“And get every noble between the seas after me once that story got out?” Lan demanded incredulously. “Wild Dog attacks famed beauty? An Earl’s claimed child? They already think me a monster. And what would I have done with you, the stolen child of that creature? For all I knew, you’d be armed to the teeth and as vicious as The Acana.” He huffed and muttered, “Little did I know you’d be far more insidious,” but followed it with another kiss to the side of Fen’s face.
Fen hadn’t done anything to be called that but didn’t argue. “If my family think I’m alive… or perhaps even thinking I’m dead, they’re probably telling people that you took me. If they haven’t, they will once they realize I’m here. They’ll spread all kinds of lies.”
Lan, who had gone from kisses to brushing his nose over Fen’s ear, stopped moving. Fen shifted to indicate Lan should continue, which he did, with a quiet, “Good boy,” to show his approval. Louder, he added, “If they do, that’s a problem for later.”
Fen was getting goosebumps from Lan’s breath in his hair. “If your plans can afford it, spread the storynowthat I am here, and that I chose to be. Tell people you rescued me. That the Wild Dog is the Flower’s hero. That is a better story.”
Lan pulled away from Fen entirely, but returned before Fen could do more than look toward him with a mournful complaint. He lifted the fur to settle his body on top of Fen’s, though he put some of his weight on his elbows. He stared down at Fen as if he could see more in the dark than Fen could.
“It’s not a lie,” Fen insisted, suspecting that Lan was giving him the assessing look because Fen was warm and anxious. Lan’s cock was starting to get hard, something Lan didn’t acknowledge. He used silence as he tended to. Fen didn’t know where to put his hands and decided to run them over Lan’s back, which he hadn’t gotten to do last night. This time, Lan had no objections. “So…” Fen began tentatively, “when you stare at me this way, it means you’re thinking of what you would like to do with me? What is that?”
“Many things.” Lan leaned down to press a kiss to Fen’s mouth, although he did not linger or push for more like he’d done the night before. He did pause when Fen parted his lips for him, then kissed him again. But when he spoke, his words made no sense. “What do you use for your embroidery? One of those frame… things?”
Not expecting that question, Fen had no answer for it right away. “Yes,” he finally managed, inching his head up hopefully. “And thread, in different colors.”
“Hmm.” Lan kissed Fen’s mouth again, using his tongue until Fen moaned.
Fen didn’t want Lan to stop, but he did, and didn’t return to kiss Fen’s lips even when Fen whined. Fen frowned though Lan likely couldn’t see it. “That’swhat you think of when you look at me? Embroidery?”
Lan hummed idly before moving his kisses to Fen’s jaw, each one light but deliberate. The kisses pleased Lan and they made Fen’s toes curl, so he didn’t sayno, even though it might have earned him awell done—although perhaps he would have told Lan to kiss his mouth hungrily again if it would have earned him agood cub.
“I consider how to get my hands on one of those, but then I think ofhowI might obtain one, and I think of you again and I….” Lan muttered something harsh into the sensitive skin beneath Fen’s ear and then resumed his one-at-a-time light kisses as though he could not feel Fen squirming for more. “I also think of how you will feel on my cock,” Lan revealed, a whisper that felt deliberate too. He was gauging what Fen thought on the matter, and Fen answered him with a breathy whisper of his name. Lan held himself over Fen’s mouth without kissing him. “And why you say the things you do, and what I will do in response to them. The slow way you raise your eyes—and why you don’t do that every time—andthis.” He reached back to take Fen’s hand and bring it down to the fur beneath them, his hand covering Fen’s wrist and the leather cord. “It should not please me like it does.”
“But it does?” Fen whispered back. “Does it please you how it pleases me?”
Lan’s voice was rough. “I think in an entirely different way. Remove it whenever you like, but… I take deep pleasure in seeing it there, like my jess on a prized falcon.” He let out a breath. “I told you I was the same as the rest of them.”
“I wouldn’t wear this for the rest of them.” That was obvious to Fen. “They might demand it.”
Lan stopped. “I could do that too,” he said without any kisses.
It wasn’t a warning; Fen wasn’t sure what it was. But his thoughts were beginning to float with Lan pushing him firmly down into soft fur and keeping him there. He swept his free hand over Lan’s back, sighing for its loveliness, and then brought his hand up to curl his fingers into Lan’s hair.
“You want to demand things of me?” he pressed, curious. “For me to please you?” He couldn’t breathe for hearing it spoken. “I might want you to. I don’t know. Is saying that asloweror amore?”
“Well done, either way,” Lan growled into Fen’s neck. He shifted, his thick cock a wonder to Fen. “I could demand something else,” he added hoarsely. “Which should frighten you because I will want more. I will want it all. That’s who I am, cub.”
Fen blinked, waiting for a spike of fear. But maybe it was hearing it clearly said, as opposed to The Acana, who explained nothing and never warned, but Fen ran his hand down Lan’s nape to his shoulders and sighed again. “Well done.” He felt muscles twitch under his hand but Lan said nothing. “You could demand something and let me decide,” Fen suggested. “The falcon chooses whether or not to return each time it flies.”
“And people fearme,” Lan mumbled before raising himself up in one smooth movement. The fur fell away, leaving Fen exposed and trembling at the sudden rush of cooler air, but he didn’t move.
Lan took Fen’s bound hand in both of his and tugged on the leather to loosen it. Fen opened his mouth, then forced himself to be still, hisnounvoiced. “Lan?” he asked instead.
Lan said, “Give me your other hand,” while petting Fen’s wrist, and Fen offered up his other hand with no more objections.
The braided leather did not have much length, but was long enough to be wound around both of Fen’s wrists and then be tied in the middle to bind them together. Lan held Fen’s wrists when he was done, his thumbs brushing back and forth over thin skin, a rumbling, private, “Good boy,” falling from him when Fen shivered again before relaxing. “How do you feel?”
Fen didn’t wish for light. He didn’t wish for anything. He would wait and Lan would decide. “Likeyours.”
They both breathed hard. Lan did not cease his small caress, his thumbs sweeping to and fro, his hands firm around the leather.
When the faintest trickle of dawn began showing itself and Fen was awash in warmth, Lan finally spoke again. “Cub.” His hold was tight but not bruising. His voice was soft. “I could conquer all the known lands with this feeling.”
“But me first,” Fen replied, halfway dreaming.
Lan leaned over him, pushing Fen’s bound hands to the ground over his head and holding them there. Their bodies were pressed close. Lan was close to panting. His answer might have been in his expression, which Fen could not see. Perhaps Lan realized it, because he said, “Same as before. You’ll tell me what you need?”
Fen thought of calling him hero, or master, or whatever people had once called the fae rulers. Anything close to explaining how he saw Lan, or what Fen might do for him, but in the end said only, “Killan,” in a steady voice, a Killan for a Fenwit, and raised his eyes how Lan said he did, and answered, “Yes.”
