Riding My Dragons (The Dragons Of Tellus #1)

CHAPTER 13

Elliot

The three of us woke up in my bed, Jenna lying between Byron and me in tangled sheets, and picked up where we left off a few very busy hours ago.Byron started us off, which worked out well, because while Jenna and I enjoyed ourselves there was a musical sound in the room that was not from her moaning under me and me grunting atop her.

Byron broke from admiring my enthusiastic work and Jenna’s enthusiastic response and looked up.“That sounds like my mirror.Excuse me,” he said, always the gentleman except when he was doing what I happened to be doing at the moment.And he got up from the bouncing mattress and went to find his trousers.

Jenna and I were too wrapped up in this morning fuck to hear clearly any of what Byron was saying across the bedroom.As I humped and kissed her and she pawed at my back, I was dimly aware of Byron saying, “Hey, where are you?Why aren’t you over here at Elliot’s?You should come over and get some…You’re where?What are you doing there?You did?And then you…What?So, you’ve been…?All night?And it’s all over the…Wait a minute; I’m going into another room…”

He obviously stepped away to be able to concentrate better on whoever had called him without the distraction of the sounds coming from the bed.I faintly heard his footfalls padding on the floor; then everything got lost in the feeling of what I was doing to Jenna and how she loved it.After we came and I pulled out and rolled off, we cuddled and kissed together, and slowly remembered that there had been someone with us.

”Where did Byron go?” Jenna asked in our post-coital buzz as she ran a fingertip along my spent cock, and I slowly circled her nipple with my own finger.

”Must have taken his call in the living room or something,” I said, kissing the tip of her nose.“Sounds like it was Cade.Byron’ll be back.Maybe we can both get you in the shower.There’s enough room.Then when Cade gets here, he can get some of what he’s been missing.”

”That sounds wonderful,” she said, and we folded up into another deep kiss, my hand now roaming down her back.

The next thing we heard was the urgent sound of Byron’s voice.“Elliot!Turn on the monitor, quick!There’s something on the media we need to see!”

His tone and his request were both startling.Jenna and I broke from what we were doing and sat up on the bed to find him looking very worried, even a little scared.

A little apprehension crept into Jenna’s voice.“What, Byron?What’s going on?”

”It’ll be better if you just look,” Byron insisted.“Elliot, turn on the monitor right now!”

Now feeling as worried as Byron sounded, I rolled across the bed to one of the nightstands and reached for the control of the monitor that took up most of the opposite wall.I turned it on and brought up the media feed channel.My jaw dropped open and Jenna gasped at what unfolded on the screen.

The newsgiver was a woman.Keyed in beside her was the image of a plain-looking building near trees and other, more distinctive-looking brick buildings.Jenna leaned forward, bending her legs, narrowing her eyes at the screen, finding the image familiar.“Is that…?” she began.

“At this hour,” the newsgiver announced, “there are no further details about last night’s break-in at the warehouse of Pendrake Technical University.A lone Scaler male somehow bypassed the warehouse’s security and entered the warehouse, where two University guards confronted him…”

Jenna gasped so loudly, I thought she would turn herself inside out.“Oh my God!” she cried.“A break-in?At the University?I’ve gone by that warehouse between classes; I know where that is!”

Starting to put things together, I looked from the monitor to Byron, who stood by with arms folded and an expression shadowed with worry.“Byron,” I asked, “did Cade tell you to look at this?”

Nodding his head slightly, looking more grim than I’d ever seen him, my friend quietly said simply, “Yes.”

Jenna, eyes widened and skin turning pale, faced Byron herself and asked, “Why would Cade want you to…?”She trailed off, suspecting the answer just as I did.

Nodding, still grim, not seeming to want to say anything else, Byron simply said, “Watch.”

We all returned our attention to the monitor.

While we’d been reacting, the newsgiver had continued her report and was still talking.“The intruder’s reasons for entering the warehouse aren’t known, and University security personnel and officials are now working to determine what he might have taken.The two guards stated that the intruder was not carrying anything that they could see.One of the guards has been treated at the University hospital for minor wounds and released.Here again is one guard’s recording of the intruder’s escape.It’s believed that the young male Scaler sustained minor wounds of his own during his getaway.”

The three of us watched, disbelieving, as the dragon figure who had just hurt one of the guards went flying quickly up and out of the open skylight with gunfire pursuing him.At the sight of one energy shot seeming to pierce the Scaler’s wing, Byron and I both flinched a little, and Jenna let out a frightened yelp, leaned over to me, and threw her arms around me.Reflexively, I put one arm around her.

Meanwhile, the newsgiver said, “It’s assumed that after escaping, the intruder morphed to human shape to knit any wounds that he received and fled from the campus in that form.The warehouse rooftop security camera recovered from whatever was done to disable it in time to record a Scaler figure flying unsteadily away from the warehouse as if wounded, heading in a northwesterly direction away into the city…”

In a chilled, hushed voice, Jenna said, “It couldn’t have been.”

Byron sounded as chilled as Jenna when he replied, “It was.”

”Oh no,” I muttered fearfully.

And the newsgiver finished her report with a still image of the Scaler suspect leaping up with wings spread inside the warehouse.“Constables are now concentrating on finding a young Scaler male in his early to mid-twenties with wings of this color pattern.They are also randomly stopping young Scaler males moving alone through the city for questioning and searching.In the meantime, anyone sighting this Scaler in dragon form is requested to contact…”

Pointing at the monitor, I said, “Those wing colors.The pattern and angle of the dark blue bands on the wings.That looks just like…”

Byron grimly said our friend’s name.“Cade.”

”This was the so-called ‘job’,” I said.“The job that his family gave him to do.Those ass-tails sent him out to steal something from the damn University!Damnit!”

Her voice cracking, Jenna wrapped her arms around my arm and buried her face against my shoulder.I heard her sob a little.“Oh, Cade…Oh, Cade, no.Why?”

Unable to look at the media any more, I turned off the control, silencing and blackening the monitor.Rubbing his chin with a knuckle, Byron thought aloud.“His family elders—or someone that they’re working for—wanted something out of that warehouse and sent Cade to do the dirty work of getting it.”

”So what were they after?” I asked.“You saw the recording; he didn’t look like he was carrying anything.”

”An antique data box,” said Byron.“The kind they used to use way back when they had tabletop dataplexes.”

I jerked my head back, disbelieving.“A data box?They sent Cade out as a thief, got him in trouble with the Constables, maybe ruined his life, over old data files from before anyone was born?What was on the damn thing?”

”Something important enough to ruin someone’s life for,” Byron said, frowning, disgusted.“I always knew that family of his would get him into trouble like this someday.”

Jenna had unwrapped her arms from me and sat up straight.Her face was wet with the tears that she’d cried onto my arm.She wasn’t crying any more.She was still scared, and disgusted as Byron and I were.And there was an angry edge in her voice.“Well, we can’t just let this happen to him and not do anything about it.Where is he now, Byron?”

”He got a room at the Pendrake Lacerta and hasn’t come out since he checked in,” Byron answered.

Scratching my head, I said, “The Pendrake Lacerta?He’s hiding out from the Constables at a resort hotel?”

Byron explained, “He told me he had to get off the street fast to avoid the searches and the Lacerta was the closest place to go.And he thought it was the last place the Constables would look for a fugitive.And he was so hurt and shaken up, all he wanted to do was sleep once he got away.”

”So he’s hiding out at the Lacerta—with the data box he stole?Did he get it back to whatever relative of his sent him after it?” I wondered.

”No,” Byron said.“He’s at the Lacerta, he’s got the box—and at least for right now, we’re the only ones who know he’s got it.”

“We’ll go to him then,” said Jenna.“We’ll convince him he has to turn himself and the box thing in.If Cade tells the Constables his side of the story, that he didn’t want to do it and one of his relatives put him up to it, maybe they’ll give him a break.”

“They might,” Byron said.“But he did assault a university guard.He’s likely to get time in a cage just for that.”

Agitated, worried, Jenna looked back and forth between Byron and me, and tugged on my arm.“We have to help him!Guys, come on, we have to go to him and help him right now.”

”We will go to him and get him whatever help we can,” Byron said.“You are going back to your dorm and waiting for Elliot and me to call you with an update.”

Jenna hopped across the bed and flung herself from the mattress onto the floor and started hunting for her clothes.She quickly found her panties, slacks, and halter, and sat back down on the edge of the bed to pull them on.All the while, she argued, “Why do I have to go back to the dorm?I’m worried about him just like you are!He needs all of us now!”

Byron explained, “Jenna, I explained to Cade that you should keep your distance from this whole situation.And he agreed with me.”

Sitting half naked on the bed now, Jenna sent a surprised look first to Byron, then to me, then to Byron again.“You told Cade about me?About Earth?And he believed you?”

“We believed you,” Byron said.“And Cade trusts Elliot and me.Why wouldn’t he believe me?”

Her face turned red, and her eyes got wet again.“So what, then?You mean Cade doesn’t trust me?”She slumped her shoulders and started to cry tears of frustration, which raked claws over my heart, and I’m sure over Byron’s as well.“I trusted you with myself…with everything…and you want to leave me out of this now?How could you?”

I reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.“Jenna,” I said, “I don’t think it’s about not trusting you.”I looked over at my concerned friend.“Is it, Byron?”

”Cade and I agreed it’s more about protecting you, Jenna,” said Byron sincerely.“And I think it’s right that you keep away from this.”

”How is it right?” Jenna sobbed.

”Think about it,” Byron said.“If he does turn himself over to the Constables—or they find him—there will be a lot of questions, for Cade and maybe for everyone who’s close to him.What if they come to you with questions about your relationship with Cade, about how you know him?And what if they want to know more about you—more than you want to tell them?If they go checking into your past, they might have some way of finding out that you’re not exactly who you tell them you are and that you’re not really from where you say you’re from.”

Realizing what Byron was saying, Jenna stopped crying and half-whispered, “Oh no.”

”How,” Byron gently argued, “would you explain being a visitor from a parallel world called Earth?What kind of trouble might that get you into?That’s why we thought you should circle around this mess instead of being directly in it, Jenna—to protect you.”

Jenna reluctantly accepted that, and we all got dressed.The mood in my apartment got pretty somber compared to the way we had started the morning.If Cade hadn’t called, Byron and I would have taken Jenna to my shower, where the two of us would have given her more of what we gave her in bed, and everyone would have gone on having a good time.But with the news of Cade being in trouble, none of us were thinking of morning sex anymore.

“Cade should be here with us now,” Jenna said sadly.“We should all be having a good time together.None of this should be happening.”

”I think we’re all agreed on that,” I said, with a reassuring squeeze on her arm.“If there’s a way to get him out of this, we’ll have to find it.”

Byron thoughtfully said, “I don’t think there’s a way to keep him out of cage time, at least not completely.But if I ask around, there might be some way to get the charges reduced a bit.”

”Promise me you’ll try, Byron,” said Jenna.

“Hey,” said Byron, “I love the guy.I’ve known him for years.What’s being done to him is wrong.This is his own scales and blood that’s put him in this situation.If his own family has done this to him, he needs to know he can count on his friends.”

”Damn right,” I agreed.

Jenna went to me, and I took her in my arms.“You guys just make sure he knows he has my support too.”

Byron joined us in a group hug.“We’ll be sure to tell him.”

She looked up at Byron.“And he really believed you about Earth?”

”What’s not to believe?” Byron replied.“If you could believe your father discovered another world with dragon people, it’s not that hard for us to handle you coming from a place with nothing but humans.Cade was surprised, but right now it’s not the most unbelievable thing in his life.”

Jenna nodded.“I guess not.”

”Come on,” I said.“We’ll see you to the transit stop before we go over to the Lacerta.”

Together the three of us left my apartment, united in our concern for our friend.