“All I can think about now is how I can get us a private room so I can pay you back for this bone-melting interlude.”
He reached down to tie his drawstrings as the others drew closer, catching up with them, and encountered the sticky stains on his clothes.
“And obviously, I’ll also need to procure a change of clothes and a hot bath,” he noted with a grimace.
Then, he stared into Sorin’s eyes, his own dancing with mischief and insatiable desire.
“And a nice big mattress to fuck you through.”
Whereupon Tristan came abreast of them on the horse that Ere had won.
“Everything all right? Aurelius is not giving you trouble?”
Ere assumed a serious face (the opposite of the I-just-got-finger-fucked face) and said, “Aurelius? As in Aurelius Ambrosius by any chance?”
“How did you know?” the young man asked with wonder.
“Not many Romans named Aurelius, after all,” Ere replied, using his professor voice. “Ambrosius was the last Roman ruler of these lands, correct? Brother to Uther Pendragon. Good name for a horse.”
He patted the animal’s neck.
It snorted irritably back at him.
“Indeed,” Tristan said weakly, still a bit in awe of Ere’s impressive knowledge, just as Wolfe and Rui pulled up alongside them as well.
“You seem to know a lot about our isle.”
“A bit here and there,” Ere said modestly. “One can never be sure what one hears is accurate. Getting the story from those who know it first-hand is always the closest we can come to truth. And even then, it’s still colored by perspective, without complete information.”
“What happened to your clothes?” Rui asked from atop Wolfe’s stallion, eyeing the wet stains around Ere’s stomach and groin suspiciously.
Ere blinked at her agape.
Sorin frowned quizzically as well.
Surely, the treasure dragon couldn’t be so innocent and naïve.
After a couple of beats, Ere regained his command of speech.
“I had a happy accident,” he said, “Must be the erotic motion of riding these magnificent beasts.”
Tristan smothered a cough behind his sleeve, and Wolfe turned his face, looking away, but Sorin saw the corner of his mouth twitching.
Rui wrinkled her nose distastefully.
“Really, you are such a child. If you can’t hold your bladder, just tell us to stop. No need to soil yourself.”
At that, the men couldn’t hold back their laughter any more. Even Sorin joined the breathless guffaws.
“What did I say?” Rui asked in bewilderment, looking from person to person.
Which only made them all laugh harder, much to the treasure dragon’s chagrin.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
That night, they bedded down beneath another giant oak tree, upon a patch of dry grass.
The weather, though gray, at least kept the rain at bay. They even found enough dry wood to start a fire.