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Something was coming. Jennifer was sure of it.

Not that she could explain the feeling, of course. It was similar to the 'spark' she felt when a business deal was just right: a sense of potential energy about to be released. This was slightly different, more like something building in the air. There was also a rather ominous note to it, as if whatever it foreboded could be good, bad, or both at the same time. Whatever it was, it was hovering just out of her grasp...

"So what did you do to him last night?"

The vixen shook herself out of her daze and turned to her lunch companions, mentally kicking herself for wasting her time with them by daydreaming. She had been busy with work for too long, and seeing her slaves outside of the bedroom had become far too rare. "I'm sorry, what?"

Luna smiled. "I was asking what you were up to with Sky last night to make the two of you sleep in all morning."

"What makes you think we were doing anything?"

Tali shared a grin with the wolfess. "We heard moaning and roaring coming from his lair late last night, just after you got in. I haven't heard him that loud in months."

Jennifer frowned. "I slept in because I was tired, not because I was up to anything. I barely made it to my room before I fell asleep. I heard some moaning from his lair when I went past, but I assumed you three were entertaining yourselves in my absence..." She trailed off, concern building in her mind.

Tali frowned. "So... why was he moaning so much last night, and where is he now?"

Fearing the worst, Luna leapt up and ran for the door, with the vixen and skunkette close behind her. Jennifer's feeling of impending doom returned full force.

***

Bursting through the door of Sky's lair, the trio hurriedly looked around. "He's not in the bedroom" called Jennifer.

Luna looked through the entrance to the bathroom. "He's here!"

Joining her, they found Sky curled into a ball in a corner of the room. He had wrapped his wings tightly around himself, and they could hear quiet whimpering coming from beneath them.

"Sky, what's wrong?" Jennifer reached out and touched his shoulder. With a gasp, she pulled her hand back; he was as cold as ice. Dropping to her knees by his side, she gently pried apart his wings and caught a glimpse of his face, buried under his arms. He was crying and obviously in pain. "Sky..."

The dragon opened an eye and looked at her. "Jennifer..." He moaned loudly. "It hurts!"

The vixen glanced at the others. "Call an ambulance." Before anyone could move, a blue hand had shot out and caught her arm.

"No. No doctors." Sky was staring at her intently. "Not sick. Need... Dragon!"

"Sky, you're in pain! We need to get you to a hospital or something!" He shook his head vehemently. Jennifer's brain was screaming at her to ignore him, but there was something about the way he had said it... "You're sure?" He nodded. She agonised for a moment, but decided to trust him. "If you say so... No doctor." Standing, she looked at the others again. "I need to make a call. See if you can make him comfortable." The two girls nodded and bent down to help the dragon to his bed. With a worried look, she ran to find a phone.

Sprinting through the house, Jennifer briefly cursed her decision to keep work and home separate; it meant there were very few phones in the place, and none of them anywhere near places the four occupants would be playing, such as the bedrooms. Reaching the front hall, she grabbed the handset, then swore as she realised she didn't have a number. Swearing again, she ran for the tiny room she used as a home office during those times her company didn't require her full attention.

She almost tripped over the furniture as she snatched for the phone on the desk and opened the address book. Most entries were for her company; she rarely did business directly with others. Fortunately, she had made a few business friends over the years; one of whom was a dragon. Scrolling through the contacts, she found the entry she was looking for and hit dial.

The line seemed to ring for hours before it was picked up. She heard a deep voice on the other end. "Jennifer, my dear! Been months since I heard from you! How's business?"

"Max, I need your help. I-"

"Yes, heard you'd been having some trouble! Not sure what an old dragon like me can do to help a business-wizard like you, but-"

"It's not work, Max. It's one of my slaves. He-"

"Slaves? My dear, never even knew you had any! Always thought that was odd for one of us Privileged." There was a laugh. "Not that any of us are that ordinary, of course. How many you got?"

Jennifer sighed. She had forgotten how difficult it was to talk to this particular dragon. He had one of the sharpest minds around, but was almost impossible to have a conversation with without getting diverted onto a totally different topic. "Three, Max. Listen-"

"Only three?! Bah, you always think small, Jennifer! You should-"

"MAX!"

The line was silent for a moment. "No need to yell, my dear." The voice sounded rather hurt.

"Max, one of my slaves is a dragon. He's... I think he's ill, but he's insisting he's not. He says he needs another dragon, rather than a doctor."

The line went silent again. Then the deep voice returned. There was a much more serious tone to it now. "How long has he been ill, and what are the symptoms?"

"Since late last night. He's in pain, and he was freezing to the touch."

Luna appeared in the doorway. Jennifer turned to her. "What's wrong?"

"He's not cold any more. Now he's burning up. We really should call an ambulance."

She was about to agree when Max's voice came from the phone. "No need, my dear. Be there in two minutes!" The line went dead as he hung up the phone.

"Two- What?" The vixen was totally confused. Max's house was hours away by car, and his place of work was even further, so how could he...

"Jenny, what should we do?"

"He said two minutes; we'll give him two minutes. After that, I'm calling a doctor."

Sending Luna back to keep an eye on their ailing friend, Jennifer went to wait by the front door. She was reaching for the phone when the bell rang. She opened it with a frown. "How did you get here so..." She trailed off as she looked out.

Standing in the drive was a huge, red, feral dragon. She had known that Max was one of the dragons who could Change into a non-anthro form, but she had never seen him in it.

With a shimmer, his shape shifted, returning to the two-legged form she was used to. As much as Sky's slim build went against the stereotypical image of a dragon, Max's reinforced it. He stood at over six feet; his broad shoulders and muscular figure would have strained most suits, but he obviously paid his tailor enough to avoid his clothing looking like it was painted on.

"Take me to him, please" he asked with a grim smile.

Still struggling with his rapid arrival and sudden transformation, the vixen lead him through the mansion to the bedrooms. "Just how did you get here so quickly? Don't tell me you flew or something."

"Or something, yes." They reached Sky's lair, and Max looked around appreciatively. "Nice place. May have to steal some ideas!"

Tali was sitting on the bed with Sky's head lying on her lap. She was running a damp cloth over his brow. Luna sat next to him, holding his hand. They looked up as Jennifer and Max entered the room, the red dragon giving them both a smile. "No need to worry girls, I'm sure he'll be fine. Looks like you've taken good care of him. Need some nurse's outfits!" Before they could respond, he too sat on the bed, and put his hand over Sky's brow.

He frowned for a moment, then began to laugh quietly. He turned to look at Jennifer, who was hovering near the bed, worried. "By any chance, has he had some sort of profound, life-changing, psychological revelation recently?"

She thought about Sky accepting her collar the week before. "Yes, you could say that. How is that related to him being ill?"

"Long story! Would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?" As the vixen started to protest, he reassured her. "Don't worry, he'll be as good as new inside half an hour - better, in fact - but this is private, dragon stuff." Max got off the bed and firmly guided the complaining women towards the door.

***

Jennifer paced outside Sky's lair. Her worried look was mirrored by Tali and Luna, sitting on the floor. It had only been about fifteen minutes since Max had shooed them out for the room, but to the anxious trio it felt like hours.

With a quiet click, the door opened and Max's head appeared. "Would you mind joining us, my dear?" he asked. As the other girls started to get up, he pointed at them. "You two nurses can stay where you are. No, no protesting! Sky's fine now, but I have things to discuss with your mistress." As he moved away from the entrance to let Jennifer pass, he gave them a friendly scowl. "No eavesdropping!"

The dragon closed the door and locked it behind them. As he headed for the bedroom, Jennifer gestured for him to wait, then thumped the door hard. Hearing a couple of annoyed protests, she waved the chuckling dragon on before her. Entering the room, she saw Sky sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked much better than he had: the pained expression on his face had been replaced with a grin, and there was an almost amused light in his eyes.

"Well, you look much better" she said. "Now, would someone please explain to me what's going on?"

"My dear Jennifer," said Max, "of course we'll explain. That's why I asked you back into the room!" He looked down at Sky. "Very nice room it is, too. Definitely going to steal some ideas. You'll have to tell me the name of the builders you used! Wonder if they can do multiple floors? Could have a waterfall-" The pained noise coming from the vixen finally broke into Max's train of thought. "Ah, right. Later." He grinned. "Explanations, then! Probably easier to demonstrate rather than get into long, involved stories. Sky, would you mind...?"

Sky raised a cupped hand in front of him, fingers splayed. Jennifer looked at it, wondering what she was supposed to see. For a moment, nothing happened. Then orange sparks began to flick between his fingertips. She watched, disbelieving, as they gathered into a small glowing ball, suspended above his palm. Her eyes found Sky's, and she knew the sense of wonder she saw there was reflected in her own.

"Magic, my dear" whispered Max. "It's been forgotten in these days of science and technology; they're easier to understand. But magic doesn't care about being ignored: it's still there, all the same." He saw the sceptical look she gave him. "Come now, haven't you ever wondered why there's sentient forms of most animals found in nature, but no one's ever seen anything remotely like a non-sentient dragon? Magic! We practically sweat the stuff, but most other species don't notice it. Oh, there's always a few non-dragons that can sense it - even use it. Got some potential yourself. But dragons are masters of it. Not born with it, of course! Takes years to build to 'critical mass', so to speak. Even then, have to have a trigger!"

Sky looked up at his bewildered mistress. "In order to use the magic within ourselves, we have to understand ourselves." He smiled softly. "You helped me do that. You made me realise who and what I am. That's why I took your collar, and my magic awakened at the same time."

Jennifer sat on the bed with a thump. "I don't... This is going to take a while to sink in." She shook her head.

Max smiled kindly. "We know that, my dear. Takes a while for newly-awakened dragons to accept it, too, but we have ways of speeding that up. Now, I realise you're not taking all of this in, but there's a few more things I really should tell you. First, don't tell anyone about this! I have no idea how crazy things would become if magic became public knowledge. You can tell your two nurses if you want, though. Seem pretty clever to me; they'll probably notice when Sky starts practicing. Better to break it to them gently! Second, you'll notice a few changes in Sky now his magic's working. Stronger, more intelligent, that sort of thing."

The red dragon sat down next to her. "He's also capable of Changing now. The first time'll be a surprise. Strong emotion, that's what sets it off. Changed at a concert, myself; classical music always gets to me. Almost flattened the string section! Once he's done it, he can start to learn to change at will." He looked around Sky's lair again. "Might want a bigger room for when he does. Bit small for a feral!"

Jennifer sat in stunned silence for a while, trying to process everything she'd heard. Max's shotgun approach to conversation didn't help, and she knew she would have to get Sky to explain everything again after he'd left. For now, a few important questions came to mind. "Does he need lessons? Training?"

"Took care of that already. Dumped all the knowledge straight into his head! Much quicker than studying. All he needs is practice. You can probably help with that. Hard to use magic when you're distracted, and I'm sure you and your nurses can find plenty of distractions to use on him!"

Jennifer began to grin, ideas forming in her mind. "Ok, so now for the most important question. What exactly can he do?"

"Lots of things!" Max laughed. "Almost anything he can put his mind to. Teleporting's always a good trick to master. How I got here so quickly. Healing's good too. Play doctor to the nurses! Can't fix major stuff, but can help you recover quicker. No more colds and sniffles, either." He gave the vixen a speculative look. "Cloning's always fun. Two of him, if only for an hour or so. Levitation, breathing fire, transmutation, telepathy... Don't really approve of that. Bit of an invasion. Can make things interesting with a lover, though!"

Jennifer blushed slightly as various ideas ran through her head. Exploring Sky's newfound magical powers was going to be... interesting.

But she still had the feeling that something was coming.