Page 55 of Monster's Melody

“I sincerely hope not!I don’t have prophetic dreams.Never have.”It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility in my family, but the power had never manifested, thank goodness.“It was probably just a nightmare.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.You know I had nightmares after Zowen got hold of me,” Mikaela said.“There’s no shame in it.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.“I just hope that was the last of them.”

The rest of that week and the next were uneventful, something I was extremely grateful for, as it gave Vorzak and me time to focus on each other and to strengthen our bond.

With every passing day, we grew closer together and I fell deeper and deeper into happiness and love.

Miki-Leopard continued her tattoo quest, different parts of her appearing at different times on Mikaela’s skin.

My favorite was when she pushed her spots outward and for an entire day, Mikaela walked around covered in leopard spots.

I don’t think Mikaela found it as adorable as I did, but she didn’t complain either.Instead, she sang Miki’s praises, confiding later that Miki was so proud, it felt like sunshine was filling them to the brim.

The best part of the following month was discovering what our final in Dragon Riding 101 was going to be.It was something called The Gauntlet and it involved riding our dragons through obstacle courses.

It sounded like an amazing combination of Extreme Sports Ed, Extreme Water Sports Ed and Dragon Riding 101.

Personally, I couldn’t wait.

Mikaela, on the other hand, had taken to glaring at me any time the word dragon was even mentioned.Not only did she not enjoy our class—for some reason, she was still terrified of the dragons—but Elliot didn’t like it when she came back smelling of another dragon.

It had gotten so bad that she’d started taking a shower immediately after class before doing anything else.

“Unless I want to rile him up, or I’m feeling a bit horny,” she confided to Kasi and me, “then I’m not bothering with the shower at all.”

Kasi snorted and I grinned.

That was why she was a little out of sorts with me lately.She was very annoyed at the thought of having to fly through an obstacle course on a dragon she didn’t trust and she was even more annoyed that Elliot had declared under no circumstances was she riding any dragon but him for The Gauntlet.

Of course, that didn’t go over well, since Mikaela would never risk failing a class just to appease her mate.

So, she’d taken to glaring at me for that too.I don’t know why.It’s not like I knew she’d be mating a dragon when we signed up for the course.

As for Vorzak, he wasn’t makinganyprogress with Nika, which was the most basic requirement for him to experience any kind of success during The Gauntlet.

I thought if we could at least get Aniu to accept him, maybe Professor Vesely would allow Vorzak to switch dragons for The Gauntlet, but not even Aniu would accept Vorzak’s overtures of friendship.

Not that said overtures were believable, considering The Hissies always ruined them by earning their name with great enthusiasm.

I was quite afraid that Vorzak was going to end up failing the course.

Then, Professor Vesely delivered the final blow.

Apparently, The Gauntlet was a team effort and as such, we would be receiving a team grade.

My fate in this course was suddenly tied to that of my best friend, who was terrified of wild dragons and whose mate was determined she wasn’t going to participate at all, and my mate, whose snakes treated antagonizing dragons as a life-or-death mission.

The only saving grace was Kasi, who at least seemed to get along with the dragons, so long as her shadow-cat wasn’t around.

The minute Shadow appeared, though, all bets were off.

I was doomed.

CHAPTER10

The followingmonth was packed with dragon riding practice—much to my delight, we were now learning how to mount and dismount from a dragon in flight—and increasingly difficult water sports challenges.