Page 24 of Deven and the Dragon
He must have mumbled that aloud, because Deven laughed. “Because you’ve been deprived, Fiora. I’m fixing that. Drink up,” he repeated, and took a long pull from his own bottle.
Fiora drank up, deeply, and only realized how far he’d listed to the side while drinking when he tipped too far and slumped into Deven’s shoulder. His head spun a bit, and he let it drop. Deven held his weight without complaint, though had his muscles gone a trifle rigid? That wouldn’t do. Fiora needed a softer pillow than that. He wriggled about, nudging Deven’s arm into a better position.
Wrapped around Fiora’s back, that wasperfect. Fiora snuggled into Deven’s side, his eyes sliding closed. Everything was spinning, gently but inexorably. He flopped an arm over, his hand coming to rest on Deven’s lap. His pillow was all tense again.
Fiora passed out.
Chapter Eleven
“Fiora?” Deven gavehim a gentle shake, and then another, this one not so gentle. “Fiora, wake up.”
A soft snore was the only answer he got. Fiora slid down a little, his head resting against Deven’s ribs, and his hand flexed, the long fingers of it skating over Deven’s — oh, God, no. Deven removed the arm as quickly as he could, letting it flop down on Fiora’s other side.
Deven took a moment to panic silently, his heart pounding and his cock straining the front of his trousers. Fiora smelled like ale and lemon and rosemary, the latter two probably from his soap, but mingling with the sweetness of Fiora himself and creating a heady fragrance that had Deven’s head reeling.
Or maybe that was the ale. Deven was more than willing to pin it all, including his erection, on the ale, although drinking too much wasn’t notorious for making a man stand to attention.
Maybe the problem was that Deven hadn’t drunkenoughale. In that spirit, he polished off his own, retrieved Fiora’s half-finished bottle and killed that, and then set the empties aside. It didn’t do much. Deven worked in a taproom, and even if he hadn’t built up a tolerance that’d be the envy of a lot of drunks, his size alone made it difficult for him to get well and truly sloshed.
He was nearly sober, he had to face the facts — and Fiora, little lightweight that he was, was down for the count. Well, perhaps he was being uncharitable. That was some strong ale, surprisingly so, and the bottles weren’t small. Fiora had taken to it like a natural, only making one little moue of distaste when he realized Deven hadn’t brought any glasses for it.
With a sigh, Deven began the tedious but inevitable process of getting Fiora to bed. First, extracting himself from underneath ten stone of drunken dragon. He accomplished that well enough, gently laying Fiora’s head down on Deven’s discarded coat. His hands slipped through Fiora’s hair, like heavy silk flowing around his fingers. He jerked his hands away. Fuck, it wasn’t nearly tedious enough. Tedious would be a blessing. No, no, he would not linger. Fiora was unconscious. Deven wasn’t a creepy bastard. No, he wouldn’t stroke that lock of hair away from where it had fallen over Fiora’s face, half-veiling his smooth cheek and the delectable curves of his lips.
God, it was tempting, though.
Getting Fiora down from the top of the miniature temple thing was more of a challenge, solved by heaving Fiora over his shoulder and sliding awkwardly down a pillar one-armed. Deven hissed as his palm caught on a rough bit of stonework. Fiora let out a sleepy little grunt, snorted, and began to snore again. Deven gripped Fiora’s thigh, trying not to think about it.
Also not thinking about it too much, he carefully let Fiora down and then scooped him up in his arms, one wrapped around Fiora’s back and the other behind his knees. Tendrils of soft, lemon-scented hair tickled Deven’s neck and cheek, and Fiora’s breath fanned over his collarbones. The weight of him wasn’t much, but it felt like the whole world pressing down.
Fuck, Andrei was going tokillhim. Maybe that would be better than waiting for morning, when Fiora would transform into a dragon and roast him alive — or maybe he’d do that in the afternoon. He’d be too hungover to do it before lunchtime.
Deven abandoned his coat and the remaining ale bottles, both full and empty, and set off for the castle, trying to ignore the surge of tenderness rising up and trying to choke him. No, he would not give Fiora a little squeeze, just to feel the angles of his slim body all perfectly solid and delicate all at once in Deven’s arms.
Fuck.
The walk to the castle felt ten times as long as the walk down had been, and was made longer by Deven’s choice to circle around the back of it, the long way, and go in a side door nearer to Fiora’s tower. The last thing he needed was an audience.
Hell, maybe he’d get lucky, and Andrei would still be angry enough to be elsewhere, avoiding Fiora and Deven both.
He did not get lucky.
Despite Fiora’s relative lightness, Deven was running out of breath by the time he made it to the top of the winding tower stairs, made worse by going mostly sideways to keep from knocking Fiora’s head into the wall.
He was, therefore, unable to muster more than a grunt of dismay when he reached the floor holding Fiora’s study and came face to face with Andrei, who stood blocking the landing like a crossed-armed, grim-faced harbinger of doom. Deven clutched Fiora a little closer. The fact that he was carrying Fiora was probably all that was preventing Andrei from trying to shove him down the stairs.
Andrei glowered silently.
“D’you mind moving?” Deven tried for a careless grin. “I need to get him in bed.”
Andrei’s glower turned deadly. Oh, fuck. Maybe he could’ve phrased that a little better.
“What have you done to him?” That low growl raised the hairs on the back of Deven’s neck. Oh, fucking fuckingfuck. Deven wasn’t dealing with a servant, right then — he was dealing with the equivalent of an angry father. Blithe, stupid bullshit wasn’t going to fly. “You will put him down,” Andrei said, his voice eerily calm. “And then you will leave. And you will never return to this place again. And unless Lord Fiora gives me a full account of his movements tonight, with no gaps in his memory or — or injuries he cannot explain, I’ll track you down and break your neck.”
Was Andrei suggesting…? Oh, God, he was. Fiora’s clothes were a bit disheveled, his shirt untucked from his trousers and undone at the neck — not Deven’s doing, but Fiora’s, when he’d declared himself too hot and also too much of a snob, and started tugging on his own clothes and laughing.
“I haven’t touched him, Andrei, not like that,” Deven said, as serious as he’d ever been. “I can see why you’d want to kill me right now, because this looks bad, but he’s just drunk. Too much ale. I carried him back from the garden, but I havenotdone anything to him at all, you have my word. Let me carry him the rest of the way and put him to — put him on his bed,” Deven amended hastily. “You can handle trying to wrestle his boots off. Just make sure you put him on his side in case he pukes in the middle of the night.”
Andrei stared him down for a long, long moment. At last his rigid posture relaxed a trifle, and the furrow between his brows softened. “I think if Lord Fiora were conscious, he would look down his nose at you and inform you that gentlemen and dragons do not ‘puke.’” Andrei gave a long-suffering sigh. “Bring him up another floor, then. And don’t drop him.”
