Page 72 of Chase Me

“Who is AllFather?”

“AllFather AllFather.” They didn't have a whole lot of inflection, but she could tell that one thought she was as stupid as she thought he was. She wanted to ask what the AllFather was too, but she’d probably get the exact same response.

“Where is this AllFather?” This was working. She'd heldthem off for a full thirty-seven seconds. How fast were first responders?

The demon dragon who had been answering her questions snarled as if he'd had enough talking. “Hell.”

Oh, hell no.

The demon dragons advanced, even the one with the cuts on its face. She sure as hell hoped Wesley had been able to get through to 911.

Ciara needed to come up with a plan and quick. She grabbed a knife from the butcher block and held it out. God, she hoped this did not come down to hand-to-hand combat. She waved the knife at them. It didn't stop them even a little bit. She switched from holding the knife handle like she was going to chop up a grilled cheese sandwich and flipped it, so she fisted the handle, blade down. She'd taken a self-defense class once, kidding, she'd seen one advertised on TV. She did remember though that knife was more powerful and useful in downward stabbing motion than trying to use it like a sword.

She might not be able to throw the demon dragons out the window with her wind, but she could use it to throw things at them. A lamp flew across the room and smacked the bleeding one in the head. He shook his head and kept advancing on her. She threw a lot more at them, books, her TV, snowballs. It didn't stop them even a little bit. She needed a better plan.

What would Jakob do?

Thrash them with his tail. She didn't have one of those. He'd slash their throats with his claws. They would need to be a lot closer to her for that and she didn't want them to be. Bury them in dirt.

All she had were her potted plants and the ground was eight stories below. She had to try anyway.

A fountain of soil spurted in through her broken door and gathered at the demon dragons’ feet.

“Come on, come on.” She searched deep inside her heart for the strongest emotions in there that she could find. Every single one of them had to do with Jakob. Only this time when she pulled them up they didn't hurt.

The stream of earth thickened and began to avalanche into her living room.

The demon dragons clawed at the dirt and screeched at her.

She called all of the roots out of the tiles, walls, floor, and ceiling from every apartment in the building. They grew hard like stone, encasing the demon dragons inside.

She had them.

She was feeling pretty damn proud of herself, and almost ready to call Wes back out of the bathroom.

That's when something much bigger with giant talons plunked down on her back porch. It was so dark outside now that she couldn't see what it was. But the weight of it shook her building.

If it tried to come inside, she was toast.

SAVE ME

Jakob followed the demon dragon down the street. The one turned to many as it called its brethren to rise. First two, then ten. More and more formed out of the shadows until a river of them were flowing toward Ciara. Where the fuck were they all coming from and why were they here and now?

It had to be connected to Ciara and the relic. The bastards had never shown any interest in a single human being before. They had only ever been bent on causing plagues and spreading death. They’d brought the black death to Europe, Ebola to Africa, SARS to Asia, and H1N1 around the world. Each outbreak had been stopped from becoming a species annihilator by the dragon warriors.

He and every other dragon ever born had rooted them out, usually one by one, and destroyed them. To see this many gathered together twice in a lifetime was more than a little scary. But for them to be fixated on one human didn’t make sense.

The warriors were missing vital clues, and he didn’t havetime to hunt them down. He was too busy hunting demon dragons.

Jakob slashed and destroyed them from the back of the newly formed horde, but as soon as he killed one, two more appeared to take its place.

He had to get ahead of them and warn Ciara. Get her out of there and to safety. Preferably back to his villa where he would build a brand new, high-tech safe room, hidden in an underground bunker, that only he knew the location of and the combination. He would hide her away there forever.

Except she would kill him for it. He would enjoy every second of that, and the make-up sex to be had once he rid the world of every last demon dragon.

They were falling fast. He was taking them out two or three at a time. It wasn’t enough. As a highly-trained warrior, he knew better than to use only his claws, tail, and fangs to fight his enemy. Use your head, asshat.

They couldn’t fly, but he could. If only he had fire. As soon as he thought it, dragon’s fire spewed down upon them.

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