Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,53

him down every night and every day. Each time Deven leaned in a little closer than he needed to, each time he smiled down at Fiora with that wicked gleam in his eyes, Fiora found it harder to pull away, to pretend not to notice, to invent some bit of conversation that wouldn’t lead where Deven seemed willing to let it lead.

If he gave in to temptation, Deven would die.

It was as simple as that.

The simplicity of it had no bearing on Fiora’s dreams, though, either the ones that came to him in sleep or the ones he couldn’t resist while still lying awake in his bed late at night. There were large, strong hands on his skin, and whispered endearments, and the terrible, nearly unbearable delight of giving himself over, of letting go. None of it was real.

Fiora wanted, that was the truth of it, and he wanted what he couldn’t have.

After-dinner strolls were a luxury Deven had never known before coming to the castle. His meals at the inn were usually taken in haste and followed by an immediate return to a never-ending list of chores.

Wandering through the rose garden, replete with an excellent roast, new potatoes, and Fiora’s fine wine — well, a man could get used to it. But thoughts of Peter, and the council, and the scale all forced themselves into his mind, shattering the peace and calm of the summer night.

Deven couldn’t afford to get used to it, and it made him ache in a bone-deep way he knew wasn’t physical at all.

Not for the first time, he imagined simply asking Fiora for the scale outright. Fiora wouldn’t want a child to suffer and die if he could prevent it. Deven knew that like he knew the sun would rise in the east. And telling him the truth would clear Deven’s conscience.

But even though he’d grown to like Fiora for his own sake — more than like, if he were being honest, which he couldn’t bear to be — Fiora would never believe it once Deven told him he’d had an ulterior motive at the beginning. Fiora would be shocked, and hurt, and he might give Deven the scale anyway — but he’d never trust Deven again. And all Deven’s promises to himself, that he’d make sure Fiora wasn’t hurt, would be broken. The thought of what Fiora’s face might look like as he learned the truth, with disbelief in those beautiful eyes and his lips turned down in misery, made Deven want to sink through the ground and disappear.

No, Deven had dug the hole far too deep to simply climb out of it now. A simple seduction, taking Fiora to bed and then using post-coital goodwill to beg the scale from him, would have been a much better plan in retrospect than actually getting to know him.

Not that Deven had had much choice, given Fiora’s stubborn avoidance of any situation that could lead to going to bed. Fiora was as elusive as a plume of his own smoke, slipping out of Deven’s metaphorical grasp every time Deven thought it might be the right moment to steal a kiss.

So digging the hole even deeper was the only viable option. He’d need to casually mention Peter, perhaps after receiving a note from his aunt. Tell Fiora that she’d told him that the little boy who used to follow Deven around while he cared for the horses was gravely ill. No hope, doctors in despair, and so on. Surely Fiora knew what his own scales could do. Perhaps he’d volunteer one of them. Deven would compound his dishonesty with manipulation and trickery, and be damned for it. But at least Fiora would never know he’d been used, which was a cold, nauseating comfort at best.

As nauseating as imagining Fiora actually doing it — wrenching one of those gleaming, polished scales from its place, leaving an ugly gap in his fluid, shining armor. Marring his own perfection for Deven’s sake.

The roast and potatoes threatened to make a reappearance, and Deven swallowed hard, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. Fiora would be joining him in the garden for a stroll any moment, having gone after dinner to write a letter with Andrei. Deven needed to be normal when he arrived.

Normal, so that he could smile and laugh and put Fiora at his ease, and hate himself more and more with every moment of it. He needed to get this over with. The sooner he did,