Page 1 of Her Dragons

CHAPTER 1

Jake

She wasn’t our usual type, but this one was interesting.

I noticed the brunette with the rocking, curvy body sitting in the grass while my friend Alex went to the concession stand to get us a couple of hard ciders.We were at a free outdoor concert in one of the city’s big parks and the band was between sets.Alex and I were on the tiered seating.There were two grass-covered slopes on either side of the seats in front of the stage.The brunette was on the grass to the right of us.Whoever she was, she was pretty.Damn pretty.Alex and I were used to a different type, frankly:curves and a nice bust, but leaner, slenderer.This one was just curves and a bust.She had dark hair tumbling onto her shoulders, and a face to make a guy just stop and stare — discreetly, from the respectable distance where I was sitting, of course.Pretty women may like to be noticed, but they don’t necessarily appreciate being gawked at.

But there she was, and the next thing I noticed about her made me curious.In the grass next to her was a large duffle bag, the kind of duffle bag you carry either to take your clothes to the laundry — or when you’re going on a trip.There was no reason to assume she’d stopped at an outdoor, evening concert on the way to wash her clothes, so she must have stopped off here because she was going someplace.If she was going someplace, why had she stopped here?Just to catch some music before her bus or train left?That didn’t seem likely.Nothing about this curvy brunette added up.Not the duffle bag and not her expression.It wasn’t the look of someone who was enjoying the show.She seemed to be lost in thought, and whatever shewas thinking about seemed to worry her.There was this look of anxiety in her eyes, and in her lack of a smile.Something was on her mind, and I had the distinct impression it wasn’t anything good.It was a shame, I thought.No one that beautiful should wear that kind of look.

In a minute, she had something else on her mind.

Someone came up around her from behind and sat down next to her.He was an ordinary-looking guy — really ordinary — with a can of beer in one hand.He had on a T-shirt that said Howdy on it, which covered a stomach that would look like the beginnings of a pregnancy bump on a woman.His face was round, doughy, and stubbly, with a mustache, and I guessed that his version of combing his hair was just passing a comb through it once and deciding, Good enough.I could tell he was the typical plain, dumpy-looking guy who thinks he sees a hard-bodied exotic dancer looking back at him in the mirror, and thinks attractive women should want him because he wants them, as if they owe him a tumble because he’s a man.And now he was sitting himself down next to the very distracted-looking brunette in the grass.I instinctively frowned at the sight.

My frown persisted as I watched the two of them, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.The Howdy guy was smiling at her and leaning slightly into her space.Guys like this don’t necessarily know what boundaries are, especially after they’ve gotten a beer into them.She said something back to him and slid herself and her bag a few feet across the grass from him.From this, he should have gotten the message.Naturally, he didn’t.He slid over close to her again, smiled at her and said something else, and leaned into her space again.He offered her a swallow of his beer.Looking frustrated, she slid away from him again, and this time picked up the bag and put it down between herself and him.I could have predicted what happened next.

Mr. Howdy would not get the message.He crawled over next to her bag, which was the only thing between him and the brunette, and sat there on his knees, waving his arms and his beer can, saying something else — protesting her disinterest and asking why they couldn’t be friends or some such thing, I guessed.I was getting riled up just looking at them, and the brunette was getting riled up even worse.This time she stood up and grabbed her bag, and I could just make out her raising her voice: “No!”

Okay, I thought, now this guy should know enough to back off.By this point, they were attracting the attention of people besides just me.Her evening ruined, the brunette looked as if she had no intention of staying for the next set of the concert.She turned on one heel and prepared to storm off — but now, he actually reached out and grabbed her by the arm.At this point, I jumped up from where I was sitting.Damnit, enough is enough! I decided.Perhaps the brunette was a stranger, but she shouldn’t have to take this.Before someone else jumped into this situation, I decided to make my own move.

As the brunette continued to shout at Mr. Howdy and he had the nerve to continue to protest her lack of interest in him, and she tried to walk away and he started to follow her, I walked quickly from the tiered seats onto the grass.“Hey!” I called.“Hey, you!She’s not interested.Why don’t you let her enjoy the concert in peace?”

She stopped in her tracks and stared back and forth between her unwanted would-be suitor and me, looking nervous, as if she didn’t know what to think.Mr. Howdy focused his attention on me.“What’s it to you, Mister?I was just trying to have a nice talk with the lady, here.What are you, her boyfriend?”He looked me up and down, contemptuously—and probably a bit enviously because, while I don’t mean to brag, I was in the kind of shape that he only imagined he was in.

“No,” I said, “I’m not her boyfriend.”And I glanced in the brunette’s direction and saw her biting her lower lip.What was it that seemed to have her so twisted-up inside?I had the feeling it was more than just a stuck-up, beer-swilling redneck.“I can just see she’s not into you, and you ought to just leave her alone because there are other people here.With phones.”

And now he took a step towards me, putting himself in my space the way he’d done the brunette, close enough that I could smell on his breath both the beer in his hand and the beer that he’d downed before it.“Oh?And what are you gonna do about it?”

I rolled my eyes at that.I could feel the scales breaking out on the back of my neck and down my back.“Buddy,” I said, “you do not want to know what I can do about it.”

The guy with delusions of hotness exhaled his beer breath at me, “Yeah?Why’s that?”

A voice behind me answered, “Because he can tear a second hole in your ass.Just like I can.”

Mr. Howdy’s mouth fell open.The brunette’s eyes widened in fright.I looked behind me, and there stood my best friend Alex, with a can of hard cider in either hand and his face morphed into its other shape.His green and blue scales glistened.His features turned into a blunt, reptilian snout.The beginnings of his horns sprouted on his head.

The brunette threw a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that began to rip itself from her throat.Damn, I thought, I meant to help her, not scare her.

I looked back at the pudgy would-be Casanova, and by now my own face was greening, my own scales were coming out, and my horns were starting to show.As for Mr. Howdy, he was turning white and the sweat on his face made it look like ahairy dumpling.We Drakes don’t like to use our other shapes to intimidate humans.We’re generally brought up not to do it, and here in the mostly liberal city of Haventon there were good laws against Drake-on-human violence.But we had our moments, and since our friend here was crossing the line, he was tempting us to cross a line of our own.Alex and I stood our ground, our partial morph making our point.All Mr. Howdy had to do was not let this escalate any further.

He practically croaked, “Oh, shit!”His voice turned to a strangled whimper, he took a step back from us, and then, dropping his beer, he spun around so fast that we could practically feel the wind coming off his paunchy, sweaty body and went tearing off into the park.He was probably not going to see the second set of the concert.

Relaxing my face back to human, I turned to one side and said, “Well, that takes care of him, then.Are you…?”But the person I thought I was addressing wasn’t there.Instead of the brunette standing nearby, I saw her quickly retreating back.She was running off into the park, bag and all, in another direction.My heart sank a little, knowing my good intentions had gone bad.Drake or human, a guy should only feel like crap at a moment like this.

“Damnit, we scared her!” I said to Alex.“Come on!”Without another word, I took off after her.I faintly heard Alex mumbling something behind me, and caught the soft thud of two cans of hard cider hitting the grass, followed by the rapid footfalls of my friend running after me.The hearing of a Drake is more acute than human hearing; I could hear not only all that, but the fearful sounds of the brunette running ahead of me.

Why had we scared her so much?Wanting to know the reason why had suddenly, somehow become the most important thing in the world to me.I couldn’t just let her runaway and leave it at that, without her knowing that I wanted to help her, not hurt her.

Alex caught up with me and we quickly started to close the distance between ourselves and the brunette, when she either lost her footing or it became too much for her to run so fast while carrying the bag.Whatever the reason, she suddenly went flying forward off her feet and tumbled and spilled onto the park grass, her bag rolling off to one side of her.

The woman trying to get away from the “monsters” stumbled and fell.I slowed down, shaking my head, and Alex slowed down with me.It was just like something out of a horror movie.

And that made me think of something that hadn’t occurred to me.Some humans were actually prejudiced against Drakes, feared and hated us just because we had another body, the body of a dragon.Was that it?My heart sank again, thinking that this beautiful, curvy woman might actually be a dracophobe.Please, I thought, don’t let that be it.

She was panting and sobbing on the grass, struggling to pull herself up again, her hair partly falling across her tear-stained face.Something inside me broke at the sight of her that way.“Please,” she sobbed, “just leave me alone.I don’t want any trouble.I just want to go.”She managed to get up on her knees and wept at us, “Please leave me alone.Please let me go.Please.”

Hoping to make her feel better by crouching down and being completely unaggressive, I got down on my own knees in front of her.Beside me, his own face returned to human, Alex watched us and scratched his head.“Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry we scared you.Very sorry.We don’t mean any harm.We just wanted that guy to stop bothering you.Honest.”

Her voice cracked.She cried harder.“I just want everyone to leave me alone.I’ve had enough trouble.I justwant to go somewhere.Anywhere…”She poured out her tears helplessly.My heart cracked as badly as her voice.

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