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)
Oh. Shit, that was a good thought. Thanks to the Burkhard revelation, they knew there were far more dragons and mage clans still out there. Someone had to know something they hadn’t tried yet. He couldn’t help but feel some hope about that.
Still, would this be alright? By agreeing, wasn’t he setting them both up for disaster?
Shit, was he really going to agree?
Samuel lifted his head to look into those eyes and found no judgement. No exasperation. Just pure love and support. He’d never once been loved like this.
In that moment, he’d do anything to keep it.
Dimitri’s dragon roared in his head as if calling bullshit on this entire thing.
For once, Dimitri was in total agreement with his dragon. This was complete and utter bullshit. Someone needed to pay for this. His mate was hurting, and he needed to do something, hurt someone.
But this was outside the realm of dragons. They were built for war and protecting. They were armored for battle and ridiculously strong. None of that was useful to Sam right now. There was something genetically broken within him, and none of Dimitri’s strength could help.
Even his fucking magic was useless—the entire purpose of Dimitri’s being, and he was useless. What kind of a mate was he?
His dragon roared again, and Dimitri had to clench his teeth to keep the sound inside his chest while tightening his arms around his mate.
There had to be something he could do, something to fix the pain that had clearly haunted Sam his entire life. The closest Dimitri could even imagine to what Sam was going through would be if he’d been born a dragon among dragons and yet never been able to shift. Not being able to use magic in a mage family had to have been a nightmare for Sam.
“Let’s head back to the others,” Sam announced wearily. “They’ve got to be wondering where we are.” He started to pick his way along the path again when Dimitri came up behind him and wrapped his arms around him while resting his chin on the top of Sam’s head.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked on a sigh.
Dimitri turned his face, nuzzling Sam’s dirty, sweaty hair, trying to get a bit closer to his mate. “I just need to hold you for a minute.”
“Dimitri, it’s hot and I’m disgusting.”
Sam had barely finished the sentence when Dimitri pulled on his icy powers, sharply lowering the temperature of his skin so that he was significantly cooler than the man in his arms.
The archeologist huffed out a laugh and relaxed a little more in Dimitri’s arms. “My personal, walking air-conditioning unit.”
“See? We’re made for each other. You prefer the cold over hot temperatures, and I can keep you comfortably cool whenever you want.” He wrapped his arms tighter around Sam, pulling his left arm across Sam’s chest to cup Sam’s shoulder while his right arm settled across Sam’s stomach to grab his hip. There. His mage was completely wrapped up in him and nothing else could get at him. That was a start. Now they needed to figure out how to heal the problem with his core so that Sam could be everything he wanted to be.
“Dimitri,” Sam repeated. “We can’t walk like this. Others are waiting for us. We need to figure out the booby trap and our next steps. You have to release me.”
That all sounded very logical.
Fuck logic. Dimitri hated logic. As far as his Sam-a-Lam was concerned, logic could take a big flying leap into a pit of rusty spikes under a lemon-juice shower. He didn’t want to do anything that required him to release this tight hold on his mate.
To his shock, Sam turned his head and nuzzled it against Dimitri’s chest as if seeking the comfort that only he could give. “Dimitri, what’s going on in your head? You’re usually hover-y, but this feels worse. You’re not afraid I’m going to fall over and die because my core doesn’t work, right?”
Dimitri’s arms tightened until Sam squeaked, forcing him to loosen his hold. “I wasn’t before but I am now! Why did you say that?”
The mage in his arms groaned, but there was amusement mixed in with that tone. “I’m not going to die. I am perfectly healthy in every other way. Talk to me. Why are you so clingy now?”
“I’m hurting because my mate is hurting,” Dimitri reluctantly admitted. As soon as the first words tumbled out, the floodgates opened and there was no stopping the rest. “I’m scared that I can’t fix you and you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life. My entire purpose is to make my mate happy. What if I can’t? I’m scared that I’m going to be a horrible mate and that you might be better off with a smarter or stronger dragon. Someone who knows exactly what to do to fix your core and make you happy. What if I fail you? What if—”