Chapter 28
Moerrven
“Aeldryc made his scary face, and the harbormaster suddenly remembered a free cabin on the Sea Lark for you,” Pip said as Aeldryc slid a wooden crate beneath the bench and the two of them slipped in across from us. “You set sail in a week’s time.”
Sky bounced a little next to me, and we all went quiet as the tavern wench showed up with a tray laden with ale, fried potatoes, and hearty bowls of vegetable soup.
We dove into our food, waiting until she was out of earshot before speaking again.
We were seated at a dockside tavern in the port village of Reach, where we’d been staying for the past few days as we tried to arrange passage to Liminia.
I glanced out the window at the harbor, with its deep gray water. Fishing boats and large cargo vessels bobbed lightly on their moorings, and I wondered which ship would be ours. I did not see one named the Sea Lark.
“So this is real,” Sky said. “We’re headed to Liminia. On a boat. I haven’t ever been on a boat.”
“Neither have I,” I admitted. “When you live in the landlocked mountains, there is never a reason.”
“Not at all?” Aeldryc looked horrified. “Ever?”
“That’s the same expression he had when he found out I didn’t know how to ride a horse,” Pip said.
“Still appalling,” Aeldryc said, kissing the top of his head. “I’m glad you learned.”
“Is the Sea Lark cat-friendly?” I asked.
“I told the captain Poppy was a good mouser, and he agreed to allow her in your room,” Aeldryc said. “Hopefully he won’t notice she prefers napping and eating food prepared on a porcelain dish.”
I considered defending my cat, but Aeldryc was correct.
Sky shifted closer to me, reaching for my horn, and I felt a rush of his nervous excitement as he touched me in the spot that opened doors between us.
I realized at once that he was telling me something he didn’t want to communicate out loud, and I reached out to steady him, rubbing a hand down his spine as he curled in close.
“I hope the training in spycraft we did this week has sunk in,” Aeldryc muttered. “I have low confidence in this going well. Remember, you are posing as travelers visiting for pleasure.” Pip sat up straighter. “Not sex pleasure, Pip.”
“Are you going?” Sky asked.
“No, I discussed it with the Queen, and after the wars, it seems Liminians aren’t too fond of my kind. And apparently my… military bearing is quite obvious.”
Pip snickered. “Just a little.”
“Also, Pip works for the palace seamstress and is in the middle of the Queen’s winter solstice gown, so she will not allow him to leave, and Pip and I cannot be separated.”
“Why not?” Sky asked.
Aeldryc blinked. “Because we cannot.”
“Because he loooooves me,” Pip clarified, grinning.
Aeldryc cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, we’ll be staying in Feravael, ready to manage any more portal leaks. Having a human from your world is essential for communication.”
The Queen was funding our expedition, but wanted to keep everything quiet, so Sky and I were headed to Liminia alone, posing as adventurers traveling the world.
“Which reminds me.” Aeldryc reached beneath the bench and set the wooden crate on the table. “From the palace. The mages duplicated every text the Crown holds concerning Liminia and the Liminal Order. The originals stay in Feravael. The copies sail with you.”
Sky pried up the lid and lifted out a book whose cover showed a shirtless fae swooning against a plow horse, beneath the title The Stablehand’s Secret.
“I rebound them myself,” Pip said proudly. “All thirty-one. Nobody searches a honeymooning couple’s crate of dirty novels. It’s the perfect cover.”
“It is research material,” Aeldryc said, with dignity, “traveling in deep cover.”
I opened The Stablehand’s Secret. Inside, in a careful scribe’s hand: A Complete Accounting of the Liminal Order, Volume the First. I decided not to mention how believable I found the disguise, given the state of my own shelves at home.
“And what of Vyranthos?” Aeldryc asked. “The Crown would rest easier knowing the portal’s guardian is stable.”
“Oallian is doing great, actually.” Sky speared a fried potato. “We’ve been riding out to a quiet field outside town every morning, and he flies in to meet us for his tai chi lesson. He hasn’t set himself on fire in four days. We’re very proud of him.”
“He is calmer,” I said. “He only smoked twice yesterday, and both times because Sky praised him.”
“Good,” Aeldryc said, in the tone of a man crossing one item off a very long list.
“Okay,” Sky said, into a lull. “I need a distraction.”
“We could do some more espionage training,” Aeldryc said. “Make sure you both know what to do if you’re captured and questioned.”
“OR. We could get a cheese board,” said Pip.
I felt Sky’s worry before he started speaking.
“What if Connor tells my mom I’m missing?
What if she asks and he says the wrong thing?
The freak-out is coming, and I don’t want to think about the part where she finds out I’m gone.
” He turned to me, eyes wide and worried.
“Or what if we find the mirror but it’s not guaranteed I’ll be able to get back to you, when I need to get back to you.
I mean, espionage training sounds useful, but I think I need to not think until the ship leaves. ”
I reached out and massaged his shoulders. “We’ll find a way to reach your family, Sky. Or to communicate with your mother. And I won’t leave your side. Perhaps I’ll even come through the mirror with you. Once we find the mirror.”
Pip sighed. “No one has horns where we live, big guy. No one is blue-gray either.”
“So? I wear a cloak,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Okay, that’s cute to imagine,” Sky said. “And sweet of you to offer.”
“Though also if people find out what you are, they might arrest you to do experiments on you,” Pip said.
I felt a new surge of anxiety from Sky. “Not helpful, Pip.”
Pip grimaced. “Sorry! Sorry, I just haven’t had to think of this because I don’t really have family back home to worry about. I can see why you’re worried, Sky.”
“Which is why I need a distraction.” Sky reached up and stroked a hand down my horn, and in an instant, my dick was hard. I knew exactly the variety of distraction he was proposing.
Pip leaned in, grinning. “Are we talking cards? Aeldryc has been teaching me all of the Qoksmere games. Or wait.” He looked from Sky to me and back with the expression of a scholar closing in on a theorem. “Moerrven. Are you going to tie him up and have your way with him?”
“Other way around,” Sky said smugly, dropping his hand from my horn and sipping his drink.
“WHAT?” Pip gasped. Then he blinked. “No, okay, never mind. That tracks.”
Aeldryc sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Are you sure you don’t want more training? It would help me feel better about sending amateurs to do field work.”
“No, he wants training in the sex,” Pip said, winking. “Which you don’t need, because you’re already very skilled. But I don’t know, practice makes perfect. Shall we all go to our rooms and bang it out?”
“Oh my gods,” Aeldryc groaned, his eyes darting around the room to see who else had heard his unruly husband. From the looks of it, it was pretty much everyone.
I stood, pushing my chair back, and took Sky’s hand. “Please excuse us while I help Sky to resolve some of his inner turmoil.”
Sky grinned up at me. “It’s so hot when you talk about inner turmoil.”
I bowed to the Lord High Commander, and as I did I noticed that despite their bickering, Aeldryc was very firmly holding his husband’s hand under the table. Maybe he liked it when Pip egged him on.
I could relate to that.
“Goodnight. Do you leave in the morning?”
Pip nodded. “Back to Feravael. We will be keeping an eye on the portal for you.”
“And the Queen needs her gown,” I said, and Pip beamed.
“That she does. Can’t leave the royal sewing room for too long!”
“Well then, we bid you goodnight.” I glanced at the window, cheeks going hot. “Erm, I mean afternoon.”
“But we’ll be gone for the rest of the night,” Sky added, then dragged me out of the tavern and up the hill toward our inn. We ignored the other guests, gave a courtesy wave to the innkeeper, and raced up the stairs. Sky set the key on the mantel and looked at me.
“Clothes off,” he said, stopping to pet Poppy under the chin, and smuggle her a small piece of some treat from his pocket. “I think I need one of those hard, bed-breaking fuckings.”
I bowed to him. “At your service, my lord and master.”
He tilted his head. “Not quite daddy, but it’ll do.”
“Should we perhaps not break the bed, though? So we don’t have to pay any kind of fees?”
“You will fuck me against a wall with every ounce of your strength, and then I will beat you for being so impertinent and make you come again. Then we’ll fall asleep with your mouth on me. Sound good?”
My cock was fully on board with that plan, and I made quick work of stripping nude, slathering myself with oil.
His eyes were wide as he watched me. “You’re so damn beautiful, Moerrven.”
I smiled. “I love you more than I knew it was possible to love.”
He beamed up at me, arms slipping around my waist. “Me too, my good boy.” Then he tilted his head. “What if you tear open my trousers like you’re desperate to be inside me.”
“I am desperate to be inside you, but I anticipate damaging clothing will result in a hefty punishment.” I ripped the trousers anyway, lifting him into my arms, and shoving him into the wall, spreading his legs wide.
“I do like hefty punishments, though,” I said as I drove inside his hole, happy he was still gaped from our morning activities.
He grabbed my horns and kissed me as I settled into him, pinning him in place with my cock.
It was frantic, wild, and equally damaging.
We knocked four pictures off of the walls with the force of my thrusts, and Sky, at one point, was grappling for something to hold onto and accidentally took out a vase.
But it was perfect, and I had the coin, so I didn’t care.