Dante caught it. The game paused a moment as all the players turned in our direction.
My brother smiled. “Hey,” he greeted, tossing the ball to one of the girls. Who, I noticed, nearly missed the catch from gaping at him.
“Need a couple extra players?”
The group hesitated. I noted the way the girls were staring wideeyed at Dante, and bit down a snort. By human standards, my twin was charming and extremely good looking, and he knew it, too. It wasn’t by accident. When choosing the form that would be ours for the rest of our life, everyone in Talon was groomed to the highest standards of human beauty. There were no ugly “humans” in the organization, and there was a very good reason for that. Mortals responded to beauty, wealth, power, charisma. It made them easier to sway, easier to control, and Dante was a natural at getting what he wanted. This was sure to go to his already inflated head. But at least three of the guys were staring at me, too.
One of the boys, lean and tan, with blond hair down to his shoulders, finally shrugged. “Sure, dude.” His voice was light, easygoing.
“The more the merrier. Come on in and pick a side.” He flashed me a grin, as if hoping I would choose his side of the net. I hesitated a moment, then obliged him. Fit in, make friends, adapt. That was what we were here to do, right?
The other girl on my side, the one who’d dived for the ball, smiled at me as I joined her on the front row. “Hey,” she said, pushing long brown hair out of her face. “You’re new around here, aren’t you? Come for summer vacation?”
I stared at her and, for a second, my mind went blank. What did I say? What did I do? This was the first human, not counting my teachers and guardians, who had ever spoken to me. I wasn’t like my brother, who was comfortable around people and knew how to respond regardless of the situation. I stared at the human, feeling trapped, wondering what would happen if I just turned around and sprinted back home.
But the girl didn’t laugh or tease or give me a weird look. “Oh, right,” she said, as Dante was tossed the ball and encouraged to serve.
“You have no idea who I am, do you? I’m Lexi. That’s my brother, Calvin.” She nodded to the tall blond human who had smiled at me earlier. “And that’s Tyler, Kristin, Jake, and Neil. We all live here,” Lexi continued, as Dante walked to where a lone sandal sat several yards from the net, marking the back line. “Except for Kristin.” She nodded at the girl on the other side, blond and tan and model-gorgeous. “But her family owns a beach house and comes down every summer. The rest of us have been here forever.” She shot me a sideways look as Dante prepared to serve. “So, where did you two move from? Ever played volleyball before?”
I was trying to keep up with the endless string of words, to find time to respond, when Dante tossed the ball, leaped gracefully into the air, and hit it with a resounding whack that propelled it over the net and behind my head. It was expertly bumped to the blond boy, who hit the ball with his fingertips, setting me up for a spike. I hadn’t ever played volleyball before, only studied it on t.v. Thankfully, my kind were naturals at picking up physical activities, and I instinctively knew what to do. I bounced into the air and smacked the ball right at Bleach-tips. It shot toward him like a missile, and he dug for it frantically. The ball struck his hand at an angle, bounced off, and rolled merrily toward the ocean. He cursed and jogged off after it, while our side cheered.
“Nice shot!” Lexi grinned, watching Bleach-tips scoop up the wayward ball and come striding back. “Guess that answers my question, doesn’t it? What was your name again?”
The tightness in my chest deflated, and I grinned back. “Ember,” I replied, as Calvin smiled and nodded in approval. “And that’s my brother, Dante. We’re here for the whole summer.”
We played until the sun began to sink over the ocean, turning the sky a brilliant shade of orange and pink. At one point, Dante had to borrow someone’s phone to call Uncle Liam, as we’d left ours at the house to avoid accidental drowning. When the light began to fade and the group finally split up, Lexi and Calvin invited Dante and I to the burger shack on the edge of the beach, and we accepted eagerly.
As I sat beside Lexi, munching greasy fries and sipping a mango smoothie, something I’d never experienced before (nor had my stomach, though our digestive tracts could handle just about anything), I couldn’t help but be amazed. So these were normal teenagers, and this was what summer was supposed to be. Sand and sun and volleyball and junk food. No trainers. No evaluators with their cold hands and even colder eyes, watching our every move. The two surfboards I’d seen earlier lay propped on the table beside us, they actually belonged to Lexi and Calvin, and both had offered to teach me. Yep, I’d say my first day of being human was going swimmingly.
And then, sitting at an outdoor table with the sun fading into the ocean and the sky dotted with stars, I felt a strange prickle on the back of my neck. The same feeling I’d get whenever I was being “observed” by an evaluator, all tingly and disconcerting. It always meant someone was watching me.
I turned in my seat, scanning the parking lot, but I didn’t see anything unusual. A pair of girls walking back to their Camaro, drinks in hand. A family with two toddlers heading to the door. None of them were staring at me. But that tingle rippling across my neck hadn’t gone away.
And then, a dragon pulled up on a motorcycle.
Not in its real form, obviously. The art of Shifting—changing into human form—was so widespread it was common dragon knowledge now. All our kind knew how to do it. And those that couldn’t were either taught very quickly, or they were hunted down by the Order of St. George, the terrible cult of dragonslayers whose only purpose was our destruction. Shifting into human form was our best defense against genocidal dragon killers and a world of unsuspecting mortals; one did not just wander about in full reptile form unless one had a death wish.
So, the dragon who cruised casually to the edge of the lot appeared human, and a fine specimen of humanity, too. He was slightly older than us, lean and tall, with a tousled mess of black hair and a leather jacket over his broad shoulders. He didn’t kill the engine, but sat there staring at me, a smirk stretching his full lips, and even in human form, there was an air of danger about him, in his eyes that were so light a brown they were almost gold. My blood heated at the sight of him, and a flush rose to my skin — instant reactions to another of our kind, and a stranger at that.