Dragon Rising (Steel Dragon Book 3) by Kevin McLaughlin & Michael Anderle

Author:Kevin McLaughlin & Michael Anderle [Mclaughlin, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2021-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

After a decadent dinner, a night of rest, and a massive breakfast, Kristen and Stonequest were in the sandy training arena again. They had spent the morning meditating, but despite the fact that she enjoyed the process, her mentor had been less than impressed.

“I’ll attack you. Defend yourself.” He removed his shirt and revealed the chest that really did seem to be carved from marble.

“Human or dragon?”

“Is that a question you’ll ask all your enemies?”

“No, of course not—”

Her protest died when he launched into the attack. His fists pounded into her gut and she catapulted away and tumbled through the sand.

She pushed herself to her feet, thankful that she’d practiced activating her steel skin so many times.

Before she could so much as dust herself off, he was on her again. This time, he swept her legs out from under her and in the instant before she fell, threw one hell of an elbow into her chest.

The hard landing winded her and she gasped for air. Steel skin protected her from puncture wounds, but she could still have the wind knocked out of her.

“Will you give me a minute?” she pleaded.

In reply, he kicked her in her steel gut and she somersaulted through the sand.

All right. Enough was enough. Now, she was pissed.

She pushed to her feet and raced forward to rain a flurry of punches and kicks on her opponent. He blocked them and barely flinched at the blows. She couldn’t really tell because of her steel protection, but it seemed like his skin was more mottled than it had been. Maybe he could armor his human form in stone the way she could turn herself to steel?

The time spent thinking about anything except how to pummel him cost her dearly. Stonequest struck and caught her in the neck with a karate chop that bowled her over.

Kristen rubbed her neck. “That could’ve killed me.”

“We are facing Death. It’s time to act like it.”

“What is your fucking problem?”

“My problem is that you have a vast reserve of power at your disposal and you refuse to access it.” He glared at her. “I can feel you holding yourself back.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Enough whining.” He launched himself into a flying kick. It would have been an impossible move for a regular human, but dragons in human form were far from regular. Still, she had seen more than enough kung-fu movies. She caught his leg and hurled him away from her.

He began to transform into a dragon before he even fell. A gale of dust and chips of stone resolved into a dragon with skin of mottled marble.

She tried not to think about when she’d last fought a dragon in her human form—not an easy thing to do. Her battle against Shadowstorm had been in an arena exactly like this. He would have killed her if not for her friends, but none of them could help her now.

“This isn’t fair.”

“Tell that to Death.” With a pump of his wings, Stonequest propelled himself forward and pounded into her with a claw as big as her chest.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.