“What?” I press after a second.
“Fuck. Rathyn is going to kill me if I tell you this, but…” He takes another long breath. “I think I have a way.”
My eyes go wide. “Tell me.”
He drops his voice and scoots the chair as close to the desk as he can manage. “We kind of, sort of, have a secret portal to the Outerlands.”
I stare. “Thewhat?”
“It’s a long string of villages where Cielo is from. It’s at the base of the singing mountain. I can’t say the Eretharian word for it because their language is impossible, but it has these caves and the stones, like…hum, I guess. Anyway, Rathyn and I use the portal when we want to go to Erethar without being noticed by his stupid, fuck-ass superiors.”
I bite down on both my lips and say nothing. I’m too afraid to ask. Too afraid to hope.
“I could probably let you two use the portal key, but we’ll have to wait until Erethar’s nightfall, and you couldn’t stay long.AndCielo wouldn’t be able to tell anyone he was there. Do you,” he stops and clears his throat. “Do you think it would be too painful for him to be there and stay hidden?”
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I can ask him about it.”
Everest nods. “This is risky. Like, scary risky.”
I bow my head. “Why would you take the chance on him?”
“Because he’s my friend,” Everest says without hesitation. “He’s in this mess because of me. Because I asked him to break the rules to save Rath, who apparently didn’t even need saving. So, if I can give him this, I will.”
I don’t know if Cielo will agree. He’s barely willing to take cum from me now, so I’m not sure he’ll take Everest up on this offer. But it’s worth a shot.
If it’ll ease his pain, even just a little, I will happily accept any and all risk.
“I’ll let you know,” I tell him.
He seems satisfied with that answer and then pulls my notebook toward him. I have a few more Vyastil sex toys sketched, and he turns it from side to side before his eyes go wide.
“Oh. This looks like fun. I really want to try this one.”
I grin at him. “Yeah. I think it will be. And I can’t wait to test them.”
I plan to bring up the secret Erethar portal to Cielo slowly, a nice, gentle approach. We’re sitting on the couch, me drinking tea and Cielo drinking a latte. We’re watching a cooking show, mainly because Cielo wants to learn how to make something other than the mush eyeball soup he made me before.
“Sooooop,” he says and nods toward the TV. “Brooohdeeee wasss wrong.”
I snort and nod, feeling my anxiety well up. He glances at me, and I tell myself to go slow, to approach this with tact, but he must feel my anxiety because his tail curls around my leg, and I can’t hold it in any longer.
“I found out that there’s a secret portal you can use to get into Erethar.”
I bite my bottom lip and feel my nose scrunch. Fuck. That was not at all gentle or slow. But my nerves got the better of me.
Cielo’s eyes narrow, and his head cocks to the side.
“I mean…you know…so you can see your family?” My voice rises to an indiscernible pitch, and Cielo trills in response.
Yeah, not at all a good way to approach this.
“No, Dante,” he says, definitive and assured. It makes my heart dip. “Ruuuless.”
“Yeah, I mean, I get that. But I felt how much you miss them, and if we can sneak you in…Rathyn and Everest use it all the time.”
His tail tightens around me. “No.”
I sigh loudly and sip on my now-lukewarm tea. I can feel something shift in him, anger and then curiosity.
