CHAPTER 2

Alex

I was the first one up the next morning.When I rolled out of bed naked as usual, I sat yawning and stretching on the edge of the bed with a replay of last night rolling in my head.

Resting my arms, I grunted softly at the thought, We've got a houseguest, don't we?And of all the people in the world to be putting up, it'd have to be somebody trying to get away from him.It had to be that guy.

My mind then conjured up a picture of Mark Reinhardt the way the rest of the Firewings and I saw him last: being hauled off from the courtroom to the prison where the State would be putting him up.And with that little mental video came his last words to us, spewed out with hate: "I'm gonna get you guys.None of you had my back, so I'm gonna have your ass, all of you.I'm gonna get you, just wait.Just wait…"

I smirked at the thought, that must have gone over well with the Judge.Bet that went on the record and counted against him when it came to time off for good behavior.Not that "good behavior" was something Mark Reinhardt was ever really good at.I mentally flashed on the kid he'd beaten up, the way he looked in bandages with his arm in a sling.He was there in the courtroom for the sentencing too, looking very satisfied when the Drake who would have killed him, if my buddies and I hadn't pulled Mark off him, was led away.

How, I wondered, did my old gang mate go from being thrown behind bars to being a Junior Executive with a Big Pharmaceutical company?Mark was one of the older members of the Firewings, a few years older than I was.It's possible he could have gone to college like I did when he got out.The Drake community has grants and scholarships for members of our own kind needing a hand with education or a second chance after hard knocks; he could have gotten one of those.It had put me through school, where I met Jake, and it had helped me when I had a hard knock of my own, which we hadn't brought up to Lily Turner last night.But what then?How could Mark have gotten that far, that fast?

Probably the same way he first rose up in the ranks of the Firewings back in the day.Mark was one of the most badass dragons on Flint Street.I could only guess that, in his time with Harbor Pharmaceuticals, he'd made himself the most badass Junior Executive in the boardroom, getting other people behind him with his "Alpha male" charisma and bullying his way up the corporate ladder.It would be a totally "Mark" thing to do.

I shook my head at something I'd learned in college.The whole "Alpha male" thing was really a crock.It didn't exist in nature; it was an idea that some scientist came up with when studying captive wolves who weren't even taken from the same pack; they were just thrown into a pen together.Human and Drake men had picked up on the "Alpha" thing because of the way it stroked the old male ego — just one of the things about men that responded to a good stroking.Some human men and men of my own kind had taken on a part of nature that wasn't even real to make themselves more "manly" and powerful than others, to beat other males down and build themselves up.Also, to get females down on their backs.

And poor Lily Turner, this curvy, gorgeous human female we took in last night, had wound up with Mark Reinhardt and his artificially hopped-up ego.There was nothing surprising about the fact that Mark had spent two years giving this girl the back of his claws and the flat of his tail.The only surprise was that she'd come out of it as beautiful and not totally broken as she was.There was something about her that no amount of cruelty from a bastard like Mark could crush.Good for Lily.

Now, though, she was sleeping in one of Jake's uncle's guest rooms and we were going to have to figure out what she'd do next.

Lily Turner didn't need to be beaten and whipped.She needed to be touched, for sure — but not the way Mark did.Lily needed to be touched by someone who could show her how beautiful she was, someone who could make her feel the way a woman like her ought to be made to feel.A good Drake guy could do that for her.Too bad she had spent the last two years of her life with a Drake guy who was no damn good.

I went to the chest of drawers and pulled out a thong to wear.Lily should be used to Drakes having no body shame and Drake men in the morning going in just thongs, or even wearing nothing at all.If Jake and I had met Lily any other way, the two of us right now wouldn't be wearing thongs with her.We'd be waking up with her from a night of sharing things without clothes.But that wasn't the reason we'd brought Lily home with us last night.I wondered whether she'd ever be in any state of mind for those things with a Drake guy again.If she were, we'd make it good for her.Jake and I had always been with women who had a good shape on them, but were not as curvy.My word for them would be "sleek."Lily's body was more like a winding road where it'd be fun to take the curves.That wasn't the reason she was with us now, though.We'd brought her home to keep her safe from a guy who'd taken those curves with screaming and screeching, when they were meant to be taken smoothly and gently.

Poor Lily.Maybe if this woman who'd been done so roughly and meanly could see her way to trusting us enough, we'd show her how good it could be with a Drake guy.But that was totally her call.I wasn't about to make her feel like she was obligated to us, and neither was Jake.She'd had enough of that.

Wearing just my thong — which, like all thongs worn by guys like me, was stretchable in the back to allow for the change in our shape — I stepped out into the hall and walked down the way to the guest bedroom where we'd left Lily.Knowing she was in there, I paused just enough to try to picture the way she might look right now.I knew what the room and the bed looked like, but how did the sleeping Lily look?In my mind's eye, she was curled up beneath the covers, maybe having the best sleep she'd had in a long time — because she was sleeping without him.Damn Mark Reinhardt, anyway.How many times had Lily gone to sleep next to him, wondering how he'd treat her the next day, or hurting from what he'd done to her in the day just ended?Someone like him had no business with someone like her.

You're good and rid of him now, Lily, I thought, and walked on down the hall and out into the living room.I went to the terrace, slid open the big glass door, stepped out onto the terrace, and took a deep breath of morning air with the coolness of the ocean in it.Then, I raised my head, shut my eyes, and let my human body go.

My skin and my shape responded.The hair on my head, face, and body disappeared.Human flesh turned to green and blue skin in shiny scales.Hands and feet took on scaly claws and sharp talons.The rear strap of my thong stretched to let the long, flattened reptile tail come out from the small of my back.The front of my thong had some "give" to it as well, to hold a human reptile's big, rough-scaled double penis — something not to be used with human females.The wide, leathery wings grew and stretched out on my back from between my shoulder blades.My neck grew longer and thicker and took on spines from the back of my head to my upper back; my head morphed from the shape of a man to the shape of a blunt-snouted male reptile with horns growing from the skull and spines along the jawline.I was now my other self, my dragon self, and spread my wings and jumped from the terrace into the air.Strong beats of my wings caught the morning breeze and lifted me up over the roof, into the sky over Haventon.

The morning air above the city was filled with us, like it always was.From dawn to late morning, a lot of us started the day with a flight, a time to be just a dragon, free to soar, to catch the currents and the air pockets with our wings, to feel the rush of the air on our scales and lash tails and beat wings — to fly.Just fly and be dragons.It was a feeling of freedom that no human could ever know, even if they tried to be like us with their gliders and air sails.There's nothing else in the world to compare with being a dragon.

Of course, in our human shapes, some of us were freer than others.Some of us could live in luxury apartments on the ocean, or in penthouses.Then there were some others who came from neighborhoods like where I grew up.I started my flight by soaring out over the ocean and looking down at the waves rolling in and spreading themselves out in foam over the beach.Then I caught a current, banking and pivoting in the air, and let it carry me back over the city.I aimed myself for a place on the opposite side of Haventon from Jake's uncle's apartment and the blue Pacific.I flew to a greyer place, a place of not so fancy buildings, ordinary storefronts, less expensive cars, more asphalt and concrete than grass, smaller houses — smaller lives.Like a bird coming home to roost, I flew to Flint Street, just to look.

When I first flew as a kid, and when I flew with the Firewings, it was over this street and the ones surrounding it — but the Firewings were careful not to fly over Anchor Street, just like the Blackhorns avoided flying over Flint Street.Get caught soaring over the other guys' turf, and you could touch off an aerial rumble that might crash down onto the ground.Things might get messy and bring the cops after you.The cops — and some of them were our kind, not humans — had things that Drakes didn't like: not just guns, handcuffs, and nightsticks, but chains and Tasers.None of us wanted to get chained and none of us wanted to get Tasered.Rumbles had a way of breaking up as fast as they happened.Life was lived fast in a Drake gang in a neighborhood like Flint Street.

Not wanting to remember any more of that, I pointed my snout up and beat my wings and slashed my tail to get speed and altitude.That took me higher up and over and away, out of where I once lived, and into a different part of town, where the buildings were taller, the houses and shops were nicer — where the students lived.I flew to the neighborhood of the University of Haventon.

I looked down at the campus buildings, all brick and glass with big lawns and rows of palm and pine trees, and my strongest, best memories were about meeting Jake.His human friends called him Jake the Drake back then.I sat next to him in lectures, and he'd share his notes with me.He didn't mind, and he took better notes than I did.When I told him where I came from and that I used to be in a gang, he didn't get snobbish and blow me off.He was interested — really fascinated.Jake wanted to know everything about me, and he wasn't patronizing me or acting superior to the street dragon from the wrong side of town.He didn't have to treat me as if there were no difference between us, but he did.We'd get together to study and end up talking about everything else but class work.It was Jake who asked me if I'd ever been with a human female.I told him I never had, but I'd always wanted to.And that was when our friendship really began.

Jake knew human girls who were interested in Drake boys.He knew where they liked to hang out.He'd been to bed with some of them, and he knew some who were interested in hookups with more than one Drake boy at a time.The best nights of my college life were the nights Jake and I spent with the girls we met — long, sweet nights when we'd pick one up, or she'd pick us up, and we'd go back to someone's room, and Jake and I would take turns with her.They couldn't get enough of us, and we sure couldn't get enough of them.There were times even now when I relived some of those nights.

Haventon University was where Jake and I and the girls got into bed together — and where Jake and I got into trouble together.So many times, I'd barely avoided trouble back on Flint Street.It was my college experience, and the Joust, where my luck ran out.That was when I finally felt the shock of the police Tasers and the coldness of the police chains.And that was when the difference between where Jake and I came from finally became a real thing.Jake's family was able to get him off from Jousting charges with just probation and a temporary suspension from school.I was the one who got time behind bars, then had to plead my case to the University board to get readmitted.Just enough luck was with me that I got to finish school instead of being thrown out on my dragon tail for good.

And Jake stayed my friend.He said he'd be my friend no matter what, and he meant it.

I didn't want to think about the Joust anymore.It was a stupid thing to do, the kind of thing you only do when you're a dragon and you're young.Sometimes, Jake brought it up.But neither of us ever did it again.

With a hiss of bad memory, I lifted my head again and flung myself back in the direction of the shoreline.I wanted to get back to the apartment.Were Jake and Lily up yet, I wondered.And if they were up… what were they up to?