Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
TEROLON
My tongue flicked out, tasting the warm midday air.
An unfamiliar sweetness teased my senses and slid down the entire long length of my spine, making my fangs ache and the tip of my tail vibrate.
What is this?
The breeze seldom found its way through the thick forest and high stone walls surrounding my basking garden. And yet this honeyed scent drifted in the single arched doorway and swirled around me like a gift from the very goddesses I’d long since believed had turned their backs on me.
Warm and sleepy under the midday sun, I opened my eyes and blinked drowsily up at the cloudless blue sky.
I spent all my daytime hours here, soaking up warmth during these waning autumn days before the chill of winter drove me deep inside my cave to the hot springs and it would be months until I saw the sky again.
The scent grew stronger, bringing with it a strange new kind of energy that soaked through my scales and coursed through my veins.
It roused me from my half-asleep basking state to alertness more quickly than even the sharpest pangs of hunger.
But it wasn’t lack of food that made me draw my thick coils beneath me and straighten my upper body until my head was nearly level with the top of the surrounding walls.
The scent was…ambrosia. It was perfection. It was mine.
Tracking the source of the entrancing scent with flicks of my tongue, I undulated through the garden doorway and across the sun-dappled forest floor, following a path I often took toward the hidden mouth of a cold spring near a rocky ravine.
It was closer to a well-traveled road than I preferred to go in daylight, but I’d never seen or scented a human there.
Creatures of the forest often came to the spring to drink, especially during the summer months, making it a good place to lie in wait for prey.
Perhaps this was a new kind of creature, one that would be delicious to eat.
That didn’t seem quite right, though, as the stronger the scent became, the more my sartras stirred within my slit and my seed pouch heated with anticipation.
The tip of my tail vibrated, stirring the thick layer of autumn leaves on the forest floor until I stilled it for the sake of stealth.
As I approached the spring, I discovered the honeyed fragrance wasn’t coming from the direction of the water—rather, it originated from within the ravine.
And it had an unpleasant, bitter edge to it now, one that made my fangs ache to envenomate something.
While I killed to eat regularly, I hadn’t experienced the drive to kill in anger in many years.
Not since I’d left my parents’ court and began my exile.
And yet in this moment I felt quite compelled to sink my fangs into a throat and enjoy the death throes that followed.
Every sense on alert for danger, I entered the ravine at its mouth, gliding almost soundlessly over the mossy stones and damp earth.
Just two of my body lengths inside the narrow gorge, I rounded a pile of fallen rock and saw a small human female left crumpled, dirty, and limp where she’d fallen, discarded like a broken doll.
Eyes hot and aglow with the force of my wrath, I crossed the distance between us with violent lashes of my long body, bringing me to her side so quickly that everything around me blurred. Instinctively, I coiled around her, forming a living wall between my treasure and anything that meant her harm.
She was lovely, with long brown hair threaded with golden strands and features so fine whole galleries should be devoted to depictions of her beauty.
But my treasure was also painfully thin and wan, and she’d been terribly beaten by both fists and her fall through the branches above.
Very little of her soft, pale skin wasn’t scraped raw or discolored by bruises; even her tiny button of a nose was bloodied.
Telltale marks on her swollen and discolored jaw showed where thick knuckles had struck her.
I hissed. What human beast would inflict such terrible injuries on such a precious female?
At least her heartbeat remained strong, if slower than a human’s should be, and her breathing did not sound obstructed.
On closer inspection, her dress wasn’t just torn; it had clearly been ripped down the front, along with her underclothes, as if by a violent hand intent on disrobing her.
Rage threatened to sweep away all my reason, but I didn’t smell violation upon her.
In fact—my tongue flicked out over her outstretched right arm to confirm it—much of the blood soaking her right sleeve and the front of her dress wasn’t her own.
It was a human man’s blood, and it smelled strongly of the foulness and evil that blackened his heart.
Despite her small stature and injuries, this ferocious female had fought him and drawn his blood. My chest swelled with pride in her fierceness.
I committed the smell of this vile man to memory so if I came upon him even many years from now, I’d know his foulness. My fangs ached for him to feel the full weight of my vengeance.
There was something else that smelled of this man, and of powerful magic too: a set of heavy manacles. One side was locked tightly around her slender wrist. The other hung loose, its mission of rendering her a prisoner at the mercy of her captor unfulfilled.
Soon I hoped to hear the full story of what had transpired from my sweetness’s own lips, but the events that led to her fall seemed plain to my eyes.
One final detail spoke volumes: she had wept here on the floor of the ravine. The salty trails left by her tears were not yet dry. It was her tears and pain that smelled so bitter and sour and made my fangs drip with venom and ache to bite.
She will never weep, or fear, or go hungry again.
I made the vow before my conscious mind could form the words, my fist clenched and pressed to my chest over my hearts. My oath rang deep in my soul like bells.
Very carefully, I cradled her battered left arm and the manacles and rested them on my tail. She let out a soft moan and grimaced, but she didn’t wake.
I studied the manacle, tongue flicking. Its foul enchantments tasted and smelled like rotting leaves and decaying flesh. An evil one’s spellwork. Someone else who deserved to feel my fangs in their throat.
I had no key, nor anything that would cut through the metal, but with my great strength I didn’t need them. With a careful wrench and twist, I broke the hinge and freed my sweetness from the manacles’ grasp. As they fell to the dirt, her brow smoothed and she exhaled.
With the most gentle touch I could manage, I brushed damp, blood-splattered hair back from her lovely face. She turned her head, pressing her cool cheek into the center of my palm as if seeking comfort and security even in unconsciousness. I’d give my treasure warmth and safety, and far, far more.
I envisioned her in my cave, clean and healed, her eyes wide and bright with happiness. Basking half asleep on my chest in my garden. Eating meals I cooked for her and picking fruit from my trees and drinking water and wine from my stores. Sleeping safe in my coils.
I saw her atop me or beneath me, well-fed and healthy, filled with my sartras and my seed, flushed with pleasure and crying out my name.
Behind my slit, my engorged sartras throbbed, and my breeding rings swelled with hunger for her. My shelshi.
My hearts went out of rhythm in my chest.
From the moment her scent had found me on the breeze, I’d been drawn here. I’d called her my sweetness without thinking.
She was a strong female. A brave fighter. A treasure beyond all price.
The goddesses hadn’t forgotten me; they’d only waited until my hearts and body were strong enough to love and protect the greatest honor they could bestow upon a lost son of Izaelon.
“Shelshi,” I murmured, stroking her hair. “My sweetness. My light.”
Her eyelashes fluttered. Eyes as blue as the summer sky at midday met mine, and I was lost forever in their depths.
“Shelshi,” I said again softly. “You’re safe.”
She blinked once, very slowly. Her strange, round pupils dilated until only a ring of blue remained, but I saw no fear in her gaze.
“You’re safe,” I repeated more firmly, because above all else I wanted her to know that. “Rest now. I will care for you.”
She blinked once more, and then her eyes drifted closed.
Her thick, dark lashes mesmerized me. My own eyes did not have lashes. Nor did I have blunt pink nails on my fingers. I had claws—very sharp claws that I must keep retracted at all times when touching my mate.
There were, in fact, many, many differences between our bodies, from her soft, unprotected skin to her slender legs, two little feet, and tiny toes. But I hoped we were not so unalike that she’d find me repulsive.
My hearts, my soul, and all that I owned already belonged to my shelshi, though I did not yet know her name.
More gently than as if I were picking up the finest crystal or spun glass, I scooped up my precious mate, cradled her to my chest, and carried her home.