Elf Defence (Adventures in Aguillon #2) - Lisa Henry Page 0,68

Lars’s chest listening to his heartbeat exactly the way he’d imagined when he’d been on the gallows. It was just as perfect as he’d thought it would be.

But he was new to this cuddling thing and it soon got boring, and besides, he hadn’t fucked anyone for more than a day. So after what must have been at least ten minutes of being naked and nobody putting their dick anywhere near anyone else, he decided that enough was enough. He ground his arse back against Calarian’s dick and said, “So, somebody mentioned doing the goat thing?”

Lars’s chest vibrated with laughter. He rolled them so that Benji was straddling him and grinned up at him, and Benji grinned back. Feelings might be better than sex, but sex was still awesome.

Chapter Seventeen

Calarian’s back and shoulders ached. He and Benji were into their second week of community service. Their first week had been in the stables, which had been bad enough, but this was much, much worse.

They could have been working at the bakery right now, he thought wistfully. But no, Benji had to go and spoil it and get them kicked out. It wasn’t even that he’d added little icing dicks to half the gingerbread men, and in the spirit of equality given the other half boobs. It was the fact that he ate more than he produced. When he’d tried to smuggle an entire slab of gingerbread out down the front of his pants it had been the last straw, with the Master Baker demanding the council find them somewhere else to serve out their hours.

Which was why they were now lifting stones in the town square so that the ruined fountain could properly be removed and repaired or replaced. It was hard, heavy work. It was also slippery as fuck, because it turned out that the stones around a fountain could build up centuries worth of moss and mould. And to add insult to injury, nobody knew how to turn the water off, so it just kept dribbling out of its busted pipe, refilling the shallow pond around the plinth.

And what should have been a three day job at most had already stretched out into five, because everyone in Tournel who passed through the town square—and that was everyone in Tournel—liked to stop for a little chat. Or a big one, depending on the time of day.

“You’ve got that face on again,” Benji said as they used a crowbar to attempt to lever a slippery stone out of position. “It could be worse, you know.”

“How could it be worse?” Calarian said with a sigh.

Benji blinked over at the gallows, which still hadn’t been taken down.

“Oh,” said Calarian, and felt a stab of guilt. “That’s a very good point.”

“You don’t think they’re going to ask us to make a new fountain, do you?” Benji asked curiously. “Because I’ve only ever destroyed public property. I’ve never had to build it before.”

“I don’t think so,” Calarian said. “That seems like the sort of thing you’d hire a professional for.”

Benji hummed thoughtfully. “I hope you’re right. I was never very good at art.”

They paused in their work as a group of guards marched across the square with the commander at their lead. Jakob, running to catch them up, waved at Calarian and Benji.

“Can’t stop and chat,” he called, puffing for breath. “The goose has escaped again!”

By the afternoon Calarian and Benji had managed to remove enough of the stones around the base of the fountain that they could work on trying to remove the busted statue itself.

“What do you think it was?” Benji asked as they splashed around in the pond, water up to their shins. “A bird? I think this was a beak.”

“I think it’s a claw,” Calarian said. “Maybe a lion? It’s hard to tell.”

“A griffin then,” Benji decided, and flashed him a proud grin. “This compromising thing is fun once you get the hang of it.”

Calarian heard the clatter of horses’ hooves before he saw the riders, and then a group of men in bright uniforms rounded the curve at the bottom of the main road that led into Tournel, and their horses began to clop up the slope toward the square. Calarian’s jaw dropped, because it wasn’t the Tournel guard at all. These were soldiers from Callier. And, in their midst, Calarian caught sight of not one but two heads of red hair.

He elbowed Benji in the ribs to get his attention. Unfortunately Benji misinterpreted the gesture, thought he was