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Olympus beat him to saying anything. “Over my dead body,” he said, swiping an arm around Lefric’s waist and tugging him close. “Lefric is mine now, and I’m not sharing him with anyone.”
Magnus shrugged. “Suit yourself. You might change your mind, once you get a look at Jorgen. It isn’t unheard of for wolves to spend a night eating fine food, drinking choice wine, and sharing each other’s pups, all under the same roof.”
I wanted to think he was joking, but since I hadn’t actually spent that long among the wolves yet, I had a feeling he was probably telling the truth. Olympus looked scandalized and outraged…until he glanced at Lefric’s expression and found him flushed with arousal at the intriguing idea.
“You wouldn’t actually want to partake in an orgy like that, would you?” he asked Lefric.
Lefric sent him a heated, wobbly look. “You’ve never seen Jorgen Iceblade before.”
I couldn’t help but laugh then. It certainly wouldn’t have been Lefric’s first orgy either. We Sons had a tendency to descend into them whenever we were together.
Which reminded me of Sebald and the fact that a large portion of the Sons were about to be reunited.
“What do you want me and Peter to do?” I asked Magnus, eager to hear more about the part we could play.
Magnus smiled fondly at us and scooped us up to pull us flush against him. He kissed us each before saying, “The two of you will be my eyes and ears at the negotiations themselves. I need you to mark all of the details that I won’t have the time to concentrate on.”
“And after the meetings?” Peter asked. “I assume there will be entertainments and things. Do you want us to entertain like we have in the past?”
For once, Peter didn’t seem at all certain about the prospect. For once, Magnus didn’t jump at the idea either.
“Of course not,” Magnus said. “But what I do want you to do, what I want all of you Sons to do is coordinate with Sebald to find out everything he has learned in the last two months. And catch him up about what you know of Conrad and Anton as well. And Orel. That young man might be as charming and palatable as a bowl of vinegar, but he is working as hard as the rest of you to shape the future of the kingdom from the inside, through administrative channels.”
“We can do that,” I said. “As long as we can also spend some time with you to go over everything we’ve all learned on our various missions.”
“Darling,” Magnus said with a lascivious purr, “do you truly expect that I would go without private, intimate time with just the three of us for more than a few hours?”
“No,” I laughed. “Of course not.”
Magnus leaned in and kissed me, then, since Peter was right there on his other side, he kissed Peter hard too before letting us go.
“Right,” he said, clapping his hands together. “The sun is almost at the right angle. I’ll inform the captain to set off on the final few miles to Hedeon at once. We will all stand at the prow of the boat looking as regal as possible so that we leave everyone in this damnable city speechless and in awe of the magnificence of the wolves.”
I exchanged another look with Peter, rolling my eyes, as we all moved to take our places. Yes, Magnus knew how to make an entrance. This might have been the grandest one he’d ever made. Although, knowing Magnus, he’d probably been carried into a feast atop a cake set on a silver platter, completely naked and drippingly erect at some point in his misspent youth.
“What do you think the odds of Jace causing trouble are?” Peter asked under his breath as the two of us headed up to the prow just behind Magnus.
“Really high,” I murmured back.
I peeked over my shoulder at Jace and Gennadi as best I could without being noticed. They hung back a little, and Gennadi was saying something to Jace with a serious face.
“At least Gennadi will keep him in line,” I said as we reached the prow.
“He will,” Peter agreed, looking wary, “but I’m a little worried about how Jace’s family will be towards Gennadi.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “How do you think Jace will react if his mother and sisters reject Gennadi outright?”
“Let’s hope they don’t and we don’t have to find out,” Magnus said, even though he wasn’t looking directly at us and hadn’t given any indication he was listening to what Peter and I were saying.
I hummed in agreement and moved to stand on Magnus’s left side. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Jace’s family—or anyone, really—wouldn’t love Gennadi the moment they met him. I kept forgetting what the cities were like. They were the places that had kicked men like us out for generations. They were places where fathers would sell their own sons into sexual slavery. Jace had told me and Peter before that no one in his family except his father had known about him before everything had happened with Gomez. Sai had come around after meeting Gennadi, but Sai was just one person, and Gennadi had inadvertently worked hard to prove to Sai that he was worthy of Jace’s love.
I was jolted out of my thoughts—literally—when the boatmen started pulling up the anchors that had kept the boat in place overnight. Peter let out a sound of alarm, and my mood instantly changed to humor as I stepped over to wrap my arms around him and steady him.
“Don’t worry, love,” I said in imitation of Magnus. “I won’t let the big, bad river swallow you.”
“No, swallowing him is my job,” Magnus said with a wink. “Both of you.” Again, he was very much aware of the two of us, even though he wasn’t looking directly at us.
I laughed, and Peter did too, really, although the sound was stressed. “Fuck you,” he grumbled, a slight quiver in his voice. “Fuck both of you.”
“Yes, please,” I said, then nipped the side of his neck.
