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Somehow I don’t think him being back later will bring anything good.

FENROTHER

The female sets my scales writhing with her nibbling at the food offered and her strange clothing all too tight to her body. Her scent is something I can’t get out of my nostrils, try as I might.

Having locked her into a bedroom, my heart feels easier, not like it’s about to jump out of my chest and scuttle away across the floor. If she wasn’t human, I’d be inclined to believing she’d bewitched me in some way.

But humans have no magic. They only have spiky things with which to spear an unsuspecting Wyrm and metal cladding with which to resist a bite.

Back at my fire, I pick up her weapons holster. It is a strange piece of equipment. Mostly designed to cover the lumps on her chest, quite a lot of it is a stretchy material which is partially see through.

I give it an exploratory stretch. The long red straps expand considerably the more I drag on them, stretching wider and wider until one of them slips my claws and slams into the side of my head, making my ear ring. I snarl at the thing, flinging itaway from me into the fire where it flames briefly before turning into ash.

She does have weapons. They are concealed within her garments. It is clothing which will need to be removed.

Her skin might not be scaled like mine, but it is not unpleasant to look at and touch. She will surely be glad to be rid of her garments, as I am when I shift to my Wyrm form. Further, without clothing I can have a much better look at this female whom the Yeavering sought to provide me as a mate.

I have a yearning to look at the area where she does not have a pizzle again and to feel the large globes on her chest. The thought of doing so makes my pizzle tingle like it does sometimes when I have strange dreams or I need to piss urgently. I palm it through my trousers.

Eating usually solves any problem I have, and it has been a long, unexpected flight to and from the Yeavering stone. I haven’t done much flying in a long time, and it shows in my appetite.

There was a time when all I did was fight. Spending decades in the dark lands, doing the Faerie queen’s bidding. They’ve not demanded my obedience for a long time, not since I last refused to bend to them and there was nothing they could do to make me.

Since then, I’ve been alone.

My pizzle tingles again. It’s something, it seems, I cannot control. But then my pizzle has always had a life of its own, a life I usually ignore.

I stand, stretching out my wings and tail as I consume the last of the cooked meat. Such a feast was required on my return, but I remain disappointed the female did not eat much, although if I’m being rational, I’m not sure why.

Alice does not rule me. No one and no creature rules me. I made that clear to Queen Mab when I walked away fromthe wars in the Night Lands. I never should have given up the solitude of the Wyrm to do her bidding. She told me I would be doing my part, as my sire before me had done.

I know now that was not true.

I stalk through the castle to my study, a room I mostly prefer when I’m not eating or hunting. The smell of parchment and leather is pleasing to me after what has been a stressful and confusing day.

Sitting at my desk, I see the books I pulled out when the Yeavering stone called to me. The books I knew which discussed mating.

None of them discussed what you do if your chosen mate wants to do you an injury, or carries a weapons holster, or has no pizzle.

I flick through the pages again. There are a few illustrations, but these are mainly of males holding out flowers to females who wear long flowing outfits. These females are nothing like how Alice appeared to me. The males are not Wyrms either, they are Faerie-like, thin, spindly, with crowns perched on their long thin heads.

Faerie adore their crowns. Monsters of the Yeavering, like me, prefer bones.

Not for the first time, I wonder what it would have been like for my sire and dam to have been here, in the Lambton castle, with me as I grew and became the Wyrm I am today. What it would have been like if, instead of being sent to fight and kill in the Night Lands from the day I could lift a sword, I could have made friends here among the Yeavering.

I’ve read about friends. They eat together. Tell stories. Fight each other for dominance. Such as some of the other monsters who battled in the Night Lands with me.

I have books, my thoughts, and the nightmares. And the scars.

But the books don’t tell me what I need to know about Alice, about what she is and why she is here.

It means I have to make the decision myself.

The little female will go without clothing. I can be sure she isn’t concealing any weapons, and I can observe her at close quarters. After all, she is my mate, and she will surely be with young any time soon now we share the same home and bed.

ALICE

The bedroom is similarly furnished to the rest of the castle as far as I have seen. A vast four poster bed, the wooden posts carved with dragons, the curtains heavy maroon brocade and trimmed with sumptuous gold fringing, dominates the room even with the high vaulted stone ceiling.