Page 20 of Deven and the Dragon
“Andrei, Deven and I have matters of importance to discuss,” Fiora went on, hoping to project lordly dignity. Deven looked skeptical, and Andrei gave an actual snort of disbelief. They could go to hell. He was a dragon and an aristocrat, damn it! “Please go and leave us to our conversation.”
“Someone set a passel of rabbits loose in the kitchen garden, my lord, in order to distract me,” Andrei said grimly. “Perhaps we ought to have a conversation aboutthat.”
Bugger. “Rabbits are beneath me,” Fiora said loftily.Please, please, Andrei, just go away.
Andrei stood still, staring him down, his eyes like chips of ice. Fiora bit his tongue; Andrei had been his tutor for so long that Fiora still had the urge to babble apologies and beg not to be sent to his mother for punishment whenever Andrei looked at him like that.
“Very well, my lord,” Andrei said at last. “I will inform Mrs. Pittel of your opinion on the matter.” Fiora swallowed with a gulp. Oh, sodding fuck. Mrs. Pittel was almost worse than his mother. He’d be eating purposely-burned rabbit stew forweeks. His work with Fiora done, Andrei turned on Deven. “Why don’t you tell His Excellency how much you love old books, Mr. Clifton? Perhaps you could discuss some of your favorites with him, since I’m sure you’re very knowledgeable.”
God damn him — Fiora was going to kill Andrei. If Deven obviously lied to Fiora’s face, then he’d have no choice but to send him away, and…and he really didn’t want to, damn it. Besides, he was nearly sure that Andrei was wrong about this — but it was so hard to hold onto that logic when Andrei seemed so convinced otherwise. Deven looked utterly bewildered, and opened his mouth to reply, but Andrei had already disappeared down the stairs, angry mutterings floating up as he went. Fiora thought he caught “…go ahead and be an idiot, see if I care.”
Deven stared after him for a moment. “Does he have a problem with old books?” he asked, and turned to look at Fiora, his eyebrows raised. “Is there some reason he said that like he was threatening to kill me?”
“It’s not Andrei you need to worry about,” Fiora muttered. Rabbit. Ugh, hehatedrabbit. “Check your meals carefully before you eat them for the next few days. If you get fed at all.”
“Oh, fuck,” Deven said, his face falling. “Andrei’s really going to tell her?”
“Count on it. We may both need to forage for our own food for a while.”
Deven’s face broke out in a grin, so suddenly it was like rays of the sun popping out from behind a mountain, and he sidled a little closer. “Well, at least we’ll be in it together. We could go down to Ridley. Eat at the inn. My aunt and the inn’s cook are both handy with a roasting pan.”
And that was like a bucket of ice water dashed over Fiora’s head. As if he could simply walk into a public place with Deven, take a table, eat a quiet meal, laugh and talk and then…he turned away, quickly. “I don’t think so,” he said, his throat working painfully around the words.
“Lord Fiora? What’s the matter?” He hadn’t turned quickly enough, apparently. His misery must have been written all over his face. “Lord Fiora?” This time, his name came from just over his shoulder. Deven had come closer. “Nothing I say is meant to hurt you,” he said softly, and Fiora felt the brush of Deven’s breath over the shell of his ear.
Fiora shivered. “I know.” He didn’t know, of course; hehoped, and that was both far less reliable and infinitely more painful. “It doesn’t matter. Perhaps you ought to go downstairs now and leave me to —”
“To be alone in the dark with your brooding thoughts of your destiny, yes, I know,” Deven replied, sounding amused but not unkindly so. If Fiora shifted back so much as a trifle, he would be pressed against Deven’s chest. How long had it been since he had muscular arms wrapped around him, the heat and strength of a man’s body sheltering and surrounding him? Years. It had been nearly five years, and those years felt like as many boulders, crushing him down into the ground. “We could go downstairs and have dessert if you like. I think you and Andrei left yours on the table, and I missed dinner chasing around with a bag of buggering rabbits.”
Deven’s smooth voice, the heat of him, the stars above them, the quiet of the night…he had to keep reminding himself there was a reason he hadn’t had anything like this for five years. It was too much to bear to almost have it now.
Fiora jerked away, breathing hard, his fingers tingling with the impossible urge to simplytouch. “No,” he said hoarsely. “No, that’s not —” Rage welled up, sudden and bright enough to obliterate all reason. Deven couldn’t be sincere. He couldn’t possibly. He was here for a purpose, and that purpose was not Fiora. He turned abruptly and snarled, “Why would you lie to Andrei about your love of books? I should say, your supposed love of books. What was the point?”
He’d allowed himself to be lulled and charmed, just as Andrei had warned him not to do, and the shame of that burned in his breast like a hot coal. Deven’s look of shocked hurt was only more fuel for the fire. It looked so genuine. How dare he be such a good liar, good enough to have Fiora’s guard down within minutes, even when he knew how stupid it was?
“I didn’t lie,” Deven said slowly. “I’m sorry, I don’t — I think there’s something I’m missing, here. Andrei asked me how I’d been spending my time. I told him how much I was enjoying your library, and mentioned my own small collection. It’s nothing like yours, obviously, just a trunk of old volumes I’ve managed to buy here and there for a few pennies at a time. But it was conversation, nothing more.”
“Of course,” Fiora spat. “No doubt. I’m sure you’ve been honest about everything, haven’t you?”
Deven flinched, his face going white, but an instant later he smiled, the expression totally friendly and open. “I try to be,” he said — easily? Casually, at least. “Lying’s not usually worth the trouble.” He shrugged. “When I was a kid, I’d own up to my mischief at once, and take whatever the punishment was. It seemed easier than trying to put it off or worry about keeping my story straight.”
Fiora could picture that, a little Deven stating his misdeeds, taking his whipping, and sauntering off glad to be done with the inconvenience. He shook his head. No, he was not going to be distracted by a liar’s lies. Although…Deven had recovered so quickly from his reaction that Fiora almost doubted his own senses. The lingering sunset had completely faded, and the only light was the still-rising moon. That made everyone look pale. Had he imagined it?
This was ridiculous. He couldn’t do this will-he-won’t-he nonsense. If he could prove Deven was truthful aboutsomething, at least, then maybe he could…what? Continue to torture himself by wishing for what he couldn’t have?
Oh, bother. No. He was going to prove Deven wasn’t lying about absolutely everything so that Deven could continue as Fiora’s houseguest, which would make his relationship with his neighbors in Ridley easier, which would make Fiora less likely to receive angry letters from his father.
If it also let Fiora believe that maybe Deven wasn’t lying when he said Fiora’s blue skin wasn’t ugly, well, then…well.
“Fine,” Fiora said. He quickly moved his hands off his hips, because when he stood like that he looked like a small, angry copy of his mother, and then he didn’t know what to do with them. “Fine. We are going to go down to my study, and you can eat that cake if you want. Half the cake,” he corrected himself quickly.
“To be fair, we really ought to divide it up by relative size —”
Fiora’s ears burned, and his hands flew back to his hips. Damn it, he hated being teased about his height. “Don’t go down that road, or I’ll transform into a dragon and then we’ll see how much cake you get!”
Deven blinked at him. “Well played, Lord Fiora. The cake gets divided in half.”
“You’re damn right it does, and you’re lucky I’m sharing it at all. And then you’re going to write a note to your aunt, that I’m going to dictate to you, telling her to send your books up to the castle. And you’re going to stay where someone can keep an eye on you until after they arrive, so I know you’re not sending any secret messages.”
