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)
Maybe that wasn’t the best thing right now. Gregori’s head was still fuzzy and his limbs didn’t want to obey him completely, but he’d push through it to keep his mate safe. Dimitri was right there to protect them both as well.
As soon as Salem was secure on his back, Gregori jumped off the apartment building, earning a shriek of fear and delight from Salem. Dimitri roared with approval. The sound was one of home, speaking deeply to his own dragon in an instinctual way. It gave Gregori a boost of energy and he felt lighter, his dragon coming more in tune with him. Dimitri was only a heartbeat behind him, but the second the wind pushed up against the bottom of his wings, Gregori’s mind cleared. Strength and magic poured through his body, rejuvenating him.
Tipping his massive head up toward the heavens, he let out his own trumpeting roar that flew out across the city, and it was instantly answered by his dragon brother. His heart swelled with joy almost to the point of choking him. He wasn’t alone anymore. His dragon brother who’d fought at his side in the Dragon War, who’d bemoaned their long lives spent without a mate, and who’d gotten drunk with him more times than he could count flew at his side once again.
“Woo-hoooo!” Salem cried from his back, and Gregori barked out a laugh.
And then there was his amazing mate. Salem might be incredibly stubborn, but when he chose to fight for something, nothing and no one could deter him. This time, he was choosing to fight for Gregori, and he couldn’t even describe how humbling that felt. With his head clearer, he realized Salem had firmly established their relationship. He might not have said mates, but he clearly wanted Gregori with him and would fight to keep them together. Gregori had been making progress with him all along without realizing it. The relief just about bowled him over.
Flapping his wings, Gregori pushed higher and higher into the sky, soaring well above all the buildings, letting Salem see the entire city. There wasn’t a single cloud in the area, giving them a perfect view of sparkling stars against a velvet black sky. The wind was cold, but it didn’t bother him in the least.
“Hey! Gregori! Why am I not freezing?” Salem shouted.
“Magic!”
While his magic couldn’t keep his mate seated on his back—hence the need for the saddle and a harness that attached to the saddle—it could protect Salem from the worst of the bitter cold and the fierceness of the wind. It was the only way mage dragon riders could stand to cross vast distances quickly on the backs of ice dragons. He wasn’t sure how the other clans managed though, since they didn’t have innate control of cold.
He didn’t know how long they remained in the air. Enough time to make a couple of circles around the city before working their way back to Salem’s apartment building. He longed to keep flying, to take Salem straight to Brazil now that he finally had his mate on his back, but he knew deep down he didn’t have the strength yet to make the flight. The worst of the pain and fatigue were gone, but he still had a long way to go before he was fully recovered.
Not to mention, Salem would throw a fit if he was suddenly kidnapped.
Dimitri shifted as he landed on the rooftop, which was now mostly empty of people. A few lingered, talking to Sora and Sam, their eyes trained on the sky as they waited for yet another glimpse of the dragons. Their long, sparkling white scales weren’t hard to miss against the black night.
Gregori’s landing wasn’t quite as graceful, but he tried hard not to jar Salem too badly. Dimitri stepped up immediately to unhook Salem and help him down from Gregori’s back. As Salem stumbled over to his brother, Dimitri took the saddle off and Gregori shifted into his human form with minimal pain.
“Thank god,” Salem groaned, throwing himself into Gregori’s arms. He squeezed him tight, but the hug lasted for barely more than a second before the good doctor pushed back to look in his eyes, check his pulse, and all the other vitals doctors liked to keep track of.
“I’m better now,” Gregori said, his voice a little rough.
“Better? How can you be better already? You looked like you were on death’s door.”
Sora stepped up and murmured a quick spell he’d seen the mage do several times before. It instantly pulled up a view of all Gregori’s major organs and those same vitals Salem had been checking so the surgeon could see for himself on a quantitative basis that Gregori was, in fact, better.
“How?” Salem choked out.
“Being around his own kind, his own clan, can have a huge impact on a dragon.” Sora clucked and gave Gregori a dark look. “He was warned being away from his clan for an extended period of time could be dangerous to his health, but he didn’t take it as seriously as he should have.”