Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, and she sniffed again. “He said it’s worth the risk, and he wants to do it because he’s hurting me. But he’s not. He’snothurting me!”
Perian wrapped an arm around her and held her close.
The truth of the matter was that he had, in fact, been hurting Renny, just entirely inadvertently and involuntarily. He hadn’t even been able to leave Renny’s side without getting pulled back, so it wasn’t like there was an alternative.
Perian could feed energy to him, and he was willing to keep doing that. He was willing to stick with the two of them forever if he had to… but he wasn’t certain it would be permitted.
Perian didn’t care what some of them thought, but he would always be willing to try for Renny and Kee.
“What do we need to do?” Renny asked.
Perian’s mind went totally blank.
“Uh. Well, if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure it requires something I definitely can’t do in front of you.”
She just stared at him for a moment, and then she let out a crack of laughter. “Oh, you need to have sex first!”
Cormal flinched, the Queen and Brannal looked kind of horrified, and the doctor looked as though this was the sort of thing that she talked about every day. What did she normally talk with her patients about?
The Queen ran a wholecountry. But maybe sex didn’t come up that much.
Perian could feel his cheeks burning, but he was glad that Renny, at least, was amused. He’d take that moment of normalcy.
“It wouldn’t be on my list of things to ever talk about in front of you, but even with my limited understanding of how this works, I don’t think I can do it without that.”
Perian had been struggling for days, and he was definitely running on empty, so how could he give energy away right now?
“Is that absolutely necessary?” the Queen asked.
“How can we trust you?” Cormal demanded.
Perian shot him a look. “Seeing as I’ve never kidnapped anyone and delivered them to a convicted felon, I don’t really think it’s me who should have to answer that question.”
“I had no idea Venoran was there!” Cormal said hotly. “I only—”
“And we will discuss thatthoroughlylater,” Brannal interjected, voice dark.
Perian couldn’t deal with those two right now. He looked at the Queen. “I believe it’s the only way to proceed. It’s how I get energy, and I need energy to give it.”
He still didn’t totally understand the process, but this was the only thing that made sense, and it seemed to be corroborated by how he’d reacted when he’d been injured. They were making a lot of assumptions, but he didn’t know what else to do.
If this was one of his last actions, it was worth it for Renny and Kee.
The Queen’s lips were pressed into a thin line, and she still looked deeply unimpressed by this plan, but Perian was sure that for her children, she’d try it.
Sure enough, after a long pause, she said, “Very well. What do you… require?”
Perian would have laughed if he wasn’t so filled with the urge to cry.
“I don’t have to have sex with anyone directly,” Perian said stiffly, because this was, quite possibly, the most awkward conversation he’d ever needed to have. He swallowed. “I just need to be nearby when people are, uh, climaxing.”
Yes, he’d just said that to the queen of his country while Renny was tucked up in his arms with a roomful of people watching. This was justgreat.
He cleared his throat and hurried on. “I guess the more people the better, if I’m meant to have lots of energy? I mean, not crazy amounts of people!” he added hurriedly, before anyone could think he was suggesting a castle orgy or something. “I don’t know if I have a limit of how much energy I can, uh, absorb. But I think everyone would feel… safer if I wasn’t absorbing it from just one person.”
Brannal hadn’t even looked at him through this entire awkward conversation. Up until the truth about Perian had been confirmed, it had been awe, hadn’t it? Perian didn’t think it was aweanymore.
“I don’t have the slightest idea how it can be reasonably achieved,” Perian said, suddenly feeling exhausted and like the urge to cry had increased a great deal. But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t doing this for himself, he wasn’t doing it for Brannal, and he certainly wasn’t doing it for Cormal.
