Page 87 of The Lost Art of Seducing a Mage Warrior

“The whole point was to capture you,” Cormal spat. “If you were too scared, you should have said no.”

“I wasn’t actuallyasked,” Perian snarled back. “And that wasn’t capture, that was a fireball to myface.”

“I said restraint force,” Brannal said with a stern look at Cormal.

Cormal smirked at Perian. “Afraid you might have wound up a little less pretty?”

There were a few guffaws, and Perian would probably have launched himself at the other man, but Brannal spoke loud enough to override both of them.

“That’s enough. I award the win to Cormal and his team for the capture.”

Cormal looked delighted, setting up a cheer for the whole team. Perian was still thrumming with energy that was demanding an outlet, so he headed for the door. He came close to turning back when he heard Cormal mutter something about a sore loser, but he knew there was still no way he could get a punch in.

Perian just snatched up his coat and kept walking, and he didn’t stop even when he heard several voices call after him. He practiced his deep breathing as he angrily stuffed himself into his coat—which hurt, but at least made him feel less cold because he was no longer only in a soaking shirt—and stalked all the way back to Brannal’s room, which was probably a stupid place to go, but it was supposed to be his room too.

He suddenly wasn’t sure how that worked when the person you wanted to retreat from was the person who shared the room with you. He understood a lot better now what had driven Brannal out of the room and why he hadn’t come back. It wasn’t… Perian wasn’ttraumatized, but hewasupset. That had definitely not gone the way he’d expected.

Brannal hadn’t been there to protect him when Perian had needed him to be. And that… Well, he wasn’t actually sure he was all right with the fact that he’d been expecting it. He hadn’t expected the shield or Brannal rushing into the Queen’s study. He’d been doing just fine in both cases. But apparently, he’d also had that underlying expectation that Brannal would be there for him.

It had been chaos just now, and Perian recognized that. There must have been times Brannal wouldn’t even have been able to see him or know if he was in trouble. But Perian hadn’t expected it to end with Brannal acting like this was something that was completely acceptable. Cormal had been underhanded and mean, and getting a win for it just reinforced that sort of bad behavior.

Perian should clearly have asked a lot more questions about whatcapturedmeant. As if he’d had time for questions.

He really should have gone for that walk, though, because he was still pacing in the sitting room, arm throbbing in time with his racing heart, when Brannal arrived.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Perian ground to a halt and turned to look at him incredulously. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, voice tight and too high. “Didn’t you just come from the same room I did?”

Brannal was staring at him like he didn’t entirely understand what he was seeing. “You’re upset that Cormal won.”

Perian scoffed. “Seriously?”

“Look, I know you didn’t come out on top this time, and that’s exactly what needed to happen.”

Perian stared at him blankly for a moment, and then he asked, stunned, “Did you just say you sacrificed me to your Secundus’s ego?”

“You don’t want an enemy,” Brannal told him.

“I noticed that,” Perian ground out, “when he nearly threw a fireball at me in a corridor, attacked a little girl, and tried to have me thrown in the dungeon. I wasn’t expecting you to set him up to throw a fireball in my face.”

“Why are you so hung up on that?” Brannal demanded, an expression Perian couldn’t figure out on his face, intent and… unhappy?

Thrown, Perian could only demand, “Whywouldn’tI be hung up on that?”

There was a knock on the door that was immediately followed by it being opened, and Molun stuck his head in.

“Hey, I thought for sure Brannal would already have you half naked, Perian, but we wanted to check in and see if you were all right.”

And Perian lost his temper and spoke with more anger than accuracy.

“Brannal doesn’t want to touch me, and I assure you, at the moment, the feeling isentirelymutual.”

Molun came all the way into the room. “Whoa! I could see you were upset in the training room, but what’s going on? Arvus has just gone for salve, by the way, in case you don’t have any.”

Perian swallowed a lump in his throat. “Were you in on it too?”

“In on what?” Molun asked, glancing between the two of them and looking genuinely confused.

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