Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,34

attempting to use that connection on a dragon, he felt something pushed back. This was different than the resistance he felt from the Dragon Souls. This was something actively pushing against him. It was something that strained to rebuff him. This was something refusing his touch.

It was power.

The power of this dragon pressed upon him. She wanted him to feel it. She wanted him aware of what she did and wanted him to know her, to know the energy she possessed. She wanted him to fear.

For the first time in a long time around the dragons, Jason did know fear.

She reared up again, heat and fire radiating along her skin and scales, flames fluctuating, filling her in the same way that they did around the iron dragon, pulsating out from her. Then she wrapped her wings toward him, engulfing him.

Jason barely had a chance to react.

He created a barrier, wrapping ice and iron and forest around him before begging to whatever distant connection he had to the storm dragon, crying out, pleading with him for a hint of power, something that would grant him enough of a connection so that he could resist what was happening, though Jason didn’t know if it was going to be enough. Pressure built around him.

The queen of the dragons grasped him and pulled her toward him.

Jason struggled, pushing against the power of this queen dragon, feeling the energy within her. He didn’t know if there was going to be anything he could even do against the power she possessed, the way she wrapped her wings around him, but he had to do something. He could feel her energy as she squeezed, trying to suffocate him.

What purpose would she have in attempting to squeeze him?

Jason drew upon the power of the ice dragon, exploding that outward.

That power burst away from him, enough of it that it freed him briefly from her grasp. Jason could feel the energy within her, the way she continued to batter at him. That power held him in a way he hadn’t felt before, but he strained, trying to get himself free of her grasp.

He had to use something different.

Power surged within him, coming up slowly. Jason realized its source. Distantly, the awareness of the storm dragon came to him, a power of energy that began to build, rising up within him.

Jason burst it outward.

It crashed into the dragon queen’s wings, slamming into them.

He didn’t hesitate as he released that energy, letting it strike her, not at all concerned about what it might do to her or whether he might harm her. With the way she attacked, he wanted nothing more than to use every bit of power he possessed, every bit he could call upon, to avoid her doing something more to him.

He’d come willingly, straining to find whether there was something more that he might be able to understand, but there was nothing else here for him. It was a mistake. After visiting the other places where they had seen evidence of Lorren, he hadn’t expected the earth dragon to have led him here to such danger.

Jason burst power outward again, drawing on the energy of the storm dragon, letting that power slam out from him, using everything in his might in order to overwhelm the way the dragon attacked him.

He mixed the power of the other dragons in with what he drew through the storm dragon. By wrapping each of those energies together, power exploded away from him.

It burst, striking the dragon queen.

Jason maintained that connection, forcing more power from him. As the four dragons’ power continued to mingle, their power exploding, Jason erupted with that energy.

Finally, the grip around him eased.

The dragon queen’s wings spread apart, freeing him.

Debris filled the clearing.

Distantly, he was aware of something else, the sense of other dragons, that of the other misfits he knew were around him. Jason could feel that power and energy coming off them, that of the smoke dragons, that of the earth dragons, that of the mist dragons. All of it was enough that he could make out the sense coming off them.

Surprisingly, the sense coming from the dragon queen was different. Less.

He couldn’t tell if there was anything more that the dragon queen would do.

She loomed in front of them.

She was massive. Enormous. Powerful. Jason could feel that energy coming from her, but he wasn’t able to pinpoint just what it was about her energy that felt so different. He maintained power within himself, holding onto it,