shoulders and threw an encouraging smile at Lars. “So, like water running downhill, remember? If we can get the trolls through the gates, we’re going to need to figure out how to get them around all the buildings inside, or it’ll be a total disaster. Please tell me the main road runs straight from the front gate all the way through to the other side?”
“Not straight, but it follows the easiest path,” Lars said, once again demonstrating his quick grasp on the situation. “Most of the streets in town were cow paths once, and cows always take the easiest route as well.”
“You know a lot about cows, don’t you?”
Lars flushed even pinker and ducked his head. “Cows make sense. And they’re nice to me.”
Calarian blinked. He had no idea how to even begin to unpack that; he just felt a swelling of low-boiling anger at the implication that some people hadn’t been nice to Lars in the past. He sort of wanted to get a list of their names and then spend years tracking them down in revenge, and possibly strangling them with their own intestines. The fantasy of a bloodthirsty revenge spree was an oddly over-the-top response to Lars’s throwaway comment. Maybe Benji had rubbed off on him. Well, Benji had definitely rubbed off on him, but maybe not just physically. Calarian had only met Lars a few hours ago. And while it was perfectly normal to want to fuck someone a few hours after meeting them—in elven circles, a few hours was incredibly restrained—Calarian wasn’t sure what to do with these strange accompanying protective feelings that were piggybacking on his lust.
“I guess cows are okay,” he said at last, tentatively, and Lars flashed him a smile that brightened the world like a burst of sunshine through the clouds. Calarian’s heart skipped a beat, which was weird. He hadn’t felt this excited since he’d got his first twenty-sided dice.
Lars’s smile dimmed, but his bright gaze didn’t. His perfectly white teeth bit into his lower lip, and then he ducked his head and looked away, and Calarian felt a sudden pang of loss that he was sure could be fixed if he just swept Lars’s feet out from underneath him, followed him down onto the dirt, straddled him, and rode his dick like a knight on horseback. The dead mountain troll might ruin the atmosphere just a tad—it probably hadn’t smelled nice even when it was alive—but Calarian was fairly sure he could ignore it. Hell, he’d banged Benji on a charcoal bed in the Swamp of Death and it hadn’t slowed him down any.
Speaking of Benji, Calarian looked over to see him scowling and dragging his toe through the trail of troll dirt, hands stuffed into his pockets. Calarian really didn’t know what his problem was. It wasn’t like he’d care if Calarian found Lars fuckable—theirs was a strictly Elves With Benefits arrangement, Benji had said so himself often enough. Maybe he was jealous of Lars’s good looks and muscles, Calarian mused. Whatever it was, a good fuck would probably fix it. It usually did, with Benji.
Calarian put away thoughts of fucking the salt out of Benji to one side for now though, because they had a dead troll to deal with, and Lars probably needed his help. And even if he didn’t, Calarian had a sudden weird desire to show Lars his strategic skills, among other things. Calarian hadn't ever felt the need to impress anyone before, but he was certain it couldn’t be that difficult—he was an elf, after all, and therefore naturally impressive.
He dug desperately through his brain for a way to carry on the conversation, and more importantly, to make Lars smile at him again. “I’m a vegetarian,” he said. “I don’t believe in eating cows.”
It was the right thing to say.
“Me too!” Lars exclaimed, and that sunrise smile was back, impossibly bright. Calarian felt an absurd burst of pride at having caused it. “I don’t believe in animal cruelty. I tan my own leather from the hides of animals who have died of natural causes,” Lars added, running a hand down the leg of his shorts where the leather was stretched taut over his muscled thigh in a most distracting manner. All Calarian could think of for a moment was peeling Lars out of said shorts. He wondered if Lars’s dick was proportional. It was a fascinating thought.
He let his gaze linger, just because Lars was so very nice to look at, and he