Su Li held the section of tail coiled around his waist, the pads of his fingers stroking over the ring-patterns like annual rings. Hela suddenly arched with a shudder, her tail slapping the grass and flower-strewn ground, splashing up starry droplets of aromatic dew. Hidden there was a patch of reverse-grown scales; the warm-jade smoothness of his touch sent tingles shooting up from the base of her tail.
The night was bewitching, casting the shadows of snake tail and human beneath the Moon Crown Tree's canopy of full bloom. Hela imitated a human woman and bit down on a lock of his black hair, only to discover that when her forked tongue skimmed across his collarbone, it stirred up even fiercer ripples. When the moonlight had shifted to shine straight in through the window lattice, she finally understood why Vidage always said a human's body heat was more intoxicating than the hot spring in the Gem Pool.
