Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,43

inform you that gentlemen and dragons do not ‘puke.’” Andrei gave a long-suffering sigh. “Bring him up another floor, then. And don’t drop him.”

“I got him this far, didn’t I?” Deven grumbled, but it was in profound relief. “You’re right, he’d hate that description. But I don’t think even Fiora could throw up elegantly.”

Andrei froze for a moment, and Deven cursed himself for his slip — both of his slips. Was it worse that Andrei knew what familiar terms he was on with Fiora, or worse than he’d all but said he thought Fiora was beautiful?

“Lord Fiora likes to present himself well,” Andrei said quellingly, and Deven kept his mouth shut the rest of the way up to Fiora’s bedroom.

It was surprisingly difficult to put Fiora down, even though his arms had started to ache from the strain of holding him against Deven’s chest for so long. It was as if Fiora belonged there, stuck to Deven, and releasing him onto the smooth silken coverlet of the bed felt like losing a part of his body.

Deven stood back awkwardly, trying not to stare around him at Fiora’s private domain, with its scattered books and old tapestries and heavy, comfortable, well-worn furniture. It was better than staring at Fiora, though, who lay sprawled across the huge four-poster bed with his limbs akimbo and his hair fanned out around him, a seductive picture if there ever was one.

Deven swallowed hard and turned away to find Andrei looking at him in a way he couldn’t interpret. It wasn’t happy, whatever it was.

Andrei opened his mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. He cleared his throat. “You’ve done more than enough, Mr. Clifton,” he said, and Deven knew that wasn’t what he’d been about to say. What was Andrei holding back? “Go to bed. You look like you’ve also imbibed sufficiently for one night.”

Despite it all, relief washed through him. “You’re not going to demand that I leave after all, then?”

Andrei eyed Fiora with a mix of exasperation and fondness, and then looked back to Deven — and the fondness vanished. “I believe you that you didn’t take advantage of him. In fact, given that you’re not ail—” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat again, more loudly. Deven raised his eyebrows. What now? “Ahem. I have my own reasons for believing you’re telling the truth, now that I think about it. Lord Fiora can decide in the morning if your actions warrant an end to his hospitality.”

Well, that wasn’t terribly encouraging. Deven’s heart sank. What would Fiora think, when he woke up with a raging hangover and remembered making a fool of himself, as he’d no doubt interpret his own behavior? Would he feel that Deven had taken advantage of him? Not in a sexual way, of course, but by persuading and manipulating him into lowering his inhibitions and acting wildly out of character?

It wasn’t a happy thought, and it left a cold lump of misery and anxiety in Deven’s stomach.

He nodded to Andrei in acknowledgement and left the room, sneaking one last look at Fiora as he shut the door softly behind him.

Deven was in his own room and halfway ready for bed before he realized he hadn’t even spared a thought for what it might do to his plans if Fiora threw him out of the castle, focusing only on whether or not Fiora would see him again, and if he would be allowed to see Fiora.

In spite of the ale and of how physically exhausted he was, after spending a day and night carrying first a bag of rabbits and then an unconscious dragon all over the place, Deven lay awake long into the night, staring at the shifting shadows cast on the ceiling by the clouds passing across the moon.

Dragons did not get hangovers. Hangovers were common, and dragons were doubly the opposite of that, being both uncommon and aristocratic.

Fiora groaned, rolling over and trying to move his tongue, which seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth with some sort of vile-tasting glue. His head throbbed. Perhaps dragons were only able to get common hangovers from something as common as strong ale.

Or perhaps Fiora had simply never had so much to drink. One glass of wine or brandy was typically his limit. When he’d overindulged in brandy the week before, after his disastrous walk with Deven, he’d stayed up most of the night anyway, and he’d been sober before he went to bed. Although the fuzziness