A King's Ransom

by Lia Black

  Kaidos frowned, "I wasn't thinking. I was counting your bounty in my head."

  "Ah. Of course. Coin is what makes you wistful."

  "My thoughts are my own, whore," Kaidos growled.

  "I thought we were past this," Veyl said with a sigh.

  "You suck my cock once and that makes us friends?"

  Veyl tensed behind him and his voice held a tremor of anger. "No, but I'd hoped it had made us at least friendly. Or would you rather have stayed behind and gotten friendly with Guis?"

  Kaidos muttered something unintelligible under his breath and pulled off the trail. They had been riding for several hours. The horse--and his ass--needed a rest.

  He slid off the saddle and offered his hand to Veyl who frowned at it suspiciously before taking hold. When his feet touched the dirt, he wobbled a little, but not nearly as badly as the day before. He didn't look to Kaidos to hold him up as he struggled to walk around a little and stretch his stiff muscles.

  "I suppose it's foolish to ask whether I might get a hot bath any time soon."

  Kaidos blew out an exasperated breath, "I swear you bathe more than a woman. We won't be close to a town until tomorrow." He released the packs from the horse's back and led the animal to nearby brook. "And I don't think it makes sense to take you there just so you can scream for help."

  Veyl folded his arms. "I do not scream."

  Kaidos pointed to the brook. "There's your bath."

  Veyl huffed and pushed past him, crouching at the edge of the water to wash his face. He wrestled what was left of his purple frock off over his head.

  "What are you doing?" Kaidos asked as Veyl began to splash water under his arms.

  "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm trying to get clean. You might try washing yourself a little from time to time. Fresh male sweat was fine last night, but now you're starting to stink."

  Kaidos had the feeling that Veyl was implying the stench extended to more than just his body odor. It was true, but he'd had to go back to forcing himself to think of Veyl in terms of merchandise. To do anything different would be foolish for a myriad of reasons, the least of which would be developing an affinity for his beautiful captive.

  Kaidos growled and moved a few yards downstream. Of course he stunk. Men stunk--that was part of what made them men. He tried inconspicuously to sniff at his armpits but the stench made him exhale sharply and crinkle up his nose. Ignoring Veyl's mocking golden laughter, he pulled off his shirt and let it soak in the icy clear water as he went to his pack and returned with a bar of tallow soap.

  "Hey--soap? Why didn't you say you had soap?" Veyl moved closer to him as Kaidos began scrubbing his shirt in the stream.

  "You didn't ask." Having scrubbed the foulest stains from his shirt, Kaidos raised it to his face to give it a final sniff-test before rising to hang it on a tree branch. Satisfied, he began pulling his boots off to slip out of his breeches.

  "What are you doing?" Veyl was actually blushing.

  "You said I needed a bath. I'm bathing." Although the water in the brook didn't even cover his thighs when Kaidos sat down and stretched his long legs, it was enough to rinse off the filth and the soap after he'd lathered himself up. True, the water was far from warm, but the discomfort helped him stay soft when Veyl followed suit--stripping down and sitting with his back to him a few feet away. He pivoted his upper body slightly and held out his hand for the soap, pinning up his long hair with his other hand.

  Kaidos snickered lightly, seeing how determined Veyl was to brave the icy water.

  "Would you mind doing my back?" Veyl dangled the soap over his shoulder without turning. His teeth were chattering.

  Kaidos grimaced, wondering whether Veyl was trying to play some game with him or if it was a genuine--though ill advised--request. "What am I, your chambermaid?"

  "You wouldn't want to deliver your merchandise all covered with vermin now would you?" Receiving no immediate response, Veyl asked more humbly this time. "Please."

  "You'll need to come closer then," Kaidos muttered.

  Veyl dutifully rose and came towards him. Kaidos tried to ignore that smooth golden cock that was now dangling at eye level. Fortunately, he didn't have to do so for long because Veyl turned his back and plopped down, piling his hair on his head when Kaidos took the soap.

  Veyl's back was smooth and unblemished, save for the temporary gooseflesh, and while Kaidos tried to maintain contact by using the soap only, he couldn't help but sometimes touch his fingers to the man's skin.

  "You're good at that." Veyl dropped his head forward with a soft groan of appreciation.

  Kaidos felt his body reacting to the sensation and the praise. He stopped and began rinsing off the lather with handfuls of water. "You're clean enough."

  "Shall I do yours then?" Veyl suggested with a sigh.

  "Don't bother," Kaidos said, clenching his jaw, "I've no interest in fighting a dagger from my throat."

  "Do you hate the fact that you find me attractive, Kaidos?" Veyl was actually pouting, and although Kaidos recognized that this was one of Veyl's ploys now, he couldn't quite keep himself from being affected.

  "Who says I do?" Kaidos voice came out husky, rather than gruff, belying his denial.

  "There isn't anything wrong with it, you know. What did the chieftain call it? A twinheart?"

  "That's not what I am." Kaidos hoped that Veyl would drop it before he said something he might come to regret, but he didn't.

  "Just because you've never done it before--"

  "I have!" Kaidos barked, glaring at Veyl. He must have looked intimidating, because Veyl gasped and drew away.

  Kaidos swallowed hard and dropped his head. "I don't want to talk about it. Just leave it alone."

  Veyl remained silent as he rinsed the foam from his body, then he went to wash and hang the remainder of their clothing.

  Kaidos felt a little guilty for frightening him, but there were some lines that he wouldn't let anyone cross. He'd made that mistake before with Guis, and since then he swore that he'd never do it again.

  The last time he'd done something nearly that foolish had been with Adria when he thought he was in love. It had resulted in being beaten half to death with a scourge, then lying feverish in his own filth until the gallows could be rigged for his hanging. Even though Lirin had been the one to report him, he had waited nearly a week to save him, only arriving with Ruthgar and Ahbrim in the wee hours before Kaidos was set to be executed.

  Besides, Kaidos had no doubt that, if given the chance, Veyl would flee back to his guard captain and he would have another bounty set on his head. Perhaps he'd been a fool to take this job after all. If he could just get Veyl to Dandre, then everything would be fine. He'd get the remainder of his gold and they would never meet again.

  That was what he'd thought he'd wanted--but Veyl challenged him at every turn and left him reeling. Between the seduction and the tantrums, Kaidos was finding him to be the most frustrating and fascinating crime he'd ever committed.

  Because it was getting later in the day, Kaidos decided that they would make camp. Although he would have liked to have put more distance between them and the Starlight Camp, the direction of his departure would not be figured out quickly enough by his brothers that he had to worry about the risk of meeting them tonight. Lirin might guess that Kaidos had not stuck to the main road, but he wouldn't necessarily be able to figure out what path he'd taken through the woods.

  Kaidos got them each a change of clothes from their pack. In the morning, their clothing would be clean and mostly dry and they could ride for a while without stinking like swine.

  They spent a long time avoiding conversation. Kaidos involved himself in various tasks, including making them a stew for dinner, before laying down their bedrolls. He'd ignored Veyl's sighs of boredom as the whore plucked pine needles off some fallen branches.

  It would be much cooler by nightfall. There was a storm coming in from the mountains, and although Kaidos didn't expect the r
ain to reach them for another day or two, the cold air pulling it along had already cast a bank of dark clouds on the horizon. They would have to sleep close tonight. After Kaidos' reaction earlier, he felt fairly certain that he wouldn't have to worry about Veyl trying to seduce him again.

  When Kaidos was purchasing them each a change of clothing, he'd found a shirt spun of cornflower-blue dyed linen and embroidered with tiny gold leaves along the hem. Although likely a shirt made with a woman in mind, he'd bought it for Veyl, imagining how perfectly it would complement his coloring. Veyl had met his eyes as he'd handed it over and Kaidos had felt an odd twinge in his chest, which made him look away. Now, sitting across the fire from him, Kaidos' eyes were repeatedly drawn to the stunning blue against Veyl's golden skin, and he cursed himself softly for choosing such a beautiful garment.

  "So just how much longer had you been planning to continue in your...profession?" Kaidos was not, by nature, a talkative man, but the silent tension was prompting him to speak, and this question had been nagging him for a while now. He found it nearly incomprehensible that Veyl had been selling his body to men for six years already.

  Veyl glanced up at him as if only just remembering he was there. "Why? Thinking about retiring yourself?"

  Kaidos continued to stare into the fire. "Yes. This is my last crime."

  "Is it true what your brother said? That you are not accustomed to kidnapping?"

  "Never. You're my first and last."

  Veyl laughed, but his tone rang hollow. "I can't tell you how many men I've heard tell me that over the years."

  Kaidos didn't laugh. "So then; how much longer were you planning on hearing it?"

  Veyl quieted, staring wistfully into the flames. "As long as I could remain profitable, I suppose. Perhaps another five, maybe ten years, though I think it's unlikely that anyone would want a thirty-year-old half-blood whore. Some of the women are lucky enough to leave town and find lonely widowed merchants to marry. Men who don't ask about their past. But I, as you might have noticed, am not a woman."

  Kaidos leaned back on his hands, looking earnestly across at Veyl. The firelight made him look even more stunning this evening. "So what would you have done?"

  Veyl gave him a smile that bittered Kaidos' blood, his autumn-moon eyes burning like the campfire between them. He offered a little shrug of one shoulder.

  "As I can brew healing tonics, I can also brew deadly poisons. I have been saving coins to go towards my funeral. I'd like it to have the grandeur of a noble's wedding."

  His words, so casually delivered, froze the marrow in Kaidos' bones. "You would kill yourself? You're not serious..."

  Veyl shrugged, "Well, it seems to be a moot point at this time, so it doesn't matter. Perhaps you have done me a favor, Kaidos Vailinn. At least I will have managed to make my dream of someday leaving Aaullsworthe come true." His smile was disingenuous; cynicism and sadness dwelled in the shadows behind his eyes. "I only hope that whoever has paid for you to find me thinks I'm more attractive than you do."

  "I do...find you...attractive." Kaidos admitted quietly. His gaze moved between the campfire and Veyl's eyes, then he sighed and looked down at his hands. He shouldn't have said that. Although it meant nothing to Veyl, to Kaidos, the words were an uncomfortable acknowledgment. Veyl was attractive to him, but not just physically. Kaidos understood, it was all part of Veyl's training—every mannerism had been cultivated since he was a child. He'd been taught everything he'd ever need to become the perfect companion to any man, and Kaidos was foolishly beginning to fall under that spell.

  Veyl looked at him for several moments and Kaidos fidgeted under his heavy gaze.

  "Despite what you may believe," Veyl sighed, "I have needs too. Until recently, I was getting those needs met multiple times a day."

  Kaidos swallowed hard, his throat had suddenly gone dry. He wasn't certain he liked where this conversation was going, but he had to ask.

  "So what are you suggesting I do?"

  Veyl looked at him through narrowed eyes. "I'm suggesting you use me."

  Kaidos felt his heart skitter in his chest and suddenly the cool night air had become uncomfortably warm. "Use--"

  "Fuck me," Veyl defined unnecessarily. "If you find me attractive then there should be no problem. I am giving you permission."

  Kaidos began to ponder the offer that Veyl was making. Suspicion coursed through him, and ran cold through the heat that now pooled low in his belly, "What do you hope to accomplish by such, uh, acts--assuming I am agreeable?"

  Veyl closed his eyes and sighed. "I hope you'll ask me to marry you," he said sarcastically. "What in blazes do you think it will accomplish? I'm a whore, you've reminded me of this several times. But I'm a whore who likes his work."

  Kaidos opened his mouth but quickly snapped it shut. No. He was not taking this bait. Veyl's earlier comment about offering sex as a chance to see him weak seemed to be true. Perhaps Veyl planned to use Kaidos' own desires to turn the situation in his favor, and Kaidos would wake up one morning with a knife buried in his chest.

  There was a very long pause, which might have continued had a log not popped in the flames.

  "Well then," Veyl yawned and stretched, using it as his cue. "Since it seems the conversation has ended, I do believe that I am ready for sleep."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Good Fortune Gone Bad

  Veyl did not fall asleep.

  Instead, he lay awake listening to Kaidos softly snoring and the sound of voices in the forest. He did not recognize them as Kaidos' brothers, nor were they speaking in the lyrical Wanderer tongue. They spoke in the clipped tones of Commonspeak from what he could tell, though he only caught snippets. Perhaps fortune had them camped nearby to some travelers--a band of weary souls heading back to Aaullsworthe or someplace a little closer to home.

  Had Veyl been in his right mind, he would have woken Kaidos up and warned him that they might not be alone, but Veyl's mind was far from right. He'd thought that at the Wanderer's camp he'd been closer to changing Kaidos' mind about taking him to Dandre. But apparently, that was far from true. Whether or not Kaidos found him attractive didn't matter. He'd made it clear that the intimacy they'd shared in the caravan had been a one-time mistake in judgment, and it wouldn't be happening again.

  Eventually, Kaidos had lain down close to Veyl and thrown a possessive arm over him, his hand resting on his dagger near Veyl's chest. The weapon, Veyl understood, was not meant to harm him--it was to protect him from others doing harm. That thought might have warmed him, but he remembered that he was only an object of worth to this man--not an individual.

  Dandre and his unknown fate were looming closer every moment, and Veyl was becoming desperate. What would happen to him when he reached Dandre? Would he be enshrined in a house of pleasure, or locked up tight in a gilded iron cage…

  Veyl felt his skin heating as his heart pushed his blood through his body and he fought back tears. He'd slept barely a wink since he'd been abducted, and Kaidos' constantly changing moods were pushing Veyl farther off-balance.

  This man was so different than anyone he'd ever known. The stratagems Veyl used in the brothel didn't work so easily on Kaidos, and the world outside of Aaullsworthe was a confusing and frightening place.

  If Veyl could just get out from beneath Kaidos' arm, he was certain that he could reach the traveler's camp. He could creep up silently enough to be sure that they looked safe before he made his presence known. They would see his condition--the beauty marred by lack of grooming--and take him in. He didn't even care if they weren't heading to Aaullsworthe. He'd travel with them to wherever they were headed and create a new life for himself in a new town.

  Of course his most immediate concern was how to get free of Kaidos' hold without waking him. Nearby was one of their packs. Kaidos had filled it with their clothing after emptying it of the stuff he'd used for bedding. It was too far for Veyl to reach with his arms without breaking free of Kaidos' grasp, but not too far to
snag with his toes and drag a little closer.

  Veyl slowly stretched out his leg, trying to catch the strap with his toe and bring it near enough to take into his hands. He froze once as Kaidos murmured in his sleep and scooted a bit closer to him. But a moment later his deep breathing returned and Veyl again began the painstaking effort of inching the pack within reach.

  A plan born of pure emotion, Veyl's intent was to replace his body with the pack. Fortunately, Kaidos was not pressed so entirely against him that he would notice the absence of so much mass--at least not for a few moments. Veyl worked, inch by inch, to slowly extract himself by sliding a little down and forward, while pulling the bag in bit by bit to replace what he'd removed. It felt like it might take hours, but the steady low murmuring of voices convinced Veyl that he'd not yet lost his opportunity.

  With a little roll, he came free and sat dumbfounded on the ground for a moment, his heart hammering in his chest. He blinked down at Kaidos--the man's face still slack with repose, then scrambled to his feet, trying to get his bearings beyond the dim light of the campfire's dying embers.

  Veyl moved as quietly through the trees as he could manage, gritting his teeth at each crack of a twig or crunch of dry leaves beneath his feet. At first, he was disoriented by the complete darkness inside the forest, and then he made out the first orange flickers of the fire from the traveler's camp.

  The firelight was bright enough that it blinded him to anyone seated around it, so he cautiously moved forward, telling himself that he could silently go back the way he came should anything seem amiss.

  "Well, well..."

  An unfamiliar voice came from his left just inside the tree line and the man refastened his trousers, his piss still pungent in the night air. It was then that the other three men rose near the campfire, and Veyl realized he'd made a terrible mistake. In the firelight, they looked like demons. One bore a crude tattoo of a skull on his cheek, another wore a sash of what appeared to be braided hair. Veyl instinctively grabbed his own golden locks, his heart hammering in his chest. The man closest to him licked his lips and his chuckle was imbued with hints of his intentions. Veyl had heard that sound too many times before and it turned him back into a child—too frozen with terror to do anything to save himself.