To Enchant a Dragon by Amanda Milo Page 0,11

My skin-like scales begin to itch in no time.

I want to roar. I want to rage. I settle for a tired sigh and a sorrowful apology to Adella. “If I could go back, I would not have cursed you with me. I vow that I will make you happy though, Adella. Just please… give me that chance.”

Listlessly, my mate nods.

CHAPTER 7

ADELLA

I wake up because my lower half feels so… wrong.

The red moon burns almost as brightly as the sun, illuminating everything in an unnatural glow. Blearily, I stare down, expecting to see the muddied water, but all I see are a pair of muddy legs.

Legs...

LEGS?!

I thrash sideways, panicked. Like a fish flips itself to escape a net, I instinctively employ the same maneuver…

And end up sprawling, my limbs flailing like a jellyfish’s tendrils do when they’re trapped on land. My body slaps into the sand.

“Adella?”

Startled at myself, my horrified gaze leaps to Kalos’s human face to see that I can read his expressions much better in his human form. He’s astonished.

He helps me stand—both of us clumsy as unicorn foals at first, shaky on our newly minted legs. It takes some coordination, but because he isn’t entirely new to having feet, just a human’s form, he manages well enough, and conversely, because he is new to having a human’s legs and feet, he can adequately understand where I’m failing to grasp my body’s new mechanics, and he is able to instruct me on how to commandeer myself until I’m walking right along with him.

He takes me to the cavern where he found the freshwater spring. His eyes are still a dragon’s eyes—slitted pupils and the brightness from his irises illuminates everywhere he turns his head. Even if this were not so, as a mermaid, I possess excellent night vision. It helps my kind when we’re hunting ships at night.

Kalos drinks greedily from the spring, and I find that I need the freshwater too. I find that it tastes good to me now, not bad.

I jump when I feel Kalos’s hand on my… thigh.

I have a thigh.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he explains. “Does your skin feel like you must scratch at it?” He drags short claws over his arm as if he can’t help it, proving his scales are irritating him.

Mine skin is irritating me too.

I nod. “It feels stretched tight and… strange.”

Grimly, he bobs his chin, and bends to take me by my calves. He lifts each one gently, rinsing them in the spring’s water using the roughness of his human hands to get the sand and grit from my human legs.

He washes himself next.

And as I watch him running his large hands over his equally large, well-filled out, mature male body—and he catches me looking at him, my eyes heavy-lidded—his eyes widen comically… That’s when I suss out the reason I ever thought of Kalos as young: he’s wholesome.

He’s a full-grown man, and he certainly looks to be a full-grown dragon, when he’s in that form. He just happens to be an idealistic, sweet one.

A dragon. Considerate and attentive and sweet. Who would have thought?

The water has left me cold, and as I stand and wait for him to finish, gooseflesh breaks out on my skin like a human’s. As a mermaid, I’d be impervious to water of this temperature. I could swim, play, eat, and sleep in it.

The realization that I’ve changed makes me unbearably sad.

“Oh, no, shhh,” Kalos nearly squawks—even as he shushes me again, the twit—his brows nearly touching. He leans forward, trying to dash away my tears with his human thumbs. “No, please don’t cry. Adella, I’m so sorry—please don’t cry.”

But I can’t help it. I start to sob.

“Och,” Kalos says, swallowing thickly. “My poor half-of-my-heart.” He wraps his arms around me and brings me in to his warm chest.

His hot chest, actually. I’m not sure how he can be so warm when I’m suddenly so cold, but I cling to him, soaking in his heat.

Kalos groans.

And I freeze. Because while I’m seeking comfort, Kalos is experiencing something very different, if the rising hardness against my hip is anything to judge by.

“Ignore it,” Kalos says shakily, rubbing his hand briskly up and down my ribs and waist, trying to bring warmth into me. “Krevk’d, if I could fly, I would take us out of here in an instant. Get you somewhere you could be warm. I would…” He makes a sound that isn’t really a laugh, because there is no trace of