Page 20 of The Lost Art of Revealing Hidden Truths (The Lost Arts #3)

Chapter Nine

M olun clearly had no idea what was going on because Perian hadn’t explained anything, but he pulled Perian into his arms anyway and held him tight, and Perian sobbed all over his chest.

He didn’t realize Arvus was back until he felt another set of arms wrap around him and another body settle against him. It wasn’t as good as Brannal’s body, but it was tied for a close second.

“What’s going on?” Arvus asked.

“I have no idea,” Molun answered.

Perian wasn’t crying as hard anymore.

“It’s fine,” he said with a sniff. “I mean, it’s not fine. I was just trying to keep it together before, and Brannal is dealing with it, so it was just me in the room, and I realized I wasn’t doing so well on my own.”

Molun kissed his forehead. “You should definitely not have to deal with anything on your own, especially not when you’re upset like this. Do you want to talk about it?”

Perian shook his head. He could still remember the feel of the other man’s fingers on him, the gross spike of desire when Perian had yelped in pain. He wasn’t sure that anything would make that go away.

“Can I have a bath?” Perian asked suddenly.

Like that wasn’t a weird thing to ask of your friends with no explanation.

“Of course you can have a bath,” Molun told him. “Arvus is going to run it for you.”

Perian sucked in a breath that still had a bit of a stutter to it and buried his face further into Molun’s chest. If he pressed himself far enough inside, then he would disappear and not have to deal with anything, right?

Maybe Molun’s feelings would cover over everything, and Perian wouldn’t feel so weird anymore.

They stood there, Molun continuing to cuddle him until Arvus announced that the bath was ready.

“Can you come sit with me?” Perian asked.

They exchanged glances but told him that of course, they could come sit with him. Perian had never stripped in front of them with less interest in anything happening, and they had apparently caught his mood, because there were no suggestive comments or looks.

“What’s that?” Arvus asked.

Perian looked down at his arm, where the Warrior had grabbed it and wrenched his wrist. There were livid bruises forming.

Perian swallowed. “That was me trying to stop something horrible from happening. But I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Who hurt you?” Arvus asked, his voice gone lower and sharper.

Sniffing, Perian said, “They’re taking care of it. The doctor and Cormal and Brannal and Onadal.” He sniffed again. “Cormal saved me, actually. Isn’t that weird?”

Oh, he was crying again.

Arvus enfolded him in another hug. “That’s not weird at all. You should always be saved if you need help.”

That was a nice thought. Not that Perian wanted to need to be saved, but if he did need to be saved, then he definitely appreciated when someone was there to help.

“Did the doctor look at your wrist?” Arvus asked.

Perian stared at him blankly. “Why would the doctor look at my wrist?”

“Because it’s hurt,” he answered patiently. “It’s swollen. ”

Perian stared at his right wrist, and then he looked at his left wrist, and he realized that Arvus was definitely correct. The right one was swollen in addition to being bruised with the clear marks of large, grasping fingers.

“Oh,” Perian said. “No, she didn’t look at my wrist. She was busy. It wasn’t me she needed to worry about.”

“Let’s get you in the bath,” Arvus said. “All right?”

Perian nodded, shedding his trousers and underclothes, and they helped him settle in the water. He then learned that his hurt wrist should definitely not be submerged in heat.

Molun came to kneel on the floor beside the bathtub.

“Let’s wrap it in this.”

“Need to clean it,” Perian said, grimacing. “Please.”

Molun nodded. “Yes, of course.”

Perian had imagined scrubbing his arm clean, but there was no way he could handle that with how much it hurt.

Molun carefully ran a cloth over every inch of skin on Perian’s hand and lower arm, making sure that everything was clean before he wrapped the wrist in a cloth that he had clearly wet himself, because it was refreshingly cool.

Perian sighed and leaned back a little in the bathtub.

The heat of the water seemed to have helped warm him up.

“That’s better,” Molun said. “You just relax. I’ll keep an eye on your arm, all right?”

Perian nodded, distantly realizing that was a weird thing to say, but it was exactly what he needed to hear.

He didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until a hand on his shoulder roused him.

He blinked open his eyes, and there was Brannal, which of course made Perian start to cry again.

Brannal reached right into the bath and scooped Perian out and into his arms. Water went everywhere, but either Molun or Brannal had that covered, and the water flew through the air and flowed back into the bathtub.

Perian was getting Brannal all wet, but he didn’t seem to care about that, either. Perian clung to him, and Molun or Arvus brought a towel and wrapped it around him from behind. It must have been Arvus, because then there was Molun with another cloth for his wrist.

“Let’s get your wrist wrapped again,” he said.

Brannal settled in an armchair by the fire, rearranging Perian as though he weighed nothing so that he was sitting across Brannal’s lap.

Perian was swathed in a towel, which Brannal rearranged to cover a bit more of him.

He pressed kisses to Perian’s cheeks and eyelids and forehead, warm against the the tears on Perian’s face.

“It was so horrible,” he whispered to Brannal, like they’d been in the middle of a conversation. “He likes to hurt people. He likes it when they’re scared. It turned him on when he hurt me.”

Perian shivered. Brannal hugged him closer.

“Venoran will not hurt anyone else. He’s been expelled from the Warriors, and the Queen will make a further pronouncement on his punishment in the next few days. He will be held in the dungeon until then.”

Perian sniffed. “Good. That’s good.” He sniffed. “Will I need to talk to the Queen? I’ll do it if it will help.”

“I’ll discuss it with Cormal and Onadal. Is that all right?”

Perian nodded. “Of course. Whatever Misalla needs.”

Brannal kissed his temple.

“Now, let’s see how your wrist is doing,” Brannal said. “I don’t remember you mentioning getting hurt.”

“I forgot,” Perian said with a shrug. “It wasn’t about me.”

They unwrapped his wrist. It still looked pretty swollen, though the coolness of the compress had definitely helped with the pain.

“I can still wiggle my fingers,” Perian said, showing that he could do exactly that. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”

Brannal raised an eyebrow.

“Doesn’t everyone fall out of a tree at some point in childhood?” he asked a little sheepishly.

Brannal huffed a breath. “It looks painful, though.”

“It does kind of hurt,” Perian agreed.

“We’ve got tonic and salve,” Molun said. “We should have offered that to begin with. Don’t know what we were thinking. Sorry, Perian.”

Perian shook his head. He wasn’t sure he’d been ready to deal with his wrist before now. But he duly swallowed a tonic and let Brannal carefully smooth the salve over his arm. He sighed as it took effect.

“That definitely helps. Thank you. ”

“Of course.”

Arvus re-wrapped the wrist in a proper bandage this time, which made Perian wince. It felt better when he stopped.

He snuggled back against Brannal, who asked, “How are you feeling now?”

“Sleepy,” Perian answered.

“Want to go to bed?”

Perian nodded. He wasn’t even sure what time it was.

He didn’t much care. Brannal rose from the chair, bringing Perian with him as though he weighed nothing, and Perian clutched at him with his good hand.

His left, because of course Venoran had hurt his dominant hand. He was sure that was deliberate.

He said goodnight to Molun and Arvus, who bid him a goodnight, too.

“Sorry I was a mess,” he apologized.

They came over to kiss his forehead.

“You don’t ever have to apologize for being a mess,” Molun said. Then he frowned. “Wait, I’m not sure that came out right.”

Perian laughed softly, the soft swell of affection welling up inside him.

“Don’t ever hesitate to come to us if you need us,” Arvus articulated what Molun had actually meant, and Perian nodded, grateful once again that he had friends as good as these.

Brannal carried him across the hallway and straight through to the bedroom, where he carefully laid Perian in bed.

He then stripped out of his own clothing and climbed in after him, cuddling up behind him in Perian’s favorite position so that they were tucked right up next to one another.

Brannal trailed a hand up and down Perian’s side, which made him shiver.

“How are you feeling?” Brannal asked.

And Perian, who up to that point would have said that he still felt a little bit weird and sex was the last thing on his mind, felt the first stirring of something that was definite interest and wasn’t horrible.

“Better the more of that you do,” Perian said.

He could hear the smile in Brannal’s voice. “What? This?”

And the fingers strayed further, trailing up to Perian’s shoulder and then teasing their way down again, tickling over Perian’s hip this time and then down to his thigh.

Perian hummed a happy noise. Brannal’s hands continued to move along his skin, an almost-too-light-to-be-felt tickle that swept up and down his sides, then across his chest, rubbing lightly over his nipples.

The fingers traced a path back to his shoulder, then around a bicep.

Dipping again, they followed the line of his hipbone but then moved to the soft skin at the crease of the back of his thigh rather than anywhere more… central.

By the time Brannal did finally wrap his hands around Perian’s cock, he was hard and aching and thinking only about the desire that flowed between them.