Yves had a hard time imagining Charon as anyone but the man he knew now. He knew Charon had worked as a guard in the quarries before he’d grown frustrated with the practice of sending courtesans there. He’d come to Duciel to speak to one of the House lords in person, but Yves had always thought he’d been past his thirties by then. He looked up at Charon, noting the lack of prominent wrinkles he’d always attributed to phenomenal luck. Yves suspected that whatever Charon left behind in Arktos wasn’t good, but the thought that he hadn’t yet been a man when he fled through the mountains made his chest ache uncomfortably.
“Well…” Yves blew out a long breath. “I’m glad you made it here.”
Something brushed his curls, and Yves turned in time to see Charon looking down at him. Had he touched him, or had Yves only imagined it? His voice was so low that Yves almost couldn’t make out the words. “So am I.”
Then why is an attachment impossible?Yves thought.If Staria is worth it, why aren’t I?
Footsteps thumped on the stairs, and Laurent appeared in the stairwell with an aggrieved look on his beautiful face.
“You’re all paying to keep it here,” he said.
“Good,” Yves said. “Olly’s probably already named it.”
“Olly?” Laurent narrowed his eyes. “You meanOleander?”
“Go see for yourself,” Yves said. Laurent opened the door to the spare room, and stared for a solid half a minute.
“Fine,” he said at last, and stalked off toward his bedroom. “Why not?”
“I should check on him,” Charon said.
“Let him go to Sabre first,” Yves said. “Sabre will know what to do.” He strode toward the open door, grinning at what he found there. Raul and Oleander were both kneeling next to the cat, who was on his side with his bandaged paws tucked up and his stub nose running. Oleander looked at Yves, and their awestruck expression shifted to sudden wariness.
“This doesn’t mean I have to like you,” they said, “even if it was…nice.” It sounded like it pained them to say it.
“But he’s so kind,” Raul said, and Oleander looked so flustered that Yves almost laughed. “I don’t know why you have to be so suspicious, Olly.”
Yves was impressed. Raul had managed to say an entire sentence without blushing. Oleander opened and shut their mouth a few times, then whipped back around to look at Yves. “Are you done staring?”
“Not really,” Yves said.
“Yes, we are.” Charon took Yves’ arm and pulled him away. Yves sighed heavily.
“Most doms would let me get a few more words in,” Yves said, as Charon towed him down the hall.
“Yes, but I’m not one of your noble admirers.”
A month ago, Yves would have lowered his lashes and asked,Do you want to be?Instead, he rolled his eyes. Charon wasn’t immune to a dominant’s dislike for backtalk, and he glanced at Yves sharply.
“Oh, my admirers punish me all the time,” Yves said. “I can’t get away with anything around them.”
Charon stopped in front of Yves’ door, as though alarmed by the enormity of the lie. “I don’t think the threat of punishment can stop you.”
“Well, no. I’m experienced in carrying on regardless. It comes from being the family black sheep. If I can survive the punishment of mucking out the stables for months, no amount of spankings can do anything. I’m immune.”
“No one is immune,” Charon said, and Yves felt a ripple of something dark and delicious roll through him.
“Really?” He stepped closer. “And how would you break me?”
Charon went still. It wasn’t the stillness of a man considering his words, or even the easy silence he fell into when Yves joined him on his morning errands. It was cold and tense, like the pressure in the air turning before a storm, and Yves took a wary step back.
“I wouldn’t,” Charon said. Before Yves could open his mouth to speak, Charon turned on his heel and walked away.
Yves stared after him, wondering what he’d done wrong. Charon had always smiled along with Yves’ flirtations before, acting like a large dog playing with the small kitten jumping at their heels. Now, he went hot and cold, following the moves of a complicated dance that Yves didn’t know. Yves followed him for a few paces, but when he reached the door to the spare room, he stopped. Oleander was holding the cat and talking to Raul with a smile Yves hadn’t seen before, and even though Raul turned to give Yves a look full of yearning, Yves couldn’t help but feel distant and strange. He watched the cat purr and tickle Oleander with his whiskers, and reached up to tug on his curls, chasing a touch he’d barely felt.
Four
Charon leftthe House of Onyx, seeking the pale afternoon sunlight. The dark wallpaper inside the house was too stifling, the walls too narrow. He thought he could feel Yves’ footsteps from the third floor alone. Charon crossed the street to one of the public eating houses lining the Pleasure District, and he leaned against the bar while a group of courtesans from the House of Silver waited in line ahead of him.
