SPN Fic: Handsome (2/5)
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*****
“I can’t just sit here all day watching you read.” Jensen knows he sounds ungracious, but he’s never been a very good invalid. And this is by far the worst injury he’s ever sustained. He’d rested again for a little while, but only in a kind of twilight half-doze. He’s both exhausted and not sleepy, and he doesn’t have time for this. He broods over the strife happening in the valley below.
“If you want to heal faster,” the dragon replies distractedly, not even raising its head from the book it’s buried in, “drink faster.”
The tea does seem to be fairly miraculous in its healing properties, from what Jensen could tell when he surreptitiously peeled back the bandage to inspect how bad the gunshot wound actually was. The raw edges were already mending, the gash only slightly weeping. There was no sign of ominous red streaks that signaled infection. Not as bad as he feared, but not good enough.
Good god, the fever only broke this morning, and he’s already sick of this bed.
“You can’t keep me prisoner,” Jensen declares melodramatically, only half-joking.
At that, his host raises its head. “You’re welcome to leave any time, of course.” A series of emotions crosses the dragon’s face at that, too quick for Jensen to read. But then it continues, teasing. “I predict you could make it at least as far as the main doors before fainting. Possibly even the gates if you really put forth an effort. If you didn’t manage to put a rib through one of your lungs.”
“My ribs are mending,” Jensen huffs. “It’s not like they’re floating around in there with sharp points at the ready.”
“No, you’re right. You’re coming along wonderfully since you’ve been awake. It’s just there were bad moments there-the fever was-well. That’s all behind you now. You’ll be ready to be on your way sooner than I’d have guessed.” The dragon ends its reassurance brightly, but the tone of it is just a little off.
They fall into silence once more. Jensen stares up at the ceiling, tracing the cracks that radiate out from the ornamental medallion in the middle.
“If you’re a dragon,” he wonders aloud, “where is your hoard?”
“My what?”
“Your secret treasure? A mountain of gold and diamonds? It’s common knowledge that all dragons have them. Didn’t you tell me that dragons were acquisitive by nature?”
The dragon grins. It should be fierce, those rows of glittering teeth. But instead it’s almost… sweet. There’s an actual dimple in the corner of one cheek. Jensen surprises himself by smiling back, and then automatically wipes it off his face. The world is in turmoil, this is no time to smile.
“We dragonkin are collectors, it’s true. And some are known for collecting pretty baubles. Tends to get some you in trouble and attract the wrong kind of attention as far as I’m concerned, but none of them ever listen. Me, though? I’m a scholar. My treasure’s a bit different than most.”
“And what’s that?”
“Hmmm. What if I show you?” The dragon looks him up and down. “I think you’re right. It’s about time you got up and around. They say that brief periods of walking actually speeds healing and is conductive to quicker recovery. Although I read that is the case for certain surgical incisions, but I have to believe it should apply to more violent wounds as well. Wait here.”
The dragon scampers abruptly out of the room, leaving Jensen staring at the empty doorway.
“’Wait here,’” he grumbles to himself. “What else do you think I’m going to do?”
Just a few minutes later the dragon returns, carrying a huge wardrobe wrapped in its tail. As if the room wasn’t overflowing with enough odd furniture already. Jensen watches in bemusement as it sets the wardrobe down against the nearest wall with a thunk.
“I tried to clean the clothes you arrived in,” the dragon huffs, sounding slightly out of breath. It indicates a chaise across the room. Jensen hadn’t noticed before, but on top sits his court uniform neatly folded, his tall, newly-shined boots lined up carefully on the floor beneath. “Unfortunately, the jacket and shirt and waistcoat were all ruined, and not all of the bloodstains came out of the trousers.”
Jensen shudders, forcing himself not to think about the beast stripping off the clothes from his unconscious body. Perhaps his father had stayed long enough to tend to him discreetly? But Jensen knows that’s not what happened.
His mind’s eye conjures up the gorgeous man from his fever dreams. If only he had been more than a figment, Jensen would actually enjoy the thought of having been undressed unknowing.
The dragon’s voice breaks into his musing. “I’ve discovered that the castle’s previous residents left almost everything intact. Some of it is even still usable, if antiquated. We can see if there’s anything in here you might wear.” It opens the wardrobe doors and a couple of moths flutter out. “Oh! How unfortunate. Still-” the dragon sticks its head inside and fumbles around, “-here we are.”
Out of the wardrobe’s depths comes an old-fashioned white muslin shirt, unfashionably full-sleeved with a slit at the neck that closes with a tie. There’s a pair of fancy satin breeches that button at the knee, and fine stockings and stitched leather shoes topped with ornate buckles. It looks like something someone out of a hundred-year-old oil portrait would wear.
Jensen gives a mental shrug. It’s not that he has much choice.
The dragon brings the clothes to the bed, but then goes back to rummaging around.
Jensen eases himself to the side of the bed. He lets his feet hang over the side a moment, distressingly dizzy simply from the process of sitting up. The temptation to lie back down is strong, but Jensen’s stubbornness is stronger. He eases the shirt gingerly over his head, careful not to disturb his stitches. He puts his feet into the stockings and the legs of the breeches.
“Look at this! Just what you need.” The dragon comes out once more, this time with an old-fashioned cane. It’s standard-sized for a man, but looks like a toothpick in the dragon’s grip. The head is curved, set with an onyx ball the size of a small apple. The wooden stick appears to have small etchings up and down the side. It’s the kind of thing a duke or a baron would carry with him for show as he strolled around Grandcoup’s famous shopping district. “Isn’t it fun? There is so much lovely, antique stuff still in the castle, it’s amazing.”
Jensen nods. He stands to pull up his pants. He wobbles and tilts.
The dragon darts across the room, suddenly beside him. Jensen’s hand flails out and he finds he’s steadying himself on its shoulder.
His instinct is to pull away, but the dragon’s skin beneath his hand is like nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s like no leather or pelt or hide, none of those words do justice to the supple smoothness, the glossy warmth like sun-baked marble after rain, a sublime strength like the feel of silk stretched over steel. His hand seems held there on the dragon’s side by some uncanny power, but he can sense no magic other than the extraordinary texture of it under his palm. There’s this strange urge to run his hand down the length of the dragon’s back, stroke up the long arch of its neck. To explore the different feel of the delicate bones and translucent skin of its wings.
“Will you be alright? Is it too painful? Do you need to lie back down?”
Jensen realizes he’s standing there, trembling like a fool. He forces himself to focus. He’s a soldier, damn it all. Chosen as a member of the Heir’s own guard. “No, no. Just needed a moment to remember what it feels like to be upright.”
It is painful, no question. His whole torso throbs. But it’s a pain Jensen can handle. He holds out his hand for the cane and plants it firmly in front of him. He starts off, but leaves his hand resting on the dragon.
Together they walk out of the bedroom doors and into the castle’s Great Room.
There, Jensen discovers a magnificent vision of beauty and decay. Great arching banks of windows filter in the evening sun through grimy panes, illuminating a room large enough to host a ball for every one of LeGeai’s courtiers. Along each wall are rows of unlit sconces festooned with teardrop crystals and cobwebs. The paint is peeling away from a series of pastoral murals decorating the far wall, what appeared to be once vibrant colors now faded.
As they slowly make their way across the hall, the dragon provides a running commentary on the architecture and conjectures on when the castle was originally constructed, pointing out little details so proudly one would think it had designed the castle single-handedly. “Note the unusual inverted vaulted ceilings.”
Jensen looks up, glimpses what appears to be the tangled twigs of several birds’ nests tucked into the cornices.
“You could really use a housekeeper,” he remarks, “or, even better, a whole staff.”
The dragon sighs. “You’re not wrong. I wish it was safe-oh!” It halts, and thus so does Jensen. They’ve come to the foot of a grand staircase, as wide and shallow as advertised. It curves gracefully upward, flanked by balusters and rails elaborately carved into curlicues and flourishes, some of which have broken off, leaving vacant gaps like a brawler’s smile. “I’d forgotten that we need to go upstairs.”
“You’d forgotten?” Jensen asks wryly.
“Well, I was so excited about you getting up and around. There’s so much you haven’t seen and I don’t get to share it with many people. That is, with anyone… other than your father.”
“No one has been here but us?”
“Do you really think there are many of your fellow countrymen who are eager to associate with a dragon? I know your accounts of us, the fear and rage people feel. Your reaction in the courtyard when you arrived was quite predictable. If I had any visitors, they would likely be bearing torches and pitchforks.”
“I see your point.”
The dragon looks longingly up the stairs, and then back at Jensen. “Would you-“ it clears its throat with a little cough, “-would you mind if I carried you?”
“Carry me?” Jensen echoes.
“Well, you don’t weigh much. To me. I-uh-you’re just the right weight for a human, of course. And it’s not as if I’d drop you. And then you wouldn’t wear yourself out. And we wouldn’t have to stay very long, if you start to feel poorly.”
Jensen finds he’s incredibly curious about what the dragon could be so excited to show him. Curious enough, it seems, to agree to such an outlandish proposal. Horses carry him around every day, he tells himself. This is only slightly different.
He glances at his companion. Only slightly.
“I suppose you could.”
Jensen had thought he might ride on the dragon’s back, much like a horse. But instead, it rises onto its hind legs and effortlessly scoops Jensen up in its arms like a babe, or a young bride. They take the steps four at a time, the dragon clearly making an effort both to go swiftly and not to jostle him.
When they reach the top, it doesn’t bother to set Jensen down, but carries him the rest of the way down the long hall. They stop at a nondescript set of doors much like the ones downstairs, exceptionally wide and twice as tall as normal. Jensen tries and fails to imagine what might be behind them.
The dragon swings them open dramatically. And inside Jensen beholds a library.
The room itself is two stories high, with shelves of books that run up each wall like building blocks, the spines of the volumes a riot of color and size. The dragon’s beloved vaulted ceilings are repeated in here, and there’s a walkway halfway up the wall that circles the entire room. Ladders-taller than Jensen’s has ever seen-extend up the shelves, stretching into the highest heights. Books. Scads of books. Mountains of books. More books than Jensen thinks anyone could ever be able to read in a lifetime.
His host sets him down, then spins around happily looking up at the shelves as if this were its first time seeing them all. Then it turns to Jensen, its face beaming with pride.
Jensen blurts out, “I can't believe it. I've never seen so many books in all my life!”
“You-you like it?” the dragon asks, hesitant and hopeful.
“It’s-“ Jensen searches for the right word. “-astonishing.”
Jensen thinks back to the handful of books they owned when he was a child. All of them were on the subject of his father’s sole passion. How Jensen had grown to hate them, as he hated all things that dealt with dragons. It was as if each new book they acquired stole another piece of his father’s attention away.
“Do you like to read?” His host is so eager, so clearly wants Jensen to join its enthusiasm.
“Yes, of course,” Jensen lies. Although it doesn’t have to be a lie. Maybe he could learn to like reading. With all these books to choose from, how could he not find something with a topic more to his taste?
A wave of fatigue sweeps over him, and he shuffles over to a nearby chair, sits carefully down. He glances across the room to where the dragon is absently humming while it fusses with a shelf, rearranging a set of leather-bound tomes. Jensen thinks, Or maybe I’ve been reading the wrong books about dragons.
That night, Jensen lies awake, trying to calculate how soon he might be fit enough to get back to Grandcoup, back to the Palace. The evening’s jaunt to the library had demonstrated the current limits of his strength, but he actually felt better about the progress of his healing than he would’ve imagined. Lead shot in the side is no light matter; he most certainly would’ve died had he not stumbled upon the dragon’s castle. And the fact that he is up and walking so soon-he sends up a silent, grateful thought to the dragon and its tea-gives him hope that he’ll be able to return to the Court before it’s too late to help.
The next morning he deliberately eats heartily of the breakfast the dragon provides, drinking enough of the medicinal tea to float a navy.
His host nods approvingly and gathers the dishes onto a clever little wheeled cart to avoid having to carry many things at once back the kitchens. It shoves the cart to set it rolling and follows along after it, nudging it every few feet to keep it moving. Jensen certainly doesn’t find the process charming.
The dragon tosses a comment to Jensen over its shoulder as it passes through the door, “I’m not sure you need me to help you get around anymore, so you should free to explore. Like I said, the walking will do you good.” Its voice wafts back into the bedroom. “Just call for me if you get overly-tired. And be sure to avoid the West Wing.”
“What's in the West Wing?” Jensen asks, but the dragon must be too far away to hear him, because there’s no reply.
Needless to say, it’s only minutes before Jensen is up and, with the assistance of his cane, making a beeline for the West Wing. Nothing conquers boredom like a mystery. Nothing’s going to encourage Jensen to exert himself more than a quest. Whatever it is the dragon wants to hide, it’s probably the most interesting thing to be found in this derelict ruin.
He takes a different angle across the Great Hall and discovers a wide corridor with a threadbare runner along the floor and blank squares on the walls outlining where pieces of art once must have hung. At the end of the hall is another ballroom, another staircase, just as grand and sprawling and dilapidated as the ones from yesterday. But this time there’s no handy porter to carry Jensen up them.
He takes them slowly, one at a time.
He nearly topples over when the section of rail he’s holding snaps in his right hand, but, after a deep calming breath, he makes it to the landing at the top successfully. There he finds some of the worst disrepair yet. The parquet flooring is rippled and uneven, pocked alternately with dusty heaps of fallen plaster and holes that show all the way through into midair.
Jensen steps forward tentatively, but in that first step, his foot goes crashing through the floor as if it was paper. Even though he’d been half anticipating it, Jensen stumbles forward, and the edge of the landing actually crumbles away underneath him. He flails out with both hands, trying to catch himself before he plunges 40 feet to the floor below. Somehow his cane becomes lodged between two newels of the railing and he finds himself dangling perilously from it over the edge.
“Jared!” Jensen shouts, praying desperately that the dragon is in earshot. He feels his ribs grind and his weak grip gives way.
He slips, starts to plummet. But then Jared is somehow there, faster than a lightning strike, launching from the floor, flying across the room, giant wings outspread. The dragon catches Jensen in midair but doesn’t have enough time or room to maneuver, so it flips them, and together they crash to the ground, Jared twisting so that Jensen lands on top.
They’re both still for a few long seconds, stunned, catching their breaths, dust from the debris swirling around them. Jensen’s sprawled across the dragon’s chest and he rocks as if on a dinghy as Jared gasps for air. Jared’s arms are up around Jensen, cradling him, protective. It strikes Jensen suddenly that, although this is clearly not a man underneath him, it’s not an animal, either.
Eventually, Jensen rolls away, landing on his feet but gripping his knees with his hands to gather himself, the surge of adrenaline and fear leaving him shaky. He glances up at Jared carefully spreading out his wings, looking much like Jensen feels.
In unison, they both ask, “Are you alright?”
Jensen nods first. The dragon looks at him skeptically, searchingly, but then nods back.
“I guess that’s why I should avoid the West Wing,” Jensen says apologetically.
“And I guess I should have mentioned that the entire structure here is unsound.”
“I guess so.”
“I came back to your room and you were gone and I was so alarmed, I raced back out to look for you,” Jared gushes, his voice starting to regain its normal animation. “But before I could do a thing, I heard this loud crack, and I realized you were in the West Wing and my heart almost stopped. You’ve could’ve been killed!”
“But I wasn’t,” Jensen soothes. He feels the urge to reach out and touch, to-to clap a hand on the dragon’s shoulder-or-something, just to reassure him. “I wasn’t even hurt. Thanks to you.”
“I’m glad you called out.” The dragon looks away back down the hall, and then down at the ground. More softly, he mumbles, “I’m glad you called me by name. You can, you know. Even when it’s not an emergency.”
“Okay,” Jensen says. Then he huffs a small laugh, realizing that he’s already made the mental shift. “I can do that.”
***
Jared herds him back to his room like a watchdog with one sheep, insisting they go slow, asking every few steps if Jensen wouldn’t prefer to be carried, or stop to rest. Once they arrive, there’s more fussing, the pulling back of blankets and helping Jensen ease down to sit on the bed. Jared hurries to fetch a large woven basket from one of the nearby tables and brings it over. He goes to open it, then pauses a long moment before simply setting it down on Jensen’s bedside table.
“Here,” he says, not looking Jensen in the eye. “If you think you might need to change the dressing on your wound, you can. I’ll make more tea.”
The dragon slips away to his usual place by the hearth.
Jensen reaches over and opens the top of the basket to find rolls of fresh bandages and pads of gauze, a glass jar half-full of a yellowish ointment, and delicate silver scissors. Jensen recalls his feeling of disgust at the idea of Jared touching him while treating his wounds during his fever. He should be glad for the dragon’s current respect for his privacy, and for a relief from the cosseting. But as he shrugs out of his shirt and clumsily unwraps the old dressing, he acknowledges that help wouldn’t actually be unwelcome.
The shot struck him high on the ribs up under one arm, and the awkward twist he has to make as he reaches for it stings like a lashing. But his stitches appear sound and he doesn’t seem to be much the worse for wear from either dangling from the ledge or the fall. He quickly slathers his entire side with the salve and cuts a length of bandage, binding everything back up as best he can. It’s sloppy, no better than a field dressing, and Jensen again can’t help but think about how much better it would’ve come out had Jared helped. Even if his talons are much too large to wield the scissors or fit inside the ointment jar.
The rest of the morning goes by quickly because Jared unearths an old chessboard from some other part of the castle and sets it up at Jensen’s bedside. It’s missing a couple of pieces, but Jared rustles up the half-melted stub of a candle and a tiny hourglass as substitutes, and they begin to play. The board is sized for humans, which makes it hard for Jared to maneuver his pieces without knocking everything over. So he takes to calling out his moves to Jensen from across the room as he putters around, at one point simultaneously reading a recipe, shelling peas, and stirring a pot of soup with his tail.
"My Queen to King's Rook five, please."
It’s a bit embarrassing. Jensen considers himself a decent player-adept even-but Jared whips him handily the first round, despite his lack of attention. Jensen fares better the second contest, playing the dragon down to a handful of pieces before Jared manages a swift endgame with an outside passed pawn. Deep into the third round, Jensen thinks he has him beat, but Jared surprises him once more and Jensen throws up his hands, knocking over his king in surrender.
“One more round,” Jensen demands. “I swear, I will best you.”
But ever since the noon hour came and passed, Jared has been looking every few minutes out the window, judging the angle of the sun. “I-um-I have something I must attend to soon. Nothing important really. Just a routine chore. I’m afraid I’ll be preoccupied most of the afternoon,” Jared says, busily attempting to tidy the mess on the table, stacking up dishes and piling some books too high, sending them tumbling. The dragon is really quite bad at covering up the fact that he doesn’t want to tell Jensen exactly what he’s doing.
“That’s fine,” Jensen replies, flopping back against the headboard. He pats his side tenderly. “I’ll just languish here alone.”
“Do you need me to stay?” And Jared’s quick concern makes a small corner of Jensen’s heart warm. He’s never had anyone-that he can remember, at least-so willing to put Jensen’s needs before their own. It’s nice.
Jensen reminds himself not to get used to it. It’s not as if he’s staying. “No, no. I was teasing. I’m feeling fine. Or as fine as it gets at the moment.”
“Alright, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Jared pins him with a stern look. “You rest.”
The dragon is gone less than an hour before Jensen gets bored with the books by his bedside and realizes he doesn’t feel like napping. He gets up, his muscles a little sore from the fall in the West Wing, maybe one or two new bruises forming, but overall much better than even this morning. He’s healing. It won’t be long now.
He wanders over to chaise where his clothes are piled, and discovers that the damage isn’t as bad as he feared. The waistcoat is a loss, and the undershirt, too, but the coat itself could be worn, if he tucks the loose bits of fabric around the hole inside. And the coat would cover the stains on the trousers if he keeps it buttoned. At least they’ll fit better than the ancient finery Jared had found for him.
He quickly changes, into all except the boots, because while he might get them on, he’d likely have trouble pulling them off again without Jared’s help. And he doesn’t think Jared will approve of this outing when he’d specifically prescribed more rest.
Jensen slips his feet back into the leather shoes, decides he can forgo the cane, and makes his way outside.
He glances around the empty courtyard, then decides to head toward the stables. The mare he’d stolen on his way out of the capital is there, her stall clean, fresh hay in the rack. He feels a pang of guilt over taking her, and makes a silent vow to try to hunt down her owner and pay twice her worth in recompense. She whinnies as Jensen approaches and he worries that she’s been too cooped up for her own good. How much has Jared let her out to graze?
Jensen figures it will not hurt to give her some exercise, just around the lawn. And Jared said walking was good for his own healing as well.
He grabs a simple headstall from the wall and drapes it over her, briefly scritching at the blaze in the middle of her forehead. Together, they walk out into the warm afternoon sun. Every so often the horse stops to crop at a tuft of grass, and Jensen decides to steer her away from the gardens, lest she eat something out of Jared’s elaborate works that would either upset her stomach or the dragon’s feelings.
They wander for awhile, Jensen trying to gauge how long he can stay out before he’ll be too tired to walk himself back to the guest room. That would not go over well.
But just as he thinks of turning back to the stables, he sees movement from the corner of his eye and spots a man making his way stealthily through the front gate. He’s leading a pack mule loaded with saddlebags. There is something familiar about him: his height, his hair shaggy, with whisps sneaking out from under the edges of his cap. Jensen releases the horse, giving her a silent slap on the flank to send her out of sight into the hedge maze. He edges slowly around so that he’s hidden behind a tree trunk as the stranger comes toward his position. The man is acting suspiciously, glancing furtively in each direction as he makes his way across the lawn, heading toward the castle.
Jared had made no mention of visitors. In fact, he’d specifically said that Jensen and his father were the only humans who had been to the castle for at least a score of years. The man has no business here, and Jensen will be damned if he lets any harm come to Jared after all his kindness. Just the thought of someone stealing Jared’s things, of hurting him, makes Jensen see red.
Jensen only has moments to decide on a course of action. The prudent thing would be to follow the man inside, try to trap him, at least delay him, until Jared’s return. Or do nothing at all, but to wait for Jared and warn him before he ever enters the house. Because not only is Jensen wounded, but all he carries with him is a short, ornate bodkin on his belt that he’d donned automatically. At Court, it’s meant as adornment or, at most, for paring an apple. Thank god he at least has that. It’s barely a weapon, but it will have to do.
Jensen’s never had much use for waiting.
The decision is made for him when the route the stranger takes brings him right past Jensen’s hiding place. He’s a big man, taller than Jensen, and the element of surprise is going to be the only thing that wins the day. So Jensen times it carefully, so carefully, until the man passes by.
Jensen rushes at him from behind, tackling him to the ground, and holds the blade to his neck. Under his grip, the man goes unexpectedly still. He doesn’t struggle, merely holds his hands up in surrender.
It’s him. The man from Jensen’s fevered visions. The one who came to him as he lay dying. Somehow he’s real and he’s lying on the ground with Jensen’s hand around his neck. The sunlight from the south catches auburn highlights in his hair, tied back in a queue with a long black ribbon.
“Who are you?” Jensen demands. “What are you doing here?”
And if the man’s appearance isn’t astonishing enough, his words are even moreso.
“Jensen!” he says. “Please stop! You’ll reinjure yourself. Or you’ll injure me, which I don’t much care about as long as it’s not lethal, but instead of either of those, if you hold on, I can explain.” His brow is creased with worry, and Jensen can’t help but notice the way his chest heaves under his grip. He’s just as beautiful as he was in Jensen’s dream.
“How do you know my name?” Jensen snarls, angry now. This is no figment of his imagination. What does he know of Jensen? Or of Jared? What right had he to handle Jensen as he lay insensate? Or to be here now?
“I know this may seem impossible, but I’m Jared. This-this is simply a different form, one I can take at will for short periods of time when I need to.”
“I don’t believe you.” Jared had told Jensen he had very little magic. This is so much more than making dinner plates appear to dance. The flesh and bone beneath his hands is no illusion.
“Stand aside. I’ll show you.”
“This is a ruse. You’ll run,” Jensen says.
“No. I’m not going anywhere.” The man smiles softly. It’s Jared’s smile. Jensen peers more closely into the man’s eyes, green and azure with a burst of gold at the center. And with a sudden certainty, Jensen knows who this is.
Jensen pulls the knife away. He rolls back onto his heels, and jerks away when the stranger-when Jared-grabs him by the arm to support him as he struggles to stand.
They face each other in silence for a moment, Jensen waiting, the man looking as if he’s making a decision. At last, he begins to… by god, this man who claims he’s Jared starts to strip. He shrugs off his coat, starts undoing his plain cravat, unbuttoning his shirt.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jensen says, praying it doesn’t come out as a squeak, because, too quickly, the man’s torso is bared and he’s reaching for the fastenings on his breeches.
“I apologize if nakedness makes you uncomfortable, but if I turn back into my true form now, I’ll ruin these clothes.” Jensen can see he’s trying for nonchalant, but he’s biting nervously at his lips, and a rosy blush starts high in his cheeks and flows down his neck. He pulls off low boots and peels out of the breeches and undergarments. “There may be closets full of discarded clothes in the castle but it’s quite difficult to find things that fit a body this tall. Even the ones we found to fit you were a pleasant surprise, as you are taller than most humans I’ve met.”
The man steps back from the pile of clothing and Jensen can’t help but gape, feasting his eyes on him. There is not a single ancient statue, not one dancing boy from the City’s most expensive gambling dens that can match the perfection of this man’s form. The etched lines of each muscle, the slim hips, the long, elegant limbs, the carnal beauty of his soft cock nestled gently in a thatch of silky curls.
As Jensen watches, the outline of the man seems to waver, to break up as a reflection breaks when a stone is thrown into a pond. Jensen blinks and he realizes he’s no longer looking at a man, but a lithe green dragon. Jared.
Jensen’s heart is racing as if he’d run a hundred stairs. He wants to reach out and touch Jared, confirm that he’s solid, substantial, the beast and not the man. Or maybe he is both. Jensen shakes his head slowly in disbelief. “Is this another of your illusions?”
“No. It’s true transformation, not illusion. This is something that all dragons can do. At least, as far as I know we all can.” Jared looks at him warily, and it’s as if faces of the man and the dragon are overlayed upon one another, Jensen can see both in the creature’s appearance. The sharp nose, the wide, expressive mouth, the graceful arcs of his brows over slanted eyes. It’s amazing, and disconcerting, and so impossible that Jensen knows not what to do.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why has this never been mentioned before in my father’s studies?” he asks.
“How would most humans react,” Jared asks in return, “if they knew dragons could walk among them undetected? I didn’t tell you because it is not my secret to tell. It’s one that belongs to all dragons and protects us against discovery. Most never bother to use this skill, having no interest in associating with humans in the first place. Some think it’s an abomination.” He looks at Jensen sadly, his wings drooping. “In that, I suspect you’re in agreement.”
Jensen can’t answer that charge right now, still off-balance and astounded. “Does my father know?”
“Yes, that’s the true story how we met. I go down the mountain to visit the human villages with some frequency, like today, when I need to trade for things-tools, books-that I can’t get otherwise. Or just to observe people, to sit in company at a bar and share in some of your comradeship. Alan was at the same tavern as I was one night. A group fell into conversation, including me. As you know, your father is a rare student of dragonkin. Even in my human form, he suspected I was-was not quite like other men. I was careless that night. He followed me out of the tavern and into the forest, where I changed form to fly home. He confronted me. I’m lucky he was one of the very few men who is friend and not foe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jensen asks again, knowing that isn’t the important point at the moment, but wanting more explanation.
“It’s not a secret shared lightly. All our precepts forbid it. And, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure what you would say. You already hated me so violently when we first met. And then-and then it seemed like you were… beginning to hate me less.” The dragon looks away, fixing his gaze somewhere above Jensen’s left shoulder. “Staying in human form is difficult, draining. I can only remain like that for a short period of time. I only do it when I must. It was hard to tend to your injuries in this form.” He flexes his long claws, so capable, but still huge and cumbersome compared to human hands. “So I shifted then. I did not mean for you to find out.”
Jensen turns away without response. He doesn’t know what to say. It feels like the pain of his wound has migrated deep into the center of his chest. He hobbles like an old man into the opening of the hedge to track down and retrieve the mare.
He doesn’t look back at Jared.
***
He has no idea why, but he’s suddenly, fiercely angry.
The leafy, breeze-rippled walls of the maze don’t soothe him. No, he’s more enraged with every step. He should have known dragons were liars. Known that magic was not as innocent as Jared had insisted. Known that Jared would deceive him, deceive his father. Why else has Jensen been tempted to stay here when he should have left days ago, healed or not? He should never have let his growing ease in Jared’s company blind him to the vast gulf between them. He should never let himself befriend such a beast. Never forget his duty, and remain here in comfort while LeGeai might be burning to the ground.
Jensen’s steps come faster and faster until he’s practically running down the path. And if a voice in his head whispers that it’s not forgotten duty that has him so agitated, he shuts it out.
He discovers the mare around a blind turn. He catches himself on her mane as he stumbles and nearly falls.
The horse. He has to go. He can’t stay here. Can’t look at Jared and see the other man. See what a dragon looks like in human form. See himself reflected back in Jared’s earnest eyes.
He has to escape.
*****
| Part 3 |