“Bit of a step down, don’t you think? Settling for a little kitchen mouse, when Iknowyou used to fuck that princess—”
Ger’s head snapped around so fast he swore he heard the crack.
“Watch it,” he warned.
Benan released the doorjamb and held both hands up by his hulking, plated shoulders.
“Oh, you’ll hear no judgment from me. She did have those big tits, but I see why a side of kitchen mouse could be a change ofpace.” He sneered at them both. “Her Highness was afeistyone,and I’d know better than most.”
“Oh, of course,” Jack chimed in. He gave a merry snap of his fingers like it had all suddenly clicked into place. “Because she handed your own ass to you in front of an audience of hundreds, right?”
Benan’s face dropped like an avalanche, thin lips sagging over his chipped teeth for a moment before they pulled back in a snarl and he took a menacing step into the room.
“Listen here, you mousey little shit—”
“Enough.” Stepping into Benan’s path, Ger tried his best to sound bored even if his heart was hammering somewhere around his larynx. “Come on, Benan, you want to be fed gruel for the next month? You know Marie doesn’t like you starting shit in her kitchens.”
“Herkitchens?” Benan snarled.
“Yes,herkitchens,” Jack crowed back at him over Ger’s shoulder. “Who do you think’s been feeding you, the stew fairy?”
For fuck’s sake, what was it about this overgrown wart that had all the pretty, brown-eyed, loud-mouths squaring up to him at every turn? Uncanny. Benan tilted forward again, and Ger stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.
“If we’re wanted, we’re wanted,” he said firmly. “And I’m not explaining to Her Majesty that we’re late because you got in a scrap with a kitchen mouse.”
“No offence taken,” Jack muttered, and Ger sent him a pleading half-glance.
Though he did back up a step, Benan made an aggressively nasal sound; just a big, snorting bull of a man. “Certainly do have a type, don’t you, Pup?Insufferable.”
Jack gave a delighted gasp. “Now there’s a big word!”
Benan outright growled, but Ger still had a hand on his breastplate, and he pressed back as the oaf leaned in.
“We’re wanted,” he reminded him. “I’ll catch up.”
With a final, bullish snort and a simmering glare thrown in Jack’s direction, Benan turned and squeezed himself out the door. Ger whirled on the spot, heart in his throat, to throw Jack the most incredulous fucking look he could muster, but the porter just smirked back at him.
“So, do you then?”
“What?” Ger frowned, heart still hammering and muscles locked in that distinct fight or flight tension that seemed to claim his entire blood supply; not a single drop spared for his brain, nothing left to form thought.
“Do you have a type?”
He blinked. Jack blinked back at him—then tilted his head, a challenge in his smile.Nice smile,said the most base part of Ger’s brain.Nice lips.He pinched his brow like he could pinch some sense back into his own head.
“Daughters,” he hissed, but the curse slipped into a laugh on the tail end of his breath. “Yes, apparently my type is bloody troublemakers.”
Jack grinned. “Noted. See you later then,Pup.”
And though Ger wanted to be annoyed at Benan’s stupid, patronising nickname, somehow it didn’t sound quite soannoying coming from Jack. He rolled his eyes anyway, the quirk of his lips betraying his lack of ire.
“I’ll see you later, Mouse.”
Jack’s grin was a burst of sunlight, and Ger carried that warmth with him all the way through the cold and barren hallways to the Council Room.
It turned out he would need it.
???
