I would always open up the door, always looking up at higher floors

STARS.

Millions, maybe trillions of them glittering on a vast, eternal black palette.

I was soaring at superluminal velocity, headed straight for a fantastical pink, gold, purple, and orange cluster of nebulae.

This time was different. In the past I’d always felt oddly disembodied.

I didn’t now. I flexed my hand and glanced down. I had a hoof of sorts with black talons. It was steaming like dry ice, leaving a trail of sparkling frost in my wake. I glanced back over my shoulder and simply stared for a long moment.

I had the body of an enormous black, leathery skinned and scaled, icy, majestic dragon.

Holy hell, I was a Hunter.

I glanced right and left to see my beautiful wings. Though I’d known it was going to happen, knowing wasn’t the same as seeing.

I was no longer human. And never would be again. This was my body now.

I focused on curving one of my wings. It not only obeyed, it nearly sent me into a tailspin. I snapped it rigid and pulled out of it moments before crashing into a small meteor sailing by.

Oh, God, I was in space.

I was a Hunter.

It was too much to process. I’d been too quickly ripped out of one reality and crammed into another.

My body was gone. My red hair, my arms, my legs, all of it. Just gone. Forever. I would never lace up sneakers on my feet again. Never slip into a sexy dress and high heels. Never gorge on Pop-Tarts, or access my brand of the slipstream. Never pet Shazam with a hand.

They say we deal with death in stages. I always thought I’d belly up a laugh and plunge into it fearlessly, but now I felt appallingly normal for the first time in my life, as I flashed instantly to denial. “I can’t be this. Send me back!” I protested. My words came out as a deep, resonant gonging, not words at all. Where were the Hunters? They’d come in the past. Why weren’t they here now?

Anger reared its fiery red head. “You can’t do this to me! I had a life!”

Silence.

In case they were nearby, listening, I moved to the next stage: bargaining: “Please! I just need to see Ryodan one more time, and I need to tell Shazam what happened! I’m not ready!”

You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.

The voice echoed inside my head and I turned to find a great black Hunter dropping into flight pattern beside me.

A huge Hunter! Twenty times my size. I was tiny in comparison.

It chuffed with laughter. You’ve just been born. What did you expect? It will be eons before you’re fully grown.

I blinked, suffering a mind-bending disconnect. Part of me was still human, back on Earth, torn from battle, desperate to know if I’d succeeded in killing Balor, desperate to see Ryodan and Shazam, to know which of my sisters I’d lost. Another part of me was simply stupefied, trying to process and accept that I was a Hunter now. I had a new body that, fortunately, seemed to understand instinctively how to fly itself.

“Where did my other body go?” I boomed.

The Hunter snorted a tendril of fire. Silly question. Part of you.

“I need to know if I killed—”

Balor is dead.

“How do you know?”

I’ve been watching you.

I turned my (dragon!) head and peered into its fiery orange gaze. “Why?”

Protecting you. We nest our eggs.

“I’m not an egg,” I said indignantly.

You were. Now you’re Hunter.

“You mean because I stabbed one? Is that the deal—if someone kills a Hunter, they have to become one?”

Have to? Hardly. Hunter is a privilege. We don’t birth children. We choose them. Our chosen must then choose to become one of us or not. You could have walked away at any point. You chose not to.

I blinked, pondering that, unable to argue. I have a fatal flaw: more weapons to protect my world seduces me. I’d hungered for the gargantuan power of a Hunter. I’d been enticed by the possibility of such astronomical adventures. In a deep, wordless place inside I’d been insatiably curious about what was happening to me. It’s always been one of my downfalls, leading me from one extreme situation to the next.

During the past two years when I’d been so alone, I’d have plunged headlong into the transition.

But my family was back. I was in love. I had a life and a world and a Hel-Cat that needed me.

Each time you turned black, you didn’t reject it. You found it curious, intriguing. When you began to transform, you welcomed it, always staring up at the stars. That’s what I felt in you the day you stabbed me. You’re made of stardust, destined for the skies. You belong here, with us.

I gaped at the giant Hunter that seemed somehow feminine to me. “You’re the one I stabbed?”

She turned her head and smiled, thin black lips peeling back from saber teeth and bobbed her great leathery black head. I am Y’rill. I have been waiting to see if you would become one of us for many years. Keeping you alive when I could. If a dragon could look abashed, Y’rill did then. I broke many rules for you, Dani O’Malley.

“I thought I killed you.”

Can’t. We die only if we choose to become the next thing.

“What?” I demanded suspiciously, wanting to know just what was in store for me next.

It is within us to one day become planets. Your Earth was once a Hunter. You, Dani O’Malley, are one of our chosen. It is a great honor.

But my people! I peered down through space, seeing only unfamiliar moons and worlds. No sign of Earth. I had no idea where I was, no real concept of up or down. It was disorienting in the extreme.

It will soon feel natural. And they are still your people if you wish, Y’rill said.

“You mean I can return and live among them as a Hunter,” I clarified. I fully intended to.

You may also live among them as a human. Half the time.

I have no idea what I did then because I didn’t have the hang of my new form, but I gave an explosive whole-body jerk and suddenly I was rocketing through space in a dizzying tailspin, head over tail—Holy leaping lizards, I had a tail! A long black leathery one!

Stop fighting it, Y’rill said, chuffing softly. You can’t muscle things up here. Easy, smooth movements, small one.

I tried, I really did. Focused on merely the tips of my wings, but I was tumbling so fast and out of control that every move I tried to make generated intense friction and I couldn’t—

Dragon teeth plucked me out of freefall by the nape of my neck. Like a kitten or something, I thought crossly. Good grief, did I really have to be a child all over again?

You will learn, Y’rill said, chuckling. Enjoy it. Unlike your human childhood, this one will be grand, with endless universes to explore and no cages. Ever.

“Half the time?” I shouted the moment I had my bearings again. “I get to be human half of my life, like Persephone? I get my body back?”

I do not know of her but yes. However, if you fail to spend half your time as a Hunter, you will lose the privilege of being one. Most of us choose to remain Hunter. Few ever return.

“Why not?”

Loved ones pass. Planets die. This is home. Everything is here. We are nightwindflyhighfree. There is no place more majestic, no greater freedom to be found than among the stars. You hunger for freedom. I tasted your mind when you stabbed me. You were already one of us, sky-high dreams, no limits. You despise limits. We have none.

I wasn’t hearing much past that I could be human again.

This wasn’t death. This wasn’t permanent.

I was like Ryodan and his beast. I was both woman and dragon—holy hell—this was the best of both worlds, better than anything I could have imagined! I hadn’t lost anything, I’d gained. “Fully human?” I pressed. “As in, not lethal to the touch?”

You will be as you were before you began to change. But it will be some time before you can shift forms; you must bond with your new skin. The more often you shift, the more skilled you become, but that first time is terribly difficult. It may take many years.

“Years?” I exploded, bristling. That was unacceptable.

He is immortal, small one. He’s not going anywhere.

It hit me then. I couldn’t feel Ryodan anymore. I arched my—good grief, long scaly black—neck to peer over my shoulder but I couldn’t see my back. “Do I have a brand on me?” I demanded.

Your skin is new. Nothing of his mark remains. Trinkets do not survive transformation.

I exhaled gustily, startled to see tiny, dark ice crystals puffing from my mouth as I realized Ryodan must have felt our connection sever abruptly and had no idea what happened to me. So much for our plan to love each other in illusion. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. But it didn’t need to. I could be a woman half the time! Exhilaration filled me. This was incredible! I was a woman who could become a dragon. And become a woman again!

But…Ryodan, Shazam, my friends. I had to tell them. “Take me back to Earth, Y’rill. You can teach me to shift there. I’m a fast learner.” I was practically vibrating in the air with excitement. I’d soar back to Earth, tell Ryodan and Shaz what had happened, then hang out with them, learning all about my new form.

Damn. Ryodan’s beast had nothing on me! I could feel my Hunter lips stretching into a smile as I beamed radiantly. I was badass, the most awesome superhero I could possibly be. If I’d known going in this was what was waiting for me, I’d have embraced it sooner.

Give your new world a chance. It will all be waiting for you when you return. Where did that child I felt when you stabbed me go? The one who couldn’t wait for the next adventure? It’s here. Look around. Is it not magnificent?

“Y’rill, Shazam will fall apart without me! He’ll melt down. He’s so emotional and he doesn’t know where I am. He doesn’t have anyone to take care of him. I have to go back! Show me how to get back!”

Y’rill chuffed softly. Shazam is fine, tiny red.

I jerked to a sudden stop and stared at her. “What did you just say?” I gasped.

Y’rill said tenderly, Shazam is fine.

“After that.”

Those ferocious eyes gleamed with amusement. Tiny red.

Y’rill said she’d been watching over me. “But you’re a she,” I said faintly, trying to bend my mind into a shape it simply refused to achieve. “Shazam is a he.”

You’re the one ascribing genders. We have none.

Y’rill smiled then and I suddenly understood what Shazam’s smile had always reminded me of, which I’d never been able to place.

Thin black lips pulling back from sharp teeth.

Same utterly alien expression.

Shazam’s smile had reminded me of a Hunter. Chills suffused my entire body. No way. Not possible.

I said slowly and carefully, “Y’rill, what were you before you became a Hunter?”

Before I was chosen for this by a great dragon soaring among the stars, drawn by my cries of loneliness and longing for a home, I was once the last remaining Hel-Cat in existence. Y’rill’s eyes flickered with violet lightning. My beloved Yi-yi.