night, deep within a thick cropping of overgrown plants and vines.
Holding me within the shadows of foliage, the ground trembles, and he wraps his hand over my mouth.
The femdragon screeches again, making me flinch. Kaos wraps one of his big legs around me to keep me from moving.
“She is right outside,” he whispers. “Do not make a noise.”
There are openings through the vines and atop the strange den we’re in. The openings are also thick with vines, but still, they’re large enough to see through—crawl through, even. I glimpse something scaley move outside the opening above. Large limbs and the long glide of a folded wing. It’s black, sleek, and glistening. Her.
The sounds abruptly stop outside after she passes.
“She scents me,” Kaos warns, and I begin to shake.
A giant eye snaps to the opening, peering inside. Kaos tightens his hold, barely allowing me to breathe. The eyeball roams the hollow, searching—for us.
Pushing as much as I can against him, Kaos doesn’t make another sound, but his hold on me is fierce.
The giant dragon eye vanishes but then appears again outside a smaller gap farther along the hollow.
If she sees us, there’s no place to go. Tearing my eyes from the femdragon outside, I stare at the gap I crawled through last night. A taloned foot blocks it. No escape. My heart thumps so hard I’m fearing the femdragon will hear it.
Her sharp black talons slowly scrape over the ground, closing into a fist. Shutting my eyes, focusing on my thundering heart, praying to calm waters, I feel Kaos’s breath fan the back of my neck.
She jerks back, hearing it more than seeing it, and the ground shakes, rustling everything. Her screech fills the air, the yowls sound after, and streams of light flood through the gaps of our hollow. I hear her violent retreat and the breaking of more trees soon after.
I exhale hard, but neither Kaos nor I move for a time, waiting, just in case the femdragon decides to return. When the noises of the jungle return, his grip loosen. Before I can leave our hiding spot, he shifts atop me and moves out first. Lifting up on my elbows I watch as he peers out of the crawl hole and looks around. He raises his hand and indicates I can come out.
“We need to leave,” he mutters. Nodding, I grab the satchel and follow him out of the den and join him at his side.
My mouth opens when I see what we’ve been sleeping in. Backing up several steps, a giant skull—lying partially on its side—fills the entirety of my view. The hollow we were lying in was the long snout, and I… I just climbed out of an eye socket.
Distracted, trying to see where the skull ends, I hit a tree but still see the beginning of a rib-cage curve and a spine disappear deep into the overgrown brush of the jungle. So big… Bigger than Kaos was, nearly three times so.
He must notice my awe because the next second, Kaos blocks my view of the dead behemoth with a scowl.
“A dragon?” I whisper, though my mouth remains parted, as if the beast will suddenly return to life if I talk too loud.
“An ancestor,” he snaps. “One who was allowed to live out its elder life fully and choose its end from this world without interference.”
Flinching, guilt snags me. “I’m sorry.” My hands curl into fists, and I look down. I truly am sorry. But his large, warm hand cups the back of my neck and forces my gaze back to his.
“He is large. I would have been as large as he someday,” he tells me, dark black-green irises scouring my face.
“You were large too. I thought your tail was going to crush me.” My voice is barely above a whisper.
“But not as large as he.” Kaos’s hand shoots out to point at the skeleton.
I gulp, squinting in confusion. Does he want me to apologize again? “You were close,” I say. “In size.”
His sharp lips pull back. “You should not lie to me.” His fingers wiggle through the strands of hair at my nape, touching my skin.
“Does it matter? He is dead, and you are not. You win.”
Fingers squeeze me. “Is that all you need?” Another snap. “A living mate, even if he is a smaller one!” Kaos drops his hand and growls.
Oh.
My eyes widen. Ooh. My gaze trails over his body from head to toe. Kaos, even human, is the largest human I have ever