Page 17 of Storm of Blood and Shadow

“Perhaps, but I would lose you afterward,” he says. “If you stay here and become a dragon, we can be together for years, as life-mates. I will build you the finest nest, and—”

“I don’t want to be your life-mate,” I interrupt, removing my hand from his cock. “Nor do I wish to be a dragon. This is the body I was born with, the body in which I learned to dance.”

“It is frail,” he points out, nodding to my walking stick.

“Nevertheless, it’s mine. I don’t want another one. I don’t want to become a great hulking beast who can’t dance, ever again.” My voice cracks, despair and panic writhing up my throat to choke me.

“Dragons can dance,” he replies eagerly. “The males of my kind perform a dance for the females every mating season.”

“So… you dance once every twenty-five years?”

He shifts his footing. “We practice the dance occasionally.”

“It’s not the same, and if you can’t understand that, you’re a fool.” I spin around and limp away from him, back toward the clearing where we slept.

His footfalls thump behind me, muffled by the thick grass. “You need food and something to help your leg.”

“It’s my ankle. I just need to rewrap it. There’s a fresh cloth in my bag, along with food. It’s more food than I can use, actually, provided it’s still edible. I should share some of it with the other captives. Your friend, Rothkuri—he said some of the women were being kept on the ground, in a cavern?”

“Yes. We can fetch your bag from my cave, and then I’ll take you to the others, if you like. You can spend time with your own people while I make you a nest.”

I turn to face him and instantly catch my breath. While he’s behind me, talking in that smooth, rich voice, it’s easy to forget what he is—howbighe is. He towers over me, especially when hesits on his haunches with his neck lifted. The sinuous length of that neck is strangely attractive, and there’s a sleek elegance to the shape of his tapered head.

During our conversation, he managed to regain control over himself, and his cock is hidden again, retracted into his genital slit. With the glossy black of his scales and the dappled shadows of the forest, I can’t even see where his cock emerged.

The dragon arches his wings and tilts his head, as if he’s wondering why I haven’t replied. “Are you well, little one?”

“Stop calling me that. Call me Jessiva.”

“Jessiva,” he murmurs in that rich, silken voice, and a delighted shiver runs over me. I suspect it was a mistake to give him my name.

“I am Varex,” he says. “Prince of Ouroskelle, brother to Kyreagan, son of the Bone-King Arzhaling. And I am your devoted servant.”

“My captor, you mean.”

Warmth pools in his eyes and his neck ripples forward, bringing his sleek muzzle close to my face. “I belong to you as completely as you belong to me. I will serve you in all ways. I would give up my very life for your sake. Only do not ask me to be parted from you.”

My face grows hot, and my stomach dissolves into quivering butterflies. No man has ever spoken to me in that way. Even when I was at the peak of my career, none of my admirers spoke such words of devotion—certainly none so pure, fervent, and sincere.

“We’ll have to part ways for a little while,” I say. “I would like to spend time with the other women.”

“As you wish.”

I take a moment to relieve myself in a thicket, and when I return, he tucks me neatly into his front claws and pusheshimself off the ground with his strong back legs. His giant wings unfold, pounding the air, lifting us into the sky.

Rising high into the bright morning is unexpectedly exhilarating. For a moment, I forget about everything except mountain peaks bathed in the glow of the sun, puffy white clouds floating like islands in the blue sky, and glimpses of glittering ocean below, off to my right. The island is a wilderness of peaks and valleys, green meadows and gray cliffs, thick forests and sparkling streams. The vivid colors pierce my heart like arrows, because if I were here for different reasons, I would love this place.

But I can’t allow myself to love anything while my family languishes in a dingy apartment, confused by my absence, terrified of the invading forces of Vohrain. How will they survive without me? Bryon and Loram are too selfish and incompetent to manage things, and my sister has never taken initiative or leadership in her life. The children are intelligent, but they don’t always know when to be quiet and when to hide, when to fight and when to run.

“See there,” says Varex, bobbing his head in the direction of a broad green plain. Five dragons are moving there, placing white objects in wave-like patterns. “They are laying out the bones of the females who perished here on the island.”

“You don’t bury them?”

“No. We admire them until they sink into the earth, or until grass and flowers conceal them. Their strength becomes part of the island.”

“It’s a beautiful ritual,” I say. “But what if there is a dragon you don’t admire, or don’t wish to remember? Does that ever happen?”

“What do you mean?”

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