Corin seemed to have heard his misery more than the precise substance of his mumbled words, because he said, “I know I don’t. But anyone could tell you’re—Lord Aster. There’s more to this than travel-weariness. What’s brought you to my door like this? What are you running from?”
Corin had run from his fiancée’s very public preference for another man. Aster had run from his fiancé’s very private preference for another man…only not private enough, because he’d certainly felt free to express it where Aster’s valet could hear every word.
A wild burst of laughter bubbled up in his throat and came out something more like a sob.
His head whirled and he had to swallow hard against a wave of nausea as the floor spun out from under him. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Looked like he’d be making a closer acquaintance with Corin’s chest after all.
At least he’d be warm while he swooned like a fucking idiot.
Aster’s full weightslumpedinto Corin’s chest all at once, and only his iron grip on Aster’s arms kept the lad from sliding to the floor.
For a shamefully long moment, Corin tilted his head down and breathed deeply, greedily inhaling the scent of another person, the warmth of another life. He’d been so very fuckingalonefor so very long now.
And up close, Aster smelled shockingly delicious for someone who’d been in the saddle for—Corin had to assume a couple of weeks or more, guessing that he’d come from either his family’s seat or the capital. Either one would mean a journey of at least that long by land, and Aster didn’t smell at all of the sea. He’d been clinging to a futile hope that the scent of summer-warmed roses hadn’t been coming from Aster, but had instead been a trick of his imagination or something carried from far beyond the mountains, a waft of a distant southern clime where the flowers bloomed year-round.
Instead it seemed that his senses had chosen to respond to a gangly, overgrown, second-rate courtier with freckles scattered over his cheekbones like spilled paint, and whose only attractive features were shared with the slut who’d broken Corin’s heart.
With a jerk, Corin lifted his head and shoved Aster away from him, holding him by his arms and letting him dangle like a rag doll, his feet crumpled on the floor and his head lolling down. A stray lock of silky blond hair, slightly redder than Belinda’s but just as soft, brushed Corin’s cheek.
Fuck.
His cock had not stiffened slightly. Absolutely fucking not. When Corin fucked men, they werenotcourt-bred dilettantes and they werenotpains in his neck who’d turned up on his doorstep uninvited and they werenotthe brother of the woman who’d allowed herself to be thoroughly rogered in a gazebo during a garden party celebrating the king’s fourth nephew’s engagement.
Not to mention, they weren’t unconscious and entirely at Corin’s mercy.
He would never. No matter how much it’d be a sort of revenge, and no matter how often Corin had daydreamed about getting his own back.
His cock…stiffened a little more, fuck, and his hands tightened convulsively around Aster’s arms, probably enough to leave rings of bruises by morning.
God. Corin closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart and all the other parts of him that needed to quiet the hell down. He couldn’t stand here all night, and he couldn’t drop Aster to the dusty stone floor and leave him there, either.
That left—carrying him somewhere.
Which he couldn’t do with the man held out at arm’s length like this. Obviously.
Aster’s horse snorted and tossed his head, and Corin started and turned, meeting a baleful equine eye. How had he come to focus so completely on Aster that he’d forgotten about a full-sized horse standing there in his hall?
All right. One thing at a time. “Stay there,” Corin said to the horse, using an ancient draconic dialect that contained a nearly irresistible command. Well-bred dragons considered it ill form to use it on humans these days, but surely no one could fault him for using it on a horse.
The animal froze as if its hooves had been riveted to the floor.
Which left only one other issue to deal with. Corin mentally braced himself and hoisted Aster’s unconscious body up into his arms, one behind his knees and the other around his back. Aster’s head rolled against Corin’s shoulder, and he let out a soft sigh that tickled his neck.
The scent of roses wafted up, mingled now at such close range with the soft, human warmth of Aster’s skin.
“I don’t like him,” Corin muttered desperately, striding for the stairs. “In fact, I despise him.”
Unfortunately, Corin couldn’t muster a lot of evidence to support hatred and contempt. Aster hadn’t publicly condemned his sister, but then again, who could expect him to? And before that debacle, he’d seemed pleasant enough, if shy, on those few occasions when Corin had spent time with Belinda’s family. Aster might be a poor excuse for a knight who’d joined in training at the palace with far more enthusiasm than skill, but he’d been…enthusiastic. Cheerful about his injuries, a good sport when others beat him, gallant on those very rare occasions when his abilities outmatched another man’s. Corin hadn’t had much to do with him, but he’d noticed. It had been his job to notice everyone and everything in the training yard.
Corin’s arms tightened again of their own accord. He took the stairs two at a time, needing to put Aster down before he did something truly stupid, like consider not putting him down at all. Bad enough that the bloody fort boasted only one thing that could be vaguely considered a bed, and even that was rudimentary enough. Half the time, Corin slept as a dragon up on the hill above the tower, or in the hall if he wanted to stay dry.
Well, he could do that again. And Aster could have the bed. Simple.
But when he reached the top and picked his way through the obstacle course of his scattered belongings to get to the bed, he paused.
He could close all the windows, of course, and would…but the top of the tower held the frigid chill of the oncoming storm, and the fireplace was unlikely to be functional, given that it was filled with the caked-on soot and rubbish of decades of disuse and the flue had probably gotten clogged with debris. Sounds coming from it sometimes of an evening suggested it had a family of rodents living in it, too. He suspected chipmunks.
Corin couldn’t possibly disturb the little creatures. That wouldn’t be fair so close to a snowstorm. No fireplace, then.
