My stomach is tied in all kinds of knots—most of them falling somewhere in the range of mildly scared to full-blown terrified. And yeah, there’s definitely a part of me that wants to back out of this mess. But Flint looks so dejected at the perceived rejection that I just can’t do it.

“No, that’s okay. Let’s do it.”

He stares at me through narrowed eyes. “Yeah?”

I take a deep breath, then blow it out slowly as I gather every ounce of my courage. “Yeah.”

“Awesome! You won’t regret it.”

I bite my tongue to keep from telling him that I already do.

“You ready?”

“Ready is a bit of an overstatement, but yeah. Sure. Why not?” I wave my hands expansively.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” he says with a laugh.

I roll my eyes. “Dude, this is the best you’re going to get.”

“We’ll see.”

He takes a couple of steps back, which makes me move several more feet in the other direction. More than several, really, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned at Katmere Academy, it’s that you really can’t be too careful when it comes to personal safety.

And then, just like that, Flint does it.

He drops down to all fours and, as I watch, stunned, the very air around him forms a kind of funnel. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I know something is, because the air surrounding him is starting to blur.

Caution has me taking another couple of steps backward, which turns out to be a good thing because the blurring is followed by a bright flash of light that nearly blinds me. Seconds later, a shimmer of rainbow colors engulfs him for five, six, seven or so seconds and then—standing right in front of me is a giant green dragon. And when I say giant, I mean gigantic. And also incredibly beautiful.

I didn’t really appreciate Flint in his dragon form when he was trying to kill me, but now that he’s staring down at me with what I’m pretty sure is the dragon version of his ridiculous grin, I can’t help but notice that he is a really, really good-looking dragon.

He’s tall and broad and muscular, with long, sharp horns that curve upward just a little and a ton of gorgeous frills of differing lengths around his face. His eyes are the same striking amber they are in his human form but with a cool, serpentlike slit down the middle, and his wings are enormous—the kind of enormous where several adult humans could take shelter under one. And his scales…I mean, I always knew he was green, but now I realize that he’s actually all the shades of green mixed together, each scale a different color overlapping in a pattern that makes him look like he’s shimmering, even when he’s just standing here in front of me.

Flint waits patiently while I look him over, but eventually he must get bored because he lowers his head and shows me his really wicked-looking teeth in a way that is definitely designed to get me moving. Which, okay, I get. But I’m beginning to realize we should have talked about a few things before he shifted, because it’s becoming more and more obvious that there’s at least one really big problem.

“We both know you’re gorgeous, so I’m not going to waste a lot of time telling you that,” I say as I slowly, carefully cover the ground between us. His eyes track my every move, though my compliment seems to appease him, because he finally hides those wicked teeth of his again.

“But I do have a question for you,” I tell him, even as I contemplate reaching out to pet him.

“You do know that he can’t talk like this, right?” Hudson asks from where he’s sitting on the front stairs, his sudden appearance startling me slightly. I guess “alone time” is done.

I give him a narrow-eyed look. “Of course I know that.”

“So how do you expect him to answer you?” Hudson asks. “Sign language? Interpretive dance? Smoke signals?”

“You could shut up and let me talk for a minute.” I snark. “How about that?”

Hudson holds a hand up in a “feel free” motion.

I turn back to Flint. “I’m not sure how you’re going to answer my question, but I guess we’re going to have to figure that out.”

He snorts a little, then tilts his head in a gesture I can only describe as royal. As in the royal “go ahead” decree.

“You said before that I could ride on your back. But…” I look him up and down, which pretty much amounts to looking up, up, and then up some more. “How am I supposed to reach your back? You’re gigantic. I mean, this is definitely not going to be like riding a horse.”

He snorts again, and this time there’s a whole lot of insult in it. Turns out dragons—or at least this dragon—are a lot more expressive than I ever imagined.

Flint eyes me for another couple of seconds, just, I think, to make sure I understand how insulted he is to be compared to a horse. Then he slowly lowers his head and nuzzles my shoulder with the bridge of his nose.

And just like that, I melt. Because when he’s not trying to kill me in his dragon form, Flint might actually be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I tell him, even as I reach up to stroke his nose and a few of his frills.

He makes a little noise, then presses closer, and I can’t help but laugh. “You made it very clear you don’t want to be called a horse, but you’re acting like a giant puppy dog right now.” To prove my point, I bring my second hand up to scratch the top of his head. I swear to God, Flint grins in response—or comes as close as a dragon can to smiling, super-sharp teeth and all.

I pet him for a couple of minutes, and I enjoy it at least as much as Flint does. But I’m also conscious of time quickly moving along, so finally I pull my hands back and step away.

The dragon snorts and moves forward to nudge me—a very clear signal that he wants more—but this time I give him only a cursory pat on the head. “You know, I would stand here all day and pet you if I could. I swear. But we have an assignment to do, and you still haven’t explained to me how I’m supposed to get on your back.”

Flint snorts again, then heaves a ridiculous sigh as he lowers himself to kneel on the ground.

“Yeah, that’s great. But there’s still no way I’m going to manage to make it onto your back.” Even kneeling, belly to the ground, his back is still a good eight to ten feet off the ground. I can’t even reach to the top of his back, let alone swing myself up onto it.

Flint tilts his head again, like he can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. I’m also pretty sure he rolled his eyes at me—which, not going to lie, doesn’t feel good. I mean, it’s one thing having a human Flint roll his eyes at me. It’s a whole different feeling when a dragon does it. I don’t know why, but it is.

This time, when he leans down and nudges me, I don’t even bother to pet him. “I’m serious, Flint. We need to figure this out.”

“You could always throw a saddle and some really big stirrups on him,” Hudson suggests.

“If you’re not going to help, I don’t want to talk to you right now,” I retort before Flint nudges me again, a little more forcefully this time. “Hey! That hurt!”

He does it again. And then again, this time hard enough to leave a bruise.

“Flint!” I scowl at him as I stumble back a little more. “Will you please stop fooling around? You’re hurting me.”

He sighs, and it is the longest-suffering sigh I have ever heard from an animal—or a human, for that matter—in my life. This time when he lowers his head, he doesn’t nudge my shoulders. Instead, he nudges my thighs.

“Okay, look! That’s it! If you keep this up, I’m going back—” I break off on a scream as Flint finally manages to get his head between my knees.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” Hudson comments wryly.

“Don’t start!” I snap, because the only thing worse than dealing with the fact that

a guy who isn’t my boyfriend very unexpectedly has his head between my legs (even if he is in dragon form) is dealing with it while Hudson looks on.

I start to say something else but end up letting out a little scream as Flint tosses me up and back a little, so that I land, ass first, on the center of his neck.

Seconds later, he’s lifting his head, and I’m trying not to scream as I slide down, down, down his neck, over spikes that turn out to be not that spiky at all only to slam, face-first, onto his back.

55

Ain’t Nothing but

a Wing Thing

I just lay there, arms wrapped around his sides, and try to come to grips with what just happened to me. Eventually, though, Flint gets restless and starts to stand up, even though I am in no way seated appropriately.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I cry out as I try to shift myself around on a moving dragon—which, as it turns out, is even harder than it sounds. Especially when Hudson is laughing his ass off at me.

This time Flint’s snort sounds a little more like a growl.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” I tell him as I finally manage to get myself situated properly, facing forward with my legs straddling his back and my arms wrapped around his neck.

He snorts again, obviously unimpressed with my apology. “Look, I said I was sorry. Now it seems really obvious what you were doing. But at the time, it didn’t. So I’m sorry I thought…whatever it was I thought.”

Flint twists his head around just enough for me to see the disdain on his features.

“You know what? Enough is enough. You want to be annoyed with me, fine. But how was I supposed to know? I’ve never ridden a dragon before. I’ve never even been this close to a dragon before except, you know, when you were digging your talons into my back. So let’s just call it even and get on with the lesson, okay?”

No snort this time, but he does give a regal head toss that tells me my apology is sorely lacking. And also that he’s over it, which is good, because so am I.