Free SavedDragon by QueenNicci

clock of any kind to determine how much.
    “Saul?” she rasped out. She needed a glass of water. Maybe a gallon.
    He dragged his fingers down her back. “Hm?”
    “Was I asleep?”
    “For a time.”
    Oh my god I passed out on him. The sex was that good this time, too. “I’m sorry.”
    “You have done nothing for which to apologize.”
    “You kept your human form this time…”
    Saul chuckled. “I would break this bed otherwise.”
    Chloe’s laugh turned into a dry cough. Saul shifted away then returned before she could voice a complaint. “Drink,” Saul coaxed her. He half cradled Chloe against his chest. A tall glass of water waited on the bedside table beside the small lamp. Once he offered it, she guzzled it down quickly.
    “Thanks, I needed that.”
    “Rest, Chloe. The hour is late and you are deserving of pleasant dreams. Sleep.”
    “No. I want to know about you… I want to know about dragons. Why this bite mark on my shoulder doesn’t hurt like… why doesn’t it hurt me?” Chloe curiously raised her fingers to the discoloration left by his teeth. Why hadn’t it broken the skin? “I need to know so many things about you, Saul. Don’t rush me to sleep,” she pleaded gently.
    Cold fear seized her. What if everything was a dream after all and she awakened to her boring, dull bed to discover nothing had changed? The sobering possibility shook the drowsiness from her voice.
    “Very well. What do you wish to know first?”
    “Talk to me more. Anything.” She paused and pressed lightly against the palm-sized smudge of color on her shoulder. No pain. “Maybe begin with this.”
    Saul’s warm laughter turned her into jelly. “That is the Dragon’s Brand, a mark of promise betrothing one dragon to another.”
    “So… if I wasn’t human, I’d bite you back?”
    A quiet nod provided her answer.
    “How many humans have you claimed this way?”
    A quiet sense of bashfulness surrounded him. His eyes cut away briefly, but they returned with his softly spoken answer. “Only you. I do not know why, but the compulsion overwhelmed me during our mating… You are the first human to ever bring me release at the end.”
    Renewed heat pooled at her core, initiated by his admission. No human woman had ever made him come. He’d never reached orgasm with a human until meeting her. It was an honor, a gift, and she would strive to make it happen again and again if she could.
    “No other woman?” she echoed.
    “I have lived in this world for many years. Sometimes I slumber, passing in and out of sleep from one generation to the next,” he confessed to her as they lay sprawled together in the massive bed. It was comparable to a cloud. “But no woman has ever captivated my heart or lured me as you did in the cave. I awakened two weeks prior to our meeting, after a half-decade’s rest.”
    Every answer spawned at least two more questions in her mind. Why had he been in a cave in the first place? “Why do you sleep so long?” she asked curiously, limiting her inquiries for the moment.
    “The oldest among us have traveled this world for centuries. Were we to live each day, life would become monotonous. Dull.” He ran his fingers through her hair and toyed with the sleek ends. “I know what you wish to ask. I have lived four and fifty-two years.”
    Four and fifty-two… He can’t mean that he’s four hundred and fifty-two, could he? Her startled gasp drew tension between them. Saul stilled again, a telling sign of what he expected from her: horror, fear, and maybe even a change of her mind.
    Chloe chose her next words very carefully. “Since you must have a vivid recollection of colonial times… we will watch The Crucible one day, and you can tell me how accurate it depicts their way of life.”
    “A decent movie. As far as accuracy, they took many liberties.”
    Chloe idly stroked her foot along his calf and snuggled her face between his throat and shoulder. She breathed in the musky scent that