Page 8 of Deven and the Dragon
His duties? What bloody duties did Fiora have for an unwanted — or, more honestly, unasked-for — tribute? A few possible duties Fiora could assign flickered through his mind, and his mood fell a little further.Notpossible duties. Sucking Fiora’s cock was impossible, given Fiora’s thrice-damned limitations. And Deven wouldn’t want to, anyway.
The councilors had begun to bow and shuffle away as quickly as they could while going respectfully backwards, and Andrei was calling something after them. The words were along the lines of “So glad to see you, thank you so much,” while his tone said, “Go fuck yourselves.” There was a reason Fiora paid him so well.
A soft breeze brushed past, caressing Fiora’s tail and ears. It ruffled Deven’s mass of golden-brown hair so that it looked like someone had been running his fingers through it. Ugh. It wasn’tfair.
Andrei stood quietly and at his ease until the councilors had made their way to the turn in the drive, almost out of eyeshot and well out of hearing, only holding up one finger to bid Deven wait when he opened his mouth to speak.
“Well, here we are,” Andrei said at last. “Mr. Clifton. Welcome. His Excellency’s not going to eat you, by the way, just in case you had any concerns in that direction.”
Deven laughed, a low, musical chuckle that would have had the hair on the back of Fiora’s neck standing on end in his other form. As it was, his scales vibrated in a way that was just on the edge of pleasant.
“Well, I’ll admit it’d crossed my mind,” Deven said, his voice as low as his laugh. Smooth, and soothing, like brandy on a cold night. “But someone who likes southern wines as much as His Excellency does, going by what you all buy down in town — well, his palate’s probably too refined for the likes of me, wouldn’t you say? And anyway, I don’t think that vintage would complement my flavor, such as it is.”
The grin that went with that was like looking into the sun, and Fiora blinked, then blinked again. When he opened his eyes,Andreiwas grinning too. Andrei, unexpressive, reserved fucking Andrei —grinning. Like anidiot. Yes, that smile was so infectious even his dragon’s jaws were aching with the need to match it, but…but oh, God. If Deven could charm even Andrei within seconds, what would he do to Fiora, after days, weeks, months of being trapped in the castle with him?
Oh, God. This was adisaster.
Chapter Four
Making a jokeabout His Excellency the dragon eating him accompanied by a southern wine probably wasn’t Deven’s most tactful moment, even in a life markedly free from tact. But the dragon’s steward or whoever he was had the kindness to smile about it, and the dragon himself didn’t look angry. No — if anything, he looked glum.
And that was far from an expression Deven had ever thought to see in a dragon — if Deven were even capable of interpreting a dragon’s expressions, which was doubtful. But the dragon had his neck bent down, and something in the set of his blue-black wings and the lines of his subtly iridescent body suggested unhappiness. And those eyes. Those glorious, extraordinary eyes, black and gold and deep enough to drown a man in. That was sadness in those eyes, wasn’t it? Deven would have staked his life on it.
And he very literally would be staking his life on it, if he stood there cracking jokes about being eaten when the dragon wasn’t in the mood for humor.
Deven was trying not to stare, he really was, but when he’d first sighted the dragon circling high above, a spiky dark silhouette against the pale-blue sky, that was it. He couldn’t have looked anywhere else for all the silk in Barclay’s warehouse.
He forced himself to look at the steward, because staring at a dragon had to be rude. And anyway, the dragon wasn’t speaking; the steward was.
“You’re very welcome to sample some of those wines, if you like, Mr. Clifton,” he was saying. “We will be very happy to welcome you as an honored guest.”
An honored guest, in this towering pile of a castle, with its turrets and crenellations and wide, gleaming windows? It was far above Deven’s station in life, leaving the dragon owner totally aside.
Not to mention far, far more than he deserved, given his reason for being there in the first place. Not for the first time since agreeing to take on this task, guilt roiled in his belly. These people — well, person and dragon, and did dragons consider themselves people? — were figuratively opening their arms to him, and he was here to lie and bloody wellseduce. The dragon’s scales shimmered in the sunlight like polished river stones, impossibly beautiful and rich. How dare he try to claim one? Even for Peter.
“I’m the one who’s honored,” he said, his throat tight. “Even if the circumstances are a little odd.”
“Hmm,” the steward said, nodding along and smiling a little, as if Deven were a student who’d passed his exam. As tall and thin and bald as he was, he somewhat resembled a plucked heron. Deven would keep that observation to himself. “They are indeed. Forgive me, I haven’t introduced myself. You may call me Andrei. Let’s go inside and I’ll show you to your room and allow you to refresh yourself after your walk up the hill.”
Andrei gestured courteously toward the front door, set up a flight of marble steps from the drive. Deven sneaked a glance at the dragon. He was sitting quite still, simply watching. Was he going to come in for lunch? Would his scales scrape the polished carvings on the door if he tried to squeeze through, or did he have his own more suitable entrance somewhere else? Would he change into human form for lunch, or was there a massive table meant for dragons somewhere about the place?
With one last look at His Excellency the melancholy dragon, Deven reluctantly followed Andrei up the steps and into the castle.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the cool dimness beyond the door after so long in the direct early-summer sunlight. When they did, he beheld precisely what he would have expected from any lord’s residence: a front hall floored in gray marble, hung with oil paintings, and bare of much besides two little tables off to each side bearing a vase of yellow roses and a silver tray, respectively.
Had he been hoping for piles of gold, or heaps of rotting bones, for God’s sake? No, of course not — but he couldn’t help a twinge of disappointment at how ordinary it was. Elegant and rich beyond anything Deven was familiar with, of course. But ordinary for all that. The kind of place housemaids would dust early in the morning, and where visitors could doff their hats and leave their cards.
If a brave knight stormed the castle thinking to slay a beast, being asked to leave his helmet in the hall and step into the drawing room might take the wind out of his sails. Deven hid a snicker.
“We’ve prepared a room for you in the east wing,” Andrei said. “It has its own bath, and I hope you will be comfortable there.” He moved on down the hall, making for a staircase near the back of it. “You don’t seem to have brought any luggage. Will your clothes be delivered later?”
“I can send for some,” Deven said. “I mean, if you don’t mind having someone jaunt down the hill with a note for my aunt. Or I can just go down and pack things up myself, and be back before sundown.”
“No, no, I’ll send a lad for your things, not to worry.” Andrei cleared his throat. They’d reached the stairs, and were ascending side by side. Deven had never seen a staircase so broad. Maybe the dragon used it after all, although he didn’t see any claw marks. Maybe the maids buffed them out every night. What a bloody job, all these hundreds of stairs! Deven had enough to do when Phina set him the task of mending the boards in the inn’s staircase, and that was a tiny fraction of this. “Did your town council not believe you would need extra clothing, or…?”
They thought it was fifty-fifty I’d be snarfled like a biscuit before I got in the door.Deven opened his mouth and quickly snapped it shut again. No jokes about being eaten, that was a rule he was determined to follow from now on.
“I think the council wasn’t sure if it’d look presumptuous, showing up with a trunk of stuff like I meant to stay forever,” he lied smoothly.
