Page 56 of Soar

He released Salem, but before he could draw away, Salem grabbed his arms, his fingers like claws digging through his sweater to nearly pierce flesh.

“No! What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to defuse the bomb.”

Salem looked him dead in the eye with a war of expressions. Unease being the most dominant one. “Can you…can you do that? You don’t have equipment or?—”

“Hey, it’ll be okay. This is what I do. I’m a bomb expert, remember?” He cupped Salem’s cheek, sliding his thumb across the cheekbone. “Plus, I’ve got dragon magic to keep me safe.” As he said the words, he felt a stirring of unease considering how finicky his magic had been recently. But he couldn’t let Salem know. His mate needed to focus to protect the kids and get them to safety, which he’d never be able to accomplish if he was terrified something was going to happen to Gregori.

“But…but…” Salem stammered, his eyes darting around them at the nurses, doctors, and even police officers who were now rushing past them down the halls. “Shit. I do not like this. But you’re the most qualified here to handle it. Just promise me, if it looks like something you can’t handle, pull out.”

“I absolutely promise.”

The mage bounced up on the tips of his toes and slammed his mouth over Gregori’s in a hard, demanding kiss that didn’t last nearly long enough. Salem broke off the kiss and glared at Gregori, his hands still tightly gripping his arms. “Don’t you dare get hurt or I will be very pissed at you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Gregori said with a wide grin.

Before they could say anything else, Salem was running off in one direction, shouting orders and generally being the amazing person he always was. Gregori knew he could only hope to do the same thing.

He spun on the balls of his feet and ran through the halls until he finally grabbed the arm of one police officer.

“My name is Gregori Valerii. I am a dragon and a bomb expert. How can I help?” he blurted out before the cop had a chance to say anything.

The irritation melted away from his grizzled face in a heartbeat and he almost looked like he was going to cry. “We’ve been looking for you!”

Okay. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear, but it was nice.

“We were told a dragon was working here, and we were wondering if you could help with the bomb or maybe just getting people out of here.” The cop grabbed his arm and pulled him along as he continued to speak. “We got a bomb threat about ten minutes ago from a parent who lost his child back during the summer. Our negotiator tried to talk them down, but they’ve already committed suicide, leaving us to defuse the bomb.”

“Do you at least know where the bomb is?”

“Yes. Basement.”

“Bomb squad?”

His new companion grunted as he rushed down the stairs at his side. “They’re en route, but it’s going to be at least ten minutes. The team leader has been online since we located the bomb, examining it.”

Now the million-dollar question. “Does the bomb have a timer?”

The police officer swallowed hard as he looked up at Gregori. His face was pasty white, and beads of sweat were streaking down from his temples despite the chill hanging in the air. “We’ve got less than ten minutes until the bomb is supposed to go off.”

That sounded about right for Gregori’s luck recently.

He nodded and continued to race down the stairs to the basement. The officer at his side waved off anyone who tried to stop them as they hurried through a pair of heavy steel doors painted tan and covered in various official warnings stating this domain was for hospital staff only.

Glancing over, he picked up the name Ortiz from the cop’s shiny gold badge on his chest. “Officer Ortiz, how did the guy get access to this part of the hospital in the first place?”

“Former employee,” he grumbled. “Guy worked as a janitor here for two years.”

Gregori clenched his teeth and swore a string of Russian curses. The man had come in here for two years, saw how this place had healed countless people, and then when they failed to save his child, he decided no one here was allowed to live. His heart broke at the man’s loss, but it didn’t give him a right to steal away so many other lives and destroy countless other families.

They charged into a large open area that served as a storage room for boxes upon boxes of supplies stacked to the ceiling. Machines roared in the background. Water heaters, furnaces, and countless other items whirred and growled as they kept the hospital running.

Around a blind corner, they located four police officers in a lot of protective padding as they crouched in front of a tall black metal cabinet. All four heads swiveled in their direction at the pounding of their footsteps.

“The dragon!” Ortiz shouted on his right, and all the cops breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way in hell Gregori was going to tell them it was too early to feel relieved. He might know bombs, but every last one was different. With time so short, there was no telling if he’d be able to defuse it in time.

“What’s the situation?” he demanded as he joined the group to stare into the cabinet. Thankfully, the bomb itself didn’t fill the container. It sat in a large box at the bottom of the cabinet. The timer rested on top of a shit ton of C4. Bright red digital numbers showed they had less than ten minutes.

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