Hidden Rage: Kindred Tales

His answer to this was more glaring but at least she was silent while he went to get her another of the thin, silky shirts he wore when it was warm outside. He handed it to her and she turned her back and pulled it over her head before pulling off the drying sheet. When she turned back to face him, Dragon had to work hard to keep his face blank.

The white shirt clung to every bit of her small, curvy body, emphasizing her heavy breasts and full hips. Her ripe, pink nipples, which he had noticed earlier, poked at the thin material, tenting the fabric around them and making her look almost more enticing than if she’d been completely naked, Dragon thought.

To his discomfort, he felt his shaft twitching in his leather trousers. Damn, he never had any sexual reaction when he saw half-dressed Saurian Pleasure Girls—not even when they flashed their vaginal slits provocatively in a way that seemed to make the other males in his crew crazy with lust.

It’s just because she looks so different—because she’s mammalian, he told himself uneasily. It’s not a problem—just a normal reaction.

Still, he hoped the problem wouldn’t get worse or sleeping with the little female was apt to be more awkward than he’d at first thought.

“Come on,” he said roughly, trying to mask his confusion. “Let’s get to bed before they start dropping the temperature.”

Right on cue, a gust of chilly air whooshed into the room through the overhead vents, blowing over both of them.

Dragon was used to this—his skin didn’t even break out in chill bumps. But the little feela gasped and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering violently.

“Oh m-my G-god!” she exclaimed, her teeth chattering. “That’s f-f-freezing!”

“Come on—before you get any colder,” Dragon commanded. When she didn’t answer, he simply picked her up bodily, swinging her into his arms and depositing her carefully into the sleeping pit.

“Hey!” She was standing on the mattress at the bottom of the pit on her tiptoes, but she was so tiny she could barely see over the lip of the pit, which was lined with smooth, red tiles. “Hey, you c-can’t just p-put me down here!” she protested.

“The hell I can’t,” Dragon growled. He dropped the fur blanket down to her and she wrapped it around her trembling shoulders. “Scoot over—I’m coming in with you as soon as I undress,” he told her.

He was still bare-chested—having never bothered to put another shirt on, since it was so warm earlier—so all he had to take off were his boots and trousers. He didn’t try to hide himself from her and she watched, her eyes growing wider as he stripped.

Though he tried not to, Dragon couldn’t help feeling self-conscious. He knew his shaft was the wrong shape—straight instead of twisted—and he had no spike at the end of it with which to properly pierce a vaginal slit. It was one reason his two attempts at sex with Pleasure Girls hadn’t been successful or pleasurable to either him or to them. A female needed to be spiked in order to have her egg sac pierced and her eggs fertilized and the blunt head of his shaft wasn’t suited to that at all.

It had bothered Dragon that he couldn’t give the females he had been with pleasure—bothered him greatly. Though most of the Saurian males he knew were only interested in their own satisfaction, he seemed to have a deep, inner need to please a female sexually. It was one of the reasons he had lost any interest in having sex—well, that and the fact that he didn’t really find Saurian females appealing.

Not like he found the little feela—she was fucking gorgeous, staring up at him with those big, blue eyes—such an unusual color!—and her flaming red hair all wavy down her back. Still, he could have done without her gawking at him.

“What are you looking at?” he growled, glaring down at her.

“Oh, um…” Her cheeks went suddenly red, which Dragon was learning meant that she was embarrassed or ashamed. It was difficult to know, since he hadn’t seen many mammalians other than his own reflection in the mirror growing up.

“Well?” he demanded, turning to face her more fully.

“Your…your tattoos,” she said and gestured at his back. “I was looking at your tattoos—honestly. They move. I mean—I knew that the one on your neck moved but I didn’t really get a good look at your back until now.”

“My live ink?” He turned to look over his own shoulder, catching a colorful flash from the corner of his eye.

“What does it mean? It looks like a dragon—is that because of your name?” she asked.

“Partly. And partly because of the sleeptime story my mother used to tell me,” Dragon said. “The one about the boy turning into the dragon?”

He turned so she could get a better look at the little story that played out on his broad back. It was a boy—a mammalian boy—transforming into a red Dragon with huge, black and red wings. When they unfolded, they stretched from shoulder to shoulder, covering his entire back as flame and smoke spouted from the dragon’s maw. Then it shrank down and turned back into a boy and the whole scene started again.