Mated to the Earth Dragon (Elemental Mates 2)

Just then, Damon felt the niggling sensation of other dragon shifters arriving. The dragon of the water and the storm had finally made it back from Iceland—and they’d conveniently missed all of the action.

Damon smirked. The dragon of water wouldn’t like that.

Just as he’d expected, the chimera sent a mental summons a moment later. Through the bond, Autumn felt it too and gave him a questioning look.

Meanwhile, Ginny jumped up guiltily. “I almost forgot about Braeden’s breakfast,” she said, quickly preparing a tray for him when Damon and Autumn rose at last.

They left her behind in the kitchen as they climbed back up through the narrow tunnels meant only for humans—or the rare human-sized shifter that received an invitation to appear at the council of elements.

As they walked towards the chamber of the council, Damon reached out with his powers, testing the stone around them. Whenever he found a weakness left by dragon fire, he quickly repaired it, the rock singing to his dragon louder and more joyfully than ever before.

And this time, the immense power concentrated in his body didn’t give him a headache, or burst out of him uncontrollably. The mate bond glowed with steady heat in his heart. His element was calm, its energy at his command whenever he needed it.

“Welcome, dragon of the earth. And welcome, Autumn Drago, mate of the earth,” the chimera boomed from the shadows.

The symbols on the plinths were glowing—water, air, earth, and fire—but the dragon of water and air were in their human form, joined by Jared, the griffin shifter. They looked rather calm for a trio of shifters that had just hurried back across an ocean. The chimera must have filled them in about the past night’s attack while he and Autumn had been talking to Ginny.

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When Damon and Autumn approached, Gregory and Jared grinned at him in obvious delight at seeing him mated at last.

Even the dragon of water managed a smile and a respectful bow to Damon’s new mate.

“Congratulations,” Timothy said. His eyes shone blue like the ocean for a moment as he looked at them, and then his smile intensified. “She’s better than you deserve, but I’m glad for you two nevertheless.”

“There’ll be a ceremony back home, I hope,” Jared added with a grin. “Dragon Springs knows how to party, from what I’ve heard.”

“You're all invited, of course,” Damon said, proudly wrapping his arm around Autumn. “Although first I’ll probably have to make sure that there aren’t any further cake-related fights breaking out at home.”

“Two cakes.” Autumn giggled at his surprised look. “Seriously, with so many people, we’ll need a lot of cake anyway. Just ask both the foxes and the bears to help out with a cake.”

Damon opened his mouth to protest, thinking of the latest quarreling—and then he snapped it shut again. “You know what, that might just work. If I explicitly ask both of them for their help together, they’ll try extra hard because they’ll assume I think they can’t do it.”

“And given what I know about you shifter clans and your honor, neither will want to lose,” Autumn said with a grin.

“It might just work.” Damon laughed, then turned back to the other shifters. “You’ve heard it. In one month’s time, we’ll have a ceremony that Dragon Springs hasn’t seen since my parents found each other.”

“Congratulations,” the chimera boomed, sounding a little impatient. “Now back to more important things.”

Damon looked at Autumn, who returned his grin, quite obviously no longer intimidated by the gruff monster in the shadows at all.

Nothing’s more important, she mouthed silently.

He sent his answering laughter through the mate bond.

“You’ve already seen this worrying development,” the chimera growled from the darkness.

Chastened, all eyes turned to the new plinth with the glowing symbol of fire.

“I’ve thought about it and consulted my books. It can mean only one thing: that for the first time in a thousand years, a fire dragon has gained mastery over the element of fire itself.”

“Impossible,” the dragon of water called out angrily. “They’ve attacked us! There’ll never be a fire dragon on the council.”

“There won’t be,” the chimera grumbled from the darkness. “Let’s take this plinth as a warning sign. They’re rapidly gaining in power. And somewhere among them, a powerful enemy is hiding. It’s that dragon we need to defeat, before they cause further destruction.”

“We’ve searched Iceland—at least until we heard about the attack here,” the dragon of air said. “We found no trace of them. They’re back in hiding. This is taking too long. We need to get that information out of our captive dragon somehow.”

“Yes,” the dragon of water agreed. He took a step forward, towards the shadows hiding the chimera. “Let me get in there with him for an hour or two. I’ll get him to talk.”