Page 19 of Hungry Like A Dragon
“True.”
She glared at him. “I screwed up. I get it. But that does not give you the right to butt your damn snout into my life. I have a job to do, and I’m trying to get it done so I can go home.”
“So you do plan on coming home.” Okay, yeah, he’d been a little nervous. She seemed to have a pretty good gig going down here, and hell, the food alone would make him consider moving to New Orleans.
“Of course I do. I’m a Zilarra dragon. That’s where I belong.”
Thank the gods. “Good.”
“That decision has nothing to do with you.”
“I didn’t say it did.” Why was the woman so damn defensive?
“There he is!”
The shouted voice sounded familiar. Noah twisted his head.
“That’s the bastard who fucking attacked me!”
Uh-oh, it was Petra’s date, and he’d found a few friends. The group of four dragons started jogging down the sidewalk toward them.
“We gotta get out of here,” Noah said, and this time, he grabbed Petra’s hand and dragged her down the nearest alley.
Which ended at a solid brick wall.
“Shit.”
“Next time, let me lead,” she said. “I’ve lived here for a year now. I know which alleys are good escape routes and which ones end like a bad horror flick.”
She glanced around, clearly assessing their situation. The pack of dragons paused at the mouth of the alley.
Noah didn’t wait for her to come to the conclusion on her own. He nodded at the sky. “Time to fly.”
“There are a ton of humans around here.”
“This alley’s plenty dark enough to cover our shift, and the sun’s gone down. Besides, would you rather stick around to find out if the two of us can best the four of them?”
“Fair point,” she said, eyeing the dragons who were now stalking toward them. “Okay, once we shift, follow me. They’re probably going to do the same thing; I know a place we can lose them.”
“Go,” he shouted. He wasn’t about to shift until he knew damn well she had and was out of harm’s way.
That tell-tale shimmer of magic shot down his arm; he released his hold on her hand as it morphed into a clawed foot. The alley was narrow, too narrow for her to spread her ten-foot wings and fly, so once she’d fully transformed, she leaped up, her claws latching onto the wall. A cloud of dust smacked him in the face while chunks of brick and mortar crumbled and crashed to the cement as she scaled the vertical surface. The other four dragons shouted and began running toward them.
Noah wasted no more time. He summoned the magic, willing his body to let go of its human form and turn into a massive beast with leathery wings, snakelike eyes, and scales. His dragon roared in his head as his skin bubbled, turning from tan to silver. His shoulders expanded and wings sprouted from the blades while his tailbone grew until it was long enough to whip against the wall, shaking a few more bricks loose.
“We need to shift and go after them,” one of the chasing dragons shouted.
“Get deeper into the alley first,” another called back.
Noah glanced up the height of the wall in front of him. Petra perched at the top. Shit, he needed to get up there so she’d take off and fly. They needed to get above the clouds before a human spotted them.
With a growl, he jumped, shoving out his front legs at the same time so that they latched onto the brick and held him in place. Extracting first one clawed foot then the other, he scurried toward the roof. If they weren’t being chased by pissed off dragons, this might actually be fun.
The air shimmered, warning him that another dragon was shifting. Time tomove.
The second he reached the top, Petra belched a small ball of fire and took off, and Noah shoved off from the clay tile roof, his wings spreading and flapping, catching air and shoving him toward the darkened sky.
Petra hovered a few hundred feet up, waiting for him. She nodded and then tilted to the right, beating her wings as she led him away from danger.
