Tyrez left his office and took the stairs to the roof. He stripped off his business suit, carefully folded the silk, and placed it in a deck box he kept for the purpose. Cara wouldn’t mind his scale outfit.
Then he embraced his Dragon. He’d be pushing it, this time. The sun had only just set, and it was risky as hell flying before full dark. Humans knew nothing of the Cryptids that walked among them. Or of the creatures that flew over their heads.
When he launched for the sky, he went straight up, his wings a blur of motion. Speed was his friend—if humans only caught a glimpse, they usually concocted mundane explanations for what they’d seen.
Ten minutes later, Tyrez folded his wings and dropped neatly into the tiny clearing in the garden.
The wall of confusion that shielded this property didn’t affect him. With the power of crystal singing through their blood, Dragons were immune to many things. While the protections of the place kept others from finding it, Tyrez had no such issue.
Seconds after landing, he’d writhed his way back to human. Shifting took energy, but he could remain human, or Dragon, forever if he wished. Unlike most shifter species, Dragons used the crystal power in their blood to manipulate their skin. It enabled him to clothe his human form in smaller versions of his turquoise Dragon scales. As a partial change, it drew energy from him. But as a healthy Dragon, Tyrez had few issues maintaining the scales.
He’d just finished when a diminutive figure appeared at the edge of the clearing. Waist-length white hair framed sparkling blue eyes, and intact crystal shards danced through her braids.
“Watcher,” Tyrez greeted.
The woman shook her head. “You’re one of the few ones who still calls me that.”
Tyrez regarded her with a raised brow. “It is your title.”
“You Dragons are far too stuffy. Cara is fine.”
Tyrez had known Cara for as long as he’d been alive, and he’d always had a hard time referring to her by her name. It seemed—disrespectful, somehow. But he gave her credit for her determination, because she kept trying.
He reached down to heft the tail spike left behind after he shifted. Shaped much like a sword, except smaller barbs radiated from the hilt, it was infused with power from the crystals in his blood, and would glow until that power leached away. With the power drained, the spike itself would crumble to ash.
He usually drained the power back into himself, but this time he leaned it against the nearby bench. The surrounding garden would slowly absorb the energy. It was his gift to it.
Tyrez concentrated as he touched along his ribs. He’d formed a small pocket there, and he used his mind to move the scales aside. Something dropped into his waiting hand.
“This came in today. It’s for you.”
Cara’s eyes widened as he placed a tiny sculpture onto her palm. It was a Unicorn, exquisitely rendered in a wood so dark it was almost black. Detailed right up to the tiny horn, which was created from a shard of sapphire crystal.
“Oh, my.” Cara exhaled. “This is beautiful. To fuse it with crystal—it must be worth a fortune.”
Tyrez’s lips quirked upward, pleased that she recognized the intricacies, as well as the value, of the sculpture. It hadn’t been carved in the traditional sense, but rather shaped using energy as the tool. Such things were rare. “It is the work of a master energy weaver. Her sculptures are currently quite the rage. I thought you would like it.”
“I can’t accept this.” Cara’s gaze was riveted as she stroked the sculpture with a careful finger. “It’s far too valuable.”
“It deserves a home where it can be properly appreciated. And no one rewards you enough for the things you do.”
“The things I doaremy reward,” she corrected, but she wrenched her gaze away and smiled at him. “Thank you, Tyrez. I will treasure it.”
He smiled back at her. Or, at least, twitched his lips upward, which is as close as he ever got to a true smile. “Is Jacques here yet?”
Cara rolled her eyes. “He sent the Phoenix from here. He has consumed four muffins in the last twenty minutes. And has attempted to romance me, stating that ‘I don’t get enough fun.’”
Tyrez snorted. Jacques, being a Satyr, possessed a voracious sexual appetite. Equipped with potent pheromones, he was also someone accustomed to getting what he wanted.
Unfortunately for the Satyr, Cara was unmoved by his charms. Jacques could be irritating, and he skirted the edges of acceptable behavior in more than just the human realm. But he was also very useful, and that bought him a certain level of tolerance.
Cara continued to admire her little sculpture as she led the way into the house. The Phoenix sat on the counter, happily consuming a dish of chopped kumquats. She loved most fruits, but the more exotic, the better. Surrounding her, a fine layer of soot covered the otherwise pristine surface.
The figure that helped himself to tea barely rose to the Dragon’s chest. Tyrez, impervious to the Satyr’s confusion spell, saw the hooves below the long trench coat—Jacques’s preferred apparel. Curved horns peeked up from the thick, dark hair on his head, and the long ears twitched. His face was almost human, just hairier than the norm.
Most human women seemed to find the features appealing. Of course, the pheromones helped considerably. Tyrez supposed most women would find the hooves, long tufted ears, and goat horns off-putting, if they could see them.
But then again, maybe not.
