"Tell me you feel it," he murmured against her ear.
The man's breath brushed her neck as her dark and green hair splayed wide across the fur like bed. Slow. Intentional. Each exhale trembled like he was tasting restraint.
He nipped.
"Tell me you crave it," he murmured again, his voice heavy with lust, his lips gliding down her neck in fevered pace.
His voice was deep, rough, silky ....the kind that crawled beneath the skin and licked at the edges of reason. His fingers traced down her arm, calloused yet reverent, drawing fire wherever they touched. She could smell him. Rich earthy, woody sensual thickness of a predator barely holding back his bite.Her body knew the rhythm before her mind caught up. Her pulse fluttered; her spine arched of its own accord.
"I don't even know you," she whispered, breath catching as his hand slid to her hip then moved behind to grope her ass. Hard, rhythmical.
"You will," he promised.His lips sucked on her throat, as his tongue twirled, leaving a burning sensation that crawled to her folds.
His name faded through her mind like smoke as she grabbed his ass in return. His chuckle light, he pressed her back against stone, caging her in shadow and scent.
He tilted her chin up, eyes glowing as he bent to her breasts"Suck? Lap? Or devour," he said softly and her breath hitched. Heat coiled low, unbearable. She wanted to stop him, but his mouth descended before she could choose, claiming her with a fevered kiss that seared through dream.
Fru gasped awake.
Her eyes flew open to the dull light of dawn. Her heart was galloping like she'd run miles, her body slick with sweat.
"What in nine hells…" she muttered, sitting up too fast. Her sheets clung to her skin, heat still pulsing between her thighs.
The dream had felt too real. She pressed her palms to her face, mortified by the ache simmering in her body. It was just a dream. Not even hers, apparently.Maybe it was just...vivid imagination. Maybe reading about mating rituals the night before had backfired. So much for boredom.
Shoving the thought aside, Fru swung her legs off the cot and reached for her training gear. Her sword lay where she'd dropped it last night. She grabbed it with more force than necessary, hoping that sweat and pain would burn out the remnants of the dream.
The training yard reeked of sweat and iron. Fru's arms burned as she swung her practice sword again and again into the battered oak post.
She wasn't the strongest in her unit, nor the fastest, but she was the most stubborn, even when her palms split and her shoulders trembled.
She was tired of struggling.
A break from all of this would suffice. A change of environment....maybe.
The others had gone. Shadows stretched long over the courtyard, and the last of the evening sun bled crimson against the walls.
Fru exhaled and lowered her sword, chest heaving, strands of sweat-damp hair clinging to her cheeks. She wasn't finished, but the ache in her arms demanded she stop. She plopped down on the ground.
That was when she saw it.
A slim volume, left carelessly on the stone ledge by the archery racks. Its cover caught the last flare of sunlight; dark leather, too fine for any trainee to own, stamped with an emblem she did not recognize: a coiled dragon, its tail devouring itself, scales shimmering faint green as though alive.Fru frowned. The library rarely allowed such books into circulation, especially ones marked with sigils. She wiped her brow and reached for it, curiosity overriding the tired protest of her muscles. The title was etched in bold silver runes:
The Fate of a Dragon.
She traced the letters with her fingertips, a shiver crawling down her spine. A tragedy, the blurb on the back declared. The story of a half-blood dragon who lived unloved, unwanted, destined to fall under the weight of her own power. Fru almost laughed. Tragedies were not her taste, she preferred epics of conquest, warrior tales with bloody triumphs and glorious deaths. Yet something in the words pricked at her. As though this story waited for her and her alone.She sat on the steps, sword across her knees, and opened the book.The words spilled into her mind like sunflower seeds.
Valia Rostrag.
A dragon who was incomplete. Hair black as night, kissed with streaks of impossible green, eyes like oceans that could drown a kingdom. Born from a red dragon and a golden dragon, cursed by her own kin as huthra'vor meaning 'abandoned by the creator'. Mocked by her sister, hated by her mother, cast aside by a people who prized bloodline over strength. And yet, none of them could compare to her brute strength. An aberration of strength without elements of nature at her beck and call, she lost the fire that once made her sure of herself. A rare fate for a dragon.
Fru's heart hammered as she read. Each page unfurled cruelty and artistic beauty in equal measure: Valia shoved into snake pits, her body broken, her voice erupting into destruction that shattered the earth. The girl's cries, twisted by grief into lethal power, became both curse and salvation.Fru's throat tightened. She did not know why she cared so much, but Valia's pain gripped her like a hand around the lungs.She flipped another page. And Another. She could not stop.
By the tenth chapter, the world around Fru had begun to shift. The sound of crickets dulled into silence. The ink seemed to ripple beneath her gaze, words liquefying into emerald glow.Her breath caught as the book pulsed in her hands, alive and hungry. The courtyard melted away, swallowed by shadows and flame. The scent of charred earth filled her nose, the air thick with heat.
"No—" Fru whispered, clutching the book tighter. But the pages dissolved into firelight, and her body lurched forward as though sucked through a veil.