CHAPTER 1

Jake

She wasn't our usual type, but this one was interesting.

I noticed the brunette with the rocking, curvy body sitting in the grass while my friend Alex went to the concession stand to get us a couple of hard ciders.We were at a free outdoor concert in one of the city's big parks and the band was between sets.Alex and I were on the tiered seating.There were two grass-covered slopes on either side of the seats in front of the stage.The brunette was on the grass to the right of us.Whoever she was, she was pretty.Damn pretty.Alex and I were used to a different type, frankly:curves and a nice bust, but leaner, slenderer.This one was just curves and a bust.She had dark hair tumbling onto her shoulders, and a face to make a guy just stop and stare — discreetly, from the respectable distance where I was sitting, of course.Pretty women may like to be noticed, but they don't necessarily appreciate being gawked at.

But there she was, and the next thing I noticed about her made me curious.In the grass next to her was a large duffle bag, the kind of duffle bag you carry either to take your clothes to the laundry — or when you're going on a trip.There was no reason to assume she'd stopped at an outdoor, evening concert on the way to wash her clothes, so she must have stopped off here because she was going someplace.If she was going someplace, why had she stopped here?Just to catch some music before her bus or train left?That didn't seem likely.Nothing about this curvy brunette added up.Not the duffle bag and not her expression.It wasn't the look of someone who was enjoying the show.She seemed to be lost in thought, and whatever she was thinking about seemed to worry her.There was this look of anxiety in her eyes, and in her lack of a smile.Something was on her mind, and I had the distinct impression it wasn't anything good.It was a shame, I thought.No one that beautiful should wear that kind of look.

In a minute, she had something else on her mind.

Someone came up around her from behind and sat down next to her.He was an ordinary-looking guy — really ordinary — with a can of beer in one hand.He had on a T-shirt that said Howdy on it, which covered a stomach that would look like the beginnings of a pregnancy bump on a woman.His face was round, doughy, and stubbly, with a mustache, and I guessed that his version of combing his hair was just passing a comb through it once and deciding, Good enough.I could tell he was the typical plain, dumpy-looking guy who thinks he sees a hard-bodied exotic dancer looking back at him in the mirror, and thinks attractive women should want him because he wants them, as if they owe him a tumble because he's a man.And now he was sitting himself down next to the very distracted-looking brunette in the grass.I instinctively frowned at the sight.

My frown persisted as I watched the two of them, though I couldn't hear what they were saying.The Howdy guy was smiling at her and leaning slightly into her space.Guys like this don't necessarily know what boundaries are, especially after they've gotten a beer into them.She said something back to him and slid herself and her bag a few feet across the grass from him.From this, he should have gotten the message.Naturally, he didn't.He slid over close to her again, smiled at her and said something else, and leaned into her space again.He offered her a swallow of his beer.Looking frustrated, she slid away from him again, and this time picked up the bag and put it down between herself and him.I could have predicted what happened next.

Mr. Howdy would not get the message.He crawled over next to her bag, which was the only thing between him and the brunette, and sat there on his knees, waving his arms and his beer can, saying something else — protesting her disinterest and asking why they couldn't be friends or some such thing, I guessed.I was getting riled up just looking at them, and the brunette was getting riled up even worse.This time she stood up and grabbed her bag, and I could just make out her raising her voice: "No!"

Okay, I thought, now this guy should know enough to back off.By this point, they were attracting the attention of people besides just me.Her evening ruined, the brunette looked as if she had no intention of staying for the next set of the concert.She turned on one heel and prepared to storm off — but now, he actually reached out and grabbed her by the arm.At this point, I jumped up from where I was sitting.Damnit, enough is enough! I decided.Perhaps the brunette was a stranger, but she shouldn't have to take this.Before someone else jumped into this situation, I decided to make my own move.

As the brunette continued to shout at Mr. Howdy and he had the nerve to continue to protest her lack of interest in him, and she tried to walk away and he started to follow her, I walked quickly from the tiered seats onto the grass."Hey!" I called."Hey, you!She's not interested.Why don't you let her enjoy the concert in peace?"

She stopped in her tracks and stared back and forth between her unwanted would-be suitor and me, looking nervous, as if she didn't know what to think.Mr. Howdy focused his attention on me."What's it to you, Mister?I was just trying to have a nice talk with the lady, here.What are you, her boyfriend?"He looked me up and down, contemptuously—and probably a bit enviously because, while I don't mean to brag, I was in the kind of shape that he only imagined he was in.

"No," I said, "I'm not her boyfriend."And I glanced in the brunette's direction and saw her biting her lower lip.What was it that seemed to have her so twisted-up inside?I had the feeling it was more than just a stuck-up, beer-swilling redneck."I can just see she's not into you, and you ought to just leave her alone because there are other people here.With phones."

And now he took a step towards me, putting himself in my space the way he'd done the brunette, close enough that I could smell on his breath both the beer in his hand and the beer that he'd downed before it."Oh?And what are you gonna do about it?"

I rolled my eyes at that.I could feel the scales breaking out on the back of my neck and down my back."Buddy," I said, "you do not want to know what I can do about it."

The guy with delusions of hotness exhaled his beer breath at me, "Yeah?Why's that?"

A voice behind me answered, "Because he can tear a second hole in your ass.Just like I can."

Mr. Howdy's mouth fell open.The brunette's eyes widened in fright.I looked behind me, and there stood my best friend Alex, with a can of hard cider in either hand and his face morphed into its other shape.His green and blue scales glistened.His features turned into a blunt, reptilian snout.The beginnings of his horns sprouted on his head.

The brunette threw a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that began to rip itself from her throat.Damn, I thought, I meant to help her, not scare her.

I looked back at the pudgy would-be Casanova, and by now my own face was greening, my own scales were coming out, and my horns were starting to show.As for Mr. Howdy, he was turning white and the sweat on his face made it look like a hairy dumpling.We Drakes don't like to use our other shapes to intimidate humans.We're generally brought up not to do it, and here in the mostly liberal city of Haventon there were good laws against Drake-on-human violence.But we had our moments, and since our friend here was crossing the line, he was tempting us to cross a line of our own.Alex and I stood our ground, our partial morph making our point.All Mr. Howdy had to do was not let this escalate any further.

He practically croaked, "Oh, shit!"His voice turned to a strangled whimper, he took a step back from us, and then, dropping his beer, he spun around so fast that we could practically feel the wind coming off his paunchy, sweaty body and went tearing off into the park.He was probably not going to see the second set of the concert.

Relaxing my face back to human, I turned to one side and said, "Well, that takes care of him, then.Are you…?"But the person I thought I was addressing wasn't there.Instead of the brunette standing nearby, I saw her quickly retreating back.She was running off into the park, bag and all, in another direction.My heart sank a little, knowing my good intentions had gone bad.Drake or human, a guy should only feel like crap at a moment like this.

"Damnit, we scared her!" I said to Alex."Come on!"Without another word, I took off after her.I faintly heard Alex mumbling something behind me, and caught the soft thud of two cans of hard cider hitting the grass, followed by the rapid footfalls of my friend running after me.The hearing of a Drake is more acute than human hearing; I could hear not only all that, but the fearful sounds of the brunette running ahead of me.

Why had we scared her so much?Wanting to know the reason why had suddenly, somehow become the most important thing in the world to me.I couldn't just let her run away and leave it at that, without her knowing that I wanted to help her, not hurt her.

Alex caught up with me and we quickly started to close the distance between ourselves and the brunette, when she either lost her footing or it became too much for her to run so fast while carrying the bag.Whatever the reason, she suddenly went flying forward off her feet and tumbled and spilled onto the park grass, her bag rolling off to one side of her.

The woman trying to get away from the "monsters" stumbled and fell.I slowed down, shaking my head, and Alex slowed down with me.It was just like something out of a horror movie.

And that made me think of something that hadn't occurred to me.Some humans were actually prejudiced against Drakes, feared and hated us just because we had another body, the body of a dragon.Was that it?My heart sank again, thinking that this beautiful, curvy woman might actually be a dracophobe.Please, I thought, don't let that be it.

She was panting and sobbing on the grass, struggling to pull herself up again, her hair partly falling across her tear-stained face.Something inside me broke at the sight of her that way."Please," she sobbed, "just leave me alone.I don't want any trouble.I just want to go."She managed to get up on her knees and wept at us, "Please leave me alone.Please let me go.Please."

Hoping to make her feel better by crouching down and being completely unaggressive, I got down on my own knees in front of her.Beside me, his own face returned to human, Alex watched us and scratched his head."Listen," I said, "I'm sorry we scared you.Very sorry.We don't mean any harm.We just wanted that guy to stop bothering you.Honest."

Her voice cracked.She cried harder."I just want everyone to leave me alone.I've had enough trouble.I just want to go somewhere.Anywhere…"She poured out her tears helplessly.My heart cracked as badly as her voice.

Wherever she was going, I didn't want her to go on feeling this way."My name is Jake.Jake Hudson.My friend here is Alex Duvall."I looked up at Alex, cracking a smile, silently asking him to look sincere to her.He cracked a slightly embarrassed smile of his own.I knew Alex well enough to know he was even more uncomfortable playing the "gallant rescuer" than I was."We meant to help, that's all," I assured her."You don't have to be afraid."

The brunette sobbed on, "I didn't want anyone to know I was in the park.I just wanted to listen to some music and relax for a while before I left town.It would help my nerves if I could just rest and listen to some music.I love music.That was all I wanted.Then I'd go to the train station and get out of town, go somewhere — anywhere — and maybe he wouldn't…"A sudden spike of fear seemed to drive itself into her, making her voice catch, making her stop mid-sentence.She stared at us in sudden silence, as if somehow, she had said too much.

But in saying just those last words, she had said something after all, and it made me want to know more."Maybe he wouldn't what?Who's ‘he'?The one you're trying to get away from?"

"Please," she said, the fear chasing away her tears."I just want to get as much distance between myself and…and…him…as I can."

Now I couldn't let this go.I knew terror when I saw it, and it was there in the brunette's eyes."Who is he?" I pressed insistently, but as gently as I could."What did he do?"

She looked up at both of us, warily, hesitantly, visibly frightened.She shuddered at the slip of the tongue that she'd made, and licked her trembling lips.

"You can tell us.Nothing will happen, I promise.We won't get anyone else involved if you don't want us to."I looked up at Alex again.He had one hand on his hip and rubbed his neck with the other."Right, Alex?"

"Right," my friend replied."Nobody else has to know."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Lily," she said, and shuddered just a bit less.

"Okay, Lily," I said."Who is it you don't want to know you're here?Who is it you want to get away from?"In my mind I asked, Yes, who is this bastard anyway?

"My boyfriend," said Lily."He's awful.He hurt me.He kept hurting me.I knew he'd never stop, and sooner or later he'd get so angry he'd kill me.I had to get away."She began to shed more tears.Hugging herself, shaking, Lily looked from me up to Alex and back to me and said in a hushed voice, "He…he's…like you."

Alex blurted, "He's a Drake?He's a Drake and he beats his human girlfriend?"

Lily nodded her head and covered her face, breaking into sobs again.

"Son of a bitch!" Alex said.

Now I had started to size up this situation.Leaning forward a bit, but careful not to reach out and touch Lily, I said, "So you're running away from your boyfriend.Just getting on the train and going somewhere, not even knowing where."

Lily uncovered her face.The tears glistened on her cheeks."I don't have anywhere really to go.He made me give up my friends, my family.I haven't spoken to any of them in two years.I had a secret bag packed," she glanced over at the duffle in the grass, "and I took some money and just snuck out while he was drunk and sleeping it off.When he wakes up, he'll be furious and probably want to kill me.I have to get out of town and disappear.Please, I have to go."

I nodded at her."You're right.You have to disappear.But not some random place where he might track you down.You'll disappear — right here."

"Where?" Alex asked.

Looking up at him, serious as a judge, I said, "With us.At my uncle's place."

"What?" Alex retorted, wide-eyed with surprise.

"WHAT?" Lily cried, more shocked at the idea than my friend was.

"If you go to some random place," I explained, "you won't know anyone, there'll be no one to help you, and there will probably be ways for him to find you.If you stay here…you'll know us, and we'll help you."

"But I don't know you!" Lily said.

"Sure, you do," I said."We're the guys who got that idiot to back off you just now.We're the guys who won't hurt you and won't harass you.And you can stay with us and get your head together, and figure out something better than just blindly running away."

Alex put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it a bit."Um…Jake, you can see the girl is freaked out.And we are strangers, you know."

"She's better off freaked out with us," I argued, "than she would be in a strange city, trying to hide from her Drake boyfriend who beats her."Sincerely, I said to Lily, "Please.I'm asking you, please, let us help you."

Lily was too beautiful and too gentle to be on her own, scared to death and in hiding.It was wrong, as wrong as the way her bastard boyfriend treated her.I wanted something to be right for her.Come on, Lily, I thought.Let us make this better.

"What do you say, Lily?" I asked, keeping my sincerity but trying not to pressure her.Running from a Drake who made her fear for her life, she didn't need to be with two Drakes who made her leery."You'll be safe, and you won't be alone.You'll have help."

She crawled over to her duffle and held it in front of her, almost as if it were a shield.

Hesitantly, she asked, "Where do you live?"

_______________

Alex and I were staying at my Uncle Robert's apartment in one of the upscale parts of town.It was on the top floor of a high-rise, right on the ocean, with a private terrace looking out on the building's private beach, which had a postcard view of the Pacific.Uncle Robert was away traveling.Alex and I were recently out of school and trying to figure out our lives, and my uncle had generously given us the job of apartment-sitting for him while he was away.That worked out great for my friend and me — and I hoped the woman, who told us her full name was Lily Turner, would find it worked out just as well for her.

When we walked in the door and entered the living room, Lily's face lit up a little bit for the first time when she looked across the living room, luxuriously furnished in stained wood and leather, with the spacious terrace beyond big glass doors at one end, and saw what stood kitty-corner to the fireplace.She mentioned back in the park that she loved music.When she laid eyes on Uncle Robert's big black grand piano with its black hard-wood stool, Lily looked as if she were greeting an old friend.

"It's beautiful," she said, with the first hint of a smile we'd seen on her face since we met.

"Do you play?" I asked.

"I play jazz," Lily replied, eyeing the piano as if she wanted to make love to it."That was what I wanted to do for a career, what I was trying to make a living at…before…"Her tiny beginning of a smile melted.She didn't have to finish that sentence.

"Let's go in the kitchen," I said."I'll get us some coffee and we can talk some more."

The three of us sat at the counter island in the sparkling kitchen with mugs of coffee.Lily seemed to relax just a little bit more, though I could sense her lingering fear still hanging over her like a shroud.I hated knowing that anyone could do that to her.

"My career wasn't going anywhere," she said sadly, staring down into her mug."I was playing anywhere I could get a gig — weddings, hotels, bars, nightclubs.But it was hard to get paid.People kept expecting me to work for tips and ‘exposure'.Creative people always get that, people wanting to pay us in ‘exposure' instead of money, like someone else will discover us or come along and give us work that actually pays.That's the only thing I've always hated about being a musician.People will pay their doctor, their lawyer, their plumber.But, somehow, they don't want to pay a musician, like what we do isn't really ‘work'.It's disrespectful.I hate that.I took work where I could get it.But the work started to dry up.I started to have to take other jobs — temporary office work, that kind of thing.But that didn't pay enough, either.As you can guess, I was getting desperate."

Alex and I traded a sympathetic look at her story, and let her go on.

"One night I was feeling at the end of my rope.I'd been playing at this hotel at night and cleaning rooms there by day.The manager decided to replace me with this band.The band already had a piano player and didn't need me.I was left with just the room cleaning.It was my last night playing, and at the end of my last set, I thanked the audience and told them I wouldn't be playing there anymore and walked off crying.And there was this man who'd been watching me.I'd seen him there other nights, sometimes with other guys.That night, he was there alone.And as I was leaving the hotel that night, he came up to me and told me he liked my playing and he'd like to get to know me better.It turned out he had money, like your uncle," she said, glancing at me."He was an executive for a Big Pharmaceutical company.He lived in a penthouse.He was interested in me and wanted to help me.I felt like I was drowning, and someone had thrown me a life preserver.And he was handsome and confident, and… things happened.Next thing I knew, I was living with him in his penthouse and not worried about money anymore.Then, he started to give me some other things to worry about."

My stomach started to knot at this point, and I saw Alex listening with a hard frown, both of us knowing where this was going.

Lily shook her head, and her face reflected such pain, as if she'd start crying again.She continued not looking at us.She didn't want to meet our eyes, not wanting us to see the pain there — and the mix of other feelings that I'd heard abused women feel.I remembered hearing stories about battered wives and beaten girlfriends feeling ashamed, as if something were wrong with them, as if they could have done something about it.It's a feeling they didn't earn and didn't deserve to live with, and I suspected it was lurking inside Lily.

Her voice almost cracking again, Lily said, "He had such a temper, I found that out soon enough.It shocked me, the way the smallest things could set him off: something that I said, something that I did or didn't do, something that happened at work that he brought home.There were times I tried to comfort him, smooth things over, and it only made him angry.And there were times when…," her voice caught.I wanted to reach over to her, touch her and remind her she was safe, but I was afraid she'd pull away.Fear had made her seem so fragile.Forcing herself to go on, she said, "There were times…so many times…when I was the target of his anger.He'd scream at me and go into his other shape, and…"She covered her face with one hand."The backs of his claws…his tail…it hurt so bad.He'd leave me bruised and bleeding and crying, and then suddenly he'd become tender and gentle again, and he'd apologize, and cry with me and hold me and promise me things would get better.But it never got better, and I knew he'd never change."

Desperate to do something, I handed her a napkin.She cried and blew her nose into it, and crumpled it in her fist."That's how it was with him.And I stayed with him for two years, if you can believe that.For two years I actually believed he'd get better, that he'd change.But he never did.And I finally couldn't take it anymore.I finally had to get away from Mark."

That name made a light go off in my head and in Alex's.Alex was the first to say it.

"Mark?"

"Yes, Mark Reinhardt, the man who was supposed to make everything better for me.Mark Reinhardt.I wish I'd stayed cleaning rooms at that damn hotel…"

Alex furrowed his brow with disbelief."Your boyfriend is a Drake named Mark Reinhardt?"

Lily actually looked up curiously at him, his incredulity making her forget her fear and shame."Yes, Mark Reinhardt.He's a Vice President at Harbor Pharmaceuticals…"

My friend stopped her mid-sentence."Mark Reinhardt lives in a penthouse now?"

I chimed in with, "Mark Reinhardt is a Vice President with a drug company?"

Now she looked anxiously back and forth between us."You know him?"

"Knew him," said Alex, shaking his head."When I was a kid in a gang.He was one of the guys in the…"

And now Lily cut him off."Alex Reinhardt was in a gang?"

"Yeah," Alex said."My old gang, when I was a teenager.The Firewings.The baddest, toughest gang on Flint Street."He chuckled ironically."Hell, the only gang on Flint Street.We'd wear our colors and our symbol and fly around looking tough, acting like we owned the place, marking our territory against the Blackhorns over on Anchor Street, getting into scrapes with them.That gang was about all we had to our name."

That was true enough.Alex and I were from very different backgrounds, though I'd done my best to try to be more like him.My best friend, unlike me, was from the rough part of town.No one in his family would ordinarily get anywhere near a place like where we were right now.

Mystified, Lily said, "He went from that to being a corporate executive?He never told me."

With a slight snort, Alex cracked, "He probably never told you about getting his scaly ass thrown in prison, either."

Now Lily was stunned."Prison?"

"Oh yeah," said Alex."Assault and battery.He beat up some human kid who was hitting on his girlfriend, if you can believe it."

Lily looked off, almost dizzily."Oh my God…"

"I was one of the guys in the gang who pulled him off the kid," Alex continued, "before the cops got him.He was pissed as hell at all of us for not backing him up and not helping him get away.And for testifying against him in court.Before they took him away at his sentencing, Mark swore he'd get even with the rest of us some day.But none of us ever saw him again after that.Good riddance, we thought; we wanted to look tough and be tough, but none of us wanted a prison record."

Lily looked into empty space and gulped, trying to match the Drake that she'd lived with, and the Drake that Alex once knew."I can't believe it," she half-whispered."I got away from him today, and who do I end up with?"She cast a sidelong look of amazement at Alex.

"Hell of a small world, ain't it?" Alex said.

"Now," I insisted, "you have to let us help you."

She now sounded not just unbearably sad but unbearably tired."He used my failure to make me feel like my life was hopeless without him.He made me feel like I needed him to take care of me, like I couldn't make it without him.He acted so sweet at first — and he was such a monster.I just want to disappear."

"As of right now," I said, "you've officially disappeared.You've disappeared right here with us.And you don't have to appear anywhere again ‘til you've got things sorted out better.You need some rest.Like I told you on the way over, we've got two spare bedrooms here.Alex is in one; you can take the other."I got up and gestured out of the kitchen."Let me show you."

Once we had Lily in the other guest room with the door closed behind her, Alex and I lingered in the hall outside her door, our minds whirling over the way our little evening at the concert had turned out.

"Mark Reinhardt," I said softly, rolling my eyes at what fate seemed to have done here.

"Yeah," said Alex, frowning, gazing at the door behind which Lily was now climbing into bed.He repeated the name that he thought he'd never mention again."Mark Reinhardt."