Page 20 of Gravel and Grit

Grumbling at the lack of anything to use to take notes, she went back to her inspection.

Mira was leaning over his head, inspecting the powerful main bones of his wings, when she heard a noise—one that came from directly below her.

Feeling like she was in a horror movie, she went perfectly still then slowly lowered her gaze to his face, which happened to be right under her breasts, and found bright orange eyes staring at the cleavage peeking over the

top of her shirt.

“Ahhh!”

In a knee-jerk reaction, Mira let loose a screech loud enough to hurt her own ears then, as was her habit when startled, lashed out.

With absolutely no conscious decision needed, she poked him right in the eyeball.

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ZAEK

Zaek woke from the healing sleep to find himself nose to nipple with a pair of breasts. A pair of pale, enticingly voluptuous, human breasts.

This is new…

While he would’ve appreciated more time to really consider that odd but very pleasant greeting, he wasn’t accustomed to such a sight and made a garbled noise of surprise before he could stop himself.

That noise drew the female’s attention.

She went still above him. For a second he thought that meant she’d woken him in such a way on purpose, which made him wonder if she’d somehow found out about his swollen mating gland, and this was her way of saying she was amenable to courting.

Before he could become excited by that possibility, she lowered her gaze to his and shrieked.

That was not the reaction he’d hoped for. Still, while disappointing, he could have dealt with that, could have rationalized that he’d just startled her.

However, she didn’t stop with screaming. She attacked him with a brutality he wouldn’t have anticipated from such a minuscule being.

He roared in pain at her swift and debilitating finger assault and tried to jerk away, but being that he was still partially encased in stone, he didn’t manage to do anything other than twitch a little.

Cutting an appalled look at her with his remaining, uninjured eye, he

found her looking at her finger in surprise, as if she was just as taken aback by the attack as he was.

“Fee-ale!” he snarled around his gland as he rapidly shifted to flesh and leapt to his feet.

“Oh shit! Oh shit! Don’t do it! I won’t taste good,” she babbled, staring up at him wide-eyed as she scuttled backward across the floor.

That confused him enough that he straightened from where he’d been about to grab her. Zaek blinked at her one-eyed, his abused one still squeezed shut, sure she couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying.

“Whaa?” he asked.

“What?” she deflected, a wary look replacing her fearful one.

“Di oo ust allude oo ee… ee-ing oo?”

“Oh my gosh you’re going to eat me?” she shrilled, fear once again dominating her features.

“No! Oo sait-”

“Nuh uh! You said!”

“I… no, I di not!”

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