Shadow of the Father (39 page)

The scent of Sinch, the scent of his arousal, overwhelmed any residual smell of the sewer. Sinch’s hips thrust up into his muzzle as he drew his tongue over the hot shaft, the taste getting stronger. Yilon closed his eyes and bobbed his muzzle up and down, letting his paw cup the base. Sinch had no knot, like he did, but he could tell from the mouse’s shudders that he was close. That was when Sinch’s paw finally tightened around his sheath.

Yilon grinned inwardly, listening to the rapid, jerky breaths. He pressed his tongue against the shaft as it began to spasm, warmth spilling across his tongue and the back of his throat. As he swallowed, he felt his own body suffuse with warmth, felt the jolt of pain again as his tail wagged, this time less sharp. He slid his other arm beneath Sinch’s shoulders and pulled the mouse close to him as the slight frame jerked and then finally relaxed.

Yilon lifted his muzzle, licking the dripping shaft clean as he did and straightening without letting go his hold of the mouse’s torso. Sinch murmured something into Yilon’s chest fur, so softly that even Yilon’s ears didn’t catch the words, but it was two syllables, and it might very well have been, “Love you.” Yilon squeezed the bony shoulder with a paw and let Sinch down to the bed, only Sinch didn’t want to go down.

He stayed pressed to Yilon, his paw remaining on Yilon’s sheath even as Yilon’s remained on his, until Yilon lay down on his side and rested his muzzle against the top of Sinch’s head.

“We’ll figure something out,” he said, without any idea of what he was thinking.

“Mmm,” Sinch said.

“When you bring the crown back,” Yilon murmured. “They’ll see. Even if…”
Even if we can’t be together like this.
“Even if they don’t want to.”

Sinch nodded slowly, and yawned. Yilon yawned himself, and tried to think of what to say next, but he couldn’t quite manage to focus on thinking about Sinch and Dinah and the lordship. His eyelids drooped. He felt Sinch slip into a regular rhythm of breathing and his own matched it. The last thing he remembered thinking before falling into sleep was how, even in the flush of climax, Sinch’s body was nowhere near as warm as he remembered.

He woke to a dim room and an empty bed. His paw found only residual warmth as he moved around sleepily. Sinch must have gone to check on Valix, he supposed. He yawned and stretched, pulling himself out of bed. His wounds were still sore, but felt better. “Nothing like a little rest,” he murmured, slipping into his new tunic and trousers.

Valix was still asleep, alone in the second-floor room. Yilon sniffed the air, but caught only a faint trace of Sinch. The rest of the second floor was deserted as well.

From the stairway, he heard the murmurs of voices, and followed them to the ground floor. Colian and Dinah sat together in a room off the foyer, facing another fox. It wasn’t until Yilon had entered the large parlor and greeted them that he recognized Maxon.

The steward inclined his head as Yilon sat, careful of his tail. “I presume we are all feeling more rested now.”

“I know I am.” Yilon looked at Dinah, his insides tensing. She gave him a quick nod.

“It will be my turn soon,” Maxon said. “I wanted to let you know that I have arranged for a funeral for Min. It should be in four days, after your Confirmation.”

“Thank you,” Yilon said.

“And your wedding can be held anytime in the year after that.”

Yilon met Dinah’s eyes. She gave him a resigned sigh. “I haven’t been able to talk him out of it.”

“What if neither of us wants to get married?” Yilon said.

Maxon shrugged. “I’m certain we can locate a less well-qualified vixen for you, but Dinah is the best match for you and for the future of Dewanne. For the strength of the land, it would be very difficult for me to advise you to make a different match.”

“But she doesn’t want to marry me.”

Maxon arched an eyebrow. “While I am in perfect sympathy,” he said, “we are not always privileged to be given the life we want.”

Yilon opened his mouth to snap a retort until he saw the faint curve upward at the corner of Maxon’s muzzle. “I suppose,” he said, “I’m not anyone’s first choice. Speaking of which,” he said, “what’s going on with Dewry?”

The steward’s ears flicked down. “He is on his way to Divalia. I arranged a carriage for him not two hours ago.”

His tail twitched under his chair. Yilon made a show of relaxing as Dinah was doing. “Then we can stop worrying about that. How’s Corwin doing?”

“He has not woken, but he hasn’t joined the Pack.” Maxon stood. “Colian, if I may have a word?”

“Of course.” The nurse joined him.

Maxon bowed to Yilon and Dinah. “I will await you at Velkan’s mansion for dinner,” he said, and left, with Colian close behind.

“Dinner.” Yilon put a paw to his stomach. “I’m starving.”

“Maxon wanted us to talk,” Dinah said.

Yilon settled back in his chair. “Does it have to be settled now?”

Dinah waved one paw. “He said that after a period of disorder like this, ‘the fewer things that are left unresolved, the better for Dewanne.’ I don’t really know. But it’s important to him.”

The parlor they sat in had been painted in lavender and rose, with sconces in the shapes of large flowers from which candles protruded, unlit in the daylight. Though the room itself was clean, Yilon could smell the dust and disuse in the pink velvet fabric of the armchair as he rubbed it with one paw. Motes of dust rose into the light. “This doesn’t look like a room you would pick out.”

“It belonged to my great-aunt Balstrie. She came to live with us when I was three. She died when I was four.” Dinah wrinkled her nose. “She loved the shape of flowers but hated the smell.”

Yilon smiled. “I never met any of my mother’s family. Nor my father’s, I guess.”

“Your father’s a Lord, right? Wallen?”

“Vinton. South of here and far to the east. But it’s also in a mountain valley.”

Dinah looked at the shuttered window, at the sunlight streaming through the crack. Her eyes drifted closed. “You’re going to accept the lordship.”

“I have to. Too many people have sacrificed too much.” He closed his eyes for a moment to banish the image of the fox’s tail in the corner.

She tapped the arm of her chair, inhaled, exhaled. “I have a sister who’s five. She’ll make a good wife in nine or ten years, and you’ll still be young then. You could have a decade of freedom before your duties take over your life.”

“Duty takes over from the moment I take the title,” Yilon said, but the possibility sparked hope in him. If he could be betrothed but put off the marriage, he could have that extra set of years with Sinch… “Not all duties.”

But still, there was the problem of the foxes and the mice. Was it just dreaming to think that he and Sinch could have any time together with that looming over them? Would they even be able to enjoy that time, knowing it would eventually end?

More importantly, if he didn’t believe that, then why had he told Sinch to deliver the crown himself? “I don’t know what I want,” he said, frustrated.

“Seems pretty clear to me,” Dinah said.

“What, then?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You want your mouse friend.”

“That’s not all,” he said.

“Well, you want to be lord, too. You know, if you didn’t have this hangup about fidelity, it would be all easier.”

“Of course,” he shot back. “When you ignore the rules, the game becomes easier.”

“Who said it’s a game?”

“Everything’s a game.”

She laughed, shortly. “So what if it is? How do you win?”

He frowned. “What do you mean, win?”

“Just that.” She tapped her chair arm. “If it’s a game, there must be a way to win. So how do you win?”

“By…” He paused to think about that. “By following the rules, by being the best.”

“Hmph.” She turned back to the window. “It’s not like I even want you in my bed.”

“I know, you think I’m a city-raised weakling.” He said it almost absently, still thinking about what she’d said about how to win.

“It’s not that. It’s that you’re male. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Figured what out?” He lost his train of thought. “That you don’t… wait. You’re…?”

She nodded. “Just like you.”

His muzzle hung open. “Can vixens
do
that?”

Dinah rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she said. “Think the whole world revolves around your little short bows. Of course vixens can do that.”

“How?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even know.”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Because I’m asking. You want to know how two boys do it? One takes hold of the other’s—”

“Please,” she said. “It doesn’t take much imagination.”

“So what do you—oh, the muzzles?” Yilon stuck his tongue out experimentally and rolled it into a tight cylinder.

“Don’t be disgusting.”

“I didn’t bring it up,” he pointed out. “So you’d be just as unhappy married to me.”

“If you insisted that we had to be miserable together.”

“I thought that’s what marriage meant.”

She snorted. “My parents love each other very much. They sleep in separate rooms only because Mommy kicks in her sleep.”

Yilon rubbed his chin. “If we were to get married,” he said, “what would make you happy?”

“Take me to Divalia,” she said. “I know there are other females like me there.”

He tilted his muzzle. “So you’ve never… with another vixen?”

“Well…”

He ducked his muzzle. “I hadn’t done anything ‘til I was fifteen either.”

“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”

“I’m not. I just knew I didn’t feel attracted to any females, even when they were in season. My mother…” He shuddered. His mother’s seasons had ended after his tenth birthday, but while growing up he remembered them as terrifying, upsetting times when she sent him away to the care of the governor. The first time, he’d stolen back to her room to surprise her and had heard her screaming and sobbing even before he sniffed the heavy, nauseating scent in the air. He’d run back to Anton and had spent the next day crying in his room, not eating until he nearly felt faint from hunger.

“Well,” Dinah said, “Nobody wants to see their parents in season.”

She stuck her tongue out. Yilon thought about a city full of foxes, all going into heat at once.

“The seasons here must be terrifying.”

“Why do you think I spent every Kindling up in the hills?” She grinned toothily. “Was the mouse your first?”

“No.”

She thought about that. “Was the first scary?”

“Pff.” He shook his head. The memory of the jackhammer beating of his heart, the embarrassment of spurting all over the coyote’s paw within seconds, was far away.

“This town is so backward,” she said, and then her muzzle came back from the window and looked him up and down. “When is Sinch going to be back?”

He shook his head again. “Do you know where he went?”

She frowned. “Don’t you know?”

“I woke up and he was gone. Did he tell you where he was going? It shouldn’t be long now.”

“We didn’t see him,” Dinah said. “Maxon told us the Shadows have the crown, so I guess he went back there.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in, and then Yilon jumped out of his chair. “The Shadows? He went in there alone?”

Dinah stood, too. “I thought you knew.”

“And we’ve been sitting here, talking about…” He started to pace, and then action crystallized in his mind and he raced for the door.

“You can’t go after him,” Dinah called. “You don’t know where he went.”

Yilon turned in front of the door to race up the stairs. “No,” he said, “but I know someone who does.”

 
Colian met him at the second floor landing, arms folded. “Absolutely not. She shouldn’t even be talking, let alone moving.” Behind him, Maxon met Yilon’s eyes and moved to one side. Yilon pushed past Colian and into the room. Valix sat up, trying to hide her wince of pain.

“He’ll die otherwise,” Yilon said. “You owe him your life.”

“That doesn’t mean she has to sacrifice hers in addition to his,” Colian said, coming up behind him. “I worked hard to save it! Doesn’t she owe me anything?”

Valix met Yilon’s eyes and nodded, slowly, once. “Can you rig up something to help me walk?”

“No time.” Yilon held his arms out.

 
Sinch dressed in silence. He couldn’t stop himself from looking once more at Yilon before leaving, and having looked, he had to bend over and kiss the fox’s nose. Then he ran for the door, heart beating as he closed it behind him. He ran down the stairs, expecting every moment to hear Yilon behind him.

At the second floor landing, with the house still silent, he padded to Valix’s room, but she was still asleep. He walked down and eased the front door open, stepping out into the daylight. He stood there, blinking in the sun, holding the door open an inch, until some of the foxes passing stopped to stare at him, and then he let the door swing shut.

He still drew stares as he padded down the street. He turned the corner quickly and stuck close to the wall through three more intersections, but he was still aware of the foxes’ heads turning as he passed. By the time he turned down the dead end alley toward the sewer entrance, he felt the weight of eyes on his shoulders, and he had to turn around to make sure nobody was following him.