To Desire a Dragon - Amanda Milo Page 0,7

won’t.

It starts to shrink before my very eyes.

Basilisk’s balls! “Damn it, no…” I try to say. Out of rubbery lips, my short tongue and flat teeth garble, “Dnggg! RRRGH!”

I swallow, and a bone slaps up and down along the thin skin inside the front of my throat. The area feels very… naked. There’s no neck frill hugging just behind my jaws and halfway down my neck. I raise my hands up to my face, and find I still have claws. But they belong to a mountain cat’s half-grown kitten, not a dragon.

I plant them on the cave floor and try to stand.

My hind legs are all krevk’d up. They drag behind me like dead weights until I gain my kneecaps. A fever-hot weight swings heavily between my legs and just behind it tugs something that feels like a giant pendulum, both of them seeming unnaturally tight for their skin and making my narrow human’s pelvic region rage. With a confused contortion, I find the source: an overripe cock juts from my scale-less groin, and behind it, a swollen sac appears as if it’s about to explode.

I can only stare. Because Crested Ancestors above—my innards are fully exposed, with no groin scales for them to tuck into!

Out of my throat comes a rasping, “Krevvvkehd!”

Huh. My human throat makes a near perfect approximation of curse words. Fancy that.

Gritting my teeth, walking on my hands and kneecaps, hauling the rest of my legs behind me along with my heavy tailbone, I try to reach my mate before my tail shrinks completely and she can make her escape.

With pain-bleary eyes, I look to her face and find her own eyes are wide. Her mouth is open and she’s staring at me like I’m not her transformed dreams come true—but a monster.

“We have bonded,” I try to say. “That spark that lit when you touched my heart? We are mates.” What growls up from my throat doesn’t quite convey what I hoped. It sounds like, “WeeARRGH’td!”

She shrinks back. And fair enough. She’s unnerved at my inability to speak without growling at her.

I only need to practice, and I’ll secure the ability. I’m a Crested Merlin. We’re esteemed among all dragons, excelling at everything save for, perhaps, humility.

My long tail, which has been rapidly reducing, drops right off of her waist and shrivels into nothing. My tailbone feels instantly lighter—and it’s a good thing because the loss of its weight means my lunge forward carries me as far as I hoped to reach.

My mate has whirled around, and she’s going to race for the cavemouth, I’m certain of it—

But she doesn’t make it. Because I land on her.

CHAPTER 5

Nalle

It feels like a whole bogdamn dragon comes crashing down on me.

That’s because a whole bogdamn dragon does come crashing down on me. He just happens to be mostly man-shaped.

“UFFF!” My cheek smushes into the stone floor, and I absolutely cannot move under the male’s great weight.

And he is a male.

As in, he’s got the biggest tallywhacker I have ever seen.

My eyes pop open wide when he growls, his hands grip my waist—and something that feels thick as a broomhandle prods at my leather-covered ass.

“Get off me!” I holler.

I twist like a rabid weasel, fighting and shoving and cursing him until I’m splayed sideways and he’s no longer poking at a danger zone with that weapon he’s wielding.

My efforts though, have turned me so that I can see his face, and this view is no better than the cave floor. It’s scarier, in fact.

He’s a dragonman. Black wedge-shaped scales cover every inch of his skin, even tiny little ones that fit in the creases on either side of his eyes. These scales are the only small things about him. He’s huge all over, his jaw hewn square, with hollows on either sides of his mouth that form carved depressions until the rounds of his cheekbones take over; the perfect masculine framing for his strong face. Dangerous brows sweep down from his forehead, and below them, his eyes are all dragon, with slits for pupils and irises that throw brightness like emerald lanterns. He’s staring down at me like he’s starving. He’s a dragon that turned into a man!

How? And how do I get away from him?!

Hands big enough to span the length of my rib cage crush me in their grip. After a moment of staring at each other, the dragon sits back on his heels and tries to turn me over on my back.

...With the goal of