by Ruby Ryan
Just my luck, I guess.
"So what's his deal?" she said. "Mohawk-bro. Is he after this?"
She pulled the totem out long enough to show me, then hid it away again.
"I think he's after me."
"What do you mean you think? You knew who he was up in Terrance's apartment."
"Well..." I hesitated. "I don't actually know him. But like I said, I could feel him coming. Somehow."
I reached out for that sensation again, probing it the way you probe a sore in your mouth with your tongue. And I flinched, because I could feel him even stronger now. And growing fast.
"He's coming!" I said, just as a shadow blocked the sun.
If I'd thought the day was already crazy, this blew everything out of the water. The beast soaring a hundred feet above the ground was made of scales, a shade of blue so dark it was almost black. Thick legs of muscle and claw hung limp beneath his body, which was held in the air by wings so thin I could see the light of the sun through them. And a long neck like a snake's, ridged and covered with spiky horns, craned down at the ground.
Searching.
"Dragon," I whispered.
"What the fuck!" Ezra moaned. "WHAT THE FUCK!"
The gryphon within me screamed with rage, begging to be let free from its cage. It was painful, and I knew that if I didn't shapeshift I would die, torn apart from the inside-out.
"Do it!" I yelled, and Ezra knew exactly what I meant.
I felt her thumb press on the totem sapphire like it was jabbing into my neck. A sensation like relieved pressure came over me, and a whirlwind of air forced my eyes shut. And then my gryphon form settled against my bones, mirroring my human body for an instant. Then it was ripping free, shredding my skin painfully and tearing apart my muscles. I could feel every bone in my body break, my skull shattering in a hundred places as the oversized eagle's skull replaced it. My vision warped, and sharpened. Wings burst from my back, pleasure mixing with the pain, and I screamed out loud and heard my voice with two different sets of ears.
Despite the pain, it was significantly easier than it had been the first time, on the roof of the garage.
YOU ARE HIDEOUS, the dragon roared in my brain. IT WILL BE A KINDNESS TO REMOVE YOU FROM THIS WORLD.
I yearned to soar into the air, but before I could Ezra was grabbing my feathers and climbing onto my back. Logically I wanted her to stay away, to let me battle alone, but instinctively it felt better to have her with me. A comforting presence, another heart beating alongside my own.
"Go!" she yelled, and I took to the sky.
The dragon arced down toward us, too late by several seconds. He opened his jaw and fire spilled from the maw like water, splashing across the parking lot and igniting several cars where we had just been standing. He segued the dive into a curve, surging back into the air toward us.
Ezra gripped something around my neck, and buried her face in my feathers.
The threat of fire terrified me, but my gryphon instincts took over. I glided in a circle, coming around the back of the dragon before it could round on me. I dove with deadly speed, extending my four legs toward my foe. My talons struck the leathery flesh of the dragon's wing, and I screeched with ecstasy as I tore great gashes into him.
The attack only lasted a moment, a quick rending while flying past, and it was a good thing because by then the dragon had brought his long neck around to snap at me with his jaws, missing by mere feet.
"Woah!"
I beat my wings, my wonderful incredible wings, to gain altitude. As I leveled out and flew around I saw men and women standing on an apartment rooftop, pointing at the sky. Then I was focused on the dragon again, who had flown away from us to buy himself time as he turned back around, one wing bent more than the other. I flew directly at him, and he did the same, and with him inside my mind I could feel his rage in hot waves.
He was wounded. I needed to land the killing blow while I had an advantage.
We soared toward one another like two trains on the same track. The moment his jaw opened to reveal the glow of supernatural fire deep within, I dove straight down at the ground.
Even though the fire hissed through the air high above us, I felt the heat on my face and feathers as if I were inside a furnace. Ezra cried out as we dove, and I turned sideways to get as far from the painful heat as I could. I maneuvered in the air blindly for a moment, sensing the dragon's massive body above us but not knowing where he was turning next, and then another gush of fire split the air.
This time I heard screams come with it, human and frantic.
Twisting my eagle's head around, I saw that the fireball had rolled across the rooftop with the spectators. The smoke faded and then smaller orange flames flickered, deck chairs and tall plants burning with new life. One woman used her jacket to put out a fire on a man's leg, while he scrambled and squirmed on the ground.
We couldn't do this. Not here, where people could get hurt.
The gryphon inside me screeched in anger as I brought us around and flew directly away from our foe. The dragon roared, a bone-trembling sound that was a cross between an elephant's trumpet and a leopard's wail, but I forced myself to ignore it. He was wounded, and I was faster. I didn't have to fight him.
We flew north, and I felt the pulsing beacon of the dragon diminish behind.
12
EZRA
When I was eight, my dad brought home a puppy.
She was a German Shepherd, only a few weeks old. Her ears were still floppy, and she ran around on legs she was still figuring out how to use. I squealed with excitement, and she came running up to me, and I fell backwards and giggled as she licked my face.
I told my mom I was too sick for school the next day, but she could tell I only wanted to stay home to play with the puppy. And for once, she let me. I took her in the backyard and taught her to play fetch with a stick, though she would only sit down and chew on it rather than bringing it back. I was more excited than I'd ever been in my life; having a dog was a new responsibility, something I'd been entrusted with, and I couldn't wait to live up to it.
When I went back inside, my mom was crying in front of the TV as the Twin Towers fell.
That's what it felt like, standing in the parking lot as the dragon flew over us. One excitement (Sam's weird gryphon ability) suddenly shoved aside by something an order of magnitude more insane. Something incomprehensible.
A fucking dragon, flying in the fucking air, breathing fucking fire.
The entire thing was a blur as I rode on Sam's back. He had a golden collar around his neck, recessed into his feathers, and an enormous sapphire glowed on its surface. It gave me something to hold onto while he soared and dove and screeched in the air, a roller coaster ride with an added level of danger.
And as quickly as it had begun, he was flying away.
I twisted to look behind me. The dragon landed in the parking lot, favoring one wing over the other. Then he began to shrunk before my eyes, head falling below the edge of the buildings, the scales changing back into skin and the horns of his head morphing into a mohawk.
I was still trying to process Sam's thing, let alone that.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Sam let out a bird-like noise, and I felt him think: home. The totem pulsed in my pocket, and I felt a sudden pang of fear that it might fall out. I moved one hand from Sam's collar to my pocket, holding it there with tight fingers.
We flew over the city for five or six blocks, then descended to the roof of an apartment complex.
The moment I hopped off, Sam shapeshifted back into a human. The feathers boiled away from his skin and he shrunk in size, lion's legs changing into calves and quads. And then he was only Sam again, nude and beautiful in the afternoon sun.
He shivered. "That was intense."
When we were in the stairwell, I shed my coat and handed it to him. It was far too small for him to wear, so he draped it across his front to cover what he could. But I still had a great
view of his bare ass as we descended into the apartment building, and I resisted the urge to give it a healthy smack.
"Unless you've got another key hiding up your butt, how are we gunna get into your apartment?"
He looked over his shoulder. "My neighbor has a spare set."
"You've thought of everything."
"I like to be prepared. In case something happens."
"Your instincts were right."
We reached his floor and knocked on the first door we came to. A little old lady with snow-white hair opened it.
"Oh, Sam!" she said with surprise, which quickly changed to confusion.
"Long story Mrs. Barnette," Sam said with a flash of teeth. "I promise to tell you all about it later."
She retrieved his spare key, gave me a long look, and then we went into his place next door.
It was nicer than anything I'd seen in years, a luxury apartment with wide windows giving a view of the downtown Denver skyline. Sam locked the door behind me and ran into his room, presumably to put some clothes on.
I opened his stainless steel fridge and grabbed two beers. I'd guzzled the first one by the time Sam returned wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
"So..." I began, but he suddenly smacked his forehead.
"Oh fuck!"
I tensed. "What is it? Is he coming?"
13
SAM
"What is it?" Ezra asked. "Is he coming?"
I barely heard her. I ran back into my room to search for my cell phone, which obviously wasn't there. I'd lost it when I shapeshifted into the gryphon the first time, on the garage roof. I grabbed my laptop from the bedroom instead, carrying it to the living room.
"Is he here?" she asked, more frantic than before. "Tell me!"
"It's not that," I waved her off. "I'm late for work."
Her mouth hung open. "Uhh, who gives a fuck about work? Plus it's, like, four in the afternoon. You're really late."
I ignored her and sat on the couch, then pulled up Skype. I dialed my boss's number, and listened to the low pulse of the ringing.
Thomas's face appeared on the screen, cheeks red and windburned beneath a cotton cap.
"Sam? Are you..." He squinted. "Where are you? We were expecting you about now."
"Yeah, I know." I struggled to think of an excuse; I should have done that before calling. "I've run into some problems, and I'm going to be late."
"Problems?" Thomas's eyes widened. "Is it the lab? Did the fire alarm go off again? The last time James ran tests in the computer room he blew out a fan, which--"
"No, no, nothing like that," I said, cutting him off. "Personal troubles. But it's taken care of. I'll be there in a few hours."
"Do what?" Ezra said from the kitchen.
"A few hours," Thomas muttered, voice thick with martyrdom. "I've done my best without you, but it hasn't been easy. When you put in for vacation time you said you'd be back this afternoon..."
"I know," I said.
"...and I wouldn't have come up here so quickly if I'd known..."
"I know, Thomas, I'm sorry. But I'll be there as soon as I can. Hope you have some of that chili waiting."
Thomas looked like he wanted to chastise me more, but all he said was, "Get here when you can," and disconnected the call.
I sighed back into the couch, but my relief only lasted a second.
"You really are an astronomy engineer?" Ezra said, rounding the kitchen with two beers in hand. Rather than offer me one, she upended the rest of one can and began on the second by herself.
"That's what I told you."
"But you're not actually going to work, right? That call was just to buy us some time?"
I blinked at her. "They were expecting me at the site by now. I need to leave as soon as I can."
Alarm fell over her face. "Hey, pal. I know today's been awfully fast paced, but in case you forgot: there's a fucking dragon out there. Big thing with scales? Breathing fire at us? Tough to miss."
"I remember."
"Do you?" She came forward until she stood right in front of me. "Because if you remembered, you wouldn't be so worried about your day job. That psychopath could be here any minute!"
"He won't be," I said, feeling him out there. "He's far away right now. And he's injured."
Ezra's hands were balled into fists, and she practically trembled as she stared down at me. She bit off every word as if they caused her great pain.
"He. Tried. To. Kill. Us." She sucked in a raspy breath. "He tried to kill you."
And then I realized what was the matter. She wasn't freaking out over what had happened, the danger to herself in the situation. She was being protective of me. I could feel her concern flowing off her like perfume, the persistent need for her to try to keep me safe.
She was my partner in all of this.
God, she was beautiful then. Face full of anger, and her sharp eyebrows drawn down with concern. The place where her leg brushed against my knee tingled, and I yearned to touch the rest of her.
It blossomed within me like a fire, hotter than the fire from the dragon minutes ago. I had to have her, fast and quick and desperate.
I wanted to ravage her.
14
EZRA
I was furious with Sam, frustrated that he could focus on work instead of the dragon, but then he stood and it all melted away.
He took my head in both of his hands, stared deep into my eyes with his own cobalt orbs, and I could feel the need inside him.
He kissed me roughly, forcefully, and it was exactly what I needed. I surrendered to his hands as they pulled me close, and his tongue invaded my mouth and I moaned as it rubbed against mine.
We ripped our clothes off like they were on fire, me shedding my outer coat and then hoodie, him pulling his new T-shirt back off to reveal the tattoos on his arms and chest. My bra clasp tore as I pulled it off but I didn't care, because the only thing mattered was getting nude as quickly as possible, removing any barriers between our bodies.
Sam's jeans fell away, and I yanked down his boxers, and his throbbing cock sprung wonderfully into view.
I wanted to kiss him, to take him in the mouth and pleasure him, but he was kissing me on the lips again, and he was the one controlling things here, I had surrendered to him, was ready to be taken by him however he wanted me. The kiss went on for hours it felt like, and when we broke away we both gasped like we'd been drowning.
I turned around and knelt on the couch so he could take me from behind, arching my back to show off my ass. He grabbed my hips and leaned into me, his rigid cock rubbing against the outside of my sex and my pubic hair. I grinded back against him, wanted to feel him inside of me.
But then Sam crouched behind me, and I could feel his eyes moving over my skin like fingernails.
His hands touched the outside of my hips, a light pressure, before moving across my butt. He pushed the meat of my cheeks inward, hands spreading out to grab and squeeze and feel. I realized I'd been holding my breath, and sucked in a ragged gasp.
Sam's hands rotated until the fingers moved in between my cheeks, pulling them apart. For several seconds all I felt was his hot breath on my ass.
Sam moved his face forward so slowly that I would have squirmed on the table had his hands not held me in place with firm authority. The hair on his cheeks touched my cheeks as he buried his face into my pussy.
"Ohh," I sighed.
He caressed me with his nose, moving up and down my wet slip, pressing into my lips. Then a finger was spreading them apart and his tongue invaded deep inside.
My fingers curled on the couch as I let out a long moan.
He moved his tongue--his insanely long tongue--down my pussy, then out and around the skin of my outer lips. Somehow he knew where the edge of what I wanted was, and kept himself just back from it, a torturous teasing that made me want to scream. His hands came around the side and grabbed me by the waist, pressing into my hip bones as he shoved his face into my crotch.
"Y
es," I whispered as his tongue returned to my wet slit.
Now his tongue didn't tease; it pushed deep inside my pussy, rigid and hard. Once inside he moved it down, then up, an eager wedge to taste every inch of me. I tried to push back against his face, to let him know with my body how much I needed him, but his hands held me such that I could not move.
Sam moved his face back and forth, steadily tongue-fucking me in the apartment.
His nose pressed against my asshole with each thrust, a wonderful tease, and soon my throat was dry and hoarse.
Then he pulled back one final time and paused, his hot breath tingling my skin as he took it all in. Then he rose and I arched my back more for him, waiting for what would come next with baited breath. I felt his legs push against mine, and then his cock pressed against me, and I was lubricated so perfectly that he grabbed my waist and thrust all the way in with one stroke, filling me to the brim. It knocked the air out of my lungs, and I squeezed my eyes tight while savoring the sudden pleasure of him.
"God yes," he moaned behind me, fingers digging into my skin.
He pumped steadily, not wasting any time. I groaned with him as his dick thrust deep inside, rubbing against my wall with each movement, incredibly intense from this angle but in just the right way. Sam ran his hand along my back, feeling my spine and skin. I tossed my hair back and he grabbed a handful, and I grunted as he pulled it tight, locking me in place against his cock while he impaled me again and again.
His moans echoed deliciously in the apartment, a surround-sound of his ecstasy.
Feeling naughty, and freed of inhibitions by our strange bond, I reached a hand back to scratch against his chest. Then I let it slide down, tickling through his pubic hair and then moving in between my cheeks, rubbing tentatively around my tight rosebud. Sam moaned louder so I continued, letting my finger slide along his cock for lubrication and then gently sticking it inside my forbidden hole. I pushed an inch inside, biting my lip at the wonderful indirect stimulation while Sam was inside of me, and I looked over my shoulder at him to drink the lust from his eyes.