by Kaye Draper
Copyright © 2021 Kaye Draper
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Kaye Draper @ Healing Ink Freelance
Thank you to my patrons and supporters for giving me the courage to get this manuscript out, dust it off, and bring it to a new, courageous, “outside the box” life.
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
Anonymous
Chapter 1
Grey stood at the back of the crowd, soaking in the leftover energy from the concert. His head pounded from the effects of second-hand smoke and the pulsing music he could still feel in his bones, but he’d enjoyed every minute of the show. Lucifer was a local band, but they were gaining quite a following—which was a huge accomplishment these days.
Their music had a haunting quality to it. It made Grey’s chest ache and his breath come short with the urge to add his own forever-silenced voice to their sound. He pushed the urge down, along with the tears, and told himself to get over it already. Man up, he thought bitterly.
Though the last song was long over, Grey stayed for a while and watched people file out of the stuffy auditorium, the final chords still echoing in his mind. Energy pulsed over him like ocean waves, as if he were feeding off the emotions of the people around him. Only music could ever manage to wake him up like this. It made him feel more alive than he had in years.
Grey slouched against the dented paneling, his baggy jeans and blue hooded sweatshirt cloaking him in mediocrity. He took advantage of his relative invisibility to watch the people around him—men, mostly. The few women who were present stuck out like a sore thumb, thanks to the neon armbands that marked them as government approved visitors from the mainland.
Sighing at his weird mood, he skirted around the edges of the crowd and followed a trickle of people out the back door, past a pair of bored cops in overly stiff brown uniforms, and into a well-lit brick alley. The city of Tera was clean. There was virtually no crime, and the local government was determined to keep it that way. Etna Island—just off the shore of Delaware—had been quarantined and shut off from the outside world, but it wasn’t lawless. The mayor had been thrust into the spotlight pretty much overnight, and he was very careful to ensure that his constituents didn’t get any more negative publicity. The government officials wanted off this burg just as much as the rest of the population, and that had less chance of happening if the rest of the world saw them as a bunch of criminals.
As he walked down the sidewalk and through the thinning stream of people, Grey was watchful. He breathed in a whiff of sea air that floated to him from the bay a couple streets over. His eyes skimmed brick storefronts and manicured ornamental trees with leaves starting to show that first tinge of orange that heralded the end of summer. Some part of him still expected something extraordinary to happen, even while the cynical part of him scoffed. It was the anniversary of The Change but so far, nothing was different from any other day in the last four years. People wandered to their cars or off to the bar or the diner down the street. Disappointing.
Grey slowed to a stop, distracted by a bank of TV screens in a shop window. They were big-screen numbers with all the latest high definition, mega-what’s-it technology. They probably cost more than he and his dad—displaced and packed together in their single-wide like a couple of sardines—spent on six months of groceries.
He watched the nightly news with a sort of numb feeling. Grey didn’t pay much attention to the newscaster. Or the weatherman. Not a chick in the whole bunch. Not a single girl in the whole town—or the whole damned island for that matter—who wasn’t a “tourist.” His eyes followed the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen detailing the tragedy that had occurred on the island on this date four years ago. Grey, and probably every other man on the island, had been hoping for some sort of breaking news. That someone had found a cure for the condition. That everyone would be getting their lives back.
No such luck.
Grey’s sneakers scuffed against the concrete as a man accidentally bumped into him in passing. The guy gave him a little push. “Hey man. Watch where you’re going.”
Apparently, Grey’s emotions had a hair trigger tonight. Irrational anger flared up as he compared his short, skinny frame to the other guy’s beefy physique. As usual on the island full of men, Grey’s girly looks were like a neon sign that shouted, “Step on me!” A sigh shifted him, and he and kept walking, pushing down his irritation. Ejaculatory male outbursts were a great way to let off steam, but in the end…it never really got rid of the restless frustration inside him. You’d think it would get better with time, but rather than fading, the anger and helplessness only seemed to get worse with every passing year.
Grey hunched into his hooded sweatshirt. Summer had been too cold, and it was fading faster than it should. The chill tang of rain hung in the air. The scent-memory brought back images of waking four years ago to the sound of rain outside his window and the low rumble of masculine voices raised in anger. And to the slow, dawning realization that something was incredibly wrong.
On a drizzly morning four years ago, the residents of Etna island had awakened to find all the women gone. Mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt—those terms weren’t used anymore. All of the females on the island had somehow turned male.
Yeah, it was as ridiculous as it sounded. Utter fucking nonsense. Impossible. But, aside from sounding like something out of a bad manga…it wasn’t a laughing matter.
Lives had been turned upside down and families fractured. Morphs, as the women-turned-men were called, went into hiding. Unexpected change was known to bring out the worst in human beings, and it sure as hell did this time around. The anger quickly resulted in a backlash of reactive discrimination and chaos. People moved or disappeared, confused, afraid, and lost in the aftermath. For the first few years, the island had been strictly quarantined, cut off from the rest of the world in case whatever had happened proved to be contagious. Whatever had happened here wasn’t catching, but try telling outsiders that.
Recently the government had begun to allow a few visitors to the island—mostly paid females to keep all the testosterone-laden residents happy—but they had to undergo a bunch of health screenings and sanitation measures before and after “exposure,” including a thorough STD check. They were, after all, usually what amounted to high paid prostitutes.
Locals still weren’t allowed to leave.
Grey turned east and headed toward home. Another year had passed and none of the population had sprouted breasts or lost their Adam’s apples. He knew better than to get his hopes up, but he just couldn’t help it. Every year he hoped for a miracle, a way to finally escape his water-locked prison. Every year he was faced with bitter disappointment.
This wasn’t the life he had envisioned for himself. He’d had dreams once, when he was seventeen years old and starry-eyed, many of them centered around graduating and going off to college, making a life for himself on the mainland. So much for that. With every year that passed, Grey grew into an adult—and realized that he would probably be stuck here for the rest of his life.
He came to the end of a row of three-story brick buildings that housed the business area of old town. He rounded a corner and his steps slowed. A group of men were loitering around, laughing and goofing off. Jocks from I
sland Community College, by the looks of it. They didn’t seem like the type to enjoy Lucifer’s particular brand of moody rock. They were too apple pie and football. And to top it off, they were probably drunk or stoned—there wasn’t much else to do when you were confined to a tiny, sausage-covered island for the indefinite future. Grey glanced at them and kept walking, trying not to make eye contact, trying to stay under the radar, for their good as much as his own. Because he was in a foul fucking mood.
“Hey sweetheart,” called a massive, bovine-looking specimen. His thatch of brown hair stuck up at angles, and his eyes were slightly unfocused in the soft streetlight. Piss drunk. Great.
“I didn’t think there were any girls free tonight,” the idiot said with a leer.
Grey met the eyes of the blond guy standing behind his heckler. Cameron. Grey couldn’t quite shake his teenaged infatuation with the hot jock. Cameron’s dark blue eyes weren’t cruel like the other men around him. His sculpted, angelic features were drawn with a sort of tired resignation. He knew Grey was about to get his ass kicked. It was pathetic, really. But standing up for him would probably only make his cronies mad, then make the beating worse. It was how things went with all the testosterone in the air.
Heat rose up in Grey’s cheeks. He couldn’t stand looking weak in front of his old high school crush. So he did the one thing he was good at. He ran his mouth.
“I don’t know what you’d want with a woman anyway.” Grey laughed, the sound hard and brittle in the night air. “Why don’t you just admit that you’re a morph and go find a housedress big enough for that gut of yours, sweetheart?” He shook his head and turned away, as if he might possibly just be allowed to escape after that.
The big guy’s bellow rang out behind Grey, over the laughter of his friends. “I ain’t no damned filthy morph!” It was the worst insult Grey could have flung his way. So disgusting, to be a woman trapped in a man’s body. As if a whole subset of the population hadn’t been dealing with being trans before this whole mess. The anger inside Grey seethed, rapidly nearing its boiling point.
The catcalls behind Grey grew louder. He called back over his shoulder, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. I get it, I get it. You’re just trying to make up for that pin-dick of yours.”
The streetlight changed and a group of people started to cross the road. If Grey timed it right, he could take off when they passed, before this got ugly. He ignored the dark part of him that wanted it to get ugly. The part that wanted to destroy something, just to prove he could—the part that wanted to prove that he still had some kind of power over his life.
He didn’t quite make it. The big dipshit lunged. Grey sighed and danced out of the way. He might be small, but he was quick. You had to be, on an island full of alpha male bullshit.
Of course, that just ticked the other guy off. Grey sucked in a breath right before the meathead hauled off and punched him. He dodged easily. Ah well, Grey thought, I guess I got what I really wanted, after all. When the meathead threw another punch, Grey dodged again, stepped in close, and landed a solid uppercut to the guy's beefy jaw.
The jock's eyes rolled up and he staggered. Damn. Not quite a knock-out. One of the other guys stepped in to help his buddy, but a kick to his stomach sent him back to the rest of his cronies, where he thought better of interfering. Grey stood upright and took in a deep breath of cool night air, gathering himself, finding that place where everything—all the worry and fear—just…turned off.
He grinned, four years’ worth of anger taking over, as if he were a man possessed. This was going to be fun.
The guy he was fighting had regained his senses—or what passed for senses in that mushy, walnut-sized brain of his. His piggy little eyes turned mean.
Cameron’s voice called out. “C’mon guys, knock it off.” But he didn’t sound too anxious for it to end.
Grey couldn’t blame him, really. It was probably the first decent entertainment they’d had in weeks. Everyone on the island went a little stir crazy from time to time. He shook out his arms and rocked onto the balls of his feet, his grin never fading.
The big guy lumbered toward him again, and Grey landed a lightning-fast series of blows to his torso—the soft place below his belly button, his paunchy gut, diaphragm. The guy wheezed and gasped, lips pursed and gaping like a fish out of water.
Grey laughed as he dodged another slow punch. Other men always assumed that small meant helpless, easy prey. The idiots never guessed he had spent the last four years at the dojo trying to channel his rage and suppress the anger that always seemed on the verge of consuming him. Grey hooked a foot behind the oaf’s knee and sent him sprawling. His opponent pushed himself back up on his feet, snorting like an enraged bull.
“Oh, now you’re dead,” someone called from the sidelines. Grey extended an arm and flipped them off.
But he was too cocky. He let himself get distracted. A fist caught Grey in the solar plexus. His breath shot out and fire lit through his belly, then the other massive fist hit his face and he crumpled. Ah damn. The idiots were right. What a girl.
It took a minute for Grey to stop seeing black sparkles and get himself back together. By that time, the other group of people had crossed the street and joined the jocks. A black-haired guy with a lip piercing and a lot of eyeliner was arguing with Cameron. He seemed vaguely familiar somehow, but the ringing in Grey’s head made it hard to think.
“Wow. You’re so cool Cammie,” the dark-haired one said in a smooth voice. “Beating up smaller guys on the street. Mom would be so proud.”
Grey pushed himself up to his knees and managed not to puke. Now would be a great time to hightail it while no one was looking. But he got distracted. The dark-haired guy had a guitar case slung across his back. He and his friends—a shorter blond and a tall, lanky brunette—were dressed in dark clothes with lots of leather and heavy jewelry.
Cameron just laughed at the new guy. They fired a few more sarcastic shots at each other, and the tension diffused, just like that. The dark-haired guy’s group had a sense of humor. Something Cameron’s bunch was completely lacking.
Of course, maybe a sense of humor was hard to find when you were an aspiring football star whose time for fame was running out, since you were confined to a tiny island for the rest of your life. Jocks like Cameron had nothing to look forward to but watching their gut grow as they dreamed about what life could have been.
Well, join the fucking crowd. It wasn’t like anyone else in this place wanted to be stuck here either.
Grey stared at Cameron's broad back and the streetlight glinting off the jock’s golden hair as he and his thugs disappeared into the night. Once again, Grey looked like an idiot. You’d think he’d be used to it by now. He dabbed at his split lip with a corner of his t-shirt. Not that he’d ever had a chance at someone as perfect as Cameron to begin with. It was all just childish shit from another life. Why he still clung to those old dreams, he had no idea. Maybe Grey had taken one too many blows to the head over the last few years of picking fights.
A pair of well-worn black boots blocked his view and Grey pulled himself back to the here and now. He was surprised when the newcomer crouched down in front of him. The black-haired guy rested his elbows on his long legs and stared at Grey with dark blue eyes, made all the more stunning by heavy black eyeliner. “You okay?” His speaking voice was deep and rich, just like when he sang.
Grey shrugged and pushed himself to his feet. “Sure.”
One of the other guys, the blond with the tattoos and a boyish grin, slapped Grey on the back, making him jump. “You were really kicking some ass for a minute there. But it wasn’t a fair fight. That guy was like five times your size.”
Grey forced a laugh that reminded him of his bruised guts and pushed his hair back out of his eyes as he stood, his brain finally coming back online. Lucifer. The band wasn’t famous, but they were pretty well known among the indie set on the island. Some people said the band would have made it b
ig if it hadn’t been for The Change and the quarantine that followed. Grey had attended a few of their shows in the last few months. Enough to recognize the group when he ran into them on the street—if he wasn’t busy getting his ass kicked at the time.
The dark-haired guy stood up. Grey searched his memory and finally came up with a name. Luca, their lead guitarist and back-up vocals. “That’s my idiot brother for you,” he said in a wry tone. “Though…usually he would have at least enough brain cells to stop something so…not sporting.”
Grey looked at Luca in surprise. He had silky, shoulder-length black hair that had mostly managed to slip free from its short ponytail. His face was handsome, edging into beautiful, with high cheekbones and long lashes ringed with eyeliner. His lip, eyebrow, and the entirety of one ear were pierced. He didn’t look like someone who would get along well with the jock crowd. “That meathead is your brother?”
Luca laughed. It was an easy sound, and Grey thought it must be something he did often, though it was at odds with his goth-punk image. It was a bit jarring, when everyone on the damned island seemed to be so irritated all the time. “Not the one you were pulverizing, no. The other meathead. My brother was the blond one who looks like the poster child for fraternity ass-hats.” He rolled his eyes.
Cameron? Grey stared at Luca, the guitarist for Lucifer, trying to reconcile his dark hair and pierced face with the all-American blond perfection that was Cameron. It seemed completely implausible, and yet…there was something familiar in his face, in the set of his broad shoulders.... Somehow, he could see a resemblance in there somewhere. “Huh.”
Intelligent response, Grey. Good job. Very cool.
The group was getting restless. A few of the people who were tagging along with the band started to move off down the street. Grey had turned and taken a few steps in the opposite direction, intent on ending the night’s embarrassments, when Luca called to him. “Hey!”
