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from downstairs, when it rang again up here.
    When the door opened, Keith looked disheveled and sleepy. He was a young kid—although to be honest he might be older than Tom. Tom just perceived him as much younger than himself—perhaps because Keith didn’t shift. Keith was blond and generally good-looking. Right then, he was blinking, his blue eyes displaying the curiously naked look of the eyes of people who normally wore glasses and suddenly found themselves without.
    His hair was a mess and he looked confused, but he was grinning as he handed Tom a set of keys. Though the student held the door almost closed, Tom glimpsed a redheaded girl behind Keith. He felt a little envious. It had been years since he’d even dreamed of sharing his bed with anyone. He could never guarantee he wouldn’t shift and scare a date halfway to death. Or worse.
    Then he realized Keith was looking enviously at him. Tom followed the direction of Keith’s gaze, and saw Kyrie standing just behind him, hands on hips, as though daring Keith to make a comment. And Tom felt at the same time ridiculously pleased that Keith thought he could be involved with someone like Kyrie and a little jealous of Keith’s admiration for her. Keith didn’t even know her. He didn’t even know who she was. He didn’t know that she shifted as well.
    “Thanks,” Tom said, a little more dryly than he should. He snatched the key from Keith’s hand and started up the stairs at a faster clip than he should, considering how he felt.
    Keith grinned. “No problem. But I have to go back. This girl is something else. She swears she saw a dragon flying over the building. A dragon.” He shook his head.
    A dragon. Tom managed a noncommittal sound of empathy. Probably Tom. But Tom didn’t dare ask questions about what he’d been doing or what direction he’d been flying. Instead, he turned and started up the stairs. Up and up and up, to his fifth-floor landing, Kyrie’s steady gait keeping pace with his.
    His door was . . . locked. He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding in. After all, he did not know how or when he’d shifted and all he had was the memory of fear, of running away. It was possible they had found him in his apartment. It was possible . . . If they’d figured out his name, and they must have by now, it would have been easy.
    But the door was locked, his doormat looked untouched. Everything was as it should be. No light came under his door. Everything was normal at least to human senses and he didn’t want to use his dragon senses. He didn’t want to reach for that other self, for fear it would bring them. And for fear of what he might do. He swallowed hard, thinking of the corpse.
    There could be nothing odd in his apartment. The only reason his hand trembled was because of his being so tired. And the corpse and everything.
    He slid the key in and turned it.

    In the moment before Tom opened the door Kyrie had a wild surge of panic. She wanted to tell him to wait, but she couldn’t speak. And she didn’t know why he should wait. She just had a feeling—added up from rustling, from sounds she could not possibly have heard, from an odd smell, from a weird tingle up her spine—that something was wrong, very wrong.
    Perhaps Tom was going to drag her into his apartment and— And what? Imagination failed her. She had seen him in that bathroom, so slow and confused he didn’t even seem to know how to wipe away blood from himself. She had seen him standing there, helpless. She could hardly believe he would now turn around and rape her.
    On the other hand, didn’t they sacrifice virgins to dragons in the Middle Ages? She almost smiled at the thought of Tom as virgin-despoiler. The way he looked, he’d have trouble beating away the ones who threw themselves at him. Kyrie managed to calm herself completely, when Tom reached in and turned on the light.
    The light revealed an unprepossessing living room, with the type of dark brown carpet