Because Oakley wasn’t about to let that bastard get away.
And neither was I.
With a grin on my face, I called on my dragon, and he answered in an instant.
My clothes ripped as scales rushed over my skin, my muscles growing, bones shifting, eyesight sharpening, teeth growing and aching to bite, until I was all dragon. I let out a loud roar and jumped the—now—short distance to the blood witches.
Their magic couldn’t harm me in this form, so I ignored the many spells the group threw at me. I snapped my jaws in their direction and was pleased by the screams.
That’s right, little peons, fear the all-mighty dragon!
“Wow, full of yourself much?”Oak’s voice said in my head, making me shake out of my… mighty dragon… thing.
I roared again, and both of the dragons with Brinik started to shift. I was a very old dragon, so I was a lot bigger than either of them. Bigger and stronger. I turned quickly, whipping my tail right at them. One of them was smart enough to duck out of the way, but the other took the full brunt of my assault.
My tail smacked him in his side, sending him flying off his feet. He was mid-shift, so his wings couldn’t stop him from sailing through the air and landing hard on the pavement. His head bounced on the concrete, and I could see blood spurting from here. He was down for the moment, but he’d heal quickly.
Before I could worry too much about it, a silver shield appeared over the top of the dragon.Good.Tan had the guy covered.
I turned, ready to attack the last dragon, but to my surprise, Hiro and Basil were already taking the guy down.
Which meant I could concentrate on the blood witches.Hell yeah.
When I let out another mighty roar, three of the blood witches ran. So I chased them.
Oakley was… finishing off Brinik, and I knew the others were no match for them. They could take down all these assholes by themself if they really wanted to.
So I concentrated on the running blood witches, landing right in front of them and accidentally smashing a car. Whoops, I’d have to pay for that later—sorry, little green car!
The blood witches attacked me, cutting themselves and using that blood to power their spells. They flung spell after spell at me, but everything bounced off my scales. So I took a step toward them.
One of the witches tried to back up and fell on his ass, crab crawling away from me. Another stood his ground, flinging red magic at me over and over again, not doing the least bit of damage. It really only tickled. And the third tried to run again.
Stretching my neck out, I leaned over the other two and snatched the running blood witch up with my teeth. I thought about crunching down, but I didn’t really want the taste of… witch in my mouth. So I flung him in the air, like a cat playing with a favorite toy, caught his shirt between my teeth, and set him down in front of the others.
The scent of urine reached my nose, and I jerked back in disgust without taking my eyes off these three. The one I’d thrown had peed his pants.Ew.
I let smoke escape from my nostrils, a silent threat—yes, I can set you on fire in the blink of an eye, wanna test me?I stared them down, and luckily for them, they held still.
A moment later, Garrick appeared behind the blood witches, still in his bipedal form, and said, “Drop your weapons and allow me to cuff you. If you don’t, I’ll let the dragon eat you.”
One of the blood witches whimpered, and Garrick shot me a smirk as all three complied, dropping their knives and holding their hands up. Gar put handcuffs on them that would help block their magic. I wasn’t sure anything could block it one hundred percent, but I was confident enough in the magic that I wasn’t worried about Garrick as he led the three away.
Tan had managed to capture two of the assholes, Garrick had apparently killed three with his sword, and Bas and Hiro had a few bodies around them and two more in handcuffs.
I didn’t see any other blood witches anywhere.
This area was clear.
At least for now.
I turned toward Oakley and blinked, then let out my laughing churring noise.
They had their tongue sticking out of their mouth while they sat on their haunches and tried to brush something off of it with their giant paws.
Never in all my years had I seen a dragon do that, and it was hilarious. And cute. Scales, were they cute.
They looked at me with this pathetic expression, and in my head, I heard,“Brinik tasted disgusting.”I heard a whine.“Get it off! Blech. Blood witch is so fucking gross. Ewwwwww.”
