Page 26 of The Lost Art of Finding Where You Belong (Lost Arts #2)
Chapter Eleven
I t was a noisy, boisterous dinner, and when Perian asked if Onadal was looking forward to Delana being back, silence actually rippled out from where they were sitting.
Perian mouthed the word, “Wow,” at Onadal and said without missing a beat, “You must be looking forward to easily coordinating all your training again.”
Smoothly, Onadal agreed, “It will be nice when everything is back to normal.”
Everyone went back to dinner like the moment hadn’t happened, and Perian had to work really hard not to gape at them. Seriously? Did they have cucumbers for brains?
“Back to normal,” he agreed. “I, too, am looking forward to everything going back to normal.”
Molun volunteered, “By which he means lots of sex with Brannal.”
Someone inhaled wrong across the table, started to choke, and had to be pounded on the back by their neighbor. Molun dissolved into laughter.
Perian agreed, “Well, yes, that’s part of our normal routine, thank you for bringing it up in public. ”
More laughter rang out, and Onadal shot him a fleeting grateful look as the conversation passed on to other people who were looking forward to seeing friends and loved ones, and from there to trips people had taken, and Perian just sat back and listened.
At any questions that headed his way, he explained how he had grown up on a secluded estate with his father and had never done much traveling, just occasional trips between here and his estate until what had turned into this extended stay here at the castle.
“Would you like to travel?” one of the Warriors asked, a short, dark-haired woman with amber eyes. The square beads in her hair were bright green.
“Maybe one day,” he answered. “I think I’d prefer to travel with friends and family.”
Molun volunteered, “That is his way of saying he wants to travel with Brannal.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
Perian shrugged. “What can I say? I have no complaints about the time we spend together.”
Everyone assumed he was talking about the sex, and there were lots of laughs and nudges.
Perian wasn’t totally sure if Brannal would want his colleagues to know all about cuddles by the fire and horseback rides and reading books together and tea in the morning and being curled up together in bed, so he let the assumption stand.
Dinner broke up, and Perian waved goodbye to Bennan, who almost missed it because he was following Chamis with his eyes as the big man hurried out of the room.
Molun, Arvus, and Nisal headed back towards their rooms, and Nisal said they’d leave them to it.
“Do you think I should be spending more time with Nisal?” Perian asked when the three of them were back in Molun and Arvus’s rooms. “I don’t want them to think I’m suddenly carrying on with you two and don’t care about them.”
Molun laughed.
Arvus, more helpfully, said, “No, I don’t think you need to be concerned. They clearly like you, and they’re not interested in what we’re doing.”
“No spark?” Perian asked.
They stared at him, so he explained his discussion with Nisal.
“No spark,” Arvus confirmed, sounding amused.
“Unlike us ,” Molun pronounced warmly. “We could start a fire, couldn’t we?”
“We sure could,” Perian agreed.
“So much that we need to express it tonight?” Molun asked hopefully.
Arvus clucked his tongue.
“That was just a question,” Molun pointed out.
Perian snorted a laugh. “No, that’s fine. And in the spirit of full disclosure, as soon as Brannal is back, nobody but the Queen is getting between him and me, so I’m not totally sure when I’m going to see the two of you again.”
Molun looked completely satisfied. “So we should be seizing our moment while we can, right?”
Arvus looked more indulgent and amused than anything else, and it wasn’t like Perian didn’t want to watch the two of them. So he nodded, Molun cheered, and they went through their now nightly ritual of partially undressing Perian and taking care of his wound before going to get ready.
The anticipation welled through Perian’s body as he got settled, and he wondered if he was ever going to be able to sit in this chair in the future without remembering all this.
The arrival of Molun and Arvus ratcheted up the sexual tension in the room, and Perian was already squirming in his seat as he watched them arrange themselves in front of the fire, this time with Molun laid out on his back.
Arvus had brought what proved to be massage oil and proceeded to rub it all over Molun and elicit all sorts of amazing sounds out of him.
Perian palmed his cock and just breathed in the beautiful noises because no one was even touching anyone else’s cock yet, and Perian felt like he was in danger of coming.
The massage continued until Arvus had touched Molun from head to toe, dragging fingers over every inch of his skin—except his cock, which was a straining, rigid length jutting up from Molun’s groin, just begging to be touched.
Molun was panting.
“You want me to touch your cock, baby?” Arvus asked with remarkable composure.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Molun babbled.
“You’re going to have to touch mine first,” Arvus told him. “You want to do that?”
Molun nodded eagerly, reaching for it. Arvus climbed up until he was straddling Molun’s chest and fed his cock to him. Perian made an absolutely indecent noise as he watched Molun eagerly swallow it down. Molun made hungry, eager sounds until Arvus came down his throat .
Only then did Arvus reach behind himself, calm as you please, and wrap his fist around Molun’s erection, pumping a handful of times until Molun was coming, his hips arching off the floor, Perian coming in his wake.
As always, Perian was bowled over by the buildup of sexual tension and the explosive release. It felt like his brain was dribbling out of his toes, it left him so drained in the most perfectly sated of ways.
They got cleaned up, Arvus helping Molun and then Perian get ready for bed, and he didn’t even ask verbally this time, just eyed Perian and then scooped him up and carried him to the bed.
Perian sighed happily and was soon asleep.
Perian woke to his now somewhat-accustomed position of cuddled between Molun and Arvus. Tonight, he remembered, was probably the last time he was going to experience it, because tomorrow night, he would be with Brannal! He was really enjoying these sleepy cuddles, but he wanted Brannal more.
And then he remembered his mission today and sat up.
“Oh, I gotta go,” he told them.
“Wha—?” Molun said.
Perian plunked a kiss on the top of his head.
“Go back to sleep, you can have a few more minutes.”
Molun cuddled back into his pillow. “Oh, good.”
To the more awake Arvus, Perian said, “Super-secret stuff, I’ll see you later, all right?”
“Your arm,” Arvus pointed out.
“I will do it, promise,” Perian said hurriedly.
After he waylaid a certain redhead in the hallway, he amended to himself.
“Thanks again,” he said as he climbed out of the bed. “I really appreciate it. You two are the reason I actually got sleep this week.”
He rushed out of the room and headed to Brannal’s to do the bare minimum in terms of getting cleaned up and throwing on clean clothes. Then he rushed back out of the room and made his way over to the Warrior wing.
Nisal’s knowledge was as good as it always was, and Perian had not been long in the corridor before Chamis appeared. When the man spotted him, Perian actually saw the slight falter and what he was certain was the consideration of turning around again and just heading in the opposite direction.
Ouch.
“Good morning,” Perian said as cheerfully as he could. “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a couple of minutes.”
The other man looked resigned now, those bright green eyes shadowed. “Of course.”
Feeling so very accomplished, Perian headed to the training yard with a spring in his step.
He checked in with Onadal, who eyed Perian with sympathy.
“Looking forward to his coming home?” he asked.
“Soo much,” Perian said with a half laugh, dragging out the word. “And if I had my way, you wouldn’t see him for a week.”
Onadal smirked. “I know what you mean.”
Perian waggled his eyebrows. “Do you?”
And of course, Onadal just walked away. Perian shook his head with a grin and settled back down on the ground to watch everyone train.
As he watched, his mind drifted. There was still that itchy worry in the back of his brain that something might happen to Brannal, but he tried to push it away.
He wondered, if he was able to defend himself better, might he be able to go next time?
Brannal had explained that he and the other Mage Warriors were allowed to have guests at the castle and there were no costs for Perian, but Perian wasn’t sure that extended to him following after Brannal when he was actually patrolling .
For that matter, he wasn’t sure Brannal would like it, since Perian would unquestionably be in more danger on a patrol than at the castle.
The only time people in the castle had been killed by demons was in the wraith attack six years ago.
No one had ever figured out how the wraiths had gotten in, and Brannal had overhauled training and security afterwards when he became Summus, and the castle had been perfectly secure since then.
Perian couldn’t bring any of that up, though, since the attack clearly still haunted Brannal.
But… maybe there were options. Perian was pretty sure he’d be less worried about anything happening if he was there and could actually see the man.
Perian would keep an open mind, and hopefully, Brannal would, too.
Of course, all of this depended on Brannal coming back, but there was no reason to imagine he might not.
It wasn’t like he’d gone off to face the most dangerous beings in the country that regularly killed people.
Oh, wait.
“What’s with the long face? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so unimpressed with looking at so many muscles before.”