To Desire a Dragon - Amanda Milo Page 0,3

stories, claims so outlandish that no one believes them. Tall as a mountain, they’ve said. Swifter of wing than an eagle. Firebreath so hot it can melt a woman in full armor where she stands.

Dressed in nothing but animal skin and flammable fur, I gulp.

Two triangular scales situated superior to the nostrils of the creature flare up like nasal shields. They twitch back as the dragon inhales, the creature taking breath in hard even as it parts its jaws. The dragon is scenting me. Its eyes, the color of early prairie grass stems, narrow.

Pupils that sit like black slits in jewel-like eyes focus on me and flare wider—and goosebumps break out along my skin.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” I wheeze through a choked throat. “I’m going to go—”

The snout of the beast comes crashing down, its maw open wide.

Without thought, my hands act.

I whip my hook.

My tiny, ineffectual hook.

Hot steam sprays me—and the dragon’s jaws wrench in opposite directions as it twists its head and snorts, torquing its neck as it peers down its long nose to determine what I’ve tossed.

My tiny little hook’s string snaps free without so much as a fight. And why would it? A spider’s web has more tensile strength than the tiny cord. I wasn’t intending to reel in a sky monster.

Caverock shakes down from the ceiling as the dragon looses a growl so low in frequency that I can’t even hear it—I can only feel it.

The beast’s claws flex, scraping the rocky ground with painful screeches that have me ducking. With dread, I wince and peer up, trying to see what I’ve hooked.

The beast’s nose.

I have this monster caught by its nose.

The massive dragon has gone still, its frightfully intelligent eyes briefly crossing as it inspects the shiny metal stabbing right through its thin-scaled nasal shield.

Slowly, the beast’s focus straightens, and its incensed gaze trains on me.

I’m going to die.

CHAPTER 3

HALKI

I WILL KEEP HER FOREVER.

My nostrils flare again, the bite of pain from her strange extending claw stuck in my flesh barely distracting me as her scent wafts into my nostrils anew.

I know this scent. I KNOW this female.

She takes one measured step backwards. Her other heel lifts up as if she plans to keep retreating.

Oh no, drhema. You won’t be leaving. I clap my hands around her.

She shrieks like a baby deer and struggles between my palms like a mouse.

Mmm. I haven’t bothered to hunt mice since I was a hatchling. The oblong scales of my upper lip pull tight as my mouth crooks up in a smile. I sort of miss their taste. Their little kicks as my throat muscles squeezed them down.

Just thinking about eating one makes me hungry.

But first, I will see to my newest treasure. I still can’t believe she clawed me.

“Knee-high!”

The words explode from between my hands, causing my neck frill to flare wide before slapping back against my throat again.

I drop onto my haunches and lower myself down on my elbows. Then I open my hands to get a better look at her.

If she were a mouse, I’d be eating her.

But I know her—there’s no way I could forget her. Her very presence here, in my cave where she's travelled so far to seek me out, it’s making my heart speed up. So no, I won’t be eating this creature of mine. Even if her furry-humped back looks more animal and less human and so completely different from when I last saw her. Actually, nearly all of her looks different.

Two fear-wide eyes stare up at me. A keen terra cotta color, her irises are. These eyes, I could never forget. As unique as her scent and as equally exciting to my senses.

The hair on her head I remember well, but it does not match the hair that’s grown on her hump. The hump is new. It must have sprouted when she reached adulthood. And her hump of hair doesn’t match the tufts of fur that circles each of her wrists. She has yet another patch of fur sprouting up on her hind legs, with the long hair shafts thickly puffed out everywhere they wrap each hind foot.

I sniff, trying to scent her, and receive a sting for my effort. Her damned claw. I bend my neck forward, draw one hand from around her slight body, and pluck the claw out of my nose.

Ungh, that smarts!

With an irritated hiss, I hold up her silver claw and glower down at where I’m keeping my little prize cupped in my