Rooks and Romanticide (22 page)

Cain felt a devastation of will. He went rigid in Levi's grip. He contemplated biting his hand, but he was frozen in place. The onset of tears was a cold and helpless feeling he hadn't surrendered to in what seemed like eternity

“I am not an unaffiliated gunslinger,” Levi's unbelievable testimony continued. “I am the last son of Lord Ruslaniv. You are one of the perhaps handful of those outside Ruslaniv walls that know that now. And I assure you, I swear it on my life, that that is the only lie I've told. Everything else has been the truth—”

“
Versions
of the truth!” Cain snarled, but it was muffled behind Levi's hand.

“I am a trained fighter,” Levi went on. There was no plea for sympathy in his voice, just raw and ragged honesty and a fury on his part that was more like self-hatred. He was practically brimming with it. “But like I told you in St. Vincent's, it is not my
chosen
path. I simply want to do as I please, damn it! I want to ‘follow my whims'! I
wanted
to be talking with you, to be visiting with you, to be carrying out the demands you gave me! Alas, I'm tied down by my own name, and I'm tired of it! That is the truth, Cain. This, between us, has
nothing
to do with my family, only me and my own wishes! Can you not trust that?”

He let Cain shove his hand away. But Cain didn't let go of it. Instead, he dug his fingers into it, needing a place to channel the violence he felt inside. “Trust?
Trust
! You throw the word around like it's worth something here! I don't know what to believe anymore, Levi. Or is that even your name? Why? Why did you come to me pretending to need a contract that night? Why have you been working for me? Why should I not kill you on grounds of suspected treason? Ugh, why am I even still speaking with you! You're the fucking
Ruslaniv heir
, the sheltered faceless prince Lord Ruslaniv has kept so protected, and lo and behold, against all logic, you've always been here, and there, and everywhere, a thief in the night, and
I hate you
!”

Strange, how he really just wanted to say
Come back, I need you and your broken promises, the you I know that I know
.

“I'm well aware of that,” Levi seethed, teeth gritted. “I know very well how you feel about my family. But just believe me when I say it was all of my own volition. I needed a purpose in life. When I met you at the masquerade, when you were ‘the Death of the Ruslanivs,' damn it, Cain, I wanted you then and there and didn't even know you were the earl. Did it change the color of the flame of desire once I knew who you were? No! Cain, ask me to do anything for you! I'll become an outcast. I'll extricate myself from my family. I'll be only who you want me to be. You know as well as I do that I don't really hold influence anywhere, so who would mourn my disappearance? I bring valuable insight to the table, love—I'll betray my own family for
you
, all for
you
, Cain!”

Cain dug his fingers deeper into Levi's arms. “Don't call me ‘love,' and don't call me by my name either,” he spat through his teeth, stubbornly. “Levi, you lied to me.”

But he could already feel himself giving way.

The way Levi looked at him… It was harder than he'd anticipated, seeing Levi again. Because God, he wanted to forgive him so badly.

Levi's face seemed to curdle with more guilt. Cain wondered if Levi could see things in Cain's eyes that went unspoken from his tongue. He swallowed, casting his aggrieved glance elsewhere. “You lied to me many times,” he reminded him briskly, then shook Levi loose and retreated into his room.

Levi gawked after him. Surely he was torn between following or staying put. He visibly relaxed when Cain returned to the balcony with his father's old smoking jacket. He crossed his arms to hug it closed. The balcony stone was like ice under his feet.

“This is me, acting on what I want,” Levi husked again, indignant and insistent and penitent, in that swoon-inducing voice like burnt silk, and he was utterly more convincing than Cain could wish. Ah, Levi, even in the throes of heartache, charming and elegant, and so eloquent of a lustrous and angst-ridden longing.

Levi frowned, lashes lowered on those tortured eyes, mouth in a somber line; he straightened up, pressing a fist to the balcony stone. Cain wondered how long he'd lain awake at night rehearsing this, how long he'd fretted over this conflict. But the real wondering was—did he care if it was rehearsed, if it was anything but truthful?

Who had once said hate and love were two sides of the same emotion?

“I want you,” Levi vowed, voice brittle with helplessness. “I don't care that you're my sworn enemy. Mind, body, and soul, I want your everything. Your hatred, your revenge, your cursed name—and if that gets me disowned,
so be it
. If you decide to hate me anyway,
shoot me right here
—like you said you would—and I'll never haunt you again.”

“Levi, the gravity of these things—”

“Cain, you're freedom to me! My need for you is undeniable! It has been from the moment I laid eyes on you, ‘the Death of the Ruslanivs.' Maybe even before that.”

Even before that….

“I have so much hate, I don't know if you understand,” Cain whispered fiercely. “And I absolutely
despise
myself for feeling this way about you.”

Levi stared. Cain fumbled with the sleeves of the old smoking jacket. And then there was the concession. The concession to fate and all its puppeteer's strings, the yielding to honesty and raw, desperate need.

Cain slipped forward to the edge of the balcony. He let his head hang against Levi's chest. He could feel the ridges of hidden holsters, the beat of Levi's heart beneath his militia jacket. His own heart throbbed in his ears. Every emotion rattled through him, one at a time, as if collected in a line. The shock, the distress, the rage, the disgust, the fear, the pain, the pining. The crumbling of an iron will at the feet of what would not change. Anger and pride fell into the pit of longing.

Levi's arms closed around him possessively. Cain stood stiff and rigid against him, but he stretched up and sought his mouth in a firm kiss.

“Do you believe me?” Levi pressed.

Cain kissed him again to shut him up.

“Do you trust the things I say?” Levi begged.

“Yes! Yes, damn it!”

Levi kissed him back then, presumably to keep him from saying anything more and ruining the conciliation.

“You make me so very nervous,” Cain whispered as their lips broke apart, and it was the truth. Levi was dismantling his bruised and battered heart piece by piece, and he hadn't a clue how to protect himself against it.

Levi stared down at him, eyes heated and glassy with words unspoken.

Cain licked the taste of his kiss off the corner of his mouth. Christ, there was nothing he could do about the way this felt, because there was nothing that would win against this natural inclination. There was no denying this intimacy, this need, right or wrong or whatever it was. It was simply there, and indisputable.

He was
content
in Levi's arms. He wanted to be there.

The realization knocked the wind out of him as Levi went searching for another kiss with a hunger that did not waver, open, gasping mouth and desperate hands. Cain shuddered. Levi tasted like metal, like nervousness. And when Cain pulled away for a short breath, his gaze moved over Levi's face, and it pained his heart.

Levi's features bore the pinch of a most lustrous sadness, a brightness to his eyes that threatened to shatter in the darkness of the night. Cain felt a pang of guilt for it, sure, because this was only Levi's frantic quest for redemption. But oh, even in such exquisite unhappiness, Levi enchanted him. That dark intelligence of his, that misleading decorum and the seemingly cunning fox that slept beneath, the stunning, well-bred virility and that beguiling, almost dangerous mystery of his that kept such deep, dark, vulnerable depths of soul protected behind his worst of smirks.

Cain was terrified that petty words would destroy the burgeoning truce, too fickle and unpredictable and regrettable. But Levi spoke, clinging to a tender pride as he whispered in a jagged way, “I was a fool to deceive you.”

“You were,” Cain allowed, folding his fingers on the back of Levi's neck to keep their faces nose-to-nose.

“I've fallen for you,” Levi confessed, with all the feel of an apology.

Cain bristled. Why did those words alarm him so, the same as they warmed him? Why did they make his head light as if spinning giddily, while his heart leapt to his throat in a sick lurch? He wondered if he looked as full of desperate raw emotion to Levi as Levi did to him. It was a lovely sight.

“Have you, now?” Cain husked, and then he smiled because it felt natural to do so.

The ache was deep and sweet in the chest, like all the best songs and loveliest paintings. Levi's need was contagious. Surely their two souls shivered together in the same cosmic continuity, and Cain's fingers curled as he pulled Levi closer, closer, closer yet, but never close enough it felt.

“Please say something,” Levi hissed. It was so discomfiting to see him stripped of his normal strength of character. What many traumas hid behind such a plea?
Forgive me.
What insecurities, what secrets?

“I hope people hate you, because I can't,” Cain croaked. He tried still to pull Levi closer and closer. “I'm livid, don't doubt it, but I can't hate you. I hope your
family
despises you, but don't ever leave me. Just don't. I wouldn't be able to stand it, being alone.”

Don't ever leave me.
Cain was terrified both of the fact and the fear itself. Shameful, but true. Yes, somewhere along the way it had become the truth. It was so uncomplicated and clear, he was shocked he hadn't realized it before. But that was just the art of the soul changing colors, wasn't it?

Levi was silent, nose buried in the nape of Cain's neck. Warm, present, real. His breath was a soft tickle behind his ear.

Gently, Levi whispered, “
Now
I swear by the moon.”

The stars were dim little pinpricks in the December blanket of clouds, and the moon was a soft, quarter-full glow. Midnight had come and gone. The time was nearing one in the morning. The echo of servants bustling in the big Dietrich house had finally settled, the last of the bedroom lights had been extinguished, and secluded on the balcony in the bitterly cold night, Cain chased body heat, clawing tighter against Levi's chest. That was nice.

There was the rustle of clothes and a startled gasp. The stone gargoyle watched as Cain arched into Levi's covetous touch. The kisses were stolen with indulgence and abandon. They made Cain's hips want to dance. And Cain wondered about Levi—about just what had happened to him that made him into such a child at times. His eyes were pools of honesty in the moonlight. He was sarcasm and cynicism transformed, but all the complexities and subtleties that had captivated Cain at first suddenly simplified as Levi buckled under the weight of seemingly tangled thoughts. After all, it wasn't an unconditional and unquestioning clemency. Cain just didn't feel like asking yet. There was reason to doubt anything Levi had said before, under that fabulous pretense of his. Unless in the way of the most effective lies, he had just told the truth, and all the stories of childhood memories and feelings and experiences he'd entertained Cain with were indeed the building blocks of the man he was.

Levi smiled. The flash of innocence was gone. The lusting fiend was back with a vengeance in the sore wake of forgiveness. His hands moved up Cain's legs and gave a little squeeze where he knew it would trigger a wonderful squirm. Cain's stern scowl dissolved into little sighs of defeated delight.

He surrendered. He gave up to the swell of passion and let it infect him, let Levi walk him backward into his room. He fell easily into the collection of pillows on a wide, sky blue daybed, and when Levi's hand dived between his knees, Cain uttered an impatient groan. His toes curled tight. His heart jumped, the desire sparking in all his nerves.

“Leave the lights down, keep them off,” he pleaded on a shivering sigh. “I can't bear the shame of witnessing all this in the light, just let me love you the best I can….”

Fingernails dug into skin the way teeth grazed a lower lip. Knees twitched apart. Levi clawed greedily at Cain's naked chest, reaching up under his waistcoat, under his shirt. He left a trail of hot kisses all along Cain's throat, teasing and pleading until Cain dropped those obstinate defenses and begged for what he truly wanted. Ah, how great was this collision of feelings, to have the son of the enemy in your arms and the foreign taste of pardon on your tongue!

The desire was a burning need, leaving him feverish as he ripped at Levi's clothes, longing for the feel of skin against skin in this secret ritual of theirs that had become so vital. The lovemaking was nearly brutal, an awkward but worthwhile twist of limbs on the daybed, like the drunken, impatient trysts of youth's wildest romance. Tears of concession dried sticky and cold on his flushed face as Levi's fingers prodded and pried into intimately sensitive places. The flesh of an arousal was so torturously sensitive it was sweet, throbbing in long, hot fingers. The swirl of Levi's thumb at the tip of his sex nearly yanked Cain over the edge into the shuddering depths of climax already. God, but Levi drove him nearly mad with the sensations!

It was a culmination and outlet for all their subjugated anger at the world, and a safe place for the knotting of fear and lust and trust. Small scuffles of hands and elbows and knees were nothing but foreplay, interrupted by guilty gasps for breath as wet teeth grazed nipples and the stiff heat of Levi's sex brushed Cain's thigh, tantalizingly close and daunting.