Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
The man didn’t appear to be a native, not with those pale blue eyes and Slavic sort of features. He sounded it, though. The words exploded so fast and furious from his lips Samuel didn’t have a prayer of keeping up.
Samuel took an instinctive step backward, not wanting to get in the middle of a fight between these two, while fear temporarily made his knees weak. What was even happening?
The stranger’s hand landed on Samuel’s shoulder, keeping him firmly in place without gripping. Samuel glared sharply down at it, then up again, alarm flaring through him. What the hell?
The kid seemed pissed. He sounded defensive as he edged away from the newcomer. They argued for a second in brisk, heavily-accented Portuguese, but Samuel didn’t catch a word of it.
Turning to him, the stranger switched to perfectly fluent English, which sounded tinted with a Russian accent. “Beware of him. He’s a saci.”
Samuel blinked up at him in growing confusion. What was he supposed to do in this situation? “The kid? A what?”
“A saci. Definitely not a child. They trick people if you don’t give them a cigarette or some rum. He was trying to get you into trouble because you didn’t give him anything.”
Oh. Wait, could Samuel believe that at face value? The kid hadn’t been pushing him to do anything, after all. It was this guy who had butted in and caused a fuss.
The child said something in a growl that Samuel had no hope of understanding and stomped his foot at the stranger. This time, he didn’t quite look...human? There was something about his eyes, the slant of his mouth, that was different from before, although Samuel had a hard time putting a finger on what. It did put him on edge.
The hold on Samuel’s shoulder tightened, but it felt strangely protective as the man took a step forward, positioning his much larger body between Samuel and the strange...person.
In a burst of irritation, the newcomer sucked in a breath and then spat it out again and—
Holy shit! Was that ice?
Wherever the man breathed, icicles shot out and stabbed into the concerete. The kid yelped, hopping up and out of the way to avoid being hit. Then, in a puff of smoke, he was gone.
Just...gone.
Samuel stared at the spot where he’d disappeared and felt the world tilt sideways. That boy really hadn’t been human? Oh. Um. What the ever-loving hell had Samuel almost gotten himself into?
On top of that, for this man to spit out ice with his breath alone, didn’t that make him something not human too?
What the fuck was going on in Brazil? No one had warned him about strange creatures inhabiting this country. Sure, he’d heard there were dragons somewhere in Brazil, but what was this?
Samuel gazed up at the square-jawed behemoth with the liquid-black hair in a daze, because of course this-this creature had to have a good five or six inches on him, not to mention acres of muscles. He was not sure what to make of anything anymore.
The man stared steadily at him, a charming smile on his admittedly handsome face. “Beware friendly children standing idle on street corners. They live to trick travelers and lead them into danger. They’re not to be trusted.”
“Who…are you?” Samuel asked, not even sure if he should ask.
“Me? I’m Dimitri Valerii of the Valerii Clan. An ice dragon.”
Ice. Dragon.
Ice dragon?
Those words looped a few times in his head. It took a second for them to gel and gain any sort of traction. Samuel had reeled with the rest of the world seven months ago when it was revealed the dragons had not, in fact, all died out. They’d been living very quietly to avoid detection. He’d seen with everyone else the interview with the Fire Dragon King and his consort, celebrated that it was a same-sex couple to boot. Seeing that kind of positive reinforcement was a major win for the queer community.
He’d also had a personal celebration because, if the dragons were still there, then there were more mages out there as well. It wasn’t only his family who could work magic. The world was now a little bigger than he’d known before. If the dragons were still out there, maybe they possessed information about the mages that had been lost to everyone else for centuries. Information that could change his life.
But Samuel never, in a million years, expected to run into an ice dragon here.
He found his tongue, rebooted his mouth, and managed to get a question out. “Ice dragons are in Brazil? Aren’t they normally found in Russia?”
“Too cold in the motherland,” Dimitri refuted cheerfully. “We immigrated over here. Much warmer. And surfing. We love to surf.” He paused, his thick eyebrows meeting together in confusion as he cocked his head to the side. “Didn’t expect to find our clan here, did you?”