Mated to the Earth Dragon (Elemental Mates 2)

Damon ignored his dragon. Instead, he gently cupped Autumn’s face in his hands. “If you’ve got tomorrow free as well, I’d love to show you more of this country.”

His dragon wanted to take her flying, show her glaciers from dragon back and the breathtaking sight of the sun sinking into the ocean.

But not yet. Not yet. Perhaps tomorrow, if he could find a way to tell her tonight without scaring her.

Autumn’s eyes grew dark and soft, her lips parting a little. Almost without thinking, Damon found himself leaning forward for another kiss.

At that exact moment, his phone vibrated in his pocket, and he drew back hastily.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Just one moment. I contacted colleagues of mine about that earthquake.”

Autumn’s look of disappointment immediately turned into one of concern. “Are we still in danger?”

“I don’t think so,” he said as he drew his phone from his pocket.

On our way. Be careful. Jared, the text said simply.

Damon sighed at the griffin’s answer. He didn’t relish the thought of meeting the water dragon again so soon, but with his mate in danger, he’d be happy for any support.

“No danger,” he said to reassure Autumn. “But they caught the next plane to Reykjavik. One of them’s a specialist for water, the other specialized in wind and weather.”

Autumn gave him an amused look. “I didn’t know mining needed so many different specialists. Now all you’re missing for this country is a fire expert.”

Damon froze for a heartbeat, thinking of the fire dragon they currently had locked up in Sky Home. Had their prisoner known of this attack?

Maybe he should’ve told the others to interrogate the fire dragon again and find a way to make him speak...

Locking him away was all very good, but if there were other fire dragons on the loose, maybe now was the time to stop being honorable.

The chimera was old and powerful, after all. And Damon knew all the rumors of his hidden secrets and powers. If there was one creature still in this world that knew how to creature a truth potion, it was the chimera.

Humans had managed to do it, from what he’d heard. And while their medicines and drugs wouldn’t work on a dragon shifter, Damon had no doubt that the chimera could find a way to use that knowledge and alter it for a dragon...

“Hey. You okay?” Autumn waved a hand in front of his face, biting her lip in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back her laughter.

“Sorry,” he said chagrined. “See, I didn’t lie when I told you that I’m boring. Enough talk of rocks and I get completely carried away.”

With a grin, Autumn tugged on his hand, then pointed at the green valley spreading before them. “In that case, tell me about this place.”

Damon pushed his phone back into his pocket. While they were flying across the ocean, there would be no communication anyway. He’d get at least a few more hours without having to worry about the council and their next plan of action.

“Now, if I were a tour guide, I’d tell you that this is the place of the oldest parliament in the world,” he began.

Autumn beamed. “I read all about that on the plane.”

“I expected that.” He winked at her. “Which is why I’m going to suggest that we’ll take a walk through it, and I’m going to tell you all about the fascinating rock formations to our left instead...”

Autumn gave the dark stones a skeptical look. “And that’s going to be interesting?”

Damon grinned, reaching out to the rock below with his senses, which in return offered up fascinating secrets of men in armor who had once gathered there centuries ago. “Well, if you take a look to the mountain to our right, it once witnessed a secret rendezvous exactly 612 years ago.”

Damon nudged the rock with his mind to see the old love story unfurl. Flashes of a bearded man reaching out for the hand of a woman appeared before his mind’s eye.

“She was supposed to marry another, you see,” he began, but then fell silent when he noticed that Autumn had stopped paying attention.

Her head was tilted up at the sky, and she had turned pale.

“What is that?” she asked, her voice trembling. “It looks like a... a dragon.”