by Ruby Dixon
4
CLAUDIA
I thought it couldn’t get much worse than being abandoned in the midst of the dragon-infested Scavenge Lands. I should really, really stop daring the universe sometimes. Because you know what’s ten times worse? Being chained to a pole and abandoned in the dragon-infested Scavenge Lands.
For the hundredth time in the last few hours, I rotate my ankle, trying to squeeze my foot out of the cuff. It’s no use, though. I can’t get the metal past the bones in my heel, and the constant pushing and scraping to try to force it otherwise has made the skin on my foot blister up and swell.
Blisters are not my biggest problem, though. If I don’t figure out a way to get myself free, I’m dead.
The red banners of cloth flap in the breeze less than a hundred feet away, taunting me. So close and yet so far. Not that it matters how close they are—I’m not going anywhere. I’m chained here like a dog, waiting to be eaten. Desperation and panic make a knot form in my throat, and I choke it down. Now isn’t the time to freak out.
I need to think.
I have to get free. Somehow.
And these idiots want me to tame a dragon for them. Somehow.
It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of. It’s about as plausible as someone telling me I need to drag the moon out of the sky and park it in the street. I mean, at least the moon doesn’t want to eat me. I’m pretty sure dragons eat people regularly. To them we’re just small moving bags of meat, like a cow or a sheep. They’re not our friends. They’re not pets. No one’s getting ‘tamed.’
And I know for sure that I’m not the expert here. I’ve never even been close to a dragon, hence why I’m alive instead of being a human piece of toast. The last dragon I saw was coasting high over the city, at least a thousand feet into the air. Even that high, it had been enormous, deadly, and utterly terrifying to behold. If he’d been any closer to the ground, I bet the shadow of his wingspan would have blotted out the sun. I shiver just thinking about it.
And wouldn’t you know it, that’s when a shadow falls overhead.
My skin prickles with alarm, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Oh god. Please be a bird. Please be a bird. Or a cloud. A big, dark, rogue cloud. I squeeze my eyes shut, and wait. Nothing happens, so I carefully open an eye again and scan the sky. There’s a gleam of gold that’s entirely too close, and I slide down to the bottom of the pole, hugging it close as if it’ll protect me.
As I do, the shadow crosses overhead again. I watch, mouth dry, as it travels from one end of the room to the other.
A cloud, I chant to myself. A cloud. A cloud. A cloud.
It glides past again a moment later, bigger and closer…and moving far faster than any cloud should. I can’t catch my breath. Panic has set in, and I’m hyperventilating with fear. Please. Please. I grab the chains as quietly as I can, careful not to rustle the links, and give them a fierce tug. Maybe they’ll break. Please. I need a shot of luck. The chains don’t give, though, so I yank on them again—
A roar fills the skies. Trumpeting. Angry. Defiant. It’s so loud that the building shivers, and glass rains down from broken windows. On the far side of the room, an old office chair falls over. Everything trembles, including me.
It’s not a cloud. It’s a dragon. A fucking dragon.
I bite back the whimper of panic rising in my throat and let go of the chain to clamp my hands over my mouth. It’s either that or I’m going to scream and give away my location. I’m halfway hidden in the ruins of this room, and maybe the broken cubicle walls that are scattered all over the place will disguise the fact that there’s a small, vulnerable human crouching here. The walls and windows are broken memories of what they used to be, but I’m tiny, and this skyscraper is so very large. Maybe it won’t see me if I don’t make a sound.
A moment passes.
Two.
Three.
The wind is picking up, and I slide a hand over my loose hair, trying to keep it from blowing in the wind. No movement. Nothing that will cause a dragon to look in this direction—
The trumpeting returns, this time louder and far, far angrier. The flash of gold returns in the sky, not the peaceful pale gold of sunrise, but a deep, smoky amber. That strikes me as a far more dangerous shade of gold.
Suddenly, one of the red flags rips away from its moorings and flutters in the air, caught in the breeze.
My entire body freezes. I can’t move.
Oh God. Oh God. I press my fingers to the edges of my lips, pinching them together to keep from making a noise. Don’t scream, Claudia. Don’t scream. Dontscreamdontscreamdontscreamdontscream. The golden shape in the sky circles the building, and I can hear the distant flap of wings.
I close my eyes again. If I keep them open, I’m going to see the dragon circling closer, chasing after those red flags. I don’t want to look at it when it eats me. I just want to go fast. Please, please let me die fast and without too much pain. I think of my sister. Amy, I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you. I hold my breath, and as I do, the ridiculousness of the situation loops through my head, over and over again. They wanted me to tame this thing. It’s the size of an airplane, and they want me to tame it. Tame it. What the fucking fuck? Are they insane? I’m small, even by human standards, and underfed. What am I supposed to do? Ask it nicely to stop burning cities to ash? Hit its nose with a rolled-up newspaper when it misbehaves? Hysterical laughter bubbles in my throat.
To think that fencing a few old batteries earned me this. Hell, if I’d have known I was going to end up as dragon bait, I’d have stolen something really damn good.
The wind changes, and all of the laughter in my throat dies. There’s a new scent in the air, the faint smell of char that’s far too familiar, mixed with…something else. Something sweet, almost spicy, and definitely not human. The scent grows stronger, and I realize with horror where it’s coming from. A shadow falls over the broken, open room, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
This is how I die.
A bone-jarring thump shakes the world.
I open my eyes and scream.
The dragon has arrived.
It crouches on the ledge of the building, framed between broken walls. It’s a terrifying glory to behold—a mass of amber wing, vivid scale, and a massive, gaping mouth. The creature is enormous, easily the size of one of the broken city buses that scatter the streets below. The gargantuan wings beat twice, then fold in as it sinks to the floor on catlike haunches. A tail slithers back and forth, batting at rocks and bricks in agitation. A thin scar cuts across the long snout, and the dinner-plate-sized eyes are a beautiful, vibrant ringed gold with a black pupil. They’re eerily human. The head of the dragon is triangular and bigger than a car, and the horned frill behind the head trails down to the mouth filled with sharp teeth as long as my hand, and nostrils that flare to catch my scent.
He can smell me, somehow. I know this even as the big head swivels and scans the room.
Oh fuck. Fuck. I’m going to die, and it’s not going to be quick or painless, after all.
There’s a living, fire-breathing, man-eating dragon less than fifty feet from me, and I’m chained to a pole like a bad, bad dog. The urge to shriek with fear rises in my throat, and I clamp harder on my mouth, the inside of it filling with warm, bitter saliva.
The creature’s nostrils flare again, and the long, sinuous tail behind it flicks, knocking down the remainder of a broken window. Crouched on all four legs, wings folded in, the creature lifts its head and takes a step forward, toward my hiding space.
I try to bolt.
Instinct and adrenaline crash through me, and I fling myself out of my crouch and race for the stairs. There’s no coherent thought left in my head, just fear.
It takes about two seconds for the cuff to bite into my leg, and another half second more before the momentum jerks me to the ground and I smack against the concrete with a loud, jarring thud. The breath is knocked out of me, and I flop onto my back, stunned.<
br />
There’s a subtle sound on the wind, like an exhale.
It’s seen me. My body locks with fear, my mind wild. I need to get up. Find a weapon. Protect myself. Instead, I lie frozen on the floor, waiting. Waiting for the damn dragon to toast me alive, waiting for it to snap me in half with its frighteningly powerful jaws. I’ve seen so many people killed by dragons in the last ten years that I know this thing won’t hesitate to rip me limb from limb like the predator it is.
I wait for the end. For the enormous, serrated teeth to clamp down on my flesh and rend me to pieces. This is it. I close my eyes.
And wait.
And wait.
I hear it lumber forward. The building shakes with each prowling step, and I remain utterly still. I can feel it close in on me. Thump. Thump.
Thump.
Oh shit.
The scent of char and spice grows stronger. I feel the air shift, indicating something big is standing next to—or over—me.
This is it, then. I clench my fists and remain still, praying it’ll be swift.
Hot breath wafts over me. My skin prickles, and I stop breathing, stop thinking, everything. The dragon is right over me. I can feel his muzzle move over my head, his breath tickling my hair.
And stupidly, I’ve forgotten my clothing. My dress that the captain tore off of me is several feet away. I dropped it when I tried to run, and now the dragon’s going to see me naked. Which is dumb, of course. The dragon’s going to eat me the same, naked or clothed.
The muzzle moves down over my face and neck, and I turn my head aside. My hands are so tightly clenched I can feel blood seeping under my fingernails, but I don’t dare move. I should attack him, force him to get this over with, but now that the end is here, I’m terrified. I can’t do a thing.
The dragon’s breath blows over my naked belly, and then I feel it nose me lower.
Between my thighs.
Something in me snaps. My eyes flick open. I slap at the enormous golden head, trying to push it away from my crotch. “No!”
It shouldn’t work. The thing’s the size of a car. But the head lifts up and the massive gold eyes meet mine. My skin prickles again, and as I watch, the dragon’s pupils dilate. As they do, they change from deepest, darkest black to…gold. More gold, a deeper, more burnished hue than the golden irises.
Oh shit. I’ve fucked up bad now. I put my hands over my eyes and curl up into a ball, tucking my legs up against me. I wait for the snap of the jaws. I can hear my raspy breaths—the only sound in the room. I’m hyperventilating. Not that it matters. I’ll be dead in moments.
…
…Any moment now.
It’s quiet. Too quiet. Nothing’s happening. Still not dead. Shit. I…I’m going to have to open my eyes and look. I part my fingers and peek out from between them.
I don’t see the dragon.
What I do see startles me.
There’s a beautiful man standing near me, with his back to me. His hair is tawny and wild around his shoulders, his skin a lovely golden bronze. He’s as naked as I am, and I can’t help but notice he’s got a very tight, firm, equally tanned ass. He’s got one hand stretched out in front of him and is wiggling his fingers like he’s never seen them before.
I make a strangled noise of surprise. I’m not sure what I was expecting to see, but this isn’t it.
He turns to look over at me. His expression is rapt with wonder, his lips parted. He studies his spread hands again and then gazes down at me once more. There’s something odd about his appearance, and I realize that his eyes are ringed gold with an even deeper gold pupil…just like the dragon’s.
The dragon…is human?
5
CLAUDIA
Clearly I hit my head when I went down. Either that or the dragon incinerated me so damn quickly I haven’t yet realized I’m dead, and this is my brain making some sort of sexy afterlife for me. Maybe that’s it, because this guy is the stuff of dreams. Dirty, dirty dreams.
He’s almost too beautiful to be real. His face is as chiseled as a museum statue, cheekbones high and jaw strong. He has no beard or facial hair to disguise the clean lines of his mouth and the straight plane of his nose. Overall, his features are big, almost overwhelming his face but leaving me with an impression of intense masculinity. The hair on his head falls in thick gold waves below his shoulders. A small white scar bisects one golden cheek, and his skin is mottled with shadow in an unusual pattern, like scales.
He leans over me once more, and the scent of smoke and spices returns, and with it, the horrifying dragon-fear. At the same time that it sinks in that he’s a dragon, I realize again that he’s super naked. His muscled, bare shoulders flex, and I notice they’re covered with more small scars, and his skin has an almost iridescent glow to it. When our eyes meet, I see hunger there.
Super naked.
And I’m super naked.
We’re super naked together. And I’m trapped.
Yeah, this isn’t good.
I gasp and scoot back across the concrete floor, the chain snapping around my ankle once more. Pain shoots up my leg. Damn it. I bite back a whimper of pain and try to scuttle to the side. Anything to get away.
My mind is racing. How is it possible that the dragon is now human?
The man-dragon straightens, and I get a full-frontal view of…well, everything. Did I say he was built like a museum statue? I don’t remember them having such big, uh, equipment. In every other way, though, he’s just like them. His body is a smooth mass of golden muscle and planes. His shoulders are wide, his hips tapered, and like the statues, he doesn’t have an ounce of body hair or fat. He’s perfect. On parts of his body, the pattern on his skin that I’d mistaken for scales is actually a rippling shadow. Other parts of him – like his lower arms and back - seem to be more heavily scaled. When he bends an elbow, I see spikes flare out from his skin.
And I can’t stop staring lower, because he’s also sporting a very large erection. When he bends back over me, his dick nearly stabs my side. He’s hairless there, too. The scale pattern is thicker here, almost upraised along the shaft of his cock, and the head of it seems to be a thick, rigid mushroom shape that’s frilled with scales on the edges.
Okay, I’ve never seen that on a statue.
He reaches for me, nostrils flaring, and drags his hand over my neck and down my front, heading for my boobs. There’s no mistaking the look on his face—he doesn’t want to be buddies. He wants to fuck.
I flinch and bat his hand away before he can touch me any lower. "No!"
The man-dragon snarls at me, his lip curling to reveal fangs. He reaches for me again, as if my preference to not be raped is some kind of nuisance.
"No!" I slap his hand away again and then cringe when his incredulous, furious gaze meets mine. It’s almost like he’s silently saying ‘how dare you?’
But I’m going to be eaten, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be raped first. Pretty damn sure.
He growls low in his throat again and tries to touch me once more. Before he even makes it to my skin, he looks up at me, waiting to see how I’ll react.
“No.” For a third time, I push his hand aside. It’s like he’s testing me to see what I’ll do. “Don’t kill me,” I whisper. “Okay?”
He draws back his hand. The strange dragon-man studies me with those intense, double-golden eyes, the possessive, hungry look there giving way to a dawning comprehension. “No,” he says, echoing the thought, as if he’s surprised by it. As I watch, he studies his hand, spreading and flexing his fingers as if they are utterly foreign to him. I can’t help but notice that they’re tipped with rather vicious-looking bronze claws. He flexes his hand once more, then reaches for me again. "No?"
There’s a wealth of pain and longing in that one syllable, so much that emotion catches in my throat. It’s like he’s found the one thing he’s ever wanted and it’s being ripped from him. Disturbed, I shake my head, my heart pounding so loud I can barely think. �
�No.”
He studies me for a moment longer, face a mixture of frustration and need, and then curls his clawed hand shut.
I can’t help but flinch backward.
KAEL
She is frightened.
Of me.
The concept is inconceivable. That I should find my mate—so bright, so beautiful, so perfect—and she should be afraid of me. Her brightness sings in my soul, pushing back the dark madness that even now eats at my edges. The sight of her keeps it at bay, though. The sight of her makes my senses return.
And she is refusing me. She is afraid.
Pain flares through me, hard and real. I want her with every fiber of my being. I need her. She has called me from the darkness, bound me to her with her sweet scent and gentle voice. I want to lower my body over hers and mate with her. Touch her and feel the softness of her skin against mine. Give her pleasure in any way I can. Feed her, take care of her.
Claim her.
It has been a long time since I have seen a female in this form. I think. The madness makes it hard to remember, and my thoughts are full of blood and fire and not much else. She is not of dragon-kind. All of our females that came through the tear have succumbed to the madness like I have. It does not matter to me that my mate is not dragon-kind, though. She is mine. That is all that counts. My body grows fiery with a new kind of need—that of mating. Of claiming.
She is female. Lovely. Fertile. Mine.
Terrified, too, and that presents a problem. Even now, she edges away from me. Her eyes are wide with terror, her form trembling. I study her, and the longer I gaze in her direction, the more frightened she becomes. Experimentally, I reach for her, and she huddles backward, desperate to escape my touch.
The madness flares again, like fire bursting in my mind.
