"Alan F. Troop - Dragon Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Troop Alan F)

Grinning, I put my arms out, luxuriate in the caress of the wind. "It's time," I say out loud. I take off my
shirt, my pants, my underwear, my socks and shoes, and stand naked on the oak deck of the veranda.

Flaring my nostrils, I breathe in the night air again, puffing my chest as it fills my lungsтАФthe oxygen
energizing my blood cellsтАФmy heart speeding its contractions, hammering in my chest as it pumps great
bursts of blood throughout my body. I look up to the dark sky, the gray clouds scudding overhead, the
pinpoint sparkles of the stars, the dull glow of a half-moon. I belong up there, I think.

I will myself to change, groaning at the pleasure/pain of stretching skin, the sweet agony of growing
bones. Once I was ashamed of what I was. Once I wished to live only as a human. But now I welcome
my metamorphosis to my natural form. I draw in a deep breath of the salt-tinged night air and let out a
slow growl.

"I am Peter DelaSangre, son of Don Henri Dela-Sangre," I say into the night. My skin ripples, hardening,
turning to dark green armored scales everywhere but my underbelly. Beige scales form there, double
thick to protect me from any attacks from below. I grimace as my back swells, then splits, my wings
emerging, growing, unfolding, my tail stretching out behind me.

My lips compress as my face narrows and elongates and my teeth lengthen and turn to fangs. My body
stretches and thickens until I'm more than twice the size of my human form. My hands and feet reshape
themselves into taloned claws and I groan at the pain and pleasure of it all.

Clasping and unclasping my claws, I stretch my wings to their full spanтАФalmost twice as wide as my
height. I beat them once and then again, fanning air before me, switching my thick tail from side to side,
stretching muscles that have rested too longтАФuntil every fiber of my being longs to fly.

With one bound I take to the air. The sky belongs to me. The night is my domain. I roar into the dark.

I pity those who have never experienced such a moment.
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Each stroke of my wings takes me higher. As always before a hunt, I bank and circle Caya DelaSangre,
looking down at the thin white lines of waves moving in the gloom, approaching my island's shoreтАФthe
white froth as they break against the pale shadow of the beach.

The rest of the island shows itself only as a black mass floating in a slightly less dark sea. Only the warm,
yellow glow of the lights I left on in the great room on the third floor of the house gives evidence of the
island's habitation.

I spiral over my home, soaring higher, the air growing cold around me, the bright grid of the city lights of
Coral GablesandMiamiappearing, stretching inland to my west. Boats lights pierce the darkness of the
ocean to my east. My stomach, emptied by the energy spent changing, growls and aches. Saliva floods
my mouth.

Hungry as I am, I still have no desire to hunt near where I live. There's no challenge in capturing any
nearby prey. Humans mob the mainland just a few minutes' flight away. Their boats crowd the water
around my island. To take one of them would gain me only quick gratification and would risk that Henri