I was sitting back on my hind legs, tail out for balance, and cleaning my claws of blood, when the neighbour’s sliding back door opened. He was a human male, older, with salt and pepper hair. His middle was rounded, hanging over his pants and stretching his long-sleeved shirt.
We stared at each other, me with wary curiosity, him with eye-bulging astonishment.
“Holy, shit,” the man breathed. “Holy shit, holy shit!”
My eyes darted, and I began to back away. I needed to find a high surface, somewhere I could jump from and fly away.
The man spun in a circle, as if looking for something. “No one is going to believe me, no one is going to fucking believe me,” he was muttering. “A dragon, oh my God, it’s a freaking dragon.” When he noticed my retreat, he dropped heavily to his knees. “No, no, don’t go,” he murmured, and held out his hand.
I stopped, and eyed him. The human didn’t seem dangerous, and an insidious curiosity crept up, making me reckless. I had never talked to anyone besides David, and most of the time David didn’t seem to want to talk to me at all. I edged closer.
Distantly, I was aware of a slamming door, and a familiar shout. “Sasha!” It drifted out the open window. My eyes flicked toward my house, and I suddenly wondered if David would be mad. He never let his females see me, not ever. What if he didn’t want this human to see me either?
The minute I took my attention from him, the human lunged. I squealed in alarm when one sweaty palm engulfed my muzzle, cutting off my air, and a heavy arm wrapped around my body, pinning my wings. I clawed at him, opening bloody furrows. He cursed, struggling to keep me down. My tail lashed out, striking him in the head like a whip. For a moment, he was dazed by the blow, and his grip lessened. I bucked and twisted, but he was too heavy. I reared my neck back, and sank my teeth into the meaty part of his thumb. He yelped, but didn’t fall away.
A creak drew our attention to the fence. One great, scaled paw appeared over the top, three inch long ivory talons sinking into the wood. A second paw landed beside it. Suddenly, a great scaled beast hauled itself over, dropping with half-flared wings into the grass.
While I was small and delicate, pretty like a gem, David was a monster of nightmares. He was bulky with thick muscle padding his shoulders and flanks. His scales were grey, where mine were red, and capped at the tips with half-moons of black. On his right side, several large scales were rent with whitish scar tissue. He flared his wings, the thin membrane turning pearl-coloured in the sun, and hissed, much like I had at the cat. My hiss had been high and reedy. David’s was like the slide of sand through a metal pipe: loud and echoing. The human let go of me, and backed up so fast he stumbled over himself.
I scrambled to hide beneath the shadow of David’s wing. He twisted his long neck and chuffed at me, sending me scuttling to the fence instead. He turned back to the human.
The male had risen to his feet. His eyes were wide, whites showing, and he smelled like fear-sweat. The large grey dragon leapt at him and the human fell back. A dark stain spread across the front of his trousers and slid down one leg. The sour sent of urine filled the air. David chortled, a low, deep grumble of dark amusement. His tail lashed, and I had to duck as it swung over my head. The moment the human tried to regain his feet, David leapt at him a second time, not even bothering to come close. The male cried out, and fell again anyway. His heels dug at the ground, scooting himself back so fast his arms couldn’t keep up. They slipped, and he thumped onto his back. He rolled over, taking his eyes off the dragon in favour of regaining his feet, and began to run toward a closed gate.
I don’t know what I expected David to do. Pounce and kill the human, maybe. Hurt him a little, at the very least. He didn’t, not right away. He dashed past the human, a blur of grey and black, and blocked his way, sending him reeling blindly in the opposite direction. He ran again, cutting the male’s path off. The male fled. David barred his way. This continued for only moments, but felt longer to my fascinated eyes. I didn’t understand. David clearly wasn’t hurting him. Why did the human keep running? I only knew, had it been me, I would not have continued to do the same thing over and over in hope of a different result. It was madness, and not a little foolish.
Suddenly, the human froze in place, shaking, sweating, and dripping with his own pee in the middle of the sunny, manicured yard. He looked out of place, like a smudge on an otherwise pretty painting, and I wondered what he would do next. He looked down at his hand, the one I’d bitten. Then, he swayed. David’s eyes were trained on him, circling in a movement that was pure dragon: part serpentine, like he had extra joints in odd places, and part curious cat, with light, quick paws. Abruptly, the human crumpled into unconscious heap. There was a beat of silence and I blinked, uncomprehending. Almost delicately, David used one claw to tip the human’s chin up. He glanced back at me and the anger in his eyes had me sinking low to my belly. Then, without preamble, he ripped the human’s throat out.
Blood gushed like a fountain, more blood than I had ever seen. Had I been human, I would have been horrified. It was the proper human response. But I wasn’t human, had never been so, and all I felt was confusion. It wasn’t because David had killed him; he had attacked me after all. No, I was still puzzling over the human’s collapse. My bite hadn’t been mortal; he’d barely been bleeding.
David’s shadow fell over me, and a bloody chunk dropped from his mouth, splattering my scarlet scales with like-coloured blood. I glanced at the human male’s flesh, and then rolled my eyes up to look at David. His eyes were still angry. When his head descended, mouth open, I was prepared to have my throat ripped open as well. David bit down on my lower neck where my skin gathered between my shoulder blades. His lips were rolled under, protecting my softer scales from his teeth, and he picked me up. I swung limply as he crawled back over the fence. The hold was not comfortable, but I dared not protest.
Upon our return home, David immediately Changed and began furiously packing out belongings. Within hours we were fleeing across state lines. Authorities investigated the human’s death and sought us for questioning. Once the death was deemed an animal attack, they stopped looking very hard. And so, the first chapter of my life came to a close.
