"Oh, my God. No." I grabbed Dain's wing-wrist without thinking, exposing his ear, and Dain gave me a look of stunned shock that I didn't give him time to recover from. "It shit you out?"

"Explosively," Zhiolas reiterated. "Rang him like a bell against a rock. My prince didn't even get to kill the thing; one of the other soldiers put a spear through its eye. Nobody could stand to get anywhere near him, he reeked so badly."

"I couldn't get the smell out of my fur," Dain said, halfway to a growl. "Had to shave my whole fucking body."

"No," I said again, my hands over my mouth, and started laughing hysterically at the long-suffering look Dain gave me. "Everywhere?"

"Down to his eyebrows and nose-hair," his friend said cheerfully. "I helped. It took us almost seven hours to get the job done. Did you know he's got fur all the way up to his cock?"

I felt myself turning bright red at the mental imagery, which only made Zhiolas smirk at me. I was an easy mark when it came to Dain and sex, as it turned out.

"You could refrain from giving her details about what I look like naked," Dain said, sounding annoyed.

"Where's the fun in that?" Zhiolas laced his fingers behind his head, leaning his chair back on two legs. "You may be as prudish as humans when you're at the palace, but there's a whole world out there, and plenty of soldiers who've seen you skyclad."

"He's more prudish than this particular human," I said, pulling myself together enough to smirk and cast Dain a sidelong look. "I'm not quite as willing to fuck on banquet tables as some fae, but most of my friends have seen me au naturale."

He lifted his lip in a silent snarl, but his body stayed relaxed. For all his posturing, Dain was having fun, sitting here listening to stories being traded back and forth. "Your turn, Leah," he said, settling his weight forward on the table. "It had better be good if you want more of Zhiolas' tales."

"Hmm," I said, contemplating. I tapped my finger on my mouth, then started smiling. "Speaking of prudishness..." I winked at Zhiolas, who flashed his eyebrows at me with a wicked smile. "Alright, so. When I was eighteen, all young and fresh and with zero experience around men, my roommate managed to convince me to come out on a double-date with her, with some guys from the nearby Navy base. Already a terrible idea, because we were two perky coeds and they were both at least five years older than us."

"Tell me someone else knew where you were," Dain said with an edge to his voice.

"No, because we were dumbasses, but this is an embarrassing story, not a horrifying one, so you can cease the overprotectiveness now." I gave him a stern look.

Dain subsided with a grumble.