Chapter 27

S alem felt wrecked.

This was bigger than Gregori hiding a cold or a lack of sleep. The dragon had driven himself nearly to the edge of death just in the name of staying close to his mate.

The relief he'd experienced at seeing a bright flush to Gregori's cheeks and a twinkle to his dark eyes all faded as he listened to what he'd suffered. But it was more than that. It was clear things couldn't continue as they were.

He waited until they were all gathered in his tiny apartment. Part of him didn't want to do this in front of the others, but if he was lucky, they would help convince Gregori this was for the best.

"Gregori—"

"Don't," his mate said, cutting him off before he could continue. "I know your tone, and I don't want to hear it."

"You have to." Salem shrugged out of his coat and tossed it down on the couch before turning to face where Gregori was pacing the tiny kitchen like a caged animal, a mutinous expression on his handsome face. "Staying here with me isn't an option. You're going to die if you remain here. You belong with your clan."

"I belong with my mate."

"Wait a minute!" Sam interjected, holding both of his hands up between them in a T as if he were an official calling a time out. "Are you saying you're not going with us back to Brazil?"

Salem actually swallowed at his twin brother's pissed expression. This was not the kind of help he'd been anticipating.

"I can't."

Sam lifted both of his hands in front of his face, curled his fingers, and shook them like he was shaking Salem. "I swear to fucking god. You're one of the smartest men I know, but you can be such a fucking dumbass sometimes."

Anger and guilt blasted through him. "Screw you! That's no?—!"

Sam stomped a step closer and flared his nostrils. "I know you talked to Sora about magic and medicine. Even asked him about being his apprentice. What's your grand plan, huh? Go learn how to use magic and medicine together in Brazil for a couple of months and then come back here? Use magic on the kids? Be the only openly known mage-doctor in the world? Tell me how that's going to work out. You would constantly have a line of people banging on your door. You wouldn't have a life anymore. Just work. And you think those people are going to be happy with you only treating kids? Hell no. Adults are going to demand you use magic to fix them too."

Salem's stomach sank, and for a second, he couldn't even draw a breath into his lungs. They thought his refusal was about moving. Not about how he'd almost killed Gregori.

But now that thought rattled around his head too. After his frustration with nearly losing the little girl on the table, he'd been grasping at straws. Sora had offered him a lifeline. A way to use the one skill he was born with but had never been able to strengthen to its full potential.

And what if he did come back here and continued practicing medicine with magic? Even if he tried to hide it, eventually word would get out. He'd be wanted for every little injury and illness. There wasn't enough time in the day to treat them all, and they would just keep coming.

Sam's heavy sigh pulled him from the swirling dark thoughts in his head. His brother grabbed his shoulders and squeezed. "Salem, there are hundreds of thousands of pediatric surgeons in the States. No offense, but the American kids can get by without you. This time here has been well spent. You've done a lot of good here. But do you know who has absolutely zero pediatric surgeons who have been trained in modern medicine? The dragons."

Salem stared at his brother and then jerked his gaze over to Sora, who leaned against the wall with his arms loosely crossed over his chest.

"It's true," Sora agreed. "A small number of the Abe Clan has gone through various universities for modern medicine, but we all focused on general medicine. No one has specialized in pediatrics or completed as much training as you have. While I might have magic knowledge, there are plenty of questions I'd love to ask you about modern techniques and illnesses we just haven't encountered. Amaru feels the same. He asked me to kidnap you if you didn't come back on this trip."

"Not to mention, dragons and mages are having babies again for the first time in several centuries," Dimitri added. "My kind have a chance to crawl back from the cusp of extinction. We can't afford to lose a single child."

Sam released Salem's shoulders and lightly punched him in the sternum. "That's right. Dimitri and I have just bonded, but we're going to want children eventually. For the first time in my life, I'm not trying to figure out how to fix my magic. I can focus on living the rest of my life with my mate, and I want our life together to include kids. Do you really think I'd take the chance without you there every step of the way to watch over your niece or nephew?"

Sam with kids…

That was a terrifying thought.

Sam with kids who were also dragons. That was even more frightening, but also interesting. He'd be the uncle to dragon babies.

Or…

He slowly lifted his eyes to where Gregori silently watched him. The guilt that washed through him this time had claws. Shit, he still wasn't expressing what he needed to, nor asking what he should be. Arguing with his twin wasn't the right tactic here.

He went straight for Gregori, taking his hands into his own, trying to find and force out the words that needed to be said. "Gregori. Despite everything I've done, am I still your choice?"

"There is no choice," Gregori replied softly. "You're my mate."

"No. Think about this. I damn near killed you and you're not even angry with me about it."

"This wasn't your fault?—"

"The hell it wasn't. It was my stubbornness that drove you to this."

"It was mine," Gregori corrected him. "My stubbornness led to this."

Salem let his head drop on Gregori's shoulder for a moment. "So we're both at fault, which is why you won't get angry with me?"

"Yes."

"You are such a…" He groaned. "Goddammit, I don't know whether to apologize or shake you right now. All right. Look." He lifted his head to lock eyes with Gregori. "I do not want to lose you."

He saw the delight in Gregori's eyes blossom and it was such a beautiful look.

"That said, this, what we've been doing up here, isn't healthy. I want us to have a good relationship, not a toxic one. We do better from here on out, got it?"

"I can agree." Gregori's smile threatened to take over his face.

"Which includes not letting me railroad you. If there's something you need, or want, and I'm being an ass, tell me I'm being an ass. Okay? No more suffering in silence."

"I promise."

"Good. On my end, I'll try not to be an ass. Just bear with me, it's kind of a default setting in my personality."

"Sooo," Dimitri drawled. "What does this mean? Are you coming back with us or not?"

Salem finally broke eye contact with Gregori to glance at Sora again. "Will you still take me on as an apprentice even though I put a dragon's life in danger with my assholery?"

Sora huffed a quiet laugh and dropped his arms to his sides. "I'll be happy to have you as a student. First step will be learning a dragon's mental health."

An obvious dig, but no less than he deserved.

Salem turned his gaze back to Gregori.

Gregori lifted his right hand and dragged his fingertips ever so lightly across Salem's cheek. "I won't deny I want you in Brazil for my own selfish reasons, but I think you will learn a lot from the mages. They will help you to understand your magic, and you'll be able to help even more people than ever before. That alone will make you happy."

Salem shook his head. "Going to Brazil has to be about more than just magic. I told you, I don't want to lose you, and I want to try for a healthy relationship. Still, I can't promise that I can be your true mate. Once you're home with your family, you might finally come to your senses and realize what a truly bad match I am for you."

Gregori leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to the center of his forehead, and a knot that had tightened in Salem's chest loosened at last. "I know what kind of person you are, and I'm not worried. But I agree. Come back to Brazil with us. I promise to take better care of myself, and we will take things slowly. If you need space, then that's exactly what I'll give you so we can figure this out."

The promise of learning magic to complement his skills as a doctor. The promise of getting the space he needed to figure out if he could actually be in a healthy relationship with Gregori.

Hell, with access to so many mated mages, he might be able to talk to someone who could explain what it meant to be mated to a dragon, and just why he was so fucking bad at it.

Forcing a smile, he looked up at Gregori and nodded. "Okay. First, I need to write a resignation letter. Then let's pack. We're all going back to Brazil."