The Dark Protector

Chapter 5: Avani

She’s tall, my mate. I pull my wings out in a partial shift and fly up the side of a mountain, carrying her in my arms. I lay her down, tucking her hair behind her ears and that’s when I realize that my mate is an elf.

Fuck! Elves derive their magic from the earth. It means that she is very capable of claiming me. She could easily use my gift against me. Dragons are the strongest of all supernaturals, but elves are clever and intelligent, and they wield the earth element almost as easily as I do.

My mind is in direct opposition with itself. First, I’m thrilled that I found my mate. Instinctively, we all want to find the person that completes us and makes us feel whole. I’m proud to be mated to an elf, she is worthy of being mated to a dragon. And, I’d be lying if I said holding this woman in my arms doesn’t make me feel bigger than life, stronger than I’ve ever felt before.

However, the other side of me is furious that this woman might even consider that she is capable of taming a dragon. No one will ever claim me and tame me. That is the part that wanted to let the hunters kill her.

I look down at her face again, sighing. I can't let her die. Not now, not ever.

I need to make sure that she’s okay, then I need to get out of here before she wakes up. I can’t have her realizing what I am to her. She recognized that I'm a dragon, which means she knows that I'm one of the four elemental dragons. If she also knows that I'm the earth dragon, she may decide to try and claim me, and I won't allow it.

I haven’t spent a lot of time with elves, so I don’t know if they feel the cold or not. Just in case they do, I make a fire. I don’t go far, but I’m able to find some branches and some moss to make her a soft bed as well. I pull it together and lay her on it, keeping her close to the fire.

While she’s unconscious, I decide to check to make sure that she’s not injured. She’s barely wearing any clothing. It’s basically a blanket turned into a serape.

When I pull up the blanket, I growl before I can stop myself. She has puncture wounds and bruises all over her body. I lean in and I can smell multiple scents near the puncture wounds. The hunters were injecting her with who knows what. She’s lucky to be alive.

I continue to smell her body, finding the scent of multiple males. I make note of the scents that are strongest, noting one that has a similar scent to my mate. Some family member, if I had to guess. The others are responsible for what has happened to my mate, and they will die for their part in hurting her. I may not want her to claim me, but she is mine, and I will always watch over her.

And, damn, she’s not even a human. At least then my servitude to her would be limited. But, elves live long lives, just like dragons. I look at her again. I can’t tell how old she is, but she looks young. Very young. Too young for me to be bound to her for centuries.

Once I have the scents that I need, the scents of the ones that did this to my mate, I push my healing into her body. I call on the earth to pull the toxins from her, sucking them deep into the earth’s core to burn up and keep them from hurting any other living creature.

As I watch her body heal from the bruises and the punctures, I can’t help but notice that her hair is the rich color of umber, her lips have the pink hue of peonies and her fair skin, currently pink from the sun, is glowing with my healing power. She’s exquisite, made from the earth. Made for me.

I do know, from my minimal experience with the elves, that they, unlike me, are vegan. They do not eat anything that comes from animals, only things that are grown from the earth. I look around, wondering what, if anything, there is nearby that she might eat.

I begin foraging around, looking for edible plants that she might find appealing. Since my diet consists solely of animals, unless I’m at Tana and Kenna's house, I have no idea what she might want to eat.

I collect as many things as I can find nearby and bring them back to the fire. I collect some water and find a fallen branch that has a dip in it. I use my hand to carve it out some more and pour the water in it, putting it over the fire to heat while I add the herbs and plants I found nearby.

While it’s cooking, I listen to the sounds of the forest. I don’t hear any other hunters or the sounds of someone being hunted. It makes me wonder if there are others. I turn and look at my mate, still sound asleep. Her wounds seemed to indicate that she’d been running for a while and that she had been held captive. If that’s the case, there will be others.

While I don't want to leave her, I need to find out where this hunter’s lair is. They’ve been getting bolder lately. Tana, Cedric, Ishir and I have taken down several arenas, and they even tried to capture Tana and Kenna using their harpoons. Thankfully, Kenna had used her dragon’s call and Zephyr, Kaylani and I responded, helping them to escape.

I also realize that if the scent I smelled on my mate is a relative, and that relative is still being held prisoner, my mate will want to try to rescue them.

I stay with her through the night, but when the dawn begins to break, and she begins to stir, I shift and begin flying in the direction she came from. Maybe, if I can find this lair and release the hostages, including my mate’s family, she will leave the forest and I’ll never have to deal with her again.