Tori nearly snickered. “Pansexual. You said dragons are pansexual.”
“Oh! Yes!” Baldewin sank back into his chair. “Dragons are naturally drawn to their mate.”
“Regardless of their mage’s gender?”
Baldewin nodded. “I guess that’s why we dragons say we’re pansexual. We simply know we are going to be drawn to our perfect match, and we don’t see their gender. Only how their soul weaves with our own.”
“And it’s always been this way?”
“For as long as I can remember, which is over six centuries. We can check with Gunter on the history, but I know I’ve heard stories of it being so long before I was born.”
“Then where would my clan get such an idea?”
A heavy sigh left the dragon’s parted lips, and he scrubbed a hand over his buzzed hair. “My guess—and it’s just a guess—is because mages were usually female. Male mages were extremely rare. I’d have to ask Gunter for exact numbers. Maybe one born for every hundred females. Someone in your clan might have wrongly assumed that the rarity of males was linked to them being unwanted or useless, but it’s utter nonsense. If I were gifted with a mate, I would cherish them regardless of what form they came in. They would be my most precious treasure, and I would devote my existence to my mate’s happiness.”
Tori found himself tumbling into the dragon’s grey-green eyes. His mouth had grown as dry as the desert. To be cherished and treasured by this man would be quite a wonderful thing.
Only in his most secret fantasies when he was too tired to put up his defenses had he allowed himself to dream about what it might be like to be held by Baldewin. To be cared for. To be seduced.
Before Tori could formulate a coherent thought, there was a knocking at the door. Well, not so much a knock as a couple of dull thuds. Baldewin jumped to his feet and quickly crossed the room, with Tori following a few steps behind him. He didn’t think the Jaeggi would make another grab for him already, not when it was clear dragons were guarding him.
Standing off to the side, Baldewin glanced at Tori and motioned for him to move to the side so he wouldn’t be in direct view of the opening when Baldewin looked to see who it was. The man was clearly good at protecting people and took his job seriously. Maybe if Tori had listened to him sooner, he wouldn’t have gotten into trouble and been forced to fly across the city dangling from a dragon. No. Nice thought, but there was no way he would have listened to Baldewin without a little more proof.
When Tori was in a safe location, Baldewin carefully pulled open the door, his shoulders instantly relaxing. Warin walked inside, his arms full of bags and containers of food. It was easily enough to feed a dozen people. Rich smells filled the air, and Tori’s stomach took the opportunity to growl loudly.
“Ha! I thought I’d bought too much,” Warin laughed.
“You did. Are there more dragons or mages hiding on the ferry I don’t know about?” Tori teased. Both dragons stared at him in surprise for a moment as Tori replayed the words in his head, wondering what he’d said that was so surprising.
But it wasn’t so much what he’d said, rather how he’d said it. He’d teased them. For the first time ever. No sarcasm or biting comments. Just playful teasing. Did that mean he was starting to trust them? Maybe the hope he was clinging to from Cameron was starting to bleed into how he viewed his traveling companions.
They weren’t all that bad for dragons. They’d tossed plenty of playful, teasing comments at each other since Tori had come to stay with them. And they’d always treated him with respect, even if Baldewin was determined to keep feeding him.
Yeah, maybe the dragons were okay.
Tori leapt forward and started pulling some of the containers from Warin’s arms, spreading them about the small, circular table. There were warm sandwiches, a couple bowls of soup, a salad, and even a container filled with six Karelian pies. Dear heaven, he wasn’t going to be able to walk off the ferry. Baldewin would have to carry him to dry land.
“Definitely no dragons. I might have sniffed around the ferry before going to the restaurants. No other mages that I could smell, either.”
Tori stopped in the middle of pulling yet another box free from a paper bag and frowned at the dragon. “Are you saying I smell?”
Warin flashed him a crooked grin. “Well, certainly not how you’re taking it.” He leaned closer to Tori and drew in a deep breath before releasing a happy sigh. “Magic. All mages smell like magic, even if they’ve never cast a spell in their life.”
Tori’s heart fluttered a little, and his gaze darted over to Baldewin, who was nodding. How could he possibly not know this about himself? Mages smelled like magic to dragons. Was that like catnip to a feline?
“What’s magic smell like?”
“Lightning,” Warin answered.
“Not quite. The charged air before lightning strikes. Fresh and clean. You smell like energy and hope.”
“I can’t say I have any idea what hope smells like, but the rest sounds nice,” Tori replied. “Right now, all I can smell are Karelian pies. Let’s eat.”
Food was quickly divided up, though with these two large men, it wasn’t too much of a surprise that everyone ended up eating a little bit of everything.
Tori explained the food as they went. The dragons clearly hadn’t spent much time in Finland, at least not in a very long time. Warin moaned over the rye and rice porridge pie more than once and asked if Tori would help their head chefs figure out how to make them at the castle.
It was a nice thought, possibly starting fresh in a new place, while at the same time, managing to bring back one of the few things from his home that he enjoyed.
As they ate and talked, he didn’t miss how both Baldewin and Warin rolled their shoulders on more than one occasion as if they were uncomfortable. Not that he was overly worried. It was just good to know if there was a problem with his protection detail, right?
He asked them both about it, but they were quick to brush it off as nothing. They didn’t look like they were in pain, just uncomfortable. Was it their wings? Did dragons need to fly often? Warin had flown just the other day, but it had been a short trip. How long had it been since Baldewin had last been in his dragon form?
“It’s a shame to be leaving this nice, cool weather,” Warin murmured as he pushed away the last empty container and patted the food baby in his relatively flat stomach. “At least it will still be comfortable in the mountains.”
“Cool weather? This has been like living on the surface of the sun it’s so warm in Helsinki,” he playfully exaggerated. Is this cold for fire dragons? Or do you prefer the heat?”
Baldewin shook his head. “Fire dragons love the cold and snow.”
“It’s the ice dragons who prefer the heat. That’s why the clan lives down in Brazil. Those beach bums spend all their time lying on the sand and surfing.”
Tori snickered at the image of a dragon trying to balance its enormous body on a tiny surfboard or stretched out on the hot sand like a beached whale.
“Burkhard is in the Alps. During the winter months, we pass a lot of time skiing and playing in the snow,” Baldewin explained.
Tori suddenly wanted to see Baldewin’s dragon covered in snow, his massive head resting on a snowbank while he contentedly blew smoke rings into the air. Yeah, that would be pretty incredible.