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excuse but he had to try.
"You don't have any friends. You just got here. Where are you? I'm going to send Shean to pick you
up," Nevair said.
"No. I'm fine, Nevair. I'll see you in a few days." He didn't need to get Nevair mixed up in his
problems.
"You tell me where you are right now!" Nevair roared.
Lian disconnected.
"Are we going to be having your partner join us soon?" Milot nodded towards Lian's communicator.
Lian promptly shoved back into his pocket. "Not if he has any sense," Lian growled. "He's busy
enough he doesn't need to be hunting me down."
"Come, sit down, my chef has food prepared. You can search it and see if anything looks poisoned
and tell me all about your senseless beau."
Lian's stomach growled. He laughed selfconsciously. "I guess it would be stupid to say I wasn't
hungry."
"Indeed," Milot agreed.
"Come on, doc," Blaine said. "I bet you've got some kick-ass healing stories."
Lian laughed. "I might have one or two."
The table could have fed a family of twenty, instead the three of them huddled around one end.
Seeing his expression, Milot shrugged. "Sometimes the entire family comes for dinner. I like to have
space for them."
"You have a big family?" Lian asked.
"Extended. I have four sisters and two brothers. None who've had more than one kid each. Blaine's
mother, my sister, died in childbirth, so I kept him."
Milot talked as if Blaine were a puppy who followed him home. From the fond look Blaine gave his
uncle, Lian let it slide. "That was lucky for you," he told Blaine. Memories of his loneliness after his
parent's death gripped his heart.
Blaine shrugged. "Someone in the family would've taken me. That's how they are."
A servant put a loaf of hot bread on the table. Lian scanned it and shook his head. "The bread's not
poisoned."
Milot sighed. "Great. I love my bread."
Since the man didn't have a spare ounce of fat, Lian supposed he must enjoy his exercise, too. Milot
looked to be in his early forties but with dragonkin he could easily be a hundred and Lian wouldn't
know.
Lian took a bite of a roll. "It's good bread."
Blaine nodded, his mouth stuffed like a rodent.
"Tell me about your man. What's he like?" Milot asked.
Lian shrugged. "Bossy."
Milot laughed, a big hearty sound. "A lot of guys are bossy."
"Yeah, but not the ones I usually go with. He's dragonkin and thinks we're mates. I'm still on the
fence," Lian confessed.
Blaine dropped his fork. "When did you have sex?"
"Blaine! You don't ask people you hardly know when they had sex." Milot narrowed his eyes and
contradicted himself by asking, "Was it long enough to get the mark?"
Lian shook his head. "We had sex this morning and yesterday."
"Ahh, so there's still time to find out. What's his name?"
Lian tore apart the roll and glanced around the room. "I'd rather not say. I don't want him to get in
trouble because I'm hiding out."
Milot shook his head. "My boy, the last thing anyone in this room will do is snitch you out. Now tell
me." Lian couldn't ignore the order.
"Nevair Dragonfang," Lian mumbled.
Milot jumped to his feet. "We've got to return you."
"Hey! I thought you said it didn't matter!" Lian scowled.
"I thought you were going to mention some lesser noble or maybe even a half breed with an optimistic
spirit, but you can't just ditch Dragonfang." Panic crossed Milot's face.
"I didn't ditch him. I'm going to return as soon as my medical team arrives in two days," Lian said in a
soothing voice.
"And if your mark shows up before then?" Milot challenged.
"Then I'll cope. Besides, with or without a mark, I'm going to return to Nevair. I like him." Nevair had
a sweet vulnerability Lian found irresistible.
"He could tear this building apart," Milot glanced around as if expecting Nevair to arrive any minute
now. "You're the one he destroyed the bar for, aren't you?"
Lian shrugged. "It isn't my fault he lacks control. It will be a good test for him to acquire some."
Two servers brought out the rest of the food. Lian smiled at the little woman who put a plate of
roasted meat and some sort of tuber in front of him. "It looks delicious," he told the woman.
She curtseyed before walking away.
"Is it poisoned?" Milot snapped. "If you're going to endanger out lives with your stubbornness, you
can at least see if the food will kill me before the Pontifex does."
Lian laughed. "You'll be fine and the food is not poisoned."
The same server poured Lian a glass of water. "Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome sir." The server bowed.
Lian absent-mindedly picked up the glass. Tipping it to his mouth he looked down at the surface and
spewed out the liquid sending droplets everywhere. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]