“Alright, alright, big guy.” The Oracle raised his hands palm up. “Take a breather.” The image zoomed out as she got off the train at her station and jogged up the stairs to street level. “Looks like the action is starting anyway.”
It was. Amos clenched his jaw as two of the King’s soldiers approached her in their human forms. Seeing two men walking swiftly toward her, Lucy darted to the other side of the street, hurrying now to get closer to the museum. She was smart and fast. She disappeared in the shadow of a building and the two soldiers ran to catch up with her, no longer trying to be stealthy.
For one confusingly hopeful moment, Amos thought she might get away. She shouldn’t have to come here as a prisoner and be forced to breed. But the other part of him knew that the moment she was caught and dragged through the portal she’d be there in front of him. Living and warm and real. Not just an image on a screen anymore. He cleared his throat and adjusted his cock in his pants.
Control. Control. Control. He chanted to himself. He had to be under control when she came into the dragon realm. He’d have to wake the King and get down to the portal to receive her in a matter of minutes. But for now, heart in his throat, he watched the two soldiers catch up to Lucy. The men flanked her on either side and dragged her, screaming and fighting, into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucy had always wondered how far she would go to protect herself. What she’d do to stay alive. As the two humongous men on either side of her kicked open a chained, wooden door and dragged her down an abandoned set of subway stairs, she finally had the answer to that question. The first chance she got, she was gonna murder these two shit heads.
She took advantage of their precarious footing on the stairs and lifted her feet, swinging her weight to the side. Catching the one on the left directly in the gut, he grunted as the three of them slipped down a few stairs. But they were too strong. They easily regained their footing and gripped even harder onto her arms.
“Comply with us,” growled the other one in an accent she couldn’t quite place. He pulled something shiny out of his coat. A syringe. “Or we’ll be forced to subdue you.”
Fearing whatever drug was in that syringe more than the bodily harm they were sure to inflict on her, Lucy went still.
She was desperate to know where they were taking her, but she refused to ask. She took a deep breath and tried to observe every detail about both of the men that she could. She’d want to tell the police anything that could help them track down these assholes as soon as she got away. Because she was getting away. There was no way she was dying in an abandoned subway station.
She observed them from the corners of her eyes. Plain black clothing, matching buzz cuts. They both wore diamond studs in their ears. Weird.
She craned her neck to catch sight of their faces, but it was too dark in the abandoned subway tunnel. Suddenly, they stopped, in complete unison with one another. The tunnel was so dark that Lucy couldn’t see the end of her own nose. But in the darkness something glinted, like moonlight over a lake.
“On the count of three?” one asked and the other one shook his head, checking his phone.
“They’re ready immediately.”
“Wait, what? NO!” Lucy screamed as the two men lifted her clear off the ground and tossed her into thin air.
She was nowhere. She was nobody. There was only blackness, expansion, compression. She was growing and shrinking at the same time. Maybe this was death.
But then she had arms again, she felt them around her own ribcage. And she had legs, she could feel those too. She felt something strong and warm against her. Heard a heartbeat against her ear. Felt the solid step-step-step of someone who knew where they were going. Something smelled good. Like freshly dug earth and baking bread.
She opened her eyes and they ached all the way to the back of her head. She blinked the blur out of her eyes and realized she was cradled in someone’s arms. Someone’s gigantic arms. Like serious python arms. She tilted her head back and saw a black t shirt, the bottom of a sharp jaw, a buzzed head, and just a glimpse of a diamond earring…
Lucy lost her shit. With a war cry that would have made Xena proud, she scratched out at her kidnapper, catching him on the neck. Kicking her legs wildly, she beat her fists against him as hard as she could. After a few furious seconds she realized he hadn’t even broken stride. She felt like a toddler throwing a tantrum, dwarfed by his size and manner. She turned her face toward his chest. Well, let’s see if he could ignore this.
CHAPTER FOUR
Amos held Lucy a little further from his body as she kicked and punched and screamed. He couldn’t take her warm body writhing around against him. Her dress was even thinner than it had looked on the television screen and as she threw herself around, it was working its way up her thighs. He refused to look down.