Read Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief for Free Online

width. The part that would give it width has
lifted away along a third dimension."
    Jack stared down at the reader, a funny tingling sensation
creeping across the skin at the back of his neck. Was Draycos saying
what he thought he was saying? "Are you trying to tell me," he asked
slowly, "that you're really three-dimensional, but that you somehow
became two -dimensional? Just plain flat? And then that you
somehow pasted yourself across my back?"
    "I am still three-dimensional," Draycos said. "As with the data
reader, most of my body is now projected along a fourth dimension,
outside the bounds of this universe."
    On Jack's left shoulder, the comm clip had gone silent.
Apparently, even Uncle Virge couldn't think of anything to say to this
one. That was a bad sign. "No," Jack said. "Sorry, but this doesn't
make any sense at all."
    "Yet I am here," Draycos reminded him.
    "No," Jack said firmly. He turned his eyes away to the left, away
from the dragon head staring up at him from his right shoulder. "This
isn't real. It can't be real. It's some kind of trick."
    "Why would I wish to trick you?" Draycos asked, sliding around
Jack's back to his left shoulder and again looking up at him. "What
purpose would it serve?"
    "Stop doing that!" Jack snapped, twisting his head back
the other way. Reaching around, he pulled the hanging sleeve back
around and got his right arm into it. "I don't know why. What purpose
does anything serve? What do you want?"
    "I want that which all beings desire," Draycos told him. "Life."
    "And what, you can't live anywhere except my back?" Jack demanded
sarcastically.
    "No," Draycos said. "I cannot."
    Jack had been about to fasten his shirt's sealing strip again. Now
he paused, frowning down at the gold scales on his chest. "What do you
mean?"
    "The K'da are not like other beings, Jack Morgan," the dragon
said. "We cannot run freely for longer than six of your hours at a
time. After that we must return to this two-dimensional form and rest
against a host body."
    "Or?" Jack prompted.
    "If we do not have a host, we fade away and die," Draycos said. "I
was nearly dead when you appeared. Your arrival, plus the fortunate
fact that your species is able to serve as a K'da host, has saved my
life. For this I thank you."
    "You're welcome," Jack said automatically. "Not like I had a
choice. So, what, you're some kind of parasite?"
    "I do not know that word."
    "A parasite is something that feeds off its host organism," Jack
explained. "It takes food or something else it needs from the host."
    "I take nothing from my host," Draycos said. "I must use the
surface of my host's body, but that is all."
    "You take away his privacy," Jack pointed out.
    "I offer companionship and protection in return," Draycos said.
"For that reason, we consider ourselves to be symbionts with our hosts,
not . . . parasites. But perhaps you do not consider that a fair
exchange. Does your species require more loneliness than I understood?"
    "We all like to be alone every so often," Jack said gruffly,
trying to hide the sudden pang of emotion. Loneliness . Whether
he'd meant to or not, the dragon had touched a painful nerve with that
one. "So why me? Why didn't you wrap yourself around a tree or
something?"
    "It does not work that way," Draycos said. "We must have a proper
host. I do not know what it is that makes one species acceptable and
another not. Perhaps none of the K'da do."
    "Oh," Jack said, for lack of anything better to say. "So . . .
what now?"
    "That is your decision," Draycos said. "Do you wish me to leave?"
    The obvious answer— yes !—unexpectedly got stuck in Jack's
throat. "If I said yes, where would you go?" he asked instead. "I mean,
there's no one here but me."
    "After six hours had passed, I would die," Draycos said softly.
"But I am a warrior of the K'da. I will not force myself upon you if
you do not wish it."
    "Yeah," Jack muttered, hunching his shoulders with indecision.
Intriguing though this might be, he still had