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)
Samuel closed his eyes, sucking in a breath, and tried very hard to be patient with her. “That device is not infallible. I’m from a mage family. Two, in fact. Both sides can work their own brands of magic. They automatically test every child born. My brother, Salem, inherited the mage talent. I didn’t. Don’t test me again.”
She looked ready to protest before thinking better of it. “I won’t. I’m sorry if I opened old wounds.”
“I understand why you did. The dragons here keep smelling magic from me, don’t they?”
“We do,” Thiago answered, almost apologetically.
“And you’re desperate for mages. I truly do understand. I’m happy to introduce you to my family. They’ll be happy to meet you, for that matter. But I’m no mage.” Shaking his head, Samuel rose out of the chair. “I think I’ll call it a night. The travel has worn me out. Luka, I’ll let you borrow that again tomorrow, or I can email it to you now.”
“Oh, email it to me. I’d love to print a copy and put this in the library’s archives.”
Samuel managed a small, stiff smile as he tried to shove away the last of his frustration and the swell of old pain. “Probably not a bad idea.”
Samuel stayed patient enough to email the files to Luka, then he turned and went for his room, feeling raw after that conversation. He wanted to hole up in his room and breathe for a while, put his barriers back up. Evora hadn’t meant to reopen old wounds, but they bled as brightly as new ones. Samuel had to pause for a moment at the edge of the courtyard, fighting back bitter tears.
It had been incredibly hard, at times, growing up with his twin. Salem loved him to pieces, had never once criticized Samuel for his lack of talent, but there had always been comparisons in the family. Samuel couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that, but look at how talented Salem was. Not that he blamed Salem for any of that—it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Samuel’s either, for that matter. His family might not perform a lot of complicated magic, but there had been plenty of little things, particularly protection spells, that he just couldn’t do that colored his family’s view of him.
The wrong genetics had come to Samuel, that was all. Nothing could be done about it.
Samuel knew, by the time they hit their teens, that certain possibilities would never be his. He’d never wield magic. He’d never be a dragon’s mate. He’d never be able to understand or keep up with the conversations among the family. He wasn’t an outcast. He just didn’t quite fit in. The life that he was supposed to have, the life that he wanted, was forever out of his reach.
It wasn’t until he was seventeen that he learned of the Sousa Clan and their specialty. What the Sousa mages had done—what they could do—rekindled hope in Samuel’s chest.
Samuel had only one account to go from, but it had been enough to tell him that there was a possibility of getting his magical core to work.
He’d become obsessed at that point. Everything he could learn about the clan, every trace of them he could find, he hoarded like a dragon. It was a long shot, no doubt about that. The Sousa leaving the information he needed, having those chronicles survive for nearly five hundred years, was more than a stretch. Samuel tried to caution himself, tried not to be swallowed by the hope of reversing his life. It was just that sometimes—like tonight—that was very, very hard to do.
He wanted to be whole so desperately sometimes, he found it hard to breathe.
Samuel brushed at his eyes, cleared his vision, and continued on to his room. He couldn’t admit to the Valerii that he was on something of a wild goose chase. He doubted they would help him if they knew. He could find the other dragon clan that had been here though, if it got him closer to his own goals. They were obviously interested enough in that to not dig any further into his motivations.
That was good enough.
Samuel put down the shirt in his hands as someone knocked on his door. He’d been in the middle of repacking his bags in preparation for tomorrow’s departure into the mountains. The last three days had been spent in meetings with the tracking team and running to get supplies with Dimitri or Gregori.
His brain was still struggling to wrap itself around the change he’d witnessed in Dimitri. The man he’d first met on the street was overbearing, annoying, and—okay, maybe a little sexy flirty, but there had been little proof he had an actual brain in his head or that he could successfully manage a team. But Dimitri had proved him wrong.