Read Online Blazing the Trail by Deborah Cooke - Free Book Online Page B

Adrian had passed. Was this where all of these ShadowEaters had come from? Had they once been humans? Mages?
    Kohana seized my hand and hauled me through the shattered glamour. I couldn’t help looking back at the ShadowEaters. I had wanted my dream to be wrong. I wanted them to be benign, or easily defeated, or genies who happily went back into their respective jar.
    No luck. They fell on the third kid, just like they had in my dream, surrounding him and overwhelming him. He tried to run, despite the wound on his throat. There was nothing anyone could do to save him, and nothing could have stopped their feasting. I shuddered as he fell, buried beneath them.
    There was something deeply wrong with the sight of the ShadowEaters. They were shaped like humans but insubstantial. Their human forms had no real faces. Just those golden eyes and forms that couldn’t be distinguished one from another. They were all the same, interchangeable, all exuding menace.
    And hunger.
    Were they the next step in Mage evolution?
    What came after that?
    “Hurry up!” Kohana cried, and it was probably the first time I’d heard fear in his voice.
    That was when I saw that Trevor had the NightBlade and was looking at us.
    We raced forward together, and when Kohana yelled, “Now!” I knew what he meant.
    I hoped like hell I could do it.
    We both shifted shape as soon as we were through the space. I was so relieved that my shimmer was back that I was trembling. Kohana was holding one of my claws tightly, as if he would have hauled me into the sky with force, regardless of whether I’d been able to shift or not.
    I roared at the welcome power of my shift. That barrier was gone. I delighted in the unfurling of my wings and the majestic power of my tail. I pivoted, not twenty feet above the ground, and exhaled fire at the collapsing shell of the Mage glamour.
    I had nearly died.
    I would have died, without Kohana’s help.
    Just like that third kid, who was lifeless on the ground now, his blood staining the snow.
    As we soared into the sky, the ShadowEaters retreated from his body. They were sated temporarily. They looked upward, all those golden eyes shining as they focused on us hovering overheard. I saw them leap into the air and didn’t need any encouragement from Kohana to boot it out of there.
    He took off like a shot, flying with terrifying speed in the opposite direction.
    I was right on his tail.
    I saw the ShadowEaters leap into the sky behind us and knew we wouldn’t outrace them. They could fly through the air, too—I’d seen them do it in my dream.
    There was only one way to save us. I tightened my grip on Kohana’s claw, closed my eyes, and flung us both through space and time.
    W E WERE INSTANTLY OVER A
park beside the lake, one I recognized as being close to my school. Lake Michigan waschoppy and pewter in color, and the snow was still falling lazily. There was about a foot of snow in the park.
    And I was a white salamander clutched in Kohana’s talons. It was one of two forms I could take as the Wyvern.
    “Thanks,” he said, exhaling as he ensured that his grip on me was firm but not too tight. (Newts squish.) He circled, choosing a spot in the middle of an open area, then landed with care. He shifted shape in the last instant, touching the earth in his human form, tossing my salamander self into the air.
    His expression was expectant and I knew what to do. I shifted shape and landed beside him in human form, then took a deep steadying breath.
    “That was close,” he said, then flashed me a devilish grin.
    His eyes glinted like jet, like he had a million secrets, and I wondered whether he really was about the same age as me or whether that was an illusion of some kind.
    I looked at him, uncertain what to expect.
    The thing was, I wasn’t sure whether Kohana had saved me for good or just for now.
    I certainly wasn’t sure he’d tell me either way.
    “Perfect, untouched snow in every direction,” he said, surveying the