Page 14 of The Scouts

Shaft it all in the arse.

Damn, no. I wouldn’t make shit easier for him this time. My pride had been bruised plenty already that night. Wasn’t I the wronged party here, for fuck’s sakes? Cuckolded, whacked under the chin, sick to the stomach with worry and hangover. Pathetic. About to be dumped, perhaps? The man needed to stop staring and start articulating. Right the hell away.

He must’ve noticed the change in my mood because he got closer to the bed and blurted, “I got everything I needed from her.”

Black spots obscured my vision as his liver-punching words crashed into me, my deepest terrors realised.

Eternal gods.

Preoccupied with forcing my lungs back into function, I missed the beginning of his next sentence.

“—the map of the residence. The layout inside. Security details. Even this.” A couple of rolled parchments and a flat stone that looked much like an antiward token manifested out of nowhere, presented on the bed in front of me like an odd offering.

I gawked at the lot, motionless. What a scoop, indeed. A fucking antiward token? The baroness must’ve been well pleased with Lochan’s services to offer it up, no question about it. Heinnés would shit his drawers from joy. I should’ve felt relieved, too. Lochan had done his duty. Our unit would be able to make a move soon. It was over.

Yet my mind seemed stuck on one thought only—what had she had Lochan do, exactly?

I darted my eyes in his direction again, evidently gearing up to come out with it. I registered his unblinking scrutiny and his parted lips. Had it been anyone else, I would have said he looked jittery. His nervousness increased my already considerable anxiety twofold. I’d begun to query whether I could handle hearing the details.

“Listen,” he said at last. “It didn’t go down as you think.”

I remembered his tousled state when he’d turned up at the tavern. “Since some of it involved you out of your clothes, I’d say it went down precisely as I thought.”

He didn’t deny it. Worse—he blushed. “Yes, but—”

My abrupt laugh cut him off. It sounded nasty. Like a croak.

“Ervyn, don’t.”

“Did you kiss her?” I asked, unable to restrain myself any longer. A tremor developed in my hands.

“Yes,” he admitted stiffly after a pause. Confusingly, he then shook his head. “That was it, though, all right? I pleaded with her. Begged her.”

My ability to understand Common Elven had suddenly diminished. Did he say beg? Of all the approaches I suspected he might adopt, his pleading with the baroness hadn’t even occurred to me. Lochan Féyes was the proudest—and the most closed-off—person I’d ever met. I didn’t believe he'd ever begged anyone for anything in his entire life. Apart from in the bedroom.

“She asked the reason,” he said. “So I told her.”

“Reason for what?” I spat, close to losing it.

“Why I couldn’t go through with it.”

“And why was that? What did you tell her?”

“That I love someone.”

Void of energy all at once, I slumped backwards. The back of my skull thudded upon meeting the headboard.

My face must have gone as blank as my mind because Lochan felt compelled to clarify, “I mean you.” He folded his arms over his chest, his sulky tone matching his glower.

The violent pummelling of my heart resonated in my throat. I’d waited to hear this confession for so long—I’d imagined how it would go so many times—and when it had finally come, it caught me off-guard so severely, I almost couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened. On the other hand, the delivery of it was so perfectly Lochan-like that a strangled chortle escaped me. Other than that, I gaped at him, too choked up to speak.

“Not quite the reaction I’d hoped for.” Lochan’s lips twitched, but the edginess never vacated his posture. His face glowed pale, spotlighting the darker shade underneath his eyes: signs of fatigue and tension.

A realisation struck me. It must’ve been the first time he’d expressed a clear commitment towards anyone—the first time he’d straightforwardly articulated his feelings. And I, in my moment of shock, had been making an arse of things.

I patted the mattress next to my thigh and extended my hand to him.

Lochan took it and sank beside me.