Elemental Shining (Paranormal Public Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

was wrong with her.
    But I wasn’t fast enough.
    Lisabelle still had her knife. She stepped forward, pulling her arm, elbow first, backwards, then slashing downwards. Lough couldn’t move that fast twice and she got him on the arm. He cried out and fell backwards.
    “Hey Lisabelle,” I called out. “Why don’t you pick on someone else for a minute?”
    When Lisabelle turned, ready to do just that, I pulled out my ring. I loved my elemental ring. It was an essential part of me, one I couldn’t imagine losing.
    I drove my hands outward, staring Lisabelle down. I felt my powers flow through me and greeted them gladly. I saw the change in me mirrored in Lisabelle. She could see my power flowing and my strength growing. I tried to keep my powers hidden most of the time, my guilt at being the only elemental and that I couldn’t do more overshadowing my growing strength. When I knew my bluish magic was about to burst out of me I slammed my hands forward. The burst of power crashed into Lisabelle’s shield. Her shield held. I pulled the powers back and slammed them forward again. I could feel the fragments light on my face. A bit of wind here, a dash of water there. All encompassed in fire.
    I was salt of the Earth and power of the air and some darkness mage wasn’t going to kill my friends and get away with it.
    I slammed my power forward again. I was more aware of my surroundings now. I knew that Keller was helping Lough stop the bleeding from the gash on his arm, instead of going for help, and I knew that Lanca, Cale, and Dirr lay prone. I wasn’t sure if they were dead or alive. At the moment I didn’t want to know. If they were dead—if even ONE of them was dead—in this moment I might kill Lisabelle. I really might.
    I pulled my magic away, but I had forgotten one thing. Somehow, Lisabelle still had that damned knife. It was too late for me to go back. I had already made my mistake. Unfortunately, it was a mistake that was about to cost me my life.
    In the wonderful summer night I pulled my magic back from Lisabelle, preparing to lash her with it for a third time, but what I had not anticipated was her using that force against me.
    I gasped as Lisabelle let her knife go. It hurtled toward my chest, point first.
     

Chapter Five
     
     
    I woke up with a gasp. Sweat trickled slowly down the sides of my head, tinged with panic and fear. I felt dazed, like someone had smacked me over the head with one of Ricky’s baseball bats and I was still recovering. If Ricky had been there he would have said he’d be happy to smack me over the head. I started to smile, but the movement made my head throb.
    I was in bed in Astra, where I had spent every night that summer. I was safe in my own room, drenched in more sweat than I would have thought my body could hold. Vaguely, I wondered if it had been raining inside. My head felt fuzzy and there was a dull ache in my limbs. Blearily I looked around, trying to convince myself that I was really there, that what I had just dreamed was really . . . a dream.
    But something was imprinted in my mind, as surely as Ricky’s face. Darkness was coming. That’s what the dream said. Why, though, did Darkness have Lisabelle’s face?
    The last thing I remembered was being stuck with a knife, like a pig. . . . Frantically, I looked down and yanked the covers lower on my body, then pulled my shirt up enough to show my tummy (that’s what my mom had always called it). There was no knife sticking out of my gut, so points for me and my sanity. My mother would have said this was one of my Worry Moments. Sometimes I would go to her, back when she was still alive, because I was freaking out about something ridiculous, something that was almost impossible, but that I was sure would happen anyway. Just my luck sort of thing. My mother would talk to me until I calmed down.    Even though she had been gone for years now, it was still hard for me to think about her without sadness overwhelming me. It