curve of scales and spikes, with a bright-streaked neck frill that loosens and billows up like a sail on either side of his face.
I don’t think twice: I peel out from the thicket, grimacing and gasping like a panicked animal as I get torn up on the berry canes a second time.
The dragon looses a loud roar at my retreat.
Scrambling, I trip and skid across the rocky ground. “Ah!” I yelp breathlessly, barely catching my footing enough to control my fall. I crack my knees on the rocks, and that’s good, because rather my knees than my face, right?
Still. Ow.
The dragon growls furiously behind me, but oddly sounds no closer.
Risking a hurried glance over my shoulder, I find him standing still, which makes no sense, and stranger still, his muscles heave, flexing and twitching, like he wants to leap for me but he’s holding himself back. His eyes aren’t green anymore. They’re a solid, threatening obsidian that somehow still glows.
I don’t know why he’s restraining himself, but there’s no way I’m wasting the opportunity to escape. With a gusty, sawing sigh of relief, I shove to my feet—and run.
Mistake.
I know better than to run from a predator. Really, I do.
With a roar that shakes the ground, the dragon tears after me again but I scamper for the rugged trail that will take me down the mountain. It’s such a narrow pass that I nearly have to turn sideways to navigate it; there’s no way it will permit the dragon’s breadth.
He realizes the same.
And his bellow of enraged defeat will haunt my nightmares.
The screech of his claws raking across mountain rock is horrific as he vents his frustration, and I race away from him like my life depends on it.
***
Yep. Running through the dark is stupid. I don’t keep a wary eye on the sky. I don’t even look back. It took me almost a day and a half to make the trek up the mountain, but racing down in the dark like a terrified deer, I skid and fall and tumble down the rocks with impressive speed.
I’m lucky I don’t break my neck. The good news is, I make incredible time. I’d go so far as to say that I cut my time in half. I limp into the village just after dawn.
Panting, I decide I’ll pretend that my encounter never happened. Met a dragon, hooked him in the nose, found out he was a little bigger than Yatanak claimed. Was subsequently mauled by said dragon-turned-man. Ran away before claiming sex could commence.
Did all that happen to me? Nope.
A choked sound of relief breaks from my throat when I see my village. The pale light of dawn limns everything it touches and the cheery rose and golden hues have never been so welcome. At least, I’m thinking that until I see too many women amassed on the plains. Apprehension socks me in the stomach. Are we being attacked? Again? Maybe I should have kept under the dragon.
Why didn’t I try to seduce him?
Because you panicked.
It was all so unexpected. I mean, how could I have prepared for the knee-high protector to be so massive, and then for him to turn into a man? A virile, sex-starved man?
Before it all happened, I would have boasted to anybody that I’d take a man-dragon if it meant we could secure safety. For a dragon’s protection, any one of my tribe sisters would do it. Heck, they’d ride any unrelated healthy male for free.
I would have thought I’d be the same way.
Instead, I ran away from him. And the queerest thing of all? I’m being plagued with something like guilt. Not only for my brother, not only for my tribe, but for the dragon.
I feel like I’ve done him wrong. Having time to think on my way down the mountain, I kept replaying how he was working to give me pleasure.
I wonder now if I was too hasty in my retreat. In my headlong escape.
Feeling weary with failure, I hurry to the group amassed ahead of me. As I stumble closer, I see some familiar faces. The visitors—or attackers, since their purpose here remains to be seen—are the Middle Plains Tribeswomen.
Pressing a hand to the stitch in my side, I race up to the convocation. “What’s going on?”
The group’s attention briefly shifts to me, and Sorgenfreiya, the spokesperson for today, evidently, answers, “We’re trading two hundred sheep to Middle Plains.”
“TWO HUNDRED!” I gasp-shout. “Why on Venys would we agree to this?”
Sheep are our clothing—our