"Valkar, you fool! Control your rage! What if you hurt the female again? Get your stupid dragon breath away from him—now!"
Old Bal's voice trembled with fear as he tried to calm the furious dragon. When Falkar's dragon instincts took over, things never ended well. If he truly lost control now, they wouldn't even have time to pray for their souls. Not him, not the female, not even the entire tribe—they would all be consumed in a fiery, inevitable death.
Dragons had always been outcasts among the tribes. Their overwhelming power made them feared and avoided. Even immature young dragons could wipe out an entire village on their own. Other beasts knew better than to provoke them—though dragons were never favored, they were always left alone. The major clans and cities didn't forbid dragons from entering or living among them, but they were consistently ignored and avoided like cursed beings.
Dragons, especially the ones who had reached full maturity, were proud—unreasonably possessive, particularly toward females.
Who would dare expect a female to choose only one beast as his mate?
That was absurd.
First, females were extremely rare. It was common—expected even—for a single female to take more than ten beastmen as mates and breed with them all. This increased his chances of birthing cubs and, hopefully, more females.
Even the laziest, ugliest, most ill-tempered females had at least ten beastmen under their command.
That was normal.
What wasn't normal was the way these stupid lizards thought—this ridiculous obsession with exclusivity.
Every time a dragon chose a female to be his lifelong mate, he asked him to be his and his alone; it always ended the same: Rejection.
Eventually, dragons began abducting females and forcing them into companionship.
Still, it wasn't out of cruelty. A dragon would never harm his soulmate. He'd pamper his female endlessly, give him everything he desired—everything, except the right to share himself with another.
Bal had placed all his hopes on Valkar's love and obsession with this particular female in front of him. He invoked him to stop the beast's rampage.
Thankfully, it worked.
Valkar looked at the trembling female in front of him.
He was afraid—shaking...
It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head.
His flaming breath ceased.
The violet-blue sparks in his mouth vanished.
[I made him fear me. Will he hate me now? Will he hate my jealousy… my possessiveness?]
The fear that surged through Valkar's chest was like none he had ever known.
He hadn't feared for his life even when his mother abandoned him as a cub after his father's death.
Not when he faced his first beast in the wild and nearly died before awakening his powers.
Not even when a hundred beastmen laid a trap to kill him.
But now… now Valkar was truly afraid.
Still, he was a proud dragon. He would never show weakness—not in front of anyone, especially not while old Bal was still watching.
He turned away from the trembling Mo Chen, his expression cold and unreadable.
Afraid?
Shaking?
Well, yes—Mo Chen was shaking.
But it wasn't because of the snake-man in front of him. He had already accepted the ridiculous reality: he was in a fantasy world, and the being before him wasn't some brainless venomous animal waiting to bite.
And he heard Bal's words very clearly.
Dragon?
Had he heard right? Was this man actually a dragon, not a snake? Then why did he only have a serpent's tail and fangs? Where were the horns?
Whatever. It wasn't his problem.
What truly unsettled Mo Chen was what Bal had said.
When he heard Bal refer to him as "the female" again, something inside him snapped.
His expression stiffened.
His body trembled—not with fear no way, but with rage.
And that… that was where Valkar's misunderstanding began.
Mo Chen would never tolerate such humiliation. Sure, he had said he was gay, but that didn't mean he was some gender-bending weakling. He hated men who acted like women.
Did they really think he looked like a girl?
He was a man. A real man. His pride would never allow this insult—to himself or to his precious little guy.
The air around them grew tense. Bal stood silently, his face twisted in disgust—not toward Mo Chen, of course, but toward poor Falkar, who stood a bit away from the bed, stealing a glance every two seconds.
Mo Chen figured this was the perfect opportunity to speak up and defend his dignity.
He cleared his throat and said slowly, "Excuse me. Thank you… for saving me, protecting me from that beast, and giving me medicine as well."
He turned to Falkar.
The dragon was still standing tall. Mo Chen was honestly baffled—how did the man balance on that long tail? It was easily three meters or so. (Okay, he wasn't sure. He didn't have a ruler.)
When Mo Chen thanked him, Falkar's violet eyes lit up. Even the slitted pupils widened slightly, turning almost round.
Seriously? Are you a cat? Where is your dragon pride?
Still, Falkar was ecstatic. He tilted his head ever so slightly toward Mo Chen.
Mo Chen, enchanted by the man's striking face, was momentarily stunned. That soft, faint smile at the corner of Falkar's lips, those strands of dark hair falling over his chest—
Wait. Wasn't his chest bare before?
Now it was covered in some kind of black fabric… or was it even fabric? Mo Chen was sure that chest had been naked when they first met!
[Snap out of it, you idiot. Now is not the time to drool over some guy!]
Cursing himself mentally, he took a deep breath and said as politely as he could:
"Thank you for your help… but I am not a female."
Falkar: "…"
Falkar had been so happy to finally gain the female's attention, thrilled to see those beautiful brown eyes staring up at him in awe.
Every second of it filled him with joy.
And then… the female denied his gender?
[Just to escape me? Just so he won't become mine?]
[He'd rather call herself a genderless creature than be my mate?]
Falkar was furious.