Lover, Destroyer Read online

  Elarhe barely kept himself from striking him. The dogs must have sensed it, for their hackles raised and their lips curled back from their fangs. “I’m not yours, and I’m not a whore.” Nearly in tears, he glared at the dogs. “Your hounds can tear me apart if they wish, but you’re not touching me again without my fist finding you.”

  “That begs a witty rejoinder.”

  Elarhe turned to look out the window, blinking. “Let me out.” His voice almost wouldn’t leave him. “Please.”

  “Begging doesn’t suit you. Neither does digging graves. I could take care—”

  Elarhe lunged for the door. Kite grabbed his arm. As the dogs snarled, Kite held Elarhe in place with a brutal strength. Elarhe swallowed his fear. “Please, Kite. Let me go.”

  Kite, gripping him, his face close to Elarhe’s, stared into Elarhe’s wide eyes with his own cold blue ones. He barked a command to his driver. The carriage stopped. Kite held the door open. Elarhe stumbled down out of the carriage.

  “You’re a stupid boy,” said Kite with finality. “A proud and stupid boy. You’ll be undone by that pride of yours ere long.”

  Shaken, Elarhe watched the carriage pull away. A skinny young man with a powdered face and rouged cheeks helped him out of the way of a passing wagon and pulled him off to the side of the street. “Are you in one piece?”

  “I think so.”

  His benefactor shook his head. “You have to watch out for that one. He has some strange appetites.”

  Elarhe sighed. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chapter 4

  Elarhe trudged through the empty wet streets, his clothes heavy and sodden. He was almost to the alley he shared with Squid. A team of four black horses splashed by and a black coach pulled up alongside him. Kite leaned out the open door. “Come out of the damp.”

  Four days had passed since he had seen Kite last. Elarhe’s blood still hummed when he saw the man, but his heart sank. “I’m not what you think I am. Leave me be.”

  “You’re drenched. Don’t be a fool, Squirrel. Get in.”

  “No.” He started walking away.

  Kite swung his cane out of the carriage and across Elarhe’s chest. Elarhe stopped in his tracks. Kite said gruffly, “Get in. I won’t pay you a single coin—I swear.”

  It suddenly became clear to Elarhe why someone as attractive as Kite would have to pay for company—the man had a vile personality. He plucked Kite’s cane off his chest. “That was such a gentlemanly offer, but no, thank you.”

  Kite sputtered angrily. “How dare you refuse me! Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Elarhe’s fists flew to his hips. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Kite tossed his head like an irritable horse. “Let’s see…First Prince of Nothing, Lord of the Empty Purse, Keeper of Lice, Champion of Filthy Trousers?”

  Elarhe laughed. “Oh, sir, if your cock is as great as your humor,” he shook his head, “you must often have trouble finding it.”

  “Stupid boy. Rot in this weather, then. Catch your death.”

  “Probably better than what I’d catch from you.”

  Kite glowered at him through the rain and slammed the carriage door closed. Elarhe heard him shout an order to his driver, and with a crack of the whip, they were off at a canter. Elarhe watched them go with a sigh.

  But then he drew a cleansing breath. He looked skyward and let the rain wash his face. Prince of Nothing. King of Rain. It was true…he was no longer Prince Elarhe of Ayklinn anymore. He was Elarhe, student of the world. And someday, he would be Mage Elarhe. Someday.

  ***

  It rained off and on for two days, and then the weather turned cold. His back and shoulders aching from work, Elarhe sat slumped next to Squid’s box. She sat huddled beneath the crate.

  “It’s going to rain all night.” Squid shivered. “We should get a room at an inn.”

  Elarhe frowned. “We should be saving money. Try to rent a flat.”

  “A flat in the future isn’t going to keep us warm and dry tonight.” A bead of snot slid toward her lip.

  Elarhe wiped it with the cuff of his sleeve. She looked so miserable. “All right. Let’s get a room.”

  ***

  Elarhe paid for a room at the Sleeping Cat, a nice inn near the flower market. They splurged on toasted bread and butter and warm cider in the common room, eating at a table beside an enormous, roaring fire. Elarhe had tasted many fine foods, but that buttered bread tasted better than anything he had eaten in his life.

  Squid had trouble moving around normally; she had terrible trouble while intoxicated. Elarhe swept her into his arms and carried her up the stairs to their room. She giggled the entire time, clinging to his neck. He opened the door and was pleased to find an inviting fire waiting for them. He set Squid on the bed.

  “This room is enormous!” cried Squid.

  “It is.” It wasn’t. It was actually rather small, but it was inside and dry and warm.

  Squid hobbled about excitedly, inspecting the room’s amenities. “Two basins and two jugs of water! And wash cloths! Two of them! And look! We can dry our clothes on this rack by the fire. And we can dry our shoes on this stone. And look! Soft blankets! Real blankets on a real bed!” She rolled about on the bed. “This must be the softest mattress in the world!”

  Elarhe tried it. It was straw wrapped in wool. In Ayklinn, he had slept on a feather bed. “It’s lovely.” He bounced on it. “Perfect!”

  Squid, sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, blushed a deep crimson. Elarhe pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. “Do you feel unwell?”

  “I’ve never felt better.”

  “That’s a relief.” Elarhe pulled off his boots and set them by the hearth. He sprawled on his back on the bed, then quickly scooted over, giving Squid more room than her small body needed. She dropped beside him with a giggle.

  He lay on his side, facing her. She lay flat on her back. Her bosom heaved. Elarhe frowned with concern. “Are you certain you’re all right? Your breathing is labored.”

  She laughed as if he were telling jokes. “I’m fine.”

  “Good.”

  They smiled at each other. She stroked an errant strand of hair off his face, then folded her hands together and tucked them against her chest as if she were hiding something. “I’m going to sleep so hard tonight,” Elarhe told her.

  She giggled redly. He wondered again if something was wrong with her, but didn’t say it aloud this time. He sighed and closed his eyes. Her fingers traced one of his eyebrows.

  “That tickles.” He laughed, swatting her hand aside.

  With a giggle, she stroked down the center of his head.

  He poked her nose and made a quacking sound. She laughed so hard she started crying. He laughed at her. “That cider hit you hard, didn’t it?”

  “You’re so silly,” she gasped. “You’re so silly and sweet and so shy.” Before Elarhe could protest, she pressed her mouth to his.

  Stunned, he drew away from her and scrambled upright. “Squid—”

  “What’s wrong?” She sounded stung. She sat up, pulling the blankets around her.

  He covered one of her hands with his. “I thought you knew—I’m so sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding. I like men, Squid.”

  She frowned at him. “Have you ever been with a woman?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “I just know. Look, I’m sorry if your feelings were hurt, but you’re my best friend here—”

  “You’re a filthy creature!” She sprang out of bed, whipping the blanket with her. She nearly fell, but Elarhe caught her arm. She pulled away from him and hobbled to the hearth and sat there wrapped in the blanket, angrily wiping tears from her eyes.

  Elarhe only felt sorry for her. He skimmed the memories of their time together and tried to see them from her point of view. He could see how she might have been confused, and he could understand her pain. He had fallen for e
nough straight boys growing up to realize what it felt like to want someone and not be able to have them in the way you wanted—even as a prince.

  “You should take the bed,” he said gently. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “That sounds right. You’re a beast.”

  “I’m the same person who’s been friends with you.” They changed places. She refused to talk to him or look at him. Sitting on the hearth, he drew his knees under his chin. “I’m still your friend.”

  But she didn’t say anything.

  ***

  Squid was gone when Elarhe woke the next morning. He stretched, washed his face, and left, hoping to catch up with her and talk. As he trudged through the muddy street in the predawn light, the church bells pealed, signaling the end of morning prayers to the Overfather and the start of the workday.

  He cursed. He was late. He would have to talk to Squid after work.

  He could not, however, put the night behind him. He thought of Squid as he shoveled, thought of what he would say, how he could explain. He had never meant to give her the wrong impression. In all of Darelock, she was his one friend. The thought that he had hurt her, even unwittingly, made his chest ache.

  After work, he walked through the muddy lanes of the garrets to the wet bricks of the merchant streets, then to the pitted cobbles near the flower market. Carriage wheels splashed through the water-filled potholes and added new filth to his dirty clothes. He felt as if he could never get clean in Darelock.

  At one point, he looked up and thought he saw Kite’s black coach turning a corner. Had it been Kite? Had he been looking for him? Was the man obsessed? A shiver went down Elarhe’s spine. At the same time, however, his cock hardened. How could he feel repulsed and attracted to someone at the same time?

  He crossed the street he was on, then darted down the street where he thought he had seen the black coach. He jogged to the end of the street—and there it was! Parked around the next corner. He waited, watching.

  Kite emerged from a flower shop, the bell on the door chiming his exit. He held a bouquet of violets. Elarhe couldn’t help himself and grinned. The thought of Kite with flowers amused him. The next thought, however, singed him with jealousy. Who were the flowers for? While he stood absorbed in his thoughts, Kite spied him.

  “Well, if it isn’t Darelock’s proudest urchin? How are you this fine evening, Squirrel?”

  Elarhe tensed. “I’m fine.”

  Kite walked up to him, smiling coldly. “You look like you’ve been rolling about in a dung heap.”

  “I’ve been working. Doing an honest day’s labor. What have you been doing—buying posies all day?”

  “I’ve been all day in the stacks, researching spells of the darkest nature.” He sniffed the bouquet. “The flowers are to remind me that this often dreary world is also beautiful.”

  Elarhe watched him, disarmed. “The world is always beautiful,” he said softly, slowly. “Even the rain, even the mud. Everything can’t be flowers.”

  Kite’s pale blue eyes seemed to mirror the violets. He gazed at Elarhe as if seeing him for the first time. After a long moment, he broke eye contact, shaking his head. “I need the flowers.” There was no pretense in his voice this time, just something quiet and melancholy. He handed a flower to Elarhe. “Sometimes we need something pure and good.”

  Elarhe took the flower, feeling a chill lick down his stomach as their fingers touched. If Kite asked him into his carriage, he wouldn’t refuse. Kite gave a small sigh and turned away. Elarhe wanted to bound after him, but he stayed, as if rooted to that spot.

  Kite paused as his footman held open the coach’s door. “Good evening, Squirrel.” And then he was in the carriage. The footman shut the door and hopped on the boot in back. In another moment, the driver cracked the whip above the team, and the carriage drew away from the shop.

  Elarhe watched, full of mixed feelings. After a few deep breaths, he turned back the way he had come and headed for his makeshift home. He walked slowly, feeling as if he were under some spell. He twiddled the violet between his fingers, lifting it to his nose every so often. Something pure and good. Night began to fall. With it came the rain.

  As he approached the alley, he saw a group of young men in a cluster. One of them moved slightly, and he saw they had Squid backed against a wall. A surge of rage swelled through him. He hated the way Darelockians treated anyone who was different. He always tried to get back in time to walk Squid to their makeshift home. He feared something exactly like this would happen, and she wouldn’t be able to defend herself.

  He called on his magical red strength. “What’s happening here?” he said in his toughest voice. He doubted he could take the pack of them, but bullies often only needed a show of strength to scatter.

  “That’s him?” one asked Squid.

  She nodded.

  They all turned to face him, hate etched across every pale face.

  “Squid? What did you tell them? What did you do?”

  They were on him before he could even think of running.

  Chapter 5

  Elarhe’s fist connected with a snap against one thug’s nose. That was the last blow he was able to strike. He was overpowered on all sides. He tried to cast a shield as he went down amid a storm of dark legs and kicking boots. Pain assaulted him from all directions. A boot smashed into his nose as another thrust into his stomach. Ribs crunched from a blow to his back. More snapped from one to his chest. He tried to draw into a fetal position as a boot heel crushed his cheek.

  ***

  “I’m sorry,” said Squid. “I was so angry with you. I didn’t know it would be so bad.”

  A little fire of garbage burned in the black-charred fireplace, casting flickering light on the burnt-out house. He lay near the fire on a pile of dirty quilts. A basket of violets wilted beside his head, their fragrance filling him like water filling a cave. Squid tended the fire with a stick. A basket of yellow chrysanthemums sat between them.

  He felt feverish. Squid kept slipping in and out of shadow; focusing on her was difficult. “It’s all right,” he told her. His eyelashes kept sticking together. “I forgive you.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do.” He shifted his weight, trying in vain to find a comfortable position. There wasn’t one. “You’re my friend. My only friend.”

  The shadows around her seemed to undulate like the tentacles of her namesake. He could almost feel them press toward him. Could almost feel them rapping at his bruised skeleton. Heat, hotter than the flames consuming the garbage, burned all through his skin. Giant mouths of pain screamed mutely all over his body. “Oh, god,” he whispered. A moan wrenched from his guts.

  ***

  Elarhe’s own moan woke him. He could feel gravel biting into his cheek, could feel his limp body rocking with each brutal impact. Hurt collided with hurt, creating a confused chorus of agony. He lay in a circle of flying boots. He hadn’t escaped them; he had merely lost consciousness.

  He could hear horses' hoofbeats and carriages clattering by. He could hear buskers a few stores away, one playing a fiddle while the other sang, “Soft Little Sheep in the Meadow.”

  By some small mercy, pain began to overwhelm his body’s ability to feel it. Ice crept up his limbs. The kicks of the thugs softened as they tired. He felt as if the mass of his body had doubled; as if he were growing immovable, drawn to the ground, so heavy. Leaden. The hungry ground greedily sought to pull him down, beneath the cobblestones and into its dark, insatiable mouth.

  The strains of the fiddle took on a marshal sound. The singer bellowed, “Glorious, glorious Grandimanderia! Oh, let me die a thousand times for good mother, Grandimanderia!”

  A wad of spit hit his face. “Piss break?” said one of the thugs. Grunts of agreement were followed by them urinating on him. “This is a good stomping song,” said the piss leader. “We should dance a little when we’re done.”

  “Step away from him.”

  Elarhe strained
, through the blood in his eyes and the rain, to see who belonged to the commanding voice. He could just make out a broad-shouldered man in mage’s robes. The thugs were not obeying him.

  “Don’t you know who I am? Kite, of the Burnt City, Killer of Babies, Collector of Shadows.”

  “You just look like a ponce to me.”

  “I don’t want to kill you, but if I attack you, you will die. Do you understand?”

  A boot landed on Elarhe’s side. The next moment, a deep bass vibration hummed around Elarhe, and his attacker fell, convulsing, beside him. Black sludge emptied from the young man’s mouth. His eyes bulged from their sockets. As those eyes filled with black, the convulsions ceased. The man, tar-eyed, stared at Elarhe. A little more blackness bubbled through his lips, then, at last, he lay still.

  Kite knelt beside Elarhe. “It’s you, isn’t it, Squirrel?” He wiped the blood from one of Elarhe’s eyes with a handkerchief.

  “Yes,” Elarhe managed, his voice, to his own surprise, no more than a thin whisper.

  Kite assessed his injuries with confident, careful hands. “You can’t walk, can you?” He called over his shoulder to his driver, “Wren, bring me a blanket from the carriage and help me get this boy inside. We must hasten to Rabbit’s house.”

  ***

  Elarhe woke from the darkness to the rattle of a carriage. He was wrapped in a heavy blanket with his head on Kite’s shoulder. Kite’s arms were around him. Despite his pain and despite his weakened state, a little thrill went through him. Kite! Kite had saved him! Kite was holding him!

  Rain pattered on the roof of the coach. Elarhe’s head swam with sandalwood and leather. He closed his eyes in drowsy contentment.

  “Try not to sleep, Squirrel. Stay awake. Do you understand? Stay with me, Squirrel.”

  “For always,” said Elarhe dreamily. Kite!

  “Awake!” Kite’s voice was stern, but there was something brittle about its edges. Fear, Elarhe realized slowly.

  Elarhe did his best to obey. He swallowed blood and tried to take in his surroundings. Across from them, on the other two seats, Kite’s two white dogs glowed intermittently in the light reflected off the moonlit, drenched streets that ebbed through the carriage windows. They were huge dogs with long, elegant faces and legs, and deep, powerful chests. “Beautiful dogs.”