Some People Are Just Bound and Determined to Ruin Your Plans No Matter if They’re the One Who Made Them
Starting with this chapter, the amazing HighQueue has agreed to beta-read the story for me! I’m very excited about that!
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“Everything’s just about ready,” Elaine told Owen, as they watched Lord Draughten’s servants load up the cart that was going to be carrying Darby and Greg, as well as Isabella’s kids.
Owen nodded. “Yeah. I’d say we’ll be ready to go in ten minutes.”
“That’s optimistic of you.”
“I said we’ll be ready to go in ten minutes,” Owen said, smiling at her. “Gavin will need a few more hours. And Cal knows how long it’ll take Darby to get ready.” Owen had never travelled anywhere with him. He was the type of kid who’d either be ready to go in thirty seconds or the type of kid who’d dick around for three hours and it was time to find out which was true.
“Maybe you’d better go tell him to start getting ready,” Elaine said, glancing at the sun, or where the sun would be if it wasn’t so cloudy. “I’d like to leave in an hour or two.”
“I’m not going to tell him that,” Owen told her as he headed for the house. “I’ll tell him you want to leave now, and then he should be ready in an hour or two.”
Unless, of course, he saw through that and made them all wait anyway. But if he tried to pull that, Owen could always just pick him up and put him in the cart too. Darby and Greg were definitely mature enough to babysit him.
On the way to the room, he ran into Cal. “Hey,” he said. “We’re going to go in an hour or so.”
Cal nodded. “My guys are all ready.”
“Great.” Owen smiled. “I’m just going to go get Gavin.”
“Okay, I’ll go tell everyone. Looking forward to working with you or something.”
“Or something,” Owen agreed, patting Cal’s back. He didn’t seem super enthusiastic, but that was okay. Owen made his way to the room, paused, and went across the hall, knocking on Greg and Darby’s door.
Greg answered it, opening it just a crack before seeing it was Owen. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Owen said. “We’re going to be leaving in probably about two hours, okay?”
“Sure,” Greg said, looking nervously behind him. “I’ll tell Darby. He’s sleeping.”
“No rush,” Owen told him. He kind of sounded like he was hiding something, but Greg kind of always sounded like that. “Unless you think it’ll take him a long time to get ready.”
Greg nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and he shut the door.
And then Owen turned and went across the hall, going into their bedroom. He stopped when he got in. Gavin wasn’t there. That was strange, he wasn’t supposed to have gone anywhere today. Maybe he was in the privy, or something. Owen figured he’d sit and wait for a few minutes, see if he came back, before going around and looking for him, so he sat on the bed for a minute. Then got up when he noticed Gavin’s shit, despite having been packed, was scattered around everywhere again. So he started packing it up in Gavin’s bag.
Owen’s husband was a pain in the ass.
He’d only just started, though, when suddenly there was a sound like waves, and then…Gavin was in the room. “Oh, good, you’re here,” he said, as if he hadn’t just appeared from nowhere.
“Hi,” Owen said, very confused. Pax was behind him. Oh, so some weird shit had probably happened, then.
“Hello, Sir Ox.” Pax shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Owen’s eye. Owen didn’t take it personally. He had a feeling that Pax was a little embarrassed about the orgy. They’d ended up having sex three or four times, and Pax didn’t seem much like the random sex kind of guy. “I presume you’re here to see the prince, so I apologize for absconding with him just now. Absconding means to make off with. I’ve brought him back unmolested, as you can see, so there’s no need to cut me in half.”
“If he’d come back molested it would have been his idea,” Owen assured Pax, kissing Gavin. “Hey. What the fuck?”
“Pax has given us a gift,” Gavin said, pointing at the door. It just looked like a door to Owen, but when Gavin pulled Owen towards it and put his hand on it, they stepped through onto a ship. Pax’s ship, to be precise. “A portal.”
“Uh…” Owen looked around. “Huh?”
Gavin grinned and pulled Owen back to their room. He handed Owen a bag. “Pax’s brother asked him to give them to us.”
Owen looked inside, saw a bunch of metal rings. “Cock rings?”
“I assure you, there are absolutely no circumstances under which I would give you—or indeed anyone—a sex aid as a gift,” Pax said, voice slightly high. “They’re magical.”
“Magical cock rings.”
Gavin slapped Owen’s chest. “There’s no such thing as magic cock…actually there probably is. There’s no way someone hasn’t come up with that. Anyway. If you stick these on a door, it turns into a portal.”
“That’s…convenient.” Suspiciously convenient.
“Yeah. Sharon says they’re safe,” Gavin said, removing the one that was stuck to the door, which Owen hadn’t noticed. “I’d still want the mages at the academy to look at them to be sure, but they work if nothing else. So change of plans. We’re not going back to the capital yet.”
“Wait,” Owen said, looking up from the not-cock rings to Gavin. “Why? Seems like we could go there in five minutes now.”
“No, because one of these needs to be at either end for it to work,” Gavin explained. “So new plan. Edwin is going with Louis to the capital. We’ll get him to take a few with him. He can get them looked at by the guys at the academy, then set one up for us there. Then Louis can drop him in Techen’s Stand, he can set one up there. We’ll portal there, pick up our stuff and the servants, then portal home. A few extra days in Pelican Bay and we can be home in a week instead of a month.”
Owen had to admit, that did sound appealing, especially in the winter. “Everyone’s going to be pissed that you changed the plans at the last second.”
Gavin shrugged, kissed Owen. “I can do whatever I want.”
Before they could kiss again, Pax cleared his throat near the door. “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt your discussion, but you’ve removed the portal from the door and now I’m going to have to walk if I leave, which seems really rather unfortunate given that the ability to not walk exists. Not that I’m opposed to walking; it’s by far my seventh-favourite method of short-range travel, but…”
Gavin snickered, took a ring from the bag and stuck it back on the door. “Sorry. Thanks so much, Pax. I’ll come see you guys this evening.”
Pax nodded. “Thank you, your Highness. Please do be careful with those. They’re from a dubious source and I’d really rather not like it if you were turned into gnats or something as a result of using them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
And then Pax left. Gavin took the ring off the door, turned to Owen, and grinned. “Pants down, I want to fuck you.”
“Sure,” Owen said, undoing his pants and turning around. He bent over, stroking himself to hardness while Gavin got the oil from his bag and slicked himself up. And then he came over, gave Owen’s ass a stroke, and pushed inside it. Owen took him with no trouble, and soon Gavin was fucking him enthusiastically.
It was a quick one, and over in just a few minutes, Gavin slamming into Owen as he came, then reaching around and helping Owen get off as well, his mess squirted onto the bed that they’d be using for another few days. Then Gavin helped Owen stand, pulling his pants up. “Thanks. I’m just really excited by this. The possibilities for it are really awesome.”
“Assuming it’s not a magical trap to kill us all.”
“Very possible,” Gavin agreed. “Which is why Edwin’s getting them looked at before we do anything. Come on, we should go tell him.”
Owen nodded. Hopefully he’d take the change of plans in stride. He didn’t have much choice, not when Gavin was like this. “Okay, but if they turn out to be dangerous I want to be the first person to say I told you so.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gavin said, pulling Owen to the door. “Let’s go. A lot of people are waiting for me to ruin their plans for the week.”
And as always, Owen just let himself be pulled along in the tide that was Gavin.
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How Best to Use a Sword 