Page 69 of Soar

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 hiseyes, 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.”

Gregori winced and briefly thought about shifting into his dragon so he could escape, but he couldn’t. It was time to face the music.

“Gregori, what were your symptoms and when did they start?” Sora inquired, turning his full attention on him.

Gregori glanced at his mate, but in the end, he couldn’t meet Salem’s gaze when he answered. “It started after I’d been here about a month. At first, I thought it was just homesickness, but I noticed one day when I was with the kids at the hospital that my magic was breaking down. There were times when I tried to call on it and nothing would happen. The first time, I got it working again after a few attempts. No big deal.”

“But…” Sora pressed.

Gregori’s gaze slid to Salem, who was looking pale and sickly, and he licked his lips before he continued. “It got worse. The ice magic was barely working, and it was becoming painful toforce. It was harder to focus. My body ached…and…my dragon…it wasn’t responding to me anymore.”

“What?” Dimitri barked, and Gregori ducked his head down toward his shoulders.

“It was lethargic and apathetic. It seemed like it just didn’t care about anything.”

Dimitri stomped away, cursing in Russian. When he whirled back, he pointed a finger at him, his face twisted with pain and anger. “You were told to report in the moment you were having any kind of problems. Ha Na said you told her you were fine during your calls. No problems. You lied to her. To us!”

Sam jogged over and wrapped his arms around his mate, whispering reassurance in his ear to calm him down.

The one who had him worried right now was Sora.

The mage shut down the spell he’d been using and tucked his hands into the pockets of his puffy blue coat. “That settles it. You’re coming back to Brazil.”

“No!”

It was exactly what Gregori didn’t want. Terror seized his heart and squeezed it tight enough to crush it.

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