Mated to the Earth Dragon (Elemental Mates 2)

His senses were stronger this way. Furious, he clawed at the stone as he raced upwards, sending his thoughts deep into the earth—but still something resisted.

Fire. Smoke. Shadow.

He bit back a roar. Perhaps they weren’t expecting him. Perhaps he could surprise them...

Maybe whatever wa

s blocking his own power was blocking theirs as well. If the strange shadow was of their making, they might not be able to see through it either.

There was a noise in front of him now. It was a dim roar which made the stone around him vibrate faintly.

Damon knew that sound. It was the roar of a dragon—no, of several dragons. And by the way the sound echoed through the rock all around him, he knew exactly where they were, even without being able to tap into the stone’s sight.

They were at the heart of where the strange shadow was concentrated.

They were directly in the giant council chamber—and they weren’t alone.

With his dragon’s anger at this new threat to his mate burning like a furnace deep in his own chest, Damon at last rushed out of a tunnel into the large council chamber. He spread his wings, shooting up to hover beneath the roof of the cave. His neck twisted back and forth as his dragon’s roar filled the cave—and there, at the back of the cave, he could at last make out the source of the shadow.

Smoke filled that part of the cave. It was so thick he could barely make out what was happening—but he could see just enough to immediately understand what was going on.

Right at the center of that cloud of smoke, a large shadow was rearing up—a shadow that seemed to constantly shift between forms so quickly that Damon felt sickened by it.

The chimera.

And around Gareth, smaller shapes were flitting through the smoke. Every now and then, he could make out the shape of a wing or a flexing tail.

The fire dragons.

It was hard to make out exactly how many there were. Three, he thought—and then the smoke shifted, and the dragons were not where they’d been before.

No... five?

Even where he was hovering high above them, the acrid smoke stung his eyes. But he’d seen enough.

Damon drew in a deep breath, releasing it in a roar that made the mountain tremble. The smoke might block his vision, but he was still the dragon of earth.

At the command of his voice, stalagmites grew out of the ground so quickly that one pierced the wing of a fire dragon. The dragon screeched in helpless anger, fluttering for a long moment before he tore free.

He tried to rise in the air—but now Damon came down with fury, his jaw closing around the injured dragon’s throat.

Angrily, Damon shook him, then discarded him by throwing him towards the cave’s wall to his left.

The fire dragon hit the wall with a loud thud, sliding downward until he at last crashed down onto the ground.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. At last, he gathered himself up with an agonized groan, creeping towards the cave’s exit.

Damon would have stopped him, but already his attention was focused on the other dragons.

The smoke was still thick, burning in his nostrils, but it had lifted enough that he could make out what was going on.

The stalagmites had not only pierced the wing of one fire dragon, but a second dragon seemed to have been knocked unconscious by the sudden appearance of the stone formation.

He was resting on the ground, wings akimbo. As Damon watched, he seemed to return to consciousness, his head thrashing back and forth in obvious pain as he blew thin, ineffectual streams of fire from his jaw.

Three fire dragons left. Damon beat his wings to shoot up to the top of the cave once more, so that no dragon could surprise him from above.

Three... and the chimera had made a good showing against them so far, for all that his powers were weakened by the agonizing transformations he went through every few seconds.