Rise of the Gryphon (Belador #4)(75)

Fighting harder only pumped the blood faster.

No choice.

With a quick roll away from the flying tentacles, Evalle shoved to her feet. She called forth her Belador battle form that she could use without sanction. Her arms bulged with muscle. Cartilage broke through the skin, then her shirt. Her neck thickened and her legs split the jeans.

Her Alterant beast wanted to surface, but she kept her control locked down tight.

Cartwheeling away from another attack, Evalle landed with her feet planted, facing the overgrown worm. “That all you got?”

Sandspur paused, its flowery head tilting to one side, then the thing actually laughed.

I’ll show you funny, you miserable . . .

Big mistake. The fat little turd’s action had been meant to distract her. And it worked.

A tentacle lashed out fast as a whip.

This one stretched way longer than the other five and sliced her calf, jerking her off balance. She bent around and slashed the tentacle with her dagger.

The three-foot piece of appendage whimpered as it crawled off, its pincer snapping at air.

Another tentacle shot out from Sandspur’s body the same length, but this one went for her face.

She dropped her blade to use both hands to catch the black arm just below the pincer. Rubbery skin over rigid cartilage or bone inside. Jagged one-inch spikes along the edge cut into her palms. Her shoulder was losing strength. She struggled to keep the slashing pincer away from her face.

Could Sandspur stretch only one tentacle this far at a time? Looked that way, but now it was using her hold for leverage to inch its fat little body across the sand with the other four arms reaching for her.

Not as fast when a tentacle was caught?

Blood oozed through her fingers.

Two spikes pierced all the way through her palm and stuck out the back of her hand. Pain wrenched her mind in different directions from her hand to her shoulder and leg, but she would not lose to a freakin’ worm.

Dizziness washed over her. Bile rushed up her throat.

Could those spikes on Sandspur’s tentacles be fangs that injected some kind of venom?

Gritting her teeth, she clenched harder on the tentacle, tightening to cut off any blood flow, if blood ran through this thing.

Sandspur trembled, then emitted a crunching and growling sound. It started whipping sand into a cloud.

If Evalle lost her glasses in this bright arena or that much sand hit her in the face, she’d be blinded. But she couldn’t release a hand to grab her dagger, or the pincer would take a piece of her skull.

With the sand tornado circling its body, Sandspur drew its remaining tentacles back around itself and started growing larger.

But it stalled out and wobbled.

Pressure eased from the tentacle Evalle wrestled. She risked a look to glare at Storm, warning him to stop helping her. He gave her a What? look in return.

Ignoring him, she arm-wrestled the tentacle toward the ground. The pincer bent back on itself and bit at her wrist, cutting a gouge.

She rallied everything she had and pressed down with her forearm. That freed one hand to snatch up her dagger. She stabbed the tentacle, pinning it to the ground.

Sandspur screeched and jerked.

Didn’t like that one bit, huh?

The little bastard spun harder to reach her.

Evalle shoved up her hand, palm out, and blinked to clear her vision. Sandspur crashed into a kinetic wall of energy.

Whispering to her dagger to stay where it was, Evalle pushed up to stand. She staggered but kept shoving the kinetic barrier at Sandspur. Forced backward, Sandspur keened as it stretched the stabbed tentacle.

When Evalle held the creature trapped against the ground, Sandspur had the audacity to laugh at her.

Nice try.

Evalle wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

Extending her trembling, bloody hand toward the lopped-off tentacle still making angry clicks as it crawled around, she called the appendage to her with kinetics. It flew to her hand. Gritting her teeth, Evalle gripped the angry pincer that snapped viciously at her face and swung it around to face down.

Sandspur stopped laughing.

With one last burst of energy, Evalle released the kinetic wall for a second and stabbed the pincer right below Sandspur’s three-petal head.

Its toothy maw opened and squealed.

The pincer had no loyalty beyond ripping at whatever it touched. Murky red flowed from the ripped wound. Sandspur’s hot blue eyes turned pink, then changed to a dried-up brown as its head fell away from the body.

Evalle left the pincer stuck there and turned around. The tentacle her dagger held in place had begun to shrivel.

Swaying toward the Gate Two exit, she called the dagger back to her hand, catching it as she stumbled down the hall.

She exited the hallway limping badly and lurching from side to side. Storm was running toward her.

When he reached her and made a move for her legs, she gave a wobbly shake of her head. “Don’t even think about picking me up.”

Cursing, he opened the door to her holding area.

The minute Evalle stumbled into the room, Storm kicked the door shut and lifted her in his arms, heading toward the shower area. “Don’t start with me.”

She didn’t have it in her to complain. She moaned at the movement and didn’t want to look at her hand, which throbbed as if it had swollen to the size of a baseball catcher’s mitt.

She wanted to calm Storm down. “I’m not dying.”