Chapter 19: Late Night Encounters.

Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Late Night Encounters.

"Hey!, you can fucking get that thing away from me," Khobi growled aggressively as the knife blade scraped uncomfortably close to his jugular yet again. It wasn’t his first complaint on their little excursion and wasn’t going to be his last but truth be told, it was like talking to a fucking brick wall when it came to this guy. He hadn’t said a single word on their hike back to his room –well, at least nothing that wasn’t ’shut up’ or ’don’t try that again’.

Twice, Khobi had tried to make a break for it, but somehow Vogrid had been anticipating it, and the first time, simply caught him by the arm and pulled him into an impromptu and thoroughly uncomfortable headlock for about two floors –and the second time, he’d barely moved, just stuck a foot out and tripped him like a goddamn child and let him plough face-first into the ground. No amount of shoulder barging or twisting seemed to have kind of effect.

It was infuriating.

And no, Khobii was not sulking, not in the least.

...At least whenever Montrel caught him, he could always get a few good blows in edgeways and pay him back for the humiliation of being hauled back to his room like a deserter being escorted to the noose –but this guy. He catches him once –just like that?? Like it was nothing? And then he goes and leads him along with all the airs of a long-suffering guardian dragging his unruly child away for a time out.

How undignified.

Khobi would have really liked to head-butt the guy, see how he liked that. Maybe that would knock the bored, self-righteous look off his face.

And it wasn’t that he hadn’t tried.

It was just that...well, Vogrid had dropped back a step when he’d tried --almost like he’d been expecting it --and Khobi’s momentum had spiralled him into a very intimate moment with a nearby wall. Not to mention, the guy had even had the nerve to glare at him reproachfully, as though he ought to know better.

Bastard.

"Let me go," Khobi growled for the umpteenth time.

"I’m insulted that you think I would allow that," Vogrid replied haughtily –at least deigning to reply this time.

" –tsk...then could you loosen up?" he snapped in irritation, glancing over his shoulder rather pointedly to how his arm was pinned uncomfortably in the centre of his back, "I’m not a fucking animal."

"That remains to be seen."

If he thought it would have been any use, Khobi would have dug in his heels. If it had’ve been just one of his guards, he might’ve taken him on. But at the same time, it said something about Vogrid that he was the only person responsible for him at this moment. He wondered, just a little, (and ignored the small pang of excitement at the thought) what it would be like to fight him.

A real fight. One-on-one; sword-on-sword, testing their mettle in a ring –not, of course, like the bloody massacres he’d been thrown into in Silas’s Trash Pit –but like the ones he’d watched in awe when he was little, the kind where it was just two soldiers crossing blades to test themselves, or where swordsmen came from all over the land to prove their worth and their strength.

He wondered, more than a little wistfully, what that might be like. And then his brow furrowed darkly and curled into a scowl. No doubt he’d be stronger than this Vogrid bastard.

In fact, he was just about to give the asshole a piece of his mind, or at least a couple of strongly-worded complaints, but something else broke the silence first; an unfortunately familiar sound –something hushed, and pleasured. The kind of sound that no grown man, whether they be from castle, city or village, couldn’t recognise –the kind found in shady alleys and dark corners and hidden haylofts.

And, from the irritated noise that his captor made, it seemed that he too, knew exactly what sort of mischief was going on in a secluded corridor up ahead.

He made no move to stop though; each step still long, and stiff and even, and Khobi was forced to mirror him and try to somehow block out the small gasps of pleasure that were getting louder with each step. He grimaced. How many goddamn times had he heard those sorts of whispers (and worse) from dingy hallways and dirty streets in Briyagi?

Too many, was the answer.

But Vogrid did not seem concerned, as though he too had familiar and unsavoury experience with these matters. To say that he didn’t seem bothered was probably wrong, because from what little Khobi had actually seen of the man, it seemed like he was constantly bothered –like there was a small fly buzzing around just out of sight, or like he was holding something particularly unpleasant smelling at arm’s length. But that was all.

Khobi tried to find something else to focus on. The easiest, simplest, least damaging way to deal with these sorts of situations –and something he’d had to learn the hard way –was to just keep walking. To not look –in case he saw something he didn’t want to see, to not listen –some things could never be unheard, and to not interfere unless, when all was said and done –he would still believe that it had been the right thing to do. Sometimes interference was necessary, after all. Sometimes it was worth risking the beatings, and the scars. Better it was him, after all.

Judging from what he’d so far heard of this particular encounter, however, minding his own business seemed the way to go.

And he would’ve. He did, in fact. But maybe it was that he was so inexplicably fascinated by the sound of his own footsteps and the eerily rhythmic echoes they formed with Vogrid’s, that he became all too abruptly aware of when the beats upon stone fell out of time.

For the first time since they had set foot outside the throne room, Vogrid’s even pace wavered. It was slight, an uncertainty in his stride that Kagami heard –and felt, in the slight jerk of his arm and the tension in the blade against his throat, a pause that could only be called hesitation. And for a moment there, in the briefest of instants where Khobi chanced a glance up at his face, it looked like he had half a mind to speak. Just as abruptly though, he seemed to decide against it, and merely kept walking, gaze trained forward, and said nothing.

But it was a moment enough to pique Khobi’s curiosity –a moment that had his eyes flitting warily across Vogrid’s face and then catching sight of something out of the corner of his eye that could only be what had caused the other man to stiffen in his stride. They were merely passing by and the corridor itself was filled with the hazy gloom of twilight, but the scene itself was not an unfamiliar one, and combined with the heightening whimpers of pleasure, there was no way one could miss the outlines of a pair of lovers, or misunderstand their urgent movements. In the dim lighting, the pale skirts of a noble young lady seemed ever-so-bright, and there was no mistaking that they were hiked up over its owner’s hips to reveal a pair of creamy thighs wrapped up over a dark-skinned waist.

And as distracting as such a sight was to a man, it was something else that stole his attention –something else that stopped his wandering, fleeting gaze dead in its tracks.

Blue.

It must’ve been only an instant that they lingered –Vogrid’s strides had faltered almost unperceivably, after all –and yet somehow, all of a sudden, time seemed to slow.

Blue eyes were gleaming at them from out in the darkness, deep and dangerous and scorching warningly –focused not on the face of the woman pressed back into the wall –but outwards as though their owner had sensed their presence and didn’t care for it to linger. Even if the man’s face was partly hidden, even if his grunts were low and muffled, Khobi knew who he was –just as Vogrid had known who he was –and the knowledge sent an unbidden shudder dancing across his skin.

Unblinking, unflinching, the prince’s gaze bored into them, through them, with a sharp kind of ice that seemed so out of place –something scathing, that advised them –advised Vogrid, perhaps, because Loac’s gaze was trained disdainfully and most intently on him –that it was best that he not linger. That it was not his place. That if he knew what was good for him, he would just keep walking and not look back.

Vogrid seemed to understand, because he didn’t linger. Didn’t speak. Didn’t spare a glance.

But Khobi didn’t understand –didn’t understand, how, when Loac’s eyes turned to him for just a moment –one searing, fleeting instant of time –how they could be so blown with lust, and at the same time, so cold. So detached, and yet so hungry, in the starving sense of the word, like there was an emptiness lingering deep within him that craved and craved, but could never be filled.

Ravenous.

Disgust coiled low in his stomach –the kind of disgust he usually reserved for the kind of greedy men with lecherous eyes who saw others as things to be used for their pleasure –the kind of men that Khobi had always refused to be owned by. So with heat, he leered back, his lip curled and his body defiantly taut –because from all he’d seen, and all he’d felt, and all he’d come to know of this prince, he might as well be one of those men. And he had no intention of ever being a body to fill that void.

And then, after that mere split second had dragged on for what felt like a lifetime, Khobi felt Vogrid’s hand clench more insistently around his trapped wrist, and the world began to spin once more. With a soundless snarl, he snatched his gaze away, and from the corner of his eye watched hazy blue eyes recede back into the gloom like some infernal creature fading back into slumber. But, like it always did, the weight of his gaze remained, and despite the chill of the stone licking at his feet, an uncomfortable heat took up residence on Khobi’s skin and made him want to squirm. Of course his captor would never allow such a thing –his grip tighter than before, and his steps brisker. And when Khobi chanced a glance at his face to snarl at him for almost tripping him, he was caught off guard by the ice he was met with.

If he thought before that he’d appeared stern, now he was forced to admit that there was something formidable about the man. It was in the way his proud emerald eyes had hardened, boring holes into the nothingness at the end of the hall, and the way his lips were pressed into a thin line of barely concealed discontent –as though the heartless, unspoken exchange with his prince had left a sour taste in his mouth.

He cleared his throat.

"It’s late," Vogrid announced aloud, almost to himself, the shady corridor and all the dirty deeds it held beginning to fade into obscurity behind them. But his voice carried rather scathingly in the empty corridor, and it pierced the night with its own kind of darkness. And maybe Khobi saw those emerald eyes glint with tangible scorn, and something that may or may not have been rebellion.

"Princes and young ladies should be in bed."

He received no response. And, judging from his expression, he hadn’t been anticipating one.

But there had been an odd vehemence to his voice –odd not just because, from what Khobi had witnessed of the man so far, he seemed to favour ice over fire –but because there was something about it, something about his words, and his tones and his eyes, that was not nearly as unfamiliar as it should’ve been, for strangers whose paths had never crossed. And it bothered him, bothered him more than the heavy drag of blue eyes across his skin or the cliché of a prince seducing a noble’s daughter.

Somehow, despite the stone so deep-set in this man’s gaze, Khobi knew that those eyes could burn –like he’d witnessed it before, and narrowly escaped the flames.

In his time at Briyagi, he’d had grown used to the stares. The contempt, the scorn, the dirty lust and all its seedy variants, the smug satisfaction of owning and breaking what your most hated person cared for most. And he hated all of them in their own right. But back down one of his memories there was a glimpse of green. A flash of something hot and bright, haughty and intense in its own right –something that ignited a spark inside him that had felt like relief, because back then, even deep in his heart where Silas couldn’t reach, he hadn’t dared to call it hope.

But there was no way this was the same, even if it had abruptly roused memories that for years he might have sworn were simply just dreams. Those eyes had been different, he was sure –his mind was probably playing tricks –because the ones he had seen back then had held not only a firm, steady kind of ice, but also a touch of something defiant and maybe almost honourable, in a kind of way.

There had been heart there. Determination. They’d been a touch less cold.

Or maybe he was entirely wrong.

Briyagi was a world away, after all, and if it had been anything more than a dream, it had been a long time ago.