She nipped at him with the points of her cruel fangs, teasing clips of teeth that combed over the ivory plumage layered down Skrillex’s throat and made him shiver. The proximity of her weapons to his most vulnerable site should have had the snowy dragon tensing, nervous, anticipating the next unpredictable change of emotion that might lead to knives buried in his arteries—but instead the drunken fool relaxed into her dangerous caress. He could not explain the rightness of this surreal meeting. No words existed to adequately describe the almost nostalgic comfort of having this femme fatale so close . . . so real . . . so soft and fragrant and fearless and frightening in her rare savagery. This could not simply be lust, because Skrillex had experienced those smoldering stirrings before. The masked monster knew the pull of hunger that entwined itself with attraction when his venomous pools wandered a pretty damsel’s frame. He’d felt his jaws clench and his saliva pool, harmless filthy fantasies dancing in his starved mind.

But Skrillex had always managed to pull away. As soon as those dangerous pangs assaulted his guts, the onxy-splashed beast crawled back into his self-built prison, keeping those that would be his victims safe. Not this time. Jaidah’s perfume sang to him, an intoxicating symphony of everything Skrillex desired—a siren song leading him inexorably toward the depths of hell. And he would follow willingly. Though flames might sear the flesh from his wretched bones and agony torment his soul for eternity, at least he’d be with this striking creature. Temptation well worth the torture. Silently, the white warrior listens to her alluring voice as it weaves smoke rings in the air. Her strange rhythmic riddles curled catlike around his mind.

And such a rhyme! Skrillex could not hide the shock in his verdant lanterns as Jaidah planted a quick nip to his cheekbone before flitting away. It was if she had pushed her muzzle into the cavern of his chest and swallowed his still-beating heart to keep it safe within her own breast. How could she describe the kinship he experienced so simply? So accurately? Yet that astonishment occupied the gladiator’s brain for only a breath—because relief soon crushed it beneath a flood of impossible joy. It was true. Jaidah felt it too, this invisible chain binding them together. The music only they could hear, the desires only they thirsted for.

Abruptly the she-wolf was brushing against him, slithering to and fro around his tingling frame with the exuberance of an innocent child. For the first time in years Skrillex felt free—light. The darkness he’d imposed upon himself as punishment seemed to fade with every ferocious spark dancing from Jaidah’s serpentine eyes. He laughs, disbelieving, ecstatic, dazed, unable to shake himself from their shared dream. All at once the alabaster prince joined in, upper body dipping down into a play-bow while his tail wagged furiously behind him. “Yours?” he chuckled back—and the shadows heavy in his soul were suddenly alive and weightless in his words. As she kissed his nose, he stole another kiss back, tongue stroking lightly over the corner of her lips. “And how exactly do you plan to lay claim?”

He mirrored her each action, bounding around the midnight maiden just out of reach. Eventually it was too much for him to handle. The next time she sprang close enough the icy demon lunged at her, aiming to wrap her in his forelimbs and tackle her to the ground in a mock-tussle, just to feel the smoothness of her pelt against his own.