Dragon Down Under(22)

Chapter 7

Everything was going so well. He marked her and, by the dragon gods, he could scarcely believe what a beauty he had been gifted. However, the angry glare on her face made him pause and his smile fall. The backlash of what he did hit him and he realised she may turn on him and rip off his balls for basically mating her without proper consent. Demon crap!

Slade always warned him about blundering through situations, where, in some circumstances, more tact was needed. Brimstone didn’t have a tactful bone in his dragon body. He wanted her and was tired of waiting to mate her. He should have done it last night, but he’d held back, trying to find some of that ‘tact’. Fucking lot of use it was.

From the furious glare which could scorch the paint off a wall, he thought it best to give her some space, but not much—he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.

He watched her dive under and licked his lips, his cock hardening, it hadn’t actually deflated. Her body clad in that little outfit made him want to rip it off her, and at the same time shield her from other prying eyes of the human men nearby.

The ripple of energy caught his attention and he scanned around for the source, taking his eyes off Amber for a split second. The feel of her panic gripped him, and the realisation hit when he glanced down to see the sudden, black water where it once was clear. He felt the distinctive kind of dark magic of...“Demons!” he growled, his own powers charging like electricity in the air, his eyes bleeding back to their normal colour, not caring if any human saw him.

How dare demons snatch his mate from right under his nose! Rage, like wildfire, raced through his veins; he and his dragon roared as one. No one and nothing took what was his and lived.

“Brimstone!”

He caught sight of Slade who, no doubt, felt the power of the teleport and raced through the water, alarm on his face. There was no time to wait. He took a lung full of air and dived into the water, letting his dragon burst free while he followed the teleport into the darkness.

Although teleporting was an easy way to get around, it left residue magic which faded after a short time. So, a magic creature who could teleport himself could follow another.

He wasn’t called Brimstone the Crusher for no reason. First, he would tear their limbs off and beat them with them, before slicing open their chests with his talons, ripping out their hearts, and crushing them between his claws.

* * * *

Twice, Amber squeezed her eyes shut, only to open them and find the same thing. Did she hit her head and now was living through a plot from one of her books? She was sure she passed out from lack of oxygen and woke up in the dark, shivering with cold, and a full moon shining over a large, glassy, frozen lake. Under her still swimwear-clad body were smooth pebbles of a shore. Standing staring out over the lake was the oddest creature she has ever seen.

Have I wandered onto the set of a horror or zombie movie? Soon, the thing standing next to her would remove the really good, special effect mask and tell her everything was fine, and he was only an extra in a film.

Huddling, she tried to stop her limbs from going numb, which was already too late for her feet. She attempted to stand, but the bitter cold was too much to bear, and she crumpled back to the ground, doing all she could to not turn into an icy-pop. So much for drowning, she would die of hypothermia instead.

“Bloody hell, it’s cold.” Even the split ends of her hair shook.

The creature turned. She saw its red, glowing eyes with nothing like the beauty of Brimstone's. No, these were malevolent and pure evil. The creature's skin was a horrid, weathered, black leather and, sunken against sharp angled bones, raised horn-like bumps ran from its forehead over the top of its skull, disappearing behind the clothes it wore. Despite a fleshy, muscled upper torso, its lower arms were long and bony.

All doubt vanished. This was no human, disguised as a creature from the beyond. Demon. The word popped into her head.

Man, this would be great research material if she wasn’t scared out of her mind and about to freeze to death.

“You’re not in hell, yet, human.”

She shuddered at the grating pitch of the creature’s voice, worse than fingernails scraping down a blackboard.

She hesitated asking another question, really not wanting to hear it talk again. Another feeling taking residence in her chest was the keen absence of one large, seven foot man, as if a part of her soul has been rather sharply removed. She wanted…no, needed…to see him, feel his arms around her. She wrapped her own arms around herself, trying not to shake from the cold, and stumbled to her feet.

“Brimstone.” She didn’t realise she whispered his name until the thing talked again, making her wince.