Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,54

the sooner Peter would be well, and the sooner Deven could — he shied away from thinking of what he could do with Fiora, if Deven were free to be entirely himself. Fiora was a dragon, and a wealthy lord besides. And Deven had never been in love, never even kept to one lover for more than the time it took to get them both off, fasten up his trousers, and say something complimentary.

They could be friends, on an honest footing — once Deven’s need for dishonesty was dispensed with, at least. That would be enough, wouldn’t it?

Deven looked up from his thoughts to find his feet had carried him all the way to the bottom of the rose garden, down the hill where some of the wilder climbing roses grew over a crumbling brick retaining wall. They spilled over in a waterfall of tiny pink blooms, a riotous counterpoint to the carefully pruned bushes throughout the rest of the garden.

He circled around, following a curved path that would take him back toward the statuary garden.

A pale gleam caught his eye, and he stopped, peering into the gloom. The new moon didn’t offer much by way of visibility. But that — rose, yes, it was a rose — picked up every bit of light there was, almost looking like a piece of the moonlight itself. It wasn’t white, Deven saw as he leaned down. It was blue, the most delicate possible shade — a familiar shade, because it was a perfect match for the fine skin of Fiora’s throat. The bush only had one flower, and it glowed against the darkness of the foliage.

Deven’s heart clenched, and he reached out and carefully touched a fingertip to a petal, the way he wished he could touch Fiora. It was as soft as silk velvet.

The rose was past its prime. A few petals had fallen. It wouldn’t last too much longer, anyway. It could live out its remaining life in a vase. And one single rose, that matched Fiora’s beauty so perfectly — did Fiora even know there were roses like this in his garden?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Deven fished out his pocketknife and cut the stem with exacting care. It wouldn’t do to have a ragged stem or injure the bush by pulling the flower off too roughly.

With the rose in hand, Deven turned back toward the top of the garden.

As he came out of the hollow at the bottom of it, he saw Fiora, standing still and quiet and inhaling the fragrance of a particularly lush crimson rose that jutted out into the pathway. He was in his shirtsleeves, his hair tousled from the light breeze. Deven’s hand tightened around the stem of the rose so hard that the thorns pricked his palm and drew blood, but he hardly felt it.

“Fiora,” he said hoarsely, at a loss for any words but that.

Fiora turned, and smiled, and Deven felt something crack in his chest. He would never forgive himself for any of this. Deven was the doomed one, in spite of all Fiora’s gloomy talk of his own destiny.

“What do you have there?” Fiora asked lightly, his tone so far at odds with Deven’s mood that it scraped all his nerves raw. “Picking flowers for Mrs. Pittel again?”

“No,” Deven managed, forcing his feet to move again. “Not this time.” Several bouquets and a great deal of groveling later, Mrs. Pittel had graciously forgiven him for the rabbit debacle. But Mrs. Pittel was absolutely the last thing on Deven’s mind. “This one — it made me think of you.”

Deven held the rose out, wishing to God he’d left it growing now that he was making an ass of himself.

“For me?” Deven couldn’t define the tone of Fiora’s voice. It was almost too neutral.

He was closer now, close enough to see how quickly Fiora’s chest rose and fell under the thin linen of his shirt.

“It’s — the same lovely color as your skin, Fiora. And as soft. Both of you look like moonlight made into something real. It made me think of you,” he repeated helplessly, unable to stop making an ass of himself. Why did he feel this way? He’d whispered sweet nothings in dozens of ears, more or less sincerely as circumstances dictated, and never felt a twinge of embarrassment.

“Oh,” Fiora said, his lips parting and his eyes going wide. “Oh.” And then he fell silent, staring at the rose as if it were going to bite