Chapter 28 #2
“Cam…god…Cam…so close,” Alric gasped. His hips lifted slightly from the chair in the tiniest of thrusts, as if he couldn’t help himself.
Cameron wanted to signal Alric in some way that he could move, but his position in the chair with Cameron on his knees didn’t give them a lot of room to maneuver.
Regardless, he wasn’t going anywhere. He wanted everything Alric had.
A knock on the office doors had them both freezing for a heartbeat. Alric swore violently in German for a moment before he shouted, “Don’t come in!” He sucked in a harsh breath and seemed to moderate his tone, but only a little. “Come back later.”
“Yes, Hoheit,” a man’s voice came through the door.
Cameron huffed a small laugh of relief, but it wasn’t exactly easy with his mouth full.
Alric flopped his head back against his chair and groaned. Cameron redoubled his efforts, using his hand to stroke the bottom part of Alric’s cock that his lips couldn’t quite reach. Alric swore again softly, his fingers tightening in Cameron’s hair.
“Cam—” he moaned, and then he was coming hard. Cameron swallowed him down with a tiny whimper of need. The only time he’d been more turned on was when they were naked in bed together. Yes, they would need to do that later tonight.
Slowly, Cameron let Alric slide from his mouth, licking him completely clean as he went. Alric let out a long, deep sigh as Cameron carefully tucked him back into his pants and refastened them.
“Here,” Alric mumbled, grabbing Cameron’s hand. He pulled him back up into his lap and kissed him tenderly over and over again, leaving Cameron just sinking into his warmth. “What brought that on? Not that I’m complaining at all,” he continued when it seemed like his brain was functioning again.
Cameron shrugged. He didn’t want to explain what had really sent him here, the emotions he wrestled with.
The need he had to connect with this man.
Even if the words tangled up in Cameron’s throat, he wanted to show Alric that he was important.
That Cameron did want him. He just wasn’t sure how to respond to everything Alric offered.
Not yet. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to do something that made you feel good when I know you’ve got a lot of things to worry about during the day.
” He paused and chuckled softly. “Okay, and maybe I wanted to do something a little risky and naughty.”
Alric huffed a laugh, his right arm tightening around Cameron. “It will be a very long time before I can sit at this desk and not think of you on your knees, face flushed.”
Nuzzling his nose against Alric’s cheek, Cameron closed his eyes. He could just sit here all day. He didn’t want to leave Alric’s side even though he knew they both had things they needed to see to. “Anything for you.”
“You have no idea how much you’ve already changed my life for the better. It’s as if you wrapped your own personal magic around me from the very beginning.”
Alric’s words snagged in Cameron’s brain, churning things in a new direction.
He’d forgotten that he’d agreed to meet up with Gunter after his lesson.
Damn, poor planning on his part. His body was still thrumming, a little whiny about getting some, but he really had no time for it.
He was late meeting up with Gunter as it was.
He didn’t want to get up, but he needed to see a man about some magic.
Reluctantly, Cameron sat up and smiled. He cupped Alric’s cheek and brushed a sweet kiss across his lips but pulled away before Alric could deepen it. If he let the dragon, he’d keep Cameron distracted enough that he’d never leave Alric’s lap.
“I believe Dieter needs you for more work, and I need to talk to Gunter,” Cameron murmured against his mouth.
“Really? You don’t want me to reciprocate?” Alric smiled widened, full of pure devilment. “I thought I’d lay you out on my desk and make a meal of you.”
“Now that’s just mean. How about a raincheck and you make me dessert tonight?”
“Deal,” Alric laughed and nipped at Cameron’s bottom lip.
Cameron got to his feet and started for the door when he turned back. “Would you like me to get Dieter for you?”
“No, thank you. I need a moment to collect myself. I’ll call for him when I’m sure I can face him without blushing.”
Cameron laughed when he strolled back out of Alric’s office, feeling good that he’d placed a smile on Alric’s face. Now he just needed to see about getting some extra protection for his man.
* * *
Cameron rubbed his hands together, a little bounce in his stride as he cleared Gunter’s door. “I’m here!”
“Good, get in here,” Gunter called back from somewhere further in the room. The table had several boxes stacked on top of it, likely with research elements. Or specimens. Or something crazy. You never quite knew with Gunter.
What with the threat of kidnappings and such, everyone felt it better to arm their mages as well as they could.
Just in case. Cameron’s magical knowledge improved daily, and he soaked magical theory up like a sponge.
During one of the castle game nights, he’d thrown some ideas around with Gunter, which somehow led to these afternoon sessions with the dragon.
He and Gunter thought it feasible to come up with something that would allow Cameron a fighting chance, in case he was caught alone.
Or caught with only one dragon guarding him.
The dragons were beyond fierce, but they were not immune to magical attack. It behooved them to make preparations.
Gunter sat at a back table, and he gestured Cameron onto the only other unoccupied stool. “I’ve got a list from Carla on good possibilities. The trick will be assembling something you can make on the fly.”
“Not have ready and available?”
“Most of what’s on her list isn’t something you want to just cart around. For one thing, an active spell like this will mean trouble for any mage trying to do a seeking spell on you, so we’ll have a hard time following.”
“What are we talking about, exactly?” Cameron leaned over his shoulder to read the list. The rather short list. “Barriers, glamour spell, reflection spell? So barrier for defense, glamour to hide our location, reflection to bounce attack spells away?”
“Ja.” Gunter frowned a little down at the list. “It’s not a bad idea, really, but…”
“I mean, doesn’t this all assume that we see the attack coming? That I have a place to duck into and put a barrier and glamour spell up? That I have the time to do that?”
“That’s rather my problem with it.” Gunter sat up, letting the list fall to the table for a moment. “In the war, the mages used different sorts of spells. I assumed she’d list off one of those. I’m not sure why she didn’t.”
Sometimes Cameron honestly forgot Gunter had been in the war, too. The man didn’t look a day over thirty. “What kind of spells are you talking about?”
“Reflective spells, certainly. To repel attacks, but also knock-backs, shields that absorbed the damage.”
“Yeah?” Cameron turned that over in his head for a moment.
Maybe it was because he’d played too many video games in his life, but that sounded suspiciously like some of the action skills in RPG games.
And (probably, again, because of too many video games) it gave Cameron an idea.
“Were there any spells that cancelled magic?”
Gunter turned his head and regarded him for a moment, blinking as if this question didn’t compute. He often looked at Cameron that way, for some reason. “Cancelled magic?”
“Sure. Say they trap us with a spell, or they’ve got a binding spell on us, is there any way to cancel that?
Odds are if they ambush us, that’s what they’ll try.
That’s what they did the first time I was almost kidnapped, at least. They were trying to throw binding spells and acid spells.
Mostly they missed, but if those are used, I want a way to cancel the spell. ”
“Ah. I like your idea. I think there’s a way to break a spell?
” Gunter frowned a little before he got up, going over to a huge tome that looked like a dictionary.
He pulled it free from the shelf with a grunt of effort before hauling it back.
“I always underestimate how thick this book is. This, my friend, is a list of all known spells.”
Cameron eyed the book with wide eyes. “You’re telling me that even with a list like that, we still have missing magical knowledge?”
“A great deal of it. Think of it this way. If you were to list every single invention from the beginning of time until now, how long do you think that list would be?”
Oh. Well, put into that kind of context… “And is that just a list?”
“No, it also tells how the spells and potions are made. Ingredients, power levels, variations, sometimes a brief history too. Hence the thickness.” Gunter set it on the table with a grunt.
“I think it’s possible to choose something that will allow you to quickly mix up a spell or potion, break free of whatever spell is holding you.
Or possibly undo the damage of an attack before it can make things any worse. ”
“Is this something that can be simple enough that I can carry the elements around? Like, something that will fit in a messenger bag so I can easily have it on hand at all times?”
“That’s the goal.”
That sounded promising. Cameron would rather not be just a sitting duck if something happened. But his mind was still thinking in gamer’s logic. “Can I work up something that’s kind of like an AOE effect?”
Gunter was back to staring at him blankly.
Yeah, okay, that hadn’t been clear. “I mean, instead of cancelling one spell, can I create an area around me that cancels everything? Like an AOE circle in a game, where the effect is within a certain radius of the caster.”
“Ahhh. Now I understand you. Ja, ja, this sounds possible. In fact, even better. I’m not sure if we can make it portable enough to carry, but I’m up for the challenge.” Gunter looked it too. In fact, he looked almost giddy with the idea of cooking up new magic.
It was part of the reason why he and Cameron got along so well. Any lab experiment was always more fun with a buddy. Cameron might be a little giddy himself.
“We’ll need to factor in Alric’s power when we figure up the power levels,” Gunter muttered to himself as he started flipping through pages.
“Sorry?” Cameron tensed a little, surprised to hear that. Surely the story hadn’t gotten around the castle already about how he and Alric were connected.
“When you bond properly, you’ll be drawing on his power more heavily then you are now,” Gunter explained, still flipping through pages with intense concentration, as if he knew what he was looking for and it had to be in here somewhere. “So we need to keep it in mind while experimenting.”
Oh. Um. It was a foregone conclusion that he and Alric would bond and become mates? Uh….Cameron wasn’t so sure of that.
And he had no ready response to Gunter’s assumption. None at all.