Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
The mage was cut off by an explosion of words out of Luka. It was a wild mix of Old Slavic, Portuguese, and Russian, which meant it was all gibberish when slammed together.
“Pick a language!” Evora snapped.
“Dragons!”
Both Evora and Vasily raced to where Luka had wandered farther down the line. His mate was standing next to a short but robustly built man with long black hair and a stern expression even in his sleep.
“That is a fucking dragon!” Luka said, jabbing his finger in the direction of the sleeping man. Evora batted his hand away as if afraid Luka was going to poke him. “I knew the air smelled funny in here. Like it wasn’t only mage magic. But he is a freaking dragon.”
“A lightning dragon, to be more precise,” Evora said, leaning as close as she could without touching the protection bubble that encased the entire slab.
“I wonder if he’s the only one,” Vasily murmured, talking to himself.
Evora huffed and gave his shoulder a shove. “Quit wondering and go see. Both of you. Quick count.” The mage pointed at Vasily to check the next row while Luka took the one after that.
It took only a moment to check over the people. Their count wasn’t precise by any means, but it looked as if the people slumbering in the underwater cave were not only the lost Sousa Clan, but the lost Lightning Dragon Clan as well. At least a third of the bodies belonged to dragons.
They gathered off to one side, frowning at the bodies.
“Why are they here?” Luka grumbled. “Dragons and mages? Why? This is so weird.”
“And how are we supposed to wake them up?” Vasily added.
Evora shook her head. “How long have we been down here?”
Vasily woke up his phone and frowned. “About forty-five minutes. We should head up before Thiago gets more impatient and comes down looking for Evora.”
“Agreed. But first, we need to check out that.” Vasily’s eyes followed where she pointed to the right side of the cavern. The shadows were deeper there, but he could clearly make out a single lonely slab with one body.
“Why are they over there alone? Who would be apart from the rest?” Luka inquired.
“Did the Sousa Clan have a chief or a king? Even maybe the Lightning Dragon King?” Evora answered, already walking toward the person.
“Or a human sacrifice. You know, this kind of looks like an altar all by itself,” Luka said.
“Lovely thought,” Vasily muttered. He picked up his pace and grabbed Evora’s arm to stop her so he could move ahead. “Another option is that this person was supposed to be a sentry guarding the dragons and mages. How about you let me approach first in case he suddenly wakes up swinging?”
Vasily didn’t even look back to see Evora’s inevitable glare. They knew nothing about this person, and Vasily’s priority was keeping the Valerii mage safe. Everything else came second—and that included the Sousa mages and lightning dragons.
With every muscle tensed, Vasily crept closer, trying to not make a single sound. He scanned the area surrounding the person, but it didn’t seem as if there were any additional wards other than the bubble encasing him. There were a few other devices around the slab, which put him on edge, but nothing that looked like a weapon.
As he reached the top of the two stairs leading up to the platform, Vasily choked on the breath that suddenly froze in his lungs. For a second, he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Not even his heart beat.
It was him!
Oh god. At last. It was him!
“It’s him!” he finally shouted in a low, rough voice when he could get his vocal cords to work. The image of the man from his dreams had played over and over in his head as they searched through the bodies. His hopes had dimmed and his confusion had grown with every face he saw that wasn’t the man’s.
But now they’d found him. They’d fucking found him at last!
Luka rushed to his side, slamming into him, his arm wrapping around his waist. “Chert! It is! We found him!”
The words had barely left Luka’s tongue when a loud gong sound echoed through the cave. The noise reverberated off the stone and rattled Vasily’s molars. Luka pressed one ear to his chest while covering the other with his hand. Vasily’s brain was still trying to form the question ‘what was that noise?’ when the man on the slab sat straight up and noisily dragged air into his lungs.
Yebena mat’, he was awake!
Amaru sucked in his first full breath in the gods knew how long, his whole body coming alive with it in an almost overwhelming way. While sleeping, he’d had a limited sense of hearing, smell, and sensation, but now that he was finally properly awake, it was all coming in at once like a deluge of sensory information. Part of him wanted to take a minute and process everything, but the rest of him was so desperate to get up and off this platform that he moved anyway. Gods, finally, he was out of that suspended sleep spell. The very first thing he’d do was find where Irany was sleeping and kick the ever-loving shit out of—