Kicking off his flip-flops, he jumped from the porch to the grass and hit the ground running.
Three strides in, the magic took over. It shimmered down his back, tracing his spine, almost sexual as it tickled his skin. His face elongated, forming a snout covered with silver scales, while his eyes widened and narrowed, the irises turning into little more than silver slits. Horns sprouted from his head, curling toward his back, which was bubbling and twisting as his body grew, getting larger, longer, more serpentine. Wings emerged from his shoulder blades, growing and stretching until they were ten feet wide, fully extended.
He was still running as his wings flapped, lifting him from the ground, propelling him into the sky before he was even fully formed. He let out a breath, shooting fire at nothing at all, and headed for the clouds, bursting through them at top speed, water droplets clinging to his leathery skin until he soared higher and the wind whisked it all away.
This was his freedom. Up here, high above the clouds, doing nothing but flying in circles and arcs, he could leave his worries behind, if only for brief moments in time. Up here, he could dream uninterrupted. Imagine his life if things were…different. If his mother and father hadn’t abandoned him. If he’d grown up like a normal dragon, in a household with an actual parent—or even two. Where sitting down to dinner together was routine. A household where he could look at the patriarch and think, This is what I want to be when I grow up.
Those were all pipe dreams, of course. He was an adult now, so no one was going to summon him to dinner and there wasn’t anyone to emulate.
What the hell had the Elders been thinking, to choose him as reeve? Five years in and he still wasn’t confident in his ability to run a dragon colony. If not for Talia, he’d have crashed and burned a long time ago. Quite possibly literally, given his propensity to attempt to win some sort of trophy for hard partying.
He insisted that lifestyle was satisfying, even though he knew damn well getting wasted and sleeping with endless, nameless women and shirking his duties as reeve was not really who he wanted to be.
But he’d been that person for so long, he didn’t know how to change.
He burst through the clouds again, emerging beneath them in time to see the shimmer of magic swell around her as Talia shifted for Ruby’s enjoyment. He flew in lazy circles, watching as she turned into a dragon as well, smaller than his own form but no less impressive.
Ruby, small as a doll from this height, clapped her hands and bounced on her feet, calling out encouragement as Talia did first a front and then a backward flip before soaring down to the ground and turning back to the sky at the last moment.
Gabe held his breath. Something poured through his system, a magic he had never experienced before. It urged him to fly lower, which was weird. He flew alone, always had.
What the fuck was going on in his head?
Talia remained in flight for a few more minutes and then landed next to Ruby, who ran up to her, not afraid in the least, and gave her dragon form a hug. He was nose-diving before he realized what was happening, his dragon insisting, for some damn reason, on joining them.
When he landed next to her, Talia arched one scaly eyebrow while Ruby rushed over and patted his chest. “I love dragons,” she declared, and he snorted, fire bursting from his nostrils and hitting the ground a foot from the little girl.
Talia roared and bumped him with her head, a stern look on her dragon face.
It was an accident, he thought.
You almost fried your own daughter.
Gabe whipped around to stare at Talia, who had an equally shocked look on her own snout. He shook his head, motioning—shift back!—and then he did just that, quickly magicking his clothing back on before Ruby got an eyeful of the type of body parts she’d better not see until she was at least thirty. If then.
Talia followed his lead and he deliberately stared at her, just to catch a glimpse of her naked body in that brief few seconds before she, too, magicked her clothes on. His dragon, now contained inside his human form, roared with approval even though the moment was so quick he didn’t really even see anything.
What the hell?
“You heard me,” he blurted as soon as they were both in human form.
“You heard me,” she responded, pointing at him.
“That doesn’t happen. Dragons can’t speak to each other. It’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” she qualified. “It’s just really rare.” She looked down at the little girl, who was watching them as if they were an animated TV show.
“And why am I suddenly attracted to you?”
“Wait—what?” She jumped, backing up a few steps, like he was about to grab her and toss her over his shoulder and carry her up to his bedroom so he could ravish her until they were both exhausted.
His dragon liked that idea.
“What? No,” he said, talking to the creature, which, of course, Talia didn’t realize.
“No what?”
“This,” Gabe said, stabbing his finger at her and then waving it between the two of them. “This is not happening. No. It’s—fuck.” Shaking his head, he stormed toward the house and headed straight for the liquor cabinet. Foregoing a glass, he grabbed the whiskey bottle and took it with him as he headed upstairs.
But the top of the stairs, he charged back down to the foyer. He punched his code into the security panel, leaned forward for the retinal scan, and finally jerked open the door leading to the basement and headed there instead.
There was no bed in the basement, and he didn’t need that particular piece of furniture to give him any ideas. Ideas that involved Talia.
And mating.
Check prices before you buy.
