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)
“See!” Sam stepped over to Luka and grabbed the dragon’s arm with both of his hands. “You’ve got to help me. Make him calm down. He’s going crazy.”
Luka’s eyes went as wide as they could go as he plucked at Sam’s hands, trying to pull himself free. “No way. He’s all yours. Only you can calm him down.”
“Are you shitting me?” Sam squawked.
“Nope. You’ve got to learn how to train your dragon.” Luka got free of Sam and actually darted behind Vasily’s larger form for protection.
“That’s not even funny,” Sam mumbled.
“It is a little bit.” Gregori snickered, but the sound was cut off thanks to the joint glare from Sam and Dimitri. “But it is the truth. All mages have to learn to manage their dragons. Just ask them. Our instincts scream to protect you at all times. It’s not an easy thing to control, especially in the beginning.”
“Especially when you’re already standing in dangerous territory,” Dimitri snapped.
Sam waved his arms at the open camp space. “If you haven’t noticed, there aren’t a lot of mages hanging around for me to ask.”
“Cuddle him.” Those two words from Vasily rendered the camp silent except for the snap of burning logs and the calls of the nocturnal creatures in the trees.
“What?” Sam choked out, while Dimitri was busy taking back all the mean things he had been thinking about his sweet, caring Valerii brother. He could always depend on Vasily.
“Cuddle him. It works to soothe the dragon,” Vasily repeated. “I saw it work multiple times with King Alric of the Burkhard dragons. He was under a lot of stress and constantly grumpy, but a quick kiss or a cuddle from his mate, and he calmed immediately. Same for the one grumpy librarian they have.”
“Gunter,” Dimitri supplied.
Vasily grunted. “Yeah, Gunter. Nikki had Gunter wrapped around their little finger in no time.”
Sam slowly turned toward Dimitri, his lips pressed into a hard line while furrows dug into his brow. “Cuddles?”
“You’ve got to remember that your stress over your core as well as being in danger in the forest right now are triggering Dimitri’s protective instincts, and he’s fighting them to make you happy,” Luka explained gently.
Gregori snorted. “Yeah. I’m surprised he’s even in his human form right now. If you were my mate, I would have already shifted and flown you back to the clan.”
Dimitri squeezed his eyes shut and consigned Gregori to all the levels of Hell. There was no way he was going to get his cuddles now.
Cuddles? Really? All it took to get Dimitri calm again was cuddles?
Samuel would have to see this to believe it.
Some part of his brain planned out a time traveling method so he could go back in time and strangle every scholar, every historian, who had failed to write an accurate description of what a dragon was really like after they found their mate. Seriously, they hadn’t even come close.
They’d all said dragons were protective of their mages, but no one had said “they’re seriously overprotective” or “they will go apeshit at even a hint of danger” or anything accurate. Had they even tried?
Anyway, that was a fantasy for later. Right now, he had to wrangle a dragon.
Samuel wasn’t about to try this with an audience, and the only possibility of privacy was the tent, so he snagged Dimitri by the arm and hauled him in that direction. It didn’t take much effort. Dimitri was perfectly willing to go wherever he led, as long as it wasn’t near the booby trap.
Samuel toed off his shoes right inside the tent door, then crawled over to sit near the middle. Dimitri paused only long enough to zip the tent door shut behind him before facing Samuel, and wow, that was not a good expression. He looked wary. Like he fully expected to be in trouble.
That wasn’t what was happening here. Samuel wasn’t really mad, just frustrated. It wasn’t like he wanted to blow himself up, so Dimitri’s reaction to him being near the booby trap was way over the top. If Dimitri just calmed down and thought about it for more than two seconds, he’d realize that.
But that was rather the problem, wasn’t it? Dimitri wasn’t thinking. His dragon instincts were at the fore, charging ahead of rational thought, and try as he might, he couldn’t completely rein that in. It probably didn’t help that Samuel was resisting the idea of them being mates at all.
He still didn’t know what to think of that, frankly, but first things first. Step one: calm down a dragon.
Samuel extended a hand. “Come here.”
Dimitri took it, a little warily, still not sure what he was doing.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Samuel kept that thought off his face as he got up on one knee, leaning in to kiss Dimitri softly.
The gesture unwound Dimitri better than words. He relaxed immediately, the tension fleeing his shoulders.