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)
Nothing.
“This half-baked smeared pipe,” he grumbled.
Turning, he gestured for his mates. “I need some dragon’s breath. Looks like the controls are too low on power to function right.”
Evora came in closer with the others, studying what he was doing and pointing some kind of small black box at it. Which brought all the questions to play, but he’d get to that in a moment.
“So you know how to activate all of this?”
“Of course. It’s not my design—Irany made this, which is why it’s not functioning as it’s supposed to; idiot never gets anything quite right—but that’s why I was on a separate platform from the others. I’m the fail-safe. If something went wrong—and to no one’s surprise, it did—I was to wake and fix the problem. Only, because of the lightning dragons sleeping with us, they kept dreaming interesting things, and lightning kept striking this general area, which kept resetting the spells, so of course it messed things up even further. Ugh, the whole thing upsets me. Don’t get me started. I can give a whole discourse on what should have been done down here. Anyway, Vasily, Luka, one of you give me dragon’s breath.”
For some reason, they looked at each other uncertainly before Luka gestured for Vasily to go ahead. What? Were they being shy or something? Silly dragons. They’d have to get over that quickly. Amaru didn’t have a shy bone in his body.
He popped up on his toes, as Vasily was deliciously tall, and got a good kiss in. Mm, definitely needed to kiss this man some more. At leisure. Preferably while Luka was fucking him, but they could negotiate that later.
It had been a very long time since he’d used dragon’s breath for anything, so to have that cool power floating in his lungs felt strangely thrilling. Like he’d become even more awake and aware of the world around him in the process.
He pulled back with a wink. “Thanks, handsome.”
For some reason, Vasily looked almost stunned? Vasily didn’t seem to know how to meet his eyes for a second. The reaction made very little sense to Amaru, but he had only been awake for maybe five minutes at this point. There was probably quite a bit to unpack here. Just wait, after six months with Amaru, he’d not have that problem.
Anyway, back to waking people up. He turned, and using the power he’d just been given, once again tried the controls.
Which once again failed to work.
Amaru kicked the platform and snarled at it. “Fuck you, Irany. I’d say fuck you and the dogs who bred you, but your parents are nice people. I’m not going to curse them. They must have found you under a rock somewhere, as you have about as much sense as a shadow dweller.”
Luka leaned in closer, head almost over Amaru’s shoulder. “I take it they should have woken?”
“That’s what it was designed to do.” Amaru wiped a hand over his face and resisted the urge to go beat up Irany in his sleep. It was a very near thing, but his better sense managed to restrain his temper. “I want the record to note that I did not agree with this design. I could see several flaws in it, but did anyone listen to me? Oh no. And now here we are. Magess—”
She held up her free hand in a staying motion. “Evora, please.”
Oh, she was nice. She had the face of a woman who took no shit, but she wasn’t nearly as stuck up as she appeared to be. “Thanks. Evora, frankly speaking, we’re going to need a lot more power down here to override the controls and get people awake. Even you, I, and these sexy dragons with us aren’t enough to do it. Can we pull in people?”
“Absolutely.”
“Aww, you’re so nice. I like you. Let’s be friends.”
Evora’s eyes and mouth lifted into a genuine smile. “I like you too. I’d love to be friends. But Amaru, I’ve got a few questions before we bring in help.”
“Fire away. Who knows, I might have answers.”
“How did you get everyone down here?”
“Eh?” For a second the question made no sense. Then he remembered how everyone aside from him was wet, and the light dawned. “Oh. Wait, did you swim your way in here?”
“We did,” Vasily replied with his deep voice.
His voice did things to Amaru. No lie. He’d absolutely take advantage of it later—dammit, brain, above the belt line. Above the belt line. Think sexy thoughts later.
“Uh. Well, we have a—” He turned to point and then stopped dead. The entrance he’d been guarding for who-knew-how-long was not there any longer. In fact, it was completely filled in with stones and rubble, and from the looks of it, had been like that for a long while based on the moss growing on it. “Fuck. Um. So we had a tunnel entrance we used. Which is clearly not accessible anymore. No wonder you had to swim your way in.”