CASIMIRA
dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah
She has spent most of her life keeping something fierce and uncontrollable trapped inside; keeping everything carefully buried so that she might not have to acknowledge it. But does he know what he threatens to unleash from her? Whatever it is that is clawing through the space between her ribs, whatever it is that simmers so sweetly right beneath the skin – it is not the dragon that she has struggled to keep at bay. This was something else entirely, and while there is a fear that lurks in the corner of her mind, there is a certain kind of thrill, too.
Every word he speaks feels like small shocks inside of her mind, and she wonders if anyone else could have possibly made her feel this way. It’s maddening, and exhilarating, to be so entirely taken by someone that was by all accounts a stranger – and yet somehow she feels as though she has known him a lifetime. If she is walking a dangerous line, if she is treading into treacherous waters, she does not have the capacity to think it through. She doesn’t think about how he could break her heart; she doesn’t think that maybe this is a game to him, that he is charming and roguishly handsome because he is trying to get something from her. She should have had at least an inkling of trepidation, just being raised by her mother. She should have at least some sort of apprehension after watching her mother break again and again.
But she looks at him, and she doesn’t see the men that her mother has been with. He could not possibly have such a callous part hidden to him, not with eyes so warm when they looked at her and the way words sounded so sweet but teasing from his mouth. “I think you would change your mind if I accidentally gave you a life lesson on being hurt,” it’s meant to sound teasing, but the truth of it weighs into each syllable. He is talking about emotional hurt; she knows. He is talking about taking risks, going new places, falling in love, all those other intangible hurts. She doesn’t want to think about how she could actually hurt him. How her dragon form could obliterate him and she is afraid that small, conscious part of her wouldn’t be able to rein the monster in.
All she wants is this moment; this moment of enchantment that she is afraid is going to disappear.
The way that he gasps her name after her lips had touched him almost makes her recoil, and her heart jumps into her throat. But she only withdrew a few inches, and the echo of her name on his tongue pulls her into him again. His skin shudders, and even before he could ask for more she found herself touching him again, just to see if he would still tremble. When he presses closer into her it brings her chest against his, and her lips again find the strong curve of his neck.
But when he touches her back, when his mouth caresses the warmth of her skin, she is not prepared for the adrenaline and want that would suddenly shoot through her. The intensity of it causes scales to shiver across her skin; a ripple of a shimmering, white armor riding like a wave from her neck and all across her back, and only to disappear just as quickly. He would have felt them, though – she is sure of it, and this makes her stumble back with a sharp inhale. “I’m sorry,” the apology is spilling from her before she can contain it, her crystal-blue eyes anguished and worried when she looks at him. “I can’t...I can’t always control it. The scales, I mean, and...other things.” She wants so badly to stop talking, to stop digging herself further into this hole she found herself in. She wants to rewind to just a few moments before, now that she knew what happened when he touched her like that, and maybe if she was prepared she could keep the dragon scales away.
But instead she is collapsing in on herself, afraid that he will be irritated she hid something from him, and afraid that he will loathe what he had just accidentally discovered. Even though she had stepped back she was still close enough that she could have touched him again if she decided to reach forward, and she starts to, but something stops her just before their skin can meet again. “Don’t hate me,” comes her almost tremulous whisper, because I want so badly to see where this is going, but somehow the last part turns to ash on her tongue and she can’t bring herself to say it.
I accidentally wrote you like 800 words and I'm sorry lmfao