Page 16 of Hunter

She had never fainted in her life before.

Which meant there had to be a good reason for her having done so now?—

“Dragon!” She pulled away from the arms holding her to shoot up into a sitting position before scrabbling onto her knees so she could search frantically for the huge silver dragon she now remembered was the reason she’d fainted.

Oh God, just thinking that made her sound unhinged.

The muttering under her breath, ‘There wasn’t a dragon, there couldn’t have been, because dragons don’t exist,” wasn’t helping?—

“They exist, Zoey.”

Her head snapped round so she could stare at Hunter Drake as he knelt on the sand a short distance away. Because he had been the one holding her? Well, of course he had. Who else could it have been when they were the only two people on this deserted beach?

She really did need to calm?—

“Dragons exist,” Hunter repeated softly. “Not in great quantities, I admit, but the dragon you saw just now?—”

“Are you saying you saw it too?” she prompted, feeling cautious but hopeful. Because,dragons.

But if Hunter said he had seen the dragon too, then that meant she wasn’t having a nervous breakdown after all?—

“I am the dragon, Zoey,” Hunter stated softly.

Wrong!

She really was having some sort of psychotic breakdown.

Hunter might be bigger and more muscular than any other man she had ever met. He might give off that intriguing aroma that was a mixture of the water, earth, a summer’s breeze, despite it being winter, and the smell of burning leaves. Zoey also found his presence strangely compelling. The way he looked, and that sense ofmore, intriguing. But, unusual as those things were, none of them made him a dragon.

Except…

Wherehadhe been when she had thought she was looking at and hearing a thirty-foot-tall dragon speak to her?

She—

Hunter had asked her to remain calm.

Could she do that when her hold on reality was still so badly shaken?

She could try!

She drew in several long, calming breaths before she dared look at Hunter again. He appeared just as large and intimidating as before, but she accepted that was normal for him. After all, everyone’s normal was different.

Yes, but they didn’t all go around claiming to be dragons!

Zoey licked the dryness of her lips, instantly tasting the salt from the sea and a hint of that delicious combination of scents that was all Hunter.

She shook her head. “I’ve seen the superhero movies, which is why I know your clothes would be ripped if you had changed into a dragon,” she blurted out and then instantly felt stupid for even giving Hunter’s claim that much credence.

“I shifted, not changed.”

She eyed him warily. “What’s the difference?”

He smiled slightly. “My body shifts into a dragon. My clothes remaining intact when I shift back to being a man is part of the magic.”

Magic.

Right.

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