Free Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm by authors_sort

close to the beast’s shimmering presence.
    His feet sank into the edge of the magma pool. Fiery pain streaked up his legs as
     flesh scorched and burned. Dax shuttered his mind against the agony and tried to absorb
     and use the heat as the dragon’s soul had absorbed and used his fireball earlier.
     His hands shot out, tracing wards in the air, spinning and twisting energy and the
     molecules of air in the room into a shining web that he cast around the insubstantial
     mist of the dragon’s soul. A rainbow of light reflected through the room as the energy
     swirled around his opponent.
    Determination and calm rolled through him as the net settled over the dragon. He could
     feel the spirit gather itself, like any creature would before it strikes. He spread
     his fingers wide and held them, palms out, between himself and the dragon. Gently,
     he touched thumb to thumb, then forefinger to forefinger, completing a circle of power,
     and through that circle, he drew his net of energy tight.
    The beast thrashed and roared in outrage, but the bonds of his net held fast. Slowly,
     relentlessly, Dax pulled the net tighter and tighter. He inched his way backward,
     dragging the protesting weight of the dragon with him.
    Heat jetted out, splashing over him like a geyser. His skin burned. His hair singed.
     He did not release the net. He kept pulling it through his circle of power, drawing
     the dragon’s soul in tight, folding it in upon itself, pulling it away from the magma
     pool that he suspected was feeding its strength.
    As he pulled, he began to weave new, cooler threads of power over the others. And
     with each precisely woven thread, his connection to the dragon’s spirit increased.
     He could feel its consciousness pressing up against his own. Each writhing fight,
     each blast of heat and power, was as much instinctive self-protection as it was a
     test of Dax’s own strength. As the last bit of Dax’s net passed through his circle
     of power, a great force snapped out, but this time the power didn’t strike him; it
     raced up the flows binding it, following them back to Dax.
    “No.” Realizing its intent, Dax straightened abruptly and tried to weave protective
     wards. But his efforts were too late, and in speaking he had left an opening, a second
     circle of power, only this one led into him. The soul rushed forward, a blazing pulse
     of light and heat that shot into his mouth and down his throat. Energy, heat, power
     flooded him, burning him from the inside out. He staggered back, releasing his now
     empty web of power.
    The dragon’s soul was inside him, searing him. An immense fiery presence that threatened
     to burst his body asunder. Dax spun a new web, only this time around himself, drawing
     the threads tight around his own body, adding even more strength to the skin and bone
     made dense by his centuries locked inside the volcano.
    His skin turned dark and began to shudder. Red scales rippled down his arms. Dax held
     up his hands in surprise as his nails grew crystal clear and lengthened like claws . . .
     like the dragon’s own diamond talons. The change didn’t feel like a normal Carpathian
     shapeshifting. It felt elemental, as if the transformation was happening at more than
     a cellular level.
    Dax fought back, unwilling to relinquish his own body to the soul that had leapt into
     him. He willed his hand to change back, his nails to soften and shorten. Inch by inch,
     he fought back the change sweeping over his body, fought to keep his own form.
    Inside his body, a second, similar battle raged, only this was not a battle of flesh,
     but a battle of minds. The dragon’s soul surrounded his own and tried to absorb him
     into itself. It tried to dominate him. But Carpathians were predators, not prey, and
     Dax was a hunter of immense skill and drive and determination. He did not surrender.
     Not when fighting the most powerful and heinous vampire the world had ever seen, and
     not while