Free Dark Serpent by Kylie Chan Page B

did this deliberately to hurt me, I’m sure of it. If he loved me, he’d get me a white one when I asked for it.’ She thumped the desk. ‘I get next to no allowance and they make me help running the household. I have to work . I might as well be a slave. I just wish they’d die .’
    ‘Hickory,’ Simone said, her voice taut with restraint, ‘your father is a dragon and he’s mortal. He won’t be around forever. How can you talk like that about him? God, my dad’s freaking Immortal and I treasure every minute with him. I missed him so much when I was growing up —’
    Hickory cut her off. ‘It’s all right for you , you have a white phone.’
    ‘I’d swap a million stupid white phones for the ten years I lost with him,’ Simone said. ‘Now can we go back to the major phyla? If we don’t get these memorised, we’ll fail our finals and never be able to buy ourselves anything, black or white.’
    ‘I wonder if I can take it back to the shop and get them to change it,’ Hickory said.
    ‘I can ask Michael to change the colour for you, if you like.’
    ‘Let me get my hair done before I talk to him!’
    ‘He’s engaged to be married, Hickory.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘And his fiancée was tortured by demons. They deserve all the happiness they can find together.’
    ‘God, Simone, sometimes you sound like my mother.’
    ‘Sometimes I feel old enough to be your mother.’

6
    The next morning, a large group of students gathered at the main forecourt where John was giving Michael a one-on-one lesson with the Tiger looking on. John and Michael were both in ordinary human form, but the Tiger was in full Celestial Form. His face was a cross between a man’s and a tiger’s and he was three metres tall, covered in short white fur and wearing a robe of white and gold. His mane of white hair fell all the way down his back and was loosely tied with a gold ribbon at his waist. He had his arms crossed as he watched, one furry clawed hand resting on his other forearm.
    John carried Dark Heavens, his preferred weapon in human form. Michael was using the White Tiger. They had passed the kata stage and John was attacking Michael with swift random strikes. Michael was deflecting them easily.
    ‘A click faster,’ John said, and attacked again.
    Michael didn’t say anything; his face was full of concentration.
    ‘Click,’ John said, and ramped up the speed again. Michael’s expression hardened, but he continued to parry.
    ‘Click,’ John said, and his attacks became almost too fast to see. Michael’s parries were similarly fast, but on the eighth strike they both stopped at the same time. John’s sword was millimetres from Michael’s throat.
    John swung the blade away from the side of Michael’s neck and stepped back. ‘That’s really the best you can do?’
    Michael nodded.
    John grew and stretched and darkened, taking Celestial Form. He was half a metre taller than the Tiger, with a square, dark, ugly face. Some of the students gasped with shock and took a few steps back, nearly treading on me behind them.
    John towered over Michael. ‘Let’s try it full-on.’
    Michael changed to Celestial Form as well, with white and gold armour and his snow-white hair in a short ponytail. He was the same height as his father and his golden skin glowed from within. He took up a guard position, and John dismissed the sword and attacked him barehanded. Michael used his sword to parry and John deflected every stroke to the bracers on his forearms. Michael didn’t touch him.
    John moved faster, and Michael began to shift on the spot, moving more vigorously as he deflected the attacks with his sword, and unbalancing with the effort. Sparks flew from John’s bracers as Michael struck as hard as he could to deflect the blows.
    They stopped mid-move. The blade of John’s hand was a centimetre from Michael’s larynx.
    The Tiger dropped his arms and turned away. ‘Shit.’
    John shrank to human size and stepped back. He crossed his