Page 2 of Daddy Billionaire Dragon

“I can feel it in my bones,” TJ says, undeterred. He is an incurable playboy who has managed to charm his way into the panties of almost every girl he meets. But Damon is right. The Sitting Duck is not the kind of bar you go to pick up girls. In fact, it’s a secret bar hidden behind an unassuming barber’s shop. It offers unparalleled privacy, has an excellent stock of expensive liquors, and great music. It feels more like a gentlemen’s club—the kind that you find in the UK—than a typical bar. Women are not forbidden at The Sitting Duck per se, nobody is forbidden really, but since so few people know that it even exists, we hardly see new faces there.

“Alright, moving on, the venue for twenty-fifth anniversary party,” I say, bringing the meeting back on track.

Once again, a grin spreads on my face thinking about how far Druk Technologies has come. The five of us, who are equal partners in Druk Technologies, might have been born into money and might have inherited the business from our respective fathers, but we successfully took it from a company with a multi-million-dollar turnover and turned it into a company with a multi-billion-dollar turnover. I think what brought us to these heights of success so quickly is the deep friendship and the implicit trust the five of us share. Sharing and guarding a common secret will do that to you.

We are all dragon shifters living in a world populated by Homo sapiens.

As dragon shifters, we are fond of large, open spaces. This particular penchant of ours is reflected in the way we have had our workspace as well as our individual homes designed. So it’s no surprise when we all unanimously voted for the newly opened rooftop restaurant in lower Manhattan that can host a thousand people as the venue for the party. The party is a few months from now, but now that we have finalized the venue, our exec assistants can take over the planning.

With that, the meeting draws to a close.

“To the roof?” Damon asks, standing up and stretching his hands with interlaced fingers in front of him, cracking his knuckles. He is a big guy; the tallest, broadest, and strongest amongst us all at six foot six. The cracking of his knuckles sounds like shots from a pistol. It is an irritating habit that he has developed after he returned from that place five years ago. I wince but say nothing; neither do the others. We know how difficult it has been for him. Even after all these years, I don’t think he has forgiven himself.

“I’ll get the Skins.”

After a quick sprint to my office, I am back with the Skins draped over my forearm. Each one has been specially designed, keeping our forms in mind. I drop the Skins on the couch. One by one, the guys pick them up. The Shifter Skins are made of a special type of fabric that can withstand an insane amount of tension without tearing. They look like wet suits worn by scuba divers, but are so much more than that.

These Skins were developed by a hi-tech research facility that is partly funded by our company. I think of them as our superhero suits. They have given us the independence to shift into our dragon forms with minimal fuss whenever and wherever we want; within reason of course.

They have a concealed pocket in the chest area where we can safely place our cell phones and other essentials. When we shift to our dragon forms, the Skins neatly fold upon themselves and tuck automatically into a tiny pouch that hangs from our necks by a cord that is woven around the neckline; kind of like a reverse parachute. When we shift back, they automatically unfurl and cover our naked bodies.

While the Skins have made it easy for us to let our dragons free even when living in a city as crowded as Manhattan, the new functionality that has been integrated is helping us take the shift-anywhere-you-want deal to a whole new level. With the push of a button concealed near the wrist, our shifted forms can apparently be rendered invisible, thereby shielding us from prying eyes.

We change out of our suits, don the Skins, and head to the roof. We decide to take turns shifting as the roof isn’t big enough for five full-sized dragons.

Damon shifts first. In a matter of seconds, his tall, muscular human form changes into a large dragon covered by dark violet amethyst scales. He is an Amethyst dragon. He flaps his wings and takes flight, and to our astonishment, does vanish mid-air. After a brief while, he suddenly appears on the roof in his human form, securely covered by the Skin.

“Did it work?” he asks.

“Yes, but there was a lag. You should have become invisible the moment you shifted for the stealth mode to be truly useful. You only vanished once you took flight,” I say, making a mental note to report back to the research facility.

We decide to try out all the other suits to see if there are any more glitches.

Pat shifts next. His dragon form is an Onyx, lean and lithe, covered in hard black scales. In the dark night, he is pretty well camouflaged, even without the stealth mode. But like Damon, he only becomes invisible after a few minutes of taking flight.

When TJ shifts, he is an Agate dragon, covered in glittering red-brown scales. He doesn’t become invisible, even after he takes flight. We signal him to land quickly, lest he is spotted.

Liam shifts next, turning into a Citrine dragon, covered in reflective amber-colored scales. He vanishes almost immediately after shifting. The scientists back at the research facility have almost got it right with Liam’s Skin. So I’m hopeful they’ll get our Skins right as well pretty soon.

I shift last.

I am a Smoky Quartz dragon with silver-gray scales covering my body. The scales are translucent, deceptively fragile looking, but are as hard as diamonds. Even after years of shifting in and out of forms, it still gives me a thrill every time I shift. It feels freeing to let my dragon out. The whole process takes mere seconds, but there is always a sharp stab of pain when the forms change. However, nothing can compare to the joy of letting your shifter form free. I flap my wings and fly overhead a couple of times before landing back on the roof. The others tell me that my Skin didn’t function optimally either.

Our dragon forms—Smoky Quartz, Amethyst, Onyx, Agate, and Citrine, are all sub-sects of the rarest, most ancient and powerful of all dragon shifters: the Quartz dragons. Quartz dragons are so rare in fact that a lot of non-dragon shifters think they don’t really exist.

Dragons have traditionally been the guardians of treasure; therefore, it is no wonder that five of us and our families are extremely wealthy. We have kept up and evolved with the times, which has allowed us to increase our wealth several folds.

I look around me, and the guys look as exhilarated as I feel. Even shifting for a brief while, riding the power, feeling the freedom has added significantly to the high we were already feeling on account of the unprecedented success of TokenMintz.

“Time to celebrate!” I say as we all head down to change.

The Sitting Duck is only a few blocks away, so we decide to walk. On the way there, I couldn’t help feeling very pleased with it all. I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want, with the best partners in the world. I don’t want to change a single thing about my life. It’s true that all I’ve done for the last five years is work, but I like my work. How many people in the world can claim that they have got not one thing to complain about?

But our life is monotonous, my dragon grumbles.

We are content, I retort.

Content is another word for bored, he mutters.

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