“Dude,” the Oracle said to Amos through a mouthful of popcorn. “Chill out.”
Through the TV screen, the two of them watched Lucy hurry gracefully down the stairs of the subway station. The King slept in his chambers behind them, but the Oracle had called up the images on the television screen so that Amos could supervise Lucy’s capture. Nothing could go wrong.
“What?” Amos asked distractedly. He’d been trying to pretend the Oracle wasn’t there, difficult with all the loud popcorn chewing.
The Oracle gestured to Amos’s hands and looking down Amos saw that his dragon claws had unsheathed. God, what the hell was wrong with him? He’d been in control of his shifting since he was ten years old. He snicked the claws back in, his human fingers appearing. Why was he getting so worked up watching Lucy interact with that dumbass piece of human garbage?
Amos took a deep breath and ignored the Oracle’s gaze on the side of his face. He just didn’t like to see a woman get treated badly, that was all. He’d been strangely proud of Lucy when she’d severed ties with that loser. Which didn’t make sense considering he hardly knew her. It also didn’t make sense how unholy pissed he’d gotten when he’d realized that the dumbass was escorting her that night because he was her mate.
Well, not her mate anymore, he thought and a thrill shot through him. She’d, what did humans call it? Kicked his ass to the curb. But the feeling rising through him extinguished as he remembered who her new mate was going to be. The King. Amos glanced behind him at the King’s locked chambers.
Concentrate, Mos. He thought to himself angrily. He hated this newfound wandering brain he was battling with. His whole life he’d been single minded in his pursuit of one thing –protect the royal line. Just like his father and grandfather and his father and on. He came from an endless line of Protectors, the most loyal of all the dragon breeds. And the most fierce.
Even in the ancient stories, it had been his family who protected the royals. When he’d been a boy, he’d been assigned to safeguard the young prince, along with an adult bodyguard, of course. But that had been the cushiest assignment that bodyguard had ever had, because nothing had gotten past Amos. More than eating, more than sleeping, or playing, or laughing, he’d been compelled to protect the prince. Just like he was compelled to protect the King now. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to maintain his post as the King’s personal bodyguard. He remembered the few years he’d spent as a teenager without a job assignment. It was after the young prince had fallen to the royal sickness. Amos had watched helplessly as the emaciated boy got skinnier and skinnier. Amos had been by his side as his eyes had gone glassy with death. He’d been the one to carry his body to the graveyard. He’d laid the boy in the ground himself.
And then he’d spent the next four years with no one to guard. Out of his mind with boredom and a racing in his chest that told him he was always in the wrong place, not doing enough, slacking, slacking, slacking. At the end of those four years he’d been able to run a mile in 4 minutes and 30 seconds and could drag a Buick behind him. And that was just in his human form.
He’d been devastated when his father had been killed in the line of duty, protecting King Dalyer. His father had pushed the King from a boat seconds before the explosion that took his life. Amos would have gone his whole life living in limbo, without another assignment, if it meant not losing his father. But what happened had happened. And it meant that Amos was promoted. King Dalyer’s personal bodyguard.
Protecting the King meant something different everyday. Some days he shadowed him through the streets of the Kingdom, eyeing strangers suspiciously and ushering him into safe zones as fast as he could. Some days it meant tossing out food that didn’t’t smell quite right. And today it meant making sure that that woman made it through the portal safely. That gorgeous woman. That gorgeous woman with an ass that could make a man forget his own name.
“For fuck sake,” he snapped at the Oracle when Amos realized that the reason he was staring at the woman’s ass was because the Oracle had zoomed in on it. “Act like a professional.”
“When have I ever claimed to be a professional?” the Oracle asked, popcorn stuck in his beard. “She’s cute, this is boring, and we’ve gotta pass the time somehow.”
“We’re kidnapping this woman -to a different universe no less- to get her pregnant with another species by someone she’s never met.” Amos wasn’t sure why he was yelling. “The least we can do is allow her a little dignity, here.”
“Alright, alright, big guy.” The Oracle raised his hands palm up. “Take a breather.” The image zoomed out as she got off the train at her station and jogged up the stairs to street level. “Looks like the action is starting anyway.”
It was. Amos clenched his jaw as two of the King’s soldiers approached her in their human forms. Seeing two men walking swiftly toward her, Lucy darted to the other side of the street, hurrying now to get closer to the museum. She was smart and fast. She disappeared in the shadow of a building and the two soldiers ran to catch up with her, no longer trying to be stealthy.
For one confusingly hopeful moment, Amos thought she might get away. She shouldn’t have to come here as a prisoner and be forced to breed. But the other part of him knew that the moment she was caught and dragged through the portal she’d be there in front of him. Living and warm and real. Not just an image on a screen anymore. He cleared his throat and adjusted his cock in his pants.
Control. Control. Control. He chanted to himself. He had to be under control when she came into the dragon realm. He’d have to wake the King and get down to the portal to receive her in a matter of minutes. But for now, heart in his throat, he watched the two soldiers catch up to Lucy. The men flanked her on either side and dragged her, screaming and fighting, into the night.