“Good morrow,” Shrike murmured into his ear, a delicious rumble that left Wren hungry for more.
Wren twisted ‘round to claim his mouth in a kiss. As their thighs tangled together, he felt Shrike rise to still greater wakefulness against him. He slipped a hand down between them to take both cocks in his fist. With Shrike’s lips on his collar and throat, it took mere moments to bring them both to bliss. Wren collapsed against Shrike’s broad chest in complete contentment.
Shrike stroked stray locks of hair back from his brow and rumbled something low over his head.
Wren raised his gaze to meet him. “What?”
A shy smile of soft wonder played across Shrike’s handsome features. “A brugh full of huldra, and still you chose me.”
Wren found himself smiling in return. “Quite a feather in your cap, that.”
Shrike laughed.
Emboldened, Wren voiced a question that had shadowed the back of his mind ever since they’d entered the fae mead-hall.
“The male huldra. The… huldrus?” Wren guessed.
Bemused, Shrike gently corrected him. “Huldrekall.”
“Yes. Huldrekall.” Funnily enough, the pronunciation wasn’t the most difficult part of the question Wren wished to pose. “Have you ever… embraced one?”
The bemused smile faded somewhat. “Sometimes. After Wild Hunts. Not often, and not recently.”
Wren swallowed hard. “Would you care to do so again?”
Shrike raised his brows. “Would you?”
“I asked you first.”
Shrike gazed down at him as if he could read his thoughts if only he considered them long enough. At length, he replied, “Not without you.”
Relief forced a laugh out of Wren. “Same answer.”
Shrike returned his mirth and added an embrace of his own besides, to which Wren submitted gladly.
~
Chapter Nineteen
Felix remained in Wren’s garret for the rest of December and the entire month of January.
As one might imagine, this circumstance gave Wren no small measure of irritation. For one, to have his sanctuary invaded and occupied by his greatest foe would provoke simmering rage in any man. For another, having Felix, Tolhurst, Mr Grigsby, and Dr Hitchingham lingering above his most indecent manuscripts, perpetually on the brink of discovery, did nothing to soothe Wren’s constant anxiety.
On the few occasions Wren did go up to see to the patient—never of his own accord, but at the request of Mr Grigsby or Tolhurst—he didn’t dare so much as glance at the floorboards, much less the particular hollow beneath his bed. He reminded himself that none of the gentlemen would have any reason to search the room. Felix could not even raise himself up on his elbows; crawling under the bed must prove quite beyond his strength. And the other gentlemen were too preoccupied with the invalid to investigate their surroundings.
However, Felix’s presence in his bed did give Wren the perfect excuse to spend every single night from the end of December to the beginning of February in a fairy-tale cottage with his handsome and affectionate lover, which made it somewhat easier for Wren to keep his complaints to himself when he returned to the office each morning.
On one particular afternoon, as Wren brought the tea-tray upstairs for the invalid, he overheard Tolhurst speaking with Mr Grigsby. Rather than burst into the garret and interrupt their conversation, Wren waited in silence in the stairway, the tea-tray weighing heavier and heavier on his arms with every passing moment. Though Dr Hitchingham ordered the door kept shut, lest an errant draught do the invalid an ill turn, the wood proved not so thick as to prevent Wren from catching what words passed between his employer and the invalid’s uncle.
“…visit his friends in the city often?” Tolhurst asked.
“Oh, yes!” Mr Grigsby replied. “Lofthouse has a wide circle of acquaintance, and they meet quite regularly.”
“In the evening?” Tolhurst continued.
Mr Grigsby chuckled. “I’m afraid poor Lofthouse has few other hours to himself in my employ.”
“In Hyde Park?” Tolhurst pressed.
