Chapter Twenty-Four

The celebration in Kaladas was less raucous than Fox had expected. Although some laughter and excited cries came from behind several doors and curtains, most of the knights were simply sitting around the fireplace. They leaned on one another, speaking quietly as they shared bottles. Fox had forgotten that many of them wouldn’t see their friends here for another year, if that.

He should learn to think better of the knights, although his opinion of them was unlikely to matter to them now. Many of those around the fireplace looked over when Fox approached. Despite himself, he’d hoped to see Conall, but Conall wasn’t there and the knights who were glanced to Fox, then, almost as one, turned away from him to continue their conversations. Everyone who hadn’t been there to hear Fox’s words had clearly heard about them.

Fox lowered his head, pleased that Conall had their loyalty and respect but unwilling to risk a confrontation by speaking to them. He went silently up the stairs to Conall’s room, not entirely sure he would sleep there, but needing to change out of his clothes if he did have to sleep elsewhere. He wasn’t going to ruin his doublet and hose on the ground. After today, he might need to sell them.

He was foolishly unprepared to open the door and see Conall. He blamed the wine for how he stood staring in the doorway, not even offering a greeting.

Conall had bathed in the hours since the mock-battle but clearly was not about to dress and go downstairs to join the others. He was on the edge of the bed, barefoot and shirtless, frozen in the middle of twisting and stretching to reach a spot on his back. The bruise from the day before had darkened and spread, and other, smaller bruises had joined it. His skin gleamed as if he’d put on more of that salve, although likely not enough. Fox hoped he’d eaten and gotten some refreshing drink in him, not mostly wine as Fox had done.

“I can go.” Fox didn’t trust himself to use the right words, so he went with what had to be said. “I would just need to change into plainer clothing first.” He waited, then stepped gingerly into the room when Conall didn’t speak. “Are you…? You’re not bleeding where I can see. Byr Drashnal said—that doesn’t matter.” Fox cleared his throat, closed the door behind him, then went to the nearest of his trunks. “I won’t be in your way long.”

Conall slowly lowered his arm, turning to watch Fox instead of contorting himself to rub salve on his back.

Fox glanced to Conall and then away several times, so much that Conall surely had to notice, seeing as Conall had yet to take his eyes off him. Fox reached down to manually uncurl his tail from around his leg, something that never would have happened if he’d been sober. Fox addressed Conall as though he didn’t have the clingy tail of a scared child. “I could help you with that before I go. Or I could ask one of the others for you, if you’d rather deal with someone else.”

Conall’s short hair was wild, combed in all directions and then left to dry. His eyes were steady on Fox, the brows above them drawn together. He nodded, which was so unexpected that Fox spent another few moments staring blankly at him before getting himself together.

Fox stripped out of his doublet while abandoning his slippers, and left both on top of his trunk to shimmy from his hose. Conall watched him without speaking, undoubtedly noticing the tremor in Fox’s hands and the flush in his cheeks from the wine.

In his undershirt and a pair of short breeches, Fox took the single step toward the bed to pick up the tub of salve.

“Should I be behind you again or would you like to lie down?” He couldn’t quite meet Conall’s eyes, something humiliating for the Fox, but Fox was not particularly proud of being the Fox at the moment and deserved the humiliation.

Conall didn’t move from his spot at the edge of the bed, his legs over the side, feet on the floor, so Fox nodded and went carefully around him to climb onto the bed and kneel behind him. Conall radiated heat, as if he’d soaked for a long time in near-boiling bathwater, but it was probably from his bruises and sore muscles.

Fox put some of the salve on his fingers and then began to sweep his hands over Conall’s back before the silence could get even more terrible. “I’ll rub it in better this time so it won’t get on the bedding. The laundry people don’t need the extra work.”

Nervous nonsense that made Conall twist around as if trying to get a better look at him, so Fox put his head down and focused on gently massaging the salve into Conall’s skin. He didn’t think about the fact that this was probably the last time he would get to touch Conall. He would think that later, while sleepless on whatever patch of ground he claimed for a bed tonight. He would possibly think it many times. It felt like a memory to haunt him, like the ever-fading images of his bearer’s face, or the seconds after he’d said what he’d said about Conall that afternoon.

He took his time for that reason, keeping his touch light although a firmer hand might have soothed Conall’s aches. He didn’t want to cause more pain.

When all of Conall from his shoulders and upper arms to his lower back was shining with salve, Fox put the lid on the tub and worked on making sure none of the salve would end up on the bedding. “Do you have something for the bruises?” The question made Fox sound like someone angling to stay. He hurried on. “Or are you only concerned with the strains?”

Conall was quiet. “Bruises fade on their own.”

Fox muttered sharply at that, but not more than a mutter, because he had no right to remark on anything Conall did.

Muscles flexed beneath Fox’s hands as Conall turned to glance at him.

“Today was a success for you, I thought,” Conall said evenly, facing the door again. The rumble of his voice traveled up Fox’s arms. “Two of Domvoda’s fertiles seemed rather taken with you. They will likely not object to your continued presence at court.” He took a breath before going on. “Domvoda was pleased. You might be able to secure your place with him now, if you haven’t already.”

Fox stopped, almost frozen with his hands over Conall’s ribs and his head bowed. “I’m sorry.” He wanted to put his forehead to Conall’s shoulder but didn’t dare. “I’m so sorry. When I said that, I meant it to…”

“I know how you meant it.” Conall stayed quiet. “But you’ll understand if I don’t thank you for it.”

Fox nodded. “I should have trusted you to say the correct thing. But I didn’t want you to discard your dream simply for….”

“For what?” Conall demanded when Fox didn’t finish. “Say it.”

“For… for whatever you might feel for me at the moment. Which was presumptuous,” Fox insisted quickly. “You were hesitating, but you were probably more interested in the honor the position would bring you and it had nothing to do with me.”

“I would have stayed for you.” Conall reached behind him to take the tub of salve, manner calm despite what he was saying. “I offered it before and meant it. That’s why you knew I would do it again, even if you don’t want to believe it.”

“There is no….” Fox moved his mouth uselessly, stopping and starting again. “Conall, you…. I am just…”

“A jumped-up street musician?”

Fox stared hard at Conall’s messy hair. “Your future is more important than someone you’d get tired of before too long. Someone who is cruel,” Fox added, his momentary spark of indignation gone. “Domvoda’s creature,” he went on sadly. “A beast who bites.”

Conall pushed himself to his feet. He walked with obvious stiffness to the table by the door, where he put the salve down next to the curl of Fox’s hair tied with a dusty and crumpled ribbon. Conall picked up the favor and held it in his palm, regarding it with a somber expression.

“For a moment today after you said that, I thought you were his Fox again… again or always. Which is your choice and your right. It wouldn’t even be anything new. That’s what I told myself while I stood there. But that was a lie.”

“Conall,” Fox tried.

“I know why you said it, but for that moment….” Conall glanced over. “You did what he trained you to do. What his court taught you. You did it because I scared you.” His eyebrows drew together. “This scares you,” he added, but almost to himself, as if it had just occurred to him. “You nearly said as much.”

Fox was sure he hadn’t. “I don’t expect you to stay for me.” He had been bolder with the king. His quiet words shook now, strengthening Conall’s argument.

“You don’t know what you do to him and you certainly don’t know what you’ve done to me.” Conall nodded slowly, again seeming to speak to himself. “You gave me your favor but not to help me win; you don’t care about that. You gave it to me to protect me.”

Fox was too startled to manage even a sputter.

“Knights are prone to fantasies, to dreams and romantic thoughts. Maybe we have to be.” Conall looked at Fox. “You gave me treasure with this, Fox. I don’t think you realize. The knowledge that you care for me, even a little, grants me strength.”

He took a deep breath, then set the favor down before turning to come back. He stopped when he reached the bed.

“Fox,” Conall called Fox’s attention up from Conall’s mottled chest to his wounded eyes, “come here.”

There was not much distance between them as it was. Fox frowned to show his confusion, but stayed on his knees to shuffle closer to the edge of the bed. Once there, he gazed up at Conall, even more bewildered than before.

Conall cupped Fox’s cheek to keep him still, then spoke plainly.

“I would do anything for you, Fox. It’s time you heard that.”

A breath caught in Fox’s throat.

Conall didn’t allow Fox to pull away. He brushed his fingertips back and forth under Fox’s cheekbone, distracting and calming. “I should have mated you when you first came to court.” The air in Fox’s throat sank to his chest, a solid lump, painful against his heart. “I’d mate you now if you wanted,” Conall went on. “Are you breathing? Breathe, lovely.”

Fox pulled in a breath only to immediately choke. Conall moved his hand to Fox’s back and kept it there, steady and warm, even when Fox finally looked up again and croaked, “I’m not byr.” A stupid thing to say. Fox coughed but it did nothing for his rasping voice. “I told Domvoda that I had never once expected that he’d make me his consort or anything like it because of course he wouldn’t. I am not a byr. And then you… you say that.”

“If Domvoda wanted to, he could say that.” Conall had no mercy for anyone. “If he felt it and he desired it, it would be allowed. No matter how uncomfortable it is for them to admit it, every byr family lineage—including Domvoda’s—has wild vines in it. When you have found a mate, you keep them. Even the silliest byr knows this.”

“Yes,” Fox agreed although he had no idea what he was saying, “but they don’t…”

“Marry them?” Conall finished for him, serious and almost biting, and yet his raised eyebrows implied some amusement. “The passion songs say otherwise. They say the truth. I thought you would have seen that by now. The byr don’t like to acknowledge a love that will exist regardless of rank or noble families, but they know they tales are true. Everyone knows they’re true… except you, I think. Did you never stay in one place long enough to find out how the love stories go on after feelings are shared?”

“Nobody wanted me to stay that long.” Fox rubbed his chest but the lump remained to dig into his pounding heart. “Musicians are no good for the day-to-day. We’re there to entertain for a feast or a wedding. Then we leave.” Conall’s frown made him hesitate. “Conall, we barely know each other.”

“Domvoda barely knows the ones he is considering signing treaties for.” Conall parried that point easily, giving Fox such a stare that Fox could only gaze back at him and struggle to breathe. “Farmers marry those they’ve met over the course of one fair week when they’ve felt a mating. Because they know. Love does well. Affection and respect do well. Calculated arrangements can even result in a happy breeding. But a mating is something else. Everyone knows that, Fox. Did you really believe no one could ever meet you and feel it?”

“Conall.” Fox put what strength he had into the name. He might as well have been Byr Shine facing Conall in a ring. No, not even Byr Shine. He might as well have been Byr Din. Conall destroyed him without even raising his voice.

“The moment I saw you.” He almost sighed it. “Scrawny and young, about to be eaten alive by the byr around you—or so I thought. Lively and full of feeling because you hadn’t learned to hide it as well yet.” Conall stared at Fox for another second, then over Fox’s head as he relived the memory. “You met the king and he demanded you play. You were… captivating. Your voice, your presence. You were already responding to the crowd, learning what they wanted and using it to woo them into admitting your skill. They were surprised and furious, which made you grin to yourself. You cracked jokes, rougher than they were used to, more direct, but correct and sharp and quick. And you were beautiful.”

Conall met Fox’s eyes again, his brows drawn together. “Then I saw how he looked at you. And how you could not look away from him.”

“Conall,” Fox tried again, the faintest whisper.

It didn’t remove Conall’s frown or the self-recrimination in his tone when he continued. “I knew immediately what Domvoda would do with you and that I couldn’t stop him. And he did it—but you carved out a place for yourself in spite of him. You still don’t realize how many patterns you upset. How many byr have been forced to accommodate you. You weren’t a child then, and you certainly aren’t now, but you’re innocent in many ways. Not used to court, or liars, or to being wanted in the way that he wants you… or how I want you. You don’t understand that at all.”

“You called yourself Domvoda’s creature,” Conall carried on, examining Fox closely before gently cupping Fox’s jaw again. “You have always been yourself.” He petted Fox’s cheek and Fox knew enough this time to expect his next words to hurt. “But he encourages the meaner parts of you. I don’t know why. Maybe to keep you for himself alone, or so he can believe that you’re as miserable as he is. You remain determined and brilliant, but you were cruel to please him, and then you’d be unhappy that you were cruel, and your smiles became calculated and your tail even more perfectly still. I know you worked hard to be that perfect,” Conall added, sweeping a tear from Fox’s eyelashes. “You made yourself famous even with their scorn and his distance. You rose above it all and could probably keep doing so. If he had admitted anything of what he felt for you, you would have been unstoppable. A legend. Although you’re already near that.”

Fox turned his face into Conall’s palm.

“I had no plans to interfere,” Conall revealed, a scrape in his voice that made Fox look back at him. “When we first… no, we didn’t meet then. We saw each other. We met later. You didn’t seem to like me and it was not my place to save you—you hadn’t asked to be saved. The only thing I could do to help you was stop wearing my family’s crest at court, because I knew it would lead to jokes that the Fox didn’t need.” He inclined his head when Fox twitched in surprise, then smiled, slowly and carefully. “But I felt it then. I felt it when you sang and when you looked at me, rare though that was. But you didn’t feel it, or didn’t want it, so I made my plans to leave. Then Domvoda chose this way to deal with the issue of an heir, and though you had no desire to look in my direction, I thought I could make at least one thing easier for you.”

Conall expelled a long breath and Fox abruptly remembered Conall was standing only with difficulty. He held Conall’s hand by the wrist and pulled until Conall sank a knee onto the bed. Then he shifted back to make room for Conall without letting go of his hand. He wasn’t sure he could.

Conall sat heavily, half on the bed, and turned toward Fox while Fox tried to summon some sort of reasonable response despite how he didn’t feel at all reasonable.

He stared at Conall, Conall’s words taking forever to fall in line in his mind. “You ensured I had a place to go?”

“Yes,” Conall agreed. “Then you spoke with me, even seemed to like me, and… you asked to me to bed you.” Fox surprised himself with a tiny huff of irritation for it being phrased that way even if that was exactly what he’d done. Conall, as if it was habit now to soothe Fox, began to pet him again. “The situation had changed,” he summed up. “So I took my chance to win you. Or at least to befriend you and help you. But also, yes, to win you if I could.”

“I’m still breathing,” Fox said testily before Conall could once again ask if he was. Admittedly, Fox had to remind himself to do it, but he was. His face was also inexplicably hot. He was more than a little dizzy. Conall liked to overwhelm people. Conall liked victory. Conall… had been playing an entirely different game with Fox than Fox had thought.

Fox hadn’t even known there was a game beyond flirtation.

He was, for a moment, scrawny and young and innocent. Fifteen, but not lightheartedly swooning over knights passing through whatever town he’d been in. Foolish and far out of his depth. Precisely the way he’d felt being at court for the very first time and seeing the Dragonslayer himself across the room.

“This makes no sense,” he said, urgent despite Conall’s calming attentions. “I’ve nothing to offer you. No family name. No wealth. No children either. I’m keeping this figure as it is for as long as possible if my fortune depends on it,” except it wouldn’t if his fortune was tied to Conall’s, something Fox could not think about without struggling to breathe again. “You were,” passion-struck, which Fox could not say aloud, “struck,” he settled on, “by me? You expect me to believe that, and that you’d take me to your home with your family? Your family who are also byr?” Impossible. “If this is pity because of what I said last night about visiting you...”

“My home is nothing to what he could offer you if you choose him again,” Conall interrupted Fox in a low, almost too reasonable tone. “I don’t even think you’d need to wait for him to offer. You could command him and he’d give you whatever you asked… like he’s been waiting for you to. Yes, exactly like he’s been waiting for you to do. He could keep you in your pretty clothes or give you jewelry to outshine every fertile at court. I can never offer that, not as he can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Fox’s voice rose. He swallowed and forced it lower but his attempt at control lasted for another moment and then he was strained and insistent again. “I’m the Fox, Conall.” Conall surely didn’t understand what that meant. “The name I was given at my birth hardly matters anymore. I’m the Fox now. Which you think is remarkable. Which is remarkable, because every single byr I meet remarks on it. But I don’t command the king. I’m from a little village south of nowhere that had no room for me and I made my way over years to the capital. I made my name and I’m not giving that up. It’s all I have. I wouldn’t surrender it to Domvoda if he showered me in all the shell jewelry in the treasury, even if to most people the name means lurid gossip and forever will. Command him? He could still banish me at any moment. You could send me away. Do you understand?” Fox wasn’t sure he did. Words were spilling from him with no order or logic. “I have nothing but that reputation. No money beyond a few coins. Some talent with music and a lovely face that will seem less lovely to most as I age. My name of half legend and half scandal is all I have to barter with and I can’t… I can’t not be the Fox.”

“I’m not asking you to give anything up.” Conall’s gaze was warm. Fox wanted to sink into it and never leave, a thought which then made his heart beat faster and his limbs shake, because now the warmth in Conall’s eyes had a name far greater than mere desire.

Fox had a feeling he sounded hysterical. “But you are! You’re a byr. You don’t understand.”

Conall took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “I don’t.” He frowned and looked impossibly weary but continued to stare at Fox as if Fox were his… as if Fox were his mated one. They had joked about that on this very bed, teased each other with the idea of Conall breeding him while Fox had dreamed of Conall’s bite keeping him still, except Conall had not been joking.

Fox squeezed his stinging eyes shut. “Away from court, I am no one. When you decide it’s time for me to move on, I’ll have to start all over again. With nothing. With less than nothing. Because you will have made me believe that I…” His voice broke.

“No. Fox, no. Please.” Conall did not sound much better than Fox, repeating Fox’s name in a worried murmur until Fox opened his eyes again. Conall brushed Fox’s tears away and looked at Fox so sadly that Fox whispered, “I’m sorry.” Conall shook his head. “No, no. It wasn’t my plan to discuss this with you. Not yet. But then today and last night made me think I should. If you don’t feel it too, that’s all right. I’d hoped you’d be open to the possibility of loving me. I would have stayed for that. Of course I would have. For as long as it would have taken, Fox. Believe that even if you don’t trust anything else.”

Fox did trust him. He was sure he did. There was no one in this castle or in the capital he would trust more. “I want to believe you,” he admitted, pausing when Conall flinched almost imperceptibly. Fox had to do better. “You’ve always tried to protect me.” An entirely new thing to say. Fox sucked in a breath and choked on that too. He gazed at Conall while he recovered, although his face was probably blotchy and his eyelashes had to be clumped together. Conall looked at him as if he didn’t see any of that and it made Fox shake harder, although he clenched his hands to try to hide it. “Do you want me to go?”

“I’ve never wanted that.” Conall wrapped his tail around Fox’s back and Fox took the invitation to climb into Conall’s lap to encircle Conall with his legs, arms, and tail. Conall squeezed him tight in return and spoke into his hair. “I’m not going to throw you out, no matter what. Nod, so I know you heard me.” Fox nodded. Conall graced his ear with a kiss. “And the same goes in the future, regardless of anything else. Always. Forever. If you don’t choose to stay with me,” Conall pulled in a steadying breath, “if you need a place, even for a short while. Maybe for the winters? Come to me. Travel to the west along the Rizvut Road, the one the traders use because there are patrols of knights. But don’t stray into the woods—more beasts than dragons live there. Follow the river and ask those you meet on the way, and they will direct you to the lands of the Vulpets. Nod again if you’ll remember.” This time, Fox did not get a kiss. “Our estate is nothing to a palace meant for kings, but it is a roof, and I’ll be happy to see you. Your singing is always a joy to hear.”

“Singing is hardly enough,” Fox complained to the side of Conall’s neck. “I expect you’ll want me to do real work. I’m not a farmer anymore. I never really was.”

“Neither am I.” Conall had not loosened his hold but Fox didn’t ask him to. “I’m byr, as you love to remind me.”

Fox lingered where he was, letting his nose grow warm and tingly from where it bumped against Conall’s skin and a patch of salve Fox hadn’t rubbed in thoroughly.

“I don’t,” Fox began after some time spent not thinking about anything else that Conall had said. “I don’t love to remind you,” he admitted. “I wish you weren’t, in fact. Or that you were the king so you could… I’m ridiculous. A barely grown boy with fantasies based on songs that I never thought were real.”

Conall stroked Fox’s back up to his nape. “If they could see you now, in that village south of nowhere where they didn’t have room for you, they would marvel.”

“And you will have room for me? Always?” Fox didn’t raise his head until he felt Conall inhale to reply.

Conall took that as a sign to pet Fox’s face again. Fox sighed a little, already bracing himself for a sting.

“Always. For all my friends.” That was the gentle part. Conall studied him intently. “But especially for you. I’d have you as my mate, Fox. That has not changed.”

That will not changewas what he meant although he didn’t say it. Possibly not wanting to upset Fox again.

“You’re supposed to be celebrating tonight,” Fox reminded him, mostly to keep from saying anything else. “Not bothering with me.”

“I will always bother with you.” It was unfair how Conall’s gaze held him, how it sent heat to Fox’s fingers and toes, all the way to the tip of his tail. “But you don’t have to decide now. You don’t have to do anything.”

Fox scoffed despite himself. “I have to do many things. See to my clothes, which I cannot afford to lose. See to my nightly routine. Ensure you get to bed properly, so you will rest and move with less stiffness tomorrow.”

“I will move with more stiffness tomorrow,” Conall corrected. “That’s how it is. Though a hot bath in the morning will help.”

“Did you even eat with the others?” Fox heard himself clucking like a spouse and would have burned anew if he’d been able to get any warmer. He skittered backward, his tail clinging to Conall in a way that revealed too much. He clambered off the bed and scrubbed the tip of his nose after getting to his feet. “Sleep. And—did you need anything? I can fetch it for you.”

A clucking spouse again. It did not feel like an improvement on a squirming fifteen-year-old with a crush.

Conall sighed but leaned back against the pillows, bringing his legs up onto the bed without fussing with any bedcovers. He watched Fox stand there awkwardly, and Fox trip over to his trunks to get out a comb and his curling rags, and then got to see Fox drop all of that and return to the bed to climb back on top of him. Conall settled his hands on Fox’s hips like they belonged there and smiled, small and sweet with surprise, when Fox leaned in close to stroke his face.

“I wanted to look at you,” Fox confessed, nearly choking again but forcing the words out anyway. “I didn’t because I wanted to. Even then, I was so overwhelmed to look at you that I couldn’t be calm as I was supposed to be. I liked to hear you speak, especially when you corrected him. Your voice and your gaze are warming. I couldn’t watch you do the dangerous things you do, but I like you this way, where I can feel you.”

“Overwhelmed just to look at me?” Conall didn’t say anything else for a while, letting Fox curl in closer, then wrapping him up in his arms. “Warming?” He had a strangely tense note in his voice. “Anything else? No, I shouldn’t ask that.”

Fox trembled and ducked his head. “It’s soothing, comforting, to see you, even when it’s not. Even when you’re fucking me, I’m….” Safe, a nonsense thing to say, to try to explain. “I shouldn’t be holding you now but it’s all I want to do.”

“Soothed, yet overwhelmed?” Conall sighed even before Fox nodded in reply. “Do you…” he started, then paused before hesitantly trying again. “That’s how I feel when you do this. I want you to cling to me when you need and yet I also want to put you aside so I can go deal with whatever has upset you. I wanted to win today for many reasons, but one of them was so that I would look good for you, like the hero they call me, but just for you. You don’t care about battles and Rolfi teased me, but I did it anyway with you in mind. And yet I am even more ridiculous than that where you are concerned. I accepted when you were his, but having you like this and then thinking of you back at his side, that could cost me everything. Then you leave him to come here and tend to me. I…. I almost feel sorry for him. Both of us destroyed in your wake—unless you choose him again.”

Fox raised his head to look at Conall with scarcely any distance between them. “I am not overwhelmed to look at him.” Of all the things he could have said, it was the easiest to offer. It felt inadequate but Conall closed his eyes as if relieved. Fox studied him with a confused frown and finally kissed his mouth to get Conall to look at him again. “His voice is not warming.” He gave Conall another kiss, or took one, he wasn’t sure. “I asked him if I was his Fox.”

Conall’s voice was hoarse. “Fox, please.”

Fox petted the side of his pretty face and kissed him, long and lingering. “He didn’t answer,” he explained breathlessly before kissing Conall again. “I was glad he didn’t.” Something Fox was only realizing now, on top of Conall with Conall’s hands moving up his back.

“I am yours,” Conall told him, his wonderful hands going still when Fox froze. “I will say what he can’t, if only so you can hear it from someone.” Fox thought he’d pull away, but Conall stayed where he was, his mouth beneath Fox’s, his gaze questioning. “You don’t have to answer,” Conall explained softly. “Just hear it and try to believe it.”

Fox finally had to look away, although it wasn’t for long. “This conversation will not help you rest. You must need that.”

Conall pushed out a heavy breath but when Fox leaned in to nuzzle his jaw, Conall allowed it.

“You are the Dragonslayer,” Fox reminded him in a whisper. “The champion. What are you doing with me? All you have done in the past two days and all I have done is scratch at you.” He didn’t let Conall deny it. “I could please you if you’re not too tired.” He brushed his lips across Conall’s to strengthen the offer, although he liked where he was and didn’t want to move, not even to feel Conall’s cock in his mouth.

In response, Conall tightened his arms around him and rolled them both over, ending up on his side with his chin resting on the top of Fox’s head. “Stay,” he said quietly. “Stay with me through the night like this.”

Fox wondered if he was expected to protest, then realized that he would have only a handful of days ago. Or in truth, he would have protested because it was easier that way. He had been told to leave too many times not to anticipate it happening again.

Fox wriggled and Conall bit back a rough noise, but once Fox got his arm free of Conall’s weight and had burrowed in against Conall’s chest, Conall relaxed.

“Your routine,” he reminded Fox after a while. “I didn’t mean to stop you.”

Fox shrugged. “I don’t think it matters much now.” And he didn’t want to get up. He was limp as a wrung-out cleaning rag, sick from wine and hurting Conall, but warm and comforted by the steady rise and fall of Conall’s chest. Within Saravar, there was nowhere else worth being.

Perhaps within the entire country, Fox’s mind whispered. Perhaps within every inch of land and sea and air once claimed by the fabled empire.

To be granted this and then have it taken away would hurt more than any humiliations outside the king’s door. It might have been near to what Conall had said he would feel if Fox returned to Domvoda’s side.

Fox burrowed closer.

Conall’s breathing slowly evened out, but Fox didn’t think he slept.

“Conall?” Fox murmured the name and wished the room was dark, that he’d thought to put out the candle before returning to his place on the bed. “Are you angry with me?”

Conall’s arms tightened. Fox was crushed and didn’t complain, rather liking it although he didn’t know why.

“You shouldn’t have to ask.” Conall exhaled this, weary from a long day or from dealing with Fox. “No,” he insisted, relaxing his hold so Fox could wriggle again if he wanted to. “I am many things right now but not angry. This is… not what I wanted. But it’s better than I’d hoped just a few days ago. All of this has been better than I’d ever imagined.”

Fox had forgotten the length of time since he had first spoken, truly spoken, with Conall. A few days, nothing more. Yet Fox had climbed happily into his lap several times now and been quite comfortable there. Conall had seen part of Fox’s nightly routine, seen him as muddy and wet as a drowning rat. A few days, and Fox was prepared to sleep lying next to him and hadn’t even considered until that moment that he had no fear of being tossed from the room. Even if Conall didn’t want Fox anymore, he wouldn’t do that. A few days and Fox had challenged Conall to breed him.

Fox kept his face hidden and shook his head slightly but it couldn’t banish his heated thoughts. Days with Conall and Fox acted as if they’d known each other for much longer than they had. He had been Domvoda’s lover for months and not once would he have curled against him like this. He would never have dared.

Now he dared, and it felt good. More than good.

Conall shouldn’t do this sort of thing to him. Fox sang the songs. He didn’t expect to live them.

“Passion-struck?” he whispered finally, trying not to restlessly shift in place but moving so much Conall threw a leg over him to keep him still.

Conall immediately took it back with a guilty cough but asked, “Is it that so hard to believe?”

Fox grabbed what was nearest, not Conall’s arm but Conall’s tail, and let go with a startled yip when he realized.

Conall, being Conall, took Fox’s hand and placed the end of his tail in it before sighing again. “Fox?”

“You said I was scrawny,” Fox reminded him in a tiny voice, tracing touches up and down the part of Conall’s tail beneath the tip. “And badly dressed.” Fox remembered that too.

There was a moment of silence, Conall thinking or waking up again. “When did I say that?”

“It was implied,” Fox insisted fussily, talking nonsense instead of what really mattered or thinking about the intimacy of what he was doing with Conall’s tail. “Conall.” He knew Conall was barely awake but Conall was the one who had told Fox all these things, and if he didn’t want to deal with questions, he should have gone to bed without saying anything. His tail was remarkably thick, Fox noted at the same time, hot and soft. He probably didn’t even use any creams on it. “What did it feel like?” Fox asked, whispering again. “Unless you don’t want to tell me.”

“Fire,” Conall said, the barest murmur, “roaring in my ears. Nervous excitement in my veins. Trembling. I was shaking all over. Then floating. Floating in warmth. Like the end of all the stories, the happy ones. Like I was home and in bed with no need to get up, because everything was as it should be, except that you were far away. Then I was scared again.”

“Scared?” Fox echoed breathlessly.

“Scared.” Conall was certain. “And stunned. I hardly knew what to do so I took too long to do anything. I’m sorry.”

“What a strange thing to apologize for.” Nobody in any songs Fox knew apologized for being passion-struck… except the one warrior who had been struck for someone already quite married. But that had worked out in the end so Fox didn’t think it counted.

“Then Domvoda…”

“I don’t want to talk about him now,” Fox cut that off sharply. Enough had happened today. Fox couldn’t take more. “I want to lie here instead.” Floating in warmth. “You should sleep.”

“I should,” Conall agreed, sounding halfway to sleep already. “But if this is my last night with you, I want to remember it—breathe, lovely.”

Fox drew in a breath before trying to get impossibly closer. “If you want me to breathe and for my heart to beat normally, then stop saying things.”

“Lovely?” Conall wondered.

“Last night,” Fox snapped.

Conall raised his head though Fox kept his stubbornly down. “No?” Conall prompted after a while. “You don’t want that?” After another moment of Fox’s silence, Conall resettled against him. His tail flicked out of Fox’s hand, then flopped back over Fox’s side. He hummed. The sound was thoughtful.

“What?” Fox demanded.

Conall answered slowly. “The situation has changed. You don’t believe I could—that anyone—could be passion-struck at the sight of you.” His tone implied Fox was an idiot but he didn’t say it. “But you don’t object to me, only that I am byr… and the Dragonslayer. And that I wish to make you my mated one and marry you. Because you are the Fox of scandalous legend and you worry that if I tire of you,” there was that tone again, “you will not even have the scandalous legend to rely on. And,” Conall paused, “you never looked at me because you wanted to look at me. You find me warming. You find me both comforting and overwhelming. You gave me a favor with a ribbon that cost you dearly.”

Fox scowled though Conall couldn’t see it. “Are you making plans? Conall, you don’t need to.”

“But do you want me to?” Conall asked and sighed, a happier sigh, when Fox growled in frustration for Conall continuing to say things. He put a finger beneath Fox’s chin so Fox would look at him and his gaze made Fox bite down on a whimper. It held decisions Fox could not guess at and fires to leave Fox silent and shivering. Conall leaned in to speak against Fox’s parted lips. “Would you like me to try to convince you? Are you giving me permission to save you?”

“Conall.” It was a pitifully small complaint, barely anything, but it got him a kiss.

“You should sleep,” Conall told him when Fox was pliant against him and leaning in for more. The weakened, softly pleading Conall was gone, the Dragonslayer in his place. He directed Fox as if Fox was the one who had spent two days running around without rest. “You had a long day, didn’t you?”

Fox couldn’t tell if that was meant to be teasing. “I’ll sleep if you sleep. If it’s not our—”

“It’s not.” Conall was definite, then less so. “It is not our last night. Not yet, anyway. So sleep.”

“But…”

“Long day tomorrow too, I think,” Conall offered, lulling Fox with another kiss before urging Fox to burrow in next to him again.

The final day of the tournament, which was actually for the prizes to be awarded and then more feasting before the knights and visiting byr began to leave.

Conall might leave too. Fox had known that but hadn’t felt what it would mean. He forced himself to breathe before Conall could remind him, slowly drawing in air then letting it out the way Conall was doing. Although Fox doubted Conall was asleep. Conall was making tricky plans.

Like a fox.

Fox’s heart pounded. “Finding me a place to stay was dragonslaying enough.”

“You think so?” Conall asked lightly, then patted Fox’s shoulder before Fox could even think about moving to look at him. “You haven’t said yes but you haven’t said no. Knights are romantic fools, Fox. Musicians might not have such dreams but we do.”

“Of course we have dreams.” Fox should have spat it but he couldn’t feel any anger. “But we don’t expect them to come true. I,” he corrected moments later. “I don’t expect them to come true. But if anyone could manage it, it would be you.”

“Then let me, lovely. Please. Grant me your favor one more time.”

Fox closed his eyes. “Domvoda doesn’t know the threat you are. If he had, he wouldn’t have given you that knife.”

“He knows exactly what I am. That’s why he ran from me.” Conall’s hand found its way to Fox’s hair. “It’s possibly also why you avoided looking at me for so long. Let me try, Fox. Please. Let me keep trying.”

Fox did not open his eyes or raise his head. “As long as you don’t risk yourself.”

A rumble went through Conall, words he held in. He continued to stroke Fox’s curls. “My heart is already in your keeping. But if you mean that I shouldn’t risk my place at court, then I accept those terms.”

Where Conall could not see, Fox frowned. Conall had tricked a capable knight that very day. Fox ought to be wary, especially when Conall was abruptly calm and pleased about something.

“Foxlike,” he complained.

“No need to worry for me, though I know you will.” Conall brushed his thumb over the base of Fox’s ear. “Just sleep for now. We’re both too weary for the rest of the world. We can stay here together tonight, where all is as it should be.”

All was not as it should be, although it did feel that way with Fox comfortable and pressed to Conall’s chest, and Conall releasing a deep, contented breath. His hand rubbing a soothing circle on Fox’s shoulder also helped. It had been a long day. Fox was suddenly more tired than he’d realized and he was so very safe, cozily so, in Conall’s arms.

He muttered something, nonsense more than words, and slipped an arm over Conall’s side. Then, without meaning to, went right to sleep.