by Kayla Wolf
“That's the one, Shrike!” he said, glancing sideways at the woman. “The one who hit me in the face with the spray!”
“Brave little ape,” the woman snarled, her lip curling. “Where's the lizard?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lisa demanded, nonplussed. “It's the middle of the night. Get out of my doorway, would you?”
The woman just laughed, as did the men behind her. Well, it had been worth a shot. The one called Shrike barged through the door, shouldering Lisa aside as she did, taking deep breaths of air in through her nose like some kind of wild animal.
“No use hiding, scaly boy,” the woman called, and Lisa felt an uncomfortable jolt of recognition. Scales. Did this woman somehow know about whatever strange medical condition Alexander seemed to have? She and her friends had been the ones who'd beaten him up in that alley before Lisa had stepped in to save the day. Did they have some kind of history? Alexander was nowhere to be seen.
The two men filtered into the room behind their leader, staring around with a possessive kind of expression that made Lisa's skin crawl. She still had her phone in her hand, and ever so quietly she began to raise it. All she needed to do was dial 9-1-1... once the call was connected, someone would surely come to help them out... but she was only halfway through typing when the woman turned on her like a snake. Sneering, she batted the phone out of her hand – and Lisa made a sound of aggravation as the woman drove her spiked heel into the phone's screen, shattering it into pieces. The second handset gone in a matter of days. This was really not her week.
“Where's the lizard?” Shrike demanded, closing in on Lisa.
“Yeah, where is he? No use hiding him, we'd sniff him out anywhere,” one of the men growled. “And Jax is on his way, so you better hand him over before he gets here —”
“Leave her alone.”
Alexander, standing in the doorway of the balcony. His eyes were glowing gold, and he looked somehow taller than he usually did and for just a moment Lisa was very, very glad that he was on her side.
An unfamiliar voice sounded from the doorway.
“Alexander. Good to see you, mate.”
The man who walked through the door was pure menace. It helped, of course, that his associates fell into line behind him as though they'd been possessed by very obedient ghosts – but he was intimidating enough even without them. Close-cropped black hair, gray eyes that almost seemed to gleam in the low light, the lithe, wiry frame of an old fighter. He wore army boots, ripped blue jeans and an old black T-shirt, and his arms were covered in tattoos. And more to the point, he was Alexander's height if not taller.
Lisa moved, slowly but deliberately, towards the balcony door. The newcomer turned the sharp beam of his eyes onto her, and the thin line of his mouth narrowed.
“D'you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into, little monkey?” he almost purred. She felt almost pinned to the spot by the laser focus of his eyes. “The war you've just taken the losing side in? You don't, do you? Pity, that. Heard you took out one of my guys. Not bad, for an ape. Now get out of the way while we kill this interloper, there's a good girl.”
“She's got nothing to do with this, Jax,” Alexander said levelly, not moving from the balcony door but gesturing, just slightly, for her to join him. Lisa moved to his side in a rush, feeling entirely out of her depth. These two clearly knew each other – but how? Somehow, she didn't doubt at all that this man intended to kill Alexander. What was he going to do about it? Without her phone, she had no power at all to do anything to help – and they were cornered, far from the door, and with no escape route to speak of.
“Relax, Alexander. I'll kill her after we've finished you off, how's that? For old time's sake.”
Alexander looked at Lisa, his gold eyes glowing.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, in a low voice.
“Of course not,” she replied.
He shut his eyes for a moment.
“I am sorry about this, then.”
Then he grabbed her around the waist, yanked her onto the balcony, and pulled them both over the side of the railing.
Chapter 11 – Alexander
Despite the severity of the situation, Alexander couldn't help but feel a burst of fierce gratitude to be finally, blessedly out of the ill-fitting suit that was his human form.
No need to pace himself now. On the balcony, he'd moved deliberately slowly, controlling the time and order of his transformation so as not to put undue pressure on the infrastructure of the building. Now, surrounded only by wind and air, he could move as quickly as he wanted to. Wings first. He felt his shoulder blades split open and his wings burst through like two great sails. He could have whooped for joy, if it weren't for the fact that his throat had already reformed, his vocal cords dissolving and reforming. Scales covered his body in a rush, dulling the bite of the cold air on his rapidly retreating human skin, and he could feel his legs and arms reforming, the bones and muscles grinding as they took their true form.
Lisa. He had to be careful with Lisa. All this would be for nothing if she came to any harm.
As his talons formed, he curled his forearms closer to his body, careful not to nick her fragile human skin with their sharp edges. At least she was wearing some clothing – the hoodie and trackpants she had grabbed moments before their escape – but he would still need to be careful. Thankfully, the shock of their sudden leap from the balcony had rendered her body easy to manage. He hoped she wouldn't panic during this next part.
A few seconds from the ground, Alexander's huge wing sails caught the air. Their trajectory lurched from vertical to horizontal, and together they shot along the street, ten feet or so above the New York traffic. And with a few powerful downstrokes of those wings, his bulk still growing as his transformation reached its end, Alexander carried them up, up, above the rooftops of the building, higher and higher until the lights of the city were spread out beneath them and twinkling like sequins.
God, he'd missed this. It had only been a few days, of course, but the feeling of being in the right body again was an absolute rush. The way the blood pumped through his wing sails, the exultant feeling of flight – this was who he was. Not that strange, four-limbed little form that had to scurry and climb and hide.
Speaking of which – his passenger. Lisa was huddled in the slightly awkward embrace of his forearms. He'd reached a suitable altitude where nothing was likely to obstruct their trajectory and turned his attention now to her – she seemed to be holding tight to his arm, but she was quiet. He'd expected her to scream, as she had done when she stepped out onto the balcony and saw him midway through her transformation, but she was silent, and still. He wished he could see her face. Humans communicated almost entirely through facial expressions, it seemed to him. It would be reassuring to see her smile at him.
Not that he really deserved a smile, after what he'd put her through.
Anxiety began to dull the joy of flight, and his thoughts began to race. They were safe now, the immediate threat of the wolves vanishing into the distance behind them, but what now? He had to find somewhere safe to put her. Jax and his people knew where she lived, now, and no doubt suspected that she was close to him. It wouldn't be safe for her to return to her apartment, not for a long time. She'd mentioned, in their talks, that her family lived far away from the city of New York. Perhaps he could take her to them? Provided that she didn't mind flying, of course.
Alexander hesitated. He wanted to reach out to her – but he wasn't sure where his people stood on communicating with humans. In human form, it was all very well to speak aloud, but this was something else. Something more intimate. Something he wasn't even sure humans were capable of, for that matter – it was a shifter thing.
Lisa?
He felt her stiffen in his arms, and the gentle mental touch he'd extended to her was returned, colored with shock and incredulity.
Lisa. It's me. It's Alexander. I am carrying you. You are safe.
A sharp burst of incredulity, this one colored with anger. That was fair enough. She didn't seem able (or willing, he thought worriedly) to communicate with words, but he could get a sense of her feelings, at least. A lot of shock and fear there, yes – but it was under control. Again, her resilience surprised him, and he felt a surprising burst of affection and admiration. Here she was, a ground-dwelling creature suddenly catapulted into the sky in the arms of a creature she'd always been told was a myth – but she was keeping her wits about her.
The anger swelled again, and he felt her weight shift in his arms. With some alarm, he adjusted his hold on her, frightened of dropping her from such a height. There was a dull thud on his forearm, and he felt another wave of anger from her. Was she attempting to wriggle out of his grasp? Had she just punched him, the only thing keeping her from falling to her death? He reached out again, a little incredulous.
Do you want me to land?
A wash of frustration tinged with relief. That was a yes, then. Obediently, he scanned the ground below them. They were well outside of the city now – he was a fast mover when he wanted to be, especially when he wasn't limited by puny human legs – and there was a lot of unfamiliar forest below them. He hesitated, pulling out of the gentle descent he'd begun, then felt another dull thud on his forearm. Alright. An emergency landing in the forest it was.
They landed in a small clearing, Alexander managing to break only a few tree branches as he settled carefully to the ground, beating his wings to keep his upper body elevated to avoid crushing Lisa's small form. He was a lot more graceful when he had all four legs free to land with, he thought resentfully, with an uncharacteristic burst of embarrassment – would Lisa think him clumsy? Get a grip, Alexander, she has other things on her mind, he scolded himself.
She staggered away from him, seeming a little unsteady now that she was on the ground again. He folded his wings to his back and settled down in the clearing, his eyes adjusting to the darkness down here. At least there was moonlight to see by – it was a clear and cloudless night, and they were only a few days away from the full moon. By the weak light filtering down from the sky, he was able to see her face, surprisingly small from this distance. Would she be frightened of him, in this form? Humans had always stood in awe of him and his kind. They had even been worshipped as gods more than once. Would she be awestruck by his true form? Would she kneel before him?
Lisa stooped to pick up a stick and threw it with a surprising force directly at his great head.
Chapter 12 – Lisa
Lisa had had her fair share of bad dates. In her more sanguine moods, she considered them to be valuable market research for her job. The worse the dates she'd been on, the more familiar she would be with the kind of acute despair suffered by her clients. If she knew what was out there, she'd be better equipped to help.
But none of her clients – to her knowledge, at least – had ever been yanked off the edge of a balcony then dragged out into the middle of the forest by some kind of enormous – telepathic – lizard monster. She refused to even think the word that had sprung into her mind fully-formed the instinct her captor had sprouted huge leathery wings. Absolutely not. No such thing. No such thing as any of this, in fact, but especially no such thing as – that. A bunch of silly stories invented by medieval idiots who'd dug up some dinosaur bones and gotten carried away with their imaginations.
There was still a very good chance that all of this had to do with a psychotic break, Lisa counseled herself now, standing barefoot in the middle of a forest in upstate New York with only moonlight to see by. She had been under a lot of stress, and maybe taking a stranger into her house had been the tipping point. There was also the theory that he'd drugged her – slipped her some kind of hallucinogen when she wasn't looking, and now her mind was running absolutely berserk. Well, it was good stuff, whatever it was, or her imagination was very vivid. She definitely felt like she was standing in the woods, shivering in the middle of the night, staring up at some great golden-eyed monstrosity.
Or maybe it was real. It was completely absurd, but maybe it was real. It wasn't as if she really had much to lose by treating it as though it was real – worst case scenario, she'd get carried away with the fantasy then wake up in some hospital somewhere once they'd figured out the right cocktail of medications to restore her sanity. She hoped, quietly and fervently, that they'd hurry. Because in the meantime, she was face to face with an enormous, scaled, shining...
Lizard. Definitely, a lizard-shaped creature, though she'd never seen a lizard the size of a house. It certainly wouldn't have fitted in her apartment, that was for sure, even with its wings folded to its back like that. Ah. The wings. She'd circle back to the wings. They were covered in scales that were a fascinating color – shimmering, incandescent, definitely metallic but the way they refracted the light meant they seemed to shift from bronze to gold to silver depending on how the creature caught the light. It had four legs, a strong broad chest like a horse's, and a long, sinuous neck that tapered up to a head that was about the size of her entire body, topped with several horns, symmetrically arranged. Set in that head like huge gems, each the size of a watermelon at least, were two shining golden eyes. They almost seemed to emit light, as though there was some kind of light source within them – and they were undeniably focused on her.
It was sitting neatly in the clearing with its great long tail curled primly around its feet like a cat's. The forelegs that had carried her here – complete with wickedly sharp talons she'd spent much of the journey trying to get as far away from as possible – were primly tucked under the lizard's huge body.
And here was the part that made her feel crazy – this creature had spoken to her in a voice that she'd heard not with her ears, but deeper, somehow. Telepathic, was the word that kept rising to her mind – but that was ridiculous. Telepathy wasn't real. Nobody could read thoughts. And so what if the voice had sounded a little like Alexander's, for reasons she couldn't quite put her finger on? A lot of people's voices sounded like a lot of other people's. It didn't mean anything.
And here she was. Stranded in the middle of nowhere with some kind of enormous scaly monster sitting in front of her, staring down at her with an expression she couldn't read, but couldn't help assuming was smug. Fantastic. Stolen from her house, thrown over her balcony, and spirited away to the middle of nowhere without even a pair of shoes on. And it had the audacity to just sit there and look at her, as though waiting for her to thank it?
There was a satisfyingly large and formidable-looking stick on the ground at Lisa's feet. Hardly thinking about it, she stooped to scoop it off the ground, summoned everything she could remember from high school javelin practice, and hurled the stick directly at the monster's head.
It made her feel better, just for a second. Certainly, there was something very pleasing about the way the animal ducked its head – the stick missed the important parts, but bounced off its horns with a satisfying clunk. And though the creature's face didn't seem especially expressive, she couldn't help but read shock into those great golden eyes as the creature swiveled its head to look at her again.
“Fuck off!” she yelled at it, but her voice when it emerged was much less formidable than she'd wanted it to be. “What the hell do you think you're doing, dragging me into the middle of nowhere? What was that? What are you? Why were those weirdos at my house? Where the hell is Alexander?”
I am Alexander.
She stiffened at the strange intrusion – that voice again, the voice she'd heard up in the air (and had that really happened? Had she really been carried through the sky?) It was low and resonant, a little over-formal, a little stilted in its use of the language – just like Alexander's. But there was something else about it, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. A strange kind of resonance – a little like the way you could tell how someone was feeling by the way they spoke, but stronger somehow, more intentional. Like a color or a texture to the way the words echoed inside her min
d. And the resonance was – surprise, indignation, a little bit of injury, and (underneath it, somehow) a sensation of... awe? Pride, almost? She got the strangest feeling that this monster – this creature – was impressed with her.
Well, it could keep its feelings to itself.
Would it help if I looked the way you know me?
She narrowed her eyes at the monster. She had no proof that the voice in her head originated from it – no proof at all, in fact, that it wasn't just another symptom on her growing list of psychiatric conditions. But it seemed the simplest explanation. And as she looked at the creature, it began to shift. Its body seemed to shrink, its folded wings shrinking and vanishing into its back – its neck shrank, and the scales seemed to blend and mold into one smooth, flat surface ... was the moonlight playing tricks on her? No – the creature really was shrinking – and now it wasn't much bigger than her, and before she knew it, there was something almost human-shaped standing where the enormous winged lizard had stood before.
Something human-shaped, with unruly dark curls and huge golden eyes.
“No fucking way.”
“I am sorry,” Alexander said, taking a few steps towards her with his arm outstretched and a look of worry in those golden eyes of his. “I wish I could have explained before —”
“What are you?”
“A dragon.”
“Wow. You just – you're just going to say it, huh? Just going to say something that's completely stupid to my actual face, right here, in the woods in the middle of upstate New York. Fantastic. Great. A dragon. Of course, you are. I should've realized.”
She was beginning to feel properly insane now – her heart was beating hard in her chest, and the longer she looked at Alexander (because it was impossible to deny that it was him any longer) the more she felt like screaming. Some kind of – shapeshifting monstrosity, that was what she was being asked to believe he was? This strange man she'd found in an alleyway and brought home to her house? This man she'd had sex with not an hour before?