Caius pretended he couldn’t smell the salt of frustrated tears and stepped out of the bathroom behind Quinn, pulling the door shut behind him. He glanced down at himself with a sigh, his clothes already forming a puddle. “Can you grab me some clothes?”
He ignored Quinn’s snicker and looked at Lukas, who had a shoulder propped against the open bedroom door. “Do we have ice packs?”
Lukas peeled away from the door, and Caius took a moment to breathe once he was alone. He didn’t regret binding Max since it needed to be done, but he hadn’t realized how difficult it could make controlling his magic. The sooner they found someone who could train Max in the basics the better, but he didn’t know where to start. There weren’t many mages not controlled by the Order, and he doubted any would want to put themselves in the Order’s crosshairs.
He turned when the bathroom door cracked open. Max’s hair was still wet, dripping down his neck, but at least he didn’t smell like terror,and his heartbeat was steady. He opened his mouth to tell Max he should rest before snapping his mouth shut. He’d have to figure out where the line between suggestion and compulsion was with the binding eventually, but for now he’d have to censor his words.
“You can rest if you want. We’ll leave you be as soon as I change,” he said, waiting for Max to step towards the bed before taking his place in the bathroom. He tossed a towel out to soak up the puddle he’d left, then stripped his clothes and tossed them into the sink. When he heard Quinn return, he stuck his right arm out for the dry clothes, keeping his back to the mirror as he dressed.
Bad enough that he could see the hint of silver on the left of his chest; he didn’t need to see the full spiderweb around the bullet wound. A mess of scar tissue and silvery blue veins covered most of his left shoulder where the aconite bullet had exploded. He still couldn’t lift his left arm more than a few inches, and since he was lucky to be alive at all, he considered it a fair trade.
Healing might have been possible by a high-level mage with the talent and patience to deal with aconite poisoning, but the one he’d been referred to was so expensive, he would have had to give up any plans of forming his own pack, even one as small as this one.
He scrubbed a towel over his hair and finished changing before stepping out of the bathroom.
Max was slumped on the bed, a gel ice pack clutched to his chest like a teddy bear.
“You good?” Caius asked, stopping at the foot of the bed to look him over.
“Yeah.”
“Yell if you need anything,” he said, feeling the weight in the words that made them a compulsion, but he couldn’t regret it if it meant Max asked for help when he needed it. He left the door cracked a bit and headed downstairs.
Quinn and Lukas followed, sinking into their usual seats on the large sofa.
“We’ll need to be careful of the binding,” Caius said, sinking into his overstuffed armchair and rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t think it would be so easy to tapinto it.”
“Probably because he agreed to it,” Lukas said, slouching into the cushions before propping a foot on the edge of the table. He motioned to the discarded bowls with his chin. “What about those?”
Caius sighed and stacked them, leaning over to set them on the bottom of the TV stand and covering them with some junk mail that hadn’t been thrown away yet. “They need burned with mage fire.”
“Whenever he’s able to control it enough not to burn the house down,” Quinn said.
Lukas snorted. “That’ll be a while. He smelled like a campfire before you got him in the shower.”
Caius groaned as he slumped in his chair. “He needs help. And we need spellwork laid down.” He might have been willing to risk Savino or his rivals attacking without the benefit of protective wards, but that was before Max. As soon as word of a mage not claimed by the Order spread, they’d be facing a far wider range of potential enemies.
“I might know someone,” Lukas said after a long moment.
Caius rolled his head against the back of the chair until he could look at Lukas directly. “Someone you trust?”
Lukas shrugged. “He saved my life a couple times. I saved his. He hates the Order, and I’m pretty sure he’s one of the few not directly bound to them.”
Caius raised an eyebrow. There weren’t many mages who fit that last. “Rían?” he guessed. When the brass needed to call in a mage who could get the job done, Rían was one of the few who even the generals spoke highly of, despite working for the Order.
If Lukas had a way to contact him, Caius certainly wouldn’t complain.
“Yeah. Not sure I can get hold of him or not.”
“Try,” he said, before turning his attention to Quinn.
Quinn met his eyes and shrugged. “Well, now that he’s bound, we should probably take him shopping. He needs clothes and his own laptop. Apparently, he’s only two semesters from getting his degree.”
“Okay. We’ll head out after breakfast.”
When neither of them brought up any other issues, he bid them good night and headed upstairs. His room was on the third floor, over the guest room Max was in. If he was still and listened, he could pick up the steady breaths of Max’s light sleep. Hopefully, he’d remain that calm for the night and until they could get anothermage to help him.
With a groan, he sank into his bed. Civilian life was supposed to have been easier, but at this point, he would have preferred the endless paperwork and interpersonal responsibilities of his regiments. At least they were familiar.
