Rooks and Romanticide

by J. I. Radke

  There was a hush in the hallway that lasted perhaps one simple second before it soured, warping into something dangerous. Aunt Ophelia’s nails scraped against fine dark wood as her hand left the door in a flash, slapping across Cain’s face.

  The sound of skin on skin echoed in the corridor, sharp, and what followed was a deathly silence. Even the eavesdropping servants quieted. The last Emily heard before Cain shrank away into his bedroom with head hanging, his aunt following him in and closing the thick doors, was Ophelia’s voice, low and menacing:

  “I won’t have you acting like such a fool in front of your future wife. Now get your spoiled ass inside your room, so we can talk without the whole house listening in….”

  Sometimes Emily felt like she was alone in the big Dietrich house—with the servants, sure, but also with the ghosts and secrets of the noble family.

  Sometimes she missed the country.

  Sometimes she wanted to learn to shoot a gun.

  SCENE SIX

  HE FELT bruised, all over. Inside and out, like he had when his father had disapproved of something and taken him into his den for a talk.

  Cain knew that his aunt had been able to see the injured pride, the subdued rage burning in his eyes after she’d slapped him, but a childhood of talks with his father had taught him that, even as the earl now, and even as the earl in the future, there would forever be times when elders dominated. His ego ached just like his cheek, and he remembered the way his head would spin after a number of chastising smacks in his father’s den.

  In front of your future wife! she’d said. It was only salt in a deep and unhealing wound.

  Cain was alone in his room now. Aunt Ophelia was long gone, but the power of her words still sizzled in the air, hanging over him like a fever.

  He paced at the foot of his bed, rubbing his eyes. They felt tired and glassy and sick. The silence was alive, it seemed, and suffocating him. The distant rushing of water in the house pipes, the tick of the giltwood clock on the mantle, the soft whispers of his bare feet in the white fur of his rug. Mocking him. Silly man, silly, silly man, falling head over heels for the snake in the grass….

  A Ruslaniv.

  A Ruslaniv supporter, at the very least.

  A liar and a thief and a spy!

  Or maybe none of those things, but that was the worst part—the not knowing. The tangled, crushing questions and the emptiness where answers should have been. Levi sure as hell hadn’t come around to explain yet, had he? And he hadn’t sent any sort of courier wondering why Cain had halted all correspondence, an obvious sign of guilt. Nothing could convince Cain otherwise.

  Whatever the answers or pathetic reasoning, he just couldn’t get over it.

  He was sick with it; his body ached with it. The betrayal, the sting of something akin to abandonment. All too like the death of hope under a misused church.

  It wasn’t fair!

  The fury, the shame at being deceived, and the disgust that he had opened himself up to someone who quite possibly held the key to his demise in the same hands that had loved him, ooh—

  And yet, the seething anger was not enough to blanket against the cold of despair, the chastened pain.

  Because he’d been fond of Levi.

  He’d let himself be fond of Levi.

  And the lying, abominable bastard had just yanked all of that out of his grasp again, reminding him of the disgrace and revulsion that had killed him a few years ago. To be used and discarded… it hurt!

  He had duties. He was the Lord of the Dietrich house. He had responsibilities that did not belong to his aunt, his uncle, his cousins, his feeble old grandmother out in the country, or any of the others who had tried so hard to run the family in the absence of an heir years ago. He was Cain Dietrich, engaged to Miss Emily Kelley. He was nobility, and of course he was not given the freedom to seek happiness on his own. He lived for the Dietrich name, and that was it. That was the ball and chain.

  But he couldn’t say that to Aunt Ophelia. She wouldn’t understand.

  All he’d been able to do was sit on his bed and stare at his feet while she reminded him of his place, of his reputation, of his responsibilities. Sometimes people as important as him could not afford to have a time of foul state of mind, she’d reprimanded. There was too much to take care of, and if he wasn’t capable of accepting these responsibilities as a young man still plagued by adolescence’s lingering erratic moods, well, something might have to be done about that. It was a threat.

  Alone now, Cain climbed onto the foot of his bed and sat cross-legged, dropping his face to his hands and struggling to remain in control of his emotions. He’d never had trouble with it before, not after coming back home after his parents’ murder; but this hurt!

  No matter where his mind was, it always ended up coming back around to Levi, his ace in the sleeve. Or so he’d thought. Levi. Damn, it hurt. It hurt deep inside, heart hot and chest tight with anguish. Cain’s jaw tightened. His fingers fisted in his hair.

  He hadn’t taken dinner again. He was vaguely hungry—or at least in need of some kind of nourishment. Maybe he’d wander down to the kitchen and make Weston fix him something to eat. Something that went well with scotch, because that’s what he wanted more than anything else. Something to burn and numb at the same time.

  The double doors to the balcony were slightly ajar. It was cold now that he’d calmed a little. Cain slid off the bed, trudging over to close the doors—but he stopped, picking up on the scent of tobacco. The aroma was sweet and pungent, and it came from out under the balcony.

  Cain shoved forth outside and leaned over past the stone gargoyle, his granite friend who held so many of his secrets behind those austere, unseeing eyes. Full of rancor, Cain fired down below: “Oh, you’re a bloody bastard fool!”

  Levi stood under the balcony with one hand on the vine-covered wall of the house, perfectly out of view from any surrounding windows. He knew the routine too well, unfortunately. With his free hand, he smoked a Turkish cigarette, and as he stared up at Cain in this casual posture, Levi certainly didn’t deny that he was a bloody fool. He smoked his cigarette a moment longer, then put it out on the wall and slipped the remaining half of it into his pocket. His brow knotted.

  He said—in a perfectly reasonable tone and that damnable lovely voice””I’m no bastard, I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Cain glared down at him with a rage far too easy to offer. It didn’t seem right, to send such scathing hatred that way, at that wonderful blond hair and those dark, expressive eyes. The fur of that collar framed Levi’s face so handsomely.

  “I don’t want you here,” Cain hissed.

  “I don’t believe you,” Levi returned coldly.

  Cain clenched his teeth against a shiver, the December night nippy. He could feel himself getting all sorts of worked up. “I should have upped security. I can’t believe I failed to assume that something as dirty as you would come sneaking around again.”

  “Hey,” Levi countered briskly, “maybe you didn’t up security because you wanted something as dirty as me to come sneaking around. My lord, don’t forget you’ve been kissing something as dirty as me.” He grasped the vines along the wall with both hands as if in silent threat that he’d climb up if he felt the need. He didn’t smile. There was a spark of something predatory and tenacious somewhere in his narrowed eyes. He clearly held no intention of leaving. Cain scoffed.

  “Please, I’ve already vomited and confessed twice because of such filth. Listen, my hatred is boiling, but my will is weary. I’ll give you five minutes to get as far away from here as you can before I send my—”

  “You’ve been talking to something as dirty as me,” Levi added, effortlessly evading Cain’s insults. “You can’t deny it,” he said, voice falling softly to a more intimate volume as he started to climb up to the balcony as easily as he had many nights in the last month. “Cain—my lord—Earl Dietrich, I’m just going to explain.”

  “You’re
so certain you’re going to explain! You don’t even ask, you just assume I’ll listen? Ha!” Cain offered a few rude gestures, backing up against his balcony doors. “What is there to explain? I’ve been exploited. I’ve been used. You’ve been hiding things from me, which is quite clear and irrefutable, and I won’t accommodate a liar and a snitch. I’m going to call Security! Better yet, I’ll shoot you myself!” Cain scowled as Levi’s head crested the floor of the balcony. “Why are you still climbing up here? My gun is right—”

  He shut up as Levi climbed over the top of the balcony, and he winced away a few more steps as he saw the look in Levi’s eyes—confusing eyes, eyes that could be soft in one moment and sly the next. But in that breath, they looked dangerous with hardened guilt. Cain’s hands shook.

  “Who are you? Why were you there, in Dmitri’s Pavilion? Why didn’t you come talk to me right away? What is your connection to the Ruslanivs?” Cain demanded, jaw tight, and he was ashamed to hear the emotion ripe in his voice.

  Levi drew a tiny breath and seemed to hold it for a moment the way he held Cain with his stare, strung somewhere now between that heavy guilt and something a little more irredeemable.

  Finally, in a slow and empty way, Levi confessed, “Lord Ruslaniv is my father.”

  Cain dodged for his Rapier.

  “You son of a bitch! You infernal lying son of a bitch! You—”

  Seemingly without a struggle—and whether that was due to Levi’s skills or the way Cain’s fighting spirit was being burned to ashes by the blazing rage, or due in part to both these things—Levi snatched Cain by the wrist and threw him up against one of the balcony doors. It rattled and thudded behind him. Levi’s hand sealed his mouth shut, and his eyes were aflame with every last bit of his merciless resolve as he hissed, “You be quiet, little earl, or do you want to be found like this?”

  Cain felt a devastation of will. He went rigid in Levi’s grip. He contemplated biting his hand, but he was frozen in place. The onset of tears was a cold and helpless feeling he hadn’t surrendered to in what seemed like eternity

  “I am not an unaffiliated gunslinger,” Levi’s unbelievable testimony continued. “I am the last son of Lord Ruslaniv. You are one of the perhaps handful of those outside Ruslaniv walls that know that now. And I assure you, I swear it on my life, that that is the only lie I’ve told. Everything else has been the truth—”

  “Versions of the truth!” Cain snarled, but it was muffled behind Levi’s hand.

  “I am a trained fighter,” Levi went on. There was no plea for sympathy in his voice, just raw and ragged honesty and a fury on his part that was more like self-hatred. He was practically brimming with it. “But like I told you in St. Vincent’s, it is not my chosen path. I simply want to do as I please, damn it! I want to ‘follow my whims’! I wanted to be talking with you, to be visiting with you, to be carrying out the demands you gave me! Alas, I’m tied down by my own name, and I’m tired of it! That is the truth, Cain. This, between us, has nothing to do with my family, only me and my own wishes! Can you not trust that?”

  He let Cain shove his hand away. But Cain didn’t let go of it. Instead, he dug his fingers into it, needing a place to channel the violence he felt inside. “Trust? Trust! You throw the word around like it’s worth something here! I don’t know what to believe anymore, Levi. Or is that even your name? Why? Why did you come to me pretending to need a contract that night? Why have you been working for me? Why should I not kill you on grounds of suspected treason? Ugh, why am I even still speaking with you! You’re the fucking Ruslaniv heir, the sheltered faceless prince Lord Ruslaniv has kept so protected, and lo and behold, against all logic, you’ve always been here, and there, and everywhere, a thief in the night, and I hate you!”

  Strange, how he really just wanted to say Come back, I need you and your broken promises, the you I know that I know.

  “I’m well aware of that,” Levi seethed, teeth gritted. “I know very well how you feel about my family. But just believe me when I say it was all of my own volition. I needed a purpose in life. When I met you at the masquerade, when you were ‘the Death of the Ruslanivs,’ damn it, Cain, I wanted you then and there and didn’t even know you were the earl. Did it change the color of the flame of desire once I knew who you were? No! Cain, ask me to do anything for you! I’ll become an outcast. I’ll extricate myself from my family. I’ll be only who you want me to be. You know as well as I do that I don’t really hold influence anywhere, so who would mourn my disappearance? I bring valuable insight to the table, love—I’ll betray my own family for you, all for you, Cain!”

  Cain dug his fingers deeper into Levi’s arms. “Don’t call me ‘love,’ and don’t call me by my name either,” he spat through his teeth, stubbornly. “Levi, you lied to me.”

  But he could already feel himself giving way.

  The way Levi looked at him… It was harder than he’d anticipated, seeing Levi again. Because God, he wanted to forgive him so badly.

  Levi’s face seemed to curdle with more guilt. Cain wondered if Levi could see things in Cain’s eyes that went unspoken from his tongue. He swallowed, casting his aggrieved glance elsewhere. “You lied to me many times,” he reminded him briskly, then shook Levi loose and retreated into his room.

  Levi gawked after him. Surely he was torn between following or staying put. He visibly relaxed when Cain returned to the balcony with his father’s old smoking jacket. He crossed his arms to hug it closed. The balcony stone was like ice under his feet.

  “This is me, acting on what I want,” Levi husked again, indignant and insistent and penitent, in that swoon-inducing voice like burnt silk, and he was utterly more convincing than Cain could wish. Ah, Levi, even in the throes of heartache, charming and elegant, and so eloquent of a lustrous and angst-ridden longing.

  Levi frowned, lashes lowered on those tortured eyes, mouth in a somber line; he straightened up, pressing a fist to the balcony stone. Cain wondered how long he’d lain awake at night rehearsing this, how long he’d fretted over this conflict. But the real wondering was—did he care if it was rehearsed, if it was anything but truthful?

  Who had once said hate and love were two sides of the same emotion?

  “I want you,” Levi vowed, voice brittle with helplessness. “I don’t care that you’re my sworn enemy. Mind, body, and soul, I want your everything. Your hatred, your revenge, your cursed name—and if that gets me disowned, so be it. If you decide to hate me anyway, shoot me right here—like you said you would—and I’ll never haunt you again.”

  “Levi, the gravity of these things—”

  “Cain, you’re freedom to me! My need for you is undeniable! It has been from the moment I laid eyes on you, ‘the Death of the Ruslanivs.’ Maybe even before that.”

  Even before that….

  “I have so much hate, I don’t know if you understand,” Cain whispered fiercely. “And I absolutely despise myself for feeling this way about you.”

  Levi stared. Cain fumbled with the sleeves of the old smoking jacket. And then there was the concession. The concession to fate and all its puppeteer’s strings, the yielding to honesty and raw, desperate need.

  Cain slipped forward to the edge of the balcony. He let his head hang against Levi’s chest. He could feel the ridges of hidden holsters, the beat of Levi’s heart beneath his militia jacket. His own heart throbbed in his ears. Every emotion rattled through him, one at a time, as if collected in a line. The shock, the distress, the rage, the disgust, the fear, the pain, the pining. The crumbling of an iron will at the feet of what would not change. Anger and pride fell into the pit of longing.

  Levi’s arms closed around him possessively. Cain stood stiff and rigid against him, but he stretched up and sought his mouth in a firm kiss.

  “Do you believe me?” Levi pressed.

  Cain kissed him again to shut him up.

  “Do you trust the things I say?” Levi begged.

  “Yes! Yes, damn it!”

 
Levi kissed him back then, presumably to keep him from saying anything more and ruining the conciliation.

  “You make me so very nervous,” Cain whispered as their lips broke apart, and it was the truth. Levi was dismantling his bruised and battered heart piece by piece, and he hadn’t a clue how to protect himself against it.

  Levi stared down at him, eyes heated and glassy with words unspoken.

  Cain licked the taste of his kiss off the corner of his mouth. Christ, there was nothing he could do about the way this felt, because there was nothing that would win against this natural inclination. There was no denying this intimacy, this need, right or wrong or whatever it was. It was simply there, and indisputable.

  He was content in Levi’s arms. He wanted to be there.

  The realization knocked the wind out of him as Levi went searching for another kiss with a hunger that did not waver, open, gasping mouth and desperate hands. Cain shuddered. Levi tasted like metal, like nervousness. And when Cain pulled away for a short breath, his gaze moved over Levi’s face, and it pained his heart.

  Levi’s features bore the pinch of a most lustrous sadness, a brightness to his eyes that threatened to shatter in the darkness of the night. Cain felt a pang of guilt for it, sure, because this was only Levi’s frantic quest for redemption. But oh, even in such exquisite unhappiness, Levi enchanted him. That dark intelligence of his, that misleading decorum and the seemingly cunning fox that slept beneath, the stunning, well-bred virility and that beguiling, almost dangerous mystery of his that kept such deep, dark, vulnerable depths of soul protected behind his worst of smirks.

  Cain was terrified that petty words would destroy the burgeoning truce, too fickle and unpredictable and regrettable. But Levi spoke, clinging to a tender pride as he whispered in a jagged way, “I was a fool to deceive you.”

  “You were,” Cain allowed, folding his fingers on the back of Levi’s neck to keep their faces nose-to-nose.