“Where did you come from?” I breathe.And how can you see me?
He doesn’t answer my question, merely flexes those long fingers against my arms, and I feel the power there held in check. The fear coating my mouth spreads, chokes down my throat.
He gives no reply. Merely stares at me in silence with his hard, intense violet-dark eyes—a gaze that goes on and on and on.
His naked body radiates heat, and a warm flush creeps up my body, stinging my cheeks.
I’ve seen plenty of naked people over the years. Women and men alike. It’s not so uncommon that I should gawk or feel any level of embarrassment, except Idofeel that because he’s the first person who knows, who is aware that I am looking—who feels my eyes on him.
“Wh-where are your clothes?” I demand with the faintest quiver in my voice.
In response, he continues to knead his fingers along my arms like some wild cat moments before it strikes and tears the flesh from my body. He tugs me a little closer to the great, towering wall of him. I look up, dazed, the pulse in his palms fusing into me, increasing in tempo, and my heart speeds to catch up, anxious, scared, matching his rhythm. And suddenly it’s like I have two hearts inside me.
His and mine.
Beast and prey.
“Please,” I whisper, unable to identify what it is I’m pleading for from this stranger. I remind myself that he’s not the enemy. He’s not the beast.Theyare. The dragons out there, hunting us...meandhim.
And yet my heart won’t stop hammering against my ribs.
The ground shudders with sudden force. The silvery-white dragon finds us—breaks through the sifting fog with a snarl and snapping jaws.
I scream and recoil, trying to tear free from the man holding me. He doesn’t budge. Why?Whyis he just standing here...why is he not fleeing?
“Run!” I gasp, bewildered at his lack of reaction, at his clinging grip.
He turns to stare casually at the creature with his violet-dark eyes. As though the sight of a dragon is an everyday occurrence. “I told you to shade her, Arvos.”
I freeze, confused.
He isn’t speaking tome. He’s speaking to the dragon...talking to one of the monsters who murdered everyone in my village like he knows him, like they are...equals...thesame.
No. No.No.
I’d known. Instinctively. This man is my enemy. I’d let his appearance, hishumanness, lull me.
The silver dragon—Arvos—huffs and tosses its massive head, and then, in a burst of blinding light, the dragon is gone. In its place stands another man, also naked, meeting the stare of the stranger holding me prisoner in his grip.
Suddenly the other two dragons appear with heavy, thudding steps: the green one and the one the color of a bronze coin. They join the two men, all four together as though it’s the most ordinary thing. As though they should exist together in the same orbit. Men. Dragons. As though they are not mortal enemies. As though dragons are not the harbingers of cruelty and death and misery.
In dual explosions of light, the dragons vanish, transforming into a man and a woman.
It can’t be.
I panic and renew my struggles.
Violet Eyes turns to me then and gives me a mildly exasperated look, his voice maddeningly calm but no less biting, no less terrifying. “Be still.”
No retort arrives on my tongue. My thoughts are too chaotic, too horrified. I just watched dragons transform into humans. They change shape. Like...magic.
Is this the reality for all dragons? Has it always been so? The truth...kept hidden from humans for so long?
My head spins. My knees sag, overcome with this day’s many blows.
My witch isn’t dead as I’d thought, as I’dhoped. These dragons see me either because of their magic or because they aren’t human.
My captor pulls me tightly to his side, pressing his naked body against me. I gulp and push wildly at him, but the contact of my palms with his burning flesh, with all the smooth, hard skin, makes me cringe, and I yank my hands away as though burned.
