Free Reign Fall by Michelle Rowen Page B

slightly as they locked with mine. “You look good.”
    A shiver went through me and it was hard to breathe for a second. “Thanks.” He finally tore his attention away from me. “Let’s begin. There are three main components to being a Darkling—which is just like being a demon, powers-wise. You can shift your form.
    Darklings remain half-human in appearance, though.”
    I tapped my foot. “I know this already, coach.”
    “Secondly, you have strength and speed, which can be practiced and assessed. Thirdly, you have the ability to manifest energy and use it as a weapon.”
    “Fourthly,” I said, “flying, which I can do because I have really cool wings.”
    “Sorry to break this to you, Princess, but unlike dragons, most demons actually can’t fly.” I deflated a little. “Most demons isn’t all demons. I could be one that can .”
    “Baby steps. The potential of taking flight will not be our first lesson.”
    “You read all this in books?”
    He shrugged. “I’ve lived around demons all my life. I’ve observed what they can do. But, yeah, I’ve been reading a lot the last couple of weeks. King Desmond has a lot of books in the castle library I can read whenever I like.”
    Maybe I’d been too hard on my father where Michael was concerned. From him getting to spend time in this beautiful courtyard, having the pick of anything from the library to gain knowledge, and my father’s concern about Michael’s current well-being and state of mind, it wasn’t as if he was a slave who spent most of his time chained up in the dungeon.
    And if my father really thought there was a problem with Michael’s inner darkness, then that would be a very good justification not to let him travel between worlds.
    There were two sides to every story. Sometimes it was difficult to see both right away.
    “So, you can shift form now,” Michael said as he crossed his arms.
    I tensed. “Just like that? You think it’s that easy, do you?”
     
    “I know it’s normally happened when you’ve felt a surge of emotion—panic, fear, anger. But I think you can do it whenever you like. Thus, the practicing. And remember that if you concentrate on your dragon’s tear bracelet it will help focus your energy.” I couldn’t help but smile at him. “You’re kind of a natural at this instructor thing.”
    “You think?”
    I nodded. “I feel inspired to give it a shot, even knowing that it’s going to hurt like hell to change back.”
    His brows drew together as if he was disturbed at the thought of me being in pain. “I’ve asked the other demon servants here in the castle if shifting form hurts and they said it only did in the beginning.”
    I’d been watching him carefully ever since I came out here, and I couldn’t see any sign that he was any different than he’d ever been before. I wasn’t ready yet to relax, though. I needed to find out the truth. I took a couple steps closer to him. “How are you feeling, Michael?” He looked at me curiously. “Feeling?”
    I shielded my eyes from the fake brightness out here. “We haven’t had any time to talk about what happened. With...Jonas.” I wasn’t going to tell him what my father feared or what he’d asked me to do, but there was no reason for me not to approach this problem head-on. It might save us all some valuable time.
    He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
    “You don’t?” That was troubling. I dug my toe into the grass. “Why not?”
    “Because you haven’t shifted form yet.” He gave me a sly smile. “You do something for me and I might feel a bit more talkative.”
    “That’s not fair.”
    He shrugged. “I’m the coach here. My rules.”
    “I think you’re enjoying this a bit too much.”
    “And you, Princess, are trying to delay.”
    “Fine.” I shut my eyes and tried to concentrate on shifting form without being angry or scared first. I did this for about five minutes and nothing interesting happened. I