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“Make me.”
“Such defiance in one so frail and defenseless.”
She draws in a shaky breath as I tower over her and glare down into her eyes. The air around us feels thick and taut, charged with a force like lightning. I don’t know what I intend to do. I refuse to damage her, but she makes me so angry that I need to do something to her. I want her body between my teeth, under my tongue, pressed along my scales. I admire that bright, vivacious courage of hers, and yet I want her to obey me, to submit.
I lower my nose and skim it along her cheek, letting her feel my hot breath.
“You,” I murmur. “You need to be a good fucking girl.”
She inhales sharply. Doesn’t pull away.
My tongue flickers out and traces along the hot, rosy softness of her cheek. This time the thrill is more powerful, rushing through me from horns to tail.
She begins to sing again, softly. “I swallowed his soul, so I could be whole—”
A growl rips from my chest. “Do you want me to kill you?”
“Maybe.” Something haunted flickers in her eyes.
“I don’t think you do. You’re too full of spirit, of life. You reek of vitality, of virility… something…” I inhale her scent, that fragile sweetness.
“I’m not doing this because I want you to kill me… not anymore. But I want you to suffer. You deserve suffering. All dragons do, for what they have done.”
“You hunted us.”
“Did we hunt you first? Because I’ve heard that in centuries past, dragons ate humans. We were tasty little snacks for your kind.”
“Tasty… little… snacks,” I rumble, sweeping my tongue along her throat. “Keep taunting me, Princess. See what happens.”
She’s breathing hard and fast, but she tilts her chin up. As if she’s allowing me access to her throat.
I nuzzle along the column of her neck, painting it with wet swipes of my tongue. I scarcely know what I’m doing, and I don’t understand it. Heat pulsates between us, a hectic hunger, a visceral need.
When she speaks, her voice trembles. “You didn’t ally with Vohrain merely out of spite for a past wrong. There must have been something else.”
At her perceptive comment, I pause. “Yes. We were struck by a new kind of plague this year, and it decimated the prey throughout this archipelago. The other isles have been stripped of anything but the smallest game.”
“The plague traveled between islands? That’s rather unusual, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.” I never really thought about it before, but it is odd, the way the plague spread so quickly. It wasn’t transported by dragons—we would arrive on one of the smaller islands, hoping for prey, only to find that the plague had already wiped out most of the game. Almost as if the disease had a mind of its own, and was attempting to starve us on purpose.
“We have enough food on Ouroskelle to survive, barely,” I tell her. “But when the next brood of hatchlings arrives, we must have better hunting grounds, or many of us will starve. Hatchlings grow quickly, and they require large amounts of food to sustain that growth. The well-being of the hatchlings must come before that of the primes and elders.”
“The primes are the adult dragons?” She eases back, cautiously moving out of reach of my tongue. “How old are you?”
“I will be twenty-five years old three weeks after the Rib Moon.”
“And how long do dragons live?”
“The lucky ones live to a hundred and fifty. Any dragon above eighty years is considered an elder.” I am hesitant to tell her more, but since she will soon be a dragon, I suppose it is information she should have. “Elders and primes experience the mating frenzy every quarter century without fail, but we are only fertile for two or three of those cycles. Some dragons mate many times each season and never produce a brood, while others produce one or two eggs, not all of which may hatch.”
“And how long does it take for a dragon egg to hatch?”
“They are laid about a week after mating, and they may hatch up to seven days after that. Some eggs take a little longer. My brother was three weeks late, but his was a rare case. Usually by that time, we accept that the egg is not viable.”
A twinge of pain enters my heart as I remember my conversation with Varex about his hatching. I long to experience the joy of the hatching days with the members of my clan.
The Princess furrows her small brows. “As I understand it, this will be your first mating season.”
