Vane kicked the bedroom door shut, the heavy thud echoing like a gavel. He didn't lead Ren to the bed; he simply backed him against the nearest wall, his massive frame pinning Ren in place. He smelled of rain, gunpowder, and the metallic tang of a man who had been dealing in death.
"Look at me," Vane commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.
Ren looked up, his eyes wide and shimmering with a frantic light. He reached out, his trembling fingers tracing the cut on Vane's cheekbone. "You're bleeding. I thought... I thought they had taken you."
"They can't take what doesn't belong to them," Vane growled, catching Ren's wrist and pressing a hard, bruising kiss to his palm. "But Julian... Julian almost gave you away. He tried to trade my most precious thing for a moment of spite."
"Don't leave again," Ren whispered, his voice breaking. He surged forward, burying his face in Vane's neck, inhaling him greedily. "I don't care about the debt. I don't care about the house. Just don't leave me alone in the silence again. I can't breathe in it."
Vane's hands slid down to Ren's waist, hoisting him up until Ren's legs wrapped instinctively around his hips. Vane carried him toward the oversized leather armchair near the fireplace, sitting down without breaking the contact. He held Ren like a child, or perhaps a prize, his heart beating a steady, heavy rhythm against Ren's chest.
"You want to know where I went?" Vane asked, his thumb tracing the silver thorn in Ren's ear. "You want to know what the 'First Debt' is?"
Ren nodded, his face still pressed against Vane's shoulder. He felt clingy, desperate, and utterly unashamed of it.
"The Blackwood name wasn't built on banking, Ren. It was built on blood. Generations ago, my ancestors made a pact with the families that truly run the underworld—the ones who don't have names, only scars. We were their treasurers. We held their secrets." Vane reached for the buttons of his shirt, undoing them with one hand.
He pulled the fabric back, revealing his chest. Amidst the hard muscle were faint, white lines—jagged ritualistic scars that mirrored the ones on the man in the attic.
"Every Blackwood patriarch pays a price to keep the empire," Vane murmured. "The one who is in charge of Debt Is... My Elder Brother, I settled the account this week. I couldn't hold back killing the ones he put in charge, the ones who hurt you, the ones who dared to come for what is mine. They won't return for a long time. And of course my brother was raged but I don't care you're all I want and all I have my Rose" Vane caraised his cheek.
"But the cost was high."
"The deal from the very beginning of the Blackwood history is that no one should miss with each other's territory, my brother won't mess with mine and I won't mess with his, but I broke it. I would do that for you any day.
"And Julian?" Ren asked, his voice a tiny tremor.
Vane's expression darkened, his jaw setting into a line of granite. "Julian is no longer a Blackwood. He has proven that he is a liability. He has the blood, but he has the soul of a traitor."
The Basement.
While Ren clung to Vane in the warmth of the Master's wing, the bowels of the estate were silent and cold.
Deep beneath the wine cellar, behind a reinforced steel door that even Ren didn't know existed, Julian was no longer a prince.
The "Basement Prison" was a room of stone and salt, lit by a single, flickering bulb.
Julian sat on the floor, his ivory tuxedo now a rag of gray and brown. His hands were shackled to a ring in the wall. He wasn't crying anymore. He was staring at the door with eyes that had seen the end of the world.
Elias stood in the corner, holding a tray of surgical tools and a heavy, weighted whip. The butler's face was devoid of its usual polite mask. In the basement, he wasn't a servant; he was the Master's shadow.
"My father," Julian croaked, his voice raw. "Is he coming?"
"The Master is occupied with his spouse, Young Master," Elias said, his voice as cold as the stone walls. "He has delegated your... 're-education' to me. He wishes for you to understand the weight of the latch you almost opened."
Julian let out a broken, hysterical laugh. "He loves him. He actually loves that boy."
"The Master does not love," Elias corrected, picking up a thin, silver needle. "He possesses. And you tried to steal from his collection. That is a debt that must be paid in skin."
As the first strike echoed through the chamber, Ren, high above, shivered in Vane's arms. He didn't ask about the muffled sounds coming from the floorboards. He didn't want to know. He only gripped Vane tighter, closing his eyes as the monster who saved him began to whisper promises of a dark, eternal peace.