by Shannon West
Janos had put a stop to the payments when he was released, but every month the Tygerians threatened and badgered him until he thought he’d go mad. What they really were after was his signature on their peace treaties, and he had already refused over and over. He’d keep on refusing, no matter how much pressure they brought to bear. It wasn’t that he intended to start anything up again, but for him, the war wasn’t over and never would be as far as he was concerned. He’d keep on refusing because he hated them with every fiber of his being. Not only because their Bloody Prince had killed his beloved father, but because the war destroyed many of his people. And then there was the unspeakable things they’d done to him personally in that prisoner of war camp. They had raped him and brutalized him when he’d been not quite sixteen years old.
Remembering all that had already put Janos in a foul mood when he came out of the feasting hall, and then he was immediately confronted by the sight of a handsome young Tygerian male kneeling in chains in the great hall. He had to blink a few times to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
Tibiel had appeared out of a side corridor calling his name. “Janos! Come now, brother,” his lilting voice called from behind him. “I expected more of a reaction. You wound me. Don’t you like your surprise present?”
“My…what?”
“Your surprise! For your Naming Day. He’s your gift from me. A bed slave for your enjoyment!”
Janos turned incredulously toward him, and Tibiel laughed again. “You need a bed slave, and this one is perfect. He’s a gorgeous boy and just think how you can show him who’s boss in bed. Oh, come now, Janos, he’s Tygerian. Think of all the frustrations you can take out on him! The revenge! I’ll even loan you the flogger I use on my slaves.”
“Is this some kind of joke, Tibiel?”
“Certainly not! I thought you’d like the idea of a little harmless vengeance.”
“Harmless, Tibiel? He’s little more than a child.” He had turned to look down at the boy then, and he was momentarily stunned by how beautiful he was. He’d forgotten that about the Tygerians—had blocked it out in a haze of hatred for the species. With his long red-gold hair and those blazing amber eyes, he was strikingly handsome. The moment the boy raised his head to look up at him, Janos had seen how young he was as well. He couldn’t have been much older than fifteen or sixteen, despite the set of his broad shoulders and the arrogance that fairly radiated off him. He was a magnificent creature, sleek with muscles and physically intimidating. His skin had the fresh, dewy look of youth and his eyes—they glowed with expression and emotion.
Janos knew the young man was frightened—much the way Janos had been when his father was killed and he’d been separated from the other captive soldiers and carted off to Tygeria to wait out the rest of the war in the notorious prison camp, Beatik. He’d been young then too and already traumatized after witnessing firsthand the brutal and bloody death of his father. But most of the guards had shown Janos no mercy, no regard. Only one had been kind to him…or so he thought.
It was mostly because of that man, that guard in Beatik that he learned to despise the Tygerians and everything they stood for. But he couldn’t think about that without getting ill again. He moved down the corridor to his room, outpacing the courtiers who would have accompanied him. Thoughts of Tygeria chased him to the sanctuary of his bedchamber.
He had almost been worked to death on that world, busting up rocks to build their roadways. Not to mention freezing to death in the cold, damp climate, the temperature unchanging from day to day, because like his own planet, Tygeria had no tilt in its axis; therefore, no change in seasons. But whereas the days on Laltana were always warm and sunny, Tygeria was dreary with a thick cloud cover, and he’d never been able to get truly warm. The guards provided the prisoners with one, thin blanket and a slab of wood with a sparse covering of foam to lie on to get them off the stone floors. Most nights he went to bed shivering, his arms and back aching with pain from the constant swinging of the tool he was given to break the rocks.
He and the other prisoners had worked relentlessly from daybreak to dusk on endless rebuilding projects in bombed-out sections of the capital city while the guards displayed a casual cruelty to the prisoners that was ruthless and uncompromising. There was very little food and much of that was rotten and filled with insects. He had lost over twenty kilos while he’d been imprisoned, but many had lost more than that.
It was even worse for him in some ways because of his royal status. They took it out on him in a thousand petty ways, spitting in his food, “accidentally” kicking his urinal over and then making him mop it up, tripping him when he marched past them in the halls on his way to his work assignments, and a host of other minor cruelties that made his life miserable on a daily basis. He endured it all, but it had left its mark on him in bitterness and despair. And the one Tygerian who did show him kindness proved to be the worst one of all. The one who betrayed him most cruelly and who had almost killed him.
When Janos first saw the Tygerian boy in the hall, and he’d raised his handsome head, his resemblance to that man made all the humiliation and hatred and abuse come rushing back, and he’d taken his own petty vengeance out on the boy by insulting him. He was ashamed of that now, because his father had raised him to be a better man. He had looked back down at the young Tygerian on his knees in front of him and taken a deep breath. When the boy looked back up, he saw that the resemblance really hadn’t been that striking. This boy was far more beautiful. He cleared his throat and tried again.
“What’s your name, boy?” he said, speaking to him in his own language. He hadn’t been sure he’d remember the language since he’d tried so hard to block out everything that reminded him of the godsforsaken Tygerian planet, but the words came back with a fluency that stunned him. Still, the boy looked up at him sullenly, his exotically tilted amber eyes flashing at him. Again, Janos noticed the resemblance to the one who had betrayed him was only passing. It was simply the color of the hair and the eyes that had reminded him. Instead there was actually a striking resemblance to another man they called the Bloody Prince. Mikos—the man who had killed his father, and left him lying bloody on the battlefield. Sudden, cold, implacable fury had taken over then.
“Are you deaf? Don’t you understand your own language? Or are you simply displaying the infuriating obstinacy the Tygerians are so well known for?”
The young man flashed one look up at him from those remarkable eyes and then turned his head away with a look of regal disdain. It almost surprised a laugh from Janos. Who did this boy think he was? His profile as he turned it to Janos had the look of the king and his son Mikos as they appeared on the Tygerian seal and all of their coins. Janos had first seen Mikos from a distance of half the length of the Helios battlefield as he fought to go help his father, but kept getting pushed back by the defending forces. He’d gotten one clear glimpse, though, as the crowd parted and Mikos raised his arm to cut his noble father down with his bare hand tipped with lethal claws. In that moment, he was feral, half transformed into his beast and absolutely, terrifyingly beautiful. Like some kind of avenging god.
He’d seen Mikos once again, years later, just before he’d been released from the Tygerian prison, but he’d been in such a state he barely remembered much of that meeting except his bitter, implacable hatred for everything and everyone associated with the planet.
Janos had to fight against the urge to take a step back from this young boy who had that same look. It was the look of a predator, who might be in chains before him now, but who was far from surrendering.
This boy was already quite tall. Janos estimated that he would be close to two hundred centimeters tall when he was standing. There was some truth to the idea that all the Tygerians had a similar look with their big bodies, their red hair and strong features. Could that account for the strong resemblance to the Bloody Prince? And yet…there had been reports filtering in from Tygeria about a missing prince. One of Davos’s large br
ood of sons. Could this boy be that prince? Was it possible? Could the Bloody Prince’s own brother have literally fallen into Janos’s hands? And if this were truly him, what should he do about it? He’d waited a long time for revenge, and now Tibiel, of all people, had laid the possibility in his lap.
Which begged the question, what role had Tibiel played in all this? Had he arranged to kidnap the child or had he merely taken advantage of an opportunity he stumbled across? It would take a great deal more thought and more investigation for Janos to figure it out. And in the meantime, he had to feign ignorance and could do nothing that might play into whatever baroque and twisted plot Tibiel had formed against him.
He had long known Tibiel had no brotherly regard for him. There was a difference of only a year in their ages, yet they had never been close. Tibiel had thought Janos dead, along with his father and had taken the throne. When Janos, the rightful heir had unexpectedly returned, Tibiel had been devastated.
He’d had no choice but to step down—the council had demanded it. And Janos had tried to make the transition easy for him. But no matter what he had done, it hadn’t been enough. Tibiel’s bitterness and humiliation at being asked to give the throne back to the rightful heir wasn’t at an end, and Janos thought it never would be. Tibiel would continue to undermine him whenever possible and turn his people against him, wherever and whenever he could. The enmity between them was strong and real.
So, in order to keep up in this game Tibiel was playing, and because he’d made himself a promise to show nothing but cruelty to any Tygerian ever again, Janos had sneered at the young man. As for his brother, Janos told him, “Enough. Your gift is not welcome to me. Take this child away and keep him out of my sight.”
Then as he began to turn away, the Tygerian surprised him by spitting at his feet. He turned incredulously back toward him and the arrogant little bastard let him have it, giving him a lot of sass, and calling Laltana a “piss-ant” planet, whatever that was. It was derogatory, of course—he knew that.
All in all, it was an extraordinary speech, considering the boy’s plight. Janos found himself almost amused and definitely angry by it. He exchanged a few more words with the boy, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He had to admit he admired the boy’s courage, but he presented a challenge to him. One that he felt compelled to take.
Thus, instead of putting this chess piece back into play and firmly back on his brother’s side of the board, he’d lost his temper and told the guards to take him to his rooms so he could exact a little revenge. It was petty of him, and he’d regretted it almost as soon as he left the hall.
Tibiel’s lips had tightened and he’d turned on his heel and stormed away, leaving the courtiers and hangers-on whispering behind him. The guards had dragged the boy to his chambers, and at last Janos was free for a moment and so he could examine the strange feeling of pain in his chest. He was afraid it was sympathy for the young man who had become a pawn in this struggle between brothers, and he could not—must not—feel any sympathy for a Tygerian. None of them had ever shown him any mercy.
When he’d first come back to his rooms, he had been planning on humiliating the boy, and the boy had inflamed him further by taunting him. That provided him with an excellent opportunity to make the boy forget himself and get an erection once he saw Janos naked, and he might even forget himself enough to touch Janos inappropriately. Then Janos could have him whipped like the Tygerian animal he was. Luckily, one of the guards had called for Kelan to help him communicate with the boy and Janos had come back in and overheard a part of their conversation. The boy’s name was Bastion, he’d said and Bastion’s words to Kelan had brought back all that pity for the boy, and worse. It had made Janos feel ashamed.
Bastion had expressed a sadness and yearning for home, and angrily said that he hadn’t asked for any of this. The truth of that had seared into Janos’s soul. The boy was young, frightened and far from home—just like he had been all those years ago. If he wanted to be a decent person, and the man his father had always wanted him to be, Janos would have to make sure Bastion was well treated until he could figure this out. Just because Janos himself had been treated barbarically in Tygeria didn’t mean he had the right to perpetuate the crime.
He put it from his mind and lay back on his bed to sleep, trying to ease the headache that was teasing around his temples. He hoped he wouldn’t have nightmares about the prison and cruel, amber eyes watching him from the shadows again. Though the idea of revenge was tempting, he knew only too well what his father would have thought of the idea. The next move was his, and though he lay awake for another hour or more, in the end, Janos still had no idea what he ought to do.
Chapter Four
Over the course of the next few weeks, after his strange meeting with the king, Larz’s life didn’t vary a great deal. He was confined every day to the small stone room in the slave quarters and was only taken out to bathe each day or to “take exercise” in the evenings in a small courtyard nearby. Kelan jabbered at him constantly both in his language, which he’d told Larz was called Herkon, and in Earthan.
Every day he tried to teach Larz some new Herkon phrases and gradually, Larz learned a bit of it. Larz had never been much of a scholar. In fact, he’d hated his school work and he and Nicarr had spent most of their days trying to get out of anything that resembled learning. By necessity, however, he was beginning to understand more and more of the Herkon language.
His omak had tried valiantly to teach him languages once. He’d also tried teaching Larz and his brother, Nicarr about things like History, Science, Mathematics, Language and Music, bringing in various tutors to try and pound it into their heads. But they cared much more for the Games and sports, and they were highly resistant to any efforts of Blake’s to make them more civilized. Both he and Nicarr had aspired to be warriors like their brother Mikos, and their father, who were both fine with the notion. It was only their omak who fought them on it and loudly complained about his father’s efforts to put him in the training camps that all young Tygerian males attended almost as soon as they reached puberty. Blake claimed the boys had no need to learn how to fight since the war had finally come to an end once Mikos married Ryan. The fact that Tygeria was a warrior society meant less than nothing to him.
When Davos used that argument he’d shrugged and said, “You’re the king. Change it.”
In all the time since he’d hit puberty, Blake’s attitude toward training had kept Larz from being sent to a camp like his brothers had been. That was why Larz had been older than all the other boys on the ship when it was attacked and hijacked by the slavers. It was probably why he’d been separated from them, though the youngest of them, Altor, only ten cycles old, had clung to Larz and begged him to stay with him and cried for his omak. He wondered where Altor and the others were now, and knew it was probably better that he didn’t know. He had made a private vow that he would track down each and every one of the kidnapped boys if—when—Mikos and his father finally came for him. He wouldn’t rest until he did.
Those were his thoughts on the good nights at least. On the bad ones, he tortured himself with the idea that his family might never find him, and he’d spend the rest of his life on this alien world as a slave. He forced himself to remember how Blake had gone after his brother Vannos, even though King Stefan had forbidden him to set foot on the planet he had been held on, and he’d not only found Vannos, but made King Stefan let him stay for a while to make sure Vannos was happy. He’d been there when his other brothers Anarr and Derrick had needed help too. He never gave up, no matter what, regardless of how much Father yelled at him, and when Larz remembered that, he became hopeful again that somehow Blake would find him too and take him home.
In the meantime, he was trying to learn the Herkon language, rather painstakingly, and he wasn’t sure why Kelan had been so kind to him. When Mikos and his father found him, he would make sure they rewarded Kelan for the little things he’d done to make Larz’s life e
asier. Exercise every day, for one thing, and even allowing him to bathe on his own, after that first, horrible time. Things could have been so much worse and Larz knew it, though he was still wearing the hated collar and cuffs of a slave, and each night he was chained to the wall, with just enough chain length to allow him to use the bucket in the corner and to get a cup of fresh water if he wanted it.
He had seen no more of the king, and even the dark-haired man had not shown his face since that first night. He wondered if that was significant, or if, since the king seemed to hate him, they would simply leave him in peace.
He tried to ask Kelan that question one day when he was eating his midday meal. Kelan had accompanied the young slave girl who brought his tray to him and sat down to smoke a pipe while Larz ate. He had taken to doing that on occasion, and Larz wasn’t sure why. Perhaps his lack of conversation was restful. At any rate, on this day, he decided to try to ask some questions about his fate, using some of the Herkon he’d learned, along with some Earthan sprinkled in liberally to help out.