The Sea Wolf's Mate (Hideaway Cove 2)

“Yes, he’s a dragon, and right now he’s being an asshole. Jacqueline, meet Pol. Pol—come up here and introduce yourself properly!”

He gritted his teeth. Pol was always annoying, but this was something else. Arlo didn’t know why, but even his wolf was on edge as the dragon approached the Hometide.

Pol reared up and launched himself towards the boat. Arlo jumped up, grabbing Jacqueline around the waist to anchor her in place and calling to Kenna and Dylan to hold on.

Right, he thought, gritting his teeth. This is why Pol turning up always gives me a sense of impending, exhausting doom.

Pol managed to jump half-out of the water, landing with his front legs on the port side deck. The boat lurched to one side under his weight. Dylan hooted with laughter, Pol’s claws scrabbled on the deck—Arlo was caught between irritation that he’d have to fix the wood, and satisfaction at seeing the dragon shifter less-than-graceful for once—and then there was a sparkle like goddamn fireworks and a moment later Pol was standing on the Hometide’s deck.

Naked.

The younger kids didn’t react; Kenna muttered “Gross” and went back to slouching over the bows.

“Wow,” said Jacqueline, and Arlo’s world froze solid.

Nope. His and his wolf’s bad mood had nothing to do with Pol being a show-off, and everything to do with the fact that Pol was a shiny dragon shifter who looked like he stepped out of a movie screen, and Arlo still hadn’t given Jacqueline any reason to think he was more than a salt-crusted sea hobo.

His gut twisted. If two shifters were mates, they knew immediately, bam, no questions asked and none needed. But when a shifter’s mate was a human?

What if Jacqueline didn’t feel the mate bond like he did? What if she didn’t feel it at all?

What if she felt something for goddamned Pol?

“Wow,” Jacqueline said again, and then, “O-kay.”

She’d tipped her head back as though she was staring at the sky, but had her eyes closed, as though even looking away hadn’t quite done the trick.

“You know, at first I thought maybe the kids were some sort of hippies, but I’m beginning to get the feeling that shifters have different feelings about clothes than the rest of us,” she said to the sky.

“‘Fraid so,” Arlo replied gruffly. “Hey, Pol! Go find yourself some pants.” He nodded sharply towards the cabin door.

To his relief, Jacqueline kept her eyes closed until the door clicked shut after Pol.

He glanced at her warily. She cracked one

eye open and looked around until she met his gaze.

“Please tell me that’s the weirdest thing I’m likely to see in Hideaway Cove,” she whispered.

Arlo grimaced. Let me count. Pol’s the shiniest bastard in town, but then there’s Harrison… “Sorry.”

Jacqueline groaned. “Then I hope you have a good bar in town, because I am going to need a stiff drink.”

Arlo’s heart leaped with hope. That doesn’t sound like a woman hopelessly in lust with a blond, godlike dragon shifter.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, that’s Pol. He’s another one who washed up in Hideaway a few years back.”

“Washed up? So I don’t need to worry about a whole family of dragons swimming over here after him?” Jacqueline asked faintly.

“Not—” Arlo began as the cabin door swung open.

“Thankfully not, is what he means to say,” Pol announced, leaping through the door. He’d found some pants. Thank God. “I expect we’d have been driven out of town by now, if there was more than one of me. Arlo, what have you been up to? Who is this lovely woman?”

“Jacqueline March.” Jacqueline held her hand out and Pol reached for it.

Mine! Arlo’s wolf snarled. Pol’s hand jerked back.

Did he hear that? Arlo was horrified. Usually shifters only heard their own animals. He’d never heard of someone’s creature communicating psychically with another shifter, and certainly not when they were in human form.