To Date A Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Romance (Weredragon Warriors Book 1) (9 page)

Rohan had told her about the
Slayors. He told her what they looked like and how they killed.

The monsters in her mind—were
real.

They were Slayors.

“My parents,” she
whispered, hugging herself tighter as she stared at the shadows
around the street corner. “My parents were killed by Slayors.”

But why? Why would Slayors
target her parents?

They wouldn't, unless…

Amelia was jolted from her
troubled thoughts by the buzzing of her doorbell. Frowning, Amelia
scrambled to the door and peered through the peephole.

“Oh!” she gasped
in surprise, hastily unlocking the door.

“Norbert, what are you
doing here?” she asked, her frown deepening in confusion.

“I'm sorry, Amelia. I
know it's very late,” Norbert said sheepishly. “But I
needed to talk to you.” He looked around and gulped. “Um,
may I come in? It's cold out here.”

“Oh, I...”
Amelia unlatched the door and opened it. “Yeah, sure.”

A thought suddenly struck
Amelia and she tried to close the door but Norbert was already in her
apartment. “Nice place,” he said, looking around. “So
where's your friend?”

“Huh?”

“You told me you live
with a friend.”

“Oh. He...ah, he just
left. He had an urgent call.”

Norbert's smile made her
uneasy.

“How did you know where
I live?” she asked casually.

“You told me.”

No I didn't.
A chill
ran down her spine.

“Maybe we should talk
tomorrow.” Amelia feigned a yawn and held the door open.
“It's really very late. And I'm tired. I'll call you, okay?”

“No you won't.”

Moving so quickly she didn't
have time to scream, he slammed the door shut and grabbed her by the
throat. “Don't make a sound, Amelia,” he warned. “I
don't want to hurt you. Yet.” He laughed and his tongue slid
out between his thin lips.

Amelia watched in horror as
his tongue extended towards her. His tongue was unnaturally thin and
long, and the ends of it was forked. No, she wasn't imagining it.
Norbert did have a forked tongue.

“Wh-what...” she
choked out as his grip tightened around her neck. She tried to jerk
away as Norbert licked down her cheek. His tongue felt cold against
her skin and she struggled and gagged as he forced her mouth open and
pushed his tongue in.

She tried to bite him but
Norbert threw her to the floor roughly and put his foot on her
throat. Leaning down, he hissed in her ear, “I can taste and
smell Rohan Draek on you. Perfect. Thissss...is perfect.”

With one hand, he picked her
up as if she weighed no more than a feather and flung her towards the
coffee table. Her temple connected with the corner of the table and
for a moment, everything went black. Stars exploded behind her
eyelids and when she opened her eyes, all she saw was a viscous
curtain of red.

Amelia raised her hand to her
head and felt something wet and warm. She blinked hard, but her
vision refused to clear. Something was dripping into her eyes, and
her head hurt. There was blood on her hands, a lot of blood.

“No...” Amelia
groaned, clutching her head. The blood continued dripping into her
eyes. Amelia felt terribly nauseous but she knew she had to get up.

Norbert was standing over
her, watching her with glowing yellow eyes. His eyes no longer
looked human. They never were, Amelia realized with chilling
clarity. He managed to hide his vertical slitted pupils only for a
short period of time. Norbert wasn't human.

“You're a Slayor,”
she whispered.

Norbert laughed. Or she
thought he laughed. The sound he made was harsh, grating and filled
with contempt.

“No, Amelia, I'm not
just a Slayor. I'm a Slayor General.” He gave a stiff,
mocking bow. “General Nhor at your service.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

Rohan threw on his leather
jacket, hiding his arsenal of weapons from view. He was armed to the
teeth, with an assortment of deadly weapons strapped and holstered to
his body.

He was met at the door by
Edriq and Zul. Both warriors stepped forward and formed a solid wall
in front of him.

“Move,” Rohan
snapped.

“No. You're not doing
this. You'll be walking into a trap, Rohan,” Edriq said.

“Tessa is my daughter,”
Rohan said, stepping up to Edriq. “Get out of my way. It's an
order.”

Edriq didn't back down. “My
duty overrides any order from you, Your Highness,” Edriq
answered in the old Dracan language. “My duty is to protect
the life of the King of Draca. I will not let you walk into a
Slayor's lair and get killed.”

“I am going to get
Tessa,” Rohan said evenly, but his eyes flashed dangerously.

“I will stop you, using
any means necessary,” Edriq answered.

“You can
try
to
stop me.”

Before Zul could move, Rohan
pressed a blade against Edriq's neck and snarled, “I order you
to move.”

“Rohan! Don't...”
Zul yelled.

“My life is yours,”
Edriq said. “But your life belongs to your people. Your
people need you, King Rohan.”

“My daughter needs me!”
Rohan roared.

“We'll rescue the
princess,” Edriq said. The warrior didn't flinch in the face
of his king's wrath. “Zul and I will get the Princess back. I
swear...”

“We'll protect Rohan,”
Zul spoke up and stood behind Rohan. “You can't stop him,
Edriq.” When Edriq glared at him, Zul rolled his eyes and
said, “What are you going to do, Edriq? Chain him up?”

Edriq canted his head and
appeared to be giving the suggestion some thought.

“Seriously, Edriq!”
Zul shouted. “You're thinking of chaining your king up? You
have a death wish or what?”

Rohan sheathed his blade and
pushed Zul and Edriq apart. “Stop. Both of you.”

Rohan stepped up to Edriq and
gripped his brother's shoulder. “I know you mean well. I'm
sorry, my brother. I...”

“Your Highness...”

“I'm not 'Your
Highness'. I'm a warrior like you. Draca is no more. As such,
there is no King of Draca. My father, King Rykor, was the last King
of Draca. But the Dracans are still here. And I am a Dracan. A
Dracan warrior, like you. I will fight with you, bleed with you, and
I will be honored to die with you.”

Rohan put his fist out and
said, “Let's go. I have a date with General Nhor.”

Edriq looked Rohan in the eye
and gave a sharp nod. He pressed his fist against Rohan's and said,
“May Draca's Dragons prevail.”

Zul pounded both their fists
and let out a war cry.

Rohan started running out to
the vast lawn. Edriq and Zul were right behind him, and the three of
them shifted and soared into the sky together.

Rohan could hear the beat of
powerful wings behind him. Edriq and Zul were flying in battle
formation behind him. This was war.

As Rohan flew, the scene of
the final battle on Korra flashed before his eyes.

He could see the Dracan
soldiers fighting valiantly, trying to drive the Slayors back but
they were vastly outnumbered. King Rykor ordered Rohan to gather as
many civilians as he could.

The Dracan army would try to
hold the enemy off while the civilians escaped from the planet Korra.
There was nowhere else for them to go on their home planet. Both
continents were now overrun by Slayors. They had to find another
planet, another home.

The civilians crammed into
thirteen ships. Three Dracan soldiers were assigned to each ship.
That was all they could spare. Rohan was a Lieutenant General in the
Dracan army, and the Crown Prince of Draca. He wanted to stay and
fight with his men, but his father ordered him to board the last
ship.

“Lead our people to
safety, Rohan,” his father said, his eyes shining with pride
and love. “You are their king.”

Thirteen ships took off as
the battle raged in Draca. One by one, the ships were shot down.

Rohan saw the fiery
explosions as the twelve ships exploded, killing all the civilians
and guards on board. Only one ship made it out.

The Slayors pursued them
across space until Rohan took out the last Slayor squadron with one
well-timed shot.

The war wasn't over, Rohan
realized grimly. It might never be over.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

Amelia mumbled an incoherent
curse as the Slayor dragged her forward. She shuffled along,
blinking rapidly to get her vision to clear and adjust to the
darkness. This looked like a humongous cave and she was thankful for
the slivers of moonlight piercing through the holes in the roof of
the cave.

She was feeling weak and
dizzy from blood loss, and there was dried blood and dirt caking her
face.

Instead of struggling and
screaming, Amelia decided that it was better to conserve as much
energy as she could. No one would hear her screams here. No one but
Slayors.

This place was crawling with
Slayors. This must be their hidey-hole. Many of the Slayors were in
their snake forms, their scaly bodies slithering and writhing in a
massive heap. One by one, the Slayors shifted and pushed themselves
up from the cave floor on two legs. They turned to stare at her with
their slitted snake eyes and their tongues darted out to taste her
scent.

General Nhor had handed her
over to a Slayor standing guard at the mouth of the cave and given
the guard a command in an alien language. The Slayor had clamped his
cold, icky fingers around her elbow and pulled her deep into the
cavernous snake hole.

Amelia took sharp, short
breaths through her mouth. The dank, stale air in the cave was
making her eyes water and her head swim. She felt a little
light-headed and her throat was sore from screaming. She was no
longer bleeding but there was a dull throbbing pain at her temple.

Amelia told herself sternly
to keep calm and carry on. She never thought she'd have any use for
those quirky, motivational phrases, but now she found herself
desperately rifling through her mind for every feel-good,
morale-boosting phrase she could remember. All those corny, cliches
she saw on mugs, posters, calenders and tote bags suddenly didn't
seem so trite and vapid anymore. Those overused phrases were
actually priceless gems of wisdom, true and tested survival tips and
they would get her through this.

The Slayor stopped abruptly
and released her. Amelia looked down and her eyes rounded at the
sight of the deep, dark pit in front of her.

She shook her head and began
to back away, but the Slayor hissed and kicked at her legs. Amelia
screamed as the Slayor gave her a hard push and sent her toppling
past the edge.

She landed painfully on her
side. Amelia groaned as she pushed herself up. The pit wasn't that
deep so she hadn't broken any bones in the fall.

Small mercies, she told
herself.

There was an opening in the
roof of the cave just above the pit. Water was dripping down from
the opening and Amelia raised her face to let the cool droplets
splash on her cheek.

Rainwater, she realized as
she stuck out her tongue to taste it. They were somewhere deep in
the forest. The cave was probably well hidden by the thick foliage
and they were far away from civilization.

It would take days, weeks,
even months for anyone to find her. If she didn't turn up for work
on Monday, the other teachers might call her and hopefully file a
missing persons report. But the police wouldn't even know where to
look for her. Even her remains might never be found...

Amelia shook her head
angrily. She refused to believe that she was going to die here, in
this stinking pit.

“I'm getting out,”
she said aloud. “I am!”

She froze when she heard a
rustling sound in the shadows. There was a small sound, like a faint
whisper.

“Who's there?”
she said fearfully, grabbing a small rock at her feet.

The sound became louder, and
she realized it was the sound of a child crying.

A child!

“Hello! Where are
you?” she called out, moving carefully forward. “Oh God,
are you hurt? Don't cry. Don't be afraid. I...I'm a friend. I
won't hurt you. My name is Amelia.”

She heard a startled gasp.
“M-Miss Amelia?” a tiny voice cried. She saw a small
hand reach for her from the shadows. “Miss Amelia! Help me!
Please don't leave me! P-please...”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Rohan dropped from the air,
and shifted. He straightened up from his crouch and heard Edriq and
Zul landing quietly behind him. They moved silently to his side and
waited.

The mouth of the cave was
partially hidden by trees and thorny shrubs. There was no telling
how deep the cave was, and how many Slayors were lying in wait for
them inside.