but his all-consuming gaze and his dominant stance spoke of all this and more. Dragons were beyond Human understanding, her quaking body told her. Raw, animal emotion …
Lia shook herself, crying, “Stop. Get away from me … Grandion, please.” Her voice cracked. “Flicker, do something. He’s gone mad.”
The dragonet looked between them several times, very quickly. “Well,” he said with studied unconcern. “It’s a bit pointless trying to hide like that, wouldn’t you say?”
Lia blinked, feeling her cheeks heat up to a furnace temperature. “Flicker, this is hardly the time for another of your crude jokes!” When the dragonet only smirked at her, she added, “Speak to him, Flicker! Tell him to stop scaring me–”
Flicker drawled, “The Human girl really needs bigger hands to cover her beauty properly–wouldn’t you agree, Grandion?”
Hualiama gave a small shriek of fury, sinking down to her neck in the water. “You are toast!” she yelled at the dragonet. “I’ll barbecue your entrails for dinner! I’ll wring your scrawny, worthless neck and tan your hide into saddle leather! And after that, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to kick your scaly backside over the next ten Islands, you vulgar, insolent … flying slug!”
A gruff bark of amusement startled them both. Abruptly, Grandion sat back on his haunches and began to shake with truly belly-shaking guffaws. “Flying slug,” he chortled. “That’s a good one.”
Flicker stalked off a few paces, miffed.
Lia did not know whether to throttle the dragonet or kiss him. By some miracle his joke–which she did not appreciate in the slightest–had punctured Grandion’s freakish avarice, and the tension which had practically boiled the water between them, evaporated as the mists of the dawn. His eyes lost their sheen of green. A softer, yellower flame burned there, an altogether more enticing colour.
The Dragon’s gaze was unblinking. Compelling. Utterly irresistible.
Despite an echo of peril lingering in the air and the erratic hammering of her heart, Lia found herself paddling closer to the Tourmaline Dragon as if drawn to him by an invisible hawser. So tranquil was the afternoon that even the slightest ripple stirred by her body created echoes, while the tinkling of the waterfall made an interplay of melodies between the stone walls.
Was this wise? Not on any Island, but her body refused to obey.
“Are you trying to hypnotise me?” Lia whispered.
Equally softly, he responded, “I am trying and failing to understand what power you have exerted over the fires of my soul since that very first day I struck you down with my paw, Hualiama. Can you not taste the magic surrounding us?”
“It burns within me, Grandion. Oh, I wish … how I wish things were different.”
He sighed, stirring the water with his left foreclaw.
“I don’t want to be without you. Ever. I wish …” How could she make him understand these choked-up feelings locked in her heart, bound and chained in the laws, traditions and practices of a thousand years? Lia choked out, “I wish I could fly.”
Were he to regard her like that, she must wish to have wings, scales and Dragon hide. Not two legs, soft tan skin, and an absence of draconic raiment.
“We can fly whenever you want, Lia.” I would show thee the marvels of this Island-World, my Rider, my … he also seemed on the verge of saying something more, but could not.
Two Islands they were, longing to bridge the silence of things that could never be spoken.
Then, she rose.
Knee deep in pearlescent blue water, Hualiama of Fra’anior straightened her back, clad only in her tumbling platinum hair, the Dragon scale, and the raiment of her skin. She smiled tremulously, spreading her hands. “Here I am, Grandion. This is my hide, and this is all there is to me. Simply, a Human girl.” The Dragon’s eyes widened. He seemed to have mislaid the power to breathe. Clearly, Lia heard the complex thudding of his hearts, louder and louder, coming to her senses as a distinct, fervent gallop. “I’m neither tall nor strong, and I weep for happiness and sing when I’m sad, and my heritage seems a shameful thing. I befriend Dragons from the smallest to the greatest. I speak a forbidden language, have a history of desecrating holy Dragon Islands, and generally make a nuisance of myself by refusing to die when I’m supposed to.”
The Tourmaline Dragon bowed gravely to Lia, almost dipping his muzzle in the water. “Simply? What I see is gritty, crazy and beautiful Human …” Grandion’s long throat worked as