“And that was only four days?” Reaching for my hand, Bahlin helped me up, holding it for an extra moment when he had me vertical. He looked at me, and I felt the color rise in my cheeks. He squeezed and let go, stepping back.
“The longer you’re in there, the worse leaving will be. Ah well. It’s done now. I suppose we had better depart with all haste.” He began unbuttoning his pants, and I spun away from him.
“How the hell is getting naked going to help us get away from this damnable place?” I hissed. “I understand the whole near-death-reaffirming-life sex thing but this isn’t the time or place to—”
His deep, breathy laughter was my only answer. Something hit me in the back and I flinched, looking down as whatever it was slithered down my back. His jeans. I bent and picked them up without turning around, preparing to toss them back over my shoulder at him with some witty comment when I felt the air move. It wasn’t wind, but rather a disturbance of the molecules themselves. Static was everywhere, and my shirt crackled with it as I pulled his jeans into my arms. I was suddenly aware that something very large was behind me, and I froze, unable to even blink for a moment.
“Bay?” I asked in a soft voice, the kind you used to call out for your parents when you were a child scared of the night.
A deep snort sounded behind me, like a horse blowing out after a run, and I turned in slow motion and looked up, and up some more. He had shifted.
Bahlin’s dragon form was breathtaking and terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. He was enormous, standing roughly eight feet tall at the withers. In the pre-dawn darkness it was impossible to discern the color of his scales, but they were inky, so dense he seemed carved out of the shadows of night itself. He crouched in front of me on four legs, with two great muscular rear legs and two sinewy forelegs that were more like arms. Each foot held five claws as large as my forearm. His tail was long and barbed, and it swished back and forth with implied impatience. His eyes were the same icy blue I had experienced before, set into a massive head adorned with a horned crown at the end of a long neck. His face was shaped like a horse’s though his nose was slightly beaked and he had a sparse beard of spikes along his jaw. And his teeth. His teeth were massive and filled his mouth like daggers.
But it was his wings that stole my heart. Set into his shoulders where his arms met his body, they were iridescent and partially translucent, enough so I could see stars through the membrane of the wing. With a structure like that of a bat, the wings were like secondary arms. He had a small hooked claw at the upper bed of the wing and structural boning throughout to build support. The lightest of veining could be seen in the translucence. I stepped up close to him and reached out a hand tentatively to stroke his graceful neck and gasped with surprise at the texture of his scales. They were smooth and tight to his body. He really did feel like a lizard, but he was clearly warm-blooded. And while his scales must provide some type of protection, they were so supple they felt like saddle leather. I smiled and stroked the juncture of wing and body and he snorted and gave a grumbling growl, turning his head back to nose me closer. I couldn’t figure out what he was after until he bellied down to the ground and continued pushing me toward his back.
“You’re kidding,” I choked out. “I am not getting on your back.”
He snorted and looked back in the general direction of the door as if to say, “Don’t be stupid. Of course you are.”
I studied his back skeptically before I realized it really was feasible. If I sat just in front of the wings and hooked my knees carefully… I’d decided to give it a try when I heard the shout of pursuit behind me. Decision made.
With studied carefulness balanced with haste, Bahlin pushed me to his shoulder, stuck his nose under my butt and lifted me up. I scrambled ungracefully onto his back and with a great surge of power he unfurled his wings and pushed off