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“Being born in the ninth century would make you twelve hundred years old.” Anyone looking at this man would see that he was only aged in his early to midthirties and was physically in his prime.

“We’re all twelve hundred and ten,” he corrected.

And Zoey had thought he was probably too old for her to be attracted to when she had thought he was only thirty-two or -three!

“But we ceased visibly aging in our early thirties,” Hunter added.

“You said you and your brothers came from ‘the same clutch’?” Zoey said slowly. “Does that mean the three of you were hatched out of an egg ?”

He nodded. “Separate dragon eggs that hatched at the same time, yes.”

“Okay.” Zoey nodded woodenly, already totally overwhelmed by the improbability of what he was telling her. “Rather than me picking up on every comment you make, when I don’t understand or don’t believe you, maybe you should just say what you want to say and we can discuss it afterward.”

She regretted that suggestion almost as soon as she’d made it when Hunter instantly launched into telling her how he and his brothers were all snow dragon shifters, dragons that could shift into men rather than men that shifted into dragons.

That the three of them had lived in the place of their birth, in a house at the bottom of a mountain in the Scottish Highlands, for all the centuries they had been alive.

He explained that their parents, also dragon shifters, were now dead, sadly, but the three brothers remained living together.

He explained they would continue to do so, for protection as well as companionship, even after they had met their one true mate.

He also, for some reason, hastened to assure her that a dragon shifter and his true mate would have plenty of time for being alone together too.

“We had almost given up on any of us ever meeting our one true mate, but Lachlan recently met his and now I’ve met mine too,” Hunter concluded with satisfaction.

“Your one true mate?” Zoey repeated skeptically.

“The one woman destined to be ours and for us to be completely hers.”

“Studies have shown that there isn’t only one woman or man for each of us, that there are always several who?—”

“We aren’t human, Zoey, and for us, there is only one true mate,” Hunter insisted.

“And Lachlan recently met his?”

“Yes.”

She eyed him warily. “Can you possibly be talking about Belle Brown?”

“I am.”

“Does she know she’s Lachlan’s true mate?”

“Oh yes,” he assured with a smile.

“And…is she okay with that?”

“Very much so.”

Zoey frowned at him. “Belle has no living family and grew up in an orphanage. It isn’t kind of the three of you to have drawn her into your delusion.”

“It isn’t a delusion?—”

“Of course it is,” Zoey snapped as she rose abruptly to her feet.

“I’ve heard what you have to say, Hunter, and I think it’s bloody cruel of all of you if Lachlan has somehow convinced Belle the three of you are men who can shift into dragons and she’s the mate he’s been waiting twelve hundred years to meet.

” She glared at him, although even on his knees, he was still the same height as her.

Still compelling.

Still utterly gorgeous.

Still making her knees feel weak and her body tingle and ache with a longing she wanted to succumb to.

But it was an attraction Zoey had to fight, to get away from, if she was going to escape from this situation unscathed. She began to walk away, her gaze fixed on her car.

“To be strictly accurate, we’re dragons that can shift into men,” Hunter spoke softly behind her. “And Edgar Wallis’s research into dragons isn’t just to prove they exist.”

Keep walking , Zoey told herself. Just put one foot in front of the other and walk away .

“What is it dragons are reputed to have in all the legends and books of fairy tales, Zoey?” Hunter continued to reason, his voice slightly raised as she continued toward where her car was parked. “What are they supposed to covet and guard with their lives?”

Zoey gave a derisive huff as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “According to you, their one true mate.”

“Yes, and once we meet her, she becomes our everything and we protect her absolutely,” he agreed, back on his feet. “But what else is a dragon reputed to have in all the myths and legends you’ve read or heard about them?”

Zoey wanted to keep walking. Wanted nothing more than to keep to her decision to get in her car and drive away. Probably back to London, because the thought of returning to Tregarthen House and the company of her Uncle Edgar no longer held any appeal, the temptation of eating cottage pie be damned.

But she couldn’t ignore what Hunter was saying, so instead, she turned to face him. “I have no idea. What is it that dragons covet and guard so intensely?”

“Their treasure.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You mean like emeralds and diamonds and pearls? That sort of treasure?”

He nodded. “Every kind of jewel you can think of, yes. And gold. Lots and lots of gold,” he added with relish.

Zoey blinked as she saw the sudden blaze of what looked like the appearance of golden flames in the depths of Hunter’s dark brown eyes.

She gave a firm shake of her head, sure she must have imagined it. “It sounds very much to me as if you’re saying the reason my uncle is searching for the existence of dragons is so that he can steal their hoard of gems and gold.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Hunter’s jaw tightened merely thinking of the lengths Wallis was willing to go to in order to achieve that objective. Murder amongst them.

The thought of the other man ever harming Zoey caused a low growl to reverberate around his chest.

“Do you and your brothers have a hoard?” Zoey’s eyes were wide, the green iris completely surrounded by white as she stared at him unblinkingly.

“Both collectively and individually,” Hunter confirmed.

“Where— Sorry.” She winced. “I shouldn’t ask you that.”

Once they were mates, Hunter’s hoard would also be Zoey’s. For now, for her own safety, it was better if she didn’t know where Hunter and his brothers stored their treasure.

“Edgar Wallis has already become a thief and a murderer,” Hunter rasped. “So I’m sure he will feel no qualms about stealing a dragon’s hoard.”

Zoey’s throat moved as she swallowed before speaking. “What did he steal?”

Hunter grimaced. “A journal Belle discovered at the bottom of a box, along with several others, she bought at an auction of a deceased person’s house contents shortly before Christmas.”

Zoey smiled. “I know she likes to go to those. I went with her a couple of times last summer,” she reminisced fondly. “It wasn’t really my thing, but I think she appreciated the company.”

He nodded. “One of the journals Belle accidentally bought at this particular sale had been written by a nun from the twelfth century who claimed to have met three warriors in the Scottish Highlands who could shift into dragons.”

Zoey winced. “Don’t tell me, she was writing about you and your brothers?”

“She was,” he confirmed. “We had rescued her from being a human sacrifice left out by the people of her village as tribute so the dragons would protect their crops and bring good luck to their hunting. We don’t eat, nor have we ever eaten, humans.”

Zoey gave a choked laugh. “That’s good to know.”

Hunter sobered. “Ben stole the nun’s journal from Belle at Wallis’s behest, in exchange for the promise of a hefty monetary payment. We think he was able to discover that she had the journal because she had carried out most of her research on the free Wi-Fi of a local library.”

Zoey frowned. “I didn’t know my Uncle Edgar had those sorts of hacking skills.”

“I think there’s a lot you don’t know about Edgar Wallis.

One of those things being that after Ben had handed the journal over to him, and rather than paying the younger man, Ben was then thrown to his death.

Murdered. Probably not just because Wallis didn’t want to pay Ben, but also because he didn’t want anyone else knowing about the existence of dragons. ”

“That would have required Edgar being in the Highlands just after New Year,” Zoey reasoned.

A nerve pulsed in Hunter’s tightly clenched jaw. “If you question the household staff at Tregarthen House, I’m sure they will confirm that he wasn’t at home during that time.”

Her brow creased in thought. “My uncle was studying a small brown leather-bound notebook when I arrived at the house earlier today and went to his study to say hello,” she recalled tensely.

“He closed it and put it away in his jacket pocket the moment I entered his study. Could that be the journal you’re referring to? ”

“From Belle’s description of it, it sounds like it, yes.

From my observations of him and the house the past two days, he keeps a notebook of some kind on him at all times,” Hunter bit out.

“He even takes it up to his bedroom at night and puts it under his pillow before he goes to sleep. Which is the reason I haven’t been able to get a good look at it yet. ”

Zoey shook her head. “If you are what and who you say you are and already know all this, I don’t understand why you haven’t just confronted Edgar, taken the journal from him, and returned with it to the Highlands.”

“I need to be absolutely certain I’ve tracked down the right person. Until I can actually have a physical look at the journal, I can’t be one hundred percent certain I’ve done that.”

Zoey nodded. “I’ve now confirmed to you that the journal you’ve described is exactly the one I saw my uncle studying when I arrived earlier.”

“And I believe you,” Hunter assured smoothly. “But now I can’t leave, with or without the journal, until I can persuade my own one true mate to leave with me.”