With my mind going back to the dagger hooked in my skirt again, I continue, “It’s my fault you’re here, not the tribe’s. If you want to hurt someone, hurt me, not them.”
Desire builds within me at my words to prove myself to this male. Prove to him that I’m not a bad person, that I will honor my words and him. That I will take the blame and not hide. That I will fight for my tribe, and I will fight for him.
Because as I’m watching his wounds close shut, and while I’m spreading his hair out on the hide untangling his knots, I can’t help but know that my touch upon his wing changed my life forever.
And his too.
8
Zaeyr in Heat
Aida. The human’s name is Aida.
The other humans call her that. It is nearly all I can think of since I heard it. What a strange and simple name. Though as I test it in my mind, I find I’m liking it too much—fury should be the only emotion brewing within me.
“Please forgive me,” Aida says again. I hear every word she utters.
She asks for forgiveness. My thoughts will not go there.
She acknowledges her selfish act for touching me too, I note. I am almost awed by her honesty. She is sorry for the hurts on my flesh…
Does the human female not realize she isn’t responsible for these gashes? That the femdragon did it in her frenzy?
The rends to my skin are nothing, not even fatal. A battle wound well taken.
This human could never hurt me in such a way, it is almost laughable to think of.
But when she falls silent, I quickly realize how much I was enjoying her voice.
Aida. My mind tastes her name again. Waiting for her to speak, I am annoyed that only her soft breaths, trickling water, and the distant talking of other humans greet my ears.
I have been awake for a while, pretending, listening in on my new surroundings, deciding whether or not these humans are a danger to me.
Waiting. Waiting and figuring them out, waiting for my strength to return. My new form is as strange to me as Aida’s name, and I need to get a sense of it before a battle ensues. If one ensues.
Aida reassures with her words.
She does not know me! A tendril of anger returns. She will pay for what she has done!
As her hands caress my neck and clean my wounds, my instinct to enjoy her touch tries to overpower the fury in me. I like her touch. I like being touched. It is so rare for me to touch another; I have forgotten what the sensation feels like. I bask in it, wanting more, wanting her to press upon me and have her everywhere at once.
She has no idea what confusion feels like, I groan inwardly.
I know I still retain scales, but even they are far more sensitive than ever before. And the places where my flesh is exposed, a terrible and hungry stirring blooms. I could become addicted. A short while ago, I was in the most pain in my life, and now… Now, I am enjoying pleasure unlike ever before.
My need for revenge grows—to shove her to the ground and finish what I started, to make her pay for her crimes, to kill her and destroy this perverse bond she has forced upon me.
To subdue her, bite her, mount her. A growl tears from my throat as I consider touching her intimately, of her hands returning the favor… the thought takes over the death plans.
She is sorry! She asks for forgiveness!
The longer I wait and listen and learn from her, the more I am coming to understand death is not what she deserves.
She deserves punishment. She says she will accept it! My brow furrows slightly.
If the human bond is what my ancestors have warned me of… Her death will result in my death too. And I can sense the bond, the tying heat that already connects us. It is in my growing need for her presence.
The thought of her death should give me pleasure—like it had for an instant on the beach—but it does not. Only vengeance does now, vengeance and having her by my side. Inconveniently incompatible ideas.
I do not want this human to die.
Mating, mounting, taking this blasted ache in my loins will be her punishment. And when the mating frenzy is gone, I will deny her my protection and a nest of my making—as she has denied me my hope. She will never be rid of me, and she will suffer it for as long as we both live.
I force myself to calm down and relax before I give myself away.
But I stiffen when the human female pulls my hair out from under my head. I have hair! She runs her fingers over and through it, avoiding my new horns, upending my thoughts again.
I want her to touch them, for her to feel their power. But her fingers twist in my strands instead and my scalp prickles deliciously, sending shockwaves of pleasure straight through this new body of mine.
Every moment in her presence makes it harder for me to pretend I am unconscious.
Sensing her lean over me, I tense further. If she is under me, she cannot escape me or her punishment.
I am ready to mate. Human or otherwise, my body is primed, and will not find relief until the act is complete.
Her soft breath warms my brow. I inhale and take her scent into me.
She smells of warm sands and sweet jungle spices, of fresh rain and ferns. So unlike the smell of any dragon that I have ever encountered, fem or otherwise. And it has been so long, so long since I smelled anything.
Aida’s scent eclipses all others, even the femdragon’s.
“I don’t want them to take you away from me,” she whispers, pulling my thoughts back to the here and now.
Take me away from you?
Them? These elders the other humans spoke
