“Thank you. So much. But just… please don’t put yourself into a coma, all right?”
“All right?” Trill agreed, confused.
“That’s what happened to Perian after he pushed enough energy into Prince Kinan to make him visible.”
“Make himvisible,” Trill repeated blankly.
“Let’s get cleaned up,” Arvus interrupted. “Then we’ll go see if anyone else is awake. This conversation needs to happen with everyone.”
“Aren’t I the only one who doesn’t understand what’s happening?”
“No, I agree with Arvus,” Molun said after a moment. “Even with Cormal being all… different, I wouldn’t have expected him to react the way he did to you yesterday. We need to pool our resources and make sure that we’re all on the same page. For example, it didn’t occur to us that you couldnotfeed from us. We were going off what we knew of Perian, who was doing it without even knowing that was what he was doing.”
That was a fair point. Trill was super curious, and he wanted to knowright now. But how Molun and Arvus saw everythingwasn’t the same as how Perian did. Or Brannal or the Prince or Cormal.
So they headed into the water closet and discovered that Perian had been telling the truth yesterday. There was plentiful hot water… and they all got a little bit dirtier before they got cleaned up again.
“Hey,” Molun observed cheekily. “That was fast.” Then he looked at Trill. “Does that mean you can make sure we recover faster?”
Trill winked, and Molun looked gleeful.
“Yes!” He actually did a little dance in place.
Trill just laughed.
“We only figured out afterwards that that happened when Perian was around,” Arvus said, watching Molun with a fond expression. “So we didn’t take as much advantage as we could have. We’re happy with you regardless, but we certainly don’t mind that little perk.”
“So perky,” Molun said with a grin, ending his little dance by coming over and popping a kiss onto Trill’s mouth.
Trill was delighted that they were reacting so positively to the things he could do. It was one thing to be accepted in the moment—that was huge!—but it also meant a lot that theykeptaccepting him. They didn’t just tolerate that he was different, they actuallycelebratedit.
He knew things couldn’talwaysgo right. There would be not-so-good times, too. But every time they demonstrated how much they cared, Trill felt like another layer of that wall he’d tried to erect to protect himself came down.
He was still going to do everything he could to keep making them happy, but that nervous, itchy feeling that they might suddenly cast him aside didn’t loom as much.
He was so,soglad that they’d found one another in the pub.
They eventually made it out of the water closet and into clean clothing before venturing downstairs.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cormal
Despite the interrupted night, the fact that everyone in the house had now seen him naked, and the surprise revelations that had left him reeling, Cormal slept surprisingly well when he and Kinan had gotten back to their room. Perhaps his body had simply gone into recovery mode and decidedthat unconsciousness was the only possible way to deal with everything that was happening.
He woke feeling remarkably clear-headed, all things considered. Kinan was lying next to him, his eyes already open.
“Were you watching me sleep?” Cormal asked.
“Not if you find that creepy,” Kinan said quickly.
Cormal smiled reassuringly. “I don’t mind.”
Kinan had told him that he didn’t always sleep as much as… solid people, and Cormal wasn’t ever going to chide him for what he did to occupy himself when his life was so circumscribed.
“Did you sleep all right?” Kinan asked. “Yesterday was kind of a lot.”
Cormal huffed out a breath. “I slept much better than I expected.” He eyed the other man. “Must have been the company.”
