Chapter 25
Sora nearly jumped when North jogged up beside him in the long, empty hallway, a strange grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.
He’d not spent a lot of time with the mage, but he struck Sora as a sweet, outgoing person who’d spent too much time suppressing his true self.
He’d been reserved on their first meeting, but with each encounter, he seemed to open up a little more.
His mate, Warin, was good at drawing him out.
“Hey, Sora. You busy?” North started.
“Not at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Nope,” North replied, his grin spreading even wider. “I was just wondering if you were up for a little adventure.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” He leaned a little closer to Sora and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Outside the castle.”
Sora’s eyebrows jumped to nearly his hairline. While they weren’t prisoners, getting out of the castle, even for bread and milk, was something of an ordeal. If they weren’t worried about the Jaeggi, then they were battling the reporters.
As if sensing he had Sora’s complete and undivided attention, North motioned for Sora to follow him. “The dragons are getting ready now.”
Oh, now Sora was definitely interested. He started to ask if they should tell Ravi, but North was already running down the hall, and Sora had to hurry to catch up.
They took a sharp turn down a hallway Sora had never ventured through and down a back set of stairs.
At the end of another hallway, they came out at a secluded part of the courtyard that seemed hidden from the front gate as well as most of the castle windows.
And in the center of the small space were Warin and Ravi in their dragon forms. Both of them were wearing what looked to be leather harnesses.
Specifically, harnesses that allowed mages to ride safely on the backs of dragons.
Sora’s heart flipped over his chest. Was he finally going to ride with Ravi?
The wind dragon had offered, but the opportunity had not presented itself yet.
“Really? We’re flying out of here?” Sora gasped.
“You’ve flown on a dragon before, right?” North asked with a cheeky grin.
“Y-yes, but not with Ravi. We haven’t had the chance.”
“Do you trust me?” Ravi inquired, wide chocolate-brown eyes watching him closely.
“With all of me,” Sora said without hesitation.
“Then we need to go now, before someone spots us,” North admonished, waving Sora toward Ravi while he ran toward a waiting Warin.
The deep brick-red dragon shook his head and huffed. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
North giggled as he climbed up onto his dragon, securing himself into the harness while Sora ran over to the large blue dragon. Ravi might be smaller than Warin, but it was still like trying to hoist himself onto the top of a truck. Ravi caught his foot and nudged him up into position.
“Are you okay?” Sora asked as he secured himself.
Ravi chuckled, but it sounded a little different. There was less lightness to it, reminding Sora that Ravi the dragon was a different creature than Ravi the man.
“You’re light as a feather. The question is if you are okay?”
“I’m fine and ready to go!”
That was all the nudging Ravi needed. He shoved off the ground, flapping his massive wings. There was an additional rush of air as if Ravi naturally summoned the wind to him to help lift him off the ground faster.
Sora’s stomach dropped to his toes at the rush, and he sucked in a great gulp of air.
His fingers reflexively tightened around the harness in a death grip, and it wasn’t until they were well above the castle walls that he realized he’d closed his eyes.
He promptly opened them and looked around.
The earth was falling away faster and faster, while the clouds grew closer.
His hair was whipping free of the ponytail he had it in, but he didn’t dare remove his hands to try and cage it again, just let it fly free.
Orange, pink, and deep purple painted the sky as the sun sank deep below the horizon. Mountains rose up on one side of them, while the valley with Sonthofen fell away. Ravi smoothly turned them and took off, following behind Warin at a leisurely pace.
Ravi turned his head slightly toward Sora as if checking on him. “Are you okay? Comfortable?”
A bubble of laughter rose up in Sora’s chest.
“Perfect. But I thought wind dragons were fast,” he teased.
Ravi barked out a laugh and then flapped his wings, immediately zooming ahead of Warin and North. The world blurred, and the wind pulled at Sora. There was a chill to it, but he didn’t care. He was flying. He was flying with his dragon! Never in his life had he ever felt so free.
They zipped one way and another, plowing through wispy clouds and then down to skim over treetops on the mountains. There were no people to see them. No Jaeggi to threaten them. No reporters to hound them. No worries.
The only thing that mattered was he was with Ravi.
The dragon moved with an almost ethereal grace.
Sora tore his eyes way from the sky to look at the dragon beneath him.
Ravi was all power and sleek muscles. His hide was slate blue with deep sapphire hints around his wings and streaking along the top of his head.
Reaching out one hand, Sora ran it along Ravi’s neck, feeling the sleekness of his scales, the hard, durable texture.
It was a little surprising they didn’t seem as thick as some of the other dragons’.
He’d helped his father heal an earth dragon once, and their scales were more like little steel plates, as were metal dragons’ scales.
What Ravi gained in speed over the other dragons, he sacrificed in protection.
A shiver of fear ran through Sora. Ravi would always need to be faster than his enemy.
Ravi suddenly laughed. “Did you just pet me?”
“I couldn’t help myself. Do you mind?”
A low rumbling hum moved up Ravi’s chest and out his throat. “I love when you touch me. When we land, you can scratch my belly if you like.”
Sora laughed in response at the mental image of a great blue dragon rolling onto its back just so he could rub his stomach.
A shout behind them had Sora looking around. Warin shot out a ring of fire and then flew through it, earning another excited shout from North as he thrust his arms into the air. Clearly, fire dragons had their own way of playing while flying.
“You want Warin to create one for us?”
“No! Definitely not!” Sora immediately replied. He was worried about catching his hair on fire as they zipped through it.
Ravi chuckled. Though the sound was mostly lost to the wind, Sora could feel the humor shaking the body beneath him.
Warin moved ahead of them and motioned for Ravi to follow.
They were steadily descending toward a flat region in the forest on the mountains.
Sora scanned the area. They had to be a good distance from the castle and the town.
He couldn’t see any sign of roads or buildings.
As they drew closer, the trees started to part, and he could see the sparkling water of a secluded lake.
Within moments, they were on the ground at the shore of the lake. Sora carefully hopped down from his perch and helped Ravi to remove the harness while North did the same with Warin.
Glancing around, it was clear they were the only ones there. A few cranes lingered at the distant shore, and there was the occasional plop of a fish, but nothing else.
“This is our secret spot. Only the dragons and mages know about it,” North explained.
“It’s beautiful,” Sora whispered, almost afraid to disturb the peace of the place.
A breeze gently stirred the leaves on the tree and the sky had grown darker, wrapping them in a warm, shadowy embrace. It really did feel like they were the only ones on earth.
“We know how hard it is to find a private moment when you’re trying to spend some time with your gefreogen,” Warin said.
“Gefreogen?” Sora repeated, looking over at Ravi.
“It means someone you are seeing seriously with the intention of claiming as your mate,” Ravi explained with a smile. He cocked his head to the side a little. “Do you not use that term in the Sodalicium?”
Sora shook his head. “No, we don’t have a term like that. So, I’m your gefreogen?”
Ravi nodded and stepped closer, wrapping his now human arms around Sora’s waist. “And I’m your gefreogen.”
“I like that,” Sora murmured. He leaned down and brushed a kiss to Ravi’s temple, reveling in his ability to do that so casually.
For the moment, there were no eyes on them, no one speculating about their future.
North and Warin were just as lost in each other as they…
holy crap! They were stripping off their clothes.
Sora quickly ripped his eyes away, turning his back to them.
North’s laughter rang out. “Oh, come on! You can’t tell me you’ve never been skinny dipping!”
“Oh!” Sora said, a blush still burning his cheeks. He looked down at Ravi to find a question in his eyes and a smile on his lips. Why not?
Sora ripped his shirt off and toed out of his shoes.
“Hot damn!” Ravi shouted and started dancing around, stripping his clothes off as fast as he could.
Sora was just getting to his jeans when he heard a loud splash and a shout behind him.
He twisted to see North’s wet blond head swimming farther out into the water.
A second later, Warin’s dark head popped above the surface next to North.
He pulled his mate close, earning a squeal of delight from North.
“Hurry up, slow poke!” Ravi called before streaking naked across the shore to jump into the lake.
Sora shucked the last of his clothes and followed the wind dragon in, jumping into the water, only to immediately surface with a shout. Fuck! The water was cold.
“You could have warned me!” Sora shouted at his companion, earning a round of laughter.