Seeing is Believing (40 page)

"That's not good," Lady Liang murmured, smoothing her skirts restlessly. "When was the last time you saw him, Xun?"

"Yesterday morning, at breakfast. We'd made plans to meet up this morning again, and he didn't show." Xun shrugged, rocking back on his heels.

"Ye-Seng?" Lady Liang prompted.

"Yesterday," Ye-Seng pronounced. "Right before his trip out to the shrine."

"Not after that, though?" Lady Liang asked, looking thoughtful.

"No, dear." Ye-Seng stood up from the little table. "I suppose we should pay a visit ourselves, then?"

"We'll send him your way if we find him." Lady Liang smiled reassuringly at Xun, accepting her husband's arm. Xun nodded, figuring something of the sort had been going to happen at some point. He'd go off and spread the word among the servants though—if one of them happened to spot Zhou at some point, it would be faster getting back to him.

"Thanks." Xun preceded Zhou's parents from the room, heading back down towards the kitchens. He wasn't sure what clues Lord and Lady Liang thought they'd get from the shrine, but whatever made them happy.

*~*~*

Xun heard from one of the maids about fifteen minutes before Zhou found him. Xun had just finished sorting out Lady Liang's messages for her when Zhou burst into the little writing room, smiling ear-to-ear.

"Xun, you bastard," he declared cheerfully, throwing himself into the chair across the desk.

"Uh, no need to rub it in?" Xun offered, tucking away the last of the letters into the proper box. "Where were you?"

Zhou grinned widely. "Outside."

"In the shrine?" Xun asked skeptically, standing up and brushing the little collected bits of paper from his page's uniform. "Because it got really cold last night, so I'm inclined to think you're lying."

"I'm not." Zhou's smile wasn't fading.

"Did you hit your head?" Xun demanded, moving around the desk to lean against it. "What's wrong with you?"

"My parents won't be making me marry. Ever." Zhou declared.

"Are you shitting me?" Xun narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe you."

"It's true." Zhou insisted.

"So why not, then? Are you impotent or something similarly debilitating?" Xun smirked, nudging Zhou's shin with his slipper-covered toes.

"What? No." Zhou shook his head distractedly. "The guardian won't let them."

Xun snorted. "Yeah, sure. And where do you get off calling me a bastard when you're the one who missed meeting me earlier?"

"You sent my parents out after me." Zhou flushed. "Ah, that was … not nice."

"What were you doing out there?" Xun asked, slightly incredulous.

"Nothing at that point, at least," Zhou muttered, running a hand through his hair and messing up the too-neat coiffure. "Anyway Lóng made it clear that he wouldn't be happy if I was to be married off. And sort of claimed me as his sacrifice."

"Wait, what? Sacrifice?" Xun straightened. "You're going to be sacrificed?"

Zhou grinned. "Yeah. The family is sacrificing any potential gains they might make by my marriage and, well, a happy guardian means a happy, prospering family, right?"

"You're cracked. Seriously." Xun shook his head. "Do I get to meet this guardian of yours?"

"You could come with me later," Zhou offered. "I'm going back out after dinner."

"I … alright." Xun agreed, flabbergasted. "How long has this been going on?"

"Ah … since my sixteenth birthday," Zhou admitted sheepishly. "It was kind of a secret."

"Nice." Xun scowled. "Two years? How the hell did you manage that and nobody caught on?"

Zhou grinned. "Lóng's had lots of practice sneaking."

"I don't even want to know." Xun shook his head. "Though I think I'm going to drop a pudding on you at dinner. You didn't even tell me!"

Zhou shrugged. "It didn't come up?"

"Sure," Xun replied, unbelieving.

"It didn't." Zhou grinned. "That and it was a secret. I'm good at keeping secrets."

"Yeah, sure," Xun smirked. "Which was why no one knew about Lady Shen's incident with the Venice lace. And that one page's rash?"

"Ah, don't remind me about that." Zhou shuddered. "That poor boy."

Xun snickered. "You told everyone."

"I told you. You told the cook," Zhou pointed out. "Besides, I don't think you would've believed me at that point."

"Maybe not," Xun conceded. "I don't believe you now. I'll believe you after I meet this guardian of yours."

Zhou grinned again, his eyes fairly lighting up. "This is going to be fun."

Xun shook his head, wondering if the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was something he should be feeling in the face of meeting Zhou's guardian. Anything was likely though. It was Zhou here, and for all he knew this could be a very elaborate joke.

Zhou sprinted across the grass, fighting a grin. "Is your age getting to you—oof." Zhou blinked at Lóng, coming to an abrupt stop against his chest. Lóng snagged his arms to keep him from falling over, and Zhou frowned at him suspiciously.

"You're cheating somehow, I know it," he told the dragon seriously, and Lóng snickered, his lips curving into a smirk.

"And why do you think that?" Lóng drawled, not letting go, and Zhou grinned, a plan forming.

"Because you were behind me not two seconds ago," Zhou said, staring at Lóng's lips with a carefully slightly distracted air. "Or something." He blinked, glancing up to meet Lóng's bright eyes.

"Hmm, and you want me
behind
you now?" Lóng drawled, and Zhou shivered a little because Lóng had a horribly sexy voice when he wanted to use it for the purposes of seduction.

"Yes, please," Zhou murmured, distracted by his own distraction, and Lóng tugged him close, claiming his mouth without hesitation. Zhou returned his kissed, a niggling little thought at the back of his head that they
were
in the middle of a race distracting him a bit. Kissing as enticingly as he could, Zhou let Lóng's hands slip under the formal tunic his mother had forced on him that morning.

The clasps came undone one by one, and Zhou groaned softly into Lóng's mouth because the dragon had far too much experience to be anything but an excellent kisser. The tunic was being brushed off his shoulders, and Zhou decided now was the time. Breaking off the kiss abruptly, he slipped out of the tunic Lóng was trying to be subtle about removing and darted off towards the trees on the other side of the shrine breathlessly.

It only took thirty seconds or so, and then he was at the trees, laughing and fighting for breath because kissing Lóng had taken far too much air and running on top of that hadn't helped.

"I won!" Zhou called out to the flabbergasted dragon, sitting down heavily because he was out of breath and couldn't stop laughing. Lóng rolled his eyes and elegantly strode across the lawn towards him, still holding Zhou's shirt.

"You cheated," Lóng informed him, towering above him. Dropping Zhou's shirt on his head, Lóng knelt down in the grass beside him. Zhou batted the tunic away and grinned.

"Oh?" Zhou questioned innocently. "How? I don't recall kissing being against the rules."

Lóng shook his head, but he looked amused enough. "So what prize will you take?"

"Hmm …" Zhou looked thoughtful. "I'll get back to you on that," he decided, reaching out to grab the front of Lóng's robes. "Now get back to kissing me, dragon."

Lóng growled. Zhou was suddenly on his back, Lóng straddling his legs and pressing him into the soft grass with his weight. Zhou grinned and reached up to tug Lóng down, close enough to kiss again. Lóng shifted his weight in a far-too-pleasant manner, and Zhou huffed out a breath into the dragon's mouth, still winded from kissing and running.

"How come you never come to me?" Zhou complained, making a face as Lóng attempted to slip his hands under Zhou's tunic. "Stop that."

"No," Lóng refused, one hand sliding along the bare skin of Zhou's stomach. Zhou wiggled half-heartedly, not really trying to free himself from Lóng's grip. They were in the garden, and Lóng had wrapped himself around Zhou from behind and was systematically trying to see how far he could get his hands along Zhou's skin before he shied away.

"I'm not sleeping with you outside," Zhou told him absently, snagging Lóng's other hand as he ran it along Zhou's thigh.

"I've gone inside," Lóng purred, biting lightly at the ridge of Zhou's ear. "You just don't look closely enough."

"I've never seen you." Zhou twisted, turning to face Lóng. Lóng's fingers slipped a bit lower.

"You don't look closely enough," Lóng repeated, looking far too amused. Zhou rolled his eyes.

"I would've seen you," Zhou maintained.

"You didn't." Lóng kissed him, distracting him a little. "I've been in your bedroom."

"Liar," Zhou told him, narrowing his eyes at the dragon. "Prove it."

"You have a chest at the foot of your bed, which is situated in the middle of the room. Your floor is a mess until your servant comes to pick it up every morning, and she grumbles madly doing it. You've yet to have a manservant who lasted, because two have taken liberties in your dressing room—" Lóng growled a little, kissing him possessively, and Zhou fought to keep a clear head. "—and your parents haven't had time to find you a new one after the last married out of the keep."

"Gossip," Zhou gasped out. "Mmm—" He groaned a little as Lóng's fingers massaged along his back.

"I'll prove it later. You've seen me." Lóng smirked and kissed him again, managing to slip his shirt off, and Zhou twisted away from Lóng's grip, clambering to his feet as the fifth bell rang.

"Classes," Zhou told him with a rueful smile, scooping up his shirt as Lóng stood leisurely. "Prove it, later."

"I will, insolent child." Lóng drew him back for another kiss, stealing his breath and a leisurely grope that Zhou did nothing to prevent. "And we shall see about this indoor sleeping."

*~*~*

Zhou scowled at his reflection in the mirror. He'd forgotten the formal dinner tonight, which was entirely unfortunate because it meant he hadn't had time to manufacture an excuse to get out of it. Peering at his reflection in the mirror, Zhou fought the urge to fidget as his brother's manservant did … something to his hair.

Something odd, because the man wasn't merely sticking styling gel in it and slicking it into a hard shell that would take soaking later to undo. He was styling slowly, and Zhou was ready to put up a fuss if he didn't stop running his hands through Zhou's hair so … intimately.

"What are you doing?" Zhou demanded after a moment more, when the man showed no signs of stopping.

"Arranging your hair, my lord," was the subservient response. Zhou stared at the servant in the mirror, because something wasn't right here.

Standing up abruptly, Zhou turned on the man, feeling the short strands of his hair fall back into place casually. Peering at the servant suspiciously, he brushed his hair out of his face.

"Get out," Zhou ordered, wondering how he got all the pervy servants in the castle. The servant smiled slowly, reminding Zhou of Lóng's possessive smiles, but in the worst way because this wasn't Lóng so it was wrong.

"No."

Zhou scowled, displeased as the smile didn't slip.

"I don't believe—" Zhou watched with more than a little surprise as the manservant's features
shifted
slightly—the nose thinned and elongated, his eyes shifted slightly closer together, his cheekbones fell back to where they were normally and Lóng's face was smirking at him again. "—that I've ever seen you in formalwear before, Zhou."

"You—that's cheating!" Zhou declared, stalking over to Lóng, his astonishment fading as he peered at Lóng's face to ascertain that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him.

"I've dressed you many times." Lóng smirked. Zhou flushed because now he had no idea how many times Lóng had been around him, playing at being a servant.

"That's cheating," Zhou repeated, scowling. That was a severe invasion of privacy.

"I cheat," Lóng declared, leaning down to kiss him. His scales were showing faintly, along the ridge of his cheekbones and down the sides of his neck, and Zhou gave up the bit of anger he had. He'd make Lóng give it out in trade or something. "Now, I believe something was said to the effect of not sleeping with me outside?"

Zhou flushed a little, but grinned. "The ground is not so nice for that type of thing."

"And you would know this how?" Lóng drawled, and Zhou snickered, kissing Lóng before he could demand an answer. Lóng drew him closer, his fingers quickly undoing the ties holding Zhou's formal robes in place.

"The dinner—" Zhou protested breathlessly, but his fingers were working at Lóng's servant outfit.

"Your time is a sacrifice to the family dragon," Lóng declared, claiming Zhou's lips for another kiss.

"That's seriously gotten old," Zhou grumbled, shrugging off his shirt and melting into Lóng's touch as the dragon's lips trailed a burning hot path of kisses down Zhou's jaw and along his neck.