“Good grief,” Ravi muttered as Baldewin drew closer to Alric’s room, but there was a hint of a smile playing on his lips. The dragon was standing guard outside the king’s room, along with one of Rodrigo’s bodyguards. The ice dragon was smiling broadly at him, while Ravi teasingly rolled his eyes. “You might want to tone it down a little bit before you go in there.”
Baldewin’s face wrinkled as his expression drew closed, and his steps slowed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh my god! You’re smiling so big right now it’s like you’re glowing with happiness. A freaking star crashed to earth. You’re—” Ravi stopped midsentence, his mouth falling open and his eyes growing so wide they could have fallen from his head. “Hot damn! Tori agreed to be your mate. Like, officially mated!”
“Hush,” Baldewin snapped, making a shushing motion. “You don’t need to disturb the entire hotel with your shouting. Yes, Tori is my mate now. We’ll make it official after we are finished with this clan and return home.” Those words couldn’t possibly be said without an enormous grin. Ravi jumped, punching one fist into the air, but he at least managed to do it silently. The ice dragon shook his head and murmured a polite congratulations.
“How are things in there?” Baldewin jerked his chin toward the closed double doors when Ravi finally stopped celebrating.
“Not good. Rodrigo has been switching between Russian and Portuguese for his rants. The Russian sounds scarier. Alric has been silent.”
That wasn’t a good sign. From experience in their reckless younger years, a silent Alric was a dangerous Alric. He was potentially plotting something dark and very stupid. It was probably best he get in there now and help defuse the situation before the two kings charged off.
Baldewin softly knocked on the door while Ravi waved his security card in front of the reader to unlock it. Easing inside the small sitting area, Baldewin spotted Alric sitting stiff and perfectly erect in a chair while Rodrigo paced the room, looking as if he was determined to wear through the carpet. Cameron sat on the edge of the sofa, carefully holding Alric’s left hand in both of his. His friend’s face was hard and unyielding like carved marble. They’d expected this meeting to go badly, but it had definitely been worse than they could have anticipated. There had been no attempt at civility or diplomacy.
He opened his mouth to apologize to both kings for losing his temper and nearly attacking one of the Taavi Clan members, but the words froze in his throat when Alric’s eyes flicked to his face, and a slow smile spread across his lips, seeming to wipe away some of the anger boiling inside the king.
“Look at him, Rodrigo,” Alric said softly.
The ice dragon stopped sharply and demanded, “O que há de errado?” before he even looked up at Baldewin. The blond man’s eyes swept over him for an instant and then dismissed him completely. He turned as if he meant to resume pacing but didn’t even take a step before his eyes swung back to Baldewin, wider this time and moving slower. Rodrigo laughed loudly, clapped his hands together, and threw them up into the air. “It is done! Congratulations!”
Rodrigo closed the distance between them in an instant and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him across the room to where Cameron was sitting on the couch. Evora was sitting on the other end, her dark lips twisted into a smirk. He looked over at Alric to find his friend looking smug.
“You’ve got a new glow about you,” Cameron answered his unspoken question.
“A new mate glow,” Rodrigo added. Once Baldewin was seated, the ice dragon king clasped his shoulders and bussed a kiss against each cheek. “Congratulations! That is so wonderful.”
As soon as Rodrigo stepped back, the rest of the Valerii party crowded close and shook Baldewin’s hand or kissed his cheek.
It was nice that there were no hard feelings that he’d found his mate while the recent meeting with a mage clan had gone so poorly. He wanted all dragons looking for a mate to find the kind of happiness he enjoyed with Tori. It was enough of an uphill battle to just locate mages in this day and age. Did it really need to be made more difficult by having the mages they did find believe they were the enemy?
When the last ice dragon stepped away, he found himself looking up at Gunter. His friend and clanmate managed to look both happy and sad at the same time. They had all waited so long, and Baldewin knew the question passing through Gunter’s head, because he’d asked the same thing when Alric found Cameron. When will I find my mate? What if my mate never appears?
“I am so very happy for you, Baldewin. Tori is the perfect match for you,” Gunter said. His smile spread a little, pushing back the tendrils of sadness.
Baldewin pushed to his feet and tightly hugged the researcher. “You’ll find your mate soon. I know it,” he whispered in his ear.
When Baldewin released him, Gunter’s smile wobbled, but he nodded as he stepped back and moved over to a chair on the other side of the room.
Baldewin returned to the sofa and looked over to find Alric smiling at him, the smugness replaced with a look of joy. He lifted Cameron’s hand to his lips and kissed the top gently, and Baldewin got it. He understood the secret looks Alric and Cameron shared, the little laughs, the need to touch and simply see the other person, even if only a couple hours had passed. Baldewin might have felt a little jealous at first, because he felt as if Cameron was usurping his place, his friendship with Alric. No one had been closer to Alric than him.
But then Cameron quickly showed that he could fill an emptiness within Alric their friendship never could. He completed Alric, gave him a joy he’d never known. Baldewin could only be happy for his friend.
And now Baldewin understood that completion all the more because of Tori. It was amazing, freeing, and scary all at once.
“Congratulations. I knew it was only a matter of time,” Alric murmured.
Cameron snorted beside him, shifting to sit on the empty arm of Alric’s chair. “That’s king-speak for a dignified ‘I told you so.’”
“But you’re not too dignified for it,” Alric teased.
“Nope,” Cameron replied, popping the P with obvious pleasure. “I could see it in the way he talked about Baldewin and looked at him. That man was already in deep smit with our Baldewin by the time he arrived at Burkhard.”
“Thank you,” Baldewin said with a bow of his head. “I feel very lucky that he even listened to me in the first place.”
Cameron laughed. “He didn’t. He hit you with a freezing spell and ran in the opposite direction.”
“Is it any wonder?” Rodrigo growled and resumed his pacing as the ice dragon brought them back to the problem at hand. He spat out some angry-sounding Russian that Baldewin didn’t entirely catch, but the feelings were clear.
“Hoheit, King Rodrigo, I am truly sorry for my loss of temper today. I never should have acted so impulsively. I have acted shamefully and poorly represented our clan,” Baldewin said, bowing.
Rodrigo snorted. “I would say you acted quite admirably in defending your mate and your clan.”
Baldewin looked up as Alric sighed and threw a somewhat castigating look at Rodrigo before turning his gaze to him. “Yes, you should have held your temper, especially considering that we knew what kind of situation we were walking into. However, I can’t entirely fault you for your reaction. If our roles had been reversed and someone threatened my Cam in any way, I don’t think anyone could have stopped me.” Alric waved his right hand in the air a little. “Besides, I don’t think you truly did any damage. Mathilda had already dug her heels in and was refusing to listen. It was probably good to remind them, at least a little, that we are not to be pushed around or taken lightly.”