The Predator’s Claim

The splash was subtle, but it didn't come from Elian.

Elian’s eyes snapped open. The steam across the pool parted, not by wind, but by the movement of something massive.

Standing on the opposite ledge was a man. But calling him a man felt like a lie. He was towering, standing nearly seven feet tall, with shoulders that blocked out the dim light of the cave. His skin was bronzed and scarred, marked with faint, shimmering lines that looked like gold veins in marble. He wore only loose trousers, leaving a broad, powerful chest exposed to the damp air.

But it was his eyes that froze the breath in Elian’s lungs. They were vertical slits of molten gold, burning with an ancient, terrifying intelligence.

Kaelen. The Dragon of the Deep. The nursery rhyme monsters were real.

Elian scrambled backward, water splashing against the stone rim. "I... I didn't know," he stammered, his voice thin and pathetic in the echoing grotto. "I’ll leave. I’m sorry."

The man didn't move. He simply watched, his gaze tracking the water dripping from Elian’s collarbone.

"You are in my water," the dragon said. His voice was a low rumble, a sound that vibrated through the stone floor and into the pool itself. It wasn't angry. It was absolute.

"I was cold," Elian whispered, pressing his back against the rough rock of the pool's edge. He tried to cover himself, suddenly acutely aware of his nakedness and vulnerability.

Kaelen stepped into the water.

He didn't wade; he stalked. The water barely reached his waist as he closed the distance between them. The heat radiating off him was more intense than the spring itself. It was a dry, furnace heat that smelled of woodsmoke and old magic.

Elian squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the fire, for the claws.

Instead, a hand—large, calloused, and impossibly hot—cupped his cheek.

Elian’s eyes flew open. Kaelen was looming over him, trapping him between the rock wall and a wall of muscle. The dragon tilted Elian’s head up, his thumb brushing over the pulse frantically beating in Elian’s throat.

"You are freezing," Kaelen observed. It was an accusation.

"I ran away," Elian managed to say, his fear melting into a strange, dizzying vertigo under the dragon’s touch.

"You ran here," Kaelen corrected. His thumb moved to trace Elian’s lower lip. "Everything in these woods belongs to me. The trees. The stones. The water." He leaned down, his face inches from Elian’s. "And what wanders into my water becomes mine."

It should have been a threat. But to Elian, who had spent his life being traded like cattle, the possessiveness didn't feel like a cage. It felt like an anchor.

"Yours?" Elian breathed.

"Mine," Kaelen confirmed. "Now stop shivering. It offends me."