Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

and narrowly avoided crashing. Kreed was dragon enough to recognize his competition and want it destroyed, but human enough to know that was instinct talking. Mostly.
    The mating scream emanating from the big red dragon made Kreed's bones shiver. If he didn't find Alec first, there might not be a lot left to find. Dragons, in full form, were creatures of instinct. It drove them to hunt and feed, and in spring, to mate. Kreed couldn't deny he felt it, too. But his mixed blood let him exercise restraint and logic. No so for a shifted dragon. Even a princely one. Thank all the Powers mating only resulted in very, very few successful breedings, and therefore just as few dragons who didn't change back. Three weeks of chaos in the spring, of the skies being filled with crazed dragons, was more than enough. A half a dozen of them remaining that way was enough danger to the human populations on the mainland.
    The rest of the year, dragons walked around looking and acting mostly human. It was the only way they could survive. Dragons were too big, too wild, and even the small ones, too dangerous to be allowed to roam freely in their shifted form all year long. Only those incubating eggs were permitted to keep their form until the eggs were ready. During that time, they were carefully contained within the Waveside hunting grounds. People knew to keep away from the ocean-ward side of the island until late summer when the hatchlings had flow out to sea and the egg-bearers found their human skins again. It was the only way the two populations could co-exist peacefully.
    Kreed was evidence that the peace worked. Human-dragon mixed bloods were probably a lot more common that anyone thought. He knew of half a dozen dragon-human hybrids that no one would ever know, just looking at them, that they had a drop of dragon blood in them. He envied them.
    It would be nice to pass for normal. Instead, he got to sport wings he could never hide and scales over half his body that most people either felt they had the right to touch, because they were curious what it felt like, which he hated, or people were disgusted by them, which made him feel that much more of a freak.
    Only Alec had never mentioned his wings or scales. Never asked to touch, never asked anything at all, really. Not once had Alec's acceptance been conditional in any way. He hadn't ever said "I like you, even though you're different." The sentiment began and ended with "I like you." And there was nothing on earth Kreed valued more than that sentiment.
    There was nothing he wouldn't do to protect the man who felt it.
    ****
    Alec knew, deep in whatever part of him the dragon was trapped, that scream rending the air came from his prince. It shook him to his bones. It almost made him turn around. Only his survival instinct kept him moving forward, deeper into the woods toward the null space at the heart where he would be safe.
    Kreed would be furious with him for leaving the room. Kreed would be furious with Robert for letting him. Alec had to admit he was glad to hear the prince's cries tearing through the morning fog. At least he'd managed to shift before Kreed tore his head off.
    All Alec had to do now was make it to the sanctuary. If all the research he'd done over the years was right, the null space would strip the dragon magic that wasn't working and leave him able to think through the mating fog. The others, already fully immersed in their dragons, wouldn't be able to follow. Alec would be able to ride out the mating season in peace, and neither of his friends would have to worry about him succumbing to the fever, or argue over who got to help him fight it.
    Or hurt each other when they inevitably clashed over who got to have him. He knew it was only a matter of time. Maybe not this year. Maybe not next, but if he never managed to master the change, he'd always be vulnerable. Sooner or later, one of them would break. And they'd kill each other over him.
    Getting from the university dorms to the woods had been dicey. He sported more than a few bruises and scratches, thankfully not from the smaller dragons. Attentions from the larger ones had kept the smaller, more poisonous ones away. Dubious blessing, but one he could, literally, live with. The larger the dragon, the less potent their venom, and therefore, the less likely it would be to kill him. Another reason not being able to shift put him in danger.
    Dragons were not gentle breeders. Claws and teeth came out, and while