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“Tell me I’m not going to be scarred forever. I want to wear a bikini next beach season.”

I’m only half joking. Those wings were the worst things I have ever seen in my life, massive and bloody and clawed. I was a monster. He’s turned me into some kind of freak creature. He promised me that his cum would stop me from aging. He never told me it would turn me into the world’s weirdest bat.

“I’m sorry, we did not know that would happen. But this is why humans do not return to their own world after they take the dragon seed. This is why I insisted you stay here. It is all for your own safety. You can no longer walk the human world without becoming monstrous and broken.”

Those words sink into my gut and make it churn.

“I can’t ever go back?”

“Not without this happening. Not without the semblance of the dragon emerging from you at inconvenient times and in painful ways.”

“Why did you cut the wings off?”

“The healer said it would be for the best. They had no scales, and…”

“So I flew once, and I’ll never fly again.”

He moves even closer beside me, taking my hands in his. “It should never have happened,” he says. “You should never have grown wings. They were mutations. Abominations.”

“But it did feel nice to fly, at least, until the falling part. I feel like I could have gotten it with more practice.”

“Your wings didn’t have the necessary strength. You need the musculature to operate them. You don’t have it. You are soft. You are sweet. You are human. You were made to run, not to fly.”

He’s being sweet, but I already feel the loss, even though it hurt. Even though it scared me. Even though it was the kind of body horror more appropriate for a terrible movie, it was my kind of body horror.

There’s something about losing a part of you, even if it was a temporary part, and even if it hurt you, that doesn’t feel good.

“You had no means of retracting them properly,” he said. “They made you bleed. And they were broken. I’m sorry. It must have been terrible to have them, and then to lose them.”

“I could get them back by going to the human world again?”

He reaches out tenderly and cups my chin in his hand. “You are never going to leave this realm,” he says softly. “I intend to keep you here for all eternity. This is where you are safe. This is where you are entirely mine. We are going to breed a new legion between us. Melissa, you are not merely a mate, you are part of history yet to be written. You will not have wings, but you will have a legacy.”

“I’m not sure I want a legacy. And I miss the human world. I want to see my friends. I want to see my family. I want to live a normal life. I like you, but I’m not ready to be a mother, and…”

“Shhhh,” he murmurs softly. “I know you think you want all of those things now, but you cannot have any of them. They would destroy you. The life you left behind never had any capacity to contain you. You were not made to be human. You have become more than mortal. Time to accept the gifts of your new reality, little one. Time to become all I wish for you to become.”

He’s magnetic when he speaks this way, low and deeply passionate. The words themselves are the utterances of an overly possessive madman, but the delivery is so smooth it almostseems reasonable. Maybe I should give into what he wants. Maybe I really did never have any future among humans. Maybe this is my destiny, and always was.

“So you’re not mad at me?” I ask him the question with more than a little curiosity. I really thought he’d beat me if I ever escaped, but I don’t think he’s going to punish me, not more than I already have been punished.

“Being angry at you would be pointless. You were manipulated out of this world. You were told terrible things by a terrible little whelp who is going to suffer for it. You have been punished enough by the consequences of your actions. Others are being punished more directly.”

“You mean Equinox is in trouble.”

“Equinox is going to be spending several years in the dungeons for the crime of enabling your escape, and he is lucky that is all that is happening to him. Anybody who helps you escape is going to be punished severely. If he were not family, I would surely have ended him.”

I immediately feel the worst guilt I have ever felt. Equinox sacrificed himself for me.

“I want to see him.”

“That will also never happen,” Ornix says. “He helped you escape this world. He made sure that you were put in danger. Without him, your escape attempt would have been entirely impossible.”

“I want to see him because I want to know what happened to him. I want to know what I made him suffer.”

“You didn’t do anything. He was misguided, and he needs to pay for his actions. He is paying.”

“I still want to see him.”