Page 66 of The Prince's Fealty

He felt Pel smile against his skin. “Good choice.”

Ah, apparently Tor was more transparent than he’d realized.

“I have no plans to spend the rest of our nights not in this tent with you,” Tor said smartly.

Pel laughed. “That’s good. I rather like you in my bed. I mean, at some point, we’ll have beds again.”

Tor hadn’t thought to ask what the living conditions were like for the exiles. He assumed they’d built structures of some kind, but he was woefully uninformed for someone who’d accepted the Fealty of all those people.

His breath caught in his throat.

“What if I can’t help them?” he asked, voice raw.

Pel sucked in a breath. “We’ll figure it out together. They know it might not work.”

And if Tor had agreed to trap him and Pel and their baby in a land that was falling apart, with an enemy they couldn’t fight? With possibly no resources and just the clothes on their backs? (The baby wouldn’t even have clothes!)

Pel patted Tor’s chest. “Darling, you’re borrowing trouble.”

Tor drew a deep breath, and then another.WasTor thinking about this just so he wouldn’t have to think about what might be happening to his family? And then he was brought up short.

“‘Darling’?” Tor questioned.

Pel was silent for a moment, and his voice was a little too small as he asked, “No?”

Tor tugged Pel up so that he could kiss him soundly, which was hard to do with how much he was grinning.

“Emphatically, yes,” Tor said enthusiastically. “I love it. I loveyou.”

Pel scoffed, and his cheeks had gone red, but he looked pleased. “I love you, too.”

Tor wasn’t sure he could even express why this delighted him so much. It wasn’t like lovers hadn’t used endearments before. But coming from Pel, it felt like a lot more than that.

“Ooh,” Tor said, brightening as the idea occurred to him. “Does that mean I can pick an endearment for you?”

Pel’s eyes widened. “Nope! Absolutely not.”

Tor grinned. “How about precious? Or lovebug?”

Pel looked horrified. “Don’t you dare!”

“Sugar plum?” Tor suggested innocently.

“Do you ever want to touch me again?” Pel demanded.

Tor wrapped his arms around the other man and hugged him close.

“Sunshine?”

Pel let out an exaggerated noise of annoyance. “You are the worst. That’s what I’m going to call you from now on. The worst.”

Tor tightened his hold. “From you, I take that as a compliment.”

Pel scoffed, but he ruined it by pressing a kiss to Tor’s chest, where he was resting. “You’re ridiculous. Go to sleep, foolish man.”

Tor settled further into the blankets, relishing in the warm weight of Pel half on top of him, as he wondered when they were going to get to sleep in a bed again. He pulled back the magic from the last light, and it winked out of existence, the magic returning to him, and the tent now shrouded in darkness.

They’d be on the road again soon, and it would be safer to stay out of inns where there was a chance Tor might be recognized. Tents and sleeping out under the stars was likely to be their lot in life for the next little while.