Wrage (Galaxy Gladiators #11) - Alana Khan Page 0,66

first to the priest and then to the supplicant. It’s the final step in awakening the animal within me.

“Kai-Lee,” he says, then walks me to the portal. “You walk through this portal an um’rah. You return a li’rah. Blessings.”

No one is allowed into this place except the priest and the um’rah on their shifting day. It’s not an enclosed room, but an outdoor space ringed by eight rectangular pillars. Each column is decorated with a mosaic of an animal on each of its sides, presenting me with many possibilities. But my animal is already alive inside me, it just has to decide when to greet me.

The already-burning fire inside me ignites into an even hotter flame. Pressure explodes and pain flies along my veins.

Everything looks different, muted, as I gaze out through larger eyes and look down at my hooves. My muscles continue to spasm for a few moments, and then my change is complete. I’m a golden stallion!

I walk between two pillars out into the open meadow and lope effortlessly through the tall purple grasses. I jump over large rocks and then press this new body’s limits, running like my life depended upon it. I’ve never felt so free.

I wade through the stream, up to my knees in the swift-flowing water, then dip my head for a drink. Water never tasted this cool or refreshing.

As I amble back to the pillars, the fires return. Is it always supposed to hurt like this? I squeal in pain, going down on my front knees, unable to stand.

Agony burns brightly in my withers until I squeal again. And then wings emerge from my withers, and I realize I’m shifting into a dragon.

Moments later I intuit how to lift myself off the ground and I’m flying. The feeling is amazing as the wind caresses my skin. How many times have I laid on the pale purple grasses, looked up at the birds, and wondered what it would feel like to fly? To drift on the wind currents? This. This is better than I imagined.

As I circle toward the temple, I see all my tribe spilling out the front door to point to me. I snort at them and fly to inspect the People’s lands.

We’re bounded by the mountains to the East and the Malee River to the west. The country is lush and purple with rolling hills.

When I return to the temple, my people will think I’m a dragon shifter, but I’m not. I’m a chameleon like my father—an az’rah. I can shift into anything. It’s truly a gift from the Gods. I can help my people in many ways, from land and sea and air.

I want to be the best male I can be. I want to lead, if that’s in the stars, but most of all I want to protect.

Chapter One

Present Day . . .

KJ

Somewhere in the last ten minutes I lost all hope that I’d wake up from this nightmare. I’d kept up the illusion that this was a bad dream through opening my eyes in a stasis pod to seeing the boar-faced aliens who abducted me from Earth, to landing on this planet and being force-marched through swirling red sands to the mansion where I’m standing.

I can’t keep up my self-delusion any longer though. Every inch of my exposed skin is stinging from the biting sand, and there’s a point on my spine that aches from where one of the guards thumped me with a laser gun to prod me to move faster.

The most conspicuous reason of all that I can’t pretend this isn’t happening is the humanoid snake standing less than two feet from me.

“My new pet has arrived,” he says, circling me. As he appraises me, I do the same. He’s six-feet tall and bipedal. He’s wearing a blue silk Hugh Hefner-esque smoking jacket. His arms are humanoid to an extent, but his black fingernails are sharp as stilettos.

It’s his head, though, that’s the skeeviest part. It belongs on a cobra. Covered in black scales, there’s a cowling around what I assume are hidden earholes. When he blinks, you can’t see his eyes—they’re so black they’re camouflaged by his scales. It’s only when his reptilian eyes are open and reflect the light that you can tell he has eyes at all.

All of that is overpowered by his most alarming feature—the teeth. Two elongated canines at least an inch and a half long are surrounded by a random assortment of shorter, jagged teeth that most certainly must be