Fight.
Submit.
Never.
The dragon stares at me.
I stare back.
He takes a step forward. For something so massive, the movement is surprisingly graceful—liquid and predatory, like watching a cat stalk prey. One clawed foot, then another, eating up the distance between us with strides that make the earth tremble.
Twenty feet away.
Fifteen.
His nostrils flare—twin caverns large enough to swallow my head whole—and he draws in a long, deep breath. Scenting me. The sound is like wind rushing through a canyon, resonant and low enough that I feel it vibrating in my chest.
Scenting my building heat.
Scenting my rage.
Scenting my wrongness.
A sound rumbles up from deep in his chest. Not quite a growl. Not quite a purr. Something between them, something that has no name in human language. It vibrates through the ground, through the altar, through the iron chains, through me.
Recognition.
Ten feet away now.
His head is larger than my entire body. His breath washes over me—hot as a forge, smelling of smoke and char and something ancient. Something that was old when my grandmother's grandmother was young.
And underneath all of that: his scent.
Smoke. Stone. Winter wind cutting across frozen peaks. Pine forests and woodsmoke and something wild beneath it all, something my body recognizes even though my mind doesn't,something that reaches into the deepest part of me and saysalpha-apex-MATE.
The heat that's been building—building slow, building manageable, building controllable?—
—detonates.
One second I'm breathing through the discomfort, managing the fever, holding on to consciousness with both hands.
The next, red washes over my vision like blood poured across glass and fury erupts in my chest like a volcano breaking through the earth's crust.
The rage hits so hard I scream.
Not in fear. In pure feral fury. The sound tears out of my throat without my permission, raw and animal.
My body arches off the altar, spine bowing, pulling against the chains with strength I didn't know I possessed. The iron groans in protest. The bolts holding the rings to the stone shift—just a fraction, but they move.
The fever spikes from uncomfortable to unbearable. My skin is on fire, burning from the inside out. Slick floods between my thighs, and I hate it, hate my treacherous body for wanting this monster, hate that I'm wet and aching for him while every conscious thought screams to tear out his throat.
The rage and the need tangle together until I can't tell them apart. Two snakes eating each other's tails, consuming and becoming consumed.
My vision is fully red now. Everything sharp and clear and painted in shades of violence. I can see every scale on his massive body, could count them if I wanted. Can see exactly where I need to strike to draw blood—the eyes, the throat, the softer scales under his jaw where the armor thins.
The dragon rumbles again and lowers his enormous head until those molten gold eyes are level with mine, maybe three feet away. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off hisscales. Close enough to see my own reflection in those liquid gold irises—small, chained, burning with fury.
This close, I can see the individual scales on his snout, each one a tiny shield. Can see the flecks of darker gold in his eyes, like sparks frozen in amber. Can see scars—old wounds that healed wrong, leaving silver lines through the black scales like rivers on a map.
