“And now they are, what? Exacting revenge?” Rodrigo put his cup on the table before sitting back, staring hard at the floor in thought. “Or trying to reclaim what they’ve lost?”
“Possibly both.” Alric didn’t look any happier, and his eyes kept darting to Cameron in open worry. It didn’t take a genius to guess why. Every time Cameron left the security of the castle, he ran the risk of being kidnapped again.
Cameron lifted their joined hands to kiss Alric’s palm, eyes gentle. “Chill, love. I’m not leaving the castle today.”
“It’s all your future days that concern me,” Alric sighed.
Rodrigo cleared his throat and looked at them with a sort of wistful sadness. But then, Rodrigo himself was still unmated. Baldewin’s heart ached for the dragon. He remembered seeing Rodrigo during the war, meeting with Alric’s father. He’d been a young king at the time but still had at least a century on Alric. And all that time, he’d lived without his mate.
“I speak for all dragons, I think, when I say this. We cannot abide having any mage in danger, no matter what clan. Alric, I wish to help you safeguard them. The Jaeggi seem to be more active here in Europe. We certainly haven’t seen much of them in Brazil. If you wish to send some of your people to us for a time, for safekeeping, we will host them with open hearts.”
Baldewin sensed that Alric almost automatically refused that offer. His mouth was open before he thought better of it and closed his mouth again, sadness etched deep lines around his eyes. “We might. I’ll speak with my mages and see who might like to go.”
“If nothing else, something like an exchange program,” Cameron suggested, looking between both kings. “My grandmother, for instance, she’d love to go to Brazil for a while. She enjoys travel. And she’s hinted she wants to meet the sexy ice dragons a few times.”
Alric snorted in amusement. “Yes, I’ve heard her. In fact, Rodrigo, I think we should encourage her to go with you when you return home. Ha Na is widowed and eager for a dragon mate, but she’s not made a connection with any of my people. At the very least, it will give her a chance to flirt with your clan members.”
Rodrigo’s brows lifted, intrigued. “Is that right? I’ll meet with her and ask, then.”
It physically hurt to bite his tongue, but Baldewin managed to not blurt out a warning. Ha Na was a handful, he knew this painfully well, and foisting her off on the ice dragons without saying anything was not nice. But then, what he’d seen of Rodrigo so far left him wondering if the Valerii might prove to be a good match for Ha Na.
“An exchange of magic, too, would be helpful.” Cameron gave him that charming smile, which could reduce Alric to a puddle of goo in seconds. “In fact, there’s something I want to learn from you. Your clan, I understand, still knows how to do the incubator spells.”
Rodrigo didn’t look surprised by this change in topic. “I thought you might ask that, considering you now have several same-sex couples in this clan. We would also like to use the spells, but sadly we do not have enough mages to operate it.”
“It takes a dozen mages to operate one incubator,” Evora explained. There was pain in her expression, darkening her brown eyes. “We have only eight. It’s too taxing on us to try and keep it operational for nine months, although we tried several times.”
“And collapsed every time.” Thiago placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. His expression was full of pain and worry, leading Baldewin to believe that they were in fact mated. Unlike their king, Thiago and Evora had been very formal and proper in their bearing. But then, every dragon cracked when it came to concern for their mate.
“We will be glad to share the spell with you,” Rodrigo said, and then wagged a playful finger at Alric. “But help us, too. We desire children.”
Alric’s answer was quick and sincere. “Of course. We’ll take turns helping each other.”
“Alric and I have already talked about this,” Cameron tacked on with a smile. “We’re a bit too new to have children just yet. Maybe in a year or two, when we’re more settled. So why don’t you go first?”
There was a brightness in Rodrigo’s eyes that had nothing to do with the light pouring in through the windows. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll teach you the Noh seeking spells to help you find more mages,” Cameron promised them both. “I think we can all agree we need to find them before the Jaeggi do.”
Evora actually smiled. A full-blown smile. And her face didn’t crack. “Bless you, consort. We need those just as much. Our own seeking spells have no real range to them.”
“Ours can go hundreds of miles.” Cameron winked at her. “Works better in situations like this. After this meeting, why don’t you follow me to Lisette’s workshop? We can start teaching each other things, get all our mages in on this. Our new mage, Tori, might have some interesting input as well. He tends to know things the rest of us have forgotten.”
“Yes, talk to me of this new clan.” Rodrigo was back to being perky. “And your new mage; Tori, is it?”
Baldewin grimaced, unable to contain the expression fully. Just thinking about Tori’s clan gave him heartburn, and he still wanted to go up there and do a little dragon-smash, maybe burn a few buildings.
Catching his reaction, Rodrigo pointed to him. “Is there an issue?”
Alric turned mild eyes on him. “Baldewin, why don’t you answer this question?”
“I’m not sure if I can without a lot of inappropriate language. King Rodrigo, the clan in question is not a kind one. Tori had to escape it.”
“Escape…? I don’t understand.” But Rodrigo’s expression indicated he had a sense where this was going, and he wasn’t happy about it already.
“They were allies of the Jaeggi during the war,” Baldewin sought to explain without losing his temper and punching things. “After the loss of many mages during the war, they went into hiding in the northern tip of Finland. They have serious glamours over their town to keep it hidden. From what Tori tells me, the culture became…toxic. They created set standards for everyone to adhere by, and there’s no tolerance for going outside of those expectations. They’re extremely homophobic. They didn’t take it well that he’s a male mage—there’s a stigma about a mage not being female. A belief that females are the most valuable because only they can mate with dragons and are the ultimate source of new mages. And they truly didn’t take it well that he’s gay. He finally made a break for freedom this past month.”
“Which is how we found him,” Cameron tacked on. “Because he left the glamour and traveled closer, our seeking spells were able to pick up on him.”
“The glamour is that intensive?” Evora didn’t sound happy about that. “But what of his magic?”
“Tori’s exceptional,” Cameron reported with a hint of pride. As he should, since Tori was now a Burkhard mage. “His knowledge of herbology is incredibly extensive. Lisette’s made that comment more than once. He’s also very versatile. He can make substitutions on the fly and adapt spells with limited or even the wrong elements. And it works, every time. I sat with him yesterday and picked his brain. Felt stupid after the conversation, too. That’s how educated in magic he is.”