“What did you do?” Cameron demanded softly. His voice sounded calm, but there was a deadly seriousness to it.
“A looooong journey. Don’t look for me. And don’t let Alric watch the BBC news today. Keep Cassie off the internet.”
A harsh laugh erupted from Cameron’s side of the call. “You’ve just asked for the impossible. What’s going on, Ravi? Are you in trouble? Where are you? Should I send Baldewin your way?”
Ravi’s shoulders slumped, and he leaned heavily against a tree. Maybe he could stay here in these woods. Maybe find a cave to hide in for the next few centuries until this all blew over.
“I miiight be in a movie now.”
“You WHAT?” Cameron shrieked, his voice cracking as it jumped toward the ceiling.
“In my dragon form. That…sounded worse than it did in my head.”
“Ravi. I say this as your king’s consort. Get your ass back here, now.”
It had to be bad if Cameron was giving him orders.
Ravi spoke a mile a minute, hands gesturing in every direction as he tried to both explain and apologize to Alric all in one breath.
“—totally well hidden in the fog, I was set to come home without issue, and then I flew into this plane, and it was spiraling, and instinct took over—I guess it was flight instincts or something, maybe herding instincts—do dragons have herding instincts? I just couldn’t let someone crash in front of my eyes, so I lunged for it, caught the plane, and slowed its descent, and it was really, reaaaaaaally foggy, like, so foggy I could barely see my wing in front of my face, so it wasn’t until we were almost to the ground that I saw there was a camera crew and realized it was all a movie set. The pilot wasn’t actually in trouble—actually, I don’t know if he was in trouble or not, I didn’t stop to check, maybe he was? Anyway, I had no choice then, he needed me to get him down as I had complete control of the plane, so I set him down, and of course I couldn’t just bounce back up into the air, so I had to land, which may have been really bad because then they could do closeups. Sorry, I had no choice but to land, and I tried to talk them into not filming anything or sharing it online, but my Jedi mind tricks need some work, it was an utter fail, and they said they were streaming to Instagram already, and I think I screwed the pooch—sorry? Like, really sorry.”
He ended with his hands pressed together in prayer fashion, looking toward the carpet. And maybe peeking up hopefully now and again to see how Alric was taking this.
Alric hadn’t said much since his arrival. Ravi had landed in the courtyard barely ten minutes ago and had run straight to Alric’s office, where the fire dragon was already in a meeting with King Rodrigo Valerii of the Ice Dragon Clan. Cameron was also present. His friend had tried to flash him a reassuring smile, but it did nothing to push aside the worry in his eyes.
Right now, Ravi watched as Alric paced the floor in front of the wall of windows that looked down into the valley and the tiny nearby town of Sonthofen. Cameron was seated on the corner of Alric’s desk while Rodrigo lounged on the leather couch. The ice dragon looked a little rumpled—white hair not combed back as usual, dressed in a track suit and appearing as if he’d come straight from some sort of exercise.
At least the Valerii king didn’t appear to be upset by Ravi’s humungous mistake, which was some small relief. It was bad enough to expose and potentially endanger his own clan, but he didn’t want to add to their problem by creating animosity on the part of the ice dragons.
“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Rodrigo said, finally breaking the silence. “We were already discussing options for announcing our presence to the human world.”
“And if I remember correctly, flying into the middle of a movie set and allowing a dragon to be blasted across every social media platform and news agency didn’t make our top-ten list of options,” Alric snapped irritably.
Rodrigo chuckled lightly, proving that he wasn’t at all bothered by the other king’s tone. “True. We hadn’t thought of that one. It was rather unique.”
“And no one would have expected a dragon to start quoting Star Wars,” Cameron muttered in a voice that was definitely warmer than Alric’s.
His king groaned, sounding like he very much wanted to strangle Ravi like a chicken, just as he’d grumbled about doing so many times in the past.
“Besides, he was caught on video attempting to save a human he thought was in trouble,” Rodrigo pressed. “It would be different if he was…I don’t know…eating little children.”
“Or tearing down a hospital,” Cameron offered.
“Thiago and several of my other dragons have been monitoring social media,” Rodrigo continued. Thiago was his advisor back in Brazil. “He says that the response has been largely positive and enthusiastic. The humans think the blue dragon is adorable and helpful. People wish to know who he is and where he has disappeared off to.”
“This isn’t a Frankenstein’s monster situation. The villagers aren’t grabbing their pitchforks and torches,” the mage admonished. Cameron moved off the desk and across the room, toward his mate. His voice had gentled when he continued. “It’s like I told you last year at the Dragon Festival—people love dragons. We miss you. Ravi’s appearance is the first clear sign that there is still something wonderous and magical in our world.”
“The only truly wondrous and magical things in this world are mages. The problem is that there are significantly fewer dragons now, and I fear there aren’t enough of us to keep mages—like my beautiful mate—safe.” Alric sounded sweet and worried now, which was a sign that he was softening.
Thank all the gods that might be that Alric had found his mate. He was definitely less grumpy now with Cameron at his side.
The mage hummed softly, and Ravi was pretty sure they kissed, but he wasn’t willing to lift his gaze from the carpet yet. Not until he’d won Alric’s forgiveness. His stupidity had not only endangered his clan, but potentially dragons everywhere. He was still smarting from the consequences of his own decision. It might be a while before he could live this one down.
“I’m less worried about dragons protecting mages, and more excited that this could provide us the opportunity to come out to the world, which could make it easier to find missing mages.”
“You’ve got a very wise mate there, Alric,” Rodrigo murmured.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why don’t you forgive the little guy? He’s at least solved the problem of how we announce our existence to the world. He was trying to be helpful. He thought he was saving a life.”
Alric sighed, and his footsteps approached Ravi. Ravi lifted his head just enough that he could peek at Alric around his hands.
“I am so very sorry, Hoheit. I never meant to expose our clan or to put any dragon in danger,” Ravi said, abjectly remorseful.
A little part of his heart was breaking to think that he’d hurt his clan, or worse, disappointed Alric. He was more than just his king; Alric had been an older brother to him for as long as he could remember. Ravi’s parents had died shortly after his birth during the Dragon War and all he’d ever known was the Burkhard Clan. This was his home and his family. He never wanted to do anything to hurt his family.