Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,109

from behind, sending him hurtling through the air with Benji in tow.

Benji tried to hang on, but his wet fingers slipped. With a gasp, he fell from the man’s arms, only to be caught again in a now familiar tentacle.

Only, it wasn’t really a tentacle this time. It was a long, scaly neck. The head attached to the neck was turned to face Benji directly, its glowing red eyes slitted with menace, its teeth bared in warning, as if one false move from him would make it gobble him up for breakfast.

As Benji caught his breath, he saw an even more disturbing sight rise from within the lake—

The Hydra’s tentacles had turned into necks with heads just like the one that held him, attached to a serpentine body with legs and claws he couldn’t see beneath the waterline. There were nine heads in all, plus one thorn-barbed tail that swung mightily at the water, sending tsunami-sized waves this way and that.

Benji caught brief glimpses of bodies that tried to avoid the torpedoing heads and bludgeoning tail. But they were just as quickly caught in the roiling waves’ undertow, disappearing in the vortexes that the Hydra created.

No! His friends were going to lose!

They couldn’t win against the Hydra. They had no chance!

And then, an earth-shaking roar resounded across the lake and its surrounding mountains, as the black dragon burst through the surface from beneath the waters, its sharp snout digging into the Hydra’s lower body. Followed by a head and shoulder butt with the full weight of its powerful Argentinosaurus-sized frame (okay, maybe not that big, more like a Spinosaurus), knocking the Hydra off balance.

Then, the dragon dug all four claws into the Hydra’s body, heedless of the heads that snapped at it, some of them crunching into muscle and bone through its thick, scaly hide. It unfurled the appendages that had been folded into its sides…

Benji’s eyes rounded at the sight of gigantic bat-like wings that seemed to cast a shadow over the entire lake.

Flapping backwards with the force of a thousand gales, the black dragon began to drag the Hydra off balance, almost clearing the lake entirely. It reared back its scaly neck, and Benji could visually track the glowing bulge that undulated from its chest through its throat to be released in a bluish white avalanche of fire at the three Hydra heads closest to him.

The neck that was wrapped around Benji’s person loosened its unforgiving coil at the onslaught, dropping him with an ear-piercing shriek.

Down, down, down, Benji fell.

He hadn’t realized how far in the air the Hydra had been holding him!

Before he could smack into the water—because that looked like it might hurt—a wisp of smoke curled around him, and suddenly he was floating.

No, he was flying… The wind carried him toward the shore as a giant Golden Eagle (when did that appear?) flew after them, one claw clutching Uncle Tal, the other holding Sophia’s Mate.

One of the Hydra heads noticed their getaway and screamed in fury, sending a plume of silvery fire in their direction.

But before the flames could hit, the black dragon yanked viciously on the Hydra’s body, almost tearing one of the heads straight off.

The Hydra retaliated in full, all nine heads concentrated now on its foe, spewing fire and some kind of acid-like vomit that burned through the black dragon’s scales like it was nothing more than filmy wet paper.

The black dragon staggered back, gaping holes in its giant wings, half of its chest torn by fire and acid, showing charred flesh and gaping wounds. Three of the Hydra heads held it still with the jaws of one locked around its leg, another coiled tightly around its neck and yet another pair of jaws clamped into the flesh of its back.

By then, Benji and his rescue team were on solid ground, within a few yards of the awaiting helicopter.

The Hydra reached for them again, half of her body climbing onto shore, half still in the water, two long necks stretching toward them, the serpent heads opening their fire-beathing mouths.

Benji couldn’t watch any more. Couldn’t stare into those glowing, blood-red reptilian eyes while the monster rained hellfire upon his friends. Even the black dragon was his friend, though he didn’t know it. It felt familiar somehow.

Benji’s throat closed up with tears when he thought of the black dragon getting hurt over and over again trying to help them.

He curled in on himself within the wispy embrace of the wind that carried him and