by Jadyn Chase
A thunderous bellow caught my ear. The men holding me turned to look and I tried to crane my neck to see. When I did, a colossal eruption of fire woofed all around me. I ducked and carried my captor with me. He tumbled over my back and the flame caught him from behind.
A few Longtails screamed as the inferno engulfed them. The others spun around and launched out of their frail human bodies. They shifted glowing brilliant golden yellow in the morning sun.
Across the yard, a monstrous red fiend crouched next to the garage. It narrowed its eyes at the puny creatures writhing in agony at its feet. It gave only a passing glance to the golden enemy swooping up to zoom around his head.
My soul expanded in joyful pleasure at the sight. This was it. The battle was all on, dragon against dragon exactly the way I expected. I unfurled my wings and rocketed into the clear blue sky. I joined a swirling whirlwind of dragons soaring all over the property.
Carlos stayed exactly where he was on the ground. He eyed his prey with unerring accuracy. He snaked his long neck out and snapped his great jaws at any passing opponent. He clipped a wing here and tore off a limb there. He left his enemies shrieking in their death throes. They twirled out of the sky spraying blood everywhere.
I let my fury and exhilaration run away with me. I careened through the air on a breakneck course to destroy every dragon in sight. I slashed and bit. I looped my tail around a neck and cracked the spine racing off somewhere else. I only checked my flight when I spotted a flash of red in my peripheral vision.
More Longtails emerged from the undergrowth, only to engage and fall before the might of Los Diablos. I suspected Carlos wouldn’t neglect to bring enough fighters and he didn’t let me down. The Longtails never expected to find the house so heavily defended.
I scanned the battle zone for someone to kill. Below me, Carlos stalked from right to left flashing his reptilian glare around the air conflict. He shot his fire at weak dragons and incinerated them on the wing. He sent their charred corpses crashing into the trees before he turned his ire on his next victim.
I saw the skirmish turning our way and amplified my efforts. Nothing thrilled my heart like death in the morning. I let out a cackling laugh at the sheer joyous jubilation of it all when, with no warning, a massive weight hit me from one side. I never saw it coming.
In a heartbeat, powerful coils slithered around me. They wrapped me up in an unbreakable grip and flattening my wings to my sides. I tried to thrash around to see what was attacking me, but I could make out only acres and acres of golden scales.
I didn’t have time to see anything else. Without my wings, I smashed into the ground with catastrophic force. The dragon holding me immobile struck with equal devastation, but the impact didn’t seem to faze him at all.
The instant we touched down, he wriggled over and pinned me down. I couldn’t move. He unwound part of his tail and lashed it down on top of me. He pounded my newly healed ribs to smithereens and smacked me in the head until I saw stars.
I floundered trying every trick in the book to free myself, but his massive body refused to give an inch. Nothing I could do would budge him. He sank down on top of me with an unbearable weight.
His tail cracked through the air one more time. I saw it coming, but I couldn’t stop it. It flashed toward my eye and delivered a devastating splintering clap across my face. My vision blacked out for a second. When I came to my senses, I found myself lying in my human body under his granite coils.
I blinked the confusion out of my mind trying to decide what to do. At that moment, a strident voice stabbed into my brain. “Brayden! Brayden!”
I pried back my head and saw Morgan. She lay flat on her back wrestling a sawed-off shotgun in both hands. The man holding it bared his teeth trying to wrench it from her grip, but she fought too hard.
From here, I got a single glimpse of a Desperados patch on his jacket. What was he doing here? His lanky dark hair swayed around his pointed, rat face.
At the same time, another Longtail vaulted to his feet a few steps away. He dove for the pair and leveled an automatic rifle at Morgan’s face. A silent command whispered in my head. No. I wouldn’t let this happen.
Before I knew what happened, I rotated onto my stomach. Fighting this dragon as a dragon accomplished nothing. As a man, though, I just might be too small for him to compensate.
Sure enough, I squirreled under his coils. The minute he sensed me slipping from his grasp, he seethed around in circles trying to consolidate his hold, but to no avail. He only succeeded in creating a tunnel through which I could crawl to freedom.
I didn’t bother taking my dragon form again. It wouldn’t help me once I got inside the house. I broke out from under the dragon and charged for the open porch door. I lunged across the living room and struck the Desperado square in the shoulder. He collided with his friend and pitched over, but he didn’t let go of the gun.
Morgan didn’t let go, either. They somersaulted head over heel, all three of them tangled up in a ball with me. We rolled over and over each other, through the back door, down three rickety wooden steps, and splayed on the back lawn.
13
Morgan
The tattoo artist snarled through his yellow teeth. His neck and knuckles strained to the breaking point trying to pry that gun out of my hands. I couldn’t let it go for anything. The minute he regained control over it, he would turn it on me and that would be it.
Some obsolete microchip in my brain recorded his name when he gave me my tat, but I couldn’t remember it now to save my life. He glared at me in undisguised menace. What did I ever do to make him hate me so much? I just wanted to live. Was that so wrong?
He paid no attention to Brayden or anything else. He trained all his focus on tearing that gun out of my hands. My awareness narrowed to a pinprick with the same object in mind. That gun represented my one and only lifeline out of this mayhem.
The Longtail who tried to shoot me regained his feet. He groped around for the assault rifle to blow me away, but Brayden flipped over on the grass and caught him by the leg. Brayden swept his arms under the man and knocked him down.
The Longtail spun around to face him. At the same moment, three yellow dragons swooped over the hedge from somewhere out of sight. They converged on our location shrieking and glistening in the sun.
My heart sank. The strength in my arms ebbed. I couldn’t hold out much longer. The blissful dream of love and connection I shared with Brayden last night faded to a nice idea. We spent a few majestic hours in this house pretending to be real people, but it couldn’t last.
We would never live like normal people because we weren’t normal people. We belonged to a hidden underclass dwelling outside everyday society. The world would always hunt us. It would do its utmost to rob us of happiness whenever the chance presented itself.
The tattoo artist gave the gun a vicious yank. The stock tore out of my numb fingers, but I didn’t try to fight anymore. The scene slowed to a standstill.
Across the yard, the three Longtails alighted in a circle around Brayden. He levitated off the ground and flung his arms wide. The man I knew, the man I loved, ruptured from the inside. He melted away to vapor and a crimson monster more terrible than the most horrific nightmare took his place.
The thing arched its sinuous neck. Black spikes shot out of its spine all the way down its snake tail. Its pointed wings flexed and a hot wind blasted from the tips. The creature reared, retracted its neck in on itself, and let fly a scorching cascade of hellish fire.
The cyclone sprayed across the yard and pummeled the Longtails across their chests and faces, but they didn’t retreat. They cowered under the bombardment, but the minute it ended, they launched at Brayden spouting their own flame in equal measure.
The tattoo artist whipped the gun around and crammed the barrel in my face. The cold steel touched my mouth. His lips curled back in a malevolent grin and he tightened his fingers around the trigger.
Brayden thundered to wak
e the dead. The other dragons moved in. He couldn’t save me now. He tried, but the Longtails won out in the end.
The dragons converged on him and circled for the death stroke. The man Brayden tackled in the house rose up and joined them to make four. Every time Brayden wheeled to confront one of them, the others darted in slashing and striking. They cut him until blood ran down his legs.
All at once, the four flew at him in a blind rush. They attacked him at once and wrapped their scaly bodies around his limbs, They towed him to the ground snapping and beating and foiling his best efforts to fight back.
Golden helices twined around his crimson length. I couldn’t tell the Longtails apart anymore. One of them squirmed to his head and wound its body around his neck. Its tail whipped through the air and the pointed end stabbed him in the eyes. He bowed before the blow and collapsed to the ground.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I didn’t want to see him go down like this. I would rather close my eyes and let the inevitable take me.
A strange sound caught my ear. I cast one last glimpse toward Brayden. The man I loved lay chest down on the ground with the four dragons perched on his back. He didn’t try to fight them. “Shift, Morgan!” he roared. “Shift now!”
Shift? I took a second to understand what he meant. Me—shift? Wait a minute. I was Los Diablos, wasn’t I? My father was one of these dragons. I didn’t know about my mother, but that made me at least half of one of them.
I could shift. I was a dragon like them, like Brayden. Shift? I didn’t know how to do that. Shift, Morgan. Shift now.
I thought it over, and when I did, my eyes drifted downward. The tattoo artist sneered ready to blow my brains out. When I took my gaze off him, I noticed something wooden sticking out of his belt. Shift, Morgan. Shift now.
I couldn’t shift, but the dragon buried in my being raised her head. Her eyes glowed blood red. She didn’t have to accept this defeat. The weak, pathetic human part of me might, but not her.
I barely moved. The whole thing turned out to be so easy in the end. I observed the microscopic adjustments of the tattoo artist’s fingers on the trigger guard. I could measure them down to the micron. This new awareness gave me all the time in the world to make my move.
When I did, I acted with slow, deliberate care so I never made any mistake. I put out my hand cautiously, almost lovingly. Nothing he could do could make me hurry. He didn’t scare me. How could he scare a dragon?
My fingers closed around that wooden handle and I pulled. The knife slid out of his belt. His eyes bugged open. The leering grin on his face froze in surprise and I thrust home. The blade entered his ribs effortlessly, so enticingly. How delectable it felt to kill. How luscious and delicious his blood smelled gushing down my arm and dripping from my elbow.
He hovered there with his shotgun still trained on my face. His features went rigid. I didn’t need to see anymore. I didn’t even have to bother to check if he was really dead.
I hurled him away venting all my colossal rage on the world. I vaulted to my feet, but I didn’t stop there. I would never stop. This was my fight. It was all mine.
A deafening roar exploded out of my guts. It grew and grew to a mind-boggling magnitude. I would bellow the whole world down before I quit. It carried me higher until I peered down on the scene from above the house roof.
The four dragons stopped thrashing Brayden to stare up at me. Their eyes bulged out of their heads and their mouths hung open in shock. Why should I shock them so much? This was just me, a bigger me, a purer form of me.
Brayden gaped up at me, too, but without that stunned horror in the dragons’ faces. A beatific smile spread across his features and his cheeks glowed down there underneath his writhing enemies.
Without a second thought, I snapped my tail around and sent the four of them spinning off to nowhere. I shot my flinty gaze around the yard in search of anyone foolish enough to stand up to me.
In seconds, Brayden leaped to his feet and changed. He shot off the ground brimming with dragon fury. He rose as tall as me before he leveled off. He arched back his wings and screamed to the heavens beating them in challenge.
The four dragons who attacked him cartwheeled into the hedge. They bounced off the foliage and wheeled around for the counterassault. When they saw both of us standing there, though, they checked themselves.
At the same moment, Brayden and I pivoted around to confront them. I screeched with all my might and he screamed at the same time. I lowered my head and advanced on those insignificant pests.
Just then, a phalanx of brilliant red dragons came barreling up the hill. They streaked over the roof chasing a horde of golden dragons before them. They swept them far and away inland and disappeared.
At the sight, the remaining four took wing and joined their comrades running for cover. They fled for the hills and left Los Diablos alone and unchallenged crisscrossing the clear air above my head.
14
Brayden
I landed in the yard outside the warehouse. The rolling doors stood open to the evening breeze. A few young bucks guarded the fence with their weapons propped on their shoulders. Other than that, the rest of the club lounged on the couches or tended the barbeque according to their preference.
A row of bikes glistened under the floodlights. José sat cross-legged next to one twisting a socket wrench on the chain tensioner. Carlos leaned against the door frame while his young daughter jumped up and down in front of him. She caught hold of his shirt and tried to climb him like a tree. He did his best to ignore her while he carried on a conversation with Tomas.
I couldn’t hear him over the bouncy music floating out of the building. This scene hearkened back to so many nights just like this, but tonight turned out to be different, didn’t it?
While I stood there regarding everything, a whirl of wings made me look up. Three dragons alighted near me and shifted into Logan, Kane, and Cisco. They laughed and clapped each other on the backs before they strolled off to join the party.
A second later, a fourth dragon drifted into the ring of light. Its scales flashed iridescent red and vermillion. It took a step, folded its wings in, and tripped. It stumbled and went down on its chest before it corrected its posture and shifted into Morgan.
I bit back a grin. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Her cheeks colored and she peeked around. “I guess it’s gonna take a while to get the knack of this flying thing.”
I allowed the faintest hint of a smile to show on my face. I couldn’t let her think I was laughing at her efforts. “That’s right. Just keep practicing. You’ll get the hang of it.”
She brushed her hair out of her eyes and eased closer to me. “You guys make it look so easy.”
“We’ve been doing it all our lives,” I pointed out. “We grew up watching others do it, and the minute we came of age, we were flying all over the place. It comes naturally to us. Don’t you worry. Everybody understands. You’re among friends here.”
The blood flushed across her cheeks again. “Thanks. I need to be reminded of that.”
“I’ll remind you as often as you like.” My hand drifted toward her and I clasped hers. “Come on. Let’s get in there before they eat all the food.”
She hesitated, but I drew her toward the warehouse. A few of the boys turned around when we approached. Kane raised his bottle to me. “Good work today, Brayden.”
Cisco elbowed Logan where they stood next to the fridge. “Did you see the looks on their faces when she shifted? Damn, I wish I had that on video!” They all burst out laughing—all but Carlos. He kept his place and only smiled.
I steered Morgan toward the fridge. “Do you want a beer?”
A brief smile flickered across her face before she went back to staring at everything. “Okay.”
I took out two frosty bottles and handed her one. “I never would have believed she could shift like that,” Cisco was saying. “They thought they had Brayden on the ropes and wham! Here she comes shiftin
g right in front of God and everyone. Man, she slapped those fuckers so hard they never knew what hit them. They didn’t know whether to scratch their asses or change their briefs.”
The guys laughed again. I sidled into the circle. Morgan stuck close to my side, but she didn’t join the conversation. She hung back and listened. They might as well be talking about someone else.
She sipped her beer and said nothing. Part of me wanted to draw her into the general levity, but I stopped myself. She had to learn her way around this club on her own. It would take time. She had to get used to this. I couldn’t expect her to walk in and make herself at home like none of this ever happened.
In answer to my thoughts, Logan bumped Cisco’s arm. “Hey, do you remember when he asked her to put those cuffs on herself? Shit, you couldn’t get near her for the thorns.”
Another round of raucous laughter greeted this reminiscence. I cast a sidelong glance at her, but she still didn’t join in the fun. She didn’t understand these people. She probably thought they were making a joke out of her. She didn’t get that this was their way of processing the danger past and integrating her into our society. She didn’t know yet that they joked and laughed about everyone this way.
I scanned the circle. Over Logan’s shoulder, I spotted Carlos eyeing me. He raised his beer bottle to me and dipped a single clipped nod.
I nudged Morgan to get her attention. When she looked at me, I inclined my head to signal her to follow me. I detached myself from the circle and walked around to where Carlos stood.
Morgan halted at my side. She matched my movements step for step. That alone told me she didn’t feel comfortable here.
Carlos extended his hand to her. “Thank you for your good work tonight, Morgan. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
She blushed again. “I should be the one thanking you. I’m embarrassed when I think about the way I behaved the last time I came here. I hope you can all forgive me.”
