Dickinson noted the shift in the air. Checking his watch, he saw it was just before 9:00. His mate had entered the café. His cock, which had been half-hard for hours, began to stiffen further in anticipation.

He had been distracted since racing his car out of the parking garage, resulting in two near miss car accidents in the two miles that separated his office and his home. Once home, he’d paced the big warehouse space he called home, counting the seconds before he would meet his mate face-to-face for the first time.

And now the meeting was mere seconds away.

“Dickinson? Are you all right?” Livingston, the prince of the city’s vampire coven, asked as he nudged his elbow.

Dickinson jolted out of his thoughts that were a million miles away. “What? Oh, sorry. Just a little tired.”

The lie tasted foul on his tongue, but for now he felt it necessary to keep his private business private.

That was the way of dragons, and by extension, dragon shifters. Solitary, private about their business, and overly protective of their mates, money, and property. Which is why, out of a city of supernaturals, only the men sitting in this room knew the truth of his existence.

He was a dragon shifter who, eighty years ago, had lost the magic that allowed him to shift, breathe fire, and fly. But he had not simply lost the magic, it had been stolen from him. The witch he had loved and hurt when he refused to take her as his mate vowed he would remain in human form as long as she lived. And for the past eighty years, his dragon had remained in a coma or deep sleep, unable to be reached. Dickenson wasn’t certain he would ever shift again.

“You look tired. We’re done talking council business. Why don’t you head out and get some rest?” Jefferson, the city’s shifter pack Alpha, suggested.

Kingsley, the city’s leader of witches and mages, remained silent, but watched him with one slightly raised eyebrow and a smirk on his lips. He had probably also felt the energetic shift that had occurred when his mate had entered the café.

Knowing the mate he had waited more than four hundred years to meet was only a dozen yards away, Dickinson nodded and gathered the papers that were spread across the table in front of him. Not bothering to sort and straighten them, he shoved them, as well as his computer tablet, into his briefcase. Without another word, he hurried from the conference room, unable to wait another minute to meet his mate.

Entering the main dining room, Dickinson paused, his gaze sweeping the space. Only a few tables were occupied. At a glance, he could tell the trio of women across the room were pixies, no doubt planning some sort of mischief. The pair of vampires sitting in the corner drinking coffee and watching everything around them were no doubt the guards Livingston had called to protect them during their latest contract talks.

All of the city’s supernatural leaders had become overly protective of their mates, and all supernatural beings who frequented Mystic’s All-Night Café. The café was where the city’s supernaturals spent the nights drinking coffees and teas, and enjoying a wide variety of delicious pastries, safe behind the protective wards and barriers that kept the blands of the city away.

Dickinson finally turned his attention to the last occupied table, and his breath caught. There she was. His mate sat alone at a table for two that was partly shielded from the rest of the room. She wrote in a small notebook as she nibbled on one of the pastries Mystic had chosen especially for her.

She wore a white poet shirt that seemed to hang on her, with skin-tight, faded to gray jeans that were tucked into a pair of black cowboy boots. A thick braid of mahogany brown threaded through with yellow, blue, and green strands trailed over one shoulder. He couldn’t tell if the colors were ribbons or hair. A long black cloak hung from the coat hook beside the painting of a dragon and maiden which hung over the table.

Dickinson had to smile at the appropriateness of the painting since it was one he had done a couple decades before. That had been his creative phase before becoming an attorney. The maiden in the picture was the woman whose heart he had broken. The witch who had stolen his fire.

“What are you waiting for, Dragon? An engraved invitation to join your mate?” Mystic appeared by his side, causing him to jump in surprise.

“Damn, woman, why don’t you make some noise when you move?”

Mystic laughed her delighted cackle as she grabbed his arm and started to pull him across the room. “Come on, she’s waited long enough that she’s trying to figure out what magic I put in my shortbread.”

Dickinson followed, suddenly feeling unsure of himself. Even though he was over four hundred years old, there were still times the shyness of dragons took hold. Facing his mate for the first time was apparently one of those times.

“Jules Avery, witch, meet Dickinson Seaton, attorney-at-law,” Mystic made introductions once they were close enough to the table. “I’ll bring more tea. Lavender tea, I believe.”

Dickinson stopped beside the table and froze when the woman looked up at him and smiled. Her bright green eyes were identical to those of another woman who has passed through his life eight decades earlier.

Sarah Deavers.

But not Sarah.

So who was this woman who fate had declared was his life mate?