Chapter 7 #2
“—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.
“This will hold you for a time, then.” He put bandages on his palms and elbow carefully, struggling a bit with the stubborn adhesive strips as they stuck to his fingers. “Just until we get to the hotel. You can soak in moonlight there.”
Tori stared silently at his bandaged hands for several moments. Baldewin wondered if maybe he’d applied it all too tightly and he was causing the mage more pain. He wasn’t accustomed to patching people up. He was the guard. His job was usually about causing damage.
“Thank you,” Tori whispered. His voice was low and rough…and maybe a little awed.
Had Baldewin heard him correctly? It was one of the first times he’d not gotten the usual dose of sarcasm or cynicism from the man.
“You are very welcome.” Baldewin’s fingers twitched with the need to gather this man in close and give him a hug. If there was anyone who needed a hug, it was Tori.
Which was strange.
Baldewin wasn’t a hugger.
Well, it wasn’t that he minded hugs all that much. Cassie was a very proficient hugger, and Baldewin had been on the receiving end of many hugs from her, but he’d never been one to initiate.
But right at that moment, he very much wanted to hold Tori. He needed to hug Tori.
It was more than that, though. Even without touching him, Baldewin knew simply embracing Tori wouldn’t be enough.
He needed to pull the smaller man into his lap and hold him.
He wanted to nuzzle his face into Tori’s slender neck and breathe in his scent so he could carry a small piece of Tori around with him wherever he went.
At first, he’d thought he was merely reacting to the hard life the mage had suffered.
But the more he interacted with Tori, the more he realized it wasn’t Tori’s situation he was reacting to but Tori himself.
Even after everything he’d been through—the lies, the clear verbal abuse, the poor treatment—there was a bone-deep strength to the man that simply awed Baldewin.
Despite all his attempts to protect Tori, it was clear he was strong enough to take care of himself.
He didn’t need a grumbly dragon to slay his enemies. Tori was doing okay on his own.
But that didn’t mean Baldewin was going to stop trying.
And yes, maybe it didn’t hurt that Tori was pretty damn sexy.
Those hypnotic grey eyes had snared him from the start, but there was also something about his mouth when he was shooting sarcastic comments at him that left Baldewin wanting to kiss away those words.
His dragon was also pressing for kisses, which was a little worrying since his dragon didn’t normally care about such things.
There would be no hugging—and definitely no kissing—anytime soon. Tori was still prickly around him.
He gathered everything back into the bag instead, stowing it in the back seat, and then resumed his place in the driver’s seat. Following the GPS, they traveled to the hotel in silence. A heavy, weighted silence.
It gave Baldewin a chance to think. What could he say to dispel Tori’s unease?
To convince him to go with them? It was becoming disturbingly clear that Baldewin needed Tori to go to Burkhard Castle not just because it was the safest place for the mage.
He wasn’t sure he could stand to be parted from him.
But he didn’t know if he had the words. Or even the right perspective. To him, it was natural that a dragon would protect a mage. But to a mage abandoned by his clan—or one who escaped his clan, Baldewin wasn’t sure which was the case here—perhaps that stance was not so easily assumed.
Maybe it shouldn’t be him to argue the point. Maybe Baldewin should hand this off to someone who had the right perspective.
But learning a little more about the man couldn’t hurt, surely. He cleared his throat and threw out a conversational lure. “I noticed the guitar. What style do you prefer, classical? Rock?”
Tori threw him a glance. “I just like music. I guess I favor classical, though.”
“Yeah? I’m rather the same. I picked up a guitar once in Spain, which is where I learned to play it. But I favor more a Chet Atkins style.”
Tori looked at him in surprise. “You play?”
“I do. I love music. It’s the main thing I spend time doing, playing. If we ever get the chance, we should jam together.”
“But what do you play?” Tori challenged, a hint of intrigue in the words. “You say Chet Atkins, so it’s more picking?”
“And that.” Baldewin felt a hint of mischief sneak out to play at the corners of his mouth. Oh, if Tori only knew how invested he was in music. “Really, there’s not a style of music I don’t like. I might not love every song from a genre, but I generally like at least some of it.”
“Hmmm.”
No further comment. Ah, well. Baldewin had gotten him to open up at least a little, there.
In the hotel lobby, Warin met them with key cards in hand. Tori followed them up, insisting on carrying his own backpack, although Baldewin won the argument over the guitar case.
The hotel was nice. Cassie had done good shopping, despite it being spur of the moment.
The rooms were clean and large, the beds covered in white fluffy comforters.
Tori didn’t sit on one of the beds, but he dropped his backpack in the corner chair, looking around with the corners of his mouth quirking up, clearly pleased.
“Tori.” Baldewin carefully phrased the words in his head as he held up his phone. “I don’t have the right words to assuage your unease. What if I let you speak to someone who can understand you?”
“Like who?” Tori asked uncertainly.
“Another mage. One adopted into our clan. They’d best understand your concerns.”
“I…” Tori trailed off, turning to stare blankly at the wall. He stayed like that for several seconds, mulling this offer over. “Yes. Alright, I’ll listen.”
Progress. Baldewin clenched his teeth to hold in an exuberant sound. Just that was progress, as Tori wouldn’t even listen two days ago. He didn’t waste any time in calling up Cameron.
“Hallo, Baldewin. Wie geht’s dir?”
Baldewin smiled in approval. Cameron’s German was improving. “Ganz gut. I want you to speak with Tori.”
“Ehhh…why? I’m okay doing so, you understand, just what are you throwing me into?”