Mated to the Earth Dragon (Elemental Mates 2)

Silently, Ginny shook her head.

Well, so much for conversation, Autumn thought with an internal sigh.

After a moment, Ginny spoke after all. “I suppose I do now—I’m helping out with the cooking and washing, now that there’s a prisoner living here. It’s just for a few weeks though. I’m from Mountain View. The storm dragon’s home,” she clarified when Autumn didn’t react.

“Oh,” Autumn said, her curiosity immediately piqued. “I’ve never met any of the other dragons—only the griffin shifter who came to summon us. What’s it like?”

“It’s a good town to live,” Ginny said softly. “You know about the dragon’s peace?”

Autumn nodded. “All sorts of different shifters living peacefully together. Because no one wants to annoy a dragon, I suppose?”

Ginny nodded. “Exactly.” A rare smile tugged on her lips. “Like wolves and dogs. Or cat and mouse.”

Her smile widened, and immediately Autumn felt more at ease in the company of the soft-spoken woman.

“I can see how that’s appealing. It must be difficult as a mouse shifter,” Autumn said, then flushed. “Sorry if that sounded insulting! I still don’t know much about shifters. I never even knew they existed until I met Damon.”

“It’s all right,” Ginny murmured after a moment, although there was a sudden sadness in her eyes. “It’s different in Mountain View. I’m happy there. I suppose I wouldn’t be as happy in other places...”

When she fell silent, Autumn saw that her lips were tightly pressed together, and that Ginny had shifted to look at the cave’s wall instead.

Well, I suppose that hit a nerve, she thought with another sigh. Well done, Autumn. If I get out of this alive, I need a remedial course in shifter small talk and politics.

From behind them, the fire dragon made a scoffing sound.

“She makes it sound like a paradise—but the truth is that the council of elements is simply too powerful to disagree with. The dragon’s peace—what a nice word for what’s really just the law of the strongest. That’s what it has always been. And now those same dragons that have no qualms at all about ruling the world based on their own power call us monsters and beasts, because we’re doing the exact same.”

“But you don’t want peace.” Autumn turned around to glare at Braeden. “You want war. If I were a mouse, or a lion, or even a, a... a marsupial, I wouldn’t want to live in any town of y

ours.”

Braeden stared at her in confusion once more. “What’s a marsupial?”

Autumn huffed and crossed her arms, giving the fire dragon the same, unimpressed stare her mother had given her when she’d refused to do her homework as a child. “Mammals who raise their young in a pouch.”

Finally vegging in front of animal documentaries after works pays out.

“You really don’t know anything about this world you’re trying to conquer, do you?” she then added in a pitying tone. “Have you tried, I don’t know... watching TV before deciding to wage war on all of humanity? Next you’ll tell me you’ve never heard about humans walking on the moon.”

Braeden crossed his own arms, glaring at her. “We’ve had to hide away from the outside world because of your kind. Mock me if you want, but you better remember that all of this is the fault of your ancestors. And I might know nothing about your teevee, but I’m no fool. Walking on the moon, ha! Even dragons can’t survive flying that high. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Autumn stared at Braeden with wide eyes. Then, suddenly and uncontrollably, she began to laugh. She couldn’t stop until there were tears in her eyes and she had to gasp for breath, while Braeden was staring at her with a deeply insulted expression.

“Oh no,” she panted, pausing to giggle again. “It’s true. You really don’t know about Lance Armstrong and the moon. NASA? Rockets? The space shuttle? Doesn’t ring a bell at all?”

Braeden glared at her in insulted silence.

Autumn wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, I know this is rude—but you’ve really decided that humans aren’t worth anything without even looking at the things we’ve done? We’ve walked on the moon, Braeden. We have satellites flying around the earth in space. We’ve even sent a rover to Mars.”

All of a sudden Autumn was very glad that she’d spent way too many tired evenings in front of her TV, dozing off to her beloved documentaries. Maybe she knew nothing about the world. Maybe it had taken her until now to even leave her own country.

But at least she wasn’t completely blind to everything that had been going on in the world for the past few centuries.

“We should get you Netflix in here,” she said and gave Ginny a grin. “I bet that would help more than whatever it is they’re trying to do to reason with you.”

“What’s a net flicks?” Braeden asked suspiciously. “Some dark chimera magic?”

Autumn failed to hold back another giggle