To Enchant a Dragon by Amanda Milo Page 0,4

me. I had no idea, none, that I was harming her. “What I’ve done… hurts you?”

More tears spill down her cheeks, draining the precious salty fluid she can’t spare to lose. “Yes. Please—please let me go.”

Carefully, I bring my thumb up to brush away her tears and try to stave the flow by holding my thumb in front of her eye socket.

It doesn’t work.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice watery as she tries to pull back.

“I’m trying to help you stop crying,” I tell her. “You can’t afford to spend your tears. Shhh, shhh.”

She slaps my thumb away. “Stop shushing me! We’re too different. You need to take me back to the cove!”

Feeling remorse settle like a lump in my gut, I close my hands over her once more.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you…” she starts chanting, and I realize for the first time that I am a monster, just as many creatures might believe every dragon to be.

Because a male who knowingly breaks his mate’s heart can be nothing but a monster.

She peers through my fingers, staring up at me gratefully. Damn me. Looking into Adella’s eyes, I know without a doubt that it will shatter her to be parted from her home and family for the rest of her days. And I hate that I can’t let her go back to the place she most wants to be in all of the worlds.

Sorrowfully, I swallow hard. “I’m sorry, my little mate,” I tell her once more. “But I won’t ever let you go now that I have you. You see, I can’t live without you."

I close my wings and dive off the side of the mountain.

CHAPTER 3

ADELLA

He may think that he can’t live without me, but he’s going to have to give it a good dragon try. Because once he releases me into the sea, I’ll escape him. Dragons can swim, but mermaids can dive. I can wait out his shorter breath. I won’t be his air-dried pet forever like he seems to believe I need to be.

But when the dragon stops, it doesn’t seem like we’ve flown far enough to be back at Mermaid Cove already.

We’re not.

We’re at a mountain ravine with a small river’s pool.

A very small pool. “This is the smallest ravine I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because it’s a gully,” the dragon says with a surprisingly recognizable grimace. I wouldn’t have thought that giant lizards could be emotive. He proves his features are quite flexible when his scaly brows crease and his mantle crest rises in clear curiosity. “When could you have seen a ravine?”

With his two horns that sprout on either side of his head, and his massive scaly jaws brimming with blade-sharp teeth, I should be terrified to be held in front of his face, but I’m not. His inquisitive eyes are the color of a glassy green sea, shimmering, vibrant, and in their depths, color-changing and vast and beautiful in a wild way.

I stare up at him, bemused despite myself. “If you ever travel beyond the reef barrier, the sea world gets even bigger. There are more mountains—with ravines visible from the coast—if you venture beyond the coves and gulfs.”

“You can climb over a coral reef?” he asks, like this is the height of wizardry.

“We can swim right under them,” I explain, barely stifling a watery laugh.

“Oh,” he says in wonder. He looks me up and down, spending extra time gazing at my not-so-glistening tail. The slight ridges on either side of his mouth pull low, like a frown. And suddenly, I know that’s exactly what he’s doing. These are his lips, I realize.

My gaze follows his, and we both stare down at my tail.

My appendage has turned a dry matte brown color, losing its wondrously glossy, reflective surface. “Right, you’d swim under, of course,” he says, nodding to himself. His great tail makes a horrible dry scuffing noise against the gully floor as he curls it around his feet. “Why are your scales turning… dull?” Carefully, he extends his hands and sets me in the gully’s water.

Even though he does it carefully, slowly, I still gasp.

Worriedly, his massive eyes—each one essentially the size of me—jump from my face back down to my lower half. “What ails?” he asks.

Stifling a shiver, I explain, “The water is chillier than what I’m used to.” I’m not from the North Sea clan to enjoy this sort of briskness slapping my scales. I flap my tail’s fin, cutting through the liquid, feeling it flow