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“Hmm, okay.” Dimitri’s head cocked to the side as he considered. “So his location is…Colombia? Venezuela? Ecuador?”
“Ecuador doesn’t feel right. We weren’t heading west enough to go that direction. Colombia or Venezuela, yeah, that I can agree with.” Mentally, he wished he’d been able to sleep a bit longer. To get more information if nothing else. North, lake, and lightning weren’t much to work with when he knew very little about northern South American geography.
“I can think of a few possibilities. One more likely than the others.” Dimitri tapped a few places on the map. “But I think we’re at the point we need to report this in. We’re going to need various teams to check all this out.”
Luka put both hands over his heart in mock surprise. “What? You don’t want to tramp all over Venezuela and Colombia for days on end? Imagine!”
“Smartass.” Dimitri snorted at him before refolding the map. “Vasily, I think you should report this in.”
“Look, I have to be efficient. I started this day with multiple brain cells and I’m down to two. Sam can report this in.”
Sam frowned at him. “It’s only seven a.m.”
“I’d like to remind you whose fault it is that I only have two functioning brain cells right now.” Vasily added a pointed glare for effect.
It seemed to bounce right off. “I made you breakfast.”
“That just keeps me from murdering you.”
Tsking him, Sam wagged a finger. “No, Dimitri keeps you from killing me.”
Luka was glaring now too. “You bank on that.”
“Damn right I do. But back to your point, yes, I can explain all of this to Rodrigo. You get to be in the room, though—you know he’s going to ask a million questions. If he doesn’t, Ha Na will.”
A valid point. As long as Vasily had more time to drink coffee and get his brain fired up, it was fine. Answering questions meant stringing together actual sentences and right now that was too much.
Sam scraped up the last of his breakfast, expression thoughtful. “Do you think I should throw together a PowerPoint presentation first?”
Today would be one long-ass day.
The only thing that saved them from a Sam PowerPoint presentation was an explosion in the mages’ workshop. On the plus side, it was a non-Nikki-related explosion. On the minus, the mages had been attempting to replicate one of the simpler Sousa designs from the materials they’d translated. It had not gone well.
No one was injured and the fire was put out quickly, but it meant they were not making the kind of progress they’d been hoping for.
Though, from the way Sam was bouncing on the balls of his feet, the setback had not dampened his mood.
After a quick consult with Thiago, the king’s advisor, they managed to get a meeting with Rodrigo in the late morning. Luka had always known Thiago was a kind and caring soul. The old dragon must have sensed that Luka and Vasily were exhausted and needed time for their brains to function before attempting to speak coherently to Rodrigo.
Just after ten, Luka, Vasily, Dimitri, and Sam went to the king’s office, where they found Rodrigo waiting with his mate, Ha Na, as well as Thiago and Evora, the head of the Valerii mages.
The king rose from where he’d been reclining behind his desk and clapped his hands together. He rubbed them and grinned. With his white hair and sparkling blue eyes, he looked like a very skinny and naughty Santa Claus. “So, Sam says we’re on the cusp of a new and even greater Sousa discovery.”
Luka exchanged a look with Vasily. The archaeologist would say something like that. The man was used to pitching things in the very best light so he could find funding for his expeditions. Rodrigo was an incredibly lenient and compassionate king, but Luka had no desire to mislead their benevolent ruler. Under all the softness was an icy temper no one wanted to set loose.
“Cusp might be a generous word,” Luka said. Rodrigo motioned for them to sit at a long table that stretched in front of a series of doors that had been thrown open to allow in a warm, salt-scented breeze. The soft crash of the ocean waves was a soothing backdrop as they found their seats.
“Luka? Vasily? Are you sleeping well? You both look so tired,” Ha Na said as she slipped into a seat to the left of the head of the table. After Rodrigo had her chair properly pushed in and pressed a kiss to her cheek, he settled into his own seat and took her hand. She tucked her blue hair behind one ear and shot him a dimpled smile.
Smitten.
Their king was utterly smitten with his mate, and it was kind of fucking adorable.
“Not as much as I would like,” Luka admitted.
Vasily directed a sharp glare at Sam, who was grinning and bobbing in his chair beside Dimitri. “It would help if we didn’t have unexpected guests in our room.”
