The plush furs beneath Fiona offered no comfort to her confused and terrified state.
The massive weight of the silver-scaled dragon beastman pressing down on her was suffocating, pinning her into the bed, giving her no room for escape.
Panic clawed at her throat as his emerald eyes bore into hers, his fangs grazing the sensitive skin of her neck.
Every instinct she had screamed that she was about to die. She had to fight.
Gathering every ounce of strength left in her trembling body, she wrenched her good leg back and kicked upward with all her might.
Her foot connected right between his thighs and hit his most prized jewel.
The dragon beastman stiffened, a low, shocked grunt escaping his lips, followed by a hiss. His grip on her faltered for a second as he recoiled from the sudden blow to his penis.
It was the only chance Fiona was going to get. Gasping for air, she scrambled backward across the plush furs, dragging her body toward the edge of the large bed, desperate to reach the cold stone floor of the stone cavern and get away. She might not get far with her broken ankle but she would have to. She just had to. Her life depended on it.
But the moment her feet hit the ground, she tried to put weight on her injured leg and a white-hot spike of agony shot up her leg from her twisted ankle.
She buckled, a sharp cry tearing from her throat.
Before she could hit the floor, a heavy, clawed hand clamped around that exact, throbbing ankle.
Fiona screamed as the dragon beastman yanked her backward with terrifying ease, dragging her across the furs until she was flat on her back once more. He lunged, slamming his body over hers, his hands pinning her wrists roughly above her head.
"No, no, get away. Get away from me._ she cried but then her body stiffened as she caught his eyes.
The beautiful emerald of his eyes was entirely gone and had bled into a blinding, feral crimson.
"Female," he growled, his voice deep, vibrating with pure fury that shook her very bones. "You will pay for your transgression against me."
Fiona saw this and wept, her eyes closing tight as she turned her head away, waiting for the final, devastating blow. She braced herself for the nightmare to turn into an outright slaughter.
And then it happened. The dragon beastman exposed his sharp fangs and dug his teeth into her collarbone.
She gasped, her eyes flying open as his fangs sank deep into her flesh, but it wasn't the bite of a monster trying to rip her apart, it was a deliberate bite with one goal in mind. He was marking her.
At first, the pain was blinding. She thrashed against his grip, a choked sob catching in her throat as she feared he would bite her like that all over her body and suck her blood dry before he even tried to mate with her.
But within seconds, the pain began to transform into something else. A strange, unnatural warmth flooded from the bite mark, rushing straight through her veins like liquid fire.
It wasn't the kind of burning sensation that destroyed, but a thick, heavy heat that made her entire body heat up and flush.
Her skin grew hot to the touch, a deep crimson tint spreading across her trembling shoulders, cheeks and chest.
Above her, the dragon beastman waited, his jaw still locked onto her skin, his feral mind bracing for the inevitable.
This was the moment. This was the exact moment where every single female before her had failed. His mark carried the weight of a violent, chaotic curse.
The previous sacrifices had choked on their own blood, screaming in agony as their bodies rejected the dragon's primal energy, dying within seconds.
That was the pattern but he never stopped searching so he could find a way to keep his curse at bay.
Right now, he was waiting for her to stop breathing. He was waiting for her heart to fail or for her to cry out in agony.
But none of that happened.
Fiona wasn't choking. She wasn't screaming. Instead, her small body was trembling beneath him, her skin radiating a beautiful, burning heat that perfectly absorbed his chaotic energy.
She was reacting positively to the mark. She was enduring it.
Slowly, the dragon pulled his fangs from her skin, a string of red blood staining his lips but he licked it up with a swipe of his tongue. He stared down at her flushed, breathing form in absolute disbelief.
The raging, suffocating pressure in his chest even began to calm down. For the first time in years, the screaming madness of his feral beast fell completely silent, quieted by the sheer presence of the human girl beneath him.
She withstood it.
A dark, possessive triumph flared in his chest. He had finally found her. A mate strong enough to carry his curse. A mate who could finally bear his heirs.
But just as he began to relish the sudden, miraculous calm of his inner beast, something else shifted deep within his blood.
The silence didn't last. The quiet in his veins suddenly erupted into a completely different kind of chaos. The feral beast within him roared back to life with a ravenous, maddening hunger that was entirely new.
His crimson eyes narrowed into tight, dangerous slits as he looked at her flushed face, her panting lips, and the fresh blood pooling at her collarbone.
Simply marking her wasn't enough. It hadn't put his beast to rest at all; it had only fed the fire. The scent of her, the taste of her blood, the heat of her body reacting to his mark-it was an addiction he couldn't fight.
He didn't just need to claim her. He had to devour her.
