Rooks and Romanticide

by J. I. Radke

  His fingertips were cold where they touched Levi’s face. Levi kissed them. He rolled over, bringing Cain over to straddle his lap. Oh, the tempting heat of the places between his legs—and Cain was otherwise so loud and indignant, so cold and sarcastic, but the moment Levi’s hand brushed his cheek or gathered him close enough to feel his heartbeat, or reached down between his thighs, he melted into a tangle of flushed limbs and stubborn glares as if ashamed of his weaknesses and still hiding behind that dark scowl. The words “clinging to the last shreds of dignity” sprang to Levi’s mind.

  Cain sat up straight and prim, still sitting atop Levi and arching like a cat in the middle of a stretch, and he regarded Levi down his nose like a prince should. Levi smiled faintly.

  His jacket and his leather—the Rook, pistols, cartridges, holsters and weapons belt—all of it lay on the floor off the side of the big bed, beside his boots. The dying fire sizzled. There was intimidating quiet and the shift of clothes, the rustle of bedding, and tentative little breaths of calculation.

  “Leave the lights up,” Cain hissed, finally, for once begging to be seen in the hot dance of the lamps. “Leave the room lit so I can look my shame in the face.”

  “So be it,” Levi whispered, “because I want to look my love in the face.”

  Cain crumpled down at that, grimacing under the weight of his own failures as vengeful earl. He couldn’t keep up the front any longer, Levi knew. He was trying so hard. He buried his nose in Levi’s neck. Levi loved the feel of his teeth on his skin. Ah, the sensations were surreal. The smell of Cain, the feel of him, the sound of him, the taste of him.

  Levi pulled him into an openmouthed kiss. Cain held to him by the collar of his shirt and Levi shuddered. There was the press of him down against his sex again, titillating, and bracing, blood rushing every direction as his breath quickened. His passion stirred hotter and hotter. He ripped at the buttons of Cain’s nightshirt. Ah, perfect skin, the warm pressure of his ass against Levi’s hips.

  Levi threw Cain back to the blankets, and Cain gasped like he was actually startled—but when Levi looked up, Cain was stoic again, and lying there fever hot, chest heaving, his eyes aflame.

  Levi hovered over him with a racing heart. He’d never wanted someone so desperately before in his life, not even as a lusty adolescent. He’d never wanted to hurt someone and hold them in his arms at the same time, never wanted to come together so hard and fast that the pain bled together with the pleasure like colors running on a wet canvas. He felt like an animal, driven by primal need.

  Cain glanced at Levi demurely and licked his lips. “You look a little lost,” he teased, dryly and indifferently, but the joke itself died away as Levi sputtered, “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Cain’s act as prince of passion seemed to falter for a moment. His brow knotted with the wordless question: What?

  “I have,” Levi pressed, breathless.

  Cain ran his hands down his back, and Levi shivered. Cain’s hands drifted around to unfasten his trousers.

  “I know you have,” Cain whispered. “But show me.”

  They romped, kicking blankets off the side of the bed. Bullets lost in the sheets fell to the floor. Cain led the hot press and awkward friction, the way an experienced set of hips shifted to ease the initial pain of penetration. Sticky skin, flushed sex. Toes curled as gasps married with muffled cries of pleasure. Hips cramped. Muscles quivered. Cain dug his nails into Levi’s naked chest, scraping his nipples, and Levi wasn’t sure whether he should like it or not.

  “You’ll be the death of me!” Cain gasped, clutching Levi’s face in his palms.

  Levi kissed his nose and tightened his fingers on Cain’s cock. “You make me feel alive,” he countered tenderly. But shuttling into those sweet, sensitive, secret places hard and fast, Levi was terrified of not feeling worthy of any of the delight at all. Not the carnal, not the spiritual, not a single bit of this closeness Cain gave him. Ah, surely he was a masochist. He would take a bullet for Cain even as Cain smiled behind the trigger.

  “Cain, what do you say? Shall we make the pact? Shall we seek to end the fighting together?”

  “I can’t be without you,” Cain moaned, perfect surrender, and Levi didn’t care that it wasn’t a straight answer.

  Levi came with a sharp dance of the hips. Although he’d finished, he kept going—numb, tender, slick—but he was determined, and he didn’t stop until Cain pulled away, and Levi reached around his sides and brought him to the climax of pleasure in turn.

  And maybe… maybe those were tears shimmering in Cain’s eyes, or just the glaze of sex. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look soft. He looked as dark and morbid as ever, but the love in his pale stare was obvious, heavy, overwhelming, and Levi buried into his chest and ignored how pitiful that was. He, a grown man, gunslinger and gentleman, and he was blushing in the arms of a man hardly twenty.

  Cain ran his fingers through Levi’s hair. Nothing was said, no questions were asked. They lay in silence, bodies tingling. The fire had gone out. The flames in the lamps shivered.

  Cain drifted off. Levi resituated to hold Cain to his chest again, looking up at the notches and designs on the coffered ceiling as the need for sleep burned at the backs of his eyes and he thought about everything, without really thinking at all. The recurring thought was Just a little longer, and then I’ll leave. Just a little longer….

  Daylight broke, and the son of Lord Ruslaniv was comfortably tangled with Cain Dietrich in one arm and the other flung out, hanging off the side of the bed, like a little boy passed out for a nap.

  He was asleep.

  ACT FIVE

  REQUIESCAT

  The day breaks not, it is my heart.

  John Donne, Break of Day

  SCENE ONE

  MAGGIE WAS a strong woman. Full lips, an oval face, and a straight nose made her a very staid-looking maid, but there was a tenderness in her eyes that created a sort of gypsy-like beauty out of it all. Dark hair contrasted with her smooth olive-colored skin lusciously, and she was far from the frail, petite, birdlike thing girls and ladies struggled to be. She was voluptuous and broad shouldered, and there was something of an accent to her words that was familiar and nostalgic.

  It was Maggie who had been Cain’s nurse when he was younger. He remembered her face from his earliest memories, in the background of foggy recollections, floating behind his parents, his aunt, other workers, and servants. She had taken care of him: snacks, naps, playtime, a careful eye on the prodigious only son of the Dietrichs. Cain remembered her sitting in the corner while he played. He remembered her looking sad when he disobeyed, maybe because she knew she’d be punished, because how could she not listen to her young master, even though he was simply a temperamental three-year-old?

  Cain remembered Maggie sometimes tucking him into bed when his mother was talking with his father in the den. Maggie used to make little flowers out of folded paper for Cain and his friend, the Byron boy. Maggie had been stern, but never reprimanding. As Cain had gotten older, he’d tormented her with questions about the world (most she couldn’t answer), and managed to manipulate his way out of her watchful eye for an hour or two before she came bursting through the door, red-faced and panicked, only to sink down beside him, kiss his forehead, and whisper something like, “Thank God, thank God, the Lady would have killed me….”

  And it was Maggie who found them then, the son of Lord Ruslaniv and the Earl, tangled comfortably in expensive sheets as the January air trickled in through the grate and daylight pried through the curtains.

  Cain wasn’t fully awake yet when the door opened with a weak whine of hinges. The silence that followed was quite loud enough. There was the echo of the house waking and, dark hair in its usual plaits, Maggie stood wordless and staring.

  Shit.

  Cain’s heart fell. For a moment he was confused, even though the dread was thick and familiar in his gut. He looked from Levi to Maggie and back, brow creased. It wasn’t the
first time someone had walked in on him and a bedmate, but this was Maggie, and she’d never witnessed him in such a scandalous state. This was not something he could fix with a finger pressed to the lips—shh….

  Levi was waking gently. His tousled blond hair fell across his temple in such a lovely way. His muscles flickered beneath bare skin. He looked childish and soft as his eyes opened and then closed again, not yet past the horizon of sleep.

  And Maggie stared.

  Cain looked down the length of the bed, at the way Levi’s limbs lay tangled with his own. He could smell Levi on his fingers still. Levi’s body was hot and limp. Cain realized with a jolt of the heart that he was not wearing anything, and he cursed himself as the shock set in so deep he hardly felt it.

  Cain sat and pulled a blanket around him like a cloak. His face burned. He braved Maggie’s eyes, hoping to come across far calmer than he actually felt. She didn’t know who Levi was. She couldn’t. Everything would be fine, if he handled it properly.

  “Good morning,” Cain whispered. His voice was scratchy. He blushed to know why—the night of arguing and groaning. He glanced from Maggie to the bed and back again, struggling to keep a mask of complacency, although he longed to push her out of the room and start the morning over.

  “Good morning, sir,” Maggie returned in a tight voice.

  Her eyes were dark. They moved to the man in his bed and back to Cain again.

  Embarrassment crawled under Cain’s skin. He’d grown up before her, and now he fell from pride before her, and perhaps there was something meaningful about that. He didn’t quite know what to say.

  Maggie politely began to pick up the clothes strewn about the room. When she uncovered Levi’s guns, she froze. She looked to Cain in a great panic, eyes bright. Cain’s heart fell again, if it had much more room to fall at all.

  The rumors had circulated. They’d infected every house in New London that mattered. The Rook and BLACK, the Ruslaniv gang, had killed Lady Ophelia Dietrich. Talk was vicious. Gangs stalked each other on the streets like packs of territorial wolves. A brittle tension had settled in the air that threatened to give way at any moment, and now—

  Maggie was breathless. “This man is one of them!” she gasped, just loud enough for Cain to hear it.

  Cain shooed her out of the room. “Would you let me get decent!” he hissed. He threw his doors closed and scrambled back onto the bed. Christ, was there no end to the complications?

  There was a moment of struggle, a panicked voice, and sleepy grumbles as Cain ripped the blankets away from Levi. It took a round of vicious shaking before Levi fully comprehended just what had happened while he’d dozed like a lazy lion over his pride. He scrambled out of Cain’s bed as fast as he could, suddenly very awake.

  A kiss, quite a few worried kisses, and that was it, and over the stone and down the balcony Levi clambered while Cain watched from behind the gargoyle at the corner and tried not to gag on the emotion as it clotted in his throat. Raw, staggering emotion—humiliation, dread, regret.

  What was to happen now? Maggie wasn’t stupid. She’d heard the talk. Everyone heard the talk. BLACK had killed his aunt, and now he’d been found in bed with one of them. When those who knew who Levi really was found out about that, well….

  There were love bites on his neck and bullets on the floor. Cain, with an ever-thickening lump in his throat, made sure Levi was safely off Dietrich grounds before scampering back in from the balcony.

  The winter chill was still present even after he’d closed the french doors. He washed his face with the fresh water in the basin on the sideboard. He dressed himself carelessly in a linen shirt and plain tweed and threw on an old banyan for good measure. His hair was a mess. He opened his doors again and coldly met Maggie’s stare from across the hall. She’d waited for him.

  Whether she knew or not the degree to which Cain was veritably screwed at this point, she’d spoken. There at the corner, was his Uncle Bradley, and his Uncle Bradley did not look very happy at all.

  Dear God, I’m dead.

  SCENE TWO

  THE BRISK winter air was purifying to Levi.

  New London was awake and bustling. Market stands were alive; streets were busy; men and women hurried on errands and to work; church bells tolled. Levi finished buttoning his shirt as he walked, militia jacket draped on his shoulders, holsters clicking and clacking. He winked and smiled at those who met his eyes as he passed even if they didn’t have any inkling who the hell he was and how exhausting it was to court a number of reputations.

  The Ruslaniv manor greeted him with the smell of breakfast wafting through the halls. Servants hurried by through the vestibule, as insignificant as little mice, bobbing their heads at him as he entered and hopped up the stairs to find his father, who was right where Levi had expected him. In his office, looking regrettably worse than he had recently.

  “Hey, chto novogo?” Levi doffed his jacket as he strode into the office, passing granite busts and upholstered chairs to stoop and press a reverent kiss to his father’s temple. “How are you feeling?”

  His father reached up to pat Levi’s hand. He laid down the papers he’d been sifting through, reclining for a deep breath. “Older than usual. Do you know how much it cost me this time to keep everyone’s noses out of this recent mess with Lady Ophelia? We’re lucky the Queen hasn’t involved herself, what with the second ambush on the Dietrich household in less than six months.”

  Ice spread through Levi’s veins and he closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the proper composure. He looked down at the papers before his father, newsprint and bills and bundles of labeled banknotes. “Yes,” he mumbled. “Sometimes I believe she’s finally given up on New London. The authorities certainly have. They hardly intervene anymore, unless nonpartisans are in danger. Perhaps we could declare ourselves our own republic, Father, for as little as the Queen involves herself in our politics anyway.”

  “It’s possible….” His father heaved a sigh that seemed far too difficult for him. “And it’s a sad, sad world that it is so.”

  Levi was quiet, knowing that his father was well aware of the guilt this layered upon him. He was lucky his father was still talking to him, he supposed, after the distaste he’d expressed the other night in the drawing room, throwing the tea set and pacing about in a rage. His mother, on the other hand, had taken to talking about nothing but Quinton again, and the entire household was tiring of her.

  “Lawrence.” His father motioned him closer, frowning sternly. Levi leaned down respectfully, lashes lowered. His father murmured, “I do believe those are the same clothes you were in yesterday. I see you are not so overcome by the recent turn of events to neglect your favorite pastimes. Who was she now? Oh, never mind that, I don’t want to know. I’m just happy you’re back to your old self again. Please, go wash up before your mother notices.”

  Levi smiled faintly, feigning embarrassment for his father but really feeling rather glum. He didn’t want his father to think him heartless, going out so carelessly after his blunder with BLACK. His smile faded quickly, however, as his father went back to his work and Levi caught sight of the newspaper at the corner of the desk. Below a rather bold and shameless headline, an article read:

  LADY OPHELIA DIETRICH of the DIETRICH HOUSE was slain in an attack reminiscent of that three years ago in which the former EARL and LADY were murdered. The gang has been identified as a popular one, bearing masks and marked skill and monopolizing much good favor in certain crowds of New Londoners, but as of yet this gang is otherwise elusive and remains at large. The DIETRICH HOUSE promises to be getting to the bottom of it, and this present murder of the current EARL’s aunt and former EARL’s sister is only “FUELING THE FIRE,” a DIETRICH source declares.

  Levi smiled bitterly. He pointed at the paper. “They’re catching on,” he whispered. “Maybe BLACK should just disband.”

  Lord Ruslaniv sighed. There was no spark of frivolity in his eye.

  Levi’s smile li
ngered, awkwardly, before it faded altogether and he left his father to his paperwork. He had his own paperwork to attend to, anyway. He was bound and determined to draw up a rough draft of some agreement to sign with Cain. He’d worry about the rest of the confessions later.

  SCENE THREE

  IT WAS two days later that Lord Ruslaniv found Levi in his secret room in the library, the door opened by a very frightened Eliott. His father’s face was redder than the appliqué on his collar.

  Levi set his book down, eyes wide, feeling very much like a child again, wondering what he’d done wrong. But he didn’t have time to greet anyone or seek out Eliott’s eyes for explanation as his father’s voice rattled the little room of books and privacy.

  “Could you tell me, son, why the Honourable Bradley Dietrich has sent word that you, ‘the Rook,’ were found in bed with his nephew, the earl? Could you explain to me why you were in the Dietrich manor? Could you explain to me why you were in ‘questionable positions’ with their earl? Could you please repudiate these wretched allegations, or would you like to join Quinton to never step foot in New London again!”

  A book fell off the table, not from his father’s voice, but from the force with which he’d flung open the door. Levi was speechless, gawking up at his father. He could think of nothing to say. His father seethed. He fumed. He stormed out of the room and through the library, roaring something colorful and threatening. His voice faded away into echo as he raged away.

  Eliott met Levi’s eyes, his own bulging and his face white. His hair was up in one of those ridiculous ponytails again, his stare both doubtful and hoping for an explanation, should Levi find one necessary.

  “I’ve really messed up,” Levi whispered.

  Eliott’s brow knotted. “It’s just like Finn and Rosalie all over again,” he said as if afraid of the connotations. Levi nodded.