Capítulo 21: Chapter 19

Ryuu growled again, lower than he had last time but not even close to how he had been growling at Alodie. He lifted his head suddenly, completely stopping his growl, looking around. Worried they were about to get caught, Jayde turned to look around too, not really able to see over the heads of the crowd though. That was the moment the large, slimy jerk of a dragon grabbed her, completely picking her up off the ground.

Jayde’s breath left her in a rush as terror spread through her body. She didn’t have the air to scream, but she wiggled around fiercely, feeling like she was definitely going to end the day with a panic attack. She was able to get her fingertips under the edges of some scales and gripped them tightly. He held her up in front of him, about twenty feet off the ground, and puffed ice-cold air at her again. She gasped the air into her lungs, feeling like they would freeze from the temperature. But looking down, barely able to distinguish the features of the people below her, had her almost in tears.

Close to hyperventilating, Jayde tried to calm down. Moving her grip to what she assumed was his thumb, she felt slightly safer with her arms wrapped around it. She glared at Ryuu.

“This is NOT okay! Put me down now, Pendragon!”

He made a noise like he was laughing at her and simply held her closer to his body. She hissed in annoyance, looking down again to see that the blonde was being helped to her feet and into the crowd by a couple of her friends. The rest of the crowd was watching in surprise, fright, or amusement. The majority seemed amused and entertained by the drama. Jayde even saw some guys from the team shake their heads, laughing as they set up the knocked over drink table.

Jayde noticed there were no strips of clothing anywhere and wondered where Ryuu’s clothes had gone when he had transformed. Had they simply disintegrated or did they somehow turn with him?

“Hey, Ry! Change back, would ya? If you don’t, a teacher is definitely going to see you and the party is gonna get shot down fast. Come on, dude! Shift back!”

Looking towards where the guy’s voice was coming from, she spotted a muscled brunette with a ripped tank on, grinning up at them. Ryuu tilted his head slightly, listening to him, then sighed heavily, another cloud of air coming out of his nostrils.

Then, just as suddenly as she had been picked up, she was put down. With her feet back on solid ground, Jayde shakily scrambled away towards the other side of the clearing. People kind of stared at her as she walked by, a few looking at her with disgust, like she was diseased or something. She decided that to enjoy the rest of the night, a drink was now at the very top of her list of things to do.

Upon arriving at the drink table, she grabbed a solo cup from one of the three groups and downed it in one go. After swallowing, she coughed, wincing a little at the burn in her throat. She looked at the label in front of the group and chuckled, thinking it was a hell of a time for her first drink of Captain Morgan. She read the other two labels and grabbed a cup from the group of BudLights.

Pheli appeared beside her, looking a little mussed. Her hair was frizzier than it had been, clothing was slightly out of place, and when Jayde turned to see Will, he had smudges of pink lip gloss on his neck. Jayde raised an eyebrow at them then raised her cup in a toast-like way to her friend and the boyfriend.

Cheeks flaming red, Pheli quickly fixed her clothing, sliding her top so that the seam was along her side instead of over her chest. “We, uh, heard a scream, thought it could have been you. I’m glad to see it wasn’t!”

“Oh, that’s because I couldn’t scream,” Jayde said nonchalantly, looking over her friend’s shoulder as she gulped down half the beer, looking for a dragon but making eye contact with a now very human, very shirtless, Ryuu. “I didn’t have enough air too. That was Alodie, the first one being from when I broke her nose.”

Eyes widening, almost making her drink come out of her nose, Pheli started sputtering out questions. Jayde listened with half an ear, keeping her eyes and mind on the shirtless guy approaching instead. The rest of the beer went down, and she wondered how just looking at the guy could make her heart race when it had finally stopped. Maybe it was how his skin was bronze everywhere she could see, and it glowed in the light from the fire. Maybe it was how fit Ryuu’s body was, a subtle six-pack of abs and the hint of indents at his hips like a lot of male models had. Maybe it was just the way the jeans he now wore rode low enough that either he wore his underwear low, or he wasn’t wearing any.

A new burning hunger filled Jayde as she helplessly stared at him. But the alarming feeling of something inside her breaking free, stretching out through her veins, had her petrified. As it felt like it continued to grow, Jayde was sure that the onslaught of tingles and itchiness in her gums meant that her canines had become longer.

“JAYDE! You’re not even- oh my God,” Pheli’s shout then gasp of surprise confirmed she had fangs. “Are you okay?”

“Mhm,” Jayde kept her lips closed, hoping that would help conceal the scary looking fangs as she tried to reassure her friend that she was fine.

She glanced at Pheli, seeing her friend chewing on her lip, and smiled tightly before turning to grab another drink. When Jayde turned back to watch the crowd, and Ryuu, she noted that a couple of football guys had stopped him for a moment but that his eyes hadn’t seemed to have left her. Jayde blinked, making sure she was being stared at, and stared right back at him as a raging need flooded her mind. Unthinkingly, her eyes traveled down to his neck, her eyesight becoming sharper as it seemed like she could see the literal pulse of the vein in his neck that was obviously calling out to her.

Utterly terrified of the thoughts and feelings blossoming in her, Jayde chugged the beer in her hand, threw it away, and grabbed another as Ryuu started towards her again. Jayde looked at Pheli, at Ryuu, then back to Pheli with a pleading look before she quickly walked into the trees, away from the approaching temptation named Ryuu Pendragon. She heard Pheli call out to Ryuu and silently thanked her best friend for getting what she had been conveying in her look.

It didn’t take long for her to get away from the light of the fire as she almost ran away from the clearing. Once she felt like she was far enough away from the light, she sighed as she sank into the deep shadows of a tree. Jayde sent a silent prayer to whoever was listening that she wouldn’t be found.

Drinking the beer in hand slowly but steadily, she thought over whether a dragon would have the necessary scenting skills to track. She probably reeked of alcohol by now, having drunk half cup of whiskey and then three full cups of beer. She’d also sprayed some of her favorite cherry blossom perfume on before leaving her room. It probably wouldn’t be hard to track her with all the scents that were available to track her down with.

Another thought. Why wasn’t she feeling anything from the alcohol? She’d definitely down them fast enough to have felt something by the time she’d walked this far out. Whiskey normally had her stumbling around within ten minutes of drinking it, but she felt only a mild buzz. Could be that the buzz from the high adrenaline was somehow countering the effects, but Jayde doubted it.

Just like when she’d been walking to the party, she could feel the bass of the music as she sat back against the tree. It was vibrating from it. It almost felt like the music had been turned up higher from what it had been before Ryuu had changed.

Speaking of...he was a beautiful dragon. She closed her eyes to pull up the image of him as a dragon in her mind. His scales had a sheen that had turned them slightly blue if Jayde looked at them from the right angle. And his eyes! Jayde hadn’t known it was possible for a person - or dragon - to have silver eyes. Gray, sure. It was blue with almost no color. But silver?

Fantasy.

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