Page 2 of Rescued By My Dragons

”And we’re not going anywhere,” said Byron.

”We’re for keeps,” Cade agreed.

“I know,” said Jenna, smiling at each of us.“We are for keeps.”

”And we will find your Dad,” said Cade confidently.“Wherever he is.”

”He’s out there somewhere,” Byron said.“And one way or another, we’ll find him.Your uncle and his friends won’t stop looking, and we won’t, either.”

”You guys are the best,” said Jenna.

”The best for you,” I said, kissing her on the head.“Come on, guys, we’ve got her packed up; let’s get her moved out.”

On the floor were Jenna’s bags and her backpack, ready to go except for the domain ring, her most precious possession.The guys and I got the bags while Jenna slipped the ring into a leatherette sleeve and slipped that carefully into a pocket of her backpack, then slung that over her back.

“Well,” she said, gazing at the empty room around us—the stripped bed, the empty shelves, the bare walls—“that wraps it up for my first year at Pendrake Tech University.It’s sure been eventful—especially since that day at the beginning of Reconciliation Week when I met three handsome guys,” and she gave the three of us that smile again.

Byron said, “And your summer might turn out to be just as eventful.”

Taking Jenna’s hand, I said, “Next stop, my place.”

We all left the room and walked downstairs to exit the building.Jenna would be spending this summer at my apartment, and I was anxiously looking forward to it.We were all anxiously looking forward to it.Byron and Cade would be there with us a lot.It would be the best summer that any of us ever had.

In the front yard of the dorm, the guys and I quickly morphed to dragon form.Our necks turned serpentine; our heads became reptilian and horned.Our skin turned to scales, our hands to scaly claws.We grew mighty wings and powerful tails.I handed the bag I was carrying to Byron and scooped up Jenna, the most precious cargo of all, in my arms.With a proud, excited hiss, I beat my wings and thrashed my tail, and Jenna held on tight as I lifted us from the ground and into the air over the campus, with Byron and Cade flying right behind us.

We quickly claimed the sky, the campus buildings now looking like toys spread on a tabletop below us, the wind rustling against our scales and through Jenna’s hair.Veering off, we flew to the northeast part of Pendrake City, where my apartment was.Jenna was right.Her first year at the University, her first months in our world, had been very eventful, for her and for all of us.

And who knew what the warm summer ahead of us might have in store?

CHAPTER 2

Cade

Since it wasn’t going to be the kind of night that I really wanted, I figured I’d better make the most of the little time I had to myself after dropping off Jenna at Elliot’s place.

While I was in the cage, there wasn’t much to do besides start sorting out my life and the reasons I was locked up in the first place.Once I was out, Byron invited me to stay with him while I finished sorting things out.Living with him meant having access to all the amenities of his upper-nest life—including being his guest at the best gym in Pendrake City.

The way we were stripped down to just codpieces, elbow pads, and knee pads, it reminded me of Elliot at one of his wrestling matches that we’d bet on so many times.This practice room that we were in now was the kind of room that Elliot, who was also a member here, probably used to keep his wrestling skills sharp.It was a wide space with a high-vaulted ceiling like the inside of a church, a scaffold with lights across the ceiling, and padded walls and flooring.Byron had started coming here regularly after everything that went on in Reptos, which was interesting.It seemed like he wasn’t the only one who’d turned a page in his life since we met Jenna.

“So,” said Byron, facing me, “do you want to do this human or dragon?”

As an answer, I let the horns come out on my head and the scales break out on my skin.

“Dragon it is, then,” Byron said, starting to morph himself as we both went to a rack above a long bench against one wall.Resting on the rack were two sword-like foils and twomasks, specially molded to fit over dragon faces.By the time we got to the rack, we had both taken full dragon form, our tails twisting behind us, our wings folded tight against our backs.We each took a mask and slipped it over our snout and eyes.The tough scale plates up and down our chests and abs would protect us well enough from the foils.The codpieces and pads would do the job for other critical spots.Once masked, we each took a foil and walked back to the center of the room.

Byron raised his foil in front of his masked face and called out, “Stand to!”He sounded like some high-born, noble dragon in some old story that I hadn’t paid attention to in school.I hissed behind my mask.Considering Byron’s upbringing, this really was like a noble dragon dueling with a commoner.

” ‘Stand to,’ yourself!” I called back, and raised my own foil and, each of us taking the fencing start position—foil forward, free hand raised, we went at it.

The air was filled with the clattering, slashing noises of our two blades hitting against each other as we lunged and thrust and parried, Byron making me back up first, then me getting more aggressive and slashing and swishing faster at him, and Byron backing up in response.Byron started moving faster then, and soon the two of us were making little leaps forward and back and feints to one side of the other, searching for weaknesses, finding openings, blocking or being blocked.

It really got my blood pumping.Fencing like this was such an upper-class kind of sport, the kind of thing you did in a place like this when you belonged to the kind of society that came here.On the streets where I grew up, we didn’t live in the gutter.There was no such thing as a “gutter” in our world, the way it was since humans and scalers united and learned to live together and share the Ambience.But there were always more and less ambitious people, and people who made more of a fortune andmore of a social standing.Unlike my friend here, I was a street kid.We had our own kind of “fencing,” which we did with our tails holding sticks or mop handles, or at closer quarters with just our tails thrusting and slapping.This was more of a refined kind of play than I was used to—but I was still good at it and so was Byron.

He’d gotten really good.He was moving his foil so fast, my dragon ears picked up the sound of it swooshing in the air.The clatter and slash of blade against blade got louder; the back and forth and side to side movements of our bodies got faster.Byron hit my foil to one side; I looped it up and over and went for the opening that he left.I stabbed hard and fast at his chest, but he was just a fraction faster.He lunged back, taking his chest plates out of the space where the point of my foil entered, then slashed hard again, knocking my blade away.Byron made a lunge of his own for my chest, but I twisted to dodge his foil and slashed it to one side.I leapt back and got ready for his next attack.

Byron and I started to circle each other warily on the padded floor.Our tails twitched, anticipating what we’d do next.He went into a standing pose with a hand on one hip and his foil raised.It was as if time stood still for a second.Then I moved in with a leap forward and my blade stabbing forward while Byron just stood there like a statue.In a split-second I realized what he’d done.He’d lured me in, invited me to try something, and as soon as I attacked, he moved his blade arm as fast as a striking snake.The next thing I knew, he knocked my foil to one side, swiveled with his own foil, lunged fast, and connected the point of his blade with my left chest plate.

His foil drew no blood and didn’t hurt—except my pride.Damnit, he’d gotten me.I leapt back and whipped off my mask, my tail curling with the feeling of defeat.“All right,” I said, “that one’s yours.”

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