Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,81
were false? I mean, they lied to you as well?”
“Yes,” Deven said grimly. “Holling wanted the scale for himself. He’s the one who’s sick, and he’s brought it on himself, if you ask me. He made up that story about Peter to get me sympathetic enough to go get it for him. Luckily I can’t stand him and don’t trust him, so I went to give it to Peter’s parents directly. And they had no fucking clue what I was on about.”
“So you didn’t need it after all.”
Fiora felt rather ill. Removing a scale wasn’t easy, and it hurt. And losing it, no matter how much a dragon was willing to do so, permanently reduced that dragon’s magic. Knowing that some random people had possession of something he had so painfully extracted from his own body for the sake of someone he loved was — well, it was horrid.
“I’m so sorry,” Deven said. “You don’t know — Fi, sending me that scale was the kindest, the most generous thing you could possibly have done. You did it even though you probably hated me at the time. And it made me sick when I found out you’d done it for nothing. That was why I came up to the castle yesterday. To bring it back to you, so you could at least know it wasn’t in the hands of someone who didn’t deserve it.”
“You kept it?” Fiora looked up at him. “Really?”
“Is that a joke? I’d have given it to Peter gladly, because he’s a little kid and if anyone could deserve it, it’d be him. But of course I kept it.” Deven slipped a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the same little box Fiora had placed his scale in himself. “It’s part of you. It’s the most precious thing anyone’s ever given me.”
“Well, I can’t put it back,” Fiora said, and then cursed himself as Deven’s face fell. “Which is all right, really,” he hastened to add. “We’ll keep it for — um, for later.”
Deven looked at him curiously, his eyebrows raised, but Fiora kept his mouth shut. After seeing Fiora nearly die, and his upset over the injury it’d done to Fiora to remove the scale…well, better to tell Deven later, much later, that this would be the first of many scales Fiora would remove for Deven’s sake. A dragon’s life was long, and a human’s lasted perhaps only a fifth as many years. Scales could cure illness, yes, but they could also extend a human’s youth and life by centuries. Long enough for Deven and Fiora to grow old together, at any rate.
For obvious reasons, that wasn’t something most people knew. It wasn’t even in legends, since only humans mated to dragons ever learned about it. Fiora would tell Deven and pray he wanted to spend the next several hundred years by Fiora’s side.
But later. Much, much later. Probably right after Deven had had several climaxes and a glass or three of wine.
“Can I keep it in here?” Deven asked.
“In here?” Fiora didn’t want to be hurt and offended, he didn’t…but didn’t Deven want to keep the scale somewhere he could have it near him? “I suppose. If you wish?”
“I’m sorry,” Deven said. “I don’t know nearly enough about dragons. If it’s offensive to you, for me to ask to put something in here — fuck, it probably is, isn’t it? It’s yours, not mine. I’m being a presumptuous asshole. Only — I don’t have any convenient magical rooms to hide my most precious possessions in. I’m not a dragon, but if I were — this would be my hoard, Fi. This scale, and anything else to do with you.”
He said it like he meant it, with something of a dragon’s overwhelming, possessive desire in his voice. Something that called to Fiora’s most fundamental nature, making his claws prick at his fingertips and the wild magic of his soul press to the surface, reaching for Deven.
It had never even occurred to him that he longed to be wanted, needed, possessed the way he himself kept his hoard — but he did. Oh, but he did, with a vengeance.
“Put it on a shelf. Any shelf,” Fiora said hoarsely. “Now. Quickly.”
Deven obeyed, though he looked confused, crossing the room at once to set the box on an empty shelf. He adjusted its position slightly so that it was in the exact center, and Fiora bit his lip hard enough to bruise it, his cock throbbing and his