Page 31 of A Suitable Brat
Westin tore his attention away to look up athishusband, ignoring the shocked though very fashionable Balylithan who was regarding Sun with either horror or irritated desire.Possibly both.He tried to lighten his tone.“Are you worried?”
Sun gave him a look.“You’re worried, so I am worried.How did they even hear of you anyway?There are no songs aboutyouleaving your noble family to join the Outguard.”He grumbled that, as he had grumbled it since hearing the first song about young Arden.Stolen valor, he called it, as though Arden had written the songs himself.
“Probably from someone else in the guard,” Westin guessed.“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.It puts you smack in the middle of all this.”
“Us,” Westin corrected him, smiling for no logical reason.
Sun huffed.“Youmeans me.You’re mine.You know this, West.”
“I do.”Westin smiled a little wider, then pulled Sun’s hand to his mouth so that he could kiss the inside of his wrist and enjoy the warmed-violet scent that never really left Sun now.“No amount of pouting beat-of-fours could ever rival you and the trouble you stir up.”
“They’ll try,” Sun promised, veering close to a growl again.He lowered his voice and was frowning when he bent his head to speak.“If every single one of these noble families is to be appeased by being allowed to contribute to this shitshow, it will be chaos.”
Westin nodded.Sun’s opinions on such things were rarely wrong.Sun had been with him through each negotiation over the past decades, whether they were to protect the people on Corilyeth lands or to establish peace elsewhere, and he had always been good at determining what others wanted.
Sun lowered his voice even more.“If anyone is going to try again to take the throne, they will do it soon.Probably in the midst of all that chaos while the besotted king and his first consort are distracted.”
Westin nodded again, slower.“I suspect the king and his husband are aware of this.I’d be very surprised if they weren’t.”
“But the nobles want a showy end to the fighting, and a showy new beginning, and their chance to push themselves into favor, so a large, public wedding it must be.”Sun wrinkled his nose.“Our wedding was better.”
“I don’t think the people would like the idea of the king hand-fasting to an Arlylian in a curtained booth in Solace House.”Westin was surprised his tone stayed mild, but then, the warmed-violet scent of Sun was nearly guaranteed to soothe him.“Though Solace House would love the business.”
“You think you’re funny,” Sun complained.“Fuck you.”
He got another horrified yet admiring glance from the Balylithan.
“Brat,” Westin declared with fondness, perhaps drawing some eyes to him as well.But he kept his serious question for the two of them alone.“We can leave.I am not obligated to be here.”
“Andnotknow what’s going on?”Sun was outraged.“Leaving it to these people to keep the peace?”His disdain was obvious.“They fuck it up and we’ve got another twenty years of struggling to look forward to.”
“Ah.”Westin kissed the inside of Sun’s wrist again.“So you don’t care about the particulars, only the results?I could send you out, give you some coin to go shopping so you won’t be bored by all this.”
“Fuck you,” Sun said again, and without any concern for dignity—his or Westin’s—squeezed around the table and plopped onto Westin’s lap.
There was a stir throughout the room; many nobles might fuck a sworn guard but few married them.And the ones that did likely did not sit this way during important meetings.Westin focused on pulling Sun against his chest to try to force an impudent wolfling to be still, and enjoyed the silky texture of Sun’s hair as he nuzzled it shamelessly.Sun had two knives Westin could feel: one beneath his shirt and vest, another in a sleeve.
“Bored?”Sun challenged.“You think I’ll be bored?I won’t be able to take my eyes off you.”He dropped his voice to a whisper.“They’ll come for you too, you know, if they think it will help.They always do when you do this, and the stakes are higher now.”
So Sun was already prepared.There were probably more knives Westin hadn’t yet found.
Westin raised his head, unsurprised to find many staring at them, including the three by the window.The little Arlylian had bright, curious eyes.
“The two of us,” Westin whispered back, his gaze meeting the king’s again, “against everyone in this room but those three.”He hesitated before adding, “And those two.”He carefully lifted his fingers to gesture toward Jola of the Canamorra and Cael of the Rossick.“And possibly that Master Keeper in the corner if librarians are as loyal to each other as outguards are.”Sun wriggled, perhaps objecting, perhaps just wanting to feel Westin’s cock twitch.“That’s why he chose us, because we’re former outguards, or perhaps because of the reputation the Corilyeth have earned these twenty years.Or perhaps because he knows he’s not the first beat-of-four to marry an outguard and he is counting on us for help.”
Sun abruptly settled.“You think he knows that?”
Westin spoke against Sun’s ear and all the pretty cuffs Westin had personally put there that morning.“I think he knows that.”The how didn’t matter, at least not for the moment, although Westin almost glanced back to Jola and Cael and their quiet, intimate conversation.“I believe he wants peace, and he wants his Arlylian, but if it comes down to it… well.I understand what he might choose.His bear of a husband would choose the same.I’d count on that.But he prefers the first option.That’s why I’m here.Oh.”Westin considered that again.“That’s exactly why I’m here.An outsider but a noble.An outguard in a pairing of love, with years of experience serving as judge to other beat-of-fours.”
“He could have just said so,” Sun nearly moaned it, definitely wriggling to try to get Westin hard, grinding his hips in front of every important beat-of-four in the country.Though admittedly, only a few of them seemed scandalized.
“Wouldyouhave?”Westin asked the back of Sun’s head, nosing at the cuffed shell of one ear.“Would you even say such a thing to me now, wolfling?”
“The king is not a…” Sun stopped, thinking the idea through.“You think he’s like me.”His voice was impossible to read.
“If his life was even a fraction of what the songs about him say,” Westin admitted.“Then yes, he is like you.”Slow to trust and open to only a handful of people.“So what do you think?You were better at spotting what people want long before Hely improved your skills with lessons.”
