Firedragon Rising by Mary Fan Read Free Book Online Page B

rest of the monster, which
stood as tall as the trees. Black spikes covered its brownish-green
body. Six tentacles—also covered in spikes—stuck out of its sides
between the tail and the front legs, and supernatural fire ignited
the ends of each as it took another step forward.
    Its glowing red eyes, which topped a scaly
head with a long snout and sharp, protruding fangs, fixed on
Aurelia. It opened its mouth to let out another roar, and she
stared down its throat—a ridged, brown cavern lit by a green fire
and lined with teeth big enough to crush her skull in a single
bite.
    She recognized the beast at once: a
thorndevil. She’d learned about them for Williams’ class, but had
hoped never to face one. Not only was the thing gigantic, but its
thorns were poisonous, and it wielded the flames of the Underworld.
One spike through her skin would paralyze her, leaving her as
helpless as Storm’s spell had. And supernatural fire burned hotter
and faster than anything earthly; a single flame licking the hem of
her jeans would turn her to ashes in seconds.
    But she refused to be scared. Though she’d
never faced a thorndevil before, she’d learned about its kind and
knew its vulnerability, while it took her to be just another
human.
    That gave her the advantage.
    Any monster could be killed by beheading, of
course, but the thorndevil’s neck was too thick to be severed by a
swing of the sword—not that she could reach it anyway. Even with
Connor’s claim that her enchanted swords could slice through
anything living, the blades simply weren’t long enough to sever the
creature’s head in a single cut. And she’d only get a single shot
if she wanted to attempt it; one of those tentacles would grab her
before she could try again.
    She remembered suddenly that it had another
weakness: its underbelly. No spikes covered its throat or stomach,
and spilling a thorndevil’s insides would kill it. That was her
best shot.
    But the creature wasn’t the only enemy
before her. Tydeus Storm stood just within range of a sturdy round
kick, his eyes fixed on the thorndevil. He seemed to have forgotten
that she was there. Suddenly, a shouted incantation and a burst of
flames shot through the air: Storm throwing a spell at the beast.
Green light edged the flames bursting from his black wand, and
Aurelia suppressed a gasp of surprise.
    If she’d had any doubt that he used the same
kind of magic the thorndevil did, that spell erased it. Green
flames meant dark magic. And that made Storm nearly as dangerous as
the monster he was fighting.
    But between him and the giant, spiked
creature towering over her, the latter was more of an immediate
threat.
    Storm’s fire spell did little more than
irritate the enormous monster, which let out an earth-shattering
cry and stomped one leg in fury. It swiped a tentacle toward Storm,
but the Enchanter vanished in a flash of light, then reappeared
behind the thorndevil, just inches from the tip of its flaming
tail. The thorndevil twisted back to face him, turning away from
Aurelia, and she spotted her opening—it was distracted, and it
couldn’t see her from its present angle.
    She had to take it. Her instincts—skills
that were as much a part of her as her bones—sprang into action. A
faint voice in the back of her mind chirped that she could let the
thorndevil and Storm battle it out while she got away, but that
could mean letting a monster live … which she couldn’t do. If the
thorndevil struck again when she wasn’t around to stop it, and
someone died because of that, then it would be her fault for not
stopping the creature when she had the chance.
    So she rushed forward, her eyes fixed on the
tentacle that sat curled on the ground. Chopping it off wouldn’t
kill the beast, but she had to weaken it before she could attempt a
fatal blow. And at the moment, the thorndevil was too occupied by
Storm to realize that it had a second attacker. This was her best
chance. She paused, watching, and