“I was frightened,” I admitted, speaking aloud and knowing he understood me even though we weren’t, strictly speaking, communicating in the same way. “You’re so big.”
The Drake informed me that a person could not be judged solely by his or her size alone. The very idea was ridiculous—as was the idea that a size difference could or should limit the love between people.
“I didn’t understand why you wanted me,” I admitted to him. “I thought I was too small, too insignificant for, er, someone like you to…to be interested in me. The same way I didn’t think Ari could want me—because he’s so handsome and perfect and well, I’m not. I’m scarred.”
As I spoke, the scars on my back throbbed again, pulsing in time with a deeper beat I felt all around me, like a dragon’s heartbeat.
The Drake told me my feelings of inadequacy and insecurity were all nonsense. You couldn’t judge a person by what their exterior looked like anymore than you could by their size. He had seen into my heart, he told me. That day on the field, he had looked into me and known—just known—that I was the one for him and for Ari.
“But how can you know?” I asked, shaking my head. “How can you be sure?”
At last, the Drake’s emotions seemed to coalesce into words inside my head. It seemed he could talk in more conventional ways—if you called telepathy conventional—if he wanted to.
“You have the heart of a dragon—the heart of a Drake. I see it burning inside you, like a living coal,” he told me. “You are special—my L’lorna. You are MINE.”
Then he stopped speaking and sent the feeling that he wanted me to touch him some more.
Up until now, I’d had my hand resting very lightly on his long nose. Now I stroked him more easily. And then, on impulse, I threw my arms as far around his massive head as I could reach and hugged him.
“Um, Katydid? Do you think you ought to be doing that?” It was Avery’s voice behind me and he sounded nervous.
“It’s all right,” I told him, not turning around, still hugging my Drake. “It’s all right, Avery—he would never hurt me.”
Of course he wouldn’t hurt me! the Drake informed me. He wanted only to treasure and love me always. He wanted only to protect me and keep me safe from anyone who would harm me.
This was basically what Ari had been telling me too, ever since he’d admitted how he really felt for me and kissed my scars. But somehow, with the Drake, it was easier to believe. Maybe because we were two different species and he was a beast and not a perfect, Greek-god-like guy who should have been so far out of my league it wasn’t funny.
Or maybe it was the fact that through our new connection, I could feel everything the Drake was feeling. There could be no doubt and no holding back when his love and tenderness for me came through so loud and clear. It was like having a radio station in my head tuned to the self-affirmation channel which sent me only positive thoughts and emotions.
I rubbed my cheek against the Drake’s nose and breathed in his warm, spicy scent which wasn’t that different from Ari’s.
“Oh,” I whispered. “You’re so soft. I thought you would be hard and scaly but you’re not at all—you’re like touching warm silk.”
Indeed, the tiny interlocking scales weren’t hard and cold like diamonds or oily feeling like a snake’s either. Instead, they felt like warm velvet under my hands and cheek. It made me want to cuddle up to the Drake, as though he was a giant teddy bear. I felt that safe with him—that cared for and protected.
But it was clear from the throat-clearing and foot-shuffling coming from my Coven behind me, that my friends didn’t quite understand what was going on. Obviously the sight of me cuddling with a monstrous dragon made them feel nervous.
“Um, Kaitlyn?” Megan’s voice was high and uncertain. “Are you sure that’s safe? I mean, getting so close like that?”
“You’re practically draped all over it!” Emma’s voice was little more than a squeak.
“Not it,” I said, lifting my head and turning to them at last, though I kept my hand on the long, soft muzzle. “Him. The Drake is…what’s the word for it? Oh, right—he’s sentient. I mean, he can think as well as we can and…and he’s communicating with me.”
“What is he saying?” Griffin, alone among the group, sounded more interested and less scared—maybe because as a True Nocturne, he was a predator himself.
“He’s saying…” I felt my cheeks heat in a blush but forced myself to go on. “He’s saying he loves me,” I told them. “He loves me and he wants to protect me always. He…he never wants us to be parted.”