Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,50

clothing to Fiora’s exacting standards might appear out of nowhere. He immediately rejected the idea of the picnic blanket. It was scratchy, and even if it had been made out of silk, Fiora wouldn’t sit about wrapped in a blanket. It wouldn’t accord with his vaunted dignity.

Well, nothing about this situation was dignified. Deven looked down at himself, taking stock of what he was wearing. Trousers, drawers, shirt, neckcloth. He’d already set his coat aside, since the day was hot as blazes.

Deven made quick work of his boots and socks and neckcloth, and then stripped off his trousers and shirt. He was wearing new drawers, at least, with no tears or worn spots. They covered him to mid-thigh, and anyway, Deven was far from self-conscious. He could preserve Fiora’s modesty at the expense of his own, which was nonexistent in any case.

“I’m going to toss something for you to wear behind the tree,” Deven called. “I won’t look.”

He suited the actions to the words and then retreated to the blanket, dropping down on the edge of it cross-legged and ripping open the sandwich paper. Fuck, he was hungry. And he had to do something to take his mind off of Fiora putting Deven’s own clothes on all his lovely naked skin.

It took longer than it ought to have for Fiora to emerge, considering he was donning two items of clothing, but at last he peeped out from around the tree. He looked like some kind of wood nymph, with his hair wildly tangled, and Deven forced down a laugh. Fiora wouldn’t appreciate the humor of it.

“I look ridiculous,” Fiora complained, still half-hiding. “These clothes would fit my dragon body better than they fit me like this.”

Deven shrugged. “Roll them up, then, and come get a sandwich before I eat all of it. I hope you like ham and cheese and pickles.”

After a noticeable hesitation, Fiora gingerly picked his way out from behind the tree, setting his feet precisely with every step. It looked like he’d never gone barefoot outdoors before, at least not as a human — and perhaps he hadn’t, Deven realized. Good God, but the nobility were strange, no matter what color their skin was. Deven’s clothes were absurdly large on him, hanging down in every direction. The shirt gaped so much at Fiora’s neck that it was in danger of slipping off one slim, bony shoulder.

Deven abruptly rolled to his feet and went to retrieve the bottles from the stream, needing a moment to catch his breath. When he turned, Fiora was blushing and looking pointedly away. Deven resisted the urge to flex as many of his muscles as he could manage all at once, and hurried to sit down again, hoping it’d hide that he was still half hard. Fiora apparently ogling him when his back was turned was not helping.

Fiora carefully lowered himself to the blanket, drawing his knees up in front of him like a shield.

“Well?” Deven asked, trying for nonchalance. He didn’t feel that way. This was something Deven loved, sitting here by this stream and eating, drinking, and savoring the summer weather. If Fiora thought it was beneath him…well, it was beneath him. But Deven longed for Fiora to like it anyway. “What do you think?”

Fiora looked about him, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, his whole body seeming to relax with it. A tentative little smile spread across his lips, so sweet it made Deven ache. “It’s lovely, but I think I may need to decline the…whatever’s in those bottles.” Fiora shuddered.

“Nope,” Deven said cheerfully, popping the top off of one and holding it out. “Not allowed. This, my dear sheltered aristocrat, is what we like to call ‘the hair of the dog that bit you.’”

“Dogs tend to avoid me,” Fiora said dubiously, wrinkling his nose in bewilderment. “Please tell me there were no dogs involved in the making of that?”

Waggling the bottle in Fiora’s direction, Deven said, “I promise there weren’t, now take it. Go on!” At last Fiora reached out and took the bottle, staring at it as if it might bite him for real. “Look, you sip that, and you eat a sandwich, and you keep sipping. If it all stays down, then you’re cured.”

“That sounds like a disgusting and highly inefficient system,” Fiora muttered.

“Well, most people don’t have the luxury of sleeping all day after they tie one on,” Deven said. “So we’ve found ways to get up and get the stables mucked out