CHAPTER FOUR
Ryan
Ryan’s heart thudded in his chest and his blood roared in his ears. The woman was absolutely right in steering the car into the beast. It was the only way they could come through this alive. Ryan’s hands gripped the wheel, forcing the vehicle to steer straight into the panicked animal and he took the kinetic force of the crash through his arms and torso. The Jaguar hit the deer with sickening force that shocked every bone in his body. The air bags hit both of them barely a second later, and Ryan watched her body fly backward from the force.
He wanted to scream but instead a roar erupted from him as intense pain shuddered through every bone in his body. But the shock of the crash was nothing compared to the utter confusion that gripped him as his clothes tore as his body expanded. The seat belt popped off, and he rose from the car stopped dead in the middle of the road, radiator steam spewing from the wrecked front end. The deer lay gasping, blood spewing from a gash in its side.
With his mind still clouded with the shock of the impact he acted solely on instinct. And that told him tear into the neck of deer with claw and tooth.
It wasn’t until he had meat in his mouth that it dawned on him that claws were not a normal state of affairs, and neither was tearing the flesh of an animal with his teeth. His eyes focused to find his hands were no longer hands, but scaly claws with sharp black talons. And as blood dribbled down his jaw, the raw meat in his mouth tasted absolutely delicious. He tore off another chuck as the beast stilled beneath him and chomped on it.
Ryan decided he must be hallucinating, or he was unconscious and having hellacious dreams. This wasn’t, couldn’t happen.
A groan reached his ears, and he saw the woman, Stephanie Brooks, still strapped in to the car. He tilted his head and studied the scene. Alarm raced through every nerve in his body. Not just steam but smoke streamed from the ruined Jaguar, and the heat radiating off it told him the engine was on fire.
He rushed to the side the car and ripped Stephanie’s seatbelt off her with one fluid motion. He was surprised at the ease with which he could do this, but found his claws at the wrong angle to lift her from the car. With the overriding thought that he needed to pull the woman from the car he rose and pulled her from the car with his powerful jaws. The acrid smoke grew thicker and flames now licked the edges of the ruined hood. Ryan was all too aware the engine could explode, and he had to get them both away from here.
Instinctually he clutched the woman in his claws. Ryan had snatched her away just in time. Fire now streamed over the top of the windshield and back toward the seats, torching them. The conflagration grew and then the engine exploded in a hail of fire and smoke as he moved higher from danger.
The heat from the blaze licked his body, and as he looked he was surprised to see his legs were now beefy, clawed haunches and a tail waved behind him. What’s more, when as he gazed at the car he was looking down, as if from an aerial view. If could chalk this up to drinking too much, he would have. But no, he hadn’t drunk anything at all today, and very little last night. He was as the saying went, sober as a judge.
Confounded, Ryan concentrated on the thing that made sense, the woman he gripped in his talons. Okay, the talon part didn’t make sense, but he was very concerned about her. She did not rouse from this rough handling and he worried that either the crash itself or this unusual form of transportation caused her harm. He had to get her medical care.
The tops of the trees were far below him now, and Ryan looked over his shoulder to see dusty blue wings coming from his shoulder. Okay, he was having grade A delusions now, and he probably wasn’t flying at all, or hadn’t saved the beautiful woman in his claws. He was probably burning up in his car.
Only he didn’t feel pain. Ryan felt wonderful. Gone were the constraints of his body, vanished was the sense he hadn’t fulfilled his potential. He was strong and powerful and he soared on the wind, free and unfettered by the chains of a mortal life.
This reminded him very much of hang gliding, a sport he partook of often. That was it. The shock of the crash befuddled his mind and all he was doing was taking to the air strapped into a glider’s frame.
He was hang gliding. That was the only explanation. Somehow, he was in a glider and holding onto the lovely Stephanie. What a treasure. The woman kept her head and saved them from death. Even though he was obviously very, very rattled, he did know that she did that.
Ryan spotted a four-lane highway and followed it. Highways meant towns, and he had to find the large town in this area. Below him sped the fields and clumps of forest, and then the spread of suburban houses and finally a cluster of taller buildings that proclaimed the existence of a town.
He banked and circled looking for the hospital. Finally, Ryan spotted the red cross of a hospital helipad. He followed a thermal in a downward spiral. This wasn’t so much different from hang gliding, an activity he greatly enjoyed. He found a shift of his body changed direction to move to the right, left or descend.
As gently as he could, he landed on the helipad. The faint smell of smoke wafted to his nose, and he turned his head to see a man in blue scrubs smoking a cigarette and wearing a look of terror staring at him. Ryan laid Stephanie down on the landing pad.
“She needs help,” he said.
But all that come out was a roar. The cigarette the man had in his mouth fell to the ground and he ran for the roof top door.
“Come back here,” ordered Ryan in a quieter voice. He obviously frightened the man who was standing at a pad at the entrance of the door. But while Ryan tried to speak in a calmer tone, all that come out of his mouth was several snorts.
“Get security here quickly,” the man croaked. “There’s a dragon on the roof.”
Dragon? Ryan whipped his head around looking for the offending beast. It wasn’t until he looked at a groaning Stephanie and spotted his own claws on either side of her head that the realization burst on him.
“Oh, fuck!” exclaimed Ryan came out as a trumpeting sound. He was the dragon. How on earth did this happen?
Other people crowded at the entrance of the rooftop door. They wore the same terrified expressions as the first man. In the first moment of clarity since the accident, Ryan understood that they wouldn’t move toward Stephanie unless he was out of the way.
“I’ll come back,” he said in a snort and unfolded his wings, flapping them to unfurl them.
“Take care of her,” he trumpeted though he doubted they could understand him. With a great leap from his powerful haunches he took to the air. He looked below to see the hospital personnel converge on Stephanie. At least he accomplished one thing. Now he had to find out what the hell was going on. And there was only one person he could get answers from.
Ryan honed onto his boyhood home and his family’s estate. The joy and marvel of flight made the trip all too brief. And he marveled at his much-improved eyesight. He could pick out different game from his aerial vantage and spot people in the spaces outside their homes. The level of detail he could make out was incredible. As he flew over his house, he could see every tile on the roof of the mansion, and could pick out the different flowers in the gardens splayed at the back of the building. Then Ryan spotted his father on the patio cell phone pressed against his ear.
He descended and landed with a loud thud on the grass just beyond the patio. The elder Kaur stared wide-eyed at Ryan, who for dramatic effect drew up on his haunches and spread out his wings. His father turned and scrambled for the patio door.
Ryan didn’t want his father to run, especially not when he was in this form and couldn’t follow him into the house.
“Stop!”
But instead of a roar his human voice filled the air.
“What the hell,” said his father. “Ryan, what is going on?”
Ryan looked down to see his human body perfectly naked. Relief coursed through him as he saw that he returned to human form though he had no idea how he did it. But he looked up again and fixed his gaze on his father.
“That’s what I came to ask you, father. When did you plan to tell me that I’m a dragon?”