Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,42

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 to kill him. 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 fucking fuck. 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 have not done 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