All I can do is bide my time.
Her thin nostrils flare outward, breathing me in. I know my smell fills her, know she is trying to figure out why my scent pulls her to me, and I can see it—the thoughts roiling through her mind, as her glistening pupils look at me hard. Harder still with each second.
Each second is all I aim for. For every moment she is focused on me, she is distracted from the other smell in the air—Issa’s smell. Even though we washed our bodies, the rocks around the basin, everything is clear of my seed, but the smell of our pheromones are still in the air.
The femdragon sucks in another breath and sharply jerks back, head swinging side-to-side. Her claws grind and crush the ground.
“Human,” she says, her voice deep and long-winded. “Dragon human.”
Cocking my head, I choose not to answer yet.She is ignorant,I note.Good.I am up against a female far younger and far weaker than I ever was while a dragon. An advantage.
“Why do you smell of dragon heat, human?” she asks.
“Do you not know the comet’s curse?” I ask in return. If she does not, I am saddened that my kind has failed her so deeply.Perhaps she is from the far parts of the world, or her mother and sire perished without relaying such information.Rare as it is for a human and dragon to bond, it is something all dragonkind should know.
But her ignorance works for me. There is still the alpha dragon I sensed from before rising, before I turned and lost my immortality. I sense him still, though the sensation is muted and hidden under… layers of human emotions.
A male I would have fought to the death,not long ago,I hiss in my thoughts, is the male I now seek to save me from this femdragon, to save Issa.
Issa is in me now more than ever, feeling her adrenaline, her fear, her sadness like a bladed claw to my heart. To think, minutes before, all I knew was sublime happiness. Now each second as she moves farther away, it takes every bit of control I have to keep from chasing after her.
Hunting her, catching her, forcing her to the jungle floor and punishing her for leaving my side. From taking her, reminding her that she chose me to be her mate, not once, but twice—many times. Though it was I who demanded she flee.
But the sensation of her loss pains me like no other, and the farther she gets, the worse it becomes, gripping my throat and strangling me.
I am losing her.
She is getting away.My hands wrench at my sides.
I need her.
Protect her at all costs.
The femdragon’s hot breath gusts over me. “The comet’s curse? The one that changed the ways of Venys, manipulated mating cycles, and made many species go extinct, or… transform to accommodate? That curse, human dragon? I know of it.”
“But do you know what it did to us, to humans?”
Her wings flutter and leaves fall around us. “Humans? Why should I care for such a weak, dying species?”
She does not know.
I smile and raise my hand, palm up between us. Something she should fear greatly. But I am already bonded and know that my touch will have no effect on her.She does not know that.
“When a human touches a dragon,” I begin, turning my hand over once, then back palm up again. “The dragon transforms and becomes human himself, loses his immortality, and is fatally entwined with that human forever.”
She rears back. “You lie!”
“Smell the air again, femdragon. You smell me. You are in heat, and you are talking tome.How is that possible? Have you ever spoken to a human before?”
I keep my palm ready between us. An unusual threat.
The femdragon growls, her talons scrape the ground. Then I realize…The red of the comet is not shining down over her or me.Glancing up, I see clouds covering the sky—the dawn sunlight. Scanning the area, I find the shadows deep and gloomy. The sky darkens.
And under the femdragon’s scent, an aroma of petrichor blooms.
A stirring is happening far off.
A great alpha, an ancient is rising. I growl inwardly, worried for Issa being all alone.She has a way of encountering my kind…
