as they had known, up until a week ago, all dragons had been extinct.
But, come on! He was in pain and bored. He didn’t want to be gawked at. It might have been better if they’d at least stopped over to say hi or ask how he was doing. But, nope. They stared and gave him a wide berth as if they expected him to leap up and swallow them down whole.
Not a chance. He wasn’t going to be leaping anywhere for another day or two, at least.
If he was going to be stuck healing, he would have preferred to do it in the privacy of his own room, or at least somewhere that wasn’t a main thoroughfare for the entire castle.
His friends were trying to keep him occupied and happy, but they were also trying to clean up the mess from the explosion, deal with the police, hold back the reporters, and soothe their new mages so no one would bolt, all while looking out for more attacks from the Jaeggi. Ravi couldn’t be a priority in the middle of that chaos.
His head jerked up from where it had been resting on a pile of pillows and he looked around until he spotted Sora striding purposefully toward him from the far staircase. The mage had a knapsack hanging from one shoulder, and he was comfortably dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a slouchy sweater that seemed to offer up a few tantalizing hints of warm fawn skin around his shoulder and chest.
God, he was such a good-looking man. He had all that dark hair begging for Ravi’s exploring fingers. Would it be weird if he asked one of the female mages to teach him to braid hair? He wanted to spend a lot of time playing with Sora’s hair. Assuming Sora would let him do such a thing.
Sora’s low, throaty chuckle drew Ravi out of his thoughts. “You must not be feeling too bad, considering the smile that just stretched across your face.”
Ravi could feel his face burning and was extremely grateful that Sora couldn’t see him blushing. He’d totally gotten lost in thought, daydreaming about Sora and his hair, and nuzzling that wonderful neck so Ravi could get wrapped up in the scent of him. He wanted—NO! He had to stop and focus.
Huffing a breath and popping out his bottom lip as best he could around his fangs, Ravi pouted. “Your patient is feeling very impatient. I want to be healed already. But I’m better now that you’re here.”
“How about I check you out and see if you’re any closer to being able to shift to human? At least then we can move you to your own room to finish recovering.”
Sora waded into the mound of pillows and carefully dropped his bag beside Ravi. There was a muffled clink of glass against glass from where the various healing ingredients in jars tapped against each other.
“Sounds good to me.”
Ravi laid his head back down on the pillows and closed his eyes so he could focus entirely on Sora’s gentle but firm hands as they explored him. Bandages were removed and replaced. New creams and poultices were applied. It wasn’t the pleasant exploration he would have preferred. There was still too much pain for that, but every time Ravi flinched or grunted, it was immediately followed by a soothing heat that pushed aside the pain. The delicious scent of mage filled the air, like lightning and cinnamon. Yes, Sora smelled like electric cinnamon, and it was amazing.
A hand landed on the top of his head and gently caressed him. “You’re healing nicely, but I’m sorry to say your wings need a little more time. If you shift before you’re fully healed, you may do permanent damage to them.”
Ravi tamped down a shiver. He knew what that looked like all too well, thanks to his precious Hoheit. Though, his incredibly talented consort was using that mechanical engineering mind of his to craft something that would one day put Alric in the air again. Ravi prayed that Cameron would succeed. He’d never gotten the pleasure of soaring in the air with his king like many of the other dragons, and he was desperate to know what it was like.
But until that happened, this was very nice, too. Sora continued to stroke his head, and Ravi let out a happy rumble of pleasure. He and his dragon were in perfect accord