Perian huffed. “You know what? Believe whatever you want. But it really wasn’t an act in the hallway. I had no idea what I was before you told me.”
Cormal stared at him, looking this weird mixture of arrested and doubtful.
“You… had no idea what you were,” he repeated.
“None. So… congratulations. You managed to utterly destroy my entire life. I’m sure you’re proud.”
Cormal looked… really genuinely almost confused for a moment, and then he scoffed. “Nice try.”
Then Perian was left alone again, for a long, cold wait. And when that wait ended, Perian was going to have to try to absorb the desire and sexual satisfaction of people he might not know—or those he did—in the most embarrassing way possible. Then try to fix Kee when they still didn’t really know what was wrong.
And then, after that, his use was going to come to an end. He was pretty sure he knew what happened at that point.
He hadn’t thought to measure his life in such short, sharp intervals. But then, he could have died that first night Brannal had found and rescued him. Maybe this was all just borrowed time, and he had to count it as a bonus.
Maybe he’d never quite fit in because he wasn’t supposed to.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Despite the fact that it would require him to do one of the most embarrassing things he’d ever had to do in front of one of his least favorite people, it was actually a relief when Cormal came to collect him.
He’d brought two other Mage Warriors with him, ones that Perian didn’t know that well,andtwo Warriors. Perian barely suppressed an eye roll and just let the man bind his wrists and hobble him, while the Warriors had their swords trained on him.
“One wrong move, and you’re a dead man,” Cormal told him.
Perian was already well aware he was a dead man, thank you very much.
“I would never do anything to jeopardize this chance for Renny and Kee,” he said carefully.
“You better not,” Cormal said threateningly.
Perian wasn’t sure what the man thought he was threatening Perian with, but he couldn’t be bothered to argue about it, just shuffled along in the wake of the excessive and entirely useless number of guards.
Really, if Cormal wanted an effective group to protect against him, he should be surrounded by children. (Children with swords? Children that someone else was threatening with swords? All right, that was a bit awkward.) But honestly, surrounding him by multiple large, attractive people who found him attractive was just about thestupidestthing you could do if you actually wanted to protect yourself from a carnalion.
Perian didn’t really know what the man was thinking. Or maybe he was hoping that Perian would try something and he would have an excuse to kill him.
Since Perian really would do anything for Renny and Kee, he shuffled along, ignoring the sense of curiosity and revulsion and desire that he could feel swirling in the air around them. It was pretty clear to him that the whole group knew what he was and that they were pretty horrified, but that couldn’t actually stop the underlying attraction that they had for him.
If he tried harder, he might be able to sort out each person from the other, see if any of them were feeling more pure desire and maybe didn’t think he should immediately be run through with a sword or caught on fire, but… Perian decided he didn’t really want to know.
The room they arrived in was smaller than Brannal’s, with no separate sitting room, just one room with a screened off area where the bed was, and what he assumed was a small water closet through the second doorway.
“Get on the bed,” Cormal said.
Perian bit his tongue and didn’t say anything snippy, because it wouldn’t make anything better, and there was a chance that Cormal was wound so tight he would react first and destroy Renny and Kee’s chance. Perian sat. It took him a little work to get arranged more or less comfortably with his arms and legs restrained, but it could have been worse. They weren’t metal restraints, and he wasn’t actually tied to the bed.
He swallowed heavily and pushed away all the images of his captivity. He was perfectly safe—for a given value of safe. The room was well lit, it was made of stone, and the bed was comfortable. Sure, someone was looking at him with hate and suspicion, but Perian wasn’t at all worried that Cormal was going to try to touch him. Cormal had gone out of his way to stay away from him, and that helped, under the circumstances.
The doctor arrived, eyed Perian, and said to Cormal as she gestured at the restraints, “Is that really necessary?”
“Of course!” Cormal exclaimed. “He shouldn’t even be allowed out of the dungeon!”
“I’m fine,” Perian said, because he could tell that Cormal wasn’t going to relent, and he really didn’t want to spend his time arguing about this.
Because the doctor didn’t seem to really care what other people thought, she came over and made sure that his restraints weren’t hurting him, and she looked over his wounds.
“I’m fine,” he told her.
