Dragn_D0ve, part 3
<- Part 2 (Beginning)
Lights seared shadows with a neon glow while the bass tenderized the building. People moved against and around each other, dancing, laughing, arguing. Dove watched.
The VIP section in this club rose above the dance floor below, and Dovenroc liked sitting, one leg over the railing, one eye on the normal people partying, while he gossiped with his crew.
"What's wrong with Dove?" Lucas yelled at the group.
"Huh?" Dove replied.
His mental tally didn't add up to something being "wrong". His horns were as large and proud as always. His hair was carefully swept, over, under, and around each one before he'd cemented it in place with gel and hair spray. His tawny skin glowed through the gauzy teal tank top he'd thrown on over expensive--and short--leather shorts. His earrings, watch, necklaces, and bangles all chimed and sparkled with every breath. Hell, Dove had even done his dragon eyes and scales all the way to his biceps tonight.
Dovenroc was in top form for a night of careless partying.
"I've only seen you do tequila shots all night!" Lucas reasoned.
"Really?" Francesca gasped. Perhaps a little too exagerated a response, but she was already well past drunk and on the way to hammered, so what could they expect.
"Yeah. Not a single other complicated cocktail recipe, thousand year old brandy, or wine I can't pronounce all night. Did you let Kyle borrow your daring?"
"Who's daring did I borrow?" Of course that was enough to get Kyle to stop whispering sweet nothings into his new friends' ears. He'd gotten some serious swagger off of an athlete earlier that week and had been delighting in showing off all night with the three ladies he'd already managed to pick up.
"Dove's!"
Kyle gave Dovenroc the Look, the one that picked all of a person's strengths out of their core like a pearl from a rotting oyster. "Nah, he's still got it! Wouldn't be tempting a broken ankle falling into the piranhas below if I'd gotten my paws on it."
"Dove'd have to be smart enough to know he'd break an ankle."
"Fuck you. I can fly," Dove threw back, turning just enough on his perch to let give himself enough room to shift his wings out. He blocked the strobe lights with a nearly ten foot navy blue wingspan. The crowd noise carried on, immune to the overly dressed mad man posturing above them.
Francesca patted his cheek. "Yes, yes, you're super cool. No one else can here can fly, certainly not Charles or Mikey."
"Put your wings away, parakeet," Kyle muttered. "Fuck is wrong with you tonight?"
"Nothing," Dove said quickly, closing his eyes. His human cells were stretching, called to his dragon shape, and Dovenroc did not feel like stripping out of all of his jewelry just yet. His hair had taken too damn long and looked too fucking hot to swap for scales before the party was over.
So Dovenroc sat with his eyes closed, pulling the parts of himself back into line, redirecting the portion of his thoughts keeping his half-shifted features back to simple aesthetics, not the feeling of being a thirty foot long fire breath--
It took him a quarter of an hour to finally settle enough into human to rejoin his friends' conversation. Most of them had gone for alcohol or dancing by now. Lucas was shuffling through something on his phone. Dove was bored.
Dancing? Nah. Girls? Not with fucking Kyle on his shit. Booze? Basic bitch only. When did this club get so crappy?
Now Lucas was giggling. Well at least one of them was entertained.
Maybe a fight? Dove wondered, then snickered. Latrebor would fucking love that.
Before Dovenroc could find the biggest guy in the club to insult, Lucas barked a laugh and shoved his phone, playing a brightly colored video, into Dove's face.
"Dude, you gotta check this out."