To Tame a Dragon - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,14

me, human,” he said as he stalked toward her. “You see what you have done to me! You see what I have become because of you!”

The female took two steps back before she stopped and held her ground, determination and challenge steeling her gaze. “I have done nothing to you.”

Falthyris’s heartfire swelled, and flames flared through his teeth. He threw his arms out to the sides, hands trembling with the need to destroy, to avenge this wrong. “Look upon me, human. Do you not realize what you have done?”

Those delicate eyebrows furrowed once more. “I made you mine.”

Falthyris opened his jaws and released a roar that had her flinching backward again. Fire blossomed in his throat, and he let it out, spewing flames along the riverbank and filling the air with his own heat—but not before he’d turned away from her. He could not understand why; there’d been no conscious thought involved, no decision made. His body had simply acted of its own accord.

His dragonfire scorched grass and melted sand, created hissing clouds of steam as it collided with the river, and made the air ripple. He felt it like he never had before, felt its heat across his chest, in his throat, his mouth, not strong enough to pain him but enough to be slightly uncomfortable. Another failing of this form, another inadequacy.

When his flames died, his fury had not lessened—if anything, it had been heightened by this feeling of impotence, of weakness. And she had done this to him. She had dared to claim him, had taken everything from him, and now had the audacity to act as though she did not understand.

Falthyris spun to face the human and lunged at her, closing the distance between them in an instant. Her eyes rounded, but his hand was wrapped around her throat before she could react further.

“You insolent, insignificant insect! I am forever my own master.” He clenched his hand, pressing his fingers and claws into her soft, yielding flesh, and she tipped her chin up, breath hitching. Tremors ran through his arm as he tightened that hold further—or tried to. The muscles of his chest and shoulder tensed, and the cords of his neck strained, but despite all his effort, he could not crush this human’s throat. He could not even press hard enough to draw blood with his claws.

The mating bond constricted around his heart and squeezed with all the force he intended to unleash upon her, making his breath catch in his throat.

Holding his gaze, the human lowered her spear. Her scent was stronger now, washing over his mind and reinvigorating the Heat’s hold on him. His cock pulsed with need, with unrelenting agony, and his hips swayed infinitesimally toward her. Falthyris clenched his jaw, fighting to keep his tongue in his mouth, to prevent it from slipping out to lap her taste from the air—to lap it directly from her skin.

His need for revenge, to make her pay, was swiftly being replaced by an ever more pressing urge to throw her onto the ground, tear off that offending cloth, and mount her. He shuddered with the memory of her tight sheath wrapped around his shaft. He closed his eyes as the Heat coiled low in his belly, intensifying that ache.

I refuse to bow to this. I refuse to bow to her.

“Are you going to kill me or mate me?” she asked, her voice as steady as her gaze had been.

His eyes snapped open. That simply, this little human, who should have been no more consequential than a speck of sand in the desert, had proven beyond a doubt that she was in control.

She had claimed him, and he was powerless to harm her.

Falthyris roared again, giving voice to the fury of a thousand years, to the sorrow of a fading race, mourning the destiny that should have been his and railing against fate’s cruelty.

He thrust the female away. She stumbled backward and fell onto the sand, and Falthyris’s flicker of guilt at that sight only enraged him further. He turned away from her, not allowing himself another moment to study her features, not allowing himself a chance to apologize and help her up—or to throw himself atop her and plunge into her welcoming heat.

The long, damp strands of his mane flew into his face as he spun, a few going directly into his mouth to catch on his tongue. He snarled and spat, tugging the strands back with his hands and inadvertently causing a new,