Page 35 of Deven and the Dragon
Ah. Self-consciousness the morning after — hardly the first time Deven had run into that. Deven swallowed a laugh, knowing it’d be taken entirely the wrong way. Fiora wouldn’t understand that the very idea of his ass being anything less than deliciously perfect was absurd.
Deven propped himself up so he could nuzzle into Fiora’s cheek. “I love your ass,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t change a thing.”
He curled his hand around Fiora’s hip, adjacent but not quite in the offending spot, hoping Fiora would relax enough for him to sneak up on it again.
Abruptly, Fiora gasped, coughed, and sat up straight, dislodging Deven completely.
“Fi? What’s wrong?” He couldn’t possibly have been dreaming about over-familiar chickens too.
“Nothing,” Fiora choked out, coughing again. And then, “Fi?”
“Sorry, it slipped out. You don’t sound like nothing’s wrong. Can dragons catch colds?” Deven sat up and tried to peer into Fiora’s face; he turned away, covering his mouth with his hand.
“I’m fine,” Fiora said through his fingers. “I’ll be right ba—” Another cough interrupted him, and he rolled out of bed, disappearing into the bath and shutting the door behind him.
Deven stared after him, frowning. Coughing at least didn’t seem like a symptom of Deven having been too rough the night before, so that was something…but Fiora was a dragon. Did dragons even suffer from normal human ailments? Fiora’d been so indignant at the suggestion that he might have a cold a few weeks before, as if it cast aspersions on his character. Were human diseases considered shameful among dragons?
Deven strained his ears, but he didn’t hear anything from the bath. No more coughing — or Fiora was being very quiet. They were hardly at a point where Deven could open the door and barge in. He’d hesitate to do that even if they were lovers of long standing.
At last the door opened. Fiora stepped out wearing a dressing gown, which made Deven smile, after their activities of the night before. Fiora looked a little pale; was he actually pale, or was it just an effect of the grayish early-morning light? It was overcast outside, looked like. The summer rains were coming.
“Sorry,” Fiora said with a little half-smile and a shrug. “My throat was so dry.”
He didn’t sound quite right, and that cough hadn’t been the slight hack that came with waking up dry-mouthed. But Deven let it go. If dragons were overly sensitive about admitting weakness, then he’d let Fiora have his pride, and just make sure they didn’t get caught out in the rain later on.
“Then come back to bed,” Deven said, and threw back the coverlet to his feet.
“Awfully presumptuous of you, isn’t it? Inviting me into my own bed?” But Fiora was smiling, and toying with the tie of his dressing gown, and a flush had appeared on his cheeks to chase away that worrisome pallor.
“Very. And I’m going to presume a hell of a lot more, if you get over here already.”
Fiora climbed back onto the bed, still in the dressing gown, and there was a lot of laughter and not a few moans as Deven took his time stripping it off again.
“My lord,” Andreisaid, and Fiora started out of his dreamy contemplation of the rose, which he’d moved to his desk in the study. By Andrei’s tone and his frown, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get Fiora’s attention.
“Forgive me, Andrei.” That bothersome tickle started again in Fiora’s throat as he spoke. It hadn’t gone away no matter how much tea Fiora sipped, or how many times he cleared his throat. He was sure it was simply a mild cold, or perhaps a reaction to all the pollen he must have inhaled while rambling the countryside with Deven. It had to be, the anxious clenching in his stomach notwithstanding. Deven had been loving that morning, hadn’t he? “I was preoccupied.”
Andrei sighed deeply and moved further into the study, looking at Fiora with an expression akin to a brewing thunderstorm. “I can see that, my lord,” he said mildly. Too mildly. Fiora braced himself. “Are you, perhaps, preoccupied with whatever it was you did while spending the night and all morning locked in your bedchamber with Mr. Clifton? Or preoccupied with the fact that he has left the castle to go to town immediately afterwards?”
Fiora froze in his chair. Oh, God, this was going to be brutal. He’d hoped they’d avoided Andrei’s scrutiny. And now Andrei knew…oh,God.
“Or perhaps,” Andrei said, stalking to the desk and staring down at Fiora, his face going red and his eyes flashing fire to rival any dragon’s, “you are preoccupied with the fact that you havethrown your own life awayfor a…a night of being that slut’s latest conquest!”
“He isn’t a slut!” Fiora cried. “And even if he is, what does it matter? There’s no shame in taking pleasure where it’s freely offer—”
“There’s shame in taking pleasure where it means the end of your life, my lord!” Andrei shouted. “There’s shame in caring so little for others that he’d rather fuck than let you live!”
“He doesn’t know, Andrei. He doesn’t know, and it’s not his fault —”
“Then you should have told him. Fiora, damn it all,” Andrei groaned, turning away. His shoulders hunched. No, no, Andrei didn’t weep, he never did, and Fiora’s chest went tight with grief. He had never wanted to hurt Andrei, who’d loved him like another parent for twenty years. “How could you?”
“I love him,” Fiora whispered, feeling small and pitiful, like the little boy he’d been when Andrei first came to his parents’ castle as Fiora’s tutor. Andrei had knelt down to put himself at eye level, and smiled, and offered Fiora a beautifully illustrated book about owls he’d brought as a gift for his new student. Fiora still had it, in pride of place alone on a shelf in his hoard. And then, even softer, Fiora said, “I love him. I’m — I’m sorry.”
After a long moment, Andrei reached up — probably wiping his eyes, and the gesture made Fiora sick with misery — and turned. His eyes were red and water clung to his lashes. “What will I tell your parents? They trusted me to watch over you — Fiora, my dear boy. There must be some way out of this. I can’t bear it if there isn’t.”
“Maybe he’ll fall in love with me,” Fiora said, and wished he hadn’t. Voicing his pathetic hopes made them seem all the more absurdly thin. “I’m not completely unlovable, am I? He seemed to —” Fiora felt his face getting hot, and broke off, biting his lip.
“Any man you were kind enough to favor would be a fool not to love you,” Andrei said, with such conviction that it nearly broke Fiora’s heart all over again. “Only — my lord, I’m very much afraid that heisa fool, and that he’s not worthy enough of you to realize how very lucky he is to be given such a gift.”
