Page 106 of Escape from the Green

Nine.

With me, ten.

Ten dragons storming the Dark Court.

We could block out the sky.

It would be just the distraction we needed.

"Cowardly lot," Smoky decided quietly, just loudly enough for me and Sal to hear.

"They're used to their ways," Sal defended them.

"Shit excuse," she stubbornly declared.

"When do we leave?" the redhead asked, moving closer, the orange in her brown eyes bright with the idea of the Change.

"Raisa here wants to know if she has enough time to do a bikini trimming before everyone gets to see her goodies," Tsar declared.

Raisa's brow rose, her chin lifting, not the least bit embarrassed by Tsar's declaration. "Tsar has clearly failed in his attempts to bed me, otherwise he'd know that my goodies are always in perfect order."

"I like you," Smoky declared, nodding. "If I have to ride with anyone, I'd prefer you."

"Come on. Taking the only chick," Sal declared, shaking his head. "You really don't want other women touching me, do you babe?"

Smoky's eyes slitted as he grinned, knowing he had her.

"Take her. I'll ride with him," she decided, linking her arm with Tsar.

"Do we go now?" One of the kids asked.

"Yes."

"You're going to have to lead the way, son," my dad told us. "None of us have been to the Dark Court. And we need to know the plan."

"Massive distraction," Smoky declared. "Just enough so that Drake can locate Amy, and get her out of there."

"Can we burn things?" another of the kids asked.

"Just not fae," Kieran specified. "We can go and create havoc, but we do not kill. We don't need the weight of the whole Dark Court on our backs. Just fly through, set a tree or cart or two on fire, and get out of there."

"Got it," Tsar declared.

"We go now?" my father asked even as the young guys started stripping out of their clothes casually. Because the Change was natural, common, nothing to be embarrassed about.

For them.

It had been so long for me.

I was half worried I wouldn't even know how to do it anymore.

"It will come back to you," Kieran told me, voice low. "The Change," he clarified. "I know you have been fighting it all this time. But it will come."

Uncertainty flooded my system as I watched the guys crack their necks, then fall forward toward the ground as the plates erupted from their skin seamlessly, overtaking them completely as their forms twisted, contorted, became something else entirely, beasts large enough to overshadow all the houses, twice as wide, three times as long, in brilliant, blinding colors. Green, blue, gray, brown, purple. There was a flash of orange and then Raisa was in Draca form, sending a look over her shoulder at Tsar who was still slowly removing his clothes.

"Ah, I get it now," Smoky declared, nodding her head as Kieran suddenly burst into form, a striking silver with blue - the only one of our kind who was multi-colored in Draca form.

"Get what?" Sal asked, head cocked to the side, trying not to seem impressed although it was impossible not to be. Hell, even I was. And I was one of them.