The scales on his joints catch my gaze as they glisten a brilliant emerald and jade. They move with him, curving and bending like armored jewels all his own.
And his wing-like appendages along his arms…They’re velvety and thicker than they look. Their endpoints are sharp like cartilage, no sharper than his small nails.
I wonder what he thinks of me.
Our breathing evens out, and the noises of the jungle return.
“What now?” I ask, listening to his drumming heart under my ear.
Kaos stirs, his back to the waterfall edge, and grazes his nails over the back of my neck. “I protect and provide for you while you raise my young.”
Stiffening, my eyes pop open. “Young?”
“I am an alpha. My seed is strong, and I gave you all of it. If it has not planted in your womb already, it will soon. Young are guaranteed when mating with me.”
A stab of jealousy hits me, cutting through my surprise. “You’ve mated before?” I ask.
“I have not.”
Oh… Pleasure fills me.
But his body goes rigid. “Is that a problem?” he asks.
“No, I’m happy. I don’t like knowing there’s another female—femdragon—who’ve you touched.” I choose to tell him the truth.
He lets out a raspy laugh I feel through my whole body. “Dragons don’t mate bond.”
“I don’t care,” I grumble.
“Would you fight a femdragon for me if I had?” He’s teasing me.
“Yes,” snapping back at him.
More laughter sounds, and my eyes narrow. He continues, “The only femdragon you may have to face is the one looking for me.”
Silence settles between us. The femdragon was all but gone from my thoughts but now she’s there again, like a shadow hanging over us. “I haven’t heard her,” I realize out loud. “Not for a while. Could she be gone?” I’m hoping she’s gone. Then nothing would stand in our way…Except for my tribe.I won’t dwell on that thought, not now, and rub my cheek over Kaos’s chest.
He’s still inside me. And my body no longer hurts from his girth. It’s as if I’ve expanded to accommodate him.
“She will only leave if another alpha dragon comes forward or if her heat becomes too much to bear and she allows a lesser dragon to mate her. She does not know that I am human now, only that my pheromones linger. She will eventually stop hunting me, but until then, we must keep away from her. Fortunately, I know another alpha is rising near here. It will not be much longer before he calls out to her, and to me, in challenge.”
I tense. “Another dragon?”
“Do not worry. He will go to her, she will go to him, and they will leave us be. Once he smells her pheromones, once he is within the comet’s rays, he will think of nothing else but the pain in his shaft.”
“Oh…”
I’ve never encountered a dragon before Kaos, let alone a lesser or an alpha. And to find out there were at least two so close to my tribe disturbs me.
If it weren’t for Kaos and the dragon skeleton we slept in the first night, I would have thought all dragons were the same: equally terrifying, large, and rare.An occurrence only brought on by the stirring of the red comet…
Alpha dragon… Alpha seed. Dropping my hand from where it rests on his chest, I curve it over my belly, remembering what Aida told me of the huntress and her dragon. “Will you know if I’m with young?” Hope and awe whisper through me, and I’m almost too afraid to ask.
He places one hand between us, slipping it under mine and pressing it to my belly. “If you are, I will know soon. Very soon.” His voice is rough.
Looking up at him. “How?”
“Dragons sense one another.”
