He’s almost too beautiful to be real. His face is as chiseled as a museum statue, cheekbones high and jaw strong. He has no beard or facial hair to disguise the clean lines of his mouth and the straight plane of his nose. Overall, his features are big, almost overwhelming his face but leaving me with an impression of intense masculinity. The hair on his head falls in thick gold waves below his shoulders. A small white scar bisects one golden cheek, and his skin is mottled with shadow in an unusual pattern, like scales.

He leans over me once more, and the scent of smoke and spices returns, and with it, the horrifying dragon-fear. At the same time that it sinks in that he’s a dragon, I realize again that he’s super naked. His muscled, bare shoulders flex, and I notice they’re covered with more small scars, and his skin has an almost iridescent glow to it. When our eyes meet, I see hunger there.

Super naked.

And I’m super naked.

We’re super naked together. And I’m trapped.

Yeah, this isn’t good.

I gasp and scoot back across the concrete floor, the chain snapping around my ankle once more. Pain shoots up my leg. Damn it. I bite back a whimper of pain and try to scuttle to the side. Anything to get away.

My mind is racing. How is it possible that the dragon is now human?

The man-dragon straightens, and I get a full-frontal view of…well, everything. Did I say he was built like a museum statue? I don’t remember them having such big, uh, equipment. In every other way, though, he’s just like them. His body is a smooth mass of golden muscle and planes. His shoulders are wide, his hips tapered, and like the statues, he doesn’t have an ounce of body hair or fat. He’s perfect. On parts of his body, the pattern on his skin that I’d mistaken for scales is actually a rippling shadow. Other parts of him – like his lower arms and back - seem to be more heavily scaled. When he bends an elbow, I see spikes flare out from his skin.

And I can’t stop staring lower, because he’s also sporting a very large erection. When he bends back over me, his dick nearly stabs my side. He’s hairless there, too. The scale pattern is thicker here, almost upraised along the shaft of his cock, and the head of it seems to be a thick, rigid mushroom shape that’s frilled with scales on the edges.

Okay, I’ve never seen that on a statue.

He reaches for me, nostrils flaring, and drags his hand over my neck and down my front, heading for my boobs. There’s no mistaking the look on his face—he doesn’t want to be buddies. He wants to fuck.

I flinch and bat his hand away before he can touch me any lower. "No!"

The man-dragon snarls at me, his lip curling to reveal fangs. He reaches for me again, as if my preference to not be raped is some kind of nuisance.

"No!" I slap his hand away again and then cringe when his incredulous, furious gaze meets mine. It’s almost like he’s silently saying ‘how dare you?’

But I’m going to be eaten, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be raped first. Pretty damn sure.

He growls low in his throat again and tries to touch me once more. Before he even makes it to my skin, he looks up at me, waiting to see how I’ll react.

“No.” For a third time, I push his hand aside. It’s like he’s testing me to see what I’ll do. “Don’t kill me,” I whisper. “Okay?”

He draws back his hand. The strange dragon-man studies me with those intense, double-golden eyes, the possessive, hungry look there giving way to a dawning comprehension. “No,” he says, echoing the thought, as if he’s surprised by it. As I watch, he studies his hand, spreading and flexing his fingers as if they are utterly foreign to him. I can’t help but notice that they’re tipped with rather vicious-looking bronze claws. He flexes his hand once more, then reaches for me again. "No?"

There’s a wealth of pain and longing in that one syllable, so much that emotion catches in my throat. It’s like he’s found the one thing he’s ever wanted and it’s being ripped from him. Disturbed, I shake my head, my heart pounding so loud I can barely think. “No.”

He studies me for a moment longer, face a mixture of frustration and need, and then curls his clawed hand shut.

I can’t help but flinch backward.

KAEL

She is frightened.

Of me.

The concept is inconceivable. That I should find my mate—so bright, so beautiful, so perfect—and she should be afraid of me. Her brightness sings in my soul, pushing back the dark madness that even now eats at my edges. The sight of her keeps it at bay, though. The sight of her makes my senses return.

And she is refusing me. She is afraid.

Pain flares through me, hard and real. I want her with every fiber of my being. I need her. She has called me from the darkness, bound me to her with her sweet scent and gentle voice. I want to lower my body over hers and mate with her. Touch her and feel the softness of her skin against mine. Give her pleasure in any way I can. Feed her, take care of her.

Claim her.

It has been a long time since I have seen a female in this form. I think. The madness makes it hard to remember, and my thoughts are full of blood and fire and not much else. She is not of dragon-kind. All of our females that came through the tear have succumbed to the madness like I have. It does not matter to me that my mate is not dragon-kind, though. She is mine. That is all that counts. My body grows fiery with a new kind of need—that of mating. Of claiming.

She is female. Lovely. Fertile. Mine.

Terrified, too, and that presents a problem. Even now, she edges away from me. Her eyes are wide with terror, her form trembling. I study her, and the longer I gaze in her direction, the more frightened she becomes. Experimentally, I reach for her, and she huddles backward, desperate to escape my touch.

The madness flares again, like fire bursting in my mind.

Darknesshungerkillangerfrustrationragedarkdarkdarkragehungerfrenzyragedarkness

I suck in a deep breath, because so quickly, I am already back on the edge. One step forward and I can slip back into madness. But as I breathe in, I take in her scent. It is clean, and sweet, and feminine…and mixed with the bitter taint of terror.

I hate that smell on her. I want to smell her desire. Her happiness.

Does she not realize that I would never hurt my mate? Not even in the darkest hours of my madness?

But even as she crawls away from me, the hunger threatens to return. If I do not claim her, another might take her from me. If she is not mine…the madness will return. Only a mate can banish the darkness from my head.