Weasel Presents (18 page)

“Right,” Helfer said, still thinking about Volle. He directed his attention back to Vin when he saw the other weasel eyeing a decorative silver chalice. “Hey. Paws down.”

“Sorry.” Vin grinned. “Force o’ habit.”

“Let’s focus on some of your more appealing habits,” Helfer said, pushing the door to his chambers open. “Caresh!”

The fox was already at the inner door, opening it and bowing. “Yes, sir. The kitchens have finished serving lunch, but I can procure something for you and your guest should you wish.”

Vin stopped to stare at the fox. “Ooh, that sounds lovely,” he said.

Helfer waved Vin inside. “Go. I’ll get some food for us. Caresh, a word please?”

“Of course, sir.” He shut the door behind Vin and said, discreetly, “Would you like me to inventory your possessions, sir? I seem to recall some trouble with Mister Vinstrier on his previous visit.”

“No. I mean, yes, but that’s not what I wanted to ask. When you go to get food, could you ask about Lord Vinton? I know he’s been scarce today and Dereath was looking for him. I think he might’ve found him.”

Caresh nodded. “Of course, sir. If it is of interest to you, I did discover that Mister Talison is interested in the theft of some documents from the Agricultural Committee detailing expected shipments of honey, grain, wine, and mead from the southwest. The suspect is a fox.” He coughed discreetly. “Your disappearance was viewed suspiciously. However, given the patterns of behavior you have established, the suspicion was not strong.”

Helfer sighed. “Thank you, Caresh. That’ll be all.”

“Yes, sir.”

Caresh left by the front door. Helfer watched it swing closed, not really sure what he was waiting for--his friend Volle to knock, perhaps, or Dereath to come back, or maybe even Stark, having worked his way into the palace to demand Helfer’s silence about what he’d seen and heard. But the door remained closed. Helfer usually had no trouble letting go of political things, but that was because he shielded himself from details. He didn’t really care what Stark and Dewry wanted with the information about the shipments--he could guess fairly easily, having seen the storehouse. But there was something about the day’s events that nagged at him still, some piece unresolved. Problem was, he couldn’t even think what it might be. Helfer sighed. He was, it seemed, free from Dereath. And Volle could take care of himself--the fox had proven that amply in the past. And, it occurred to him, Vin was alone in his chambers. He put the nagging thoughts from his mind and went inside.

He saw the tunic and trousers lying on the floor by the door to the next room. Taking another step, he saw into the sitting room, where Vin lay sprawled on a pile of pillows. The naked weasel grinned when he saw Helfer and trailed a paw over his sheath. “Wot a relief to get outta them clothes,” he said. “Join me?”

Helfer grinned back. “I just got my pants back,” he said, but here, in his own chambers, the idea of a nice, relaxing romp with Vin was more and more appealing. Certainly Caresh had walked in on stranger scenes and could be counted on for discretion.

“So why wear ’em out? Come on, we got a few minutes before your fox comes back wit’ food, eh?”

“You think you can finish that fast?” Helfer was already unfastening his pants.

Vin was already half-erect. He curled his paw around himself and stroked more firmly. “And you too,” he grinned. “We can eat an’ pick up again after.”

Helfer’s pants dropped to the floor. He unlaced his tunic and walked over to Vin, pushing the other’s paw aside and taking the warm shaft into his own fingers. Holding it, he let himself relax, feeling the stresses of the day slip away from him. He shifted his hips as Vin sat up, nosing at Helfer’s sheath and licking under his sac, and it wasn’t long before the weasel’s warm breath and insistent tongue had relaxed him even more.

Of course, it was at that point that the door creaked open. Both of them paused, Vin whispering, “Faster’n I would’ve thought.”

“Just set it down in there, Caresh,” Helfer called. Odd, he couldn’t smell any food.

A very familiar voice called back. A moment before he heard it, Helfer realized that the fox he was smelling was not Caresh, either. “If you’re busy, I can come back later.”

Grabbing his tunic from the floor and holding it to his hips, Helfer leapt to the doorway. Standing just in front of his closed inside door, wearing a yellow doublet, peach-colored trousers, and a very foxy smile, was the unmistakable figure of Volle.

16

Helfer stared at him. “Glad to see me?” Volle said.

“Where in the name of Weasel and Fox’s bastard son
have
you been?” Helfer said.

Volle raised an eyebrow. “Is that another piece of folklore I haven’t learned about your Tephossian church?”

“It’s an expression.” Helfer grinned, feeling that the craziness of his day was settling back to normal. “You missed the morning run.”

“Yes, sorry about that.” Volle’s ears dipped. “My father-in-law wasn’t feeling well. I spent all night over there, and stayed into the morning to make sure he’d be okay.”

“You were there all night?” Volle nodded. “So it couldn’t be you Dereath was looking for.”

“As I’ve just informed him.” The corner of the fox’s mouth quirked up. “He wasn’t very happy about that, but I invited him to summon witnesses to check my story. I gather there was some trouble with another fox?”

“Some documents were taken...Dereath said it was a fox, he thought it was you, but it couldn’t have been.”

“No.” Volle seemed about to say more, but instead let his eyes travel down to the tunic held loosely in front of Helfer’s bare form. “I really can come back later, if you want.”

“Oh.” Helfer looked down, then back to where Vin was waiting. “Uh, yeah, maybe...”

Vin, slipping up behind him, groped his sheath unabashedly behind the tunic. Helfer felt the other weasel’s erection against his hip, though Vin stayed mostly hidden behind him. “Ooh, ’e’s a cutie, Hef. He gonna join us?”

Volle lifted a paw. “No, no, just came in to offer my regards. Helfer, perhaps dinner a little later?”

Helfer nodded, a little distracted by Vin’s paw sliding up and down his erection. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

The fox laughed, shortly, and raised a paw. “See you then. Pleasure to meet your companion.”

“Likewise,” Vin said, rubbing his own stiffness up into Helfer’s rear.

Helfer turned, once Volle had gone, and rubbed his nose against the other weasel’s. “That what you want?” he asked, sliding his paw under Vin’s sac to squeeze the base of his sheath. “Little time under my tail?”

“Maybe later,” Vin said, with a grin. “I was thinkin’ more about liftin’ mine for you.”

Helfer turned the other weasel around, wrapping his arms around Vin’s chest and pressing up under his tail. He reached down and slid his paw up and down Vin’s shaft. “Well,” he said, “you’d best get that up, then.”

Vin squeaked very satisfactorily, and lifted his tail almost immediately. Helfer pushed him farther into the room until he stumbled on a pillow. A convenient bowl of scented oil (they were all convenient in this room) later, he’d pressed his oiled shaft into the other weasel’s oiled tailhole and had clenched his teeth around the neckruff, grunting over Vin’s happy moans. His paw, also still slick, stroked away at the other’s shaft while his own pressed deep into Vin’s rear and slid back out. It had only been hours, but those hours had been so filled with tension that it seemed like days since he’d been able to let himself go.

And so, of course, it was right then that the door opened and Caresh came back into the room.

They both stopped. The smell of food reached Helfer’s twitching whiskers. He heard his valet stop, then the gentle touch of a wooden tray being set on his table, and Caresh’s discreet voice. “I’ll just leave the gentlemen’s lunch here, sir.”

“Thank you,” Helfer exhaled, feeling Vin squirm happily below and around him. He shoved himself deeper again, as the front door closed and Caresh retired to his quarters. It took only a few minutes for his arousal to recover from the interruption, which was, it turned out, a minute or so less than it took Vin, who moaned and arched his back, shuddering against Helfer’s hips and paw. As the warmth spread around his paw, the bucking and moaning below him drove Helfer to thrust faster, his own body tingling and tensing until he joined his friend, grunting around the fur in his teeth. His hips slammed against Vin’s tail, arms tightening around the other as he shuddered his release into the warm weasel rear.

There was a warm, floating moment as they both came down from their climaxes, slowly easing onto their sides as Helfer slid out of Vin. “Oooh, that was worth the wait, it was,” Vin said. “You’re the tops, Hef.”

Helfer snickered and rubbed a paw down his friend’s side, suffused with good humor and warmth. “Better’n the other tops?”

“Oh, no comparison. Nothin’ like another weasel to do it right. ’Nother go round?”

“Normally, I’d be right back on you,” Helfer said, “but that lunch smells really good.”

Vin turned to grin at him. “Say no more,” he said.

Naked and sticky, they helped themselves to the lunch Caresh had brought, and when they’d gorged on fowl, fruit, and bread, they retired back to the pillows. Helfer heard Caresh cleaning the dishes up somewhere in between his spurting into Vin’s muzzle and mounting the other weasel for the second time. He didn’t go out to look, but dragged Vin into the bedroom when they were both too tired to do any more, and there they napped for a few hours.

Given the option, Vin would’ve stayed in the palace for days, but Helfer worried that once his desire for food and sex had been satisfied, other urges would come into play. Vin had promised to be good, but being a weasel himself, Helfer knew how likely it would be for promises to hold up to temptations, especially temptations spread so glitteringly around him, so he had Caresh bring up a parcel of food from the kitchen, wrapped it in a napkin, and walked Vin to the front gate. “Been fun,” Vin said as the guard took his papers. “Ought to come out more often, you should.”

“I’ll be out again before you know it,” Helfer said. “Thanks for helping me get through the day.”

“Anytime, mate.” Vin raised a paw with his trademark cheer. Helfer watched him walk out into the street, crowded with people scurrying home before dark. He saw the weasel’s bright eye gleam as Vin turned back to look at him, the flash of the white cloth napkin in one paw, and then he was swallowed up by the crowd and the shadows.

Helfer looked back at the palace gardens, empty save for a pair of stags strolling casually along the flowerbeds. The taller stopped to pick a flower and offer it to his companion, who took it and munched it with a smile. Helfer smiled too, and walked back slowly to the palace as the gates closed behind him.

At dinner, he sat with Volle away from the other nobles, and talked in low tones about his day. Conscious of his promise to Dewry, he left out some of the details, like exactly who the fox was and what he’d been selling to Stark, but gave Volle a good overview of the harrowing events he’d survived, including a long exposition on climbing walls without pants. “Quite an adventure,” Volle said, sipping a goblet of mead. “Your adventures usually tend to end with you naked and sticky.”

“Well,” Helfer said, “this one did too. But there was a lot more before the naked part than there usually is.”

Volle nodded, tipping back the goblet. “Much more exciting than my morning. I’ll have to catch up.”

“How is your father-in-law?” Helfer asked.

“He’ll be fine.” Volle’s gaze seemed to be fixed on a table across the room. Helfer followed it, and saw Dereath there. The rat seemed oblivious to them, but Helfer’s fur crawled as he watched the rat’s conversation, becoming convinced without knowing how that the rat had been watching them a second before. Perhaps it was just Volle’s attitude; the fox always seemed to be slightly better attuned to things like that.

“It is weird,” Helfer said, “that he was looking for a fox, and that you happened to be away the whole night. You’re not gone that often.”

Volle brought his attention back to Helfer, and nodded. “Weird,” he agreed. “And...convenient.”

Helfer’s plate wasn’t quite empty. He picked up the last piece of stewed yellowroot and rubbed it into the honey sauce, contemplating his friend. Coincidence, that a fox had come to take Dereath’s bait on the one night out of dozens--perhaps hundreds--when his friend was unmistakably away from the palace? Coincidence, that Dewry was just about Volle’s build and age? Volle didn’t seem to know or care much about Stark or Dicker, but...

Helfer shoved the root into his mouth and savored the flavor, chewing it, letting the sweet honey roll off his tongue while he swallowed the warm pulpy vegetable. Enjoy the pleasures of the moment, he reminded himself. Don’t ask Volle if he knows Dewry, or Stark. Look where politics got you this morning--half-naked, robbed, almost killed, who knows? If your friend has secrets, let him have his secrets, and if he needs you, he’ll ask.

“There’s cream puffs over in the kitchen,” he said. “I don’t think Taffen put them out, but I could get a couple if you want.”

Volle grinned, his tail swishing slowly. “I think that’d be delightful,” he said. “Shall we repair to your chambers, so everyone doesn’t get jealous?”

“Mmm, how about yours? Mine are still...uh, Caresh is cleaning, I think.”

Volle inclined his head. “Of course.”

They got up together and walked out, and though they didn’t look back, Helfer was almost sure he could feel Dereath’s eyes on them as they left. At the Wolf stair, they parted ways, Volle walking around the stair to his chambers, while Helfer padded to the kitchen to try to sneak a couple pastries out from under Taffen’s watchful eye.

He grinned, sidled up to the kitchen door, and gathered his weaselly wiles about him. Inside: flaky, creamy treasure, and a mouse with a tongue as sharp as her knives. All things considered, he thought, this was as much adventure as a weasel could--or should--ask for. He thanked Weasel for his blessings, asked him for courage, and slipped through the door.