Free In Like a Lion by Karin Shah

flying beneath and slightly in back of him.
    She—and he knew it was a she—soared up closer and he admired the opalescent traces of blue, gold, purple, teal, and red reflecting off her armored hide and sheer ivory wings in the moonlight.
    He descended to fly beside her. She turned her head and her amethyst gaze met his. Even in dragon form he recognized her. Anjali.
    The dragon knew what the man did not. They were mates. Fated to be together.
    They flew over water, their reflections gliding along beneath them. The joy of flying free made him twist and spiral in the air. His chest was full to bursting.
    He was meant to be here, free in the open air.
    Beside him, Anjali matched his movements, keeping pace.
    He delighted in the synchronization of their acrobatics, the sensation of flying as one. Finally, she dropped lower, skimming the surface of the waves with her belly. He could see she tired and turned to lead the way back to a cove guarded by towering evergreens, where a crescent of silver sand beckoned.
    He landed on the beach. Anjali settled next to him, then twined her long neck with his in a tender caress.
    A sudden, sharp pain exploded through him. He glanced down to see dark blood running down his leg. He’d been shot in one of his few vulnerable areas, a thinning of the scales on his underside where his powerful leg joined his body.
    Men rushed the clearing. They cast a net over Anjali, poking her through the links with long poles. She screamed in pain and fear. He trumpeted his anger to the moonlit, cloud-studded skies and attacked.
    Anjali watched Jake’s muscled chest fill and empty as he slept. Guilt rode her. Observing him while he was so vulnerable felt wrong, but she couldn’t make her hungry eyes turn away.
    Her gaze traced the sleek contours of his chest down the ridges of his abdomen past his navel to the tiny sprinkling of hairs above the drawstring of his pants. She rubbed her collarbone.
    She was despicable, lusting over a man she didn’t really know, a man who, though physically the strongest she had ever met, was in an extremely vulnerable position. Setting her shoulders, she swiveled to go. And her feeble brain had managed to forget why he was here. He wasn’t just some random subject—he’d earned his captivity with blood.
    Jake moaned in his sleep. Turning back toward him, her gaze found his face. He seemed to be snared deep in the tentacles of a nightmare. He thrashed on the long, narrow bed. A low mutter followed the moan. She strained to make out his words. “No,” she made out, and then a flash of light stunned her eyes. And when the spots cleared from her vision, a huge sleeping dragon filled the space where Jake had been, head and forelimbs on the bed, hindquarters on the ground.
    What the —? She rubbed her stunned eyes. How could this be?
    She scrutinized the floor for a hidden trapdoor, anywhere Jake could have slipped away, but the vast creature covered the sealed concrete.
    Whoever had created the dragon had been a master. The giant creature was a dark, midnight blue. Thousands of scales scattered the fluorescent light overhead in a rhapsody of purples, greens, and blues, all shifting with each lift and lower of the dragon’s massive chest.
    Though its eyes never opened, it breathed and moved and—spoke. “Anjali,” it said, the voice low and layered, like multiple keys struck on an organ. “No, Anjali!”
    And though it violated every logical, sensible idea Anjali had ever entertained, she replied, her mouth dry, “Jake?” She licked her lips. What are you doing, Anjali? This is nothing but an illusion, some magician’s trick. She brushed away the reasonable thoughts and leaped into the fantastic. “Wake up, Jake. You’re having a nightmare. Everything is fine.”

Chapter 7
    The heavy mantle of sleep parted and Jake opened his eyes. Anjali stood near his cell, eyes dark and wide with something he couldn’t name.
    “Jake?” she said, her voice trembling.
    He