Page 29 of Soar

Salem didn’t know this, of course. Gregori was going off his own schedule for their dates. The last home date had worked out really well, but today he felt like pushing boundaries and taking Salem out. Salem had complained of being tired of only going to work and home, nowhere else, so Gregori had suggested a change of scenery would do them both good. Maybe have dinner out on the town. The grumpy surgeon had caved to Gregori’s proposal of going out to celebrate Salem’s much deserved night off.

It being Sunday, Gregori had checked in with Ha Na, and he’d done it early in the morning while Salem still slept. For the most part, Salem’s day off work was spent sleeping. Not that he blamed the man in the least. He put in some extremely long hours at the hospital, and when he came home, he spent more hours picking at Gregori, trying to convince the dragon they were a horrible match. It had to be draining.

Gregori had said as much to Ha Na, but he’d put it in terms ofbut improvements! And there were improvements. Salem didn’t argue with him on a daily basis anymore. In fact, he quite liked having Gregori living with him, even if he didn’t say it.

What Gregori did not mention were his body aches, especially along the spine, so as not to worry Ha Na. In truth, he wasn’t used to staying in human form like this for weeks on end. He clearly wasn’t flying enough. But that was a later him problem. He’d fly some after Salem went back to work tomorrow. His dragon was being rumbly and irritable, so a flight was definitely in order.

Tonight wasn’t about mates, bonding, or their eventual happily ever after.

It was about getting to know each other. Sure, they’d screwed like rabbits, and Gregori had a detailed catalogue in his brain of all the secret spots on Salem’s body where he could lick or suck and make Salem scream himself hoarse, but how much did he actually know about his mate that didn’t involve sex or Salem’s work?

Next to nothing.

He trusted his dragon’s instincts, which said they were mates. He could feel they were meant for each other deep down in his soul. It was just that the rest of him was waiting to understand what made them so perfect for each other.

“So, let’s get the most cliché question out of the way,” Gregori started as he carefully maneuvered Salem’s car on the somewhat busy street. The sun had set a little over an hour ago and the car headlights shone brightly on the wet streets. The temperature had warmed up just enough to melt some of the piles of snow around the city. Thankfully, the roads were well treated against ice, but Gregori had no intention of risking Salem’s life for a silly date.

The plan was a little fun and a quick, quiet dinner before whisking him back to the apartment for some under-the-covers snuggling. And yeah, probably sex. It was the one thing they were getting right at the moment.

Plus, his mate was ridiculously sexy. Why in the world would he pass that up?

“I’m afraid to find out what you’re thinking,” Salem muttered from the passenger seat.

“What made you decide to be a pediatric surgeon?”

“Oh, that. I was trying to one-up my brother.”

Gregori had been slowing down for a red light, but he might have tapped the brakes a little harder than he’d expected at Salem’s words. They both lurched forward, but he quickly recovered, smoothing out their deceleration with no problem.

“What?” he choked out. He glanced over when they were fully stopped to find Salem had the cheekiest grin. God, he wanted to lean over and kiss it right off.

Salem slumped a little more in his seat and leaned against the door.

“Sam and I have always been incredibly competitive. Especially after we discovered he couldn’t do magic. It was like he decided he had to be better than me in everything he did to make up for the fact I could do magic and he couldn’t.” Salem paused and made a dismissive scoff. “Like my magic is impressive at all. My parents never had any great formal training. They just passed on what little they knew to me, and then it was always with the warning to not let any outsider see me using magic. I told Sam he wasn’t missing out on anything interesting, but he never believed me.”

“Probably because he couldn’t stand the idea of being left out of something his twin could do,” Gregori suggested.

“True.” Salem sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. When he resumed speaking, his tone was lighter again. “Sam figured out pretty quick that the one place we were evenly matched was in school. He just had to be better in everything, and well…I couldn’t stand it. If one of us got an A in chemistry, the other had to get an A-plus. For a while, our high school wasworried they’d have two valedictorians, but then I discovered I’m not very good at Spanish, and Sam ended up being the class valedictorian.”

“Spanish was your demise?” Gregori teased.

“Rolling those fucking R’s,” Salem grumbled. “Anyway, we both went Ivy League for college. Thankfully, separate colleges, because we probably would have driven each other crazy. His freshman year, Sam sent an email to me and my parents announcing he was going to work toward getting his doctorate in archaeology and become a professor. Naturally, my parents were over the moon at the idea of having a child with a PhD.”

“So, you had to one-up him,” Gregori said as he hit the blinker to indicate they were turning right.

“Of course! Changed my major to biology and emailed the next day that I was planning to go into pediatrics with the goal of becoming a surgeon. They’d have two doctors in the family.”

Gregori chuckled and shook his head. “And you’re just stubborn enough to stick with it regardless of how difficult the course ahead of you.”

“Yep,” Salem said, popping the P. “School was a freaking nightmare, but I discovered early on I was good at memorizing things and applying them quickly. I didn’t struggle as much as I thought I would.” He sat up in his seat and turned toward Gregori, leaning his left arm on the center console. “Don’t get me wrong; I love what I do. I love my job. Healing sick kids is the best job in the entire world.” He stopped and snorted. “But I don’t have some great altruistic reason for becoming a doctor. It’s all Sam’s fault.”

“I have a feeling he would take pride in your statement.”

“Probably so,” Salem said, his voice sounding distracted as he looked around at the park they’d just pulled into. “I thought you said we were going ice skating. I figured we’d go to the small rink they set up downtown.”

“I considered it, but I was afraid of how busy it would be. I wanted something a little more private.”

“Yeah, but the pond isn’t set up for ice skating. We can’t even be sure it’s properly frozen before we…” He stared at Gregori. The ice dragon only smiled at his mate. He’d figured it out. Nothing was going to stop Gregori from having a little private time with his man.

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