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“We really don’t care what gender our mates are I don’t knoho told you otherwise, Tori, but they lied Or they didn’t know better All mates are welcome and celebrated”
Tori’s fingers itched to snatch Baldewin’s phone away from him He wanted to stare at the photo, to study every tiny detail His brain argued that he wanted to uncover hoas a fake, but his heart was screa for it to be true
The silence stretched at the table, and Tori fought to keep his eyes lowered Did Baldewin know the truth about hi to his oords, he wouldn’t care, but maybe this was all a trick
To his relief, Baldewin moved on “I know this is a lot to take in, and you probably have so many questions I’m happy to answer, but the important one is why Warin and I are here We came to Helsinki to find you We want you to come with us and join our clan because you’re out here alone, which is dangerous And I truly believe you’re possibly a mate to one of my clanmates”
A mate
A dragon of his own
Tori hadn’t even let his in years
But he couldn’t let hiet lost in that fantasy now He wasn’t sure if he could trust every word out of Baldewin’s mouth, either
At least part of what he said was truth, and Tori had been able to verify that But the very best liars mixed in a little truth to make the lie more palatable
And he had been taught soup that contradicted what Baldewin shared, he couldn’t just accept this new story
He needed to sit on it, think about it, process all of it Definitely do soure out howA library was his next stop after this If he was going to start a new life, the life he wanted, then he wanted to start it based on the truth Even if he never ith Baldewin to find a dragon mate of his own, he wanted to know the truth as the rest of the world understood it
Baldewin put the phone away “Can I ask what clan you came from?”
“I’d…really rather not answer that question I left them I don’t want to be associated with them”
Baldewin’s eyebrows did that twitching-frown thing, as if Tori said so not to let it show “You’re truly out here alone?”