Crouching Tigress Horny Dragon (Fire Mates #3) by Lexxie Couper Read Free Book Online

years he’d spent in human high school science classes to know if it was some form of Doppler effect, but he had spent enough centuries alive to know the fear in that scream was real. Absolute.
    His heart slammed up into his long throat and, with a powerful stroke of his wings, he propelled himself into a downward loop.
    …he let me…oh God…I’m falling…to die…to die…please, Ryan, don’t let me…
    Deanne’s petrified thoughts shrieked through his head as she fell through the sky, a dark, screaming blur of flesh.
    Tucking his massive wings into his sides, Ryan speared downward and swooped beneath her.
    Why hadn’t she shifted? Why was she—
    Her scream grew louder; her thoughts in his head did the same.
    Because I’m not a fucking dragon, you fucking prick!
    The enraged mental cry yanked a startled grunt from Ryan, the sound accompanied by a lick of flame from his nostrils, and then—as Deanne fell past him, he extended his right wing, banked onto his side, and snatched her out of the air with his foot.
    “Are you fucking insane?” she screamed, clinging to him.
    The shout filled his head with equal parts fury and fear.
    He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.
    Holy crap, he could have killed her. She could have died.
    Drawing his legs up closer to his belly, protecting her as much as he could from the cold night air, he beat his wings with stronger strokes, propelling them faster toward the darkness of the park.
    Deanne cursed him and called him names the whole way. He wasn’t even sure what some of those names meant, or in what language they were spoken.
    A few feet from the ground, in an open expanse of grass he could easily imagine someone zooming across in a golf cart, Ryan positioned his body and wings for a back-feet landing.
    It wasn’t as graceful or as smooth as he would have liked. Partly because it had been some time since he’d landed on only two feet, mainly because he was worried sick about what he’d just done. And what it meant for them.
    Why hadn’t she shifted? Why was she so stubbornly sticking to the ridiculous notion she wasn’t a dragon? What the hell was going on?
    The second he released her, she ran away from him.
    Not all the way, just far enough to be out of his reach.
    She turned and stared at him, her chest heaving.
    He stood on all fours, motionless, wings relaxed by his side, tail curled around his back feet, waiting for her to make the next move.
    It had to be her.
    He had to let her set the tone for what came next.
    She sucked in a slow breath, her expression completely unreadable. He reached out for her mind, not even sure if he could do so.
    Nothing. Whatever mental connection they had, he couldn’t manipulate or control it. Maybe that came after years together?
    She did nothing, said nothing. Standing motionless, she studied him, waves of tension and uncertainty rolling from her like a tangible fog.
    Focusing on his human form, he braced himself against the tsunami of piercing fire that came with the shift, and transformed.
    The air around them crackled with the magic of the change. A shudder rippled through Deanne. He saw it as clearly as he saw the mist of their breaths in the cold night air.
    For a long moment, neither said a word. If someone were to stumble upon them in the park—two naked adults, regarding each other like statues—they’d have a hard time explaining what was going on.
    One or both of them would likely end up arrested for public indecency. Neither could get dressed in a hurry, that much was certain. Ryan’s clothes were miles away back in the small park near the bar, and Deanne’s were…
    Hell, where were his Fire Mate’s clothes? Had they incinerated from her body when they were engulfed in the flames of the mating fire? Or been cast aside in the park like his? He couldn’t remember.
    “Does it hurt?”
    Ryan blinked at her unexpected question. “Does what hurt?” he asked.
    The chill on the air tickled at his senses. A