“We need to take you out of here,” Warin said firmly.
Tori shook his head. “I’m glad you guys stepped in and helped earlier. Truly, I am. That doesn’t mean I’ve agreed to go with you.”
Stubborn, stubborn man. Baldewin wanted to scream. He bit it back and spoke rationally, calmly. “You do not owe us for that. I’m simply asking you. For tonight, please, come out of this room and stay in our hotel. I’ll get you another room, separate from us. You needn’t stay in the same room.”
Warin pitched in, “You gave them your name earlier, correct? On the train? They can use that to track you down here. You need to shift to another place where you’re more anonymous.”
“But won’t they be able to track both of you down by name?”
“We’ll change hotels as well. Warin can gather our bags and meet us somewhere else. If I have Cassie make the reservation, it will be under her name, harder to track. We can continue the conversation about whether you’ll go with us or not there, but we need to move out of here. This place isn’t good for your health.”
Still, Tori visibly hesitated.
Baldewin’s frustration pulsed like a live wire within him. It didn’t help that his dragon had also chosen this moment to lift its head and grumble with displeasure. The beast was demanding that he simply pick up Tori and take him somewhere safe.
For a moment, the words scrambled in his head, and he couldn’t remember the right word for ‘please’ in this language. He defaulted to German and hoped that his posture, still kneeling at Tori’s feet, and his tone, would be enough to get the point across. “Bitte. Tori, bitte, let me bring you out of here. Care for you.”
Tori’s head dropped for a moment, and he seemed to be thinking hard. Slowly, he nodded. “Fine. Fine, let’s go for now. You’re right about this place not being safe.”
“Dankeschön,” Baldewin murmured in relief. “I’ll help you pack quickly. Warin?”
“I’ll head over to the hotel, call Cassie on the way.” Warin stood, already palming his phone. “Should I stop by a pharmacy as well?”
“No, we’ll do that.”
Tori had his mouth open on a retort, only to swallow it back and sigh as if he realized the futility of the argument. It was just as well. Baldewin disliked arguing as a rule, but he’d do it in this case.
It took barely five minutes to pull together what little Tori had. Two sets of clothes—which explained why Baldewin kept seeing him in the same outfits over and over—some toiletries, and the guitar Tori carried nearly every time Baldewin had seen him. The instrument intrigued Baldewin, a music lover himself, and he hoped to use it as an opening to ease them into a better conversation later.
By the time they left the room and returned to the rental car outside, Baldewin’s phone pinged with an incoming message. It was from Cassie and simply read, Check your email. He started up the car first, getting a little heat going as the air was colder now that they were approaching evening, and he was worried for Tori’s sake. The man didn’t even own a jacket.
Tori immediately shut the heat back off.
Baldewin glanced at him with a frown. “You’re not cold? It’s a touch chilly tonight.”
It was his turn to get an odd look. “This isn’t cold. It’s actually quite pleasant.”
“You really don’t find it cold at all?”
“No, the weather’s perfect tonight. Ha! You Germans, you have no blood in you. It has to be -5 Celsius before we stop barbecuing for the winter.”
“I know Finland never gets warm—” Baldewin started dryly.
“It gets plenty warm for us,” Tori negated, smile saccharine sweet.
“—but you can’t accuse me of being cold blooded. Fire dragon, remember?”
“Heh, I suppose that’s true. So, where are we going?”
“Pharmacy first. Cassie’s booked us a hotel on the other end of town.”
Tori sighed as Baldewin put the car into drive, the GPS already orienting itself to navigate them. “I really don’t know why you’re making a fuss over these scrapes. Soap, water, a little moonlight to cool the heat of the injury, I’ll be fine.”
“You’re in pain. I do not like seeing you in pain.”
Silence.
Baldewin snuck a peek at him as he slowed for a stop sign. Tori didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. The man’s reluctance to be cared for in any way was quite telling. Abused? Possibly. Neglected? Very likely. There was no doubt in Baldewin’s mind that Tori had never been properly loved. He didn’t even know how to respond to someone’s concern for his well-being. Baldewin rarely felt homicidal rage. It usually only came in the need to protect his clanmates when threatened, but he could feel it start to burn in the back of his throat. Tori was so very precious, and no one had ever loved him. This needed to be fixed.
But he had to proceed carefully. Tori had already suffered much at the hands of his clanmates. He didn’t need a dragon making things worse for him. And yet, Baldewin was itching for more information. “Should we contact your clan and tell them what happened today?”
“No!” Tori growled instantly, then winced and moderated his voice before continuing, “No, I have no interest in telling them.”
“Alright.”
Even in the wake of an attack, he wanted no contact with them? Very telling indeed.
Baldewin was torn about what to think of the man’s clan. On the one hand, knowing there was a mage clan in Finland was very exciting, and he wanted to explore the option of bringing them into his own clan.
On the other hand, if Tori was an example of what that clan did to its members, then Baldewin was just as likely to raze it to the ground upon meeting them.
For now, his focus was on protecting and helping Tori. The Taavi could wait.
The pharmacy was in a two-story building of orange and blue that sat on the corner of two intersecting streets. Baldewin parked next to the curb and opened the door for Tori, not wanting him to use his hands. The mage eyed him sideways but didn’t say anything. They ducked inside the pharmacy, with its white walls and white floors and white shelves, the colorful boxes of products lined up neatly.
Baldewin wasn’t very familiar with Finnish products, but Tori, of course, knew what he needed and picked up bandages, ointment, and rubbing alcohol. Baldewin paid for it all before escorting them both out to the car. He sat Tori in the passenger seat and knelt down in front of him to carefully clean out his palms. He meticulously removed the road grit from his skin without causing more pain than necessary.
“I’m not going to break, Baldewin,” Tori sighed in exasperation. “And you’ll have to scrub harder than that to get all the dirt out. Forget it, let me do it.”
Baldewin made a disagreeing noise. “I’ve got it. You said moonlight will let you heal?”
“Uh…not exactly. It’ll take the heat out of the wounds, help them heal faster.”
“Is that all you can use on wounds like this?”
“At the moment. I don’t have any other magical elements to work with.”
That made more sense. Baldewin knew road rash like this was child’s play for most mages. He’d expected Tori to work some magic and heal himself rather than suffer Baldewin’s attentions. That he hadn’t done so told Baldewin there was a problem. Of course, the lack of magical elements made sense. Tori had practically nothing to his name.