Rage (Her Monsters Book One) - K.A Knight Page 0,94

four or five days to reach Dawn with minimal stops.

But the car doesn’t drive past. In fact, I hear them slow down before it pulls onto the gravel behind me. Shutting the boot, I turn around to face them, feeling paranoid, and when I spot the symbol on their chests through the front window, I swear.

How do they keep finding me? I know the car isn’t being tracked or bugged, I swept it myself, my paranoia too ingrained to trust Jean Paul completely.

Walking away from the car to give myself some room, I head onto the grass next to the gravel and place the trees at my back as I wait for them to get out of the car. I see them hesitating, obviously expecting to have caught me off guard. They clearly don’t know a lot about dragons.

Holding my hands out, I gesture for them to come over with a smile. I wish they would hurry up. Don’t they realise I have places to be? Silly hunters.

The doors finally open and four men pour out. Really, four? I am disappointed. I am betting they were only supposed to tail me, but it looks like they are getting brave.

“Just imaging how much pussy and fame we will get if we bring in a dragon!” the driver hisses at the passengers, and I hold up my hand.

They stop, sharing a look, before glaring over at me cockily as they puff out their chests.

“I’m going to stop you there, gentlemen. Yes, I can hear everything you are saying, I can also hear your hearts pounding and smell your fear. This is how it’s going to go. You are going to try and attack me, I am going to kill you all. Or, I will let one of you live for messenger purposes. Your choice. I will give you thirty seconds, feel free to discuss.” I wave between them as I start to hum, glancing around to give them some form of privacy.

“What do you think?” one of them whispers, not the driver.

“Shut the fuck up Lo, we are killing this cocky fucker!” he shouts, obviously realising I can hear them, no matter what volume they speak.

Looking back at them, I grin as they start coming towards me. They freeze again. “One question, which one is Lo?” I ask conversationally.

The brown-haired, mousy man at the back raises his hand as sweat pours down his head and he glances at the others. “Brilliant, thank you. Proceed,” I command.

They are all wearing black—really, what is with the monotone—and the crest of hunters somewhere on their body. I notice each is carrying a gun, and one man has a net and another a knife. I need to kill them before they shoot, being shot isn’t fun, and I don’t have time to heal, but if they knew they were hunting a dragon they might have altered their bullets to contain Yret—a flower grown in our region, which can be deadly to dragons in certain doses.

I have built up a tolerance, a request made by the council to make sure I could not be poisoned, but it has been a while since I last ingested some and I fear it would slow me down and render me useless for a while. A break I can’t afford.

They rush me with a pitiful war cry. Lo and one of the others hangs back, allowing the other two to circle me. One of them spits at my feet and I memorise his face, he will pay for that. No one disrespects a dragon and gets away with it.

Tired of waiting for them to make the first move, I jump the second man and snap his neck easily. As he falls to the ground, I prowl towards the driver.

He glances at the fallen man before glaring at me. “Three way split, no big deal,” he bluffs and I grin.

Wagging my finger, I advance as he steps back. “You shouldn’t have done that, little boy,” I warn and I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he gulps.

He steps back without looking and he goes down hard, tripping over a discarded can. Grinning, I leap forward. He scrambles to his feet and I lift him into the air by his neck.

I hear the others moving closer, thinking they are sneaking up on me. I laugh and grab the man’s jaw hard with my other hand, wrenching it open. Grabbing his tongue, I look into his eyes and snarl, “Time to teach you some