His wide mouth straightened, and he named another figure. Yani cut a bit off it, and he reluctantly agreed.
We hurried back through the market and took the street leading to the dockyards. There was as section that passed between several multi-story structures, their upper levels shading the dusty street below. It turned the wind-driven sand fog into murk.
We’d just come up on an alley in the midst of it all when my precog spidey-senses went wild. I grabbed Yani by the arm and tugged her backward, just as a well-wrapped form jumped out at us, waving a knife in one hand.
I’d thrown his aim off, though. We weren’t in range, and both Yani and I had our knives out in an instant.
For a moment, we merely stared at each other.
“Give me your money,” he snarled in Primal. He had a muzzle, and his long teeth distorted the words.
I leaned forward, rotating my knife. “Why don’t you give us yours?”
He froze, and as I sensed his uncertainty, I spun the knife between my fingers. It was a move I’d practiced since I was young, and could usually do it smoothly. Today, however, it caught oddly in mid-rotation.
His slightly confused gaze, as well as my own, dropped to my knife hand.
My forearm was exposed beyond the cloak, and I stared down to blackened skin that shone even in the shadows. I squinted, and realized it was covered in tiny scales. They clothed my entire forearm and extended to my fingertips—which now ended not in nails, but in short, curved talons.
The would-be thief was not as astonished as me. But when Yani took a long stride forward, brandishing her own knife, he proved that he did have two brain cells that occasionally connected—he turned tail, and vanished back into the alley.
Leaving both Yani and I staring at my arm. I pushed my other one out from beneath the cloak, and it was exactly the same.
“What the—” I began.
“This might explain why you’re feeling like crap.” Yani re-sheathed her knife, grabbed my scaly arm, and tugged me down the street. “Let’s get back to the ship before he spawns friends.”
Friends. Right. I kept my knife in my hand as we hurried along. But the reality was that I was so totally freaked out that Rhodes connected with me, his energy forwarding a query.
I was quick to send a pulse of reassurance. The last thing my Drakes needed was to be worrying about me.
We regained theStardrifterwithout meeting any further knife-waving crazies, but I didn’t relax until the ramp sealed.
Yani pushed my cloak up on my arm—and a shower of dark scales cascaded onto the floor, along with something else that clinked.
My skin was smooth and human once again. Yani bent to scoop up a handful of the scales—they were each about half an inch around and looked black, but reflected blue and green in the overhead light.
“Where did they come from?” I whispered, examining my fingernails. They looked like they usually did, maybe a bit shorter…
“I think they appeared because that thief frightened you,” she said.
“I wasn’t scared.” My reply was automatic.
Yani’s brow rose. “Pissed off, then.”
“Is that how the Drakes shift form? They get mad?”
The Drolgok rubbed a stubby fingered hand over her face. “So I’ve been told. Emotion helps the change.” She stooped to pick something else up off the ground. It was over an inch long and curved, with a wicked point.
A talon.
Not Drake sized, but not human, either. I raised my eyes from it, and met Yani’s.
“How is this possible?” I asked.
Yani’s hand closed around the talon. “I have no idea. I can only theorize that the serum has activated your genes in unexpected ways.
“The serum?”