To Wake a Dragon - Naomi Lucas Page 0,7

pumps through me is what keeps me alive. And the darkness… I am certain my continued cursed life has lasted this long because of the darkness that feeds my body.

A strange scent fills the air, a beautiful, new scent, and I am transfixed. Hoping for change is one thing, hoping for death another, but hoping for a female is crazy.

This smell though… This is the smell of a female.

There is sweat and sea salt; there is jungle lily and spice. There’s a twitching in my nostrils, expanding for these smells to enter me, and I am stunned.

I twitched.

My mind goes blank. I barely comprehend what is happening. Whatever it is, I do not want it to end. Life after this moment will be worse than all that has already happened to me. To breathe in the ocean and jungle after so long, only to have the sensation taken away…

Something small rams into my side. I hear a groan, and the sensation vanishes.

“To the waters and back, my foot!”

The voice and the smell are so close now that I am all but salivating. Something warm flares across my back leg, and a gasping noise sounds my ears.

All noise stops completely soon after, not even the quiet breaths or moans continue.

Do not go away. I plead. But something is happening at my hindleg, and I am unable to investigate. All I can do is wait.

Minutes pass by, and my heart only hammers harder. The bloom of heat returns along my foot but disappears soon after. Now it is at my tail.

It is fire, I realize. Something is wielding fire beside me. Nothing can wield fire like this but another dragon or…

No.

A human.

Horror rushes through me. A human has found me. A great alpha dark dragon—a rarity in the world I once knew—lying paralyzed as a human nears. And not just any human, a female human.

If she touches me, I lose everything. Everything that I have not already lost. My greatness, my majesty, even my hope that I will beat this poison—that I may one day fly.

I will die human, bonded to a female, left unable to mate as the breeding heat consumes me.

That would be cruel and painful and far worse than my sorry state now. I will lie here desperate for rutting, unable to either defend myself or take my female and dominate her, and as I grow crazed with lust, terrible shame will drown me.

How much more will I be forced to endure? My thoughts roar. To be human and paralyzed…

I do not want to die while losing my mind with mating heat. A female, even a human one, will not want a mate who cannot move. I am nothing if I cannot protect her.

She will be shamed for my shame.

I need to scare her away.

I tense, strain my muscles, but nothing happens. Not even the twitching of my nostrils builds into something more. The tap of human footsteps punctures the silence, and pressure strangles my insides. Furor fills me, replacing the annoyingly delectable human scent, and my mind continues to roar.

I will not be human, I bellow.

I will meet the darkness as the mighty beast I am.

5

A Big, Dead Dragon

My foot aches, but it goes ignored as I stare at the—the giant monster before me. My breaths are shallow, my throat tight, and blood rushes from my face.

I want to scream for Haime, I want to run, but I do neither, waiting for the beast to rise and eat me whole. This wasn’t just a forgotten cave—or a naga’s nest—that Haime stumbled upon. It’s a den.

A dragon’s den.

My eyes water as I stare at the muscles and meaty curves of the beast. Minutes pass as my heart races, waiting for death, praying Haime is far away and hidden, when it occurs to me the dragon’s crooked leg hasn’t so much as twitched. The gleam of my torchlight glints, but the light does not shift upon its glistening scales.

It’s not moving.

It’s not even breathing.

Is it… is it dead?

As the thought takes over my mind, I remember what I’m staring at: a dragon. My back straightens, and my breathing eases. If it tried to attack Haime or me, it would’ve done so by now, and if it had… all I had to do was touch it to save us. That doesn’t mean the beast isn’t dangerous, but the realization gives me relief anyway.

Come to think of it, I could reach out and touch the dragon now. I’m not even an arm’s