“No, I hit a royal brat,” Rayne corrected. He tried to frown, holding on to his fierce expression, but it was so rare to see Caelan in a playful mood like this. Particularly after everything that had already happened.
“Yeah, yeah. I bet you act like a brat plenty with Eno.” Caelan’s expression was so very wicked, and Rayne was praying that it was dark enough that Caelan couldn’t see the burning of his cheeks. There was no way he could utter a denial. Yes, he acted like a brat with Eno at random times to get the man to overpower him in bed, but that was not something he was going to discuss with the king.
“We were talking about New Rosanthe, Your Majesty,” Rayne said crisply.
Caelan rocked into him, their shoulders colliding as his boisterous laughter bounced off the cave walls. “Oh gods, Rayne. You couldn’t come up with something better than that?”
“No, nor was I going to waste the brainpower. We have more important things to figure out.”
“No. No, you’re right. There are more important things than discussing the kinkiness of your bedroom activities with Eno,” Caelan agreed around more laughter.
“Cael,” Rayne growled.
The king waved a hand at him as the last of his giggles wound down. “Okay. Okay. I’m serious now. In terms of the Ordas and all that we are facing, I’m thinking we’re going to need some help.”
“I agree.”
“I actually have an idea of how to fix that, but I’m afraid someone in our party is going to be unhappy about this idea.”
Rayne had a guess as to what Caelan was thinking. If he was right, someone in their party was going to be very fucking pissed.
THREE
Adrian Westergren
“This is bullshit,” Adrian snarled for the third time.
He threw down the bag of supplies he’d just taken off the boat and turned on his heel, marching back to get more stuff.
Two hours ago, they’d left the cave behind and were greeted by pale-gray skies as the sun peeked above the eastern horizon. Drayce had begged for them to make straight for the shore, but they had needed to get farther from Brightspire and to find a place to tie up that wasn’t likely to attract the notice of anyone.
The dock they’d located was crumbling with missing boards and shaky as hell when they walked across it, but there were no other buildings and the road leading to the dock was covered in weeds. No one had been here in years, and no one was going to notice a strange boat. Exactly what they needed.
Drayce had crawled off first and promptly kissed the dirt the second he was on dry land. He remained there, his hand caressing the weeds and whispering how he was never getting on another boat. The rest of them unloaded what Adrian had thought would be enough supplies for the day.
At least he had until Caelan ordered extra for Adrian. He was staying behind.
“Bullshit,” he muttered under his breath.
“Please, Adrian. I need you to listen to me,” Caelan pleaded.
“Nope. Don’t care if you’re the king or some god. I’m not.” He stopped and swung around, nearly hitting Caelan. He didn’t realize the king had been following so closely, and now they were almost bumping chests. “You know what? I quit. If you think you can leave me behind because this was more than I signed up for, then fuck you. I quit. I’m going back to being a thief, and if I want to tag along with you guys, I dare you to try to stop me.”
“You really should have handled this better.” Rayne sighed.
Adrian’s narrowed gaze snapped to the king’s advisor as he stood over the pile of supplies, rubbing his brow with one hand. “You knew about this?” He looked over at Eno, who immediately put up both hands as if to ward off Adrian.
“Whoa! This is the first I’m hearing of it,” Eno countered.
“Ditto,” Drayce added, pushing into a sitting position in the dirt.
“Lieutenant, I am ordering you to sit your ass down and listen to me,” Caelan snapped, pointing to where their stuff was gathered.
“No,” Adrian said with great satisfaction. He wondered if anyone had ever told the king no to his face. But he remembered exactly who he’d been traveling with for the past couple of months. They were all quite good at telling Caelan no when he was being ridiculous or unreasonable. And right now, Adrian was sure Caelan was being both.
“If you don’t—”
“Caelan,” Rayne interrupted in a low, warning voice.
The king smiled wickedly up at Adrian. “I’ll let the dragon sit on you. You’ll have no choice but to listen to me.”
“Fuck, yes!” Drayce cackled. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them.
That made Adrian hesitate.
Caelan would order that. Drayce would do it. Drayce’s enormous dragon ass would crush him.