Warrior Priest of Dmon-Li - Brian Pratt [2]
“I must go,” Miriam says abruptly as she gets up from the bench and rushes past James as she hurries from the atrium.
“Wonder what made her…” he begins to say when he sees Miriam’s mother entering the atrium from the other direction.
As she approaches them, Jiron comes to his feet and gives her a slight bow, “Greetings lady.”
“Flirting with my daughter again, have you?” she says to him with a not too happy look on her face.
“Just whiling away the time before we leave in the morning,” he assures her.
“I’ve spoken to Captain Caril, and he said all is set,” she tells them. “They’ll be leaving at first light.”
“Good,” exclaims Jiron. “Though I’ve enjoyed the hospitality of your house, I am anxious to return and find my sister.”
“Yes,” chimes in James, “you and your family have been most gracious in allowing us to stay here with you.”
She turns a warm smile to James as she says, “It is the least we can do for having our Nate back. I had given up all hope of ever seeing my son again.”
“Miko will be going with us as well,” he tells her. “I told him of your offer to have him stay here, but his mind is set to continue with us.”
“That’s too bad,” she says, “Nate has grown awfully fond of him. We all have to tell the truth, he’s a good lad.”
“Yes he is,” agrees James.
She begins to leave but pauses and turns back toward them, saying, “We’re having a banquet tonight in your honor, to send you off properly. I took the liberty of arranging for suitable attire to be brought to your rooms later this afternoon.”
“Thank you lady,” James says to her graciously.
“You’re welcome,” she replies as she again turns and makes her way out of the atrium the way she’d come in.
James turns to Jiron and says, “You’d better stay away from Miriam until we leave.”
“I don’t intend to do anything with her,” he assures him. “Truth to tell, she was the one who found me. I was sitting here just relaxing when she shows up and starts talking to me. Before I even knew it, she had me relating the tale of our escape from Al-Kur.”
“Be that as it may,” he says, “we’re not out of here yet and an angry mother can screw up our way back to Cardri.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid being around her, okay?” he asks.
James nods his head in reply, “That’ll be just fine.”
“Wonder what ‘suitable attire’ is?” Jiron asks.
“Don’t know,” he replies, “but it’s usually stiff and uncomfortable.”
A groan escapes Jiron as he rolls his eyes upward.
He walks with James back to their room and as they near their door, they see one of the servants coming out of their room. The servant fails to notice them as he shuts the door and walks down the hallway in the opposite direction.
With trepidation, they open the door and walk in. Lying on each bed is indeed a set of clothes, one which has bright green tights and a darker green upper tunic. The other one is light brown tights with a dark brown upper tunic.
They both race for the brown set and Jiron cries out in triumph as he gets to them first. “Ha ha ha, my peacock,” he says to James as he’s holding the brown set.
“Oh, shut up,” replies James as he goes over and holds up the other set. “I hate green,” he says miserably. He turns to Jiron and has an imploring look.
“No way, man,” he says and then indicates the clothes James is holding, “I’d rather go naked than wear that.” He begins taking off his clothes and putting the new ones on. When he sees James hesitating, he asks in all seriousness, “You don’t want to insult our hostess do you?” Then a playful smile spreads across his face.
Resigned to his fate, he replies, “No.” He takes off his clothes and first slips on the bright green tights. When he has them on, he looks down at himself and realizes they are truly tight and forms to his every curve down there leaving nothing to the imagination.
Feeling naked, he pulls on the tunic which helps to cover his nether regions, though not as well as he would want. Despite being rather revealing, they are quite comfortable. Once he has them on, he goes over to look at himself