Cast in bright red, that head rises from the river, up into the deepening jungle gloom. It releases a roar that makes me scream at the top of my lungs. Its teeth—as it lifts its head skyward—are as long and thick as my legs.
A dragon.
The tail, near a dozen lengths of me, surges into the air and slaps back down, silencing my screams.
Falling from my broken raft, my body submerges. Grasping as waves threaten to sink me, pulling me in and out, I search for something, anything to hold on to.
Fingers outstretched, they slip across something slick and thick. Kicking toward it—it must be the tree—I grip it.
Then the treemoves, and I realize, as it pulls me completely from the river, I’ve clung to the dragon I’m trying to escape from.
The one I came here to find.
7
Kaos Mate Bonds
Raisingmy head to the sky, a long-awaited, tumultuous roar explodes from me. The heat that has been building over the past days ruptures from deep within my chest and fills the air. A strange noise follows.The forest screams its reply?
But the noise disappears before I investigate.
Then the femdragon’s call responds to my own,so, so close. The leaves rustle; the ground trembles.So close I can taste her.My tongue shoots out to do just that, penetrating the smoke from my roar.
My wings pull from my body to slash and break the trees on either side as I shake the centuries of algae off me.Tonight, I mate. Tonight, a femdragon is mine to breed, protect, and take care of.Her pheromones flood my nostrils, and my eyes slide open to look around.
A red glow is all about me.The comet.It has returned again.
The destruction of ancients,I growl.The twister of life and land.
My body tightens as my wings shake off mud and water.No matter—steam pours from my mouth.The comet’s magic already has me. The priming has already begun.
I’ll destroy anything and everything, even the comet itself, if it gets in my way.
Something annoying still hangs off my tail and I flick it again. The forest’s strange scream returns to my ears, and this time it hurts my head. The annoyance remains. I flap my wings to take to the sky, knowing it will dislodge soon, but when I push up, nothing happens.
Growling, I try again. Nothing.
Again.
My wings can’t take my weight. How long have I been asleep?
Fury fills me, but try as I might, my wings cannot support my body. Hundreds of years of existence, and I have never been plagued with such weakness.
I turn my rage to the annoying thing on my tail, twisting toward it, preparing to bite the obstruction off. Poising it before my eyes, I find it is not part of the jungle growth at all, but a creature wrapped around my limb, clutching tightly, hazy in the evening shadows.
Pulling back my lips, baring my teeth, I snap at it. All it does is open its mouth and—
That scream!
It tears through me, rocking me to my senses, dispersing the femdragon’s pheromones from my nostrils. Weakness floods me, everywhere.
It is not just my wings anymore, which begin to droop, but my internal heat—myentirebody. My claws lose their grip on the ground. My mouth drops open and I try to release smoke, but little comes out.
The femdragon’s mating call fills my ears again, and this time, it rocks my head with sharp pain. I will not impress her this way.
My tail falls toward the water, and the thing moves on me, catching my gaze, focusing it.
Two legs, two arms, bipedal. My nostrils flare. Fury builds like never before as I come to realize what is holding me so tightly.
