Dragon Unleashed (Book 1 of the Dragon Mage Saga)

A Battle of Villains

The two monsters gazed at each other with equally threatening gazes, both so deadly they’d sear through cement. A battle was looming, hovering above them like a stormy black cloud. Evil was rising, and it came from both girls.

                        Evil.

                        Darkness.

                        Sin.

                        Those were the things devils-and apparently little girls-were made of.

            “Shall we fight this in our true forms, Mage?” Laurel questioned. Her tone was brisk and sharp, completely devoid of any emotion.

            Her eyes-deep, dusky like two endless black tunnels-were undaunted. She knew just as well as Darla how this fight would fall out. One of them would end as a corpse, slain and brutalized.

            And even Darla didn’t think she could stand a chance against the might that was Laurel Crowe: fearless, statuesque, and radiating ultimate power. It was like pitting a flickering wax candle against a raging sun. There was simply no comparison.

            “Fine by me,” Darla murmured, seamlessly tapping into the magic bubbling inside of her. The fire, she realized, was begging to come out. She was never a girl who could turn into a reptilian creature of the night.

            No, she was always a monster who occasionally bore the face of a pretty girl. But it was all just a mask, just smoke and mirrors. Darla was a monster, true to the venomous blood pulsing through her veins.

            Porcelain skin gave way to metallic golden scales. Razor claws jutted out of her hands and fangs that would rival a saber tooth burst free from her mouth. Eyes went from emerald green to a cobalt blue.

            Darla did the same.

            She never realized how much she and Laurel truly resembled each other. They were two of a kind. All dragons,          Darla had realized prior, were broad-shouldered and thick, like a tiger or a bear. She and Laurel were slender, all sinewy limbs and elegance. Like panthers. Quick, slim, and deadly. Killers-everything about them. They were the final evolutionary products of the dragon race.

            The white sword was hot, clenched in Darla’s claws. She gnashed her teeth, staring at Laurel. Magic intoxicated her, wrapping around her neck like a vise. This sword…it was something incredible. Darla had never felt such a rush of pure, raw power as she had the minute her hands braced the golden, gemstone-studded hilt. It was like being filled with an ocean wave of heavenliness.

            Laurel moved faster than Darla deemed humanly-no, monsterly-possible. In a flash of golden light and impossibly blue eyes, she hovered above Darla. Luminous wings hung out around the Shadow Master’s lithe frame. Scales glinted in the firelight of the crackling flames. The flames that held the fate of mankind in the every spark, every bursting cinder and curl of smoke.

            Darla blindly swung the sword at Laurel, but she dodged each attack as if she was simply batting away a tree branch. With a sinking feeling, Darla realized quite how dire this situation was. Laurel was not her. She was…everything and anything she could possibly be. Darla didn’t stand a chance.

            Still, she wouldn’t stop fighting. The worlds-Pharix and Earth-depended on her. Darla moved swiftly to the side, avoiding two careening golden fireballs which were being flung with shocking precision from Laurel’s outstretched talons.