I drove my sword into the dirt. “I beg your pardon. I’m preoccupied and slept poorly.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The jester’s silken voice humored me. “Does your cock have anything to do with that?”
While taking his second draught of water, Eliot lurched forward, fluid spraying from his mouth. “For fuck’s sake, warn me next time!”
“My tongue never gives anyone warning. Not even my favorite redheaded wife.”
“I beg of you,” I grumbled while scrubbing my nape with a hand towel. “Do not elaborate.”
Yet Poet wasn’t wrong. It had been a long odyssey home, days in which Aspen and I had kept our hands to ourselves amid the clan, even if Poet and Briar hadn’t. At this juncture, my yearnings rivaled my cravings.
To see her. To hold her.
Regardless, Aspen had needed time to reunite with her mother. Honoring that, I returned to my chamber in the westwing. There, I spent too many nights tangled in the sheets and immersed in fantasies, my heart in tatters and my phallus behaving uncooperatively.
“Anyway.” Poet rotated the staff between his fingers with lazy strokes. “I’m thinking of customizing this beauty. You know, embellishing it with something…” he wiggled his free fingers, the black-painted nails flashing. “Something moreme.”
“Gaudy, you mean,” Eliot remarked while shrugging a tunic over his damp head.
“Nay, think grander,” Poet scoffed. “Something narcissistic. Perhaps poison inlays or thorns that draw blood, to match Briar’s throwing quills. Or a bit of tinsel that impairs vision. Also, my immortal name engraved into the steel.”
I huffed, emulating the minstrel’s discretion and donning a vest. “Your name is already engraved into the staff.”
“Not nearly large enough.”
“Having a fancier weapon won’t make anyone a better fighter.”
“Being a better fighter won’t make anyone a better hero,” the man countered.
Such advice never failed: Do not play verbal chess with a jester.
We chuckled as I jammed one end of the towel into my back pocket.
“So tell me.” Poet tilted his head. “Are you acquainted with any splendid weaponsmiths? One to whom I might entrust this flattering job? I’ll spare no expense.”
He surveyed me in a way that only the Court Jester surveyed his targets. The gaze of a consummate manipulator who picked through vulnerabilities like threads, deciding which ones to snip in half by means of wit or mockery.
Or in this case, friendship.
“Indeed,” he goaded. “A new weapon commission is in order. Mind delivering the message for me?”
“Drop my name on the waitlist, while you’re at it,” Eliot requested, gaining the jester’s side. “I hear she’s well sought after.”
“In other words,” Poet murmured. “Get your ass to that forge.”
Despite the jump in my pulse, I wavered. “She’s indisposed,” I reminded them. “Her mother—”
“Has enjoyed her daughter’s private company for a week. Trust me, I know when the time for a reunion has arrived. Your fierce lady awaits you.”
“Aspen waits for no one.”
With quiet insistence, Eliot professed, “For those we love, we would all wait for eternity.”
Poet’s eyes glinted. “’Tis a strength. Not a weakness.”
Not wishing to intrude or impose myself, I had given my lady space, believing she would summon me. Yet if I had learned anything about our bond, it was this truth. Neither of us needed to call the other. Not with words.
I would have replied, were it not for a set of footsteps rushing toward the training yard. Our group turned as Nicu strode across the grass, his features in disarray.
