That must have been a pretty good prize, because Griff finally cracked a smile.
And though the next day was spent mostly tossing and turning and accidentally hurting his still-healing side as he waited for the worst of the withdrawals to release their grip on him; though he knew little but Griff’s cool hands on his forehead and the waterdripped carefully into his mouth whenever it got too dry; by the second day, when he finally kept down a few pieces of damn good egg someone had found somewhere, Mal still believed what he had told Griff that first day: Victory would soon be theirs.
Mostly because Griff had stayed with him through it all. The sweating, the vomiting, the surly and sullen moods that had gripped Mal unexpectedly.
Griff was so getting a horse when they got back. The biggest, friendliest horse Mal could afford with their restamped silvers.
Despite the necessity of immediately resuming their travels while he was still weak, as night dropped its shadowed cloak over them and he began to feel more like himself at last, Alys announced with more cheer than she had shown since setting foot in the Mire, “I’m going to go give Prancer and Muffin a bath now, so they’re not filthy when we get back. No sense making extra work for Vic.” As she added the broken sword to her belt, her gaze roamed over her friends as she smiled, and Mal understood—no words needed.
She would be a while.
Mal turned to Griff as the foreman banked up the fire and noticed for the first time that he was once again wearing kohl around his eyes, which somehow made them an even richer shade of emerald and added an illusion of length to his already-long lashes.
“It’s a good night to wear that crown again,” Mal suggested, unable to keep a bit of breathiness from his voice. It had been several days since their last time together, and Mal was more than ready for any excuse to dress up and then take Griff’s shirt off.
“Probably one of our last chances,” Griff agreed, biting his lip as Mal nestled the carved metal flowers into his hair and began undoing the buttons of his wrinkled black shirt.
As he worked, he said playfully, “You know, I’m sick of this fucking Mire. Even though we’ll be out of here soon … tonight,I was thinking we could visit our old tree house.” Scooting closer, he pressed himself slowly against Griff’s thigh, evidence of just how much he liked seeing Griff properly adorned with the finest things. “Remember, the one we built together, where you kept your practice sword?”
He slipped a hand into Griff’s back pocket while his other pressed right up against the front of him, a combination that had Griff staring at Mal like he was the one who had hung all the stars above them. “And while we’re there, I might steal all the silvers out of your pocket before you even know what’s happened.”
The hand that had briefly sought to provide some friction for Griff now dipped down into his front pocket, Mal’s fingers reaching as deep as the fabric allowed and grabbing far more than a handful of coins in his search of the premises.
“Oh, you bad fucking bandit,” Griff managed to groan as Mal started handling and stroking the riches he had found.
“You’d better chase me up to the top of the ladder, then, before I get away with all your money,” Mal teased, breath gusting over Griff’s neck before he started kissing the place where his good shoulder and his neck joined, noting the way the graze of his teeth made Griff leak a little in his pants.
Grabbing Griff’s belt loops from the back, he started to pull the other man closer as their eyes finally met again and he ran his other hand up into Griff’s hair, displacing the crown slightly and already past caring.
“I’ll have to be careful on the third step,” Griff panted, his eyes glowing brighter than the fireflies that had emerged in the humid night around them. “You know how it shakes. And I don’t suppose my flimsy sword is going to be enough to barter to spare my life—but perhaps …”
He paused, sliding his way down between Mal’s legs and starting to undo the fastenings of his pants in the way only Griff could—with just his teeth—starting to undo Mal in the processtoo. “I could be of some other use to you?” Griff continued finally, a grin crossing his face just before he ran his tongue slowly along the underside of him. “Perhaps if I please you well enough, you’ll let me stay here in your bandit’s lair?”
It took a moment for Mal’s muffled hearing to make sense of what had just passed by his ears, but when he did, he laughed, as this was both somehow expected and utterly surprising. Soon after, the flash of a firefly illuminated Griff’s knowing smile as Mal gasped and arched his back, offering himself more freely to Griff’s skilled mouth.
“That’s right, um, you know your options,” Mal managed to say as Griff worked his mouth around the dripping tip of him and reached out to add a hand into the mix. His breath hitched again as Griff did something wonderful with his tongue, something that made Mal whine in the back of his throat. “Go on, then. Prove your worth.”
Of course, Mal didn’t leave Griff to question his fate as a victim of a ruthless bandit for long with the way he snared his fingers in Griff’s curls and panted, “Oh, you’re so fucking good at that.” And rather than pushing himself forward to take more of what was being offered, he leaned back on his elbows to watch and enjoy the show as Griff demonstrated just what sort of performance was worth his life.
He even unbuttoned his shirt to give Griff a little show of his own, grinning down at the dark-haired man’s eagerness until the heat rising between his legs became so much that he could focus on nothing else.
Then he reached out to lay a hand on Griff’s good shoulder as the other man sucked him down, a dragon holding tightly to the biggest thief’s ransom of all, the only prize he cared about bringing home from the Mire or anywhere. As soon as he came, he was going to give to Griff until he redefined the wordgenerousaltogether.
Much later, as the clouds over the moon broke apart and he was resting his head in a spot on Griff’s chest he’d never realized until now was made just for him—like a cave on a map whose entrance is revealed only in moonlight—he said softly, “I’ve been thinking … would you like to call me your boyfriend from now on?”
Griff’s breath caught, and after a moment, he said, “Of course. I’d love that.”
Reaching up to run his fingers through Griff’s hair, Mal decided, “I’d like you to call me that too. Of course, you’ll always be Griff to me at the end of the day. Like all the black: That’s you. Hot breakfast and eyeliner and songs: That’s you. Mine: That’s you too.”
“What about marriage being a scam and titles being for the insecure?” Griff asked in a voice of awe and gentle teasing, one hand poised near their faces to help convey his meaning with sign language rather than raising his voice.
Mal’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Guess I was waiting for the right person to commit to.Boyfriendhas a certain ring to it, after all.”
“You already know I would have stayed without it,” Griff assured him.
Mal’s only answer was to use the hand behind Griff’s head to draw him closer and kiss him breathless, even though they had already done plenty of that tonight. Even though the road to home promised much more of the same for one dragon and his knight.
And when, much later still, Griff woke him from a dead sleep, shaking and slick with tears and sweat after one of his nightmares, Mal roused himself enough to murmur, “Oh darling, you’re all wet.” And he wrapped himself around Griff, holding him even after the shaking had stopped, his shield against the dark.
