I wake up alone, which would have been a normal day except for the fact that when I did, it was in a stranger's bed, and if my memory served me correctly, a dragon's lair. I shove the tangle of blankets away from my body and leap to my feet, feeling the soreness between my legs. I don't know where Duke is, but I am not going to let this opportunity pass by. I wrap myself in the red blanket and sprint out of the bedroom, heading towards the tunnel, and almost run into the giant dragon.
"Were you thinking of leaving?" He walks forward and I start stepping backwards.
"No-no." I stammer.
"You know, you have not been very grateful to me for saving your life." He stares at me with piercing, glowing, yellow eyes.
"I am, really." With little distance between us, he is imposing, towering over me, he's so close I am aware of the little details of his body. I feel the heat radiating from his body, and how his nostrils flare with his every breath. He moves forward and places his hands on either side of my legs.
"Oh?" He raises one eyebrow. "I think you were trying to leave. You were going to leave me here all by myself, aroused and bothered..." I feel something hard press against my thigh against the fabric of the blanket. I don't have to guess at what it is.
"No, I am grateful, really." I put my hand against his muzzle, stroking the hard scales. He watches me suspiciously, but he is waiting to see what I do next. I take the time to examine him. In the drawings in books I've seen at the library, dragons were always depicted as creatures that moved on all fours. They don't usually let street urchins into the library so perhaps there are different types of dragons I haven't read about. He is almost human-like, I think I read the word before, bi-pedal? Aside from the scales he has proportions like a man only larger.
I think in the dark he could be mistaken for one if he tucked his leathery wings back like he has now. Well, that and this... I stroke the two white horns that emerge from the back of his head prominently. He growls, a pleased noise. He brings his hand up to touch my hand. Oh yeah, and those deadly looking claws. Men don't have those either.