Draknart watched the confounding slip of a maiden sleep next to him on the furs—a first. Her breath came in soft little puffs, warm against his scales. He’d never slept with a woman before. The experience was odd, although not unpleasant.

A shame that she hadn’t submitted to his expert seduction. Yet he couldn’t regret the time spent. Sparring with her sharp tongue was just as entertaining as sparring with her when she held a sword. But now the first light of the day reached through the cave’s opening. He’d never kept one this long. And all the others had begged to live. While Einin…

Draknart shifted his heavy dragon body. He lifted his head and adjusted himself, curling around her, cradling her in the middle as a bird in a nest.

He should end her quickly. But he couldn’t resist licking the bottom of Einin’s feet, letting his tongue play with her perfect small toes.

She gave a soft moan in her sleep.

He loved the feel of her skin on his lips. He shifted again and sucked her into his mouth up to her knees. Then up to her waist, saying a silent good-bye with true regret that surprised him. She was a woman like no other he’d met before, strong enough and honorable enough for a queen.

She’d asked for a quick death.

So long, fiery maiden—

He stilled as the taste of her womanhood spread on his tongue. His insides turned to liquid fire. The man inside him wanted her still and demanded another chance, a mating.

Draknart hesitated. What would another day matter?

Just because he hadn’t kept anyone before, it didn’t mean he couldn’t keep her, at least a little longer. His dragon blood stirred at the thought of another sword fight and another round of seduction on the furs. But even as he was about to release her, she woke, and, assessing her predicament correctly, she gave a shrill cry.

“You treacherous beast!” Which she followed with damn near kicking out his hind teeth.

He roared and spit her across the cave.

She was on her feet the next instant, wild-eyed and rumpled, her shirt stuck to her comely thighs. A fetching sight she presented, even as she swore like a goatherd and threw old chunks of armor at Draknart until one hit him square on the tip of his nose.

He jumped off his sleeping ledge and pulled to his full height, then sent a small cloud of smoke her way. “Cease!”

Instead, she fished a rusty sword out of the rubble once again and charged at him. Her breasts heaved beneath the shirt. Damned if Draknart wasn’t distracted. Which made it possible for her to cut into his wing.

He roared.

She roared back. “You cowardly bastard! You were going to kill me in my sleep!”

He stilled and tilted his head. That made her angry? “Would you prefer to be awake for it?”

Either way, his meals were dead at first bite—he had a strong jaw and sharp fangs. He meant taking her in her sleep as a kindness. He would have thought she’d appreciate the effort.

Instead, the lass bent and smashed the pommel of her sword into Draknart’s foot, nearly breaking off a talon. And yet, Draknart’s dark dragon temper did not wash over him in response. Rather, he found himself thinking with pride, That’s my Einin, giving as good as she gets.

She swung her newfound weapon in a wide arc in front of her.

He grunted at her. “I wish you’d stop before you get hurt.”

He was not surprised when she didn’t listen.

With a sigh that produced a small cloud of smoke, he backed into the middle of the cave where he could maneuver more easily. Sometimes, in a fight, his tail would swing on its own. He didn’t want to injure her. Although, he wasn’t about to tell her that the thought of harming her bothered him. If he lost his reputation—he’d be left with nothing. Dragons were very much like maidens in that one way.

“I was just taking a wee taste,” he said in as reasonable a tone as he was capable. “You taste sweet,” he added, in the hope that some praise would put her into a better disposition. “Calm yourself, sweeting.”

Her eyes narrowed; she held the sword high in front of her in a tight grip, both hands on the hilt.

That’d be a no, then.

Ah well, if she was disinclined to polite conversation, they might as well have a little sport. Draknart blew another careful puff of smoke and moved forward. She jumped back at last, with a yelp, and took off running. He chased her for a while. Then he backed away, let her try her skill on him. She was quick and fought more with brain than brawn. She sparred better than most of the knights Draknart had eaten.

He only thought to stop their game when her breathing grew labored. She would probably exhaust herself to the point of death before she admitted defeat. He watched her with admiration.

“We should rest then, aye?”

While she eyed his teeth and talons, he swiped his barbed tail around and locked the tip around her slim ankle, yanked her up, and dangled her upside down in front of his face.

Her shirt slid down to her armpits, revealing a silky tuft of fur between her legs and those breasts he’d been longing to see naked. He finally got his fill. He’d never looked forward to midnight more.

Then she twisted, and his blood cooled. Deep grooves covered her slim back, the ruined skin speaking of a merciless whipping. Old scars. Ragged. She must have received them as a child. She was a wee lass now, how much smaller must she have been back then? It was a miracle she had survived such torture. Dark fires ignited inside him, a rage that had him pawing the ground, dragging his talons over the stone.

She dropped her sword and scrambled to keep herself covered. “Put me down, you great beast!”

“Caught thieving?” He thought of his hoard and shifted with unease.

Even so, as much as any dragon hated a thief, the sight of her ruined back filled Draknart with a dark fury at the blackheart who’d flayed the small child she had been. “What did you steal?”

A half-embarrassed, half-outraged sound escaped her. “I stole nothing. I spilled the milk.”

He stayed silent as he tried to puzzle out her meaning.

Twisting to face him so she could glare at him, she added, “My mother died when I was young. The people in the village didn’t think it was right for a girl to be raised by all men in the house. A farmer’s wife offered to take me in. She had only sons. She told my father she would raise me for a daughter.”

“Who gave you the whipping?”

“She did. She kept me in the barn with the cows to take care of the mucking and the milking. She whipped me often to teach me not to grow up lazy.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, as if she could still feel the bite of the whip. “I was a slight child. One day, carrying two heavy milk buckets, I spilled some of the milk. She whipped me until I fainted.”

“Did you run away?” She had a feisty heart. She’d been too young and too small to fight back, but Draknart could see her running as an act of defiance.

“I couldn’t run.” She huffed. “I couldn’t even move. But while I hid, my father stopped by to bring me a small round of herbed goat cheese as a gift. He found me lying in my own blood in the hayloft. He carried me down the ladder and carried me home. He refused to return me, no matter what the village elders said.”

Draknart began to absentmindedly sharpen his talons on the stone. “This farmer’s wife… Which one is she? The pigeon-toed hag?”

Einin wiggled to get down. “What difference does it make?”

The hag and her cows would make a nice meal.

Draknart knew the far field where the cows grazed. He nuzzled Einin and meant it as a comfort, but she took it the wrong way.

The vulnerability disappeared from her eyes in an instant, replaced by outrage. She swung her body, boxing the air inches from his snout. “You great conscienceless, murderous beast of the devil. Set me down!”

By the gods, the woman could screech. Yet all she did, Draknart found sweetly entertaining. She could amuse the gods themselves…

His great body went still at the thought, even his breathing cut off, as if time itself had ground to a halt. He didn’t move as much as a talon, not even an eyelid.

Mostly, he thought of the gods only when he thought of the curse Belisama had put on him. The goddess wasn’t likely to ever lift the curse—she was that much of a shrew—but…

Her husband, the god Belinus, could.

In exchange for a gift fit for a god.

For the first time ever, Draknart had just such a gift. His gaze fastened on the wee lassie hanging upside down in front of his face. Einin.

Belinus had a known weakness for beautiful maidens, and there had never been a maiden more beautiful, more fiery and brave, and more worthy of attention than the one Draknart was holding.

Mayhap it was most fortunate that he hadn’t breached her maidenhead in the night. Although, it hadn’t felt lucky at the time.

“Put me down. Now!” she demanded again with fury, flashing a bare thigh here and a bare buttock there as she wriggled.

Distracting, but after a few moments, Draknart managed to set her on the ground.

She pulled her spine straight, didn’t back away, not a step. She drew her lungs full, her fists coming up, ready to fight, her mesmerizing chest heaving under the rough fabric of her shirt.

He wanted her naked and writhing with pleasure under him as he plowed into her.

He shook off the sharp need. There was something he wanted even more than the bliss he’d find between her strong thighs, wanted desperately, with every beat of his black dragon heart. He wanted the curse lifted.

He wanted to be what he’d once been: dragon day and night.

Draknart steadied himself with a bellowing breath that sent a few harmless sparks around her and said in a tone as friendly as he was capable, “Get yourself ready, lass. We are going on a journey.”

Her soft mouth dropped open in surprise. “We? The two of us? Together?”

“Aye. Traveling companions.” His stone heart lifted, his mood lighter than it’d been in recent memory. If he were any happier, he’d be chasing his own tail around like a dragon pup.

He smiled at her.

She must have grown used to his fangs, because she barely paled.