I cry out as I thud into the earth, roar in surprise when it cracks open beneath me like a breaking eggshell, and drops me into a shallow, subterranean pool of water twenty-six feet below.

The silver-bell pealing of her laughter fills my mind and I stare up through the jagged hole my fall just created, at the moonlit sky above. The pale flash of her underbelly passes by a few hundred feet overhead. "You're in Cockpit Country, " she says. "Here the ground is not always as solid as you think."

"Good thing," I say. Water sloshes around me as I flex my wings, move my arms, my legs and tail. Everything hurts but nothing seems broken. Relieved, I stretch, breathe large gulps of air, will my heart to beat faster, focus internally on speeding oxygenated blood to my injured parts so the cells can draw on its nourishment as they mend. After the first, almost-painful twinge of healing begins, I give way to the rage building within me.

"Who's your friend?" I demand.

"He's a stranger like you. I think he's nearby, waiting for you to take to the sky again."

"Lucky me," I say, still stretching and mending my body parts. "At least tell me your name."

"Maybe later," she says, laughing, the sound of it deeper this time, somehow promising to me.

"Later, after what?"

"You'll see." She laughs again-deep rich tones that resonate in my mind as she flies away.

Another shape, darker, larger, flies over the hole. "Are you finished hiding yet? Are you ready to come out and face your death?" he asks.

I stand, water dripping from my body. My jaw clenched, I hold back a roar. I am a thinking being, I tell myself, a creature of reason. I force myself not to take to the sky, and ask instead, "Who are you to appoint yourself my executioner?"

He flies lower, so I can see the size of him, larger than me, his wingspread reaching at least five feet more. "I use the name Emit Sang," he says, "If it matters to you."

"I'm Peter DelaSangre."

"I feel better," he says. "Now I know who I'm killing."

"But why?" I ask. "There are so few of us."

"There will be even less of us if one of us doesn't get the girl."

"So let's tell her to choose."

"Are you sure you're of the blood?" He laughs. "None of our women would accept a male who wouldn't fight for her. How can you smell her and turn your back?"

I nod, think of Father's words. "Sometimes," he told me, "I think your mother ruined you with too much human nonsense. You have to learn to follow your instincts."

My nostrils flare and I allow her aroma to work on me. Cinnamon and musk envelope me, fill me, own my soul. If I must kill for the girl, then so be it. I leap into the air, shoot out the hole with a single beat of my wings. Roar my challenge as I regain the sky.

"Surprise won't be so easy again, my friend," I say, circling in the air, looking for the approach of a moving, flying shadow.

"Do you always talk so much?" he says, flying toward me, his talons extended.

We collide in midair and fall together-a whirling jumble of flapping wings, slashing claws, whipping tails. I gasp as he sinks a talon into my right wing, ripping a long gash in its thin membrane. I strike in turn at him, my claw cutting a deep red wound down the length of his neck. The air fills with the sweet, thick aroma of our blood, resounds with the din of our roars.

He disengages, wheels away, dives. I plunge after him, catching his tail, sinking my teeth into its soft meat. His roar changes pitch, almost to a scream, and he pummels my head and neck with his rear claws-slashing skin, tearing muscle, cutting tendons. The pain sears through me, but still I hold on, my jaws clamped tight.

Finally he manages to graze my right eye with one of his talons, ripping the flesh just below it. Partly blinded, I bellow, release him and dive away. With injuries of his own to tend to, Sang wheels off in another direction. Once we've attained some distance from each other, I spread my wings, stopping my fall, then soar upward, wincing at the pain of my injured wing, my eye, my many cuts and bruises.

I concentrate on controlling my blood flow and cell growth, clearing my vision, mending my other wounds. I glide in wide spirals as I heal, husbanding my strength, preparing myself for his next attack. But then the thought occurs-why should I have to wait for him?

I strain my wings as much as possible as I beat skyward, gain altitude until the air becomes hard to breathe, thin beneath my wings.

Far below me, Emil Sang circles, calling, "Peter! Where are you? Are you hiding from me again? " I hold back a roar, fold my wings, plummet toward him.

I hit him with the force of a ten-thousand-foot fall. The impact stuns both of us, but I hold my position above him as we drop, pin his wings against his body, sink my teeth into the back of his neck, penetrating his thick scales until I taste his hot blood.

He struggles beneath me, but I only hold him tighter, bite him deeper.

"You know it will take more than your miserable bite to kill me," he says.

"I know," I answer as we speed toward the ground. "But I think the fall should do it."

Sang laughs, tries once more to break free. "And you think you can let go of me in time to save yourself?"

"No." I drive my claws and teeth even more into his flesh. "I only hope your body will shield mine from the impact."

He roars in rage just before we hit.

The deep tone of her laughter is the first thing I notice when I regain consciousness.

"Is he dead?" she asks.

"I thought you said the ground isn't always as solid as it seems."

"Sometimes it is," she says.

I groan, roll off his inert body, force myself to my feet. Sang doesn't move. I kick him and still he lies motionless. "I think he's dead," I say, examining his face, his lifeless eyes-sniffing by his nostrils for any sign of breathing, smelling only the fresh odor of blood seeping from his wounds.

"Did you kill him for me?" she coos, flying close by overhead, cinnamon and musk overpowering me.

Her question irritates me almost as much as the pride I feel welling up within me. I want to say how shameful it is that one of our fellow creatures had to die, but I strut around his body instead, breathe in the scent of her. "Of course," I say.

"Oh." She passes so near the wind from her wings washes over me. "May I join you?"

I circle my fallen foe, puff out my chest, spread my wings and roar into the evening sky.

"May I join you?" she asks again.

The scent of cinnamon and musk intensifies and I breathe it in, my heart racing, pounding. This is a time for instinct, I know, not rational, scientific thought. "Of course you may."

She lands beside me, approaches until her side touches mine.

"What's your name?" I ask.

She presses against me. "Aren't you hungry?" she asks.

The question surprises me. After all my efforts, the long flight, the struggle with Emil Sang, I know I should be ravenous. Only my lust for her has held my hunger in check.

"You want to hunt right now?" I ask, hoping that isn't what she's implying.

"Why hunt when there's afresh kill right underneath our noses?" She walks forward to my dead foe. "Besides," she says, "you owe him the honor."

I regret anew that my parents, especially my father, neglected to teach me so much. "Women teach traditions, men live them," Father said whenever I questioned him. "It's your mother's fault, wasting all her time teaching you human nonsense. I've taught you what you need to know. You can damn well learn the rest by yourself."

"Honor?" I mindpseak.

"Yes, honor. You owe him that," the female says.

Hunger finally strikes me. "Who am I," I say, "to deny him his due?"

"May I?" she asks.

I nod and she slices Sang's carcass open with a single slash of her talons. Then she tears loose a piece of his flesh with her mouth and offers it to me. Our lips touch as I take it from her and, for a moment, I consider bypassing the meal entirely. Instead, I concentrate on dampening my lust, eating the meat she's so kindly offered. Only after I finish it and begin to eat more, does she start to feed herself.