The Coquette and the Thane

PART III | Chapter XXV

3:25 | By Moonlight

Colony of Ire, Merseille Estate

On the second floor on the north side of the Merseille Estate, in a study reamed with books and half bathed in silver moonlight, Lord Darion Merseille, first son of his late father and official keeper of the entitlement, sat at his desk with his head in his hands.  Nothing disturbed the silence.  The house was still, the wind soft outside his window, and the disheveled papers at his desk unmoving.  Had anyone looked into the room, they would have determined it empty save for the estate lord himself.

“You lied to me,” he spoke aloud to the darkness, and silence answered him.

A shadow passed over his back cast from the outside, like a cloud passing over the moon but faster and more distinct, but no sound.

“You swore to me,” his voice tightened as he spoke, “…that your methods were for the best, that you would keep him safe…that you would protect him.”

‘Open the window, Darion.’  The whisper of words in his head was omnipresent – everywhere and nowhere at once – distinctly feminine, and intimately familiar.

Hands closing into fists, he held his ground only a moment before standing, slowly, and even the soft scrape of his chair against the carpeted floor sounded exaggerated in the eerie quiet.  When he turned, moving to face the wide, bay window that lit his desk in the day, his eyes scoured the sky before he reached for the clasps to open it, searching for any disturbance in the otherwise empty, starry night sky.

“I’ve lost two sons because of you…”

‘Two?’

There – for a second, he caught sight of it – a giant, black shape, like a silhouette against the moon, there and then gone just as quickly as it melded again into the darkness of the open sky. 

“Rhyan is missing,” Darion admitted to the empty room.  “He disappeared shortly after I sent Baisyl off for Brittaney.  I can only assume he went out in search of him, but he left no notice of his departure…he simply was not there in the morning and no servant bore witness to his leaving.”  After a short, tense pause, Darion shook his head.  “You can’t keep…hiding things from me and expect-”

‘Open the window, Darion.’  This time the voice was sharper, more forceful, and impatient. 

Swearing, the estate lord obliged, unfastening and throwing the windows wide in a harsh, fast gesture.  He stood his ground, though, watching and waiting until his visitor came into view, and it was, as always, a battle not to catch his breath at the sight.

With a wing span that spread the length of ten tall men lined up head to toe, a tail that could fell a small building if utilized properly, and talons with plenty enough strength in them to carry off the average cow, even a young dragon in full form was a sight to behold.  She shifted, of course, as she approached the window, her body shrinking and winnowing down mid-flight as he watched into something more aptly sized to make a window entrance, so that by the time Darion took a half step aside, it was a nightingale – not a dragon – that flit by him, and he watched frowning as the tiny bird came to a clumsy, wavering perch on the back of his chair.

“Melsinna…”

‘Catch me.’  For the first time, her voice held a twinge of vulnerability, of weakness as her assumed body quivered.

Startled, he took a step forward, but no sooner had he moved to catch the teetering body of a small bird than she shifted once more, and he found himself supporting the weight of a fully grown, trembling woman in his arms.  Like steam blown away by the wind, he forgot his anger in an instant.

“Melsinna…what—?” he started to ask and she shook her head weakly.

“I’ve never…flown for so long without rest in my life,” she murmured in a breathless but surprised tone, as if startled by the possibility of her own limitations, and Darion shut his eyes, drawing a slow breath before releasing it in a sigh and catching her arm.

“Here,” he offered, guiding her grip up, around his neck.  “Hold on,” he instructed and then stooped, catching behind her knees as she tucked her head against his shoulder before lifting, carting her full weight like a groom with his bride.  “You are a foolish woman,” he stated as he walked her across the room, taking her to a long couch on the far side, “…to come here as you did…you should not have pushed yourself so hard.”

He felt the breath of her short laugh against his neck and made a point to ignore as best he could the warm brush of her fingers as she tangled them loosely into the hair at his nape. 

“Then you are a foolish man,” she retorted quietly, “…for allowing me in as you did.  What if your wife finds out?”

Darion scoffed as he knelt, careful to lay his burden down gently before answering, “My ‘wife’ lives on the opposite side of this estate and it’s an unfortunate surprise if we see each other twice in two months…you know that.”  He reached out, idly guiding a loose strand of red back from his lover’s cheek and drawing his eyes over her face, as if to commit each line to memory all over again.  “You’re more than physically exhausted,” he observed after a time.  “Something else happened.  What was it?”

Melsinna smiled, catching his hand before he could withdraw and then twining their fingers together.  “Do you remember Valen?” she asked, and watched his face as he considered.

“The one your father originally arranged for you to mate with,” Darion said, and she nodded.

“He was with a portion of the council that is convinced that taking power will be easier for them if they remove Lucerik from the picture early.  Originally, I convinced him to leave my children by you out of it on the promise that I would see to it personally that Lucerik was never in a position to take power, but…as of recently that, apparently, was not enough.”

She paused, thoughtful, as if reminiscing, and Darion watched her face, reading into each flicker of expression. 

“He sent assassins after our son,” she said at last, “…peasants, possessed by violent wolf spirits bent only on quenching their natural bloodlust…”  On seeing Darion’s immediate tension, she added, “Lucerik lived.  He has someone with him, I think…protecting him.”  She spared Darion a glance, contemplative.  “Did you send someone with him, when you sent him off for the east country?”

“No.  No one.”

She frowned, still looking thoughtful, but brushed it off.  “In any case, Valen is dead,” she continued.  “There was a…minor accident involving fire in his residence shortly after I last spoke with him.  The entire experience was draining for me, magically.  It is in part to blame for my weariness, though…I must admit I didn’t realize the extent of it until I came to a stop.”

“You killed him,” Darion observed, point blank.  Then, with a frown of his own, he reached out, tracing his fingers along her jaw and then throat as if following invisible marks.  “And he touched you…”

“Barely,” she answered, sounding surprised.  “Surely there aren’t still bruises?”

“No,” he said, “…but…” His frowned deepened, pensive as he drew his fingers over her skin.  “I can’t—still?” he said abruptly, and her expression softened, relaxing into a smile as she reached up, brushing her own fingers along the sharp furrows in his brow and watching his face as she did.

“You’re handsome when you’re jealous,” she said.  “As well as when you’re angry…”

“If he-”

“He’s gone, love,” she reminded him quietly.  “Now tell me why you’re upset with me.”

Darion scowled.  “A number of reasons,” he clipped.  “The first and foremost of which being that you have yet to explain to me why it was necessary that Baisyl be sent off in the first place.  I trusted you when you assured me that his life was in danger, but within a week of him being outside of my direct keeping I hear of his ship coming under attack.  It came back a day ago, stripped of its goods but with all the passengers intact except for my son-”

“Our son, Darion,” Melsinna reminded him breezily.  “You seem so keen to forget that…”

“He could have been dead,” Darion snapped.  “For all that I know now, Rhyan is in equal peril, and-”

“You realize that none of this is my doing, however convenient of a target for you blame I might be…”

“You must tell me what’s going on,” Darion insisted, not to be swayed.  “Why does your ‘council’ want anything to Baisyl in the first place?  For years I was under the impression that humans – or, rather, all the mortal races – were nothing but insignificant facts of life as far as your…kind…is concerned, and for that matter, he’s still just a boy-”

“He is full grown, by human standards, is he not?” 

It was a rhetorical question, and Darion ignored her.  “Whatever ‘ability’ he inherited from you is clearly insignificant and I wouldn’t want to leave him alone yet to rule an estate, let alone an empire…”

Melsinna sighed, and Darion, much to his own frustration, couldn’t discern whether it was from weariness or boredom or both.  “It’s not that they see him as an honest threat so much as…an inconvenience.”

Her eyes flicked to him, and for a moment when they caught the pale light they were luminous, green, like a cat’s, before her eyelids dipped halfway, darkening them again, and Darion had to shake the urge to shiver. 

“My father is dying,” she said quietly, but without remorse.  “He is old…nearly ten centuries now, and as his strength wanes, the power struggle to determine his predecessor is growing increasingly bloodthirsty.  He is a rare case, given that he only sired two children by my mother and only one son…normally, of course, he would name my brother his heir.”

“And why doesn’t he?”

Melsinna glanced up again, elegant eyebrows arching.  “Because my brother was banished, you know this…”

“But if the situation is dire-”

“Exile is the highest mark of shame,” she cut him off.  “Once sentenced, there is no turning back.  He all but does not exist in the council’s eyes.  Because of this, the chain of inheritance falls to my sons…”  There, she smiled strangely, like the expression of someone laughing at something they didn’t find funny.  “You see now what a great disappointment I am to my line?  Were I male, I would have inherited his legacy.  Were I a filial, dutiful daughter, I would have mated the consort of his choosing and provided him with a strong, capable heir to take his place.  Instead…”

She reached up, drawing the backs of her fingers in a gentle line down the length of Darion’s jaw, stopping only at his chin where she drew her thumb up to trace, barely, over his bottom lip.  He shut his eyes.

“If none of our children had shown any capacity for magic,” she continued with the barest hint of regret in her tone, “…they would have been spared all this.  It is only that spark of immortal lineage that gives Lucerik the validity to be considered a legitimate contingent for the throne, and because of this I fear he will not be ignored until he is no longer a factor to be considered.”

Darion’s jaw tightened as dread pooled in his gut, and he shook his head.  “You’re telling to give up…that all that’s left to be done is for Baisyl to run until he is killed?  I can’t do that.  There has to be more to this.  There has to be something I can do…”

Melsinna smiled, wearily, and let her hand fall to catch loosely at his neck.  “Do you pray to gods?”

Darion gave a bitter, choked laugh and then swallowed, shaking his head again.  “No,” he said finally.  “I don’t…and perhaps this is their vengeance for my lack of piety.”  After a long, drawn pause, he asked, “What will you do?”

“I will seek out my brother,” she answered, and he looked up, surprised.  “I already investigated his residence here, but it seems I was not the first and he has moved on.  If what I found holds any relevance, though, he might also be behind Dale’s disappearance…”

Darion tensed sharply.  “Your brother had something to do with Rhyan’s-”

“I do not know that yet…but I will look into it.”  After a reluctant frown, she seemed to come to a decision and pushed sit up, and then stand, and Darion followed suit.  “I should-”

“Don’t…”  He caught her hand when she moved to turn, and she stilled.  “You’re weary and the night is late…there’s nothing more you can hope to do before dawn.”  He hesitated only a moment before adding, quieter, “Stay with me…” and she watched him, drew her eyes over his face as if reading his thoughts in the lines of his expression.

After too long of a silence she asked, as quietly, “Why?” and at first he couldn’t think to answer. 

There were a thousand reasons, bottled up over years of solitude and conflict, each of them too complex or too coarse to put into a single answer.

“Because…” He drew a slow, steadying breath and consoled himself in the fact that she had yet to make a second move to retreat, “…I’ve missed you…” and her expression softened, though barely perceptibly, like a single layer of frost thawing back after a harsh winter.

“Only tonight,” she answered, and for that moment, it was enough.

Carthak City, Western Quarter

“That’s it?”

Baisyl glanced up at his guard’s surprised tone.  “Yes, that’s ‘it,’” he replied simply.  “Why?  You didn’t expect me to rope you into a lifetime’s worth of slave labor or kindly request that you gather me a sample of the wild purple mishta berries from the snowy cliffs of Arbregan, did you?”

“Well, no,” Kedean admitted, “…but…” About there, he apparently changed his mind and shrugged whatever he’d intended to say off, gracing his charge with a curious smile instead.  “Alright…where would you like to go?  Did you have something in mind?”

“Mm…not particularly, no,” Baisyl admitted.  “I assumed you knew the town better than I – in particular the places we can get away with visiting at this point without getting the both of us arrested – and…as far as my tastes are concerned, anything several steps above semen porridge or whatever ridiculous excuses for food we’ve been consuming the past few days would be more than acceptable.”

“Ah.  Well, in that case…I’m sure I can come up with something.”

“Oh,” Baisyl added as an afterthought, “…and it must have better alcohol than the last place.  Something I can down without grimacing, preferably.”

And that was how it was that, some hours later on the brink of nightfall, Baisyl found himself seated cross-legged on the floor of an intimately tucked away little place of the sort one would never happen upon except completely by chance if they had not spent some significant amount of time in the city. 

It was clearly ethnic, various embroidered rugs surrounded by small pillows lining the otherwise varnished wooden paneled floors on the second level where customers were sat, each – as Baisyl quickly came to realize – representing a “table” where the food was to be served.  Several such place settings, the one Baisyl and Kedean ended up at included, were lent a subtle air of privacy by virtue of a thin, semi-transparent veil that hung suspended from the ceiling, somewhat like a curtain or cloth door, and the pillows, Baisyl found, were to serve as their chairs.

“When you mentioned peoples that ate off the floor,” Baisyl commented, his eyes still busily at work taking in the place, “I must admit I never expected to experience it myself…this place is fascinating.  How ever did you manage to come upon it?”

“You met Salarhi,” Kedean began, and Baisyl nodded.  “When her family first came to this city, it was only her father, uncle, and eldest brother.  They were fortunate at the time to befriend and later find work with a local tavern keeper who happened to be the joint owner of an abandoned brothel.”

Baisyl raised his eyebrows, curious, but held his silence. 

“When the subject came up, he offered them half his share should they care to renovate and make use of it so that it was no longer a dead asset on his list of properties…her uncle took him up on that offer, though her father and brother thought he was crazy at the time…”

Baisyl chuckled.  “Not surprising.”

“He held up his side of the bargain,” Kedean continued, “…spent a year making it livable…and turned it into a restaurant.  Eventually, it was profitable enough that he bought the rest of the property from the other owner, and brought his wife and children, Salarhi and her husband and daughter, as well as Salarhi’s mother over to live here.”

Baisyl tilted his head, the corner of his lip curling up in dubious amusement.  “So…what you’re telling me, is that this place is actually a whorehouse?”

Kedean nodded.  “Yes.  Or,” he amended, “…it certainly has a history as one.”

Shaking his head, Baisyl smiled wryly.  “Horse barns, storage wagons, sewer drains…and an honest restaurant with a promiscuous past…truly, you take me to the most upscale places,” he observed. 

Kedean opened his mouth, but before he got a chance to reply, a serving girl arrived.  Sixteen or seventeen summers of age with long, plaited dark brown hair and an uncertain expression that deepened as her eyes darted twice indecisively between Baisyl and Kedean.

Then, Kedean spoke up, addressing her in – presumably – the same language he’d greeted Salarhi and her family with, and the girl visibly relaxed.  After several short exchanges, she passed them each a worn sheet of paper with handwritten script on it, dipped her head once, and departed. 

Given that the menu was written, in large part, in a text Baisyl couldn’t understand and that the few translations given were vague at best and nonsensical at worst, Kedean ordered for them.  It turned out for the best, in any case, seeing as Baisyl found most all of Kedean’s selections to be highly enjoyable – rich in flavor and spice and strikingly different from anything he’d had served to him by the cooks in his household.

And the alcohol – a wine of some variety as it turned out – was much better. 

The only drawback was that it came served in small, handheld glazed bowls about the size of a teacup, thus requiring it to constantly be refilled, and by the time they reached the midway point of the meal Baisyl had long since lost track of how much he’d had.  At least this time, Kedean drank with him.

“Sedric,” Baisyl answered, their conversation having moved along quite nicely from a variety of topics to their current one: first kisses.   “Sedric…Travelloc?  Trave…mm…can’t recall his surname precisely, but he was definitely fetching if you’re into the, ahh…‘can’t quite discern the gender from the face alone’ type, which I was—am—or tend to have been, anyway…”  Baisyl paused, considering as he sat back, drink hanging idly in one hand.  “He punched me, actually, now that I think on it…”

Kedean’s eyebrows jerked up, amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth.  “He punched you?”

“I…may have made a bit of a habit of, shall we say…poking harmless and friendly fun at him for the most our childhood,” Baisyl admitted.  “Partly because he quite nearly begged for it and truly it was amusing, but…there was of course the unfortunate side effect of it leaving him with the mistaken impression that I either hated or severely disliked him, so that when I got around to, ah…making a move on him, as it were…he rather got the wrong idea, I think, like that perhaps I was setting him up or some other such thing, I never was quite clear on that…”

Kedean gave a short snort of a laugh.  “So you’ve always been charming?”

Baisyl glanced up and tossed his guard a lopsided smirk.  “Naturally,” he replied, “…I’m irresistible, didn’t you know?”

Instead of answering immediately as he expected, Kedean’s attention seemed to lose focus for a moment, his eyes straying from Baisyl’s face to follow the path of his glass as he lifted it to his lips, lingering there a second longer than necessary as he took a sip.  And then falling to Baisyl’s neck when he swallowed.  Abruptly after that, as if catching himself in the act, Kedean shut his eyes and dipped his head, eyebrows knitting together stubbornly. 

He took another drink from his own glass before responding, quieter.  “If I wasn’t aware already, I’m certainly learning quickly.”

Baisyl privately made it his personal sworn duty to get more alcohol into his guard’s system before the end of the night.

As it happened, inebriating a seven foot man with the body of a titan unfortunately posed more practical obstacles than Baisyl prepared for.  Namely: Baisyl himself had an impossible time keeping up. 

Granted, it wasn’t precisely that he set out with the goal to keep up; he wasn’t quite so delusional as all that.  However, as time wore on he found himself naturally inclined to drink at least as fast as his companion, and thus when the time inevitably came to depart – loathe though Baisyl was at that point to face the prospect of standing, let alone traversing the moderate distance back to their lodgings – it was Kedean that did the majority of the supporting and Baisyl the larger share of the swaying and leaning.

“It’s not…” When Baisyl teetered on the last step at the foot of the stairs on their way out, Kedean wordlessly caught his elbow and far shoulder, steadying him, “…that ’m generally inclined towards—that is,” Baisyl frowned, “…I wouldn’ want you to get the mistaken impression that I’m…that I make a habit of…”

The instant they passed through the last door and out onto the street, the sharp contrast of the night air hit like a wall, and Baisyl stilled. 

“Baisyl?”

A chill prickling to life across his skin like a ripple from a stone hitting water, Baisyl groaned, the prospect of making the trek home – if possible – growing progressively less desirable by the moment, and he pressed himself instinctively closer to his guard, turning his head in away from the night.  Fitting himself against the pleasantly warm, solid structure that was Kedean, it pleased him to find that it was a good fit.

“It’s…cold,” he whined, in place of whatever point he’d been attempting to get across previously.  “It shouldn’t…be this cold, not yet…”

“It is night,” Kedean responded, though – quite the opposite of drawing away as Baisyl half feared – he relaxed into Baisyl’s advance when he said it and circled an arm low around Baisyl’s waist, leaving it there as he guided him on, down the street.

“Yes, but…” Baisyl shook his head, indignant, and curled his fingers into the cloth of Kedean’s tunic, “…that doesn’t give it any…right to be this positively frigid so soon, it wasn’t a fraction this cold when we left and—must we walk?” he bemoaned.  “The road won’t…lie still, it’s really quite troublesome…”

Kedean’s chuckle was a soft vibration in his chest, and on second thought, Baisyl mentally amended, perhaps walking wasn’t so bad after all, particularly if Kedean continued to lean in just like that, sending a gentle puff of warm breath skittering through his hair at the side of his head before he placed a kiss there, at his temple.  The broad palm stroking up and down along his side – probably to keep him warm and doing an admirable job of it – wasn’t disagreeable either.  And it didn’t hurt that Kedean smelled good, like nature holding its breath before a storm.

“It’s only a short ways,” Kedean placated him, “…and I can always carry you, if you like.”

Despite the chill, heat crept into Baisyl’s face, blooming there regardless of his best intentions, and, “Ah, no, absolutely…not,” came his clipped reply – irritated mostly at himself for finding the offer even remotely tempting in the first place, “…I’m not…that incapacitated, thank you very much.  Besides, you…you drank too, who’s to say you wouldn’t…drop me, or…some other such unforeseen complication?”

“I did drink,” Kedean said, “…but it’s affecting my concentration and priorities more than my coordination.  If I thought there was any chance of my dropping you, I wouldn’t offer.”

“Your priori…nnh…” Baisyl winced, stemming the urge to shut his eyes as they started down a set of unruly, winding stairs; nevermind that there were only about four of them and they probably weren’t actually winding.  Whoever’s infernal idea was it to invent stairs anyway?  “What’s…that supposed to mean?” he asked, determined to keep his mind on conversation and pointedly not how much easier – and warmer – things would be if he weren’t pride bound to refuse Kedean’s offer.

He didn’t need to be coddled, damn him.  He could walk plenty well enough on his own, and the idea wasn’t even that appealing.  It wasn’t.  He just-

“Nothing important,” Kedean answered, and Baisyl had nearly forgotten that he’d asked a question in the first place.

Their path wound between and behind buildings, indirect so as to avoid main roads and lessen their chances of running into anyone who might see fit to put them in their ‘rightful’ place in a city prison.  The long shadows of night masked their passing though most often they needn’t have bothered as the paths they took were all but deserted.  Despite the sense it made logistically, minutes into their walking Baisyl wanted nothing more than to rest – a brief respite at the least – as the ups and downs and twists and turns of the back alleys made his already dizzied head spin and pound with objection.

“Just…a moment,” he argued, veering off to the side, and it felt immensely better just to collapse half of his weight against the nearest wall.  Kedean’s fingers stayed entwined with his, warm in his palm but firm and steady, as though he half expected Baisyl might still collapse at any moment.  “Mm…yes,” Baisyl mumbled in a more placated, half-sigh as he settled himself, shutting his eyes and letting his head drop back to the wall, “…just one moment…” 

“We are nearly there,” Kedean informed him, but he left it as a gentle suggestion and made no move to usher Baisyl up off the wall or pull him away.  “It’ll only be a minute or two more.”

“Mmhm.”

Kedean sighed.  “If-”

“Come…” Baisyl tugged, loosely, at Kedean’s fingers and reached out, clasping around his other wrist to draw him in on the opposite side, “…in, closer…you’re warm.”

There was a soft, amused snort in response to that, but Kedean leaned in as directed.  He made no resistance when Baisyl pulled him and remained close as Baisyl’s grip dropped from his wrists to circle back and around his waist instead, lacing together behind his back in slack, easy embrace. 

“There,” Baisyl mumbled, pleased enough with the result that he leaned his head forward to rest against the plane of Kedean’s chest, “…like this is good.”

“I see…” The warmth of Kedean’s breath teased along the top of his head and gentle, lethargic fingers carded through the hair at the nape of Baisyl’s neck.  “And I’m just to…stand here…and hold you all night, is that it?”

“Mm…” Baisyl smiled, folding his fingers into the cloth at Kedean’s back, “…sounds lovely.”

When nudged, Baisyl tilted his head up and, much to his own surprise, found himself the recipient of a soft, full-on kiss.  It was unhesitating, but slow and subtly hungry, and Baisyl felt something stir in him as he relaxed into it, like a buried ember unearthed and blown tentatively to life.  As Kedean licked invitingly along his lip, Baisyl shivered, shut his eyes, and opened his mouth to him.

In stages, the chilled night air faded into the background.  The more distant sounds of the city petered out of importance.  His fists wound tighter into their hold, and when – precisely – had he dragged Kedean forward to the point that the back of his own head stopped up against the wall behind him, his hair catching loosely on the coarse brick even as he struggled to draw his guard in nearer still?

“Baisyl-”

“Nnnh,” Baisyl made a sharp, irritated sound that wasn’t a whine as Kedean’s mouth drew back, breaking the kiss, “…no, don’t…go, I want-”

Something wet – Kedean’s tongue? Yes, that it most definitely was…fuck… – darted along his jaw, followed by teeth nipping just hard enough to leave spots of red like trail markers, and Baisyl abandoned his objections in favor of rough moan. 

His head fell further back, tilting sidelong to better bare his throat to Kedean’s advances, and by the time Kedean reached the nook between his neck and shoulder, bestowing a kiss to the crevice before nibbling again and sucking the skin there, Baisyl blamed his failing knees on the alcohol and wondered distractedly if he’d be wearing splotchy purple marks scattered down his neck come morning.

Probably.

Swallowing, he privately decided that he could safely blame the flush in his cheeks on some combination of intoxication and wind-chill as well and brought his hands forward. 

If somewhat sloppily – his fingers refusing to coordinate properly – he tugged at the sides of Kedean’s clothes, simultaneously pressing his own hips forward to grind and noting, with some degree of distinct satisfaction, that Kedean shared his heightened state of…interest in the proceedings.  Using his hold on his guard’s clothes as a lever, Baisyl dragged himself up.

“Kedean…” He pressed the name into the warmth of its bearer’s throat and savored his guard’s responsive shiver.  “I want…” His hand found Kedean’s wrist, circling it loosely and then brushing his thumb along the underside, relishing in the way the sinews of muscle there twitched under his fingers, “…touch me…”

A breathy, ragged exhale answered him, and Kedean’s hands fell from Baisyl’s waist to his hips.  His palms settled, warm, flat heat on Baisyl’s skin through his clothes, and his thumbs curved in, skimming close along Baisyl’s front but then hesitating a moment too soon and holding their ground. 

“This…is a bad place for this,” Kedean pointed out without assertion, sounding reluctant and only half convinced himself, his voice tight with restraint.  “We should…at least go back firs-”

“Nnnh, no-o…” And alright, perhaps that was a whine, given that it came out significantly higher pitched than Baisyl intended and that his head fell back again against the wall with a heavy thunk that perhaps would have hurt more if the dizziness it caused wasn’t so distracting. “You…you definitely, absolutely started this,” he insisted through the haze in his head and made a concentrated effort not to let his hips shake or rock up into Kedean’s or do anything else otherwise embarrassingly needy, “…and you can’t just…simply…”

“You…teased,” Kedean retorted weakly and Baisyl blinked, gathering his wits enough to lift his head to pin his guard with an honestly befuddled stare.

“I what?”

“You-”

“Because…I do do that,” Baisyl admitted, “…I won’t pretend that I’ve never indulged in the practice, but…tonight…I am actually relatively certain I never once made a deliberate attempt to-”

“You look good with…wine…on your lips,” Kedean conceded, somewhat beneath his breath, and Baisyl’s eyebrows quirked up as one, but Kedean wasn’t done.  “And you…lick them, from time to time, when you’re drinking.  You also don’t always drink immediately.  When you lift the glass to your lips, sometimes you’ll just…hold it there…drawing the rim of the…cup back and forth along your lower lip with your mouth half parted, and-”

“Didn’t realize I did that…”

“-near the end, when you were, ah…less coordinated-”

“Slightly inebriated-”

“-drunk,” Kedean corrected, “…you-”

“I’m not that dru-”

“Spilled…sloshed some…over your hand,” Kedean continued over Baisyl, “…and you licked your fingers and then up along your wrist to clean them…”

“Oh,” Baisyl answered, a smaller sound than he planned because Kedean’s face was close now, and had his eyes always been that dark?  “Well, ahh…” He cleared his throat, fairly certain that they ought to by rights have been kissing again by now, honestly.  Why did Kedean always have to make these things so difficult?  “So you’ve been…paying attention…” He frowned.  “Remind me again why we’re not already just going at i-”

“Because-”

Baisyl pushed up, temporarily ignoring the implicit embarrassment laced into the fact that despite standing up on his toes he still had to drag the other man down in order to kiss him.  Kedean’s lips had yet to lose a lingering, faint taste of wine, and that somewhat made up for it. The rough, frustrated groan that Kedean buried into the kiss – combined with clasping grip on Baisyl’s hips that tightened on contact and trapped him to the wall – conveniently helped him forget embarrassment entirely.

“Remind me,” Kedean grumbled without exactly breaking the kiss – more speaking between their tangled mouths, “…to be irritated with you later…”and Baisyl gave a smug, happy hum of content.

“For what transgression?” he asked, all mock innocence.  In response, Kedean pinched his ass and muffled the undignified outburst that followed with his mouth. 

Hitting his guard, Baisyl discovered, was something like throwing a feather at a rock.  He vowed to find the time later to be frustrated about this.  Preferably some time when Kedean’s hands were not still on his ass, sliding down and then lacing behind it and resting possessively there as if they had every right to stake such a claim.

“You…interrupt my sentences,” Kedean said in belated answer to Baisyl’s last question.  Baisyl decided it was needless to point out that the accusation was at best very, highly hypocritical.

---

A/N: I take it for granted to assume that a magical being which can take on multiple forms will have some sort of telepathic/non-verbal form of communication, if not with all other sentient beings in general than at least with their mated pair.  So, sorry if the beginning was confusing.  Yes, Baisyl's father is officially married to a human woman, but she's basically completely for show and he keeps her in an entirely separate part of the house and never shares a bed with her.  Dragons don't recognize human marriages, so it doesn't effect the fact that Darion and Melsinna are, by the immortals' standards, mated (for life).

Alroy, of course, is Melsinna's brother (he referred to Rhyan as his youngest nephew in an earlier chapter, if you didn't catch that).  The reason for his banishment is actually another important plot point...and will be revealed later.  :)

Sexytimes next chapter, yes.  Silly Kedean.  One day he'll learn that saying no to Baisyl is sort of like asking gravity to let up a bit, just this once.