Healing Ties (Ties, Book 2) | ✓

Chapter 15

Fanner was fuller than he'd ever been. He was so full it was making him sleepy, but he'd already decided he wouldn't be sleeping much tonight. He wanted to be useful, to balance out all the harm he'd done and the burden he'd been for Yore. Maybe that was impossible, but he wanted to at least try to do something good.

Sex wasn't the answer. Maybe people would want to have sex with him, but sex as a service seemed to be frowned upon on this side of the border. He could think of only one other way to make himself useful.

The problem was that he had to do it secretly because this was one thing nobody could ever know about. As soon as the three of them arrived back in the room upstairs, Yore placed a hurdle in his plans.

"Okay, Fanner, you must need to be balanced by now, so you can share the bed with Lucas. I'll sleep on the floor."

"No, it's okay, I don't actually ever need to be balanced," Fanner said. "I can move energy, and that includes inside myself, so I always stay balanced. I— I should sleep on the floor."

Which also didn't mesh with his plans, but he wasn't about to volunteer Lucas for it.

"Have you ever slept on the floor before?"

"Well..." Once, when he'd been shut in that storage closet waiting for Mr Burrows. "We still have the bedrolls, don't we? I can sleep on one of them and it won't be any different from the last few days. You need to rest your back."

"Just share the bed," Lucas cut in before Yore could object. "I'll be fine."

Yore's eyebrows lifted. "You're going to sleep on the floor?"

"First of all I'm a fucking bandit so I don't know why that's such a wild idea to you. Second of all... no, of course not. We're at an inn. There are other beds. Maybe I'll go see if Berron's still looking for some company."

"That works," Yore said. "And to be clear, I was implying I thought you were too selfish to sleep on the floor, not too soft."

"Oh, okay. That's much less insulting and far more accurate."

"Thank you," Fanner told Lucas. "Will I see you again before we leave?"

"Uh huh. I'll see you for breakfast tomorrow," Lucas said, and then, "Fuck!" as he opened the door and was confronted with Cookie. "Cookie, you're a little shit."

Lucas had to use his legs to block Cookie as he edged through the door so that she wouldn't try to get into the room and then he was gone, and the door was shut, and they were alone. Yore walked over and locked the door.

"Just in case," Yore explained. "Cookie does more or less have hands, and I don't want to wake up to her breathing on my face."

"Yes, me either," Fanner agreed. Would he hurt her if he did? Would he reflexively try to pull energy from her if she startled him like that? He didn't even know anymore.

But now wasn't the time to think about that. He had exactly what he wanted.

Yore took his shirt off and began stretching out his back. He always looked away from Fanner when he was doing that, as though he was trying to avoid attention, though it was impossible to ignore.

"Is it bothering you?" Fanner asked.

"Ah, well, it always does a bit," Yore said, twisting his torso one way and then the other. "But yeah, the last few days have been rougher on it than usual."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. Anyway, I'll be fine. I'll see if I can get a friend of mine to give me a massage when I drop you off. That'll loosen things up a bit."