Chương 61: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 61 - Liking and Dragonification

Su Nian was having the time of his life feeding that egg soup. A dragon in his element, stirring up chaos without even trying. He had absolutely no idea what kind of thoughts were running through Anna's head while she lay pinned beneath his attention. Then, right as he moved to deliver the very last spoonful, something unexpected happened. Cool. Sweet. A breath of something that definitely wasn't soup. Then Anna's soft little hands wrapped around his neck. [Anna Hathaway Favorability +1. Current Favorability: 69 (Budding)] [Anna Hathaway Favorability +2. Current Favorability: 71 (Liking)] [Anna Hathaway Favorability +5. Current Favorability: 76 (Liking)] Su Nian's eyes went wide. His brain stopped working entirely.... A moment later, the soup was gone. Su Nian licked his dragon maw. Anna slowly released her hands from around his neck and settled back against the animal skin pad, soft and boneless.

Her breathing had gone a little unsteady, her pink lips parted just slightly, a hint of white teeth showing through the gap. Su Nian's brain was still catching up. He genuinely wasn't sure how it had happened. He'd been feeding soup. That was all. Just soup. And then Anna had started acting strange. Her Favorability had rocketed upward, and her whole body was radiating a thick, heady Alluring Fragrance, something closer to pheromones than perfume. He stared at her, thinking hard.

Anna, for her part, was quietly staring right back. Her face was flushed from her ears to her collarbone, both hands twisted tight in the animal skin beneath her. She looked flustered. But somehow that only made her look more impossibly pretty, eyes gone hazy and soft, body completely loose and warm. Her thoughts, meanwhile, were a complete disaster. My body feels so hot. Does dragon brother think Anna is... that kind of girl? Eek, that's so embarrassing... But the feeling just now... I really liked it...

I want to do it again. No. Twice. The more she thought about it, the worse it got. She buried her face behind both hands, pale and soft, pressing her palms over her cheeks. Then, inevitably, she peeked through her fingers, peach-blossom eyes stealing glances from behind the gaps. She was still floating somewhere in the warm aftermath of it, too shy to quite come back down to earth. But she could feel it — the distance between them had closed a little. Gotten a little warmer. At least for her.

Su Nian watched her be completely, hopelessly adorable, and felt something stir in him. Something old and instinctive and very much dragon. He pushed it down. [Huh... what's that? That, that is...] Whatever Anna saw, it startled her. She let out a tiny, muffled sound, soft hands flying up to cover her lips, steam practically rising off the top of her head. Hearts flickered in her eyes. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Then came a faint sound, delicate, like the rustling of scales. Su Nian had been watching her the whole time. He saw it happen. A small cluster of scales had appeared at the center of Anna's forehead. Tiny. Crystalline. Purple-black, catching the light like gems. On her already lovely face, they looked less like a flaw and more like a secret. [Name: Anna Hathaway (Dragonification Stage One)] The information panel had updated. Anna had never received a drop of dragon blood — that was beyond any doubt.

And yet she was the first being to cross into Dragonification Stage One. Grey Wolf had taken two drops of Su Nian's heart's blood directly and hadn't come close. Su Nian turned the problem over in his head, well and truly stumped. Was dragon saliva actually more potent? Or was it the mutual Favorability between them doing something no one had accounted for?

"Brother..." Anna's voice cut through his thoughts, soft and just a little plaintive.

"Anna still... still wants..." She'd stretched both arms out toward him, hands reaching. Her big eyes were still hazy, lips slightly pouted, and there at the corner of her mouth was a small, remaining smear of egg soup. Su Nian genuinely wanted nothing more than to oblige. The problem was his dragon skull was absolutely enormous. There were physical limits to what was possible here. What had just happened during the feeding, that was already pushing those limits. It hadn't even been a real kiss.

Their mouths hadn't actually touched. For Anna, though, it had probably counted as one. Su Nian sighed inwardly. He'd spoiled her into this. He had no one to blame but himself, and no real desire to stop. So he cupped her gently between his claws and licked her face again, slow and thorough, until Anna was making small, breathless humming sounds and her breathing had gotten complicated enough that he reluctantly pulled back. Reason reasserted itself.

If he kept going, it wouldn't stop at a hole punched into the ground. Not even close.

"That... great master..." The voice came from a respectful distance. Chicken Too Beautiful, the harpy leader, had been standing off to the side for quite a while now, forgotten, politely pretending not to exist. She crept half a step forward.

"Master. Would you... still like me to sing a few bars?"

"Sing." Su Nian had zero self-consciousness about being watched. The kobolds and gnolls didn't have the context to understand what they'd witnessed. Bugs Bunny had training on the brain and nothing else. The harpies might have picked up on it, but honestly, so what? Chicken Too Beautiful took two careful steps back, tilted her head, opened her beak, and let it out.

"Ahhhhhh—" The sound filled the dragon's lair from wall to wall. Clear, soaring, sweet, and threaded underneath with something else entirely, a warm, pulling, enchanting force that nudged at the mind from the inside. Su Nian punched a hole in the floor. He hadn't planned to. It just happened. On the stone beam above, Bugs Bunny froze mid-pull-up. It hung there, staring at Chicken Too Beautiful with an expression it had never worn before. Something shifted behind those wide rabbit eyes.

A quiet, disorienting revelation. Whether it was a rabbit anymore... it wasn't sure that mattered. As long as Chicken Too Beautiful existed in the world. Chicken Too Beautiful sang for a while longer, then went quiet. The energy drained out of her visibly, her posture sagged, her eyes went dim. Singing clearly cost her something significant. Su Nian suspected it had everything to do with that mental enchantment woven through her voice. Not that it worked on him, particularly. He just found it pleasant.

Silky smooth, with just enough pull to be interesting. He filed an idea away for later: when the time came to have children with Anna, having Chicken Too Beautiful sing in the background might create a very favorable atmosphere. Excellent concept. Highly feasible. His estimation of Chicken Too Beautiful's usefulness climbed several notches. He tilted his head.

"Can you dance?"

"D... dance?" Chicken Too Beautiful stared at him blankly.

"I'm sorry, great master." She shook her head, looking genuinely panicked, and pressed herself flat against the floor.

"I cannot dance." She was terrified her answer would get her eaten. But the dragon blood made lying impossible. So she lay there and trembled and waited for whatever came next.

"Can't dance? That's not going to work." Su Nian scratched his chin.

"You don't just have to dance. You have to learn basketball. Learn rap. All of it."

"Otherwise," he said, with complete seriousness, "you don't deserve the name." Chicken Too Beautiful's mind went completely blank. Blue... ball? A ball that is blue? And rap? What was rap? Some kind of hunting technique? She truly knew nothing. The black dragon was a legendary creature indeed, the knowledge embedded in his bloodline was incomprehensibly vast. Chicken Too Beautiful's face filled with fresh reverence. Su Nian scratched his chin and laid it out for her.

"Chicken Too Beautiful is a great ideological monster. A dancing monster. A singing monster." He said it like he was delivering scripture.

"He is a master of singing, dancing, rap, and basketball. A fearsome magical beast warrior with millions of monsters under his command, undefeated wherever he walks."

"I hope you will surpass him. Don't waste that name." Chicken Too Beautiful was struck speechless. She had not imagined her master held such expectations of her. She pressed her face to the floor, overwhelmed, voice thick.

"Thank you, great master, for bestowing such a name upon me. I will dedicate myself to following in this great magical beast's footsteps." ➤ Next: Entrapment (1)