“Yes.”
Chapter Twenty
The adjoining bedroom was simple. There was a double bed, a dresser as tall as the room, a desk and a chair. Nick took no notice of the quality of anything; he went straight to the window.
The light had faded from the sky, giving way to night, and torches lit the courtyard below. A castle of solid grey rock wrapped around the open space like a protective shell; the entrance to the space came from an archway built into one of the castle walls. Despite the time, the courtyard was busy; carts were neatly arranged in a circular shape, and there was an unending stream of kits rushing between them and the surrounding buildings.
“With the Lua being poured tonight, there will be a gathering. It will not be the same quality as you are used to at Vi’s estate, but there will be music and entertainment.” Kit joined him at the window. He’d replaced his gloves and righted his sleeves to cover his skin. Nick wore only a towel around his waist, his back still bare as the salve Kit had spread onto him dried.
“You do not have to attend”—the look he cast Nick said he wanted him there—“but I do think you would enjoy the Lua,” Kit added.
Nick thought about it. “You’re a kind of prisoner, and I’m…a bargaining chip.”
“To Valor,” Kit agreed. “Not to anyone else.”
Like how Desre had Nick kidnapped, and everyone fell in line. Still. Kit wasn’t petrified of Valor, so Nick, for now, would trust that meant he was safe here from the coercion she threatened. “The kits here like you.”
“They will be welcoming to you as well,” Kit said. “I will introduce you as a friend, though they will smell…” He trailed off.
“They’ll smell your musk on me,” Nick finished. After seeing the other kits’ reactions earlier, Nick felt it safe to assume word was probably going around that they were partners. Nick didn’t know how to go about defining what they were, but he knew Kit meant a whole lot more to him than a passing stranger. More than any past hook-up ever had.
“This room is for both of us?” Nick’s attention shifted back to his surroundings. The doors leading in were solid. The desk and dresser could be moved in front of each if necessary.
“I can sleep elsewhere if that bothers you.”
Nick approached the bed, sliding a hand over the silky-soft sheets. “I’ve just, once again, had someone I care about kidnapped in the dead of night. You can use the bed if you want; I doubt I’ll sleep.” And Nick was trying very hard to think of it as more of a rough rescue, since these kits cared about Kit and got him away from Desre. An image of Kit bound and struggling made a more persuasive argument, feeling like a leaden weight in his stomach. “I’d like it if you let me check the window and door of whatever room you want to stay in.” The ineptitude of the compulsion was laughable.
Nick felt Kit’s gaze on the back of his neck but kept his back to him, too full of the knowledge that he’d been, once again, totally fucking useless while someone he wanted to protect was hurt.
“I hoped they would come. I struggled because when Desre asks me, I must be able to say honestly that I fought to remain on the ship and in her service.”
Nick turned to Kit. “‘When?’”
“After I return,” he elaborated.
Nick stared at Kit, floored. “You’re notreturning.”
Kit cast his gaze aside.
“You’re not returning,” Nick repeated, advancing on Kit. Nick reached for him, only to stop at the last second when Kit’s eyes flashed towards his hand. Nick’s fingers twitched, hand hanging in the open air. He dropped it to his side without touching. “Kit.” It was Nick’s turn to growl his words.
“Anna is on board. Mini. The other kits,” Kit said softly. “If I do not return to her, she will turn her attention on another kit until I do.”
Horror clawed up Nick’s throat. But so did indomitable resistance; Kit was not going back to that woman. To that woman with black eyes who could control his emotions. Use him as a tool and leave him a wreck of guilt and shame. “We’ll rescue them.”
“She will simply find another.” Kit’s eyes remained pointed down. Nick wanted to make Kit look at him. Wanted to read his eyes, but he couldn’t force it without touching.
“You’re not going back to her under any circumstance. I’m going to kill her,” Nick promised. The words didn’t come out vicious or bladed. They came out solid. Kit’s admission wormed its way into Nick’s skull, all the way down to his heart, where it caused a bloodbath inside him. Nick knew that Kit had been with Desre since he was a child. Nick also knew what Desre’s attention was like.
“Many have tried,” Kit said ambiguously. “From a distance—by arrow, by poison, by many means. She cannot be harmed. Her power does not allow it.”
“I broke her nose,” Nick said. “Twice.”
Kit’s tail twitched. His gaze slid up. “You are the first. You are the only one I have ever heard of doing so in centuries.”
Cold prickled over Nick’s skin, raising goosebumps over his bare arms and exposed chest. “Centuries?” he repeated. “Did that get translated right? A century is a hundred years.”
Kit’s head canted to the side. “Yes. I do not know her exact age, but she—and the council—have been around for many generations.”
