Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
So why did Salem walking away hurt?
For all that he’d felt they’d taken a step forward, it was also starting to feel like Gregori had backslid two steps.
A month in the United States. A month of trying to convince Salem they were meant to be together and their lives would fit together like the teeth of a zipper.
Gregori felt no closer to having his mate.
He knew Salem’s stubbornness wasn’t really stubbornness—it was a trauma response. Salem had given him enough pieces to put the overall picture together, and Gregori was pissed at all those other men who’d convinced him he wasn’t worth the effort.
Even though Gregori knew the root cause, he felt almost helpless at times, unsure how to reach through the pain to Salem’s heart. His frustration was mounting, his own heart hurting, because he couldn’t claim his mate the way he wanted to.
Not to mention, he was battling his own suffocating wave of homesickness. The first couple of calls back to the clan with Ha Na had helped, but now he felt like it was a struggle just to keep the mask of optimism in place. If he let on for a second that he was having trouble, he was scared Rodrigo would order him back to Brazil.
But he couldn’t leave his mate.
If he left and returned to Brazil without Salem, how was he supposed to hold his head up? Had any dragon in all their history failed to win their mate’s heart? Putting aside his own battered pride, how was he supposed to go on without Salem? What would be the point of going home? How could he possibly live on another continent without Salem? Just the idea was heart-wrenching. No. No, no matter how bad things got, leaving would be so much worse.
At least he had the kids to distract him.
While he might not have been making any kind of grand headway with Salem, he was bringing lots of smiles to the children’s wing of the hospital with his regular visits.
The little ones were easy to win over. They loved story time with him and playing games. Naturally, using the dragon as a jungle gym was everyone’s favorite. The harder ones to win over were the teenagers. Too often, they’d spent most of their lives in and out of hospitals, leading them to be more jaded and withdrawn. They’d seen it all and had their hopes dashed time and time again.
But little by little, they’d started coming to see him as well, asking all kinds of questions about dragons and mages. They liked the small magic—snow falling in the playroom and roses made of ice. Jessica had pulled in a reluctant Hillary for the first couple of weeks, but Hillary was coming on her own now that Jessica had been released following her latest round of treatments.
Today had been three new books about dragons and a Candyland tournament that he lost at the very end. It had been a close one. But six-year-old Jason won it and got to wear the paper crown they’d made the day before. Cheers went up and laughter filled the playroom, allowing these very sick kids to forget for a little while exactly how sick they were.
“Well, I think my time is up for today,” Gregori announced, and he pushed to his feet and dusted off his jeans. As expected, the cheering turned into cries for just five more minutes. Unfortunately, it was getting close to dinnertime. These kids needed to get back to their rooms for rest and he needed to run to the store to pick up a few things for dinner if he was going to have it done before Salem got off work.
“Come on! Make it snow!” someone called out, and others joined in immediately.
“Haven’t you seen enough snow already?” He laughed. The city had been coated in yet another few centimeters last night, a fresh white layer covering the old dirt- and grime-filled snow.
“Nooooo!”
“All right! All right!” Gregori made a show of pulling the soft long sleeves of his sweater up his forearms. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them, smiling at all the little ones gathered around him, cheering and laughing.
With a deep breath, he tapped the power buried inside of him and tossed up his hands, willing the air at the top of the room to chill and snowflakes to fall.
Except nothing happened.
There was no tingle in his chest from the magic. No cold kiss of air as the power swept out of him. Just nothing.
His heart skipped and a knot tightened in his stomach. That had never happened before. For as long as he could remember, he’d never had his magic fail him. It was…odd.
“Come on! Make it snow! We wanna see snow!” The children’s cries broke through his mild panic, and he sucked in another deep breath. Maybe he was just a little tired. That had to be it.