Riding My Dragons (The Dragons Of Tellus #1)

CHAPTER 5

Byron

I was well acquainted with Pendrake Technical University.My family had been donors and trustees of the place for as long as I could remember.And I had been personally acquainted with some of its female faculty and administrators.What we’d been discussing earlier about intellectual human women was very true.Now, however, we were interested not in a Pendrake Tech professor or administrator–but one of their students.

Our game plan was simple.We would find Jenna on a campus where most of the students had gone home for the week—easy enough.We’d introduce ourselves again, talk her up, and see if she might be interested in what we had in mind.As Cade would put it, “Feel her out, then feel her up.”

That was why Cade and I agreed that I’d do most of the talking.

The easiest part would be to find Jenna on a mostly empty campus where all the faculty were gone and only a few students were still there for the week.Elliot had given us the way to do that.He told us he had suggested to Jenna that she attend the University’s live feed of his race.They would be offering that as a way to give the kids still on campus something to do.It was perfect.Cade and I headed for Pendrake Tech’s outdoor auditorium.

It was a wide, circular amphitheater-type space with seating all around and a big holoprojector disk at the bottom.The disk could project all sorts of things that were fed into it, from lectures to entertainment to what the school was offering today.It was a live feed of the annual Pendrake Circle Race, where the champions of the Scaler Professional Racing League would race around the city for the Pendrake Circle Prize.Elliot had taken the Circle Prize before, and Cade and I had put money on him taking it again.Afterwards, there was something else that Elliot would be wanting to “take,” and just perhaps Cade and I could manage to take some as well.

Arriving at the edge of the auditorium before the race got under way, we found her sitting by herself in the sparse group of kids scattered in little clusters through the seats.Jenna was by herself again.Why was that?Did she really not have many friends, or did she just enjoy solitude?That’s the way some people were, enjoying their own company.It just seemed a little unusual for a girl in college where she’s meeting all kinds of new people.Perhaps Elliot was right.Perhaps there was something about Jenna Callaway that was “different” from other first-year college girls.Now, like Elliot, I found myself wanting to know more about her, and not just the way I was most looking forward to knowing her.

We started walking down the tiered rows of seats and I called out to her, “Jenna!Hey, Jenna!”

She looked in our direction and we saw that she was surprised to see us—pleasantly, I hoped.

As we got near to where she was sitting, her surprise turned to curiosity, which I took as a good sign.“Oh.You guys.Byron, right?You gave the speech at the museum.And…”She pointed to my friend, trying to remember.

“Cade,” he reminded her with a smile.

“Right.Cade,” she said.

There were a couple of empty spaces on either side of her, and Cade and I helped ourselves to them, putting her between us.And not for the last time, we hoped.

“What brings you guys here?” Jenna asked.

“Great place to watch the race,” Cade replied.

“Oh.Right,” said Jenna.“And…don’t tell me.You have bets on it, don’t you?Elliot said you like to bet on his events.”

“He’s a champion,” said Cade.“Champs pay off.And it shows our buddy that we support him.”

“With a little bit of an ulterior motive,” I said.

I studied her reaction to that.I was a little concerned that she might find us a bit crass.Thankfully Jenna seemed more amused than judgmental, which I took as a positive sign.

She eyed us a little more curiously.“You want to see Elliot’s race—with a bunch of college students?”

“We want to see Elliot’s race,” I replied, “with you.”

Jenna looked carefully at me on one side of her and Cade on the opposite side.I measured her reaction and put on my most sincere face, and so did Cade, as we had both agreed we’d do.I watched Jenna for any sign of apprehension, fear, suspicion—anything to suggest she was wary of us, or that she would turn hostile or bolt and run.If that happened, not only might we lose our chance with her, but Elliot might miss out on ever seeing her as well.We would ruin Elliot’s chances of ever being with her again.The next few seconds could be crucial.

Jenna asked the next natural question.“Why?”

“Because Elliot said he liked you,” I replied.

She actually seemed a bit wary now, and I started to get worried that we had gone about this whole thing the wrong way.I began to think Cade and I should back out of this whole thing and let Elliot put in a good word for us later.We might still salvage this situation that way.

All she said was, “I see.”

“We’re good guys,” Cade assured her.

“Yes, we are,” I said.

“And you are Elliot’s friends,” she said, pondering aloud.

“We sure are,” said Cade.“And Elliot’s the best.”

“Hmm…,” she said, sighing, a bit dreamily, looking off—or probably looking into her recent memories.She knew for certain that Elliot was the best, after all the times he fucked her and was gentle and passionate with her, giving her his body and his prick and making her feel like the luckiest woman on Tellus.

Jenna faced me and said, “So you’re like a representative of your family, then.You have family who are in the government—the House of Dragons?”

“That’s right,” I said.“I’m a General Assistant and Liaison for public Affairs.A fancy way of saying I make sure we look good to the public and business people and so forth.”

“I see,” said Jenna.Then, to Cade, “And you…?”

Cade replied, “Nothing as fancy as Byron.I’m what you’d call an errand boy.My family’s in services to businesses.Whatever my family needs done to get their business done, I do.I contact people, make sure deals go smooth, make sure all clients get what they need.We’re buyers for all kinds of businesses .We’re part of the supply chain, you might say.”

“Oh,” said Jenna.“Well, it sounds like you have nice jobs.And…,” she sighed a bit again, “you are Elliot’s friends.”She took on a far-off look again, as if she were still in Elliot’s bed—under Elliot.

“And Elliot is the best,” I reminded her again.

“He is,” she said dreamily.No question about it:Elliot must have been so good to her—and with her—that he seemed like a hero to her.

A voice welled up from the speakers in the pavement around the holoprojector.“Gentlepersons, the Pendrake Circle Prize Race is about to get under way.We take you now to the top of the Lacerta Building, where the competitors have assembled.”

At once, a pillar of light, several Scaler wingspans wide, rose from the projector and shone high up overhead.An image materialized and resolved inside the light column, showing the top of the tallest building in the city, and eight figures in tight gear with no sleeves and open backs lined up along one edge of the roof.This was all being recorded and transmitted by a series of drones that would follow the action from the Lacerta Building roof to the endpoint of the race which waited in Fafnir Park in the center of the city.

“Look,” I pointed to one figure in a black bodysuit, “there’s Elliot.”

I glanced at Jenna and saw a smile blossom and spread on her face.It was easy to tell that even if she had no wager on the race, Jenna had her own favorite competitor who had gotten her to a “finish line” of her own a few times overnight.

There were eight of them lined up and spaced well apart up on that rooftop, the best racers on the continent, dressed in bodysuits of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, black, and white.They stood ready and waited for their cue.From a speaker on the nearest drone, probably the one from which this image was coming, came a voice that said, “The contestants will now morph shapes.”

At once, all eight of them went into stretching and flexing motions, making sure they were as loose and limber as they needed to be, and let go of their human bodies.As we watched, all human flesh turned to dragon scales, wings and tails came out, and body parts rendered themselves into dragon forms.The spaces between them allowed for the unfurling and stretching of wings and tails.Cade, Jenna, and I stayed focused on Elliot as he stretched his neck and reared back his dragon head, bathing in the sunshine.I glanced over at Jenna again; she scrunched and relaxed her shoulders as if warming up with him.

The voice from the drone called out, “Ready…steady…”Elliot and his seven competitors trained their dragon eyes ahead, leaning forward, putting one foot on the edge of the rooftop, and bracing wings and tails.“GO!”And like eight horned and scaly missiles, they leapt forth into the air, wings beating powerfully, dragon voices screeching with power and pride.The transmission switched to another view of the eight dragon figures soaring above the lower rooftops and starting the first leg of the race.Around us, other voices let out shouts and whoops along with them.I clenched my teeth; my heart sped up

Jenna let out a yelping sound with a big, enthusiastic grin on her face.She made a fist of one hand and put the fingertips of the other hand to her teeth and bounced a bit on her seat.

The initial sounds of excitement in the auditorium died down, everything turning anxiously quiet.The drones seamlessly showed different views of the race as the eight champions flew with wings outstretched and beating and tails whipping and slashing, propelling themselves over the city.Now there was an aerial view of them, shooting over the cityscape, veering skillfully around towers and spires.Then there was a shot of them from below the rooftops, silhouetted in the sunlight, some pulling ahead and others flapping furiously in an attempt to steal the lead.Next came a shot from the level of one taller building as the racing dragons came hurtling past, and I could almost imagine the sounds of them whooshing through the air.In this shot I looked carefully with my dragon-sharp vision and could just make out the black-suited form of Elliot blurring by, very close to the leading position.There were only a couple of others to overtake.I was confident that he’d get them.

From next to me I heard Jenna’s anxious murmurs of, “Oh, Elliot!Come on, Elliot, come on…!”And in a corner of my mind I imagined her crying out something very similar to that, in a different situation.

But the main focus of my attention, and Cade’s and Jenna’s, was the race.With a quickened breath, I watched a shot from behind the eight rivals as they swooped over a stretch of buildings with the trees of Fafnir Park waiting at the horizon.And I heard Cade saying with growing anticipation, “Come on, Elliot, you’ve got this.You’ve got this…”

Finally the view cut to the finish line, a long line of white sprayed onto the grass of Fafnir Park in the biggest open meadow with trees standing in clusters at its edges.On one side of the line, the pole of the finishing flag was planted in the turf.The area was roped off, with crowds of in-person spectators huddled at the ropes, some in dragon shapes and some human, all eyes trained on one particular/ area over the distant trees with the tops of buildings peeking above them.Cade and I might have been in those crowds if we didn’t have a reason to be right where we were.At any second, the incoming shapes of the racers would appear over those buildings, aimed at the park, the line, and the flag.

In the audio of the display came a chorus of voices, and we could see people pointing at a spot at a certain angle overhead.The drone camera caught a collection of shapes coming over the rooftops at the edge of the park.Cade and I leaned forward with anticipation and Jenna sat with fists clenched.She almost squealed, “Ooohhh, Elliot…!Elliot…!”

A few seconds passed and the incoming shapes came into sharper view.We could make out the red racer, the blue one, the violet one…and in the lead, the dragon in black!

“Yes!” I almost hissed as if in my other shape.

“Come on, Elliot!” Cade shouted, one of several raised voices in the tiers of seats around us.Jenna bounced in her seat, now squealing wordlessly at the impending end of the race.

The four leading racers swooped in low over the street at the park’s edge and angled themselves down over the treetops.The four others hurtled behind them.And ahead of them all, there was Elliot, his neck straight, his wings at full spread, his tail twirling, looking like a missile with scales and horns.My teeth clenched, I murmured, “You’ve got this, Elliot!You’ve got this, you’ve got this…”

And yes, he had it.The people in the park screeched and wailed so that one could hardly tell humans from dragons.Elliot swooped in fast and low, with none of the others able to catch him.He stretched out one scaly arm and opened his taloned hand.And in a blur of motion, he shot over the white line in the grass and seized the flagpole, whipping the waving flag out of the turf.He pulled up into the air above the grass and shrieked and skirled in triumph, his tail thrashing, his wings beating hard, the flag whipping in the air.He hovered there, displaying the flag to the screaming and whooping crowd, while his seven competitors came in for landings in the grass beyond the line.The Pendrake Circle Prize Race had its winner!All of us at the University leapt to our feet, shouting, some of us—including Cade and me—pumping fists in the air.Jenna jumped up and down and clapped her hands.In the display before us, people in the crowd were doing similar things while Elliot settled onto the grass, flag and victory in hand.

In the midst of the excitement, Cade and I both took out our mirrors to check our winnings from the race, which were automatically recorded and transmitted to our accounts.We looked up at each other and traded very satisfied smiles.Jenna noticed and asked me, “How did you guys make out?”

I loved the way she phrased that, but answered only, “We did great.Elliot really came through.”

”Sure did,” said Cade.

Jenna looked as pleased for both of us as she was for Elliot.Very soon, perhaps, that would mean she’d be even more pleased by us.

The voices around us ebbed down to a hubbub.People began to disperse from the auditorium, walking up the tiers of seats as the holoprojection faded.Now it was time for our other, main purpose in being here on campus.I wondered how to segue into it, but Jenna set it up perfectly for us when she asked, “What’ll you guys be doing now?”

I replied, “Cade and I are headed back over to my place.Would you like to join us?”

Awkwardly, Jenna looked back and forth between us and said, “Oh, guys.Um, Elliot and I had plans for later.”

”We know,” I said.“Elliot’s welcome to join us.”

She actually blushed a bit, which made her that much more tantalizing.“Actually, what Elliot and I had planned was kind of…a date.”

I repeated, “We know.And Elliot is welcome.”

Jenna fidgeted a bit, unsurely, shifting on her feet.“Guys, Elliot and I had plans, you know…just for us.”

”Elliot likes to include us in his plans,” I said, smiling sincerely.“And we like to include him in ours.”

“But you don’t seem to get what I’m saying,” she said, brushing her fingers through a lock of her hair, a little nervously.

”We get exactly what you’re saying,” I assured her.“We ‘date’ with Elliot all the time.”

Now she was startled.Her eyes darted back and forth from Cade to me with sudden surprise.“You do?”

”We do!” I said.

Incredulously, Jenna said, “Really?The two of you…and Elliot?The three of\ you?”

”Yep!” said Cade.“And everybody has a good time!”

Jenna’s disbelief grew.She hugged herself with one arm.“But…it’s the three of you.That’s…four people.”

I said, “That would be the three of us…and you.If you’re interested.”

Not seeming to want to believe what she was growing to understand, Jenna said, “But that would be…all of us!”

Cade leaned just a little bit towards her, grinning meaningfully, and said, “And we promise you’ll love it.”

I started to worry a little that Cade was making her too apprehensive, and quickly cut in, “Jenna, we don’t mean to scare you and we don’t want you to feel rushed or pressured or overwhelmed.It might seem like a lot to handle, so to speak.But we think we could make you feel good.Maybe better than you’ve ever felt.Consider it.You enjoyed being with Elliot.I think maybe you might be attracted to us the way you are to him.It could be a really beautiful thing for you.And if you trust Elliot, I swear you can trust us.”

She couldn’t seem to get past the fact of it.We seemed to be losing her.“But…the three of you…”

”We can see you’re unsure about the idea,” I said, remembering the last thing we talked about before leaving Elliot’s place.“Maybe we’ll just let you consider it.But when you see Elliot, ask him about how we get together.He’ll tell you how good it is.If you want, we’ll go and let you think it over.”

Jenna still looked hesitant.She took a breath but said nothing.Her uncertainty was obvious.

“Okay,” I said.“It looks like you’re not sure.That’s fair.We’ll just go.But really, when you see Elliot, ask him about us.”I touched my friend on one arm and tilted my head towards the top of the tiers and said, “Come on, Cade.”

Cade and I started walking up the tiers towards the campus beyond.He looked over at me disappointedly and I just gave him a roll of my eyes, a shrugging expression that said without words, Well, we gave it a try, right?

And that was when we heard her voice calling from behind and below us, “Wait!”

We stopped and turned.She was walking quickly up the tiers after us.Did this mean all wasn’t lost?

Reaching us, Jenna blurted, “I have a confession.”

”What?” I replied.

She said, “Elliot messaged me before the race.He told me to expect you.He said you were his friends and you’re okay.”

”We are,” said Cade.“We’re for real.”

To me, Jenna said, “So…you want to go back to your place?”

”And you can trust us,” I said.“Absolutely.”

The moment seemed to freeze around us.Jenna shut her eyes, creased her lips, and took a deep breath.

We saw a more decisive look when she opened her eyes again.“Okay,” said Jenna.“Let’s go.”

My heart gave a little leap inside me at this, the second thing that Cade and I had “won” today.“Great!” I said.“Let’s go!”

It was now the three of us, continuing back up the auditorium tiers together.Jenna said, “And you’re both really good?Like Elliot is good?”

I grinned sexily at her, and saw the same expression coming from Cade.“Just wait,” I replied.

And like that, we were on our way.