Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,107
into it. Stowing his blades behind him again, he pushed against the top of the coffin, trying to remove the “lid” he just created.
But the already substantial metal, weighed down by water, was too heavy, and his strength was waning from lack of oxygen. It wouldn’t budge.
His body was starting to break itself down in suffocation. The agonizing path to eventual death by drowning had already begun.
The weight of the blades on his back kept him in place, almost kneeling beside the coffin. Involuntarily, he reached out a hand to touch the metal casing. Somehow, it felt warm from the life within the box.
I tried, he pushed the thought to the hapless creature therein.
I failed. I don’t know who you are, but it looks like we’ll be keeping each other company for the foreseeable future.
And then, a miracle did happen.
Speak for yourself, brother.
Dalair was shocked into opening his eyes when a familiar voice whispered in his head.
I, for one, am getting out of here.
A blast of blue fire blew the heavy lid clear off the coffin. A pale, skinny, long-limbed man with long black hair emerged from the box, but disappeared so quickly Dalair thought he’d imagined him—
And in his stead, an obsidian dragon commanded all the space in the water-filled cavern, opened its mighty jaws, and roared.
Chapter Eighteen
Benji couldn’t breathe. But that didn’t stop him from struggling with all his strength.
He wriggled and he twisted, clawed his fingers into the surprisingly thick-skinned tentacle that held him, kicked and lurched. But to no avail. The creature wouldn’t release him no matter what he did.
When he felt faint from the lack of air, his lips parting of their own accord to release some of the unbearable pressure inside, the human head of the monster curved toward him until the woman’s mouth sealed upon his own.
Suddenly, air was pumped into his lungs from her body. When he had enough, he twisted away and held his breath again, not wanting to feel her slimy mouth on his.
They were moving so swiftly through the water, and it was so dark this far down beneath the surface, that he couldn’t really see where they were going. He could only feel the rapid currents moving against them as she parted the lake with her torpedo-like body, her tentacles churning like a fan rotor behind her.
Finally, they surged upwards, toward a distant speck of light that penetrated the surface of the lake.
Instead of looking toward salvation, Benji looked down instead at the receding dark depths of the lake, where his friends still remained trapped.
He wished he could be stronger and bigger so he could help them. He wished the creature who held him wasn’t so awful. He thought he could be Lily’s friend. He thought he could talk her out of her evil plans.
Benji was thankful for the water to disguise the onset of unmanly tears.
It wasn’t fair! It couldn’t end this way! Maybe it was all a nasty dream, and soon he’d wake up in his bed back at the Shield with Mama Bear and Tal sitting at his bedside with cookies and hot chocolate. Sophie, Mom and Dad would all be there. Sophie’s Mate too. The man named Dalair.
He didn’t want to go wherever the monster was taking him.
Right now, he was so very mad at her! If he had a sharp object, he’d probably stick it in her tar-black eye. She was a bad, bad person for hurting his friends.
And then, just as he was about to raise his head to surface the water and take his first deep breath in what seemed like an interminable period, the crumble of rocks and cloud of dust rising from the bottom of the lake grabbed his attention.
Something was drilling through the debris. It twisted this way and that, loosening the cracked boulders in its way. A gigantic black snout pushed its way through, followed by a thickly scaled face surrounded by large, tooth-like thorns, including a long array of dagger-like scales that fanned out from its cheeks and brow like a man’s sideburns or a lion’s mane.
Great jaws with at least two rows of closely stacked teeth opened in a silent roar as the rest of its body powered through the rocks. The creature shot through the opening it created like a sleek black missile, coming right for Benji and his captor.
Dragon, Benji mouthed soundlessly, staring wide-eyed at the obsidian-scaled monster as it shot toward them.