Page 16 of Storm of Blood and Shadow

“Plenty of males are aroused in the morning.” Her voice is nearer now, and when I turn my head, I see her hobbling toward me with the help of a tall stick. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Why are you walking like that?” I ask. “Are you wounded?”

“In so many ways,” she says dryly. “The worst injury at the moment is my ankle. That one isn’t your fault. And neither is that.” She nods in the direction of my genitals.

“A male’s cock should only react like this during mating season,” I hiss through my teeth. “Now you know the truth. I am a deviant among my kind. I was hatched late, and I developed wrong. My parents should have pushed my egg into the sea when they had the chance. If they had, my mother would still be alive, instead of rotting in a monster’s gut.”

Fuck, I didn’t intend to say the last part aloud. Something about her makes me want to confess every secret I’ve ever held close, which is foolish and dangerous.

The girl’s brown eyes widen, morning sunshine pooling in their depths like honey in the hollow of a stone. Her blue dress has slipped off one shoulder, and the effect is making my cock harder than ever.

“I need you to go away,” I growl.

But she doesn’t. And I don’t like the wicked smile that tugs at one side of her mouth.

Leaning on her stick, she moves along my side, toward my flank.

“It’s huge,” she says. “The same color as your scales. And smooth, like black satin. Rather pretty as cocks go. Why are you ashamed of it?”

A shudder runs over my body. I desperately want to flee from her, and in equal measure I desperately want her to touch me.

When I don’t answer, she says, “You’ve been trained to feel shame about your differences, the same way you’ve been taught to follow your brother and your clan without question. Did you really think it was a good idea to snatch human women and bring them to this island?”

An uncertain rumble is my only reply.

“I suspect you’re wiser and kinder than your brother,” she says softly. “Why would you follow him when he led your clan to war and got half of you killed? Why would you—”

“That wasn’t his fault,” I snarl.

She steps forward, reaches beneath my belly, and sweeps her hand along the surface of my cock.

The thrill that runs through me at her touch is sharper, wilder, and more exquisite than anything I’ve ever felt. I groan deep in my chest, and my cock bobs heavily.

“Interesting,” croons the girl. “I think I found a sensitive spot, after all.”

6

I scarcely understand why I’m doing this. Yes, I want to discover his weaknesses and use them to my advantage, but it’s more than that. I’m taking a perverse pleasure in taunting him. I’m enjoying his shame, his suffering, his desire. It’s wicked of me, I suppose, but it’s no more than he deserves after what he has done.

If he told me to stop touching him, I would. Yet he seems incapable of resisting, prisoner to whatever he feels when I run my palm along the satiny skin of the giant dragon cock. It’s aboutthe size of my leg, far too long and thick to fit inside any human. Stretching out my arm, I touch the bulbous head of it.

He shudders violently, and a low whine slips from his jaws.

And, fuck… just like that, I’m wet.

It’s the allure of power, I think. I’m used to other people holding sway over me—the Queen, the palace entertainment manager, my troupe leader, the owners of the tenement house, Lord Neran, my brother. Even my sister and the children hold a kind of power over me. I am never quite free from duty, from responsibility.

Yet here, in the gentle haze of the morning sunlight, beneath the jeweled canopy of the leaves, I have power. Maybe not enough to convince the dragon to carry me home, but it’s enough to make him stay and shiver with delicious misery at my touch. Enough to elicit that needy whine from this enormous, powerful creature.

He craves pleasure. He’s broken, grieving, confused, lost… he feels like he doesn’t fit in, like he’s an anomaly. He blames himself for his mother’s death, and that’s an old guilt, a bitterness whose flavor I know all too well.

When I told him I was looking for his weak spots, I didn’t necessarily mean just the physical ones. All of the information I’ve gleaned can be used to manipulate him. It’s been far too easy to gain his trust and get him talking. He’s starved for someone to listen to him, to see him. It’s pitiful—as pathetic as the way he closes his eyes and whimpers for me as I keep petting his cock.

“If you take me home, I promise to make you feel even better than this,” I murmur. “Will you do that for me, pretty dragon? Take me home, and I will strip for you, dance for you, make you come all over my body. Would you like that?”

His eyes fly open and his head swivels around to stare at me. “You would sell your body to me for safe passage home?”

“It’s a bargain. A trade. I promise you would have a good time.”

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