“It’s on an enchanted island?” I ask. “Seriously?”
“That’s what the legends say,” Flint agrees.
“Not a legend if it’s true,” Jaxon says. “I spent the last several hours looking for info on the Unkillable Beast’s location, and I think I’ve found it. I’m going to do more research tonight and tomorrow, just to make sure I’m right. But if I am, I say we aim for Saturday.”
“So…Ludares Wednesday, Boneyard Thursday, and Beast on Saturday.” Flint recites the plan, a questioning look on his face. “Everyone good with that?”
“I am,” I tell him, although the truth is that my hands are shaking a little at the thought of that lineup.
“Me too,” Macy agrees.
Jaxon nods.
“Awesome. Can’t wait.” Flint rubs his hands together, then waggles his brows at me. “So how about that flying lesson now?”
54
Who Needs a Magic
Carpet When Your
Bestie’s a Dragon?
“So there’s one big problem with flying lessons for me,” I tell him ten minutes later, after I’ve run back to my room for all the cold-weather clothes I need to survive stepping outside in Alaska in March. Which, it turns out, are pretty much the same ones I needed in November, so yay me for missing the really cold months. At least there’s one point in the gargoyle column. “I don’t know how to shift, which means I have no wings. No wings, no flying.” I glance around. “But maybe we could get some of those assignment pictures over for Mr. Damasen?”
I try to hide how positively scared witless I am at letting him take me up in the air in something even less secure than the puddle jumper that brought me to Denali to begin with.
He smiles ruefully. “You know, we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I honestly thought it might be fun, might give you a different perspective than before. We can do something else, but eventually you’re going to have to get in the air.”
My stomach is tied in all kinds of knots—most of them falling somewhere in the range of mildly scared to full-blown terrified. And yeah, there’s definitely a part of me that wants to back out of this mess. But Flint looks so dejected at the perceived rejection that I just can’t do it.
“No, that’s okay. Let’s do it.”
He stares at me through narrowed eyes. “Yeah?”
I take a deep breath, then blow it out slowly as I gather every ounce of my courage. “Yeah.”
“Awesome! You won’t regret it.”
I bite my tongue to keep from telling him that I already do.
“You ready?”
“Ready is a bit of an overstatement, but yeah. Sure. Why not?” I wave my hands expansively.
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” he says with a laugh.
I roll my eyes. “Dude, this is the best you’re going to get.”
“We’ll see.”
He takes a couple of steps back, which makes me move several more feet in the other direction. More than several, really, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned at Katmere Academy, it’s that you really can’t be too careful when it comes to personal safety.
And then, just like that, Flint does it.
He drops down to all fours and, as I watch, stunned, the very air around him forms a kind of funnel. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I know something is, because the air surrounding him is starting to blur.
Caution has me taking another couple of steps backward, which turns out to be a good thing because the blurring is followed by a bright flash of light that nearly blinds me. Seconds later, a shimmer of rainbow colors engulfs him for five, six, seven or so seconds and then—standing right in front of me is a giant green dragon. And when I say giant, I mean gigantic. And also incredibly beautiful.
I didn’t really appreciate Flint in his dragon form when he was trying to kill me, but now that he’s staring down at me with what I’m pretty sure is the dragon version of his ridiculous grin, I can’t help but notice that he is a really, really good-looking dragon.
He’s tall and broad and muscular, with long, sharp horns that curve upward just a little and a ton of gorgeous frills of differing lengths around his face. His eyes are the same striking amber they are in his human form but with a cool, serpentlike slit down the middle, and his wings are enormous—the kind of enormous where several adult humans could take shelter under one. And his scales…I mean, I always knew he was green, but now I realize that he’s actually all the shades of green mixed together, each scale a different color overlapping in a pattern that makes him look like he’s shimmering, even when he’s just standing here in front of me.