Dragon 1 Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Title is a little TBD, still playing with a few ideas, but it will likely be Dragon 'TBD': An Urban Fantasy. Interestingly enough titles are one of the last things I finalize on my books :p

I put a WIP of this idea out at one point, but this is a new start to that same idea. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one, I'm working through it and I think it's pretty interesting. Zach and his tag along 'beast' have a fun character arc.

Do you ever feel like there’s something primal inside of you? Like a beast that occasionally wakes and rattles its cage, either for a chance at a girl or put a bully in his place? A dormant animal in your chest that is champing at the bit for a piece of action?

We’ll that’s the best way I could describe how I’ve felt for a long time. I thought it was normal, some animal part of the human brain that lingered from evolution. But this is the story of how I learned I wasn’t exactly human, and there was a world underneath our own where all the things that go bump in the night live.

It all started one day, a few weeks into my junior year of college.

I was shuffling my notes into my bookbag after C302. Organic chemistry was shaping up to be a tough one, and had only covered a week’s worth of material at that point.

The fold up stadium seating was a chorus of noises as they retracted and everyone hurried out of class. Feet pounded on the cheap linoleum tiles that were white with black spatters to hide the scuff marks that so commonly became part of the tiles.

I pushed all the scents and sounds to the background before the herd of students overwhelmed my senses.

My professor didn’t seem to understand that computer models took care of all the manual work he was demanding of us.

Of course the fundamentals were important, but that’s what C301 covered. I was so ready to move past the route memorization to actually applying the learnings.

But I’d already half expected it the first time I walked into the room and saw the professor. Professor Finstein was a dinosaur, and by the way he struggled with his power point slides, I had a feeling he wasn’t really interested in teaching the applications of digital models.

He had that vibe that he might even still use a slide rule to do his math. I’m talking ancient.

As I finished stuffing the last of my things into my bookbag, I stood up, a scent reaching me that once again stirred the beast inside me. At least, that’s how I’d come to think about it. A redhead wearing a tight Kappa Phi Alpha shirt walked past my aisle, and the beast pulled my attention to her as he tried to take in her scent.

Taking a breath, making sure to do it through my mouth instead of my nose to help avoid her wonderful cloves and vanilla scent, I made sure to suppress the beast. I’d gotten a full scenting of her last week and it had taken me half the day to push the beast back down.

This asshole inside of me wasn’t going to get another whiff.

I wasn’t about to be some asshole that hit on her like all the other guys around. People always talked before class and I’d heard the few that approached her get shut down rather hard.

The beast growled, upset at my decision, but I just ignored it. Rolling my eyes, it wasn’t about to tell me what to do with my life.

The need began to weaken, and I shrugged the bag over my shoulder, heading out. I’d gotten used to dealing with the beast.

My friends laughed it off and agreed about wanting to pounce on some hot girl or deck a douche. But I never got the feeling they felt as driven to actually do it as I had since adolescence. The beast didn’t control me, but it was hard to ignore.

I saw a doctor about it once, but they just wanted to put me on meds that would put my whole life into a haze. They didn’t seem to acknowledge the real problem. Just wanting to turn me into a pseudo zombie and call in the next patient.

It was a struggle, one that I kept quiet for the most part. However, the beast, as I affectionately called my urges, didn’t like being quiet. So it left me wrestling it back down into submission often to live my life.

And while I controlled it for the most part, I still had to work with it if I was going to finish out my degree and get into med school. It was a balance between me and the beast.

My phone chirped, and I pulled it out.

MAN! Maddie agreed to go to the bar with us tonight. Please tell me you can make it?

Frank, my roommate and Maddie, our friend since freshman orientation, were close to hitting it off. Frank had been wearing Maddie down one almost-date at a time.

They were the strangest of pairs. Frank was a serial skirt chaser, and Maddie was a quiet nerd. Yet he was Ahab and she was his white whale, and he was head over heels for her.

I worried that Frank would move on in a heartbeat after finally getting what he’d been chasing for nearly two years, but I tried to leave my opinions at the door. It was their relationship.

I’d at least gotten better sleep while he’d been pursuing her in this latest push. The walls were thin between our bedrooms.

Sure Frankie. I just finished my last class for the day. See you at the apartment.

I hit send and made my way through campus on the network of cement sidewalks that cut through open lawns. The campus itself was a verdant gem compared to the rest of Philly. The city skyline loomed in the background, a churning leviathan of industry.

But the city and campus might as well have been two different worlds. Separated by nothing more than a street.

Our apartments were on the east side of campus, hugging the business building. Overall, they were some of the newer buildings, making them highly desired, especially by the business students.

It didn’t work as well for me since I was a pre-med student, but I liked that it was on the quiet side of campus. And the bar street was a straight shot through the campus on the west side.

The science buildings were near those bars. It was a nice perk after a late night test.

Weaving through the campus, I headed for home. Something about wrapping up for the day and getting to let loose a bit added some power into my stride as I dodged through the masses and hustled downstairs.

The only warning I got was a wobbly shout and the slaps of bicycle tires going down the steps behind me. I spun on one foot, dancing out of the way just in time to get clipped by the handlebars as a bike shot down right through where I’d just been standing.

The girl in front of me wasn’t nearly as lucky.

The bike’s front tire snapped sideways with the handlebars catching on me and upended the rider. Both the girl and the rider went down in a tangle as the bike flipped over them and bounced into the grass.

I sprang forward, trying to figure out how to best free them. “Are you two okay?”

“Ugh.” The heavyset biker rolled off the girl and looked dazedly at the sky.

Well, that at least told me he was okay enough. But he’d been wearing a helmet; the girl hadn’t dressed for an accident.

I knelt down and tapped her gently. “You okay? I’m going to check you out.” It wasn’t often I got to use my EMT training for something more than a sprained ankle.

Cloves and vanilla.

Looking at her more carefully, I realized she was that same sorority girl from class. It was around the same time that my beast noticed her as well, her scent reaching me. The beast rattled in my chest, roaring at the opportunity to save her, while I tried to ignore it and focus. 

When the girl didn’t respond to my touch or words, I started with the basics, trying not to move her. I took her pulse and then put a finger under her nose to make sure she was still breathing. Both of those checked out. So she wasn’t in any immediate danger.

A crowd had gathered from the accident, and at least two people were on the phone calling campus security. There were two guys helping up the poor cyclist as he looked around in a daze before noticing his bike. The front tire warped beyond use. “My bike!” He came to his senses and dashed to check on it.

“No concern about the people you ran over?” I wasn’t sure if it was me or my beast, or maybe both. I wanted to get up and teach him a lesson with my fists. Clearly the guy’s priorities were in the wrong place.

But I knew it wasn’t enough to get me into a fight, despite what my beast was saying. So I shook it off, refocusing my own attention on the girl.

I reached down to do a second set of checks, but before I could do anything else, her eyes snapped open, boring into my own.

Surprised, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Nice contacts.” I hadn’t noticed them in class, but she had bright gold eyes, like the kind you’d see on a wild animal.

I couldn’t help but examine them a little further, trying to see the edge of her contact, but I couldn’t. They were just so… real.

She blinked, scrunching her cute face together before opening her eyes again. “What happened?”

“A biker went down the steps. He clipped me and plowed into you.”

She started to get up and winced, her arm giving out when she got only a few inches off the ground.

“Hey, careful. People already called the campus security. They’ll come and call the EMT. I should know; I’m normally on the other end of those calls.” I gave her a reassuring smile.

But instead of relieved, she looked shocked, maybe even a little scared. “No. No hospital. I just need to get back home.”

Her shirt was pushed up, and I could already see a heavy bruise forming on her side along with her legs and a few nasty looking scrapes. By the way she could barely get up but wasn’t screaming, she very well could have a hairline fracture in that arm.

“I think you might need that arm checked out.” I suggested, but my helpful comment only earned me a glare.

“Help me up?” She asked. She was coherent enough that I thought the request reasonable, but she still needed to get that arm checked out.

Holding her under the armpits, I stood and brought her with me.

The crowd cheered, seeing her getting back on her feet. She looked a little roughed up, and she was still leaning on me heavily, but she was able to stay upright.

“Want me to help you back to your place?” I asked. I hoped she would let me check her out again when we got back. Maybe she’d even let me convince her to go to the hospital.

“Yeah. That’d be nice. I don’t want to put on a show here.” She kept her head down and her bright orange hair shielded some of her face.

“Come on.” I wasn’t going to leave a girl waiting. I let her lean against me as we shuffled out of the crowd.

She leaned heavily on me, but seemed to be getting herself back together remarkably quickly. “This is terrible timing for me. You said you worked at the hospital?”

“Uh, not the hospital. I work for an EMT service they contract with.” I clarified. I’d been a little bummed when I’d figured that out, but it didn’t stop me from trying to network with the doctors at the hospital. I hoped I could get some shadowing experience or an internship with one of them next summer.

“Great. Can you help me set my shoulder back in?”

“Wait, your shoulder is dislocated? Let me see.”

“No.” She pulled away and stumbled. I stepped forward, catching her as carefully as I could, given her injuries. She looked around before nodding her head in the direction of an alley. “Let’s go behind the library and you pop it back in. I don’t want to put on another show.”

I raised my hands. “Hold up. You should go to the hospital to pop that back in place. There could be complications.”

She gave me a hesitant look. “Can’t you pop it back into place?”

“Well, yeah. I can try. But the policy is that it should wait until the hospital if possible.”

“You aren’t working right now…” She paused, her brows pinching for a moment. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Zach Pendragon.” I gave her a small smile.

Her eyes went wide, but I wasn’t surprised. It was pretty typical when I gave my full name. “Like King Arther?”

“Yep, and spelled just the same. But no relation.” I joked. Really, it was the last thing I had of my birth parents, but saying that out loud always brought down the mood of the moment. Humor hid that well enough for me on most occasions.

“Badass name. I’m Scarlett, just transferred over this year. And of course this shit happens the first week. I’m already having trouble fitting in with the girls.” At that, she shifted our direction to behind the library.

The change in location seemed to please my beast. I could already feel it coiling up on itself in excitement. I nearly sighed, annoyed that once again I’d have to work to keep my control. But I kept my face in check as we turned the corner into the secluded place.

“The girls aren’t the same as where you were before?” Nervous at the idea of popping her shoulder back in, I tried to make small talk as a distraction. I knew the theory of how to pop it back in, but I’d never actually attempted it. Not that I was going to tell her that.

“No, I mean, all sororities are sorta slutty. But this chapter of Kappa is taking it to a whole new level of bitches. Why she has to come here is beyond me.”

I lost her then. “Why, who has to come here?”

Scarlett made a face like she was cursing internally, then paused, clearly struggling to come up with an answer. “A friend transferred over with me. But she’s starting a week late. Actually, she’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Ah. Friend.” I drew the word out.

“No! Not like that.” Her cheeks blazed just as scarlet as her name. “Men.” She scoffed. “We have just been best friends since we were little, okay? She’s transferring over here because her dad arranged this total jerk off for her.”

“Arranged, like arranged marriage?” I hadn’t heard of one of those in forever. I knew they were common in some areas, but I’d never known anybody to be set up that way.

She winced again, like she’d said something she shouldn’t have. “You know what? I think I might have hit my head. Don’t mind my rambling.” Before I could circle back on that topic, she’d turned her shoulder to me, looking over it at me. “Okay, how does this work?”

I paused and looked around. We were totally secluded. No other pedestrians were in sight, and another campus building hid us. We were alone in the cool concrete alley. “Brace yourself up against the wall. This is going to hurt. A lot. You might want to bite on something.”

Scoffing, Scarlett rolled up her shirt to her collar, showing off her powder blue bra and ample chest. “Up here. Don’t let them distract you too much.” She gave me a knowing look before balling up the shirt and putting it in her mouth to bite on.

My cheeks burned, and the beast rattled in my chest. Yeah, he was going nuts over this girl. The best thing I could do was focus on the task at hand. “Okay, let me find the cuff.” My fingers probed her shoulder until I had a good idea of where to focus.

“This is the painful part, but we’ll do it quickly. Push your back hard against the wall.”

Her legs tensed, and I lined her arm up, pushing with the palm of my hand to get it in the socket. But beyond causing her to wince, nothing happened. It didn’t budge.

It was a lot tougher than the movies made it seem. I pushed again, this time throwing my weight into it, and Scarlett let out a muffled cry as it popped back into place.

She let the wadded up shirt out of her mouth and pulled it back down over her chest and toned stomach. Much to my beast’s whining dismay and my relief.

“That wasn’t too bad.” She said, rotating her shoulder.

“Never had it happen to me; they said it’s pretty painful.”

Scarlett just shrugged. “Meh. I’ve had worse.”

Now that I was looking at her, she didn’t look nearly as bad as I thought she’d looked when I’d first given her an assessment. My brows pinched together. It was odd.

She stretched her legs a little and pushed off the wall, looking steady.

“You sure you don’t want to take a trip to the hospital?” I tried one more time, though she was looking better.

Scarlett did a small spin. “See? Not too bad. Don’t think I’d try tap dancing right now though, if you’ll forgive me.”

I gave a small snort of laughter. “Don’t worry, I couldn’t even tap dance if I was in perfect health. You get a grudging pass from me. But I could have sworn you were going to need to go to the hospital.”

A small smirk escaped her lips. “Maybe you’ve just seen too many things go wrong, and you assumed the worst?”

Maybe… but I could have sworn. Either way, I couldn’t deny what was in front of me now. “Then in my professional opinion, you just need an icepack on that shoulder and some ointment to keep that abrasion from getting infected.”

“Will do, Doc.” Scarlett gave me a mock salute as she turned to head down the alley. I couldn’t help it, if you were in my situation you would have looked too. Damn, she had an ass like she destroyed pilates.

When she reached the end, she paused, turning back. Totally catching me checking her out. However, that didn’t seem to matter to her. “You should say hi in class on Friday. I don’t know anyone in chem.”

I stumbled over my words. “Yeah, of course. That’d be cool.”

She gave me an amused smile, her green eyes glimmering with mirth as she turned, heading north to what I knew was Greek Row.

I turned back towards my apartment from the slight detour. “That’d be cool.” I said in a mocking tone. Why did I have to say something so lame?

The beast inside of me grunted, like I’d failed him on multiple counts. It also didn’t seem one bit surprised that I’d botched the ending there.

But she’d practically invited me to sit with her in class. That was a win, right?

Yeah, I convinced myself that it was a total win. We’d talk more in class, and I’d see if she wanted to go out to the bars in the upcoming weekend.

I could imagine it now, her smile and those green eyes as I asked her. God, I hoped she’d say yes.

I froze mid-step, confusion spreading over me. Her eyes. Weren’t they gold when she’d been injured? But I was sure they were green just then.

Rubbing at my temples, I was positive that I was losing it. School all week and working all weekend was clearly wearing me down.

The beast scoffed and curled back up to sleep, clearly done with me.

But that was fine with me. The stupid bastard got in the way too often. Hopefully, he’d be quiet on Friday and maybe I could ask her out after class.