Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

to make sure he didn't get mauled or worse. "At least here, the others couldn't get at him," he insisted.
    "No. You had him all to yourself." Kreed snapped the computer closed with a growl and glared around the room.
    "What are you doing?"
    "Trying to figure out where he might have gone." He stopped his search and looked up at Robert. "What are you doing?"
    "We have to find him." Robert stood in the center of the room looking around, trying to follow the thread of the conversation. Letting the dragon out even a bit might have been a mistake. He was having a hard time thinking.
    "Ya think?" Kreed grabbed a thick cloak from a peg on the wall and hurried for the closet. "You can fly farther, faster than I can. You can see better. Scale up, Princey. I'll take the woods. Go see what you can see from the sky."
    "We should get help." Robert's feet seemed glued to the floor as he watched Kreed stuff a water bottle, a first aid kit, all the trappings of Alec's modern life that might be helpful, into a backpack and heft it onto one shoulder. If Alec had gone into the woods, if he went in there deep enough, no amount of magic could help him.
    "And who would we ask? Some of the other students?" Kreed shook his head. "Alec's friends, if any of them are even around this time of year, don't believe he is a dragon, and they won't step foot outside with so many of us in the air anyway. And they'd be right not to." He glared at Robert. "Your friends won't tell you they found him until they're done with him, and much as I can't stand you, I think we can agree neither of us wants that for him."
    The thought made Robert's blood drain to his toes. He shook his head. "What do we do?"
    "We find him!" Kreed stepped up close and curled a lip, showing off canine teeth he deliberately allowed to manifest for effect. "Get your head out of your ass and get out there." He pointed to the window. "Find him before anyone else does, and keep him safe, or so help me, I will tear you apart myself, prince or no prince!"
    The threat didn't register so much as did the fear behind the anger in Kreed's expression. Fear for Alec. Robert felt it spike in himself and nodded, finally able to shove the panic and the dragon aside long enough to act. He turned on his heel and dodged out of the room towards the double doors and the balcony at the end of the hall.
    This time of year, the doors were wide open, allowing students to come and go at will. Kreed was right, of course. Any other dragon would take Alec for themselves. It was a difficult drive to resist, especially when Alec's fever spiked and just the scent of him was enough to ignite every mating instinct a dragon had. Only the blood of the prince flowing through Robert, and the human blood of Kreed's mixed heritage kept Alec safe from them. Even that was often a struggle too difficult for Robert to spend much time in his roommate's presence during the season. He had no idea how Kreed resisted.
    The thought occurred to him that maybe the two were so close because Kreed didn't resist. It was enough to make him stumble, to trip up the spell he cast as he launched himself from the balcony. It was enough to make the change stall and plunge him into a stuttering, heart-stopping fall as his wings creaked and groaned under the stress of pulling him out of the dive.
    He hadn't fucked up a change since the very first time when he was twelve. He shook himself as he righted his flight, skimming over the ground, nostrils wide, lungs filling with the scent of dragons in heat. What little bit of human reasoning he managed to hang onto as the pheromones took over his brain, he trained on Alec.
    The only mating that would satisfy him this flight was with Alec. One way or another, this time, it would happen. Magic sizzled through him, nose to tail-tip, the heat of it drawing a shriek from him that shattered the dragonsong around him. Mind, soul and magic fixated on the remembered scent that was his roommate, Robert lifted his orange and red-scaled body into the sky and wheeled back over the university grounds. There was no way out of this body now but to satisfy the magic, and for that, he needed Alec.
    "I knew this was a bad idea," Kreed muttered as he launched from the balcony himself and watched the prince nose-dive. He most definitely did not follow in Robert's wake as the big dragon plummeted earthward.
    "Too bad." He couldn't quite resist voicing the sentiment as Robert mastered the ill-formed spell, pumped his wings