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)
Lester patted him on the shoulder again, the man downright giddy. “You must stay, Dr. Hunter. We’ll provide accommodations for you, of course, but please do stay. We’ll make so much more progress with your help.”
Aww, he’d been adopted. On the spot, too. Sam smiled at him. With the dragons, he might have finally found a clan to call home, but with the Jaeggi he’d found research partners. People who not only understood what he’d gone through his entire life but also understood the nature of archeological research.
But he couldn’t stay. “I would love to. However, I do have a slight problem. I’m, um, a dragon’s mate?” Those last words came out a little breathless while his brain swam. He had a mate. A dragon mate. He might have believed it when Dimitri had drilled it into his head, but he’d been afraid to really grasp the concept when he wasn’t sure he could ever be fixed. Now that he had hope, the idea was fully sinking in.
Lester froze, jaw dropping. “Dragons are nearby?!”
For a second, Sam could only stare at the man. Had they not heard Dimitri’s temper tantrum just outside their ward? He might not have been doing his dragon roar, but he hadn’t exactly been quiet either.
Then it hit him. He’d been inside the ward for a while and Dimitri was stuck waiting for him, not knowing if something happened to him. Sam looked down at his watch and swore a blue streak. He’d been looking over the journal and talking to the Jaeggi for over an hour. Dimitri was going to tear the forest down if he didn’t get back now.
But this was way bigger than just one dragon.
“You really didn’t know?” Sam demanded with a wince. “The Valerii have been in Brazil for a good five hundred years.”
“I…no. No, we had no idea. Close by?”
“Right on the coastline, about an hour or two’s flight from here.”
Lester almost hit the floor over this news. One of the women poked him in the shoulder, demanding to know what was wrong—Sam understood that much—and Lester managed to choke out an explanation.
It was the rest of the room’s turn to freeze, staring at Sam like he’d announced the moon was made of cheese. Oh, and he’d tasted it personally to be sure.
Tension had thickened in the room. While they weren’t up in arms about this, there was this feeling that the Jaeggi mages were on the verge of panic. Even if they had been outside of the mess the Jaeggi had made recently, they knew they were hated by the rest of the mage and dragon community for what their ancestors did. Knowing dragons were right in their backyard had to be terrifying.
Sam dared to continue, hoping he could reassure them. “It was my mate and the dragons of his clan that brought me here. They’ve been outside waiting for me this whole time. Can I go back out and reassure him before he has a heart attack? He really, really did not want me to come in here by myself.”
Lester opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “But the dragons will not like us being here.”
“Dimitri—that’s my mate—reassured me that they know not all Jaeggi are bad. I think once we explain that you’ve been here for eighty years and aren’t interested in doing any damage to dragons, they’ll be fine. You’re like me. You’re just here to figure out how to fix your cores, right? They shouldn’t have issue with you.”
Or so he hoped.
Sam wanted to believe the Valerii wouldn’t have a problem with the Jaeggi at the Sousa site. Dimitri was adamant that Sam was safe within his own clan. But what of these guys? Would Rodrigo look at them as favorably? It was a little hard to wrap his head around it, but he felt a kinship with them. Not because they were all technically related to the same clan, but because they had suffered and struggled their entire lives with the same ailment: a broken core. They’d devoted their entire lives to uncovering the truth as scientists. In too many ways, they were the same. They’d never hurt anyone.
Maybe it was naïve, but Sam wanted them to have a chance at a better life, just like himself.
Lester paused him with an uplifted hand and then had a quick conversation with everyone else. A few people ducked out to run off to do something—who knew what—and even more people came in. Quite the debate went on for a good fifteen minutes. Sam didn’t have a prayer of keeping up with any of it. They were speaking in a mix of Portuguese and German, so any hope of understanding went out the window pretty quickly.
Finally, though, there seemed to be an agreement. Lester gestured for him to stand again.