by Amanda Milo
My efforts though, have turned me so that I can see his face, and this view is no better than the cave floor. It’s scarier, in fact.
He’s a dragonman. Black wedge-shaped scales cover every inch of his skin, even tiny little ones that fit in the creases on either side of his eyes. These scales are the only small things about him. He’s huge all over, his jaw hewn square, with hollows on either sides of his mouth that form carved depressions until the rounds of his cheekbones take over; the perfect masculine framing for his strong face. Dangerous brows sweep down from his forehead, and below them, his eyes are all dragon, with slits for pupils and irises that throw brightness like emerald lanterns. He’s staring down at me like he’s starving. He’s a dragon that turned into a man!
How? And how do I get away from him?!
Hands big enough to span the length of my rib cage crush me in their grip. After a moment of staring at each other, the dragon sits back on his heels and tries to turn me over on my back.
...With the goal of assuaging his screaming erection, I can only assume.
But that’s a no.
Because while I would have told any of my tribeswomen that I’d welcome the first unrelated male I’ve ever seen up close, I always envisioned taking a fully human man. With a normal, natural, human-sized rod.
This? The dragon’s carrying a third leg with a mushroom cap, not a prick.
And that’s not all. His, ah, ‘member’ is ridged, with raised bumps along the sides. Bumps that are seeping a slick amethyst fluid. From his tip, two feathery protrusions, not unlike moth antennae, emerge.
OH, NOT ON HIS LIFE!
Not for anyone’s life! If you told me that a baby unicorn would die if I don’t spread for this, I’d ask you where you want the foal buried! Just NO.
I fight him, resisting with bared teeth and breathless curses, bringing my arm up between us, trying to shove at his stone-like chest, his rock-hard arm.
He’s not expecting me to nail him with a panicked punch to his upper right ribcage.
Livershot.
He drops over me with a gasping grunt. His hands have gone momentarily slack, no longer gripping me.
Which doesn’t help me in my escape like I hoped it would. He must weigh a full wool bale, easy, and his weight is plopped smack on me so that I feel like I’m trying to crawl out from under exactly that much. “Get OFF! Get away from me!”
It’s pretty unthinkable that I’ve uttered this. Here is a man I can have sex with. There are women who would steal this opportunity—literally. (Freakish reproductive equipment or not.) But all I want to do is run.
I’m inhaling to scream when his arresting face is suddenly shoved in mine. “Yeww ARRR,” he growls. “Myyy mrrrr.”
Whatever declaration he’s made seems to please him. He stares down at me with steadily lowering lids as his throat vibrates in a very not human purr.
Mouth hanging open, staring up at him, pinned with his heavy horse’s cock slapping my upper thigh every time he exhales, I’m overwhelmed.
I just wanted to save my brother!
And then his hand cups between my legs, and his thumb tries to run along the crotch seam of my leathers.
I jump and struggle and hurl imprecations—at him, his cave, his damned winged-lizard mother—and try to beat him with my elbow.
For that maneuver, the dragon catches my elbow with all the ease he’d have shown if he caught the wing of a domesticated chicken. He brings my limb down until it rests on the cave floor.
“This isn’t better,” I mumble, eyes pinned by his.
He keeps his hand cupped over the crook of my arm, keeps me beneath him, and when I finally meet the dragon’s eyes again, he eases himself up, reaches down, and catches me by my thigh.
I snarl with the effort I expend trying to thrash my way out from under him.
I have no luck with this though. He snaps up my knee so that my thighs are spread. He rolls my bottom half so that I’m twisted at the waist—and with a surprisingly skillful hand, he’s exploring my antelope-hide leathers like he’s searching for a key in the dark. I tanned the buck that made my clothes; I tanned him until his skin was hairless and butter-soft. Then the natural friction of my inner thighs worked the leather even softer when I walked. Now it’s so supple, I don’t know what the dragon feels, but I feel him when his curious finger brushes over my clit.
I squeak.
The dragonman’s eyes flash neon. His finger presses over my clit with intention, where he rubs, testing.
I suck in a breath, bite my lips, plant my heels, and try not to squirm into his too-effective touch as I inch away from him.
He takes his hand from my elbow, grabs me by the hip, and drags me until I’m right where he wants me—back under him.
And then with a softer touch, he brings his finger back to the magic spot he’s found, and he dances over it with a butterfly’s pressure.
Through a layer of animal skin, it shouldn’t be anything.
My body decides otherwise. It falls still. My commands sent to it are rendered completely ineffectual.
My thoughts even stutter. My ‘Run away!’ turns into ‘Ohhh… We’ll run in just a moment...’
Another silken touch has my breath catching in my chest.
Yet another gentle brush has me staring up at his face, at the intense look in his eyes as he scrutinizes my expression, and his questing finger has all the rest of my focus.
I twitch when he adds a second finger, petting over me. The leather was already warm from being against me—and with his touches, it’s grown hot. It feels like it’s melting me, turning everything below my belly to liquid.
I shift under him and exhale in a rush as he feathers his thumb lower, along the area that covers my slit.
His eyes, scrutinizing my face, flare before his expression sharpens, even as his lids lower and he repeats the sensual pass.
Instead of bracing to run, my legs tense to—to wrap around him.
Before I can give into the impulse to embrace his hips, the dragon’s lips part—firm lips, the bottom one thicker, formed in a way that my eyes have trouble tearing away from it—and he sucks in a breath.
His nostrils flare and his eyes lock back on mine.
A sizzle of awareness explodes down my spine. It feels like my lower half lights up from this intangible contact.
And the dragon’s gaze drops between my legs like he can tell. His hands move to my leather’s waist fastening and he jerks on it, causing my butt to leave the ground for a brief moment before slapping back down.
Reality crashes into me. And I realize that no matter how much my body is interested in a male’s skillful touch, my head is overwhelmed by this dragon. Panic fills my chest, making my body feel bisected; my turned-on lower half may be submitting to the dragon, but my rational head is floating above the scene, alarmed.
With no premeditation whatsoever, when my hands splay on either side of me, and my fingers brush against the metal hook that started all this trouble…
My hand closes over it.
My arm arcs up, crossing in front of me. I swing wide—only nearly catching him in the face, when I could have aimed the hook right for his eye.
With a guttural exclamation of shock, he falls back.
I scramble away. I don’t even know how my legs manage it; everything felt like soaked weaving reeds a moment ago. Now adrenaline courses through my veins, and I pump my arms and my feet are swift and I fly out of the cave like I have wings.
A furious roar blasts out, rippling against me, making my back muscles snap tense.
But I don’t stop running.
CHAPTER 6
Nalle
I’ve angered the beast. Enraged him, in fact.
And he’s a man no more. From my hiding place, I watch the great black dragon (who appears even bigger and more menacing in what’s left of the sun’s light) as he tears up the ground, bellowing—and I watch as he grabs a tree. A full-grown, fifty-woman-tall tree.
The sound as it crashes against summit rock and other trees on its way down seems to bode ill. My odds of surviving the same fate?
I gulp.
I’m crouched, eyeing him from a thicket. I hope he doesn’t get close because he’s sure to smell my blood. I’m bleeding because my hiding place is a berry thicket, and when I ran into the evil-thorned berry canes, they tried to tear off all my skin. If I live through this, then the price of their camouflage was worth it. They have many, many chartreuse leaves providing me cover.
Glumly, I consider that if I still had my buffalo hide coat, I wouldn’t be all torn up now. But it is what it is. On the plus side, I’ve been picking the canes clean and enjoying the berry-recompense at least. The berries are mildly sweet and full of juice. If their thorns hadn’t dug trenches in my skin that sting like the dickens, I’d consider it a fair trade.
My plan is to get back down the mountain. My problem—besides the angry dragon—is that the longer I wait, the nearer to dusk the sky turns. In fact, it’s quickly becoming dark.
The moon is visible; just a rim of colored light, looking spooky and so close it’s like it’s been hung just off the side of the mountain. It’s almost scarlet tonight, and it’s beautiful.
The sight of the black dragon against the darkening sky set with a nearly blood-red moon feels ominous enough. Add his temper tantrum and I’m not keen on moving out of my hiding place. I’ll just stay here, wait him out.
The dragon drops his snout to the ground and inhales, his ribs showing briefly along his scaly sides. His wings snap up high above his withers and his tail falls still. With slow deliberation, he cranes his head in my direction.
Caught.
His long neck is a deadly curve of scales and spikes, with a bright-streaked neck frill that loosens and billows up like a sail on either side of his face.
I don’t think twice: I peel out from the thicket, grimacing and gasping like a panicked animal as I get torn up on the berry canes a second time.
The dragon looses a loud roar at my retreat.
Scrambling, I trip and skid across the rocky ground. “Ah!” I yelp breathlessly, barely catching my footing enough to control my fall. I crack my knees on the rocks, and that’s good, because rather my knees than my face, right?
Still. Ow.
The dragon growls furiously behind me, but oddly sounds no closer.
Risking a hurried glance over my shoulder, I find him standing still, which makes no sense, and stranger still, his muscles heave, flexing and twitching, like he wants to leap for me but he’s holding himself back. His eyes aren’t green anymore. They’re a solid, threatening obsidian that somehow still glows.
I don’t know why he’s restraining himself, but there’s no way I’m wasting the opportunity to escape. With a gusty, sawing sigh of relief, I shove to my feet—and run.
Mistake.
I know better than to run from a predator. Really, I do.
With a roar that shakes the ground, the dragon tears after me again but I scamper for the rugged trail that will take me down the mountain. It’s such a narrow pass that I nearly have to turn sideways to navigate it; there’s no way it will permit the dragon’s breadth.
He realizes the same.
And his bellow of enraged defeat will haunt my nightmares.
The screech of his claws raking across mountain rock is horrific as he vents his frustration, and I race away from him like my life depends on it.
***
Yep. Running through the dark is stupid. I don’t keep a wary eye on the sky. I don’t even look back. It took me almost a day and a half to make the trek up the mountain, but racing down in the dark like a terrified deer, I skid and fall and tumble down the rocks with impressive speed.
I’m lucky I don’t break my neck. The good news is, I make incredible time. I’d go so far as to say that I cut my time in half. I limp into the village just after dawn.
Panting, I decide I’ll pretend that my encounter never happened. Met a dragon, hooked him in the nose, found out he was a little bigger than Yatanak claimed. Was subsequently mauled by said dragon-turned-man. Ran away before claiming sex could commence.
Did all that happen to me? Nope.
A choked sound of relief breaks from my throat when I see my village. The pale light of dawn limns everything it touches and the cheery rose and golden hues have never been so welcome. At least, I’m thinking that until I see too many women amassed on the plains. Apprehension socks me in the stomach. Are we being attacked? Again? Maybe I should have kept under the dragon.
Why didn’t I try to seduce him?
Because you panicked.
It was all so unexpected. I mean, how could I have prepared for the knee-high protector to be so massive, and then for him to turn into a man? A virile, sex-starved man?
Before it all happened, I would have boasted to anybody that I’d take a man-dragon if it meant we could secure safety. For a dragon’s protection, any one of my tribe sisters would do it. Heck, they’d ride any unrelated healthy male for free.
I would have thought I’d be the same way.
Instead, I ran away from him. And the queerest thing of all? I’m being plagued with something like guilt. Not only for my brother, not only for my tribe, but for the dragon.
I feel like I’ve done him wrong. Having time to think on my way down the mountain, I kept replaying how he was working to give me pleasure.
I wonder now if I was too hasty in my retreat. In my headlong escape.
Feeling weary with failure, I hurry to the group amassed ahead of me. As I stumble closer, I see some familiar faces. The visitors—or attackers, since their purpose here remains to be seen—are the Middle Plains Tribeswomen.
Pressing a hand to the stitch in my side, I race up to the convocation. “What’s going on?”
The group’s attention briefly shifts to me, and Sorgenfreiya, the spokesperson for today, evidently, answers, “We’re trading two hundred sheep to Middle Plains.”
“TWO HUNDRED!” I gasp-shout. “Why on Venys would we agree to this?”
Sheep are our clothing—our shawls, our shirts, our dress shifts, and our blankets. Sheep are also our food. To part with fifty sheep is a considerable strain on our livelihood. Two hundred?!
“We’re trading them because Middle Plains has a grown man of no relation,” Sorgenfreiya says. “This is Hallar, the Middle speaker’s brother.”
“But two hundred sheep?” I cry. “What if what’s left of our flock can’t support us—what will we eat?”
“Grain,” Fenna, another of my tribesisters, replies.
“See how long you last on that without running anemic,” I scoff. I stare around at my tribeswomen. “And say this Hallar they’re offering us can get us pregnant. That’s great—but we’ll only starve with his baby in our bellies. Plus…” I narrow my eyes. “Is he proven?”
The Middle speaker’s mouth firms.
I suck in an indignant breath and look back to Sorgenfreiya, furiously whispering, “He’s a virgin? You know we should wait for a proven man! What if he only produces girls?”
Loudly, Sorgenfreiya responds, “Middle’s speaker says this man’s father produced almost nothing but sons.”
“Says a daughter born of him,” I say dryly. Then I shake my head wildly. “You can’t agree to this! There needs to be a vote!”
“We have voted, Nalle,” Sorgenfreiya explains, and gestures to our tribe. She gets closer, whispering, “Now that your brother has been stolen, we’ve lost our chance for a solid trade opportunity. We have to make a barter, and we may not get a better chance than this.”
Suddenly, a scout screams, “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”
Every woman’s hand reaches for her weapon.
I reach for my hip, but I have nothing. I don’t even know at what point I dropped my knife. Is it halfway up the mountain? Is it lost on the floor of the dragon’s cave, along with my good sense?
“Who’s raiding us this time?” someone shouts.
“The Tribe of Giants!” comes the scout’s reply. “They’re at the boys’ lodgehouse!”
My heart falls straight to my feet.
The boys are literally that—boys. These aren’t youths turning into young adults. These are children who, yes, happen to be male—but they still need their mothers, their family. They aren’t ready to be traded for siring duties, let alone stolen.
And the Tribe of Giants can best us. The women proudly reside in the Steppes, and as their name implies, they are indeed massive in stature. Their men were once said to be thirteen feet tall—and I believe it. The women of their tribe nearly are.
“I need a weapon!” I call to my tribeswomen.
A bladed cudgel sails to the spot between my feet, slicing into the sod.
My eyes shoot up to see that the Middle Plains women have raced to circle their man, their weapons raised. One of the women jerks her chin at me, her eyes dropping to what she’s gifted me with.
I crouch, heft up the cudgel hilt, and rise, tossing her a harried, “Thanks! I owe you a favor if we survive this!” as I sprint to protect the boys’ lodge.
I leap on the first giant of a woman that I come up behind, catching her tightly under the throat with my forearm, cutting off her air and clinging to her back like a demented monkey. I hold the cudgel tightly in my other fist, prepared to blast it into her head if she tries to bite me.
Anger burns behind my breastbone. The ladies of the Tribe of Giants were once friendly acquaintances if not allies. I know some of them. Every summer, tribe children of similar age groups played together when the North Plains and the Giants Steppes tribes met to trade goods.
With my face squished to the braids of the Giant’s blue-dyed hair, I notice a scar on her temple.
I’ve seen this scar before.
I’m choking Glaive. When we were children, she took a boar’s tusk to her face. She was lucky; she lived and the tusk glanced her and missed her eye. While she was recovering, we used to sit, sharpening our spears side-by-side. Heck, we sat beside each other and exchanged blanket weaving patterns too. I once traded her a set of timbrels for a sring flute. She was an honest person then, and fair. “What are you doing?” I shout at the side of her skull, ignoring the melee around us. “This isn’t right! You’re stealing children.”
