When he crossed the room, he found Alric reading something on his computer monitor, a slight frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. Alric’s eyes flicked up to take in Baldewin, and the frown disappeared.
“I was just reading the report you sent over,” Alric murmured.
“I’m sorry it’s not as detailed as it usually is. I’m still playing catch-up with my inbox and other reports. I can send you a revised one tomorrow morning,” Baldewin offered as he dropped into one of the comfortable leather chairs in front of Alric’s desk.
The king waved him off. “No need. I know that Tori, and then Cassie, had your full attention while you were out of the castle. What you’ve got here for me is no surprise. We’ll need to shift more funds into the security team for additional training.”
Alric pushed to his feet and paced over to one of the walls of windows. Baldewin kept his seat but narrowed his eyes on his friend’s back, carefully watching his movements. His friend had been gravely injured in the war and had never fully recovered. When they were alone like this, Alric typically let his guard down, and Baldewin could see if he was pushing himself too hard by how he held himself while in pain.
But to Baldewin’s surprise, Alric’s movements were smooth and relaxed. He still refrained from using his left arm, but it didn’t seem to be due to pain. Apparently, his mate was doing a good job of helping Alric with his old injury, which was a great relief.
Not that he was actually surprised. Cameron was dedicated to the care and happiness of his dragon.
“I was thinking we need to develop a mage recovery team,” Alric murmured.
“Really? You think we’re going to find more?” Baldewin asked, his tone lightly teasing.
Alric turned back to his friend, one corner of his mouth tilted up in a smirk. “I think the existence of an entire clan of mages in northern Finland is a good sign there are many more mages out in the world just waiting to be discovered.”
“That is true.”
“The fact is that while we’ve been looking for mages for five centuries, we’ve not been prepared for actually meeting them. We just assumed they would know they are mages, and we assumed they’d be happy to meet a dragon. That was both arrogant and reckless of us.”
“We couldn’t have known how things would change for the mages.”
Alric gave a small wave of his right hand. “Maybe, but we know now. We must change. The dragons who go to meet these mages need to be better equipped to talk to them, as well as prepared to encounter the Jaeggi.”
“Agreed.”
Alric walked back to his desk. “Since you’ve been present for the recovery of all our new mages already, can you pull together a group—you, Lisette, the Noh family, Warin, and Tori? Start brainstorming some ways we can improve this process of meeting and bringing mages back to our clan?”
Baldewin smiled at his phone as he typed in a note to himself to schedule this meeting. Alric was already including Tori in meetings and putting the mage to work as if he was a full-fledged member of the clan. He wasn’t sure if his friend simply assumed Tori would join them or if he was hoping that if Tori was included in meetings, he’d feel more welcome in the clan. Though, Baldewin had a feeling Alric was more likely thinking the latter.
“Of course, this doesn’t need to be right away. I’m sure Tori needs a little time to recuperate from his travels and get more acclimated to the clan,” Alric murmured as he dropped into his chair.
“Thank you, Hoheit. I’m sure he would appreciate it.”
“Since we’re talking about the new mage,” Alric said slowly. Baldewin lifted his head to find a sly grin had spread across Alric’s lips, and he froze. What, exactly, did his friend know? Oh, he had no doubt that little birds had been reporting back to the castle and those whispers had reached Alric’s ears.
“Was it Warin or Cassie?” Baldewin grumbled in a low, almost dead voice.
Alric tipped his head back and laughed deeply as he slumped a little in his chair. There was something about his relaxed posture and lazy grin that made Baldewin think he was talking to his childhood friend again and not the great leader of his clan.
“All of the above,” Alric admitted with a low chuckle. “I might have heard something about a compulsion to endlessly feed the mage and a strange sock-shopping incident. There was also some kissing, and then Cameron showed me some pictures of dwarf statues in Poland.”
Baldewin sighed and rubbed his hand on the top of his head. “I shouldn’t have allowed that stop. If we’d followed our original plan, we might have been able to elude the Jaeggi completely, and Cassie would never have been hurt.”