.

Then there’s Jedediah.

Old man came with the property. Prairie Dog Shifter. Sleeps in dirt, talks to goats, swears up and down the land’s got a heartbeat.

Actually, he might be right about that.

He’s got this way with the animals, especially the goats.

Dolly’s Dairy Products, his pride and joy, is single-handedly putting us on the local map with award-winning cheeses and probiotic yogurts that actually don’t taste like death.

Everyone’s got their place. Their role. Their person.

The ranch may be chaotic as hell on paper, but somehow it all works.

It’s a patchwork quilt of the supernatural and the strange, stitched together with stubbornness and just enough loyalty to keep it from unraveling.

And then there’s me.

Zeke Gordon.

Lone Dragon.

A ticking time bomb with a withering Rose tattooed over my heart and a fire in my chest that’s fading more every day.

I’ve tried to fit in. Tried to make this place feel like more than just a place to wait out my final burnout.

But the truth is, it’s hard to put down roots when you’re living on borrowed time.

With my Rose doomed to remain unblooming, I’d accepted it.

My mate wasn’t coming.

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