The cave was enormous. The size of a cathedral. The ceiling was high — a hundred feet, the stone arching, the rock carved by water and time. The walls were wet. The algae glowed — blue-green, the light soft, the illumination coming from everywhere and nowhere. The floor was stone — smooth, worn, the surface of a cave that had been occupied for centuries.
The pool.
In the center. A pool of water. Not sea water. Fresh water. Hot. The steam rose. The mineral smell — sulfur, iron, the earthy scent of geothermal water — filled the cave. The pool was large. Fifty feet across. The water was clear. The bottom was visible — stone, smooth, the minerals depositing in layers of color.
She was there.
On the floor. Beside the pool. Not in the water. On the stone. On a bed of silk and furs that had been laid out. Her body was—
Raven stopped.
He looked.
Her body was enormous.
Not enormous in the way that a tall woman is enormous. Enormous in the way that a dragon is enormous. Her human half — from the waist up — was twice the size of a normal woman. Her shoulders were broad. Her arms were thick. The muscles — the dense, corded muscles of a being whose body was designed for power — were visible beneath the skin. The skin itself was covered in scales. Not fully. Partially. The scales — sea-blue, iridescent, the surface smooth and gleaming — covered her forearms, her shoulders, her collarbones. The rest of the skin was human. Pale. Smooth. The contrast — the scaled and the smooth — was striking.
Her breasts were massive.
Not large. Massive. Proportionate to her body. On a normal woman, they would have been — he calculated — a triple D. On her body, they were mountains. The flesh was full. Heavy. The nipples were dark. Large. The areolas wide. The breasts rested on her chest — when she was lying down — the way boulders rest on a hillside. Heavy. Solid. Present.
Her face was beautiful.
Not human-beautiful. Dragon-beautiful. The features were sharp. The cheekbones were high. The jaw was strong. The lips were full. The eyes — closed, she was sleeping — were behind lids that were scaled. The scales on her lids were the same sea-blue. Her hair was silver-blue. Long. Enormously long. The strands — thick, the texture of silk, the color of moonlight on water — spread around her head. On the silk. On the furs. Like a river of silver.
Her other half.
From the waist down. Not human. Not fully dragon. Something between. Her legs were — scaled. The scales covered her thighs, her calves, her ankles. The scales were larger here. Denser. The legs were thick. Muscular. The kind of legs that could crush stone. But they were shaped like human legs. The thighs. The calves. The ankles. The feet — not feet. Claws. The toes were clawed. Three toes. The talons curved.
Her tail.
Behind her. The tail was long. Twenty feet. Thick at the base — the diameter of a tree trunk — and tapering. The tail was scaled. The same sea-blue. The end was flat — a fin, the kind that sea dragons use for swimming. The tail moved. Slowly. In her sleep. The way a cat’s tail moves. The involuntary twitch of a dreaming predator.
She was taking a smoke bath.
Not steam. Smoke. The smoke — from herbs, from minerals, from the substances that dragons burned in their lairs — rose from a brazier beside her. The smoke was blue. The scent was — not unpleasant. Minerals. Herbs. The ancient, earthy, primal scent of a dragon’s rest.
She was an empress.
Enjoying her restful time. Her body — the massive, scaled, powerful body — was relaxed. The muscles were loose. The tail was still. The breathing was deep. The face — the sharp, beautiful, dragon face — was peaceful. The face of a woman who had ruled for a hundred years and who was, in this moment, in this cave, in this pool, in this smoke, at peace.
Raven’s violet eyes went down.
Between her legs.
Her legs were apart. Not spread. Not deliberately. The way that a sleeping person’s legs fall open. The thighs — thick, scaled — were separated. The gap between them was dark. The shadows. The cave’s light — the blue-green algae — did not reach there. But his eyes — the violet, the glowing, the eyes that could see in the dark — found it.
Her pussy.
The hair was visible. Not trimmed. Not shaved. The hair — dark, thick, the bushes growing wild — was there. The pubic hair of a dragon. Not the fine, soft hair of a human woman. Coarse. Thick. The bushes — and that was the word, bushes, because the hair was so dense and so long that it was not hair but foliage — covered her mound. The hair extended — from the mound, down the lips, between the thighs, to the perineum. The hair was long. Several inches. The kind of length that came from centuries of never trimming. Never cutting. The natural, untouched, wild growth of a being who did not care about human aesthetics.
Raven walked forward.
Between her legs. His body — normal-sized, human-sized — was small between her thighs. The thighs — each one the width of his torso — were on either side of him. Like walls. The scales — sea-blue, smooth — were at his eye level. He walked. Forward. Toward the dark. Toward the hair. Toward the pussy.
He arrived.
At her pussy. The hair — the bushes — was before him. He reached. His hand went out. His fingers found the hair. He touched. The texture — soft. Softer than it looked. Not coarse. Not rough. The hair was silky. Fine. The individual strands were thick but the feel was smooth. Like the fur of a animal. Like the silk of a spider’s web.
He pulled.
Not hard. Not painfully. A tug. The way one pulls a thread. The hair came. The strand stretched. The skin — beneath the hair, the mound, the flesh — moved. Pulled. The sensation — the tugging, the pulling, the feeling of someone touching her hair — reached her. In her sleep. Her body stirred. Her tail twitched. Her brow furrowed.
She winced.
The small, sleeping wince of a being who has felt something. Who has registered a sensation. Who has not yet woken.
Raven’s hand went to her ass.
The thick, scaled, massive ass. The cheek — the size of a boulder, the flesh beneath the scales dense and heavy — was beside him. He reached. He slapped.
PAH—
The sound was loud. The impact — his human-sized hand on the dragon-sized ass — was small. Proportionately. Like a slap on a mountain. But the sensation — the sting, the sharp, sudden sting — registered.
Her eyes opened.
The sea-green eyes. The pupils — vertical, slitted, the eyes of a dragon — contracted. The lids — scaled — lifted. The eyes found the ceiling. The cave. The algae light. The smoke.
"Why is it itching there?" she muttered.
Her voice was deep. Resonant. The voice of a dragon in a human throat. The voice that had commanded armies and sunk fleets and ruled an empire. The voice was — sleepy. Groggy. The voice of a woman who has been woken from a deep sleep and who is not fully conscious.
She did not see him.
Between her legs. Below the hair. Below the mound. In the shadows. His body — small, human, dark-coated — was invisible. Against the dark. Against the stone. Against the scales.
Raven chuckled.