ClosertoFire by Alexis Reed Page A

my
immediate desires, the way I experience the world…that’s all very different.
Someday, when our connection is strong enough, I’ll show you.”
    She glanced up at him. “Like you showed me a couple of
minutes ago?”
    He smiled. “Bane showed you that. He’s a stronger psychic
than I am. It was a memory of his.”
    She slowed as they drew nearer the dragon, trying to take in
everything at once. “I wish I could see better,” she murmured. No sooner had
she spoken the words than a soft glow emanated from its skin and scales,
bathing them in blue light. The light danced over the dragon’s long, lean form
in shimmering bands. She’d assumed that Bane’s dragon would look very much like
the one in her vision. She’d been wrong.
    The dragon was resting, its legs folded elegantly, its neck
stretched out, its head flat on the sand. Its form was uncannily still. If it
hadn’t been for the slight movement of its eyes as it followed them, she might
have thought it was sleeping. Its eyes were haunting, she thought, cautiously
approaching its head. Other than the unusual blue color of its irises, so like
Bane’s in human form, there was nothing recognizably human—or even mammalian—in
the dragon’s gaze.
    Darek clasped her hand. “It’s still him, Lily.”
    The dragon blinked as they drew closer, two sets of eyelids,
one vertical, one horizontal, closing and reopening in rapid succession. A row
of tiny, needlelike horns ran the length of its snout, trailing up between its
eyes to a crest of much larger horns that angled back from its head.
    Her gaze traveled down its long, serpentine neck to its
body. Though no smaller than the blood-red creature from her vision, Bane’s
form was more compact. He had less mass in his midsection than Darek had, a
difference that was compensated for by his wings. Even folded, they looked
bigger somehow.
    It took her a moment to figure out what was different. She
inhaled sharply, tightening her grip on Darek’s hand. “Feathers,” she said
wonderingly. “They’re covered with feathers.”
    Lily closed the final five feet to stand by Bane’s head. His
lower fangs, clean and white, came up to her waist. Tentatively she laid her
hand on his snout. The leathery skin was warm, almost hot to the touch. His
nostrils flared as he drew in an immense breath. She had to bite back a
startled grunt.
    “Most people start with the tail,” Darek said wryly. He
stepped up behind her, his very solid, very human frame comforting, and
laid his hand over hers. Together they stroked the mosaic of tiny scales
covering Bane’s face. The bumpy surface was hard, the scales as smooth as glass
and warm. Bane’s eyes drifted closed as though he found her touch pleasing.
This close, she could see that his scales weren’t entirely blue. They were shot
through with threads of gold, like ore in a mine.
    “It’s okay, Lily. He won’t bite,” Darek said. The dragon’s
eyes flicked open as Darek spoke the words and he chuckled. “Not hard, anyway.”
    “How does he communicate in this form?” she asked. “Surely
he can’t talk.”
    Darek chuckled. “No, he can’t speak in this form, but he
projects his thoughts to me. Can you hear him, Lily?”
    She shook her head.
    He shrugged. “That sort of bridge takes time to build,” he
said. “Pictures are easier to project than words.”
    “But he can understand us?” she asked.
    “Oh yes,” he said. “His hearing is much better than ours.
All of his senses are, in fact. He sees in infrared, so darkness is no obstacle
to him. But his sense of smell is the most acute and the most important.
Without it, he’s effectively blind.”
    Lily walked down the length of Bane’s neck, giving the
talons on his foreleg a wide berth, and stopped beside his shoulder, looking up
at his enormous wings. As she watched, a series of thick scales that ran from
the base of his shoulder to his withers flexed, folding outward.
    “Want to go flying?” Darek asked,