The Lightning-Struck Heart (40 page)

“You know,” Zal said, gaze lingering. “If you’re not ready for love, we could make this a twelve-way tonight. They’re only in town until tomorrow. You could invite us to come in.”

“My room’s not big enough,” I said faintly.

He grinned. “I meant come in you.”

“Oh gods,” I wheezed, putting my head on the bar.

“He’s slightly prudish,” Gary said to Zal. “My sweet, innocent little boy.”

“He’s made for love,” Zal said, as if he understood completely.

“Some people are hardwired that way,” Gary said. “Some of us want to get married and have babies, and others of us want to be tied up by a centaur and spanked.”

I thought about hyperventilating but decided against it.

“Are you okay?” Zal asked.

“Nothing!” I said, because it still made sense in my head.

“I don’t even know how we got to this point,” Gary said. “Again.”

“You often have conversations about kinks and orgies?” Zal asked.

“You’re making it worse,” I moaned.

“Love!” Gary said. “That’s what this was about. Love.”

“Love,” Zal agreed. “Kid, I’m going to lay it on the line for you.”

“I can’t take you seriously anymore,” I told him honestly. “I don’t know where your feet have been.”

Zal pointed behind me back at the trapeze artists. “See the big guy sitting on the end? His name is Oyev. That’s where they’ve been. Can I tell you about love now?”

“I don’t think that helped like you think it did,” I said.

“Why don’t you just tell the Knight Commander how you feel?”

I glared at him. “He’s affianced. To the
Prince
.” Then, belatedly, “I don’t feel anything. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Because there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

“So he’s just going to get married.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s what he wants?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? He’s
doing
it, right?”

Zal smiled sadly. “Sometimes we do things for the greater good, even if it causes our hearts to break.”

“You bother me,” I said to him. “I’m not sure if I’m pleased that you exist.”

“He watches you, you know,” Zal said and
what
?

“No he doesn’t,” I said weakly.

“All night,” Zal said, as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “Since the moment you walked in together. He rarely takes his eyes off of you. You might not have been looking, but I was.”

“It’s always like that,” Gary said.

“It is
not
.”

Zal shrugged. “He’s doing it right now.”

I told myself not to look. I told myself that Zal was full of crap. I told myself that having hope for something so ridiculous was dangerous because it would crush me when nothing happened.

I looked anyway.

Of course I did.

Across the tavern, Tiggy and Ryan stood among a group of revelers vying for their attention. A man was talking to Ryan, a hand against his bicep.

But Ryan was looking directly at me.

And when he saw me looking back, his eyes widened slightly and he dropped his gaze.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. Because it didn’t. It couldn’t.

“Stubborn, isn’t he?” Zal said.

“Painfully so.”

“The Prince is my duty,” I said. “I’m sworn to protect him. That’s all this is. That’s all this ever was. I allowed him to be taken by the dragon. I should have been faster. Stronger. Better. If I’d done what I was supposed to do, none of this would have happened. Ryan needs me to get Justin back. That’s all this is.”

“Sometimes, I want to punch him in the mouth,” Gary told Zal.

Zal stared at me. “He’s like this
every day
? Maybe he just needs to get laid. Take the edge off. I can talk to Oyev and see if he can help out. Virginity is a sweet thing, but it’s so much better to be destroyed and be sticky.”

“No Oyev!” I said. “And selling sex as being ‘destroyed and sticky’ is
not
the best way to go about it.”

Zal rolled his eyes. “Sorry. It’s slow and gentle and he’ll stare into your eyes and your souls will meld together and the only thing you’ll taste is his sweet breath upon your lips. He’ll whisper in your ear how you are his treasure and when his seed blooms within you, the flower of true love will begin to grow.”

I didn’t know what it said about me that I kinda got a boner from that. Maybe that I was awesome. Or very, very sad.

“I will be excellent at boning,” I said. “When I’m ready for it.” Now. Now would be good. I’d be fine with now.

Zal shook his head. “I think I understand why everyone adores you. You’re a conundrum wrapped in an enigma in a package built of twink.”

“That’s… remarkably astute,” Gary said.

“I am not a twink!”

“Shrieked the twink,” Gary whispered.

“I think I’m pretty much done. With the both of you. Good day!” I turned from the bar and walked away.

“Regrets, kid,” Zal called after me. “If you never try, then you’ll only know regret.”

I thought to avoid Ryan altogether, but he saw me and broke away from the guy who was
still
holding on to his bicep and met me halfway. People danced around us as the music swelled.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I snapped. “Ugh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Who do I need to kill?”

I tried not to grin. I failed. “No one. Everyone. I don’t know.”

“That clears it up. Good job.”

“Sass master.”

“I thought I was the God of Sass?” he asked. “It sounds like I was demoted.”

It was easy, this. Banter. I could do banter. So, like a tool, I said, “I got invited to a twelve-way orgy with a team of trapeze artists and the guy that sang about cheesy dicks.”
Shit
. “Wait. That wasn’t banter. I meant for that to be banter.”

He scowled, eyes darting over my shoulder where Gary and Zal still stood at the bar. “You’re going to an
orgy
?”

“What? No! I don’t want to be destroyed and sticky and have my feet sucked on.”

His nose wrinkled up. “You… what?”

“That’s what happens at orgies,” I explained, because it didn’t sound like he knew. I felt overwhelmingly relieved at that. “You don’t know where to put your feet, so they go into Oyev’s mouth.”

“Are you drunk again?” he asked.

“Only a little bit,” I assured him. “And now I realize that I’ve been drunk a lot around you, but I promise I don’t have a drinking problem. Mostly. And I’m not drunk enough to go to an orgy. Apparently I want someone’s seed to bloom in me and make flowers turn into treasure. Or something. I don’t know. I might be drunk. Let’s banter.”

“I don’t think you have the capacity to do anything but have words fall out of your mouth right now,” he said, a small smile on his face. Like he was
amused
. Like I
amused
him.

“I don’t want to have regrets,” I blurted out. I took a step back.

He took an answering step forward. “And what do you regret?”

“Ignore me. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“But you did.”

I took another step back. “Wine loosens lips. Not that I need it.”

Another step forward. “Maybe,” he said. “But for all that you talk, it’s superficial.”

I scowled at him. “Nice word usage. You dick.”

He shrugged. “I have a shield. It’s made of metal.”

“Fun.”

“Yours is made of words.”

“Oh.
Oh
. I see what you did there.”

“Pretty cool, right?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Dude. Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?”

“I’m pretty sure it would take a group of people far more qualified than I years to even remotely come close to being able to analyze you.
Dude
.”

“That… sounded like you insulted me with a compliment.”

“I feel like a lot of your life is insults through compliments.”

“Why does no one else see this?” I asked without meaning to.

“What?”

“You. This. I don’t understand. The King said you don’t smile.”

“So you’ve said.”

“But here you are.”

“Here I am.”

“Smiling.” And he
was
. And it was
wonderful
.

“Would you rather I not?” he asked as his knee bumped into mine and when exactly had he gotten so close?

“I don’t get you.” I frowned.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Succinct.” There was laughter in his voice.

“You’re a knight.”

“You’re observant.”

Suddenly it felt very important that he understand this. “The King said you don’t smile. You’re a knight. People say you’re stoic and ruthless and hardworking and brave. You’re supposed to be. That’s what a knight is. But you’re also kind and ridiculous and a complete and utter dork and I see you smile
all the time
. I don’t understand.”

The music slowed around us into something surprisingly sweet. The cheerful voices and the raucous laughter died down as men and woman joined together and swayed along the dusty, wooden floor. I was suddenly very out of my depth and thought that running away was possibly the best idea I’d ever had.

And I almost made it. I really did.

But before I could turn completely, Ryan grabbed my hand and said, “We should dance.”

“Should we?” There was more in that question than just those two words.

And of course he squeezed my hand and my magic rolled under my skin, and I swore I could almost hear it speaking. It was saying
yes
and
yes
and
yes
.

He said, “Sam, it’s just a dance.”

I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him it would never be just a dance. What a cornerstone meant to a wizard and how it
could never be just a dance
. That all of this was a bad idea because out there somewhere was the man he loved being held by a creature that apparently only I could understand. His prince was gone. His hand was in mine. And we were here, far from home, away from most all the people we knew and loved and my magic said
yesyesyes
.

“Just a dance,” I said.

And he pulled me close.

It wasn’t like at the castle. There was no one else. I wasn’t sniping at him. He wasn’t snarking at me.

But his left hand was on my waist, and I felt every single touch.

And his right hand was in my own, fingers curled and dry and warm.

Our feet moved, more elegantly than I’d ever done before.

And his eyes never left mine.

This boy I’d known as Nox.

This man I knew as Ryan.

I thought for a moment, for a singular, shining moment that maybe I could have this. That maybe this could be mine. That maybe, maybe, maybe.

I knew it wasn’t meant to be.

But I allowed myself to think such thoughts.

Because no one else could hear them. They were my own. Like a wish upon stars held in secret hearts.

We danced.

And we danced.

And we
danced
.

Literally Everyone Eats Breakfast

W
E
WERE
only thirty minutes outside of Tarker Mills when we were attacked.

Again.

Thirty minutes.

Seriously.

Fucking fire geckos.

And Dark wizards.

Fuck everything that wanted to attack us.

Fuck them!

I was being weird toward Ryan, and I knew it. I didn’t know how to
not
be weird toward him after we danced, because it’d felt like something
more
. Something substantial. So of course that freaked me out and I started acting
weird
. Well, weird
er
.

Example one:

“You okay, Sam?”

“Ha-ha, why wouldn’t I be? Everything is peachy! I’m okay. I’m
better
than okay.”

“Okay. I only ask because you haven’t stopped staring at me for the last four hours.”

“You lie with all your lies!”

Example two:

“Gary, why Sam sweating?”

“Well you see, my dear Tiggy. When a boy loves another boy very much, it makes him awkward and have feelings in his penis and
mmmphh
!”

“Sam, why you use magic and glue Gary’s mouth shut?”

“Is
that
what that was? Gosh! I just thought I was singing to myself!”

“
MMMMPH
!”

Example three:

“Hey, Sam. Want to join me in the river? We can bathe before the sun sets and it gets too cold.”

“
Sweet molasses
.”

“What?”

“Stay back, foul temptress!”

“What?”

“Er. Not you. Uh. I… sensed the presence of a succubus. Like, near here. Ooooh. So very near.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes. Yes I can. Because I have magic. And my succubus-tracking abilities. It’s a thing. A real thing. That I do all the time.”

“Riiiight. Your magical succubus-tracking abilities.”

“Shut
up
, Gary!”

And on and on it went.

To make matters worse, the road between Meridian City and Tarker Mills had had absolutely
nothing
on it. No people. No cities. There were villages here and there, but the flatlands here were mostly farmlands in service of the Crown, and they stretched on as far as the eye could see. Meaning no distractions. No chance for escape.

Just me and Ryan.

(And Gary and Tiggy, who were doing their
damnedest
to make things significantly more difficult. I told them both once while Ryan was relieving himself behind a tree that I would make sure they’d be pooping in buckets for the rest of their lives when we got back to Castle Lockes.

They, of course, had just smirked at me and implied certain acts of an obviously deviant nature that I might consider practicing on Ryan Foxheart. This had led me to blush furiously when Ryan came back to the road and I couldn’t look him in the eye for two days.)

But we were almost there! Minutes away! My spirits were high! I hadn’t said a
damn
thing embarrassing and/or remotely sexual in at last twenty-four hours. I hadn’t even had any inappropriate thoughts about Ryan. Sure, there was a bit of pining going on (
Why won’t you love me?
) but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I was an apprentice to the King’s Wizard, for fuck’s sake. I was on my way to slay (hopefully) a dragon. I was going to save the Prince and then when I got back to Castle Lockes after successfully training with Randall, there’d be a welcome home party and I would meet the (new) man of my dreams and his name would be Sloan Fontaine or Wesley York IV and we would dance until the early hours of the morning (much like I’d done with Ryan at the tavern, but whatever) and then he’d take me back to his estate and I would find out if I was a fan of rimming or not (spoiler: I was probably a fan of rimming).