Chapter 1 #2
Their petals were almost translucent, with veins of silver that pulsed with a light of their own.
She gasped. "Oh, you're more beautiful than the books described."
She approached slowly, reverence in every step. Kneeling before the rock, she reached for the nearest flower, fingers trembling. As her skin brushed the cool, silken petal, a jolt of energy shot up her arm — pure, healing magic that made her head spin and left a tingling warmth in its wake.
Her ancestors had been right to write about this flower. It was magnificent.
The sky darkened without warning.
Poppy looked up, startled, as clouds gathered with unnatural speed and blotted out the sun. The temperature plummeted. The air crackled with an energy that made her skin prickle and the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.
A shadow fell over the clearing, so vast it eclipsed the entire sky above.
And then she saw it.
A dragon.
A real one.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird as she slowly tilted her head back. The air stalled halfway into her lungs as the creature unfolded above the clearing.
She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, half in awe, half in disbelief.
The dragon was still there. Not the mythological creatures of storybooks.
Something real . Something magnificent and ancient and terrifying.
Scales as black as midnight, each one edged with emerald, reflecting what little light remained.
Enormous wings, leathery and powerful. Eyes that glowed with an inner fire — powerful and intelligent and filled with a pain so profound it made her want to weep.
Had she been standing, her knees would have buckled.
Dragon.
Pain.
Wounded.
Dangerous.
Her mind churned sluggishly, her thoughts slow to catch up to the reality in front of her. She’d believed in the stories all her life, but belief was a fragile thing compared to this bone-deep certainty.
The stories. Every whispered warning, every fireside tale, every impossible, mythical creature hidden within the Secret Kingdoms — real. You were feeling the dragon watching. Now you’re feeling his pain. His sorrow.
Somehow, she knew the fearsome creature was male. Heat rolled off him in slow waves, carrying the scent of rain-soaked stone and something metallic beneath it, like sparks struck from iron.
She only remembered to breathe, to drag in ragged lungsful of air, when her oxygen deprived cells screamed in agony and she began to see stars.
The dragon landed on the outcrop above her with a force that shook the ground, his claws gouging deep furrows in the rock.
The sound was like grinding stone, sending vibrations through the earth that traveled up her legs.
His massive head lowered, nostrils flaring as he scented the air.
A low rumble vibrated through the earth — both warning and question.
Was this magnificent creature the guardian of the forest?
Most people would have screamed. Most would have fled in terror.
Poppy simply stared, her fear melting away beneath an overwhelming wave of recognition and compassion.
She knew this creature. Not personally — not in any way that made sense — but in her bones, in her blood, in that mysterious part of her that had always felt slightly out of place in the mortal world.
He was magic personified. Mythical. Something she'd feared she would never experience in her life, made real before her eyes.
Dragons were real. The knowledge settled.
"Hello." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I'm Poppy. I mean you no harm. Please don't eat me."
The dragon's massive head tilted, those emerald eyes narrowing. For a moment, she thought she saw something flicker in their depths. Surprise, perhaps. Or confusion.
Then the air around him shimmered, twisted, and reformed.
Where the dragon had been, a man stood.
A gloriously naked man. Completely, splendidly, unapologetically naked.
Her heart jumped. She forgot her name. Her eyes widened, and they refused to behave.
He was a living masterpiece; a sculptor could have spent a lifetime and still not fashioned a more perfect specimen.
He was tall — impossibly so — with broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist and long, powerful legs braced wide on the moss.
Sun bronzed skin stretched taut over muscle built for war, not for show.
Dark hair dusted a chest carved with lean muscle, then narrowed into a trail that drew her gaze down, lower, lower, to the heavy length of him hanging thick and unashamed between his thighs.
Sweet mercy.
Heat flooded her cheeks. Then lower. A familiar, unwelcome ache bloomed deep in her belly and lower, throbbed there, slow and insistent. This was wrong. This was dangerous. This man was a dragon, a predator, a creature who could snap her in two without breaking a sweat.
And yet.
She wanted him. Wanted to put her hands on all that muscle. Wanted to taste the hollow of his throat and find out if his pulse beat as hard as hers. Wanted to know what those big, scarred hands would feel like wrapped around her hips, holding her steady while he —
Stop. Stop it right now.
But she couldn't. She wanted him with a desperation that shocked her, a primal need that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the way those emerald eyes were devouring her, the way his naked body promised pleasure and ruin in equal measure.
He was magic. Pure, raw magic. A being from the old world somehow hidden away in this ancient forest. His face was all masculine angles and shadowed hollows, his jaw permanently clenched.
But his eyes held her captive — the same emerald fire as his dragon form, filled with centuries of weariness and a warning that should have sent her running.
It didn't.
"Who are you?" His voice was deep, rough, and unused, like stones grinding together. But there was something else too — an odd cadence, an accent she couldn't place. Ancient. Utterly foreign. He took a step forward, his bare foot silent on the mossy ground. "Why are you here?"
Poppy found herself smiling — a genuine, unguarded smile that seemed to catch him off guard.
She understood his confusion. She really should be running, screaming in terror, begging the big bad dragon man to spare her life, but the rather embarrassing fact was that she found it impossible to be afraid of him when her body was screaming for sex.
Hot. Sweaty. Dirty sex. With him. All night.
And the images in her head were getting more X-rated the longer he stood there. What was he asking? Would she like to strip right there and go at it on the forest floor? Yes. Yes. Yes.
No! No! No! Stop fantasizing! He wants to know who you are and what you’re doing here! Get it together!
She tore her eyes away, coughing against the sudden tightness in her throat. "I'm Poppy Brightwood." She gestured to the glowing flowers, a little breathless. "I'm here for these. They're for the sick children in my grandmother’s village. They have the fever."
The man's brow furrowed, deep lines carving his forehead. "This place is forbidden. No humans are allowed here."
"Well, no one told me that." Poppy's fingers gently plucked another glowing blossom, her movements a little shaky. "Besides, the forest called to me. And these flowers need to be harvested. We can't let all their healing magic go to waste, can we?"
She reached into her satchel for her collection supplies, seemingly at ease, as if she were discussing wildflowers with a fellow herbalist rather than kneeling before a naked, mythical dragon shifter who shouldn’t exist. The scent of grass and flowers and something wilder clung to him — ancient stone and distant storms. She found it oddly comforting.
"Leave." His voice dropped lower, the command vibrating through the air. "Now. And never return."
Poppy took her time before looking up, her smile dimming as she met his gaze.
She took the time to see past the harsh exterior to the pain beneath, and her heart softened.
The lines around his eyes weren't from anger.
They were from centuries of squinting against a burden no one should have to carry.
"You've been alone for a very long time, haven't you?" Her voice was gentle.
The man flinched as if she'd struck him. His broad shoulders tensed. "I said leave."
"And I will." Poppy's tone stayed gentle. "As soon as I've gathered what I came for. It won't take long. Then you can go back to being all broody and mysterious by yourself."
Before he could respond, she turned back to the Aos-sí-blooms, humming softly as she worked.
The flowers seemed to glow brighter in her hands, their silver veins pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
She settled the blossoms, carefully wrapped in cloth, into the satchel, keeping the fragile petals loose so they wouldn’t bruise before she could steep them.
She wanted to take all of them, but collected only what she absolutely needed, careful not to take more than one in twenty.
His eyes stayed on her — a heavy weight that should have been threatening but instead felt strangely protective. The air between them hummed with unspoken questions, a silent conversation that transcended words.
As she worked, a subtle change moved through the forest around them.
The brittle leaves regained a hint of vibrancy.
The acrid scent in the air lessened, replaced by the clean, fresh smell of rain, as if the forest itself responded to her presence.
To the inner light and happiness she carried within her.
"There." She secured the straps on her satchel. "All done. Thank you for letting me borrow your flowers."
"Steal, you mean." His distinct growl almost made her laugh.
She rose, brushed dirt from her knees, and offered him another bright smile. "I'll be going now. You don't have to walk me out or anything. I'm pretty good with directions."
She hitched the satchel higher onto her shoulder and stepped back from the clearing, though her body resisted every inch of distance she tried to put between them. Her pulse knocked hard beneath her ribs, uneven and restless.
Part of her wanted to stay.
To ask questions she had no business asking. To peel back the silence wrapped around him and uncover what could wound something ancient enough to shake the forest with its grief.
The wiser part of her knew she was standing far too close to something dangerous. Dangerous and forbidden.
She had seen him — a real dragon wearing the shape of a man, with old sorrow clinging to him like smoke.
And now she carried the one thing creatures like him were never meant to let humans keep.
Knowledge.
His secret.
The stories her grandmother used to whisper beside the fire rose sharply through her mind. His kind lived hidden among humans, every law built around secrecy and survival.
Cold slid beneath her skin.
Is he really going to let you walk away?
Poppy glanced back over her shoulder.
He hadn’t moved.
The wind stirred through the clearing, dragging dark strands of hair across his forehead while his gaze remained fixed on her with unnerving intensity. Something in his expression shifted.
Hardened.
The grief she’d seen there moments ago receded beneath something far more dangerous.
Predatory.
Every instinct inside her screamed at once.
Run.