Chapter 7 #2
Precise was not the word Alsander would have chosen for a creature large enough to crush wagons beneath one claw, but before he could answer, the dragon lowered his head slightly toward Poppy once again.
Entranced, Poppy tracked the movement. Her gaze collided with the dragon’s.
Smoke drifted from his nostrils in slow gray ribbons.
Poppy’s face glowed gold beneath the reflected firelight. Her hair caught the brightness like threads of copper wire, and the dragon made a soft sound deep in his chest that Alsander realized—horrifyingly—was affection.
The beast was enchanted with her.
Hopelessly.
The fire overhead began to dim.
Not die.
Withdraw.
Alsander sensed the change immediately. Heat moved strangely around magic; it obeyed different laws. The blaze coating the ceiling shuddered once, then drew backward through the cavern in invisible currents, flowing toward the dragon with the slow pull of a tide reversing itself.
The beast inhaled.
Warmth peeled away from the air.
The brutal heat softened first against Poppy’s skin, then throughout the chamber; the temperature dropping too quickly to be natural. The glowing cracks webbing through the ceiling darkened from white-gold to ember red, from ember red to black stone glistening faintly in the firelight.
The dragon’s magic moved through the cavern walls.
Alsander felt it sink deep into the mountain itself, slipping through ancient stone veins rich with underground water. Heat. Cold. Pressure. Release. The dragon manipulated them as instinctively as breathing.
Dragon magic was never only destruction.
It was dominion.
A sharp hiss whispered overhead.
Poppy blinked upward.
One clear droplet formed in the ceiling above her.
It trembled there, reflecting the dying gold light, then fell.
Another appeared beside it.
Then another.
The cavern, first heated, then cooled, began to weep with condensation.
Poppy gasped, the sound full of wonder, as water pearled across the dark stone in glittering beads, gathering along the paths the fire had traced moments before. Droplets slid down the vaulted ceiling and fell through rising steam in a cool silver rain.
The scent changed instantly.
Smoke and sulfur gave way to wet mineral, clean stone, and the sharp sweetness of rain after unbearable summer heat.
Poppy let out the smallest breath.
Not fear.
Wonder.
The dragon practically preened.
Observe, fool , he informed Alsander smugly. Mate likes rain.
You cannot possibly know that.
The dragon ignored him entirely.
Mist curled through the chamber, drifting around the dragon’s enormous body.
Water hissed softly against black scales still hot from fire.
Tiny curls of steam rose wherever droplets touched him, wrapping him in silver vapor that made the great beast look less like a predator and more like some ancient god dragged out of legend.
And through it all, his focus never left her.
Not for a heartbeat.
The dragon lowered himself slowly onto his forelegs before her. Careful. Controlled. One massive wing unfurled partway, curving overhead to shield her from the heavier runoff cascading from the center of the cavern.
Shelter.
The gesture hit Alsander somewhere deep and defenseless.
Three centuries alone, and the dragon already knew how to make room for another heartbeat beside their own.
Mate should be treasured , the beast said simply.
Poppy stepped closer.
Rain silvered her hair. Dampened the shoulders of her sweater. She lifted one tentative hand toward the dragon’s lowered muzzle.
Alsander panicked instantly.
Too close.
The dragon remained perfectly still.
Even the smoke stopped.
Her palm touched black scales.
The entire beast shuddered.
Not violently. Not with hunger.
With something so profound Alsander nearly lost hold of himself inside it.
Joy.
Pure and terrible and ancient.
Mine, the dragon thought softly, no longer triumphant about it. No longer possessive.
Only awed.
Ours .
Her eyes widened with awe, not fear.
Her hand was already lifting.
"Oh." She made the same soft sound. The same almost-greeting. "Oh, look at you."
She stopped within reach of his teeth.
She had to tilt her head all the way back to look at him. She lifted her hand, slowly, the way a person reaches for a wild bird. The dragon lowered its great head another inch to meet her halfway.
Her palm settled against the scales above his jaw.
The whole vast shape of him went still.
Her hand was small against him. His scales were the size of her palm, each one. She moved her hand in a slow stroke, fingers finding the smaller, softer scales at the seam of his jaw. She let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
"You're warm." Her thumb traced the edge of a scale. "I don’t know why I thought you'd be cold."
Stop, Alsander tried to say. Tried one last time to do the honorable thing. To make her go. Stop, you do not know what you are doing.
She moved closer. Slid her hand down the long line of his neck. The dragon leaned into her palm.
Be careful! Alsander snarled inside the shared cavern of their skull. His dragon paid him no mind at all.
She moved a little closer and found a place where the scales gave way to softer skin under his jaw and rubbed there.
A deep, slow rumble of contentment rose up out of his chest.
He felt her startle. Then — oh, gods — then she laughed.
"Oh." The delight in her voice was unmistakable. "Oh, you like that."
The fire built at the back of his throat.
His cock — even in dragon form, even buried in scale and bone — throbbed .
The dragon felt her hand on its scales the way the man would have felt her hand on his skin, and the heat of her was singing through every inch of the great black shape of him, and the dragonfire was rising. And it wanted out .
No dragonfire. Do not mark her. Not without her knowing. Not without her choosing.
The dragon snarled in agreement and held the magical fire back.
She was at his shoulder now. She pressed her whole body against the slope of his foreleg and reached up to stroke the wing where it folded against his side.
The leather of his wing was sensitive in a way he had forgotten — and her hand moved along the ridge of bone and the rumble in his chest deepened into something that was almost a purr, almost a growl, almost a sound a man would make with a woman's mouth on his cock.
She stopped.
"Am I hurting you?"
If only.
The dragon shook its massive head and huffed.
"Come out." Her cheek pressed to his scales. Her voice muffled against him. "Alsander. Come out. I want to see your face."
He came out.
The shift was uglier going the other way — the dragon didn’t want to relinquish control. Alsander fought him back into the cavern of his bones and folded inward in a shift that left him flat on his back on the stone floor of his own lair —
Naked. Gasping. The taste of fire still hot at the back of his throat.
She hadn’t stepped back as he shifted.
Her hand had moved with the change. It had been on his wing. It was on his bare shoulder now. She knelt in front of him in the firelight, her hand on his skin the only warmth he needed in this cold world.
"There you are," she said.
He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t look at her. His chest heaved. There were tears on his face and he didn’t know when they had gotten there.
"Alsander." Her voice was low. Steady. "Look at me."
He looked at her.
She wasn’t afraid. She had never been afraid. She was looking at him with the same open, considering tenderness she had turned on his books and his table and the small green bottles on his shelves — as if he were another thing in this room she had been hoping to find.
"If you were trying to scare me, it didn't work."
"We noticed."
A quiet laugh moved through her, then it broke. She pressed her forehead against his and her hand slid up into his hair and held on.
"You're a very handsome dragon," she whispered.
"Yes." It was the truth.
She laughed again. "There are others. Aren't there?"
"Yes." He had to swallow before the rest came. "But not here. Not anymore.”
" Draquonir. " She said it like she had known it her whole life. "That’s what you are, right? I — I was told never to speak that name.”
Ice ran down his spine into the soles of his feet.
He pulled back enough to see her face. His hands found her shoulders as fear gripped his heart.
"Where did you hear that word, Poppy?"