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Copyright © 2021 by Ashe Moon
Prologue
1. Grayson
2. Altair
3. Grayson
4. Altair
5. Grayson
6. Altair
7. Grayson
8. Altair
9. Grayson
10. Altair
11. Grayson
12. Altair
13. Grayson
14. Altair
15. Grayson
16. Altair
Epilogue
Thank you for reading!
The Moonstar Dating Agency Series
A LT A I R
A fog had rolled in during the evening and hung thinly in the night
air, just a veil of mist, the kind that put droplets on every leaf in Old
Shore Port and made the dawn sparkle. One might not think it, but
this type of mist was perfect for fire hunting. The haze of
atmosphere put a halo glow around any light source, and from six
hundred feet up, amplified a hundred-fold by my ruby eyes, I could
see any blaze just as it started. That was my main work in the flight
—spotting, scouting, making sure we were on track. Flying on my
right wing was Rainor, the muscle who could do the heavy lifting
that Delos and I couldn’t. Delos, with the silver scales on my left,
was our resident ice dragon, the linchpin of every Fire Flight. His ice
breath could snuff out a burning warehouse in a near-instant—not
to mention deep freeze everyone still inside. That was why it was
up to Rainor and I to get everyone out first.
“Ah, shit,” Rainor rumbled. His wings folded in as his body shrank
and scales became fabric and flesh. He ran forward and slid onto his
knees next to a cold, motionless lump of black fur. It was one of the
cats, singed and now frozen stiff.
“Have a little faith, Delos,” Rainor said. “Or is your cold heart
incapable of that?”
“And I’ll turn your balls into lumps of coal,” Rainor said.
He gently set the cat next to his boot. Bones shifted, expanded,
twisted, scales popped and spread, horns sprouted, and teeth
lengthened. Our bodies rose until we could see the roofs of the
buildings and peer into second-story windows. Rainor carefully
gathered the bundle of fur between his claws.
Our wings sent mini cyclones swirling up the street, kicked ash
and dust into the air, and sent the shop signs swinging madly on
their beams, and the three of us climbed up and up into the night
sky, back towards the outskirts of Old Shore Port, back to the
station.
1
GRA Y S O N
“I have a name,” I said. “It’s Grayson, and you can hold your
damn horses.”
“Omega!” someone else shouted. “Tea and a plate of those
sausages. Grilled tomatoes with them.”
The pewter mug filled with the frothy stuff, and I slid it across
the counter before dipping my head into the back to shout the new
order. I was used to the disrespect, it happened every day. Pregnant
without an alpha, not mated, working in a tavern… it was the
perfect storm of attention-drawing taboos. It didn’t get to me,
though. It could be irritating, sure, but I was far past the point of
being bothered by what people thought about me. And with this
one growing my belly, I knew I had to be strong. She would have to
be strong, too.
How did I know it was a girl? I could just feel her, no other
explanation than that. She had about a month to go, maybe less,
and hopefully by that time I would’ve earned enough money to get
a better place, to not have to live in the musty bedroom above the
tavern where I could only get three hours of sleep a night due to
having to close and open the damn place. How I hadn’t gone crazy
already was a miracle—and a feat of my resilience, if I was allowed
to ring my own bell.
I bussed more orders and scurried back and forth between the
kitchen and the front, lugging plates of steaming hot breakfast and
filling mugs with ale and tea. Mr. Forester danced between helping
the cook, chatting up the patrons and cleaning up, and though we
were not friends, I did respect that he didn’t ask for any more work
than he was willing to put in himself. There were worse bosses in
Old Shore Port, and I’d probably worked for all of them.
The door swung open, jangling the brass bell hanging in the
frame, and a tall man with a powerful gait strode in. Immediately, I
could tell he wasn’t human. It wasn’t that I was familiar with
dragons, I could probably count the number of times I’d ever
actually met one on my fingers and toes, but this one was obvious.
You could feel it and you could see it. You just knew that his body
was hiding something powerful, a deep magic, ancient blood. He
was different from all the other men inside, and they knew it too.
They looked at him from the corners of their eyes, glances over
shoulders, discreet assessments. For a second, the place got quiet,
like everyone had to take a second to check if they’d shit their
pants. I wasn’t afraid, though. Not really. I mean, a little nervous,
maybe. Excited. Curious.
He sat, and one of the men at the counter picked up his plate of
food and moved away. A dragon! Their community was small,
especially in this town, and they stuck to socializing with their own.
I’d always wanted to meet one, ever since I was a kid. I’d heard all
sorts of stories about them—that they used to eat humans and that
some still did, that at one point they used to outnumber men, that
they would destroy and burn towns to the ground for fun. I’d also
heard that they were incredible lovers and that humans used to get
seduced and drawn into their flights, never to be seen again. All
stories probably told to frighten, but they only fascinated me.
He raised an eyebrow like it was the first time anyone had asked
him that question. “I am,” he said. “My name’s Altair. I’m a member
of the Old Shore Port Fire Flight. I’m here for information.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re going to get anything. Not from them.
They’re all scared of you.”
“Is it true you can breathe fire?” I asked. “Why would a fire-
breathing dragon help put them out? It seems like you’d be the one
starting them.”
Altair glared at me, and I took a step back. His eyes looked like
molten lava. “I do it—we do it—because humans won’t,” he said.
“We do it to make sure this town is safe. It’s our home, too.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Only from a distance. Flying in the sky. And I’ve had glimpses of
them at the factories, powering the furnaces and stuff. Moving the
big stone blocks. But I’ve never met one. Like, up close and
personal. I’ve never seen magic up close, I mean.”
“No need.” He gripped the pewter mug around its base and his
fingers began to glow as if bright sunlight were beaming through his
skin. The tea steamed and began to bubble. A smile crossed his lips
when he saw my jaw hit the floor.
“Whoa.”
“Girl,” I said. “Well, I’m pretty sure, anyway.” I waited for him to
ask the usual questions about who the alpha was, and all the
typical judgment and condescension about the life choices that had
brought me here. If I could fund my life on disapproving looks, I
would’ve had a mansion by now.
“I am,” I said, like the idea was a foreign concept. “Yeah. I’m
looking forward to starting my own little family. Even if it’s just me
and her.”
“It doesn’t seem like I’m going to get what I’m looking for here.
And it’s obvious I’ve overstayed my welcome.” He raised his voice.
“If anyone has any information, please bring it to the station. These
fires might be connected.”
A L T A IR
D elos w as on the roof of the station. I could see him from where I
was flying, crawling slowly on his hands and knees towards the
watchtower, and I wondered what the hell he was up to. I made
one final circle above the station to finish up my watch. The
watchtower jutted up twenty feet out of the station roof, and we
used it as a platform for observation as well as to alight and land. I
landed on the brick rail on the top edge of the watchtower and
peered over, still in my dragon form, to see what Delos was doing.
That’s when I saw Soot, the black cat we’d rescued, perched
precariously on the ridge of the roof. He stared curiously at Delos,
who was inching his way towards him. Soot licked his paw,
stretched, and gave a big yawn. He hadn’t seemed to notice my
arrival at all, or the fact that I was in my dragon form above him.
I shifted and dropped into a crouch on the ledge. “For someone who
says he doesn’t give a shit about Soot, you sure do seem to care a
lot.”
“I’m only up here because Rainor won’t get off his ass. And you
know how he’ll cry if his precious kitty gets hurt. Remember when
he accidentally turned Drumstick into fried chicken?”
Delos stretched his hand out and was just inches away from
reaching Soot when his knee slipped on the narrow wedge and he
went tumbling down the side of the roof like a log down a hill. The
cat and I watched as he bounced down, cursing all the way. When
he flipped over the edge of the eaves, he shifted into dragon form
and caught himself in the air with one flap of his wings. Soot
squinted his eyes, his whiskers blowing from the turbulence. But he
was undisturbed, and he jutted a leg into the air and licked his
nethers before getting up and elegantly padding away.
“I swear to the heavens,” Delos said. “I’ll turn him into an ice
cube.”
He flew up to where I was and shifted back to human form, and
we took the stairs down into the station together. Rainor was
roosted up in the common area hammock, reading a book that
looked miniature in his massive hands. The man was a beast, a fire
tank, all muscle in human form and all armor scales as a dragon.
“Our cat,” said Rainor, without looking up from his book. “He
belongs to the flight. And I’m sure he was just fine. Don't worry
about him.”
“Who said I’m worried?” Delos leaped from the rest-area balcony
down to the floor below.
The inside of the station was two floors, the bottom floor open
with a large central area in the middle that we normally used for
working out. There was a kitchen space, sitting space, and the
ladder to the upstairs, which had a central atrium and a balcony
that went around the entire perimeter of the station. Our private
quarters were on the second floor, as was a common area where we
kept a small library and a hammock for lounging, among other
things. And then, of course, the wrought iron staircase that circled
up into the watchtower. The building itself was a couple of hundred
years old and had been patched up and built on over the decades,
and in the ten years since we’d come to occupy it, we’d hardly ever
maintained it other than performing the necessary repairs. The
place was, quite frankly, a mess—but for a flight of alpha dragons
with a town to look after, our attentions were hardly on making
things pretty. Our ancestors made their homes in caves and the
deepest recesses of the earth, so a little dust didn’t bother us much.
“So, what’s the word from our dear townsfolk?” Rainor asked.
“Let me guess. No one willing to help?”
“You’re far too optimistic with the humans. You should’ve known
you’d be wasting your time. That’s how it goes. We keep them safe,
put out the fires, and not so much as a peep of thanks.”
“Nothing. Just that he was the only one to speak with me. An
omega, can you believe that? All the others couldn’t even look me
in the eye.”
“Typical,” he said.
Which was all the more reason for why Grayson had stood out so
much. His green eyes burned brightly in my memory, the way he’d
looked at me with such curiosity, which was nothing like the way
any human had looked at me before. No fear in those eyes. It
wasn’t like me to become fixated on a human or to keep any
particularly strong memories of one. I dealt with them every day,
saved their lives even, but they were all like passing shadows, often
faceless, nameless, of no consequence. But this one had made an
impression.
He laughed and stroked the cat’s head. “You’re teasing Delos again,
huh? Why don’t you just let him love you?”
“Love him?” I chuckled. “He’s one step away from turning our
new station pet into an ice statue.”
“Come on. You know how Delos is. He’s probably more attached
to Soot than I am. You’ll see.”
A second later I was in the air, Delos’s curses that I’d made him
spill his tea fading away as I lifted into the sky. I could see the
human below making their way up the empty street through the
Drakendowns district, past the shuttered buildings that had been
destroyed by fire two decades before and never rebuilt. The
Drakendowns had once been a bustling hub for dragons in Old
Shore Port, but a series of fires and lack of new opportunities had
driven many away from our secluded town to find greener pastures.
Now it was mostly humans living in the old dragon district. And us,
of course.
“Er, I didn’t mean it like that. I was hoping to…I don’t know.
You’re the first dragon I’ve ever met, and I was so curious.”
“You wouldn’t eat anyone, I’m sure that goes against your code
as a firefighter or something.”
“I’m sure they also say it’s bad luck to speak with a dragon,
Grayson.”
“You remembered my name,” he said.
“Of course. I think you’re the first human to look me in the eye
in years. Someone forgot to tell you you’re supposed to be
frightened of alphas like me.”
His face went a shade red, and I could feel his body temperature
perk up slightly. He put a hand on his belly. “No. And that’s always
been my problem. I’m sorry I don’t have any more information to
give you. But hopefully, it’s better than nothing.”
As he was making his way up the road, I called out to him and
leaped into the air, shifting as I did, my wings scooping the air and
pushing me up and up. His eyes were wide, a look of amazement,
and then a grin. The current of wind whipped the street around him,
kicking up a swirl of old papers and dead leaves, and he watched as
I climbed away.
3
GRA Y S O N
T he tavern roared with nighttime bustle, and I was right in the thick
of it, my arms loaded up with trays of ale and stewed beef sloshing
around in wooden bowls, threatening to splatter onto my head. I
managed this balancing act by myself, as usual, slipping between
the drunken patrons to make my deliveries around the room. And,
as usual, alcohol-loosened hands made unwanted attempts at my
body. I’d gotten good at avoiding them, and sometimes I could even
manage to make a bit of hot stew splash onto their fingers if I
jerked the tray in the right direction.
Language: English
A STATEMENT
With Exhibits, including the Court’s Opinion, and
the Brief for the Defendants on Motion to Direct
an Acquittal
EDITED BY
GUY HOLT
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1923
Copyright, 1922, by
Robert M. McBride & Co.
Printed in the
United States of America
II
It is now a trifle less than three years ago that a Mr. Walter J.
Kingsley, a theatrical press agent, sent to the literary editor of a New
York newspaper a letter[1] directing attention to James Branch
Cabell’s Jurgen as a source of lewd pleasure to the sophisticated
and of menace to the moral welfare of Broadway. Hitherto Jurgen
had found some favor with a few thousands of discriminating
readers; it had been advertised—with, its publishers must now admit,
a disregard of the value of all pornographic appeal—as literature.
Critics, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, had applauded the book
as a distinguished addition to American letters; three editions had
been printed and the tale promised to enjoy the success to which its
wit, its beauty and the profundity of its theme entitled it. No one, until
Mr. Kingsley broke silence, had complained of Jurgen as an obscene
production; no letters of condemnation had been received by the
publishers; and the press had failed to suggest that decorum, much
less decency, had anywhere been violated.
Mr. Kingsley’s letter altered affairs. Immediately a chorus in
discussion of Jurgen arose. In the newspapers appeared many
letters, some in defense of the book, others crying Amen to
Mr. Kingsley. Within a week, the merry game of discovering the “key”
to Jurgen was well under way and a pleasant, rather heated
controversy had begun. In the upshot some one sent a clipping of
the Kingsley letter to Mr. John S. Sumner, secretary of the New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice, calling upon him to do his duty.
Mr. Sumner procured a copy of the book, and, on January 14th,
1920, armed with a warrant, he entered the offices of the publishers,
seized the plates and all copies of the book and summoned the
publishers to appear in court the following day on a charge of
violating section 1141 of the Penal code.[2]
Thereafter the record is uneventful. Mr. Sumner’s complaint[3] was
duly presented and the case was called for formal hearing in the
magistrate’s court on January 23. Upon that date the defendants
waived examination and the case was committed for trial in the Court
of Special Sessions. The trial was set for March 8, but upon motion
of Mr. John Quinn, then Counsel for the Defense, who appeared
before Justice Malone, the case was submitted for consideration to
the Grand Jury which found an indictment against the publishers[4]
thereby transferring the case to the Court of General Sessions and
enabling the defendants to secure a trial by jury. On May 17, 1920,
the publishers pleaded not guilty ... and, until October 16, 1922,
awaited trial.
For, in New York, a “crime wave” was in progress. The courts were
crowded with cases which involved other than a possible technical
violation of the laws; and, however anxious to rid the docket of the
Jurgen case, neither the courts nor the District Attorney’s office could
do other than give precedence to the trials of persons charged with
more serious offenses.
On October 16, then, two and one half years after the indictment,
the Jurgen case was called before Judge Charles C. Nott in the
Court of General Sessions. A jury was drawn, the book was
submitted in evidence and the people’s case was presented. The
defendants, through their attorneys, Messrs. Goodbody, Danforth
and Glenn, and their counsel, Mr. Garrard Glenn, moved for the
direction of a verdict of acquittal, submitting, in behalf of their motion,
the brief which is printed hereinafter. The trial was adjourned for
three days; and on October 19, 1922, Judge Nott rendered his
decision, which also appears hereinafter, and directed the jury to
bring in a verdict of acquittal.
III
There ends the record of the tale Jurgen’s adventures with the law.
The record is, as has been said, uneventful. A book had been
impugned, that is all. An author had been vilified and his publishers
indicted; certain thousands of readers had been deprived of access
to a book which critical opinion had commended to their interest; and
author and publishers both had been robbed of the revenues from
whatever sale the book might have had during the nearly three years
in which it was removed from publication.
True, Mr. Cabell and his book had received much publicity....
There is a legend, indeed, that the author of Jurgen (and of a dozen
other distinguished books) owes much of his present place in letters
to the advertising which Mr. Sumner involuntarily accorded him. But
one may question that. An examination of the publishers’ files seem
to show that most of the expressions of admiration for Jurgen were
repetitions of an enthusiasm expressed before the book’s
“suppression.” And if the enthusiasm and the sympathy of
Mr. Cabell’s admirers were hearteningly evident, the attacks of his
detractors did not flag; and an inestimable number of persons,
knowing Mr. Cabell’s work only through the recorded opinions of
Messrs. Kingsley and Sumner, did certainly condemn him unread
and, shuddering, barred their library doors against him.... No,
Mr. Cabell owes no debt of thanks to the accusers of Jurgen.
But all this is by the way. The argument, which appears in the
following pages, is of importance not alone because it so ably
defends Jurgen, but because it defines, more clearly than any other
recent document, the present legal status of literature in America in
relation to permissible candor in treatment and subject matter. The
brief is not in any sense an argument in behalf of unrestricted
publication of any matter, however obscene, or indeed in behalf of
the publication of obscenity in any form. It is not a denial of the
community’s right to protect itself from offenses against good taste or
against its moral security, or to punish violation of the laws by which
the public welfare is safe-guarded.
But one need not be an apologist of license to perceive that there
is in a thoughtful consideration of every aspect of life no kinship to
indecency; or to perceive that the community cannot, without serious
danger to its own cultural development, ignore the distinction
between the artist’s attempt to create beauty by means of the written
word, and the lewd and vulgar outpourings of the pornographer.
When these two things are confused by a semi-official organization
which is endowed with suppressive powers, even when the courts
fail to sustain its accusations, the menace to the community is
measurably increased. As a protection against this menace the brief
presents, with admirable clarity, a legal test, the validity of which
common sense will readily recognize, for the determination of
literature as distinct from obscenity.
Guy Holt.
New York City,
November 14, 1922.
BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANTS ON
MOTION TO DIRECT AN
ACQUITTAL
INDEX
PAGE
I. The question presented is one of law,
which the Court should decide 20
II. The test is the literary as distinct from the
pornographic 21
III. In applying this test, all reasonable doubt
should be resolved in favor of the book 30
IV. In judging the book by the standards
above indicated, it must be read as a
whole, and, on that basis, it must be
upheld even though it may contain
portions which would not stand the test if
isolated 31
V. The book, read as a whole, sustains the
test of the law 34
VI. The passages, to which reference has
been made in the complaint originally
filed in Special Sessions, are not
indecent 57
VII. In conclusion 68
Court of General Sessions of the
Peace
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK.
against