Page 14 of Wings of Frost and Fury (Merciless Dragons #4)

“It will take you a few minutes to adjust,” I assure him, dropping to my knees at his side. “Breathe. Not so fast. Take a few slow breaths, deep ones if you can. Good dragon. You said your name is Ashvelon, yes?”

“What have—” His words slur through his teeth, and he moves his tongue around, frowning at the new shape of his mouth. “What have you done?”

Thank Fate he has the same deliciously deep voice, even when he’s in this form.

“I’m giving you a new experience and conducting a test at the same time,” I explain.

“I thought it would be rather nice if we could speak on equal terms, physically as well as mentally. I would have transformed myself into one of your species, but I couldn’t be sure it would work right, and if it didn’t, I couldn’t very well cast a reversal spell with dragon claws, now could I?

So I’m sure you understand why it had to be this way. ”

“I’m… human,” he says thickly.

“Only for about six hours. Perhaps a bit less, perhaps more. We’ll see.

I hope your friend has made himself comfortable—he’s going to be stuck in the stable for quite some time.

I’m really quite angry with him about my horse Verda.

She and I were friends for years. When someone hurts a friend of mine, they suffer for it. ”

I try to keep my voice level and cold, but it breaks on the word “suffer.”

“I am sorry for that,” Ashvelon says. “I didn’t know what he was planning to do, or I would have tried to stop him.”

“Thank you.” I nod. “I did notice that you hissed at him after he did it, as if you were angry at his cruelty. That’s what made me like you, right from the start. I know that dragons have to eat, but…”

Fuck, I can’t talk about this anymore, or I’ll start sobbing.

I rise from the casting circle, collect my spell supplies, and tuck them back into my bag.

Sobs keep rising in my throat, collecting into a horrible lump of unvoiced grief.

After slinging the bag across my body and settling it against my hip, I raise my hands and blast a hole in the stable wall.

I feel the jolt of energy as the act punches an opening in the magical seal as well.

The rest of the stable is still shielded, and the central barrier is intact, so I’m not concerned about one small aperture.

I stalk outside, leaving the dragon alone for a moment to cope with his new form, while I attempt to grapple with my shattered heart.

Clamping my hand to my mouth, fighting the tears, I walk blindly to the nearest tree and prop my shoulder against it, with my back toward the stable. My grief over Verda, sublimated while I dealt with the dragons, hits me like a blow to the stomach. I bend over, smothering a whimper of pain.

I loved her. She was mine. My only companion. She couldn’t speak, and yet she managed to express so much. Crotchety though she was, especially during her heat, that mare knew how much I needed her. She loved me with an indulgent, annoyed kind of fondness.

Words cannot express how much I want to kill the other dragon, the older one with the lighter gray scales and the scarred wings—the one who ate her.

He is a creature of fury and savagery, an instrument of death.

Maybe I should go into the other half of the stable and end him.

But that would be an act of enmity. It might confirm to the dragons that I’m a killer like my father. That’s the last thing I want.

I’d like to help the surviving dragons and mitigate the harm my father did. But I’m not quite sure how to do that, not with my heart aching this badly.

A shuffling noise startles me, and I spin around to see Ashvelon crawling out of the stable. Apparently he felt compelled to follow me before he even figured out how to walk.

The sight of a handsome, naked man crawling toward me on hands and knees is enough to startle me out of my grief for the moment. I welcome the mercy of the distraction.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” I tell him. “I would have come back to help you.”

“You seemed distressed.”

He has just been thrust into a brand-new body. He should be completely and rightfully absorbed with himself at the moment, and yet he’s concerned about me .

“You don’t even know me,” I whisper.

I’m not sure Ashvelon hears the words. He pauses in his slow progress, running his hand over the grass. His fingers close on a small blue flower. “Exquisite,” he murmurs. “The whole world feels so different.”

To my surprise, he drops face-down into the grass and spreads his limbs wide. I can’t help releasing a tiny laugh at the sight of him. He’s so intense about what he’s experiencing. He inhales the grass and the fragrance of the meadow flowers like they’re his last breath.

He lifts his head to look up at me, joy flooding his expression. “I can feel everything. Smell everything. Taste—” He takes a mouthful of the fresh green grass.

His face changes instantly. He tries to spit out the grass, then attempts to pluck the pieces off his tongue. “Why do horses eat this?”

“Because it tastes good to them. You’re not a horse, silly. You’re a human.”

“But I have seen humans eat leaves.”

“Some kinds of leaves, yes. Don’t dragons eat vegetables?”

“Tubers, mushrooms, cresslily stalks, seaweed. Those taste much better than grass .” He pushes more of it out of his mouth with his tongue.

“Come on.” I hold out my hand. “I can provide you with something to eat. I promise it will taste far sweeter.”

There’s a potential innuendo in that promise, but I tell myself I only intend to feed him actual food. I’m not planning to let him feast on me.

With my help, Ashvelon struggles to his feet. He leans on me heavily as he shuffles one foot forward, then the other.

I underestimated how good it would feel to have his tall, warm, naked body pressed against me, to have his strong left arm draped across my shoulders and his right hand clasping my waist. There’s a ticklish heat tracing between my legs, a flush of arousal all over my skin.

To distract myself, I focus on the bloodstain in the meadow, but it hurts too much to look at it for long.

I suck in a harsh breath and turn my gaze away .

“The horse,” says Ashvelon. “She was your pet?”

“In a way, I suppose. More like a friend.”

“I am not very familiar with the human concept of pets ,” he says. “There were tracking dogs in the Vohrainian army, and I heard someone call them pets , but they seemed more like soldiers or slaves.”

“A pet is an animal kept by a human owner. Sometimes it’s for a practical purpose, but usually it’s more than that. The pet is a beloved companion, a friend, even part of the family.”

He pauses, and I’m forced to pause as well, which is the last thing I should be doing. When we’re not moving forward, we’re simply standing there, our bodies closely aligned, breathing each other’s heat. Ashvelon sways, and I put my hand on his breast to steady him.

“You called me pet .” His voice vibrates through my side, my arm, my whole being. “I am not the same kind of animal as a dog or a horse. I have higher thought and language skills.”

“Debatable,” I say dryly.

“Are you trying to offend me?” His full mouth curves, a hint of humor in his gaze. His right hand shifts higher, from my waist to my ribs.

“I’m merely pointing out that many animals have more complex thoughts than we give them credit for, even if they can’t express them.

I’ve experimented on creatures that were considered loathsome.

I regret that now, even though the practice did inform my current skills.

” Shit, I’m babbling and confessing... I don’t know where I was going with that line of thinking.

What was I trying to say? His eyes are so damn beautiful.

“The point still stands—I’m not that kind of animal,” Ashvelon says. “Nor am I a beloved companion, or a friend, or part of your family. So why call me a pet? ”

“I say a lot of things like that. Darling, sweetheart, pet—that’s the way I speak. Don’t ascribe too much meaning to any of the names I might use for you.”

“It felt like you were—demeaning me.” His voice dips lower, deeper. “I don’t know why, but—I fucking liked it.”

Something hot and firm brushes my thigh, and I glance down. “Oh. You really did like it, didn’t you?”

He follows my gaze to his erect cock. “You affect me like alethia. It always made me spill my seed reactively, against my control. This is somewhat different, but it’s powerful. I feel as if the mating heat is already upon me. I feel…” He searches my face, a storm of need in those smoky blue eyes.

The next instant, he has me by the shoulders and he’s pressing his entire body against mine, his hardness rubbing along my bare midriff. His shoulders quake with passionate breaths, and he stares at my face like he wants to devour me.

My brain whites out, as if someone took a brush and wiped snowy paint across my pain and grief. They’re still present, but they’re hidden, blotted out by the intensity of the physical sensations coursing over my skin, along my nerves.

“Your scent has changed,” Ashvelon murmurs. “It’s richer, more intense. You smell fertile and ready, like the females did during the last mating heat.”

I swallow hard. “You said that was twenty-five years ago?”

“Yes. We’re due for another at the Rib Moon.”

I do a mental calculation. “So… in less than a week. How many mating seasons have you been through?”

“Just one. I’m nearing fifty years.”

He doesn’t look it, not in this form. The body I gave him is around thirty years old, a couple decades shy of his actual age.

It’s a strange contradiction of magic and reality, but it doesn’t bother me.

I’ve always preferred older men, and Ashvelon is an odd blend of maturity and naivete, which makes him twice as fascinating .

“How old are you ?” he murmurs, but I’m not sure he’s really interested in the answer. His pupils are wide and dark, and his nostrils are flared like he’s drinking in my scent.