Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111252 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Xiang sprang across the few meters separating them, his face alight with excitement for the first time in days. He snagged one of Kai’s hands in both of his and squeezed. “Please! The one time I saw your dragon was when you grabbed me. It was all so fast and terrifying. I was more concerned with you trying to eat me. Even when you took me to hunt, the travel was done in the blink of an eye. I just have an impression of immense size and power.”
“Really? You wish to see me?” The words slipped out in barely more than a whisper.
The vampire’s eyes were so wide, they were in danger of rolling out of his skull. “Are you serious? Of course I want to see a dragon! Especially since I know you don’t want to eat me.”
For a flash, Kai’s mind went somewhere dirty, but he jerked it out of the gutter while holding on to his shocked expression. It was a little concerning that Xiang was so obsessed with being eaten. Did he not understand that he wasn’t all that appetizing? There were far more delicious things out there to be eaten.
He cleared his throat and nodded once. “Okay.” He glanced about before his eyes caught on the perfect spot. “Go sit on the cushions.”
Xiang ran across the room and climbed up onto the mound of cushions where they usually played weiqi and reclined while Kai read and Xiang played on his phone. It had become their spot in the hoard and Kai’s favorite place.
“Okay!” Xiang shouted. “But don’t we need to go outside? Is there enough room in here?”
Kai smirked at his concern. Yes, the hoard was packed with treasures, but this was his hoard. Of course, he could move his large body through it without being in danger of damaging anything.
With a shake of his shoulders, Kai released a breath. It was like relaxing a muscle he’d forgotten that he’d even tensed. Power rolled through him and out, carrying him through the narrow, winding paths in the treasure room and up the giant pile of cushions until half of his body was coiled around Xiang. He opened his eyes and stared down at the small figure, who watched him with a mix of awe and terror scrawled across his features.
Xiang scrambled backward, seeming unable to take his eyes off Kai. He almost fell from the cushions but caught himself at the last second by placing a hand on Kai’s side. The vampire jerked his hand away on a gasp as if he’d been burned.
“S-sorry,” he choked out.
You can touch. I don’t mind.
Xiang yelped and jumped, only to point at Kai. “I heard that! I heard that in my head.”
I can speak with my mouth, but my voice in this form is loud and booming. Speaking directly to your brain is gentler.
“Whoa,” Xiang exhaled. He sat on the pillows, but it looked more like his legs collapsed beneath him. “Can you read my mind?”
If I wanted to, but I try to avoid reading filth, he teased, hoping to get Xiang to relax.
“Okay. That’s—hey! I don’t…okay, never mind,” he finished with a smirk. Xiang’s bright eyes followed him down from the tip of his golden horns, across white whiskers and his winding body. Though they did pause at his long talons. “So, you’re still in there. That’s…that’s…insane.”
Still in there?
“Well, you’re still Kai, but you’re in a dragon’s body now.”
A grumbling huff escaped Kai, and he lowered his head so he was closer to being on Xiang’s level. This is me. The true me. The human body you’ve known these past weeks is the fake. I took that form to put you at ease.
Xiang swallowed hard, his eyes continuing to move over him, as if his brain were attempting to catalogue and understand everything it was seeing.
“Oh.” The vampire paused. He reached out with one hand to touch Kai’s scales but then pulled his hand away. “Does it bother you? To walk around as a human? Is it uncomfortable or exhausting?”
Not particularly. But it is nice to lie in my hoard in my true form.
As if to prove it, Kai stretched his long body, allowing his scales to brush ever-so-lightly against the many things he’d collected over the centuries and millennia. There was something so very calming about being safe in his hoard again. The lingering tension and worry about the fae slipped to the very back of his mind and, for a time, he could forget they existed.
He laid his head on a pile of pillows and closed his eyes, letting out a contented sigh. A smile teased his lips, but he pushed it away as he felt a hand graze his side as Xiang got up the courage to touch his scales. He held still as Xiang’s touch grew firmer and bolder, tracing a particular scale before moving up his body.