Sluggish and sleepy, with a full belly from last night’s hunt, I dragged my ugly ass out of my den and up onto the ridge, stretching out in the pale morning sun to absorb the heat. My dark blue scales soaked up the warmth, but the unnatural patches of white that marred my long, sinuous body tended to reflect the sun, leading to uneven basking and cold muscles that wanted to cramp up. Being a piebald dragon was so many levels of hell.

With a sigh, I rested my chin on my foreclaws and closed my eyes, dozing as the sun rose higher, bathing me in glorious heat. If you’re not a dragon, you can’t even begin to imagine how good that feels. It even lifted my mood.

Then I heard the scream.

I jerked my head up and looked toward the forest. Out there, beyond the trees, was my village—the human settlement I had claimed as my territory—and something was very wrong. Human voices drifted to me on the wind, shouts of anger and fear, and I lunged to my feet, warm muscles eager. Scrambling down from the rocky ridge, I slithered into the forest, heading for the commotion. I kept to the underbrush, because the last thing I wanted to stumble into was a mob of agitated humans.

A sound like thunder rumbled beneath the trees and I hunkered down in a thicket, watching as a young, male centaur galloped past, his golden mane and tail streaming. In his muscular arms, he carried a young woman—the source of the screaming.

I waited a moment, but no humans followed him. Not surprising. Humans aren’t very good at following a scent and they’re terribly slow. Still, I liked them, and one of mine had been taken. That could not be ignored.

Their trail through the forest was like a ribbon of bright colors, the scent of equine and human entwining and weaving between the trees. It led me to the far edge of the woods, to a sunny clearing where a massive tree had once fallen, leaving an open space and a huge, rotting log. Crouched in the shadow of the forest, I watched the young stallion struggle with his prize, his inexperience painfully obvious.

He set the girl down and tried to push her beneath his horse half, to where his impressive cock was already hanging, but she just …