Kyra Dune - Surviving the Landslide

SURVIVING THE LANDSLIDE

Dragon Within Book Four

Kyra Dune

Surviving The Landslide

Copyright 2015 Kyra Dune

A ll rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Shadow Portal Books, a division of Shadow Portal Productions, USA.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or taping, or by any information storing or retrieval system, without written permission from Kyra Dune.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Even resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SPB Second Edition

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CHAPTER ONE

I wrapped air around the pile of leaves and sent them twisting skyward in a mini tornado. As they whipped past, I watched for the one painted blue. There. I reached out with my mind to slow the air around that particular leaf while still keeping the rest spinning. It slowed, shivered, and then I had it.

The leaf floated free of the bunch and drifted off to the side. A small pain had started in the center of my forehead, but it was mostly drowned out by a feeling of accomplishment. I grinned.

Not bad. Zack pushed away from the tree he was leaning against and grabbed the leaf with his hand. Not bad at all. And coming from him, that was quite the compliment.

I let loose of my hold on the air, but instead of the leaves falling gently to the ground as I intended, they exploded, showering Zack and I with their little bits and pieces. I winced, expecting a hard rebuke. Oops.

Zack shook the leaf bits out of his hair. You still need some work on the dismount.

I laughed at his drily delivered joke. More because I was surprised he wasnt harsher than because it was funny. I didnt knock any of us over this time. Thats an improvement.

Yeah. He brushed off his shirt. Do you want to take a break?

No. Like I was going to admit to being even the least bit tired. No way. Not to him. Im good to keep going. Besides, I needed to train. I had to be ready to protect myself and my friends the next time we were attacked. And despite how easy things had been lately, I knew that day would come sooner or later.

Okay. Zack stepped toward me, moving through a shaft of sunlight that lit his hair with golden highlights and seemed to make his eyes spark. Lets work on water next.

I nodded because I didnt trust myself to speak right then. I know its lame, but I couldnt help getting distracted by him sometimes. He was so cute, and every once in a while something would happen to make me think of the kiss. And then it was so hard to think about anything else.

It wasnt just the one kiss, either. There were other things. Little things, maybe, but theyd made me think something was really going to happen between us. Instead, hed pulled away and not once since we started out on our hunt for Megara had he given me any reason to believe he thought of me as anything but a friend. And barely that.

Wait a minute. Curtis lowered his camcorder. My batteries are running down. Dont do anything awesome while Im gone. He darted off toward the cabin.

I sighed. My cousin had insisted on videotaping every one of my training sessions since we arrived in Oregon. I dont know why, its not like he could show them to anybody. But Curtis had always been interested in making movies and I didnt have the heart to tell him no. I figured if it made him happy, what could it hurt?

Silence fell in my cousins absence. I shuffled my feet. Zack scratched the back of his neck. We both looked everywhere but at each other. I wanted so badly to say something, but even more I wanted him to say something.

He stood there turned slightly to the side, making me think he was thinking about the same thing I was thinking about. Why else would he refuse to meet my gaze anytime we were alone? Which wasnt very often anyway.

We had a lot of things unspoken between us and it was easier to pretend those things didnt exist when other people were around. Which was another reason why I hadnt said no to Curtis. And probably the only reason Zack hadnt either.

Curtis jogged back to us, a little red faced and out of breath. Did I miss anything?

No. I glanced over at Zack, who was scowling at the ground, and bit back a sigh. Nothing at all.

Great. Curtis, clueless to my romantic woes, fiddled with his camcorder for a minute before turning it on me. Okay, Im ready.

I moved over to a pail of water sitting on a tree stump. The funny thing about my powers is the harder I try to concentrate, the harder I tried to force something to happen, the less results I would get. Youd think that being distracted by thinking of Zack would help me then, wouldnt you? It would make sense, after all. But no. Because nothing about who and what I was made any kind of sense at all.

I couldnt concentrate on what I was trying to do, but I couldnt be distracted by other things either. I had to keep my mind blank and I dont know about you, but that is something that never came naturally to me.

The water glittered in the sunlight. I thought about that. Focused on it. Let everything else drain away. With a push and a pull I soon had small waves lapping against the sides of the pail. I found myself starting to smile again.

When this all started I was so scared I would become the thing everyone seemed to think I already was. A monster. Wild. Unpredictable. Dangerous. All words used to describe people like me. People who were different from the other dragons. Hybrids.

I was afraid I could never learn to control my powers. But by that day in the woods I was starting to believe it wasnt true. That maybe they were all wrong and I could take hold of this thing inside of me. Control it. Short of getting my old life back, there was nothing I wanted more.

I was feeling so confident I decided to add a little wind to the mix to make the waves stronger. In a couple of seconds they were so strong they had whitecaps frothing at their peaks. It was like Id trapped a tiny ocean inside that old tin pail.

Cool, Curtis said. We should try this at the pond.

Lets dont get ahead of ourselves, Zack said. Abigail doesnt have full control over her powers yet. The wrong emotion at the wrong time could be dangerous.

He was talking about the time I accidentally whipped up a typhoon inside a hotel bathtub, I was sure. And I really didnt appreciate him bringing it up. I was really upset that day and besides, I had come a long way since then. It wasnt fair of him to throw it in my face just because he was the only reason I hadnt done something worse.

I wanted to tell him as much, but I guess I must have been more upset than I realized because an especially hard wave hit the side of the pail, tipping it over to splash water all over Zacks sneakers. He gave me such a look that kissing him was the last thing on my mind. As if the pail tipping over was my fault when he was the one whod gotten me all upset.

Im done. I turned and stalked away.