The Dragon Marshal's Treasure (U.S. Marshal Shifters 1)

There was a spark of excitement in her eyes.

Theo concentrated. He was very thankful that he, unlike some of his colleagues, could shift without losing his clothes. There was something inherently unglamorous and undignified about undressing in the middle of a kitchen, and a dragon, of course, was never undignified. He let everything on him pass into the in-between world, the twilight place that only dragons knew, the one that had protected them for so long and that acted as everything from a moat around their homes to, effectively, a coatrack.

He could always feel the crimson and gold of his scales inside his soul. He had always been raised to think of himself as a dragon, and his shifting took the form of remembering that. He remembered what he was and came home to it.

His vision of her had changed. When he was shifted, his sight was much sharper, made to spot prey from miles above the ground. He could see Jillian perfectly, down to the last and faintest freckle, and she was so gorgeous.

Treasure.

“Can I touch you?” Jillian whispered.

Theo inclined his head. Then, overcoming a lifetime of etiquette training on how to be gracious even in dragon form, he gave up subtlety and nodded decisively. He didn’t want her to have any doubt that she was welcome to this part of his life.

Jillian put her hand down very gently against his forehead. It had been years since he had felt what she was feeling now: he hadn’t touched another dragon with his human hands since his parents had died. But he could still remember the sensation of it. Dragonskin was cool—cooler than his always three-degrees-above-normal human skin, in fact—and dry. It looked as hard as steel but felt more delicate, like napped velvet. Dragons defended themselves with their fire, flight, and claws, not with any natural armor. To their eternal chagrin, they were as mortal and vulnerable as any other creature.

He didn’t know how much of that she could know or guess. He didn’t know what this meant to her.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jillian said. There was a little catch in her voice. “You look like fireworks. Like fire turned into art.”

He lowered himself until he was lying at her feet. A dragon pledging complete devotion and loyalty to his mate.

Then he wanted to give her the same thing with words. He came back to the other half of himself, to the man who could hold the woman he loved in his arms. Human again, he stood and kissed her.

Jillian suddenly struggled away from him and he let her go with a start. The last thing he wanted was to keep her where she didn’t

want to be, but he’d thought—

“That’s why you’re always so hot!” She looked delighted to have put it together. “All dragons must run just a little hotter than the usual ninety-eight point six, right?”

“One hundred and one,” Theo said. “On average.”

“You’re a dragon. You’re a dragon and—you told me? You just met me! I hope you don’t go around telling your secret to everyone. ‘Hi, I’m Theo and I’m a dragon.’ I hope that isn’t you. Maybe you were raised in a nice little all-dragon community, but out here, people are vicious! People like my dad are vicious! And they’ll hurt you, Theo, they’ll—they’ll try to sell you or exhibit you or experiment on you—”

Her automatic response was to protect him. Maybe he loved knights in shining armor more than he’d thought.

“Hi,” he said, taking her in his arms and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’m Theo and I’m a dragon.”

Jillian laughed against his shoulder. The laugh sounded a little frantic.

He ran his fingers through her soft, silky hair. “I don’t go around telling everyone that I’m a dragon. Humans can’t see us when we shift unless we want them to. As I said, you’re the first entirely human person I’ve told.”

She looked up at him through her long, dark eyelashes, suddenly shy again. “Why me?”

He had showed her both his selves. Now all he had to do was show her his heart.

“With shifters, when you find the person who’s right for you, you know. All at once. You’re surer of it than you’ve ever been of anything. It’s like you’re the lock and they’re the key. Jillian, you’re my key.”

7

Jillian

She was his key? Could she trust that? Some swanky, swoonworthy guy walked into her life and her bed and the next morning all but told her he loved her, that she was the one? That didn’t sound like her life, it sounded like the beginning of some kind of elaborate con that would end with her short her life savings.

But she did believe him. And she didn’t think she was stupid for doing it.

She didn’t believe him because he was six feet and five inches of knock-you-down sex appeal, and she didn’t believe him because he’d blown her mind last night when they’d been doing their best to wreck the bed.

She believed him because, as ridiculous as it sounded after not even knowing him a whole day, she knew he wouldn’t lie to her. He was sweet, he was perceptive, he was honorable. He was protective. He made French toast.