Dragonback
Book 4: Dragon And Herdsman

Jack Morgan has had it rough. He was orphaned at three and then lost his Uncle Virgil ten years later. But the plucky fourteen-year-old didn't know what rough was until he met Draycos, sole survivor of an advance force of alien refugees that had been brutally ambushed above the world where Jack was hiding from the authorities. The K'da poet-warrior needed to bond with a host or he would have died; the reformed boy thief and con artist needed a friend, someone he could depend on as he tried to clear his name. Since then they've formed a unique team, determined to find and expose those responsible for the slaughter of Drayco's people.