Which brought up the question: what was Cameron in that world? The bridge between them?
“Did you get the day’s final security report and my suggested rotation?” Baldewin inquired.
He strolled farther into the room, but bypassed the desk in favor of the large sofa that sat perpendicular to Alric. This had been a common arrangement between them for more than a couple of decades. At the end of the day, Baldewin would wander in with the excuse of some bit of work nonsense and then proceed to flop down on Alric’s couch. They talked, usually about a lot of nothing, and then wander down to the dining hall for a late dinner.
Alric glanced down to see the email appear within his inbox. “Is there a problem with the castle’s servers again?”
“No,” Baldewin paused, stopping mid-sit. “Why?”
“Because you nearly beat the email and it’s at least a three-minute walk from your office to mine,” Alric teased.
“Ja, ja,” Baldewin muttered and flopped down on the couch, propping his booted feet up on the arm while folding his hands on his stomach. He could imagine Dieter frowning at his friend, but Alric couldn’t deny that their friendship had managed to survive Alric’s ascension to the throne. He needed this bit of normalcy in his day.
Though, Cameron had never really treated him as royalty. Only as the man he’d first met at the Dragon Festival.
“So...I heard an interesting bit of gossip this afternoon.”
Alric froze. No one would dare speak about his little afternoon rendezvous with Cameron in his office. The meeting with Dieter afterward had been difficult enough, though his advisor would never do something so horrible as to actually hint that he knew exactly what had been happening behind the closed door. Dieter wouldn’t spread gossip, but had someone else been walking by his office and heard him?
“I thought you didn’t listen to gossip,” Alric replied, trying to keep his voice calm and maybe even a little bored.
“I don’t, but this was about a certain mage and a certain king.”
Alric placed his right hand on the surface of the desk and pushed to his feet, eyes narrowing on his old friend, who looked as if he was about to bust open if he didn’t share what malicious little tidbit he heard.
“I’ll not tolerate anyone in the castle spreading malicious gossip about Cameron,” Alric growled. His dragon stirred, demanding Alric hunt down the person who was speaking about his mage. Maybe his dragon would have this person for dinner and still spend the evening licking Cameron. Yes, that sounded much better.
Baldewin snickered as he held up one finger. “First, everyone adores Cameron. No one is going to say one mean thing about that man.” Baldewin added a second finger. “And two, the gossip is that your powers have started showing up in Cameron’s spells. Care to comment, Eure Majestät?” His friend’s expression became positively smug.
Groaning at himself, Alric instantly deflated as he walked around the desk. His dragon grumbled and settled back down, content to ignore Baldewin again. He walked over to one of the chairs positioned near the couch and dropped into it.
“I’m sure some people are making more of it than there needs to be. Cameron has grown comfortable with me. If he needs my powers to work his spells, then I am happy to lend it,” Alric said with a wave of his right hand.
Baldewin rolled onto his side face Alric, his smirk still firmly in place. “Really? I pray you’re just lying to yourself, because we both know after all these years, you can’t lie to me.”
“What do you think I’m lying about?”
Baldewin scoffed and dropped onto his back again. “He’s your mate!”
“We are not bonded,” Alric said sharply, nearly coming out of his chair again.
“I never said you were bonded. I said he is your mate. MATE, Alric.”
“Baldewin—”
His old friend made another noise in the back of his throat. “You have never used the word gefreogen to describe him, but we’ve all known it since the moment he first stepped into the castle. Everyone can see it in the way you look at him. Even old Sandor can see it, and that dragon is mostly blind in both eyes.”
Gefreogen was an old term dragons used to refer to the mage they were courting in hopes of that person being their mate. It was different from the more casual terms they used to describe those they might be casually sleeping with while acknowledging that they were not and would never be mates.
Alric hadn’t allowed himself to think of Cameron as his gefreogen, even after the mage suggested they try dating. For humans, dating was a very casual affair with most of the couples going their separate ways after months or even years. Most of the time, a dragon didn’t part from his gefreogen. They just went on to be bonded.