Page 58 of Monster's Melody

I imagined this was a task Jahrdran thoroughly enjoyed, which was probably why Kasi had begun arriving late to class more often than not.

The most ridiculous part about this tactic was that it was only successful about half the time since Shadow could literally slip onto Kasi’s skin from almost any shadow nearby and she was exceptionally good at doing so without any of us noticing.

Personally, I was of the opinion that Kasi getting naked was accomplishing nothing (well, other than the obvious side benefits) and that the only reason it appeared to work half the time was because Shadow had no interest in hitching a ride on those occasions.

When she did, though, things typically went haywire fast, with Nika immediately bucking both her and Kasi off her back.

As for Vorzak, it was pretty much guaranteed thatifNika allowed him to mount her, she’d fling him off within seconds of them being airborne.

Kasi, Mikaela and I had gotten really good at using our powers to save him from a bad fall, but I was afraid one of these days, we wouldn’t be fast enough.

And now, our grade depended on our ability to work together to ride Nika through an obstacle course that was clearly designed to defeat us.

Actually, work together was the wrong terminology.

The Gauntlet was a relay race.We each were assigned one section of the obstacle course we had to ride Nika through, at the end of which, we’d pass her off to the next team member.Knowing Nika, though, she’d be passing us off by way of a quick toss off her back.

Each portion of the course was terrifying, which meant no matter who tackled what, we were all quite likely to fail.

There were four courses in all—one on land, one in the air, one underwater and the last course was a combination of all three.

Mikaela would tackle the course on land since she had the most experience in Extreme Sports Edandshe was the one most terrified of flying.

Kasi would tackle the air course since her ability to shift to shadows made her the safest when riding a dragon and Vorzak would swim the water course.This ensured at least he was underwater and not in danger of falling should Nika decide today was the day he should die.

This left me for the last part.

I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have to do anything at all because there was no way my three teammates were going to manage to ride Nika from Point A to B to C to D where I was waiting.

I’d already resigned myself to a failing grade and was instead, determined to simply enjoy cheering on my best friends and my mate as they raced The Gauntlet.

I wasn’t terribly surprised when Kasi aced the air course.She was athletic and calm in the face of danger.Iwassurprised, however, to see Shadow peel herself away from the back of Kasi’s neck to sit in Kasi’s lap for the duration of the flight.

It wasn’t that Shadow decided to hitch a ride today of all days, but rather that Nika kept flying.Instead of flinging her passengers off her back, she hurtled around mid-air obstacles, avoiding booby traps, ropes and nets meant to entangle her wings and drive her to the ground.

She had to know that Shadow was on her back, but she showed no emotion, not even a twitch, to betray that awareness.

The minute they touched down at Mikaela’s side, though, the dragon reared up and flung both Kasi and Shadow free.

The two of them exploded into shadows that streamed away from Nika, who slammed to the ground with a thunderous roar, then calmly lowered to the ground so that Mikaela could clamber onto her back.

The look on Mikaela’s face was one of sheer determination as Nika took off like a bullet.

“How are they doing?”Elliot plopped down beside me in the bleachers.

“Not bad.I thought you’d be waiting for Mikaela by the shore.”

“Nah, she’ll need time to wash the scent of the dragon away.Told her I’d meet her here instead.”

“You do realize she’s riding a female, right?”

“So?”Elliot scowled.“She’s still a dragon and she’s carrying my mate when that’smyjob.”

“Right.”It made no sense to me that Mikaela was terrified of the wild dragons, yet experienced no fear when flying on Elliot, whose dragon form was at least three times the size of the wild ones.

“It’s because they’rewild!”Mikaela always exclaimed when I pointed this out.

“There it is,” Elliot said, pointing down at the 3D model the professors had set up in the arena for spectators to watch.“That’s one of the obstacle courses from Extreme Sports.”