Dragon Fall: Masters of the Flame 3 (Mating Fever) by Elsa Jade

him down for a fierce kiss, her mouth slanting over his as he’d shown her, twining their tongues tighter even as she loosened the cords.
    The braziers and the jewels around them flared brighter, as if linked to his tortured breath. She kissed the corner of his mouth and then the banging pulse at the corner of his jaw.
    She unraveled the laces and let the sides of the shirt gap across his chest.
    Scales. Hard as the stone and edged like the faceted gems.
    His finger inside her crooked. “Esme…”
    She whimpered and clenched her thighs around his hand. “Oh yes.”
    “No,” he countered. “Don’t look.”
    “Not looking,” she gasped. “Just feeling.”
    It was a lie. He must know that, but she did have his hand trapped in her crotch so it wasn’t like he was going anywhere. She flayed open the shirt and dipped her head.
    He tried to lean back. “It’ll cut you,” he warned.
    “So will not knowing,” she said.
    He paused, no longer resisting.
    “Anyway, I’m tough,” she said. That last part was a lie, but it felt like some reflection of the truth.
    Just like the scales were a piece of him, unwanted and defensive in this shape, but still part of him. She touched her lips to the stiffened flesh.
    Silky smooth, almost hot, and though it was hard, she knew he must feel something through the scales because he shuddered at the caress. She ached, not just at the sweet torment of his stroking between her legs, but at the thought of him trapped between forms, unsound in a way that meant he could never be seen by human eyes.
    Except hers.
    His hand was in her most intimate place, but he was the one truly letting her in.
    Gently, she traced the rim of one scale with the tip of her tongue. Though he held himself stone-still, all his muscles tensed under her fingertips, his chest heaved as if he couldn’t catch his breath.
    Her own heart slam-danced behind her ribs, and she reveled in the evidence of how she affected him. It wasn’t just her vaunted virginity adding some special sauce to her desirability—he was responding to her , her touch, her sighs.
    The scale was sharp and just very slightly serrated. The tang of blood flooded her senses, along with that other taste of something darker and more dangerous.
    She’d thought it was from him, his failing ichor. But it wasn’t.
    It was something in her.
    Her budding delight in her sensual power faltered. What if she wasn’t just doing it wrong, what if she was wrong? What if something was twisted in her from her time under Ashcraft’s spells?
    No wonder Bale didn’t want to show her what he’d become. She almost couldn’t bear to let him see the same in her.
    Maybe she was wrong about how this worked, but she’d told herself not to be afraid, and he’d promised not to hurt her.
    She straightened to kiss him, distracting him with the curl of her tongue while she unfastened the cape from his shoulders.
    He tensed, and he’d already been so frozen she thought he might crack.
    “I warned you,” he rasped.
    The cape fell from her hands, and the loosened shirt slithered down his chest, revealing more of the scales down his left side.
    And his crippled wing unfurled.

Chapter 9
    The dragon in him roared its outrage that he’d revealed the ugly weakness of the defiled limb. Half arm, half wing, utterly useless. His skin crawled as she looked at him, the weight of her gaze stinging like flung stones even on the toughened parts of his hide.
    “Oh, Bale…”
    Worse than pain? Pity. He half turned away from her, hiding the sight of his disfigurement. The bones and ligaments of the wing didn’t fold right, and since she’d already seen it, he let the awkward limb sag like a shattered kite.
    A light brush against his other shoulder scalded him with shame, and he flinched away.
    “Don’t,” she scolded. “I already told you I know what you are.”
    “Dragon lord, you claimed,” he said bitterly. “But I’m not. Not since the stone blight.”
    “Does it