Red Heir - Lisa Henry Page 0,81

tonight? The innocent pageboy? The one-armed farrier? No, wait!” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe we could have a washerwoman’s delight.”

Benji suddenly stood up, a waterfall of silverware tumbling from his sleeves. He picked up a knife and banged it against a glass. The low roar of conversation in the hall slowly died down.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, humans!” Benji announced. “The king and the king are retiring now, before they start fucking at the table with stupid made-up sex positions that don’t even really exist. But mine and Calarian’s do. Thank you, and good night!”

“Well,” Loth said in the sudden stunned silence from the entire great hall. “Yes. Goodnight.”

He bolted from the great hall, dragging a red-faced Quinn behind him.

“At least we got out before Dave started singing,” Loth said a little later, unfastening the laces on his doublet.

He liked to think that whatever Quinn said was in agreement, but it was hard to tell when his face was buried in his hands like that and his shoulders hadn’t stopped shaking since they’d arrived in their bedroom and he’d sunk down onto the couch by the window.

“Please tell me you’re laughing and not crying.”

Quinn snorted and raised his face. “I’m laughing.”

“Oh, thank the gods. I was worried you had buyer’s remorse. Or marrier’s remorse. Some sort of remorse, anyway. Of course, you’d have to be mad to regret marrying this.” Loth tugged his shirt over his head to demonstrate just what a catch he was, but the effect was somewhat spoiled when the cloth got caught on his crown.

Quinn dragged himself to his feet, still letting out little huffs of laughter, and walked over, removing the shirt and then the crown, setting it to one side. Quinn then lifted his own crown off, and Pie climbed out of his mess of red curls, chirruping happily. Quinn carried him gently over to the window, cooing and making nonsense noises. It was adorable, and it made Loth wonder if he could get nonsense sounds out of Quinn later as well. It normally wasn’t hard—ha!—to reduce him to a babbling wreck.

There was a faint glow coming from the southern tower: the solarium. The fireplace there was constantly tended ever since Dave had claimed it as a dragon hatchery, and there was currently a bunch of eggs nestled in the embers, waiting to hatch.

Quinn stroked Pie down his spine, causing him to let out an excited trill and a puff of smoke, and then Pie sailed out of the window, catching an updraft and gliding in the direction of the solarium.

Loth approached and stood behind Quinn, his arms laced around him. Together, they watched Pie dive and swoop toward the solarium, until he was too far away to see and was swallowed up in the darkness. They could still hear his happy trills and chirps though. Loth nuzzled the back of Quinn’s neck and slid one hand up the front of his tunic. Quinn sighed softly, and Loth smiled to himself. Quinn was so easy for him.

Of course, it went both ways.

He was just in the process of laying kisses up Quinn’s nape when Quinn pulled away with a frown. “I forgot. We need more oil—we used the last of it last night, remember? I’ll go get more.” And then he was gone, out the door before Loth could object.

Loth sighed. He’d had plans involving what he liked to call the Slow Roll, urgent plans, and now Quinn was making him wait, even if it was for a good reason.

Ah well. He’d undress, he decided, and then Quinn would walk in to find a naked vision waiting in his bed and it would be like a wedding present—after all, Loth’s dick was a gift, even if he said so himself. Loth went to slip his trousers off, but in his slightly tipsy haste he forgot about his boots. The trousers got caught up, and he was left standing there trapped in a tangled mess of boot leather and cloth.

Well. There had been an awful lot of wine.

Loth sighed and plonked himself down on the floor, trying to get free of his boots, but unable to figure out quite how laces worked. So when Quinn dashed back in the door saying, “Right, I got the big bottle, so we can—”

He was greeted by the sight of Loth sitting there morosely, trapped by his pants and unable to get up.

Loth cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “I suppose you’re wondering how I got into this mess.”

Quinn snorted.