Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Dragon Chow

The dragon clicked in his throat, lowering his (I was certain it was a 'he') massive head right down over me. His breath, however, was ice-cold, and the air around us clouded and misted as his ice-blue scales shed freezing mist against the humid, hot sea air.

I didn't move. Pale blue eyes with reptilian slitted pupils stared into mine. His horns rose out of his skull like massive twisted icicles. A beard of frost tickled between my breasts. His wings remained upraised, creating a massive shining tent above us, like I was in a cave of ice.

"Hi," I squeaked.

He tilted his head slightly, and rippled his lips back over huge teeth. I wracked my brain to try to remember everything I'd learned about dragon shifters.

Dragon-shifters were the longest-lived of all shifters, and one of the oldest races, perhaps the very oldest and first species of shifter the gods had crafted (or emerged from the primordial mud, depending on who you asked). The stories said they could live hundreds of years, if not thousands. They had retreated from the world a long time ago to live in mountain roosts and across the sea and wherever else ancient dragons liked to live, and were rarely seen. They collected hordes of stones, gems, gold, things of beauty and rarity. Some stories said they were the messengers of the gods themselves, and were too busy attending to divine missives to bother so much with other things.

They did intermingle and breed with humans, and the other races, but were rarely seen, rarely took mates, didn't even participate in the Chamber and Churn that I knew, and rarely bred. They lived hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They didn't need to have kids all that often. And what dragon wanted to take a mate that would live fifty years while they had to go on another five hundred alone?

I wouldn't do the Chamber either. I'd have chosen a nice dragon to be content with.

"Thank you for saving me," I whispered, heart beating so hard I almost puked trying to talk. But if he was waiting for a thank-you, I should offer it before he ate me.

Dragons were indiscriminate feeders. They ate anything. Even each other. And most especially probably filthy scrawny humans. But I was pretty scrawny so I'd mostly be bones and grisle.

He clicked deep in his throat, then raised his head as he folded his wings against his massive sides. His attention turned to something beyond my head.

I twisted around as best I could, straining my eyeballs in their sockets. A large raven wearing a gold necklace had alighted on the ground. It bounced back and forth on little legs, then transformed into a purple-clad man. From this angle he seemed impossibly tall and thin, with long arms, and his cossack shone like feathers, rippling in the storm breeze, his dark hair flickering around his hips in an amazing inky flow.

"Wow," I breathed. He was sharp and good looking, even if I was getting the underside view of both of his nostrils.

The dragon snorted at me, then turned his attention back to the raven-shifter.

The raven-shifter said, "Are you going to eat her, or were you planning something more... exhibitionist, Kor? Because it is good form to court your partner and do basic things like ask consent."

Kor rippled his lips back over his large teeth again.

The raven-shifter sighed and crouched down next to me. "I apologize if you were startled. I—"

Kor growled.

"Oh, transform if you want to have a conversation," the raven gestured dismissively, unimpressed with the ancient beast snarling at him. His boney, long-fingered hands clenched down over one of my shoulders and pulled me back across the stones, and then he hooked me with a strong grip and helped me to my feet. He dusted pebbles off my back. "Ignore the dragon. They dislike assuming their other from. They have illusions it is beneath them, and claim they were dragons first, human-shaped second."