His name was Vandar, and he was a creature from an ancient nightmare.  A creature who had lived for centuries relying on his psychic powers, his cunning.
      Now he lifted his massive head and roared for the pleasure of feeling his slaves cringe.
      In his present incarnation, he was a huge, scaled being with glittering red eyes, a reptilian body, and wings shaped like those of a bat–only enormously larger.  But he was just as likely to take human form.
      Leaping into the air, he circled his lair, looking down with a feeling of satisfaction as he churned up the chemicals in his belly, then spewed out a blast of fire that singed the already blackened landscape. 
      His huge mouth stretched into a parody of a smile as he looked down on the circle of destruction.  It was a warning to any enemies who dared approach this blighted place.  And a warning to the slaves who lived in the huge cave he had blasted out of a mountainside.  If any tried to escape, he could turn them to ash as easily as he had charred the land.
      Now he was widening his circle of influence,  not just here but into a world parallel to this one.  A world where the people would be helpless to fight him.
      But he hadn’t lived for close to a thousand years by leaping unprepared into the unknown.
      As he flew over his territory, he thought of the tasks that must be accomplished before the big invasion.  He had already started his preparations for the assault by sending spies to the other universe.  They were all men who had stayed for a few days and come back to give him a sense of the place.  In the next phase, his agent would remain longer and provide a more detailed report.
      And this time he would send an attractive woman because she would seem weak and vulnerable, yet her pretty face, sexy figure and psychic powers would give her an advantage over the men she met.
      Satisfied with the plan, he circled back and landed in the ceremonial site fifty yards from the mouth of his cave.  Lifting his head to the skies, he roared out four notes.  Two long and two short.  A signal to the people who did his bidding.
      Three hundred slaves instantly dropped what they were doing and hurried to answer his call.
      One by one and in groups, they stepped outside the cave, blinking in the morning sunshine.
      He watched their stiff posture, their wary eyes as they stood in their color-coded tunics.  White for adepts.  Gray for house servants.  Brown for those who did the dirtiest jobs like washing the floors and mucking out the toilets.  And burgundy for his troops.
      They knew what was coming, and they cringed, even as they came toward him with hesitant steps. 
      Standing before them, he began to change his form, his wings folding inward.  His claws and his great tail retracting back into his body.  The shape of his torso shrinking and transmuting to the incarnation he used when he walked among his minions. 
      He was vulnerable when he changed, but they didn’t know that, and they trembled as he transformed from silver-scaled monster to a tall, dark-haired man.  He stood before them naked for several moments, letting them take in his well-muscled body with its impressive male equipment. 
      Satisfied that they had had enough time to contemplate his magnificence, he snapped his fingers.   Two blond-haired women clad in white came forward and walked to the carved wooden chest where he kept a set of clothing.  From its depths, one of them removed a long black tunic of fine linen, edged with gold braid.  As he held out his arms, one of them slipped the garment over his head and the other knelt and strapped a pair of supple leather sandals onto his feet.
      When he was dressed and they’d stepped back into the crowd, he turned and smiled at the waiting throng, feeling the waves of tension rolling toward him.
      They knew he would feed now.  On one of them.  He could have done that in his dragon form, of course.  But this was so much more intimate, and it impressed upon them that, even when he looked like a man, he was as far above them as an eagle was above an ant. 
      Long moments passed as he let them sweat, let them wonder  which of them he would select.  And why. 
      A man or a woman?
      They didn’t know he had already made that decision.  In his mind, he kept a running assessment of his slaves’ deeds–of the times they pleased him and of their transgressions.  One man above all the others had earned the privilege of participating in this ceremony. 
      Finally, he raised his voice.  “Bendel, come forward.”
      The man gasped.  Everyone else breathed out a sigh of relief.
      For long moments, nothing happened.  Then Bendel broke and ran.
      Vandar was ready for the slave’s futile bid for freedom.  His tongue flicked out, lengthening like a whip, catching the man and pulling him back.
      Bendel’s face turned white. His eyes were wide and pleading.
      “Were you foolish enough to think you could outrun me?” Vandar murmured, his voice silky.  “And foolish enough to steal food from the larder?”
      The slave’s jaw worked, but no words came out of his mouth. 
      Vandar spread his lips, baring his teeth as he sent out his fangs, his gaze never leaving the man’s terrified eyes, as he grabbed his hair and arched his neck before sinking his fangs into the pale flesh.
      The first draft of blood sent a burst of warmth through him.  He felt the life-giving liquid flow into his mouth, down his throat and into his stomach.
      The nourishment brought him a satisfying glow of energy.  In his childhood, he hadn’t known what kind of creature he really was, and he had subsisted on a human diet.  He could still eat small amounts of food and drink if he wanted.  He had tried wine made from grapes and other fruit, and to his taste buds, the wine had a tang that was similar to blood.   
      He could have spared his victim’s life.  Draining the lifeblood from any one individual wasn’t necessary to quench his thirst.  He didn’t even need to drink human blood.  An animal would do.  But an animal could not fear him with the intellect of a man, and that was part of the pleasure for him.  He loved feeling a victim’s terror swelling, then the inevitable acceptance as his life force slipped away.             
      When he had drained the last drop of sweet-tasting nectar, he cast the husk of the body onto the ground and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic before raising his head to stare at the other slaves.
      As he searched their faces, he let the moment stretch, prolonging the little ceremony and impressing the gravity of the occasion on the group of terrified watchers.  Then he snapped his fingers, calling out the two men who would take out the garbage.

      Feeling an unaccustomed restlessness, Talon Marshall exited the former hunting lodge where he lived in the woods of rural Pennsylvania and walked to a stand of pines that he’d planted years ago.  In maturity, they formed a tight circle, shielding him from view.  But there was one place where he had trimmed some lower branches so it was easy to push through. 
      Once inside, he pulled off his clothes and stowed them in the wooden storage box he’d built.  Standing  naked among the pines, he enjoyed the feel of the humid air on his well-muscled body.
      Did normal men chafe at the confinement of clothing?  Did they long for the freedom that he had claimed for himself?
      In a clear voice, he began to say the ancient words that had turned the men of the Marshall family into werewolves since Druid times. 
      “Taranis, Epona, Cerridwen,” he chanted, repeating the phrase and going on to another. 
      “Ga.  Feart.  Cleas.  Duais.  Aithriocht.  Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu.”   
      The human part of his mind screamed in protest as bones crunched, muscles jerked and cells transformed from one shape to another.
      No matter how many times he changed form, it was never easy to feel his jaw elongate, his teeth sharpen, his body contort as muscles and limbs transformed themselves.  
      The first time, he’d been terrified that the pain would kill him–the way it had killed his older brother. 
      But he’d willed himself to steadiness, and once he’d understood what to expect, he’d learned to ride above the terrifying physical sensations. 
      Thick gray hair formed along his flanks, covering his body in a silver-tipped pelt.  The color--the very structure--of his eyes changed as he dropped to all fours.  A magnificent beast of the forest.  Unrecognizable as a member of the human race.
      With the transformation completed, everything changed.  In animal awareness, he lifted his head and dragged in the familiar smells of the forest-- leafy vegetation, rotting leaves, and the creatures that made their homes here.
      Racing past a stand of oaks, he caught the scent of a fox and automatically corrected his course to follow the trail.  The animal gave him a good chase, taking him to a patch of wilderness that he hadn’t visited in months.
      As he stopped for a moment, breathing hard, a scent came to him.  Not a familiar odor.  Something that didn’t belong in this wilderness environment.
      A threat? 
      Slowly, he walked around the area, sniffing, until he came to a place where the forest floor had been disturbed.  As he pawed the earth, he found it was soft, with leaves brushed over the top to hide freshly disturbed dirt.
      The wolf dug down several inches, sure there was something buried here that didn’t belong in the woods.  A body?  Or something that might leach into the soil, spreading poison.
      He dragged in more of the scent and decided it wasn’t anything that had been alive.  But that was as far as he could go as a wolf.  He needed hands to get to the bottom of this mystery.
      Turning, he raced back the way he’d come, to the circle of pine trees where he pushed through the change.  As soon as he had morphed back to his human form, he pulled on his clothing, then strode to the five-door garage building where he kept his outdoor equipment–some of it for his business--leading wilderness expeditions--and some of it for maintaining the property around the lodge.
      With a short-handled shovel slung easily over his shoulder, he  strode back to the place where he’d pawed the earth.  
      His human senses were no longer as keen.  But he dragged in a draft of the forest air and looked around carefully before beginning to dig in earnest, scooping out the dirt and piling it to the right of the hole where he could easily replace it when he was finished.
      When the shovel scraped against something hard, he widened the hole around the object.  Then, using the shovel as a lever, he pried up a metal box, which he hauled out and set on the ground.
      Obviously, the box was private property, but it was buried on public land.  With the shovel blade, he whacked at the padlock securing the top until the hasp broke.  Then he knelt and lifted the lid.
      What he saw inside made his breath catch.

From DRAGON MOON,