Chapter 2

The blond man exchanged a satisfied glance with his partner, then lowered his hand from the wall of blades. “Glad you’re so easy to talk to.”

In a development exceedingly rare in their brutal line of work, the negotiation ended without a single drop of blood being spilled. Of course, after such a terrifying display of unnatural strength, claiming that absolutely nothing had been spilled would have been a lie.

Kosha stared listlessly at his hands, noting the bandages wrapped around his left index and middle fingers, as well as the injured fingertip on his right hand. He had clawed at the interrogation chair’s armrests until his fingernails peeled away. Threatening someone’s life remained one of the simplest ways to expose a concealed Mage, since magical power surged forth in the face of imminent death regardless of the caster’s will.

Even so, calling his current predicament a life-threatening crisis felt faintly embarrassing.

The bloodshed had been entirely his own doing, yet his captors had dutifully provided bandages and ointment. In his naïveté, Kosha wondered whether they might not be such terrible people after all. Then again, it was equally possible they had supplied the medicine only to silence the irritating groans echoing through the damp cell.

More pressingly, the guards appeared genuinely perplexed by his refusal to heal his fingers with magic. Even after pressing a blade to his throat to confirm his identity, they remained doubtful that he was truly a Mage. Beneath their suspicious glares, Kosha secretly curled his lip and continued wrapping his injured fingers with painstaking care. Magic was not some miraculous snap-of-the-fingers trick capable of mending any wound in an instant. Even if such a feat were possible, Kosha lacked the skill to perform it.

Thud, thud.

Heavy footsteps shattered his thoughts. Kosha shot upright and clung to the bars of the cell door, straining onto his tiptoes.

The blond guard appeared on the landing, his complexion mottled, and sighed at the black-haired sentry stationed outside. “His Highness says he’ll see him.”

“For real?” The black-haired man scowled in disbelief. “In person?”

The blond clicked his tongue. “We can’t sit on our hands forever.”

“But what if he’s lying?”

Both men snapped their hostile gazes toward Kosha, and the captive instinctively shrank away from the iron bars.

“I’m not lying, sir,” Kosha stammered, with only his eyes visible above the palm-sized viewing slit. Speaking to the terrifying men who had kidnapped and attempted to torture him was an ordeal in itself. Being confined inside a cramped, dark, damp cell with no prospect of release, however, could force even the most timid soul to dredge up a sliver of courage.

Cut off entirely from the outside world, he had no way to judge the passing hours, though it felt as if at least two days had drifted by. Worry for his abandoned geese gnawed relentlessly at him.

“You have to understand. That medicine doesn’t have an antidote because it isn’t poison.” Kosha’s voice dwindled into a miserable mumble. He had repeated the same explanation dozens of times since his imprisonment.

Although he had begged for mercy and promised to brew an antidote, there was a distinct reason he had never begun the work. The demand itself was fundamentally absurd because the bottle had never contained poison.

Kosha swallowed hard. “It was just a love potion.”

And a badly made one at that.

Fearing his head might roll, he wisely kept that final detail to himself. Manufacturing and distributing unauthorized magical drugs constituted a serious crime, and he had no desire to compound his offenses by admitting the potion had been defective.

“All right, I get it.”

The blond waved a dismissive hand, clearly unwilling to endure another repetition of the story. With no other option, he crossed to the opposite wall and snatched down a clattering set of keys. Clutched inside his broad, hairy fist, even the brass keys resembled lethal weapons.

Kosha hurriedly released the higher bars and retreated into the shadows.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.” The guard stepped into the enclosure. “Don’t even think about trying anything funny.”

Kosha had no idea what the brute considered funny, nor did he possess the nerve or stomach to attempt anything at all.

The moment the man entered the narrow cell, a crushing heaviness settled over Kosha’s shoulders, and his skin prickled beneath the pressure of magical suppression. The blond was almost certainly wearing armor forged from Idelma gold. If the metal affected a Mage this strongly without making physical contact, its purity had to be extraordinary.

Mined exclusively in western Izeland, Idelma gold commanded whatever astronomical price its seller cared to name. Although other substances possessed similar properties, nothing suppressed a Mage’s core as effectively.

Submitting to the tight restraints around his wrists, Kosha kept perfectly still and wondered what manner of master commanded such terrifying men.

Anyone who possessed a dreadful interrogation chamber, a heavily secured dungeon, and a vast assortment of Idelma gold tools stood far beyond the ranks of ordinary nobility.

How in the world had someone of that stature fallen victim to my shoddy love potion?

The thought baffled him. It was every bit as incomprehensible as the fact that such a worthless concoction had caused a potentially fatal crisis in the first place.

After binding him with suffocating tightness, the guards draped a black cloth over his eyes and seized him beneath both arms. Such extreme precautions felt entirely unnecessary. Kosha had no intention of escaping this remote fortress, especially when he knew perfectly well that he had nowhere to run.

His feet barely grazed the stone floor as the two burly men dragged him forward, forcing him to totter awkwardly on tiptoe to compensate for their massive difference in height. Kosha kept his timid objections strictly within the privacy of his own mind.

The winding path seemed to stretch on forever.

Just how enormous is this building?

Its sheer scale felt less like a private residence and more like a royal palace. His stomach twisted violently as the realization crept over him that he had entangled himself with a truly monstrous entity. After barking at him twice to walk straight when he stumbled, his escorts came to an abrupt halt.

Even through the thick blindfold, Kosha sensed the oppressive weight of a heavy door looming ahead. It groaned open a moment later, releasing a pleasant, refreshing fragrance into the corridor, softened by a faint sweetness reminiscent of ripe fruit. The luxurious scent made Kosha painfully aware of his own filthy, bloodied condition.

Before he could sink any deeper into his humiliation, the black cloth was ripped from his eyes without warning.

Wincing beneath the blinding flood of light, he ducked his head.

Confinement in the sunless dungeon had stripped him of all sense of time, but the brilliant rays pouring through the enormous window directly ahead revealed that the sun stood near its midday peak.

The vast room boasted a towering ceiling, while a dark green rug patterned with thorned vines stretched across the floor. Though free of garish ornamentation, the fabric’s flawless sheen and intricate weave marked it as an astronomically expensive masterpiece.

Kosha instinctively followed the rug with his gaze until his eyes stopped dead on a pair of sleek leather boots resting carelessly atop the luxurious fabric.

The blond guard delivered a final shove, forcing Kosha into place. “Brought him, Your Highness.”

“Is that so?”

The reply drifted toward him at a terrifyingly even pace, neither hurried nor slow. Kosha kept his eyes fixed on the leather boots near the edge of the carpet, paralyzed by a primal instinct warning him never to look any higher.

A brutal shove between his shoulder blades shattered that resistance and forced his gaze upward.

Dark trousers led to a navy-blue tunic embroidered with gold thread along the hem, worn by a man of exceptional and dominating height.

“Is this him?” The low, calm voice carried a disturbingly familiar timbre, creasing Kosha’s brow in confusion.

A quiet, derisive laugh rippled through the air, threaded with unmistakable mockery. “Why so timid? Lift your head.”

The soft tone and razor-sharp diction erased every lingering doubt.

Kosha knew that voice.

Spellbound, he lifted his chin, but the master’s towering stature revealed nothing beyond the sharp, branching antler motif stitched along his collar. Craning his neck back as far as it would go, Kosha finally beheld the man’s face, and his eyes widened in naked disbelief.

A sharply sculpted jaw framed features so perfectly proportioned that they appeared to have been carved by a master sculptor. Every line possessed an almost unnatural, breathtaking harmony. Pale golden hair swept across his brow in exquisite curves above gently sloping eyes, shining so brilliantly beneath the sun that it seemed on the verge of bleaching into pure white.

Unable even to blink, Kosha stared at the impossible apparition before him.

He knew this man intimately.

“Lu…” The name slipped foolishly from his parted lips.

Glacial blue-gray eyes stared down at the captive Mage. For one fleeting moment that stretched into an agonizing eternity, silence reigned.

At last, one corner of the man’s expressionless mouth curled into a vicious smirk.

Then stars burst across Kosha’s vision.

For several disorienting heartbeats, reality fractured.

Crack!

The brutal sound vanished beneath the concussive shock rattling through his skull, replaced by a shrill ringing that scraped against his eardrums. His cheek erupted in agony, burning as if it had been pressed against an open flame.

The guards gripping his arms kept him from collapsing completely, leaving him to stagger helplessly in their iron hold.

Warm liquid spilled over his lower lip. At first, Kosha mistook it for saliva, but then dark red blood splattered across the expensive rug. The coppery flood filled his mouth so quickly that he could not even close his jaw, much less gasp for breath.

A large hand cast its terrifying shadow over him once more. With no chance to resist, Kosha squeezed his eyes shut and braced for the killing blow.

“Your Highness.”

Instead of another bone-shattering impact, a heavy voice intervened. Cracking open one rapidly swelling eye, Kosha watched the blond guard seize the beautiful man’s wrist, halting the strike in midair.

“It would be extremely troublesome if you killed him now.”

Without the slightest trace of ceremony, the guard removed two rings from the master’s raised hand.

One was a heavy metal signet, while the other bore a massive blue gemstone.

Had either ornament remained in place during the first strike, Kosha’s facial flesh might have been torn cleanly from his skull.

After slipping the rings from those long, smooth fingers, the blond stepped back, tacitly granting His Highness permission to continue the beating barehanded. Draining pale with renewed terror, Kosha glanced frantically between the two men.

Those exquisitely shaped lips parted. “What would be the point of killing him over something like this?”

The guard tucked the rings away without disturbing his professional composure. “He is a Mage, Your Highness. Their bodies are notoriously fragile.”

Apparently accepting the logic, His Highness lowered his arm, and the violent impulse seemed to dissolve into complete disinterest. His blue-gray gaze settled with faint displeasure on the knuckles that had brutalized Kosha’s face.

An unobtrusive servant, completely unnoticed until that moment, glided forward with a silver basin of water strewn with lily-of-the-valley blossoms. The majestic man rinsed his hand with a few light motions, washing away Kosha’s blood as if cleansing himself of absolute filth. His brows drew together in mild annoyance, yet even his profile during such a mundane act seemed worthy of a Renaissance masterpiece.

“Lucien?” The name barely disturbed the silent air.

Despite the impossibility of the situation, Kosha could not stop the desperate question from slipping through his bloodied teeth.

The blue-gray gaze snapped back to him, radiating a cold and utterly unfamiliar emptiness.

He’s going to hit me again.

Even Kosha’s notoriously unreliable instincts recognized the change. He reflexively hunched his shoulders, drew in his neck, and clenched his jaw.

Thud!

The vicious impact came from below rather than beside his ear. The sturdy inner edge of a leather boot drove brutally into Kosha’s shin, pitching him forward.

At the same moment, the two guards pressed down hard on his shoulders, forcing his knees to crash against the unforgiving stone floor. Their restraint likely spared him a second kick to the shin, but the resulting agony stole his ability to scream, leaving Kosha entirely unable to appreciate their tactical consideration. It felt as if his leg had snapped and his kneecap had shattered into jagged fragments.

“How dare you be so insolent?”

The smooth toe of the boot tapped against his ruined knee. The movement appeared careless, almost idle, yet the slightest pressure against a joint already blazing with trauma sent white-hot agony lancing through Kosha’s body.

“I commanded you to lift your head. You claimed you wanted to see me.”

“Ugh… h-hh…” A wet, pathetic rattle escaped Kosha’s throat.

“How is the view?” Lucien sneered down at the broken Mage. “Does it make you feel like working?”

Trembling violently, Kosha somehow obeyed and dragged his battered face upward. He could not force a single coherent word through his ruined lips.

He knew this beautiful man so intimately, yet the monster staring back at him bore no resemblance whatsoever to the person he remembered.

What in the world had that worthless love potion done to him?

***