Page 14 of A King’s Trust (Heart-Mage Trilogy #1)

14

ONE NIGHT

E lias slid in front of Beau immediately, blocking his view of the duchess and the front door. “What the fuck were you thinking, bringing them here?”

Beau peeked past and saw, behind Nilah and his staff, Oria’s scowling face and Jude’s stony, indifferent one. His stomach tightened until he could’ve vomited. Here , in the Hops?

“Get out of the inn,” Beau said, pointing firmly toward the door. “You’re not coming in here and endangering these people—”

“ Endangering ?” Ma interjected, elbowing through the crowd. “Who’s this then?” Ma never used a tone that unwelcoming, so she must’ve been mirroring Elias’s tension.

“The reason my hand is broken,” El growled.

“Please, I didn’t come to start trouble, Your High—” Penamour began, stepping forward.

Everyone moved at once.

Beau blinked, and isle folk had hold of every person who’d walked in with Lady Penamour, including the duchess herself. They were stripped of weapons, wrestled to their knees, all three guards forced into chokes or pinned to the floor by a mass of Beau’s friends.

“Hold, hold , everyone hold on,” Beau said hurriedly, lifting Maisie and Ma off Aloise, who fought like an alley cat to get free of them. “Nobody hurt anyone, please .” He pulled Aloise to her feet, sent her toward the far corner of the common room, and waved for Nicky to release Uriel. He didn’t see Capucine. “Whoever’s holding the redhead, send her over here, too. They’re my staff—they didn’t do anything wrong.”

Elias twitched, watching the red-faced guards as they fought the people holding them down, and Beau set a hand on his back. “Let’s take this outside. This doesn’t need to involve—”

“You would find dumb brute allies in a bar, you pigeon-livered drunk,” Oria choked out, sneering, as she twisted Adrien’s arm. “Prince Charmant wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like—”

“Charmant was caught dead,” Elias cut her off viciously. “Which wasn’t Highness’s fault—it was yours .”

Oria elbowed Marc hard in the throat. Nilah and Jude had gone quiet, but Oria fought harder, furious . “I hope that worthless scut fucks you well enough to forget you’re a milksop’s lapdog,” she hissed at Elias.

“And I hope,” Elias continued, picking up a knife from one of the tables as he wove closer to her, “that you got to look Char in the eyes and see him lose faith in you as he died.”

“El—” Beau called, trying to slow things down. Everyone in the inn seemed to hold their breath. Heart in his throat, Beau couldn’t think fast enough to calm the room.

He met Penamour’s wide eyes. Obviously she hadn’t come here to fight. Beau and El had both been distracted; she could’ve had Nilah and Oria shoot them from the doorway and end this immediately. Beau didn’t like seeing a sailor’s hand over her mouth, the rough hold of her shoulders, though she wasn’t struggling. He was angry with her, but he didn’t want this .

“I’m—I’m pardoning you,” Beau choked out, and Penamour’s eyes went wider. Raising his voice slightly, he said, “She’s pardoned, and the others can swear— Elias ! Stop!”

El punched the table knife under Oria’s ribs hard enough to drive the handle in too. “No pardons for traitor guards,” he growled. He jerked the knife sideways until it schlucked out her side with a lurid spray of blood. Guttural gasps choked out of Oria’s throat into the uproar of noise in the inn. Shaking, Oria tried to hold herself together with the arm she’d worked free.

It was sickening to watch. “ No , I don’t want—Viv, help her before she—” Beau swiveled toward Vivienne, but she had her arms crossed and a hardness to her face he’d never seen.

“She the one who hurt Ellie?” Viv asked. “The guard who betrayed you?”

She’d asked Beau, but it was Elias who said, “Yes, her and the big one.”

Vivienne was not the only one of the isle folk to growl at that. She made no move whatsoever to help Oria, who shuddered and gulped out animal, desperate sounds. Elias stood, head swiveling toward Jude.

Jude didn’t move or try to fight at all; he bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t—they said no one was going to get hurt. I didn’t mean for what happened.”

But the isle folk drew in closer, faces clouded with the same anger distorting Elias’s face, clutching makeshift weapons or the ones they’d pulled off the guards. El advanced on Jude with furious, focused intent. Dark mutters filled the inn, and through it all threaded the awful whimpering of Oria as she died.

“ Stop .” Beau barked the command in the deep, humorless voice of authority he never used. Everyone stopped. The inn went completely still.

Pushing past Nicky, Delphine, and Marc, Beau knelt next to Oria, whose mouth opened and closed wetly, eyes watery and terrified. Elias had killed her—there was no question of her surviving this—but she’d take a long time dying. Letting out a short, sharp sigh, Beau snatched her belt knife out of Marc’s hands and slit her throat with it, a quick, sure swipe.

His hands twitched at the feel of flesh and tendon under blade, hideously familiar. He dropped the knife with a clatter on the floorboards.

At last, Oria went still and quiet.

“ No one else dies tonight ,” he said in that same tone, and the isle folk nodded. Elias, his back to Beau, was tensely stiff. “Elias, Lady Penamour, come with me. Everyone else— do not hurt anyone. When I come back, I want everyone in the same state I left them.” Again, most of the inn nodded along, though Beau saw murderous glances thrown Jude’s way.

The prince pulled restraining hands off Penamour, dragging her to his room without glancing back to see if his guard followed.

He did. As soon as they were both inside, Beau slammed the door and repeated Elias’s first question: “What the fuck were you thinking , bringing them here?”

Lady Penamour looked calmer now, even with Beau shouting and El prowling like he wanted to tear a throat out with his teeth, even with blood on both their hands.

She spoke quickly. “After Gerard, it seemed prudent not to travel unguarded, or to leave you with only one injured guard. Jude came to swear to you again, and Nilah was prepared to do for Oria what Elias did, if she proved unwilling to do the same. I’m sorry, Your Highness. I could see you were having a pleasant, um, evening. I didn’t mean to…”

Beau flushed abruptly pink, remembering what he’d been doing when she walked in, but the embarrassment and queasy anxiety over what that might have ruined was distant; in the forefront of his mind was Elias’s vicious disemboweling of his former flight-mate. “And you ,” he said, turning on the guard, “gut-cutting her and leaving her? What kind of cruel —”

“I’m sorry you had to get your hands dirty,” Elias interrupted, eyes on Beau’s bloody wrist. Beau realized he’d been tapping his blood-tacky fingers together and stopped. “She had to die, Highness. You know that. Even if she’d pretended remorse, Oria was too smart and too skilled by half to leave her alive. I’d never have trusted you with her again.”

“Do you decide that?” Beau asked, feeling himself slip into that unfamiliar voice of command again, standing straighter.

Elias’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve never waited on an order from you to take care of a threat.”

“Speaking of threats,” Penamour interjected, “Gerard? Have you seen him? Where is he? What is he? And thank you, by the way, Elias. I didn’t miss that you protected me in the forest, too.”

Elias bent his head to her, the slightest bow, but he didn’t answer her questions. Instead, he said, “You don’t think Jude’s a threat?”

“I don’t,” Penamour said, shaking her head firmly. “ I was the one who made him believe His Highness was a usurper, and he never wanted him hurt. It was Jude’s idea to use dreamroot to avoid violence. But there are three sihhafleur petals left. Ask him yourself.”

“And you?” Elias asked, stepping closer to the duchess so he towered over her. She swallowed hard. “Will you eat a petal too? Answer Highness’s questions and mine?”

“Yes.”

“Are you quite done negotiating my pardons?” Beau asked, irritated when they turned with identical expressions—a thin skin of apology over fond exasperation—and more irritated still when he realized they’d worked out together exactly what he would’ve asked for next anyway. “Call Jude and Nilah in. They can both swear.”

Penamour raised an eyebrow. “Is that my punishment? You’re stealing my guard?”

“We can share ,” Beau said with a vicious, unamused grin. “Since it seems you’ve been borrowing two of mine for a while, and the third had to split his attention to protect you from the threat you brought with you.”

Thoroughly chastened, Penamour nodded. “Fair enough. Oh, before I forget—” She reached into the pocket of her dress and held out the Ring of Thrones on her palm.

Beau stared at it for a few seconds too long, considering. This felt like a turning point, too, just as the kiss on the dance floor had. He couldn’t square the choice he wanted to make with Penamour against the choice he’d made with Elias. He couldn’t think at all, and when he made no move to take it, her fingers curled, hiding the ring.

At length, he said, “Put it on. I want to be forewarned if you’re planning something dangerously stupid again.” I want to taste your emotions again. I want. I want.

“I assure you, Highness, my days of daring plans are over,” she said dryly, but she slipped the ring onto her right hand.

Beau braced himself for fear or worry or desperation—the things he’d felt when she’d last worn it—but what washed into him was relief like sugared almonds. It was so intense it felt like fingers scratching at his scalp, drawing out his worries, soothing his anxieties. His breath wobbled, vacillating toward a laugh.

“What?” El and Penamour stared at him. “What are you so relieved about?”

Penamour’s pupils had grown huge, and he tasted spun sugar. “You’re speaking to me. You want to share guards. You want to monitor my feelings. I hope that means there’s a chance you’ll forgive me, at some point in the future.”

Beau’s eyes went to El’s broken hand, and the half of his brain that had demanded he kiss the man revolted at the idea. But the other half, the half that had imagined taking the throne with Penamour by his side, preened. “We’ll see.”

N ilah’s blue-lipped answers were simple and expected. She’d done as she was told, she’d been afraid of Elias, and at the end of the day, she hadn’t wanted Beau hurt, only brought to justice. When it was clear they were wrong about him, she’d wanted to make things right.

Jude took his petal eagerly, no gagging or wheezing, and immediately said, “I swear to serve you until you no longer need me. I’ll obey your orders and guard you as well as I can.”

Elias seemed about to ask him a question, but Beau jumped in first. “Did you know you could’ve killed Elias, dosing him with that much dreamroot?”

Jude’s eyes widened. “I don’t think anything can kill Elias.”

Beau blinked. He’d said that with mouth blue, unable to lie. The man firmly believed Elias was unkillable. El smirked. “Why do you want to swear to me? Just to be pardoned?”

Shaking his head, Jude said, “No, I wasn’t happy with what happened. We put you in harm’s way and you weren’t even what they said you were. I don’t know any way to make up for that except to be better at my job. Also, if I don’t, Elias will cut my skin at the ankles and peel it off me like he’s field dressing a rabbit.”

“That’s…specific,” Beau said, throwing a curious look at Elias’s innocently blank face.

“Well, that’s what he said he’d do. And I believe him.”

Beau grimaced. “Anything else I should know, while you’re magically truthful?”

Jude considered. “I like you, Highness. I think you’ll probably get me killed, though. You make powerful people really angry. I mean, I guess you’re a powerful person, too, you just don’t know how to use it yet. Maybe the duchess can help you. Or…” He laughed self-consciously. “I’m not a very smart man, Highness. I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you.”

Last, the duchess held the vial out to Beau so he could see the scruffy stem with its single blue petal. “Do you want to do it? So you know I didn’t tamper with it or anything.”

Beau took the vial, fished out the flower, and held the petal on the tip of his middle finger. He could feel the magic in it. It buzzed down his hand, powerful and alive in a way that tugged at him and made him strangely…homesick. When he looked back at the duchess, she opened her mouth, and he pressed the petal down on her tongue.

His finger caught her lower lip as he pulled it away, and a frisson of unexpected pleasure jolted through him. A moment later, the pool of emotions began to heat, and spice like peppers built on the back of his tongue. What is that taste about? What is wrong with me tonight? Focus.

“Was there ever really a magic relic in Laccombes?”

“No,” Penamour said. She pressed her palms together nervously, rotating them with the faint schiff of friction. “I contrived to be heading near the isles because I didn’t think you could resist coming back here, and I needed you away from the palace.”

“What if I had ordered Char killed? You’d have executed me?”

Her mouth formed a frown, but her brows were upturned, almost pleading, like she’d been hurt by the question. “No. Your mother and father knew of my concerns. If you’d done it, your father would’ve disinherited you. Jude and Oria were to put you on a ship.”

“ Ha ,” Elias said, quietly disbelieving.

“Yes,” Penamour said, agreeing with him immediately. “I see now that Oria would’ve tried to kill him, but I didn’t understand her…vehemence…when the plan was made. And none of us could plan for how difficult you’d be to manage, Elias. You wouldn’t have let us ship him off without a crown, would you?”

El smirked again, dark light in his eyes. “Not a chance.”

“What else did you lie about?” Beau asked, drawing her attention back. “Our conversation on the ride—how much of it was lies?”

“None of it,” she said, frown deepening. From the ring, he tasted faint embarrassment. “I didn’t lie to you except about why I was traveling. I very much enjoyed talking to you, actually, and constantly told you more than I meant to. It was infuriating.”

He studied her dark, curious eyes, the eager tilt of her chin as she awaited his next question, the slight parting of her full, blue-glowing lips. “I’ve never lied to you, either. So you know the kind of man I am, the kind of things I want. Knowing that—can I trust you?”

Before she spoke, her tongue darted out along her lips, and Beau was suddenly very aware that she could feel what he felt, too, including perhaps the draw he felt toward those pretty, soft-looking lips. He glanced away, and Lady Penamour chuckled, quiet and low. “Yes, Your Highness. You can trust me.”

Because he frowned down at the floor in silence, she spoke again. “I’m a little surprised you set no conditions on my pardon. You still could, I suppose. But there’s a lot you could ask of me, and you haven’t demanded any of it.”

“I stole your guard,” Beau said with a shrug.

She shook her head, meeting his eyes levelly. “I have political power you need. I’m on better terms with the king and queen than you are. And, as you said on the lake, by any measure, I’m your best choice for a wife that supports the way you want to be king.”

It was his turn to frown as though he were hurt by the question. “You’re surprised I didn’t set you an ultimatum—marry me or be executed?” His stomach flipped at the idea, and he couldn’t keep the disgust off his face, let alone what she must feel through the ring.

“No, I suppose not,” she said with a little laugh. “That’s not your style, is it?”

Elias nudged Beau lightly. “May I ask a few before the petal fades?” When the prince nodded and sat down heavily on his bed, El asked, “Why was Gerard in your party?”

“When my footman, Philippe, woke up sick to his stomach, I asked Mistress Dubois if she had another who could replace him on short notice for risky travel. She sent me Gerard. I’ve never had any issue with a recommendation from Mistress Dubois before.” She tucked the corners of her mouth down. “Although I suppose he was a good footman, until he decided to attack. If you’re asking whether I knew he was a danger to His Highness, no , certainly not.”

“Do you know of anyone who is a danger to His Highness?”

“Anyone?” She laughed incredulously. “Yes, dozens of nobles I primed against him, thinking him a murderer. Not a danger to his person, necessarily, but certainly to his claim to the throne. But among the party I brought, no. In fact, the person I’m most uncertain of is you , Elias, but it’s clear His Highness trusts you even with whatever secrets you’re keeping—and perhaps you’ve shared them with him. You’re certainly devoted, so I can’t think you’re a danger.”

Something about the tone of certainly devoted made Beau blush again, thinking of that kiss on the dance floor. I shouldn’t have kissed him. That was insane. What was I thinking?

What was I choosing?

“And what will you do now, in regards to His Highness’s claim to the throne?” Elias asked, a note of sharpness in his voice.

She took a deep breath, looking down at her hands. No ink on them today; not much time to write on the road. Lady Penamour toyed with the ring, and Beau tasted her uncertainty. “Whatever he wants me to do, I suppose. I can shift the tide back, given time.”

“But do you want to?” Beau asked.

Penamour met his eyes, and he tasted confusion. “Want to…?”

“To shift the tide. I assume you mean make them support me again? Instead of Courdur.”

“You’re asking if I would prefer you as king or my uncle?” She laughed and the bubble of bitter amusement was burnt and citrusy on his tongue. “Your Highness, I’d much prefer you. Even if you weren’t the rightful king—which obviously you are—I like the way you reason, the things you see as problems, the solutions you find. You’re unpolished, and you’ll have to find some courtiers you’re willing to trust, or you’ll never get anything done, but gods , to have a king who gives a shit about his people?” She laughed again. She was so pretty when she laughed.

And she thought he’d be a good king.

Beau shivered. He’d never heard anything like that from a noble. It made it feel possible and tangible in ways he hadn’t been willing to entertain. It made him want . He was a cyclone of want this evening, wasn’t he?

When he glanced at Elias, El was staring at him fixedly, some of that strange desperation on his face that Beau had seen on the dance floor. But then the guard took a deep breath, smiled, and inclined his head toward the duchess. “Back on track,” he muttered. “Better than before.”

He turned to speak quietly to Jude and Nilah, leaving Beau staring. What does that mean?

“Are you all right, Your Highness?” Penamour asked, stepping close enough to set fingertips on his arm. He was surprised; she hadn’t touched him unprompted before.

“Yes.” Realizing his hand was still spattered with blood near where Penamour touched him, he withdrew, self-conscious. “I should go take care of Oria’s…um…I should—”

“Thank you for ending it quickly.” Penamour’s expression was so open, so kind. She’d never looked at him like that, with no suspicion or anger. It was disorienting. “I know you have an aversion to violence. So that was as kind as could be in that situation, I guess.”

Beau exhaled a laugh. “An aversion?” he repeated queasily.

Her fingers found his arm again. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I truly am. I kept trying to lump your discomfort in with some sort of guilt over what you’d done or attempts to cover your tracks because I…well, I didn’t know what to believe about you. But I see things more clearly now.” Her eagerness was tart and sweet on his tongue. “I certainly wouldn’t plan a sword-fighting exhibition for you now. Or expect you to wear a gladiator outfit and show off—” She nodded toward his chest, and Beau remembered El had unlaced his shirt; his tattoos were visible.

Beau flushed nearly purple and pressed his hand to the slice of bare skin. “Um.”

She glanced away primly, a smile lifting her cheek. “Sorry. I thought you were showing them on purpose. They’re very pretty.”

In the back of his head, the burn of ginger and chili flared, tinged with sweet and salty. He didn’t know what it meant, except that it called up a similar heat in his belly. He risked a glance at her and saw pink staining her cheeks. Oh . She…thought they were pretty. She liked the look of them. She wanted , too.

And she hadn’t asked what they meant or why he had them, so maybe it was okay that they showed. She’d already seen a bit of them. Actually—he glanced down at the way the tattoos showed dark through his shirt—she’d seen all of them. “Well, no sense hiding them now.”

Lady Penamour squeezed his arm, gave his chest another quick, eyelash-sweeping glance, and went to the door. “I’ll talk to Master Uriel and take care of Oria, don’t worry. Maybe you could introduce me to some of your friends in the inn?”

“Yes,” Beau said, though the thought of managing the way the isle folk talked to a duchess exhausted him before he even began. “Let me wash up, and I’ll be right out.”

Elias glanced at him and frowned at something on Beau’s face, and Penamour caught the motion. She glanced back at the prince, a quick, evaluating look. “No,” she said, “not tonight; I can see you’re tired. I’ll see if I can get a room, and we can make introductions tomorrow? You could show me around the island, if you’d like.”

Beau nodded gratefully, and Elias ushered the other two guards and the duchess out, following them. The prince heard El’s voice raised over the hubbub, explaining the situation to Ma and the others who peppered him with questions, so Beau knew it was handled. He took his boots off, washed his hands, and tried to process.

He waited for Elias to come back. And waited. And waited . The inn quieted as the common room slowly emptied, and then went silent except for the muffled noises of someone cleaning up for the night and the squeak of stairs as the remainder found their beds.

Though he’d slept most of the day, Beau was exhausted. He readied himself for sleep, lay down, and tried to drift off, but Elias’s absence bothered him.

Eventually, grumbling, he climbed out of bed, fumbling for his dressing gown in the dark. When he jerked the door open, a hulking form that had been leaning against it stumbled into the room—Jude. “What are you doing? Where’s El?”

Jude recovered his balance. “He put me on watch. Went upstairs. Said if anything happened to you, he’d pull out every vein in my body, braid a rope, and hang me with it.”

“ Gods ,” Beau said, both horrified and impressed by the creativity of the threat. “Okay. I’m going up. Make sure no one else comes up the stairs, all right?”

“I should stay with you. He left me in charge of you.”

“I’ll be with Elias, Jude.” Beau padded past the big man to thump up the stairs in his bare feet. The main hall of rooms was quiet and empty, the occasional snore the only sound. Beau went straight for the narrow stairs to the roof.

“El?” he whispered as he lifted the door at the top of the stairs, peeking out at the moonlit rooftop. Seated on the edge of the roof with his back to the door, Elias didn’t turn at the sound of Beau’s approach or the whispered call. He did, however, lift a half-empty bottle of whiskey to his mouth and take a long swig.

Beau stole quietly across the roof and crouched next to Elias. “What are you doing?”

El lifted the bottle, eyes fixed on the town spread out before the inn. “Drinking.”

“All right then.” Beau dropped down next to him, letting his feet dangle over the edge. When he tried to pluck the bottle out of El’s fingers to share, the guard snatched it back.

“That’s mine.”

Beau peered more carefully at Elias, looking for blown-out pupils or a sway, but his guard was, as ever, an inscrutable mystery. “Are you drunk?”

Tilting his head back, Elias sighed. “Can’t get drunk, however much I might want to.” He took another swig. He opened his mouth, made a sound like the start of a word, then snapped his teeth shut again. When Beau set a hand on his arm, Elias jerked away and swigged a massive drink. “You should go to bed and leave me alone, Highness. You’ve got to wake up and show the duchess around the island. I’ve got to get up and audition some guards, if I can find any.”

“Just ask for one from the same place that birthed you and Gerard,” Beau said dryly. When Elias made a pained sound in the back of his throat, the prince said. “I’m joking . Obviously, if you’re going to ask, ask for two so we can have a full—”

“I cannot explain to you how not funny that is.” Elias took another long swig, and Beau was certain the man was on his way to drunk no matter what he said.

“Is that why you’re drinking? I know you have a secret?”

“Yes,” Elias answered too quickly, lying.

Turning fully to face Elias and sitting cross-legged, the prince stared until El was visibly uncomfortable. Still, El said nothing, so Beau leaned onto his folded hands, putting his face irritatingly close. “Stop,” El said flatly, refusing to turn Beau’s direction. “ Stop .”

“I slept all day; I’ve got hours of staring left in me.”

Elias sighed, and when he finally met Beau’s eyes, that desperate expression crept back into his face, the horrible need . Their faces were too close. “It was nothing, Highness. It changed nothing. Forget about it. The duchess followed you here; we go back to the way things were.”

With a dry laugh, Beau said, “‘It didn’t bother me at all,’ says the man drinking alone on the roof when he should be sleeping off his poisons.” Plucking the bottle out of Elias’s grip at last, Beau drained a mouthful. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

El shrugged. “It didn’t dissuade her. She was practically begging you to propose again. So there’s nothing to regret.”

“Then why are you drinking?”

Elias snagged the bottle back. “I’m celebrating. Here’s to things working out. You and the duchess—you’re going to work out.”

“El. I regret it if you are upset. I’m not worried about the duchess right now.”

“I’m—” The guard laughed, a helpless sort of chuckle. “I’m not upset. What would I be upset about? Everything’s going according to plan: you’re on your way to a royal wedding and a coronation, and I haven’t gotten either of us killed yet, so I’m at least reasonably doing my job. Anything else, we can forget about .”

“Is that really what you want me to do?”

“Don’t,” Elias said, the last consonant clicking sharply between his teeth, “ask me what I want.” He drank again.

Beau studied the clean, sharp lines of his profile, the stubble along his jaw. “Why not?”

“ Beau ,” Elias said, and even the exasperation in El’s voice wasn’t enough to draw the thrill out of hearing his name spoken from that mouth again. El licked his lips, set the bottle down, turned his hazel eyes back to meet Beau’s. “Because I don’t know.”

The guard’s hand lifting to Beau’s face, knuckles running over the prince’s cheek, seemed to surprise them both. “I want you to be king and marry a woman you love. I want to be your faithful guard for the rest of my life. I want to protect you and her and your children and I want to make godsdamn sure you get to the throne and stay there. Because that’s my job.”

Beau couldn’t move. Elias’s hand flattened against his face, thumb running along his cheekbone. “And I want…to fuck all that up immensely.” His fingers slid back into Beau’s hair, pulled him closer. “Because I’m an idiot.”

Though his words said I know better than this , Elias’s body moved closer. Every sound in the isles went silent when his breath played over Beau’s lips. There was never a doubt Beau would cross that tiny gap of night air. He was helpless against the offer.

Elias tasted like whiskey. An idle thought wondered what emotion that would equate to, if El were wearing the ring. And then every thought in Beau’s brain was dedicated to more, closer, yes . His hands found all the parts of El’s body he’d stopped himself from touching for seven long fucking years. Elias bit his lower lip, and Beau growled low in his throat, and El dragged him away from the edge of the roof and kissed him so ferociously and so desperately that Beau couldn’t breathe.

“Wait,” Beau said, pushing El back. His fingers marveled at the feeling of Elias’s chest even while he tried to bring his mind back into order. “What does this mean? What does it…”

“Change?” Elias was breathless. “Nothing. It can’t change anything.”

Beau struggled to sit up straight, keeping his hands on El’s chest to hold him where he could see him, could talk to him. “Changes nothing ?” He shook his head. “I don’t fucking think so. You can’t do that to me.”

“I’m not doing anything to you.”

“Yes, you are!” Beau half laughed, though he wasn’t amused at all. “You have to know, El. You must know I love you. That’s why everyone in the godsdamn Hops asked if I’d married you while we were gone. You’ve said before that I can’t keep anything off my face, so I know you know I can’t kiss you like that and go back to pretending things are normal.”

El’s good hand slid along Beau’s jaw. “ You are not the reason they’re asking if we got married,” he said, gruff amusement in his voice. “Before we left, I overheard Ma talking to Nicky and Skid. They were joking that I’d find another job in the capital, and Ma said—” He hesitated, then let himself smile a sad, devastatingly gorgeous smile. He bent to kiss Beau again, and the prince let him because he had to, because he needed Elias like he needed air.

He pulled back far enough to whisper, “She said, ‘There ain’t a single part of Ellie that don’t belong to his prince. Heart included. He ain’t going nowhere.’ And she was right.”

Beau couldn’t bring in a breath, couldn’t blink or think.

Elias loved him.

Elias wanted him.

And there was not a fucking thing a king could do with that information.

“I left a letter,” he blurted. “That said I was abdicating. One pigeon, and the crown is Courdur’s by the end of tomorrow.”

El jerked back, sitting down hard. “You what?”

Hefting himself up, Beau reached out to grab his good wrist. “I don’t get to be king and have you. But if I give up the throne, we can go anywhere. I’ve got some money. We can get new names, get a place, a job. We can go to Altagna—that’s where you said you’re from, right? I don’t speak the language, but if you do…” He trailed off as Elias lurched to his feet, pacing.

“Fuck, fuck , this is exactly—no, you can’t abdicate . I can’t steal the fucking king.”

“I promise you can.”

El dropped to his knees in front of Beau and grabbed his face with both hands, the splint pressing painfully into Beau’s right cheek. “You have to be king. You have to marry the duchess and make her a queen and rule this country. You have to. I am not fucking things up this badly.”

“Why?” Beau demanded. He waved away the first answer he could see Elias forming. “I know why I want to be king, and I know why Penamour wants me to be king, but if you want me, why are you fighting so hard to put me on the throne?”

Elias swallowed hard, then grabbed Beau’s jaw and kissed him like he wanted to consume him completely. When he broke away, he pressed his forehead to Beau’s so Beau couldn’t see his eyes clearly. “I’ve told you why you deserve the throne.”

“That’s not answering the same question.”

“I can’t tell you more than that.”

Beau shook his head, pulled away, stood. “No. I’m afraid that’s where I draw the line. You don’t get to tell me you love me and tell me to forget that and go on and be king if you won’t tell me why .” Elias on his knees, hair falling out of his half-up bun, eyes fever-bright, was a beautiful thing. But he was a mystery. He was a liar . “Who am I in love with, El?”

“An idiot,” Elias said viciously, clearly furious with himself. “A moron who really thought he could steal a fucking taste and not— fucking Twelve , I’m so godsdamn stupid.”

“El—”

“No, no no no, I’m going to bed. I’m—fuck. Forget it, Your Highness, please,” he said in as formal a tone as he ever used. “Please chalk this evening up to temporary insanity from all the many, many poisons I enjoyed yesterday and ignore anything I’ve said. It was all lies and hallucinations. I’m not in love with you. I’m not even attracted to you, actually, so let’s just put that right behind us.” Elias snatched the bottle up, hurled it off the roof to shatter against the cobbles far below, and went to the roof hatch.

“ Wait , Elias, please, for fuck’s sake,” Beau said. He’d never seen El so upset. He caught the door before El could open it all the way and slammed it shut again. “Sit your lying ass back down. You’re not going to unfuck this situation by pretending it never happened.”

“I actually don’t think there’s any other way to unfuck this, Your Highness,” Elias said, but he sat, looking lost. Elias never looked lost; the expression made Beau want to hold him, reassure him, kiss him again. Everything made him want to kiss Elias again.

Beau tilted his head, trying to sort through what could possibly be going through his mad guard’s head. “You’re upset that I said I was willing to abdicate.”

El scoffed. “Obviously.”

“So you don’t want to run away with me.”

“I…don’t, no.” That was, at best, only partially true, but Beau let it slide.

He sighed. “That was all you had to say, then. Don’t start ordering me around, telling me I can’t . It’s my life. But obviously I’m not running away with you if you don’t want to run away with me.” Beau rubbed a hand over his chest, which ached. “If you don’t want me, tell me that .”

Elias was silent; he sank slowly until he lay flat along the roof, staring up into the starry sky. “If I don’t want you?” he said quietly.

He said nothing more, nothing to clarify, no answers, and Beau rolled his eyes, irritated. “You know I don’t understand these things at the best of times. Don’t be cruel; talk to me. What is going on with you?”

“I don’t know,” Elias muttered.

“Yes, you do! You must’ve felt this way at least since before we left for the capital, if Ma commented on it.”

“Ha,” El laughed quietly. “At least.”

“But you were the consummate professional all that time.”

Elias tilted his head back, fixing Beau with a wryly amused look. “I absolutely was not. Surely you’re aware the entire palace thinks we’re fucking.”

Beau sighed. “You do touch me a lot.” His gaze traced Elias’s hands, then met his eyes again. Such pretty hazel eyes, so soft and so tortured right now.

“And you look at me like that a lot.”

“Do I?” Beau plucked at his robe to give his hands something to do. “Still, we were doing all right not acknowledging it. So what changed?” When Elias went blank, Beau’s voice grew harder. “ You changed it, El. You were the one acting different tonight on the dance floor. Why?”

Elias lifted his shoulders almost to his ears, held them there, then sighed explosively and released them. “Because I was very much not doing okay not acknowledging it.” He stared fixedly up at the moon. “And I thought there was a perfect little window where everything aligned. You were in love with the right person, so I thought it was safe—you wouldn’t get thrown off track. And you weren’t actually with her yet. I knew you wouldn’t be disloyal, and once you married her, I’d never have the chance again, so…”

He trailed off as though he expected Beau to say something, but the prince only watched and listened, transfixed by Elias actually revealing his thought process for once. El continued, “But I forgot you’re an all-or-nothing kind of man. You don’t have the shades of grey necessary to have a taste, enjoy it, and then move on and let things be the way they’re supposed to be.”

“Hey! I’m capable of nuance,” Beau said, stung.

“Highness.”

“I am! I’m not an idiot.”

El smirked at him. “I didn’t say you were an idiot; I said you’re all or nothing.”

“Enlighten me about these shades of grey, then. I wasn’t supposed to admit I’d give up the throne for you. What was I supposed to do with your declaration of love? What was this supposed to look like in your dream scenario?”

El’s smirk turned bitter as a nightjar trilled its rapid, thrumming call. “To start, it didn’t include the duchess walking directly into our first kiss.”

“That was a surprise,” Beau muttered mildly.

“I don’t know, Highness. Tomorrow you’re going to make a duchess fall in love with you and probably propose to her. So I guess I just imagined…one night.”

A breeze whistled over the roof; Beau shivered. “One night?”

Elias tilted his head back again, meeting Beau’s eyes with that desperate, aching look of insatiable hunger. “Yeah. One night where we get whatever we want. And then…tomorrow, we make the right choices again. I go back to being your guard and you go back to being the crown prince and we get back to the business of marrying you off to somebody else.”

“And you’re fine with that? With one night?” Beau tried to keep his incredulity out of his voice. He knew in his bones it would kill him to have Elias and give him up again. But he also thought…it was already too late. Going back to bed alone, trying to sleep knowing Elias was somewhere else loving him, was unthinkable. He was already drowning; giving in to El’s impossible proposal was taking a big, deep breath underwater.

“That’s all I want,” Elias said, convincing no one at all, but resolute nonetheless.

This is a terrible idea. “Just tonight,” Beau said slowly anyway.

Elias’s eyes lit with hope as he realized Beau was agreeing. He leaned forward, eyes scanning the prince, waiting for a rebuttal that didn’t come. “Just one night,” he whispered, barely audible, as he reached out, brushed Beau’s waves aside, and kissed him again.

The prince expected El to be rough, urgent, but he moved with slow, focused intent, almost reverence. While his mouth formed itself to Beau’s, his fingers dragged down the prince’s throat, down the strip of his chest his robe parted to reveal, down to the tie at his waist, which Elias untied with one smooth pull. Then his hand was on Beau again, and Beau moaned into his mouth when El drew the backs of his fingers down his hard length, blunt fingernails scratching deliciously sensitive lines through Beau’s linen drawers.

“We’re doing this,” Elias murmured, sounding awed and surprised. He kissed Beau’s shoulder, bit him. Then, so quietly Beau almost couldn’t make it out, “I get to kiss my prince. Mine.” Beau tugged El’s hair out of its tie. He’d always wanted to know if it was as soft as it looked. It slipped through his fingers like cool water.

He chuckled breathlessly as lips and tongue traced the shapes of his tattoos. “Yours. I think once you rescue someone enough times you probably do own them, with all the life debt.”

Elias’s low laugh was absolutely menacing as he nipped the prince’s abs. “How many saves would you say that takes? I’d like to know if I’m getting close to owning a duchess as well.” He winced as he shifted to put his weight on his forearm, dealing gingerly with his broken hand. Under his breath he said, “One night, and I’ve got to do everything one-handed.”

“Here,” Beau said, sitting up and pushing El onto his back. “I’ve got two perfectly good hands, and they’re shamefully idle.”

Hastily, he unlaced El’s shirt and pulled it off. Elias was beautiful, sculpted to perfection, hair splayed loose around him and every muscle shaped with an artist’s loving attention. For a long time, Beau stared, a heartbeat longer for every time he’d ever made himself look away from this man. Elias watched him silently, smiling.

“I know you’ve made a habit of not touching me,” El said, “but I promise you can.”

“Shh, I’m enjoying myself. And anyway, I’ve had a mantra of don’t touch him running in my head nonstop for years. It takes a minute to get over.” He set his hand flat against El’s breastbone and felt his heart pounding against it. Elias’s breathing was uneven, hitched, the same heartbeat that pulsed against Beau’s palm also visible in his throat. “Are you nervous?”

Elias closed his eyes. “Yes.”

The prince almost teased his fearless protector about being afraid of him , of all things, but when he leaned in to press a kiss to Elias’s lips, the tremor in the guard’s exhale was too raw, too honest. So he said only, “Me too.” Though he wasn’t, really. He’d imagined this a thousand times. It felt as natural and inevitable as gravity.

He took a deep breath and set his hands on Elias’s chest, dragging his thumbs across the muscle. El exhaled sharply, eyes slitting open. “You’re so tense,” Beau said with a laugh. “Come here. I’ll give you a massage, loosen you up.”

He didn’t wait for Elias to move, just dragged him along as he propped himself against a chimney and sprawled his legs out in front of him. El lay between them, back against his stomach and head propped on Beau’s shoulder. The wind caught their hair, blew it in their eyes, teased their bare skin. “Now,” Beau said, “the only job you have is to relax. So relax for me.” He reached over El to massage his shoulders, his chest, his arms. Smooth and warm and traced lightly with scars, Elias’s skin was pure pleasure to touch.

Until he loosened the strain in Elias’s muscles, he didn’t realize how tight they actually were. As each muscle slackened under Beau’s massaging fingers, he started to understand that he’d never seen Elias relax, not even for a moment. He reached further down, massaging along El’s abs, and rested his cheek against the top of the guard’s head.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to touch you?” Beau asked quietly.

Elias’s hmm fell between acknowledgement and laughter. “I may have an inkling.”

How long had Elias been holding back interest behind blank faces and professionalism? Had the thousand small touches on Beau’s shoulders and neck and arms been intentional choices or desire breaking out of containment? He wasn’t sure he’d ever know. Elias kept so many secrets. “Tell me something true about yourself, El. Something I don’t know. Please.”

Elias took a deep breath, belly shifting under Beau’s hands. Lines on his face Beau had assumed were permanent vanished as he calmed under the prince’s touch. It made him look years younger and soft in ways Beau barely recognized. Beau couldn’t stop staring at his face.

“You’re fishing for secrets that’ll put your life in danger,” Elias said. “Stop it.”

“Nothing dangerous . Just something about you. How about some incentive?” Beau shifted Elias slightly to one side so he could reach over El’s hip and slide his hand under the fabric of his pants. “You keep talking, I keep touching.” El was as hard as he was, and when he brushed his fingers over the tip, El’s whole body went tight again, then dropped more heavily against him as the guard panted.

“You really going to stop touching me?” Elias asked, eyes closed but strain in his voice.

Beau grabbed him firmly, loving the shudder it drew. “Please don’t call my bluff.”

El chuckled, ran his good hand up the inside of Beau’s calf. “Fine. I…what can I tell you? You were right, I’m from Altagna originally, close to the border with Sharzhakaman. So I speak Alt agnan and Alzhaki—it’s a border pidgin. But I came to Granvallée a long time ago.” Beau’s hand worked up and down El’s length, and El groaned from somewhere deep in his chest.

Fuck thrones and crowns—this was the power Beau craved: knowing exactly how to please someone he loved, being able to do it, watching them succumb to it.

When he slowed his hand, moving teasingly as if he’d pull away, Elias grabbed his arm to hold him in place and said, “I’m talking, I’m still talking. I came to Granvallée by ship when I was nine. I was alone. I had to learn the language, learn to make a living. It was hard.” He panted, eyes closed, hips lifting to slide himself through Beau’s hand. “Didn’t…love the work I found.”

“What kind of work?” Beau asked, and Elias gritted his teeth for a moment before tilting his head back to look up at the prince from the corner of his eyes.

“The type that earns you nicknames you still can’t shake twenty years later,” El muttered, dry amusement coloring his voice. Lap candy. “You have to already have guessed. Didn’t take you for the sort to get off on digging out your partner’s shameful secrets.”

Beau hesitated, then said, “You know every secret I’ve ever had. We’re beyond embarrassment. But I didn’t ask for anything specific; this doesn’t have to be the one you tell me, if you don’t want to.”

He replayed what Elias had said in his head. “Wait—” Twenty years later? We celebrated his thirtieth birthday last year.

“Don’t do the math. You’ll only upset yourself,” Elias said, exhaling a humorless laugh. Beau’s hand paused, but Elias wrapped his own around it, tightening their grip and pressing his head back hard against the prince’s shoulder.

“ Who did you work for?” Beau asked, more insistent, anger leaking into his voice.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Because I’ll kill them?” Beau’s voice broke up an octave.

Elias chuckled, genuinely delighted by Beau’s reaction. “Unfortunately, you can’t kill them. Neither can I. Most of them are as deadly as Gerard.”

“But you got free of them.”

The tension returned to Elias’s face, and his teeth ground against each other. His abs rolled as he pushed up against Beau’s hand faster. “Yes. I found a strange, handsome, plain-spoken prince with a gnarly sword wound sitting on a rooftop and I offered to be his guard. He was crazy enough to accept, and the rest is history.”

Beau’s left arm snaked around Elias’s neck to grab his chest as he drew more groans from Elias with his right. He pressed his face to El’s hair. Gods, he loved this man. “Very boring history, until the last week or so,” Beau said jokingly. “Guarding the most peace-loving prince who ever lived on the most peaceful islands while I tried ten thousand hobbies and abandoned them a week later.”

“I loved—” Elias caught his breath, struggling to speak. His eyes squeezed shut tight, a flush rising in his skin until he nearly caught fire. “I loved every second of it. I’ve never been happier in my life, Highness.” Another ragged breath in that came back out as a moan. “I would do anything. Anything. Anything at all for you.” He crushed Beau’s hand around him with his own, each moan so desperate it was almost a sob.

“ Anything ? And you’re mad I’d give up a throne nobody even wants me to have? For fuck’s sake, let me repay the loyalty.”

Elias laughed breathlessly. “Repay? I’m trying desperately to meet my debt. Not going to do that by losing you your birthright and the partner you deserve .”

“Penamour?”

“Yes, Penamour.” Elias’s breaths were coming too fast, each sound cutting off the next. “I know she’s perfect for you. I’m just coming to terms with you not needing me anymore.”

“I have never needed anyone or anything as much as I need you, Elias.”

“As a guard,” El said, his voice breaking. The wind picked up again, making his hair tickle Beau’s chest, his throat. It chilled the sweat on both of their bodies, and they shivered in unison. “You’ll always have me for that. It’s the other things.”

Elias’s grip on Beau’s hand was merciless, and so was Beau’s grip on El’s chest, like the moment would be ripped out of their hands if their fingers uncurled. “What things?”

“I’m the first person you look for when you open your eyes in the morning. The last words you say before you fall asleep are for me. When you’re— ah fuck —when you’re nervous or upset and I touch you, you calm down. When you don’t know how you feel, you ask me.” He cried out too loud for the quiet night, and Beau let go of his chest to cover his mouth.

Beau ached. He couldn’t lose those things. He couldn’t bear it. Lady Penamour was beautiful and charming and intelligent, and Beau was going to find a way to convince her to marry him. But if marrying for love meant never getting to look at Elias and feel the peace of his absolute, cocky-ass certainty in his own capabilities, Beau would find some way not to fall in love.

“Those are my favorite things,” Beau said. “And I will be the kind of king who protects the good things. So be there in the mornings when I open my eyes, okay?”

A shudder ran through Elias; his face crumpled in what looked like pain. He went still, every muscle taut, and then he groaned into the hand Beau kept over his mouth and spent himself into the hand that had brought him to the peak. He panted and shook against the prince, and Beau held him as close as he could, pressing his forehead to El’s hair.

“ Ah lur oo ,” Elias said, muffled in Beau’s hand. Beau peeled his fingers away and the guard repeated himself. “I love you.”

Beau absorbed it like a flower soaking in sunlight. But everything had gotten so heavy, so intense, he couldn’t resist lightening the mood. “Yeah, yeah,” he teased in a low voice. “You already said that and took it back once tonight. I think it’s the orgasm talking.”

With a breathless laugh, Elias sat up enough to look at Beau. “Give me a minute, I’ll see if I still feel that way.”

Beau drew his hand away and licked it clean, filled with smug satisfaction at the way El’s laughter evaporated and his eyes went dark and feral again. He offered his sticky hand to Elias and smirked. “Sorry, did you want some?”

El’s hand closed on Beau’s throat before he realized El had moved. He leaned close to say, “No—I want to give you more.”

“So aggressive,” Beau said lightly, though he could barely breathe. “Anyone would think you were a trained assassin. Is this what you’ve been holding back all this time? I’ve been trying not to lick the sweat off your abs and you’ve been fighting the urge to choke the life out of me?”

The way Elias tilted his head to the side felt more dangerous than the hand on Beau’s throat. “You wanted to lick my abs?” he asked quietly. He leaned back, letting go of Beau so he could support himself with his good arm. “No one’s stopping you now.”

Beau didn’t waste a second. His tongue traced a path from Elias’s neck along his collarbone, down his chest, and over each rise of muscle in his abdomen. He sucked gently on the skin as goosebumps pebbled its surface. When he tried to pull Elias’s pants out of the way so he could keep going lower, Elias dropped flat on the ground and slid his hand into the hair at the base of Beau’s neck, tightening until it hurt. He dragged the prince up to his mouth and kissed him hungrily. “I’ve already had a round,” El said. “Your turn.”

“Maybe I like making you break,” Beau said, smiling against Elias’s mouth.

Elias hummed in his throat, almost a growl. “Good. Earn it.”

Absolutely nothing could’ve prepared Beau for his reaction to those words. Some part of his brain switched off, and instead of words or logic or reason, his mind flooded with irrational, animal need. He scratched and tore at Elias, trying to get closer, and El had his mouth on every part of Beau he could reach. They were a whirlwind of limbs and flesh and heat. In a brief window of lucidity, he was aware of Elias putting weight on his hurt wrist so he could pull Beau’s hips to his.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he gasped.

“I don’t care,” Elias said. Then his slick fingers were slipping inside Beau and all arguments were driven from his mind.

Every touch was flawless, sublime satisfaction and made him ten thousand times hungrier. Both keening, neither with a spare hand to muffle the other, they gave voice to need around the mouth or neck or shoulder under their lips. Elias rolled so Beau could sit atop him and grabbed Beau’s hips to align them—he was definitely not supposed to use that hand—and the press of guard into prince was exactly as painful and as perfect as Beau had expected it to be.

“El, El,” Beau said, strangled, frantic.

Elias snarled, thrust himself in deeper, deeper. “ Yes , Beau. Yes. Yes. Fuck, you feel so good. That’s it. That’s it. Fuck, yes, ride me—”

Anything . He’d do anything for that man, anything to make him keep making those crazed sounds, anything to hear another yes like that. Beau jerked himself with one hand and planted the other on Elias’s chest for leverage to roll his body down harder, one gasping, moaning inch at a time. His fingers clawed into El’s skin until they drew blood, but the guard never stopped his litany of, “That’s my Beau, that’s it, keep going, just like that.”

The feeling of settling all the way down on Elias’s hips, his body reshaped to match El exactly, brought Beau to the brink. “I’m so—close—”

El groaned.

“Good boy, Highness. Come around me. I want to feel it.”

Who was he to deny a command like that? He shook with the force of an orgasm so intense it almost hurt, waves of nearly unbearable pleasure that painted Elias’s chest and stomach. El cupped his cheek, whispered kindnesses and cruelties and proclamations of love. Coming down off the high was like falling, turning him inside-out.

He wanted to lay his head on Elias’s chest, to catch his breath, but El was already moving him.

“Lay down,” El said. “I’m not done with you.” He curled up behind Beau, an almost-perfect mirror of waking up together, except now Beau wasn’t begging the gods for any scrap of physical affection, he was taking El inside him again and wrapped up tight against the guard with every available limb. El buried his face in the place where Beau’s neck met his shoulder and rocked them together and said, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” until he found his release again.

They stayed that way, as the wind tried to freeze their overheated bodies and the silence of the night settled on them. Neither was willing to pull free from the other, and they’d emptied themselves of all their words.

A sense of unreality swathed Beau; he was untethered from the earth. It wasn’t possible that he’d had the best sex of his life with the man he’d been in love with and unable to touch for his entire adult life. It wasn’t possible that he was going to be unable to touch him again tomorrow, unable to hear him whisper I love you while they were the closest two people could possibly be. So reality simply couldn’t be true. This was a dream.

Elias ran his nose up the back of Beau’s neck, and the prince shivered. “You do that in your sleep.”

El laughed, low and smoky. “No, I don’t, Highness. I do that when I’m trying to decide how much I can get away with when I’ve got a prince pretending to be asleep in my arms.”

Surprised, Beau sent his own laugh into the night as he watched a light flare on in a window on the other side of the island. “I really don’t have a single secret, do I?”

Biting lightly at the nape of Beau’s neck, Elias said, “Not one.”

The wind blew again, sneaking into every tiny space between them. Their sticky skin chilled. “We could go inside, you know. I’ve got a very comfortable bed in there.”

“No,” El said, squeezing Beau tighter. “If we leave the roof—”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but Beau understood. It’d be different if they left this place. There was something magical here, something suspending time and reality. Inside, there’d be people and shared walls and reminders of responsibilities that returned at sunrise. The spell would be broken.

Beau closed his eyes, tried to absorb the feeling of Elias holding him with no pretenses. Behind him, El whispered, “ Phelya idif ajiki mandistrasi fina ea’istia. ” In Alzhaki, his voice was softer, silvery.

“What does it mean?”

Elias bit him again, slid his hand over Beau’s stomach. “It means, ‘Every mistake I’ve made was worth it for this’.”

Beau exhaled slowly, letting the sentiment flow over him like warm water. “How would I say, ‘This is my husband, Elias, and we need a place to stay while we find work. Do you know of anything?’”

The laugh-sob that came out of Elias cut Beau to the quick. El’s forehead crushed against the back of Beau’s skull. “ Rei kyriv .”

“Seems a bit short,” Beau said lightly, a catch in his throat.

“One night, Highness. Rei kyriv. You agreed.”

Beau let himself deflate with a sigh. “So I don’t get to kiss and touch you every day forever; I can still imagine . Imagine with me, Elias. Close your eyes. Picture our house. Maybe a little hammock in the front yard? Somewhere we can read on quiet mornings?”

“Stop. Please .” Elias turned Beau in his arms, kissed him. “I can’t imagine that. It’ll break me.”

Pressing a finger to El’s lip, Beau said, “You’re unbreakable.”

Elias’s hazel eyes glittered too brightly in the starlight as he shook his head. “Everyone has a weakness. Even…whatever I am.”

He cleared his throat, smiled wryly. “Speaking of weaknesses, if yours is licking me clean, there’s no better time. I’m a mess.”

“Careful,” Beau said, even as he slid down to press his mouth to El’s sticky body, “this has been known to cause further messes.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Elias growled.