“I can stay and take care of him. You should rest,” my sister says, beginning to move around the hide barrier.
Milaye grabs her and pulls her back. “Oh no you don’t.” Delina whimpers, grasping at Milaye’s hand. “We all know you’re terrible at healing. Let’s go tell the others still awake and worrying. I’m sure Leith is looking for you, and there’s plenty of food left to be passed out.”
I catch Milaye’s eye and mouth thank you. She smiles and drags my whining sister away. But a moment later, Milaye returns with a bone dagger in her hand, offering it to me.
“What’s this for?”
“Protection,” she says almost too softly for me to hear, her eyes going to the male. “He may be a male, but you are a sister to me. Be diligent.”
Overwhelmed again, I take the dagger from her and hook it into the ties of my skirt. “Thank you,” I mumble.
“Hollar and the tribe will be here in a flash,” she says.
I nod, having not given a single thought to finding a new weapon. My mind has been on many other things. Milaye stares at me for a moment before turning and vanishing behind the makeshift walls.
Peering back at the male, my mind reels. Finally, we’re alone.
But what if he does harm someone here besides me? I won’t let that happen, I admonish, touching the dagger once with my fingers before dropping my hand.
I notice his face is turned slightly toward me now when it had been facing the cave ceiling before. I frown. His eyes flicker once behind his eyelids.
“Are you awake?” I whisper.
No response.
Hmmm.
“Are you faking it?” I ask next.
Still no response. Squinting in curiosity, I soak the cloth with water and focus on cleaning his wounds. His neck appears under the blood and grime, and I discover his once deep cuts nearly gone. Feeling for a pulse, finding it strong and hardy, I lean back to take him in.
He hasn’t twitched a muscle, I note.
I keep cleaning his body, moving down to the gashes on his shoulders and chest. They’re all red and tender but closed. Swiping the blood away that’s gathered, I go to rinse my cloth again. When I check back, I swear the tent where his cock’s heaviness is springing up stands higher.
Gulping, clenching, I dart my gaze back to his face and chest.
He’s a gorgeous male, beautiful but robust at the same time. Every part of him is honed and sculpted, from the tips of his spiraling horns down to the glittering hard scales and the claws on his toes. I want to grasp his horns and squeeze them—rub my fingers and palms up and down their lengths. I want to taste the sharp slash of his lips.
He’s almost too deadly for a human, any human, even while sleeping. But something pulls me to him despite knowing he could hurt me, break me in two. That he could wake at any moment and throw me to the ground.
He radiates virility, rawness, and strength. Everything that is prized in the tribes. That I prize.
Whoever—if anyone—gets to be his, they will be the safest, luckiest, most envied woman on the Mermaid Coast. My hands shake a little as I scoop out healing ointment to slather and massage onto and around his wounds, my thoughts trailing to the dagger Milaye handed me.
I hope I don’t need it.
The male groans, deep and guttural.
My blush returns in full force and I swallow thickly, already frightened he’ll be taken away at any moment.
I could handle him.
I could try.
I want to try. I’m excited to try. My body tenses, and my core flutters at the prospect. I’ve waited years to mate, suffered countless nights of longing…
And that right there, I realize, is why I’m feeling so lost.
Delina is right. It’s the elder’s choice. Mating has always been the elder’s choice since the comet’s curse.
She is the chosen female… Why do my thoughts go there? They only emphasize how confused I feel, feeding the toxic mixture of fear and envy running in my veins. My fingers and palms rub the male’s skin almost worshipfully. This may be the only time I’ll ever touch him.
I can touch him while cleaning him…
His lips part and a quiet moan escapes him. I nearly moan in response, wanting to so badly lie down next to him, curl into his side, forget all these thoughts, and for once, in years, feel at peace.
I imagine it, as if all my training, all the responsibilities the tribe has put on my shoulders since childhood, pretending it could all be pushed away—even for a few minutes—imagining that I won’t have to live to see the gradual extinction of my people.
That I’ll have someone strong beside me when things get too hard to bear…
“I know you may be sleeping,” I say quietly so no one else would hear. He spoke my language before I knocked him out, but that doesn’t mean he’ll fully understand me. “I know you may not get my words, but if you are the dragon on the beach, I want you to know—I want you to know that I was going to search for one of your kind and see if the rumors of dragons turning to men were true.
“I wanted to believe, you see, needed to believe. But I didn’t think it would actually happen, and if it did—I doubted that I would even have the chance to touch you, never mind that you would even transform. But now that you’re here and I can’t deny it, all I feel is guilt. I’m confused. So confused. I hate these gashes on your flesh, and I can’t help but think it’s my fault. I’m sorry. If you want to hurt me for what I’ve done, I understand. If you want to leave, I will make sure
