Hidden Rage: Kindred Tales

“You chopped off their hands?”

“Only one of them,” Dragon assured her. “My Sire saw fit to let them keep their non-dominant hands—and their lives. They were lucky.”

“If that’s your idea of lucky, I don’t want to know what unlucky looks like,” Bobbi muttered.

The little feela was still shivering a bit, but at least her teeth had stopped chattering as she absorbed some of Dragon’s heat. Still, they couldn’t sit like this all day with him holding her—as intriguing as the prospect was, he had duties to perform.

Without another word, he drew the shining silver blade across his wrist—just as the male in his dream had—and offered it to Bobbi.

She made a face and drew back at first but when Dragon gave her a stern look, she sighed.

“All right—I’ll try it. But don’t blame me if it makes me puke.”

Then she bent her head and put out her tongue. Dragon felt her lapping—very tentatively—at the blood on his wrist. Her long, flame-colored hair fell over his hand and arm, the silky strands seeming to set his skin on fire with light. He couldn’t help thinking again how beautiful she was—how soft and small and warm.

After a moment, she looked up and licked her lips.

“You know—it’s like the woman in the dream said—it doesn’t taste like blood at all. It’s like…” She frowned. “There was this cinnamon red-hot candy I used to love when I was a little girl. That’s what your blood tastes like—hot and sweet—only it doesn’t burn my tongue.” She licked her lips again. “It’s actually really good.”

“Have some more,” Dragon told her. He was glad she liked it but that wasn’t the main point—he was hoping it would work like it had in his dream. If it did, he wouldn’t have to worry so much about her freezing when he was gone.

She lapped some more and then sucked from his wrist eagerly. As she fed from him, Dragon wrapped his left arm more firmly around her. Feeding the little feela in this way seemed to strengthen his already strong feelings of possessiveness and protectiveness.

Mine, he heard that deep, inner voice growling inside him and he couldn’t have agreed more. Even if she hadn’t been in danger from Zerlix, he couldn’t have let her go—any more than he could spread his wings and fly into the sky without a ship.

It was an odd thought—an odd image—which seemed to resonate inside him. But before Dragon could think more about it, Bobbi looked up, licking her lips.

“You know…I think this is actually working. Here—let me try getting away from you for a minute.”

She slipped out from under his arm, which he had looped around her narrow shoulders, and took a deep breath of the chilled air. Then she nodded.

“Yes, it’s definitely working. I feel like I took a really strong drink of hard alcohol—it warms me right down to my toes.” She smiled at him.

“Good.” Dragon couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice. “I’m glad you won’t freeze in here today while I’m gone.”

“While you’re gone? Where are you going?” she demanded. “And why can’t I come too? I thought you wanted me with you all the time to keep me safe?”

“I told you I have duties to perform. And I want you with me when I’m not with Zerlix,” he corrected her. “The less my brother sees you, the better.”

“Well then what am I supposed to do—just sit in here in your room all day and be bored?” She frowned and crossed her arms.

“You could always watch more entertainment vids,” Dragon pointed out flatly. “You seemed to be enjoying the breeding program you were watching yesterday.”

“Oh, you…”

Her face got almost as red as her hair with embarrassment and Dragon felt the corners of his mouth twitching. He liked teasing her, he thought. Her tiny stature already made her almost unbearably cute but she was even more adorable when she got angry.

“You know I wasn’t watching that on purpose,” she burst out at last.

“Oh, no?”

Grinning at her, Dragon stood and put his hands on the lip of the sleeping pit. With one smooth move, he hoisted himself up and out of the pit and grabbed a pair of black leather trousers to put on.

“No!” she insisted. “I just pressed the wrong buttons on that weird round remote of yours. Hey—are you going to just leave me down here?”

She was standing on her tiptoes, her little face tilted up as she tried to stare over the lip of the sleeping pit. Again, Dragon couldn’t help thinking how tiny and cute she was. He had never felt this way about a Saurian woman—they were never ‘cute’ no matter what size they were.

Maybe it was the fact that Bobbi’s eyes were so big and blue or the way her hair seemed to surround her head in a mane of reddish-gold, making her face look so small and vulnerable. Or maybe it was those cute little freckles that decorated the bridge of her button nose. But for whatever reason, Dragon had the urge to pick her up and cuddle her close, pressing his face to her hair to breathe in her warm, feminine fragrance.