Tears of the Neko (23 page)

Refusing to answer, Kayden just cast his gaze
down to the floor.

"That bastard," Garin growled, as he stomped
back over to his chopping block. "He's a meddlesome pain in the
ass." He flung his hand, gesturing at the kitchen. "Constantly
throwing his weight around. Today, he even came in bringing a whole
cartload of extra servants to help prepare and serve dinner for
tonight's party, as if we don't already have enough servants around
the place. I'm tripping over them all!"

Kayden smiled slightly at the garrulous chef,
watching from his corner as they all bustled back to work for the
night's dinner party. He felt slightly less panicky as he was
settled by the familiar harmony of the kitchen noise.

It was several hours later when Kayden
finally made his way to his room to dress for the dinner party. He
felt his trepidation returning as he thought about spending the
evening at his master's side in front of a mass of people.

Kayden couldn't help but feel a little
resentment at the way his master had treated him earlier. But he
sighed as he dressed in his black silk dress pants and a nice
cotton shirt for dinner. Maybe he had allowed himself to feel too
comfortable around his master to expect him to listen. He was still
a slave, maybe that's all he would ever truly be to Damien.

Kayden felt tears slip down his face as he
remembered the feverish kisses of his master's lips and the gentle
caresses of his master's hands. He'd truly believed that his master
had loved him.

Now Kayden's heart ached, because he knew he
loved his master with everything he had.

****

As he met his master in the dining room, he
couldn't bear to look at the face of the man he loved. Damien
seemed relaxed amongst his friends, seeming to have forgotten their
argument earlier.

Kayden hovered in the corner as Damien
approached the head of the table and then followed the man to his
chair. The scents in the room overwhelmed him, and he wrinkled his
nose as he gracefully sank to his knees next to his master's
chair.

There was so much noise and chatter amongst
the guests that Kayden didn't even try to listen to any of it. He
focused on staring at a spot on the floor in front of him.

Then he felt the firm hand against his head.
A soothing pet, caressing. He glanced up at his master and was met
with a warm, loving smile.

"Feeling better?"

Kayden felt himself melt under the warmth of
his master's gaze. Maybe it didn't matter if Damien believed him
about his brother. It made sense that Damien would feel some
brotherly love towards the Marquis; after all, he had known Roman
all his life and Kayden only for a few weeks.

Kayden nodded with a slight smile, silently
forgiving his master for not believing him, vowing to leave his
anger and simply avoid Roman as much as he could. Surely, now the
Marquis would be less likely to bother him.

"Good," Damien smiled back, rubbing behind
his ears. "I'm glad." He turned to the table and his guests. "Let's
eat then."

Kayden watched Damien nod to the human
servants in the room, who stepped forward to remove the domes over
the plates that were keeping the food warm.

"Ahh, my favorite," Damien sighed.

Kayden briefly heard Harrison joke with
Damien and Oliver, before his senses were assaulted with the odd
smell of bitter almonds.

His nose twitched, his ears pricking forward.
Something was off. He sniffed the air again. That smell. He'd
smelled it before. When Theo had put down that human slave.
Poison.

His eyes darted to Damien's plate, widening
in fear as his master lifted a fork full of veal towards his
mouth.

Instinctively, Kayden hissed, launching
himself onto the table without regard as to what might happen. He
had to keep Damien from eating that food. Rage at the thought of
someone trying to kill his master boiled through him as he swept
Damien's plate off the table, causing it to crash on the floor.

In the next second, he instinctively swiped
at the forkful of food hovering near his master's mouth.

"Fuck!" his master cursed in shock and pain,
pushing backwards.

Kayden saw blood on his master's cheek and
realized he'd caught Damien with his claws.

"Get him!" a voice roared amongst the
panicked guests.

"Oh, my god!" screams echoed around the room,
overlapping in a cry of panic "He's trying to kill the duke!"

"He's crazed!"

"The vicious thing just attacked his
grace!"

And Kayden abruptly saw the guard captain
grabbing his master and pulling him away from the dining room,
issuing orders to his subordinates.

****

Damien stared in shocked horror at Kayden
perched on the table, as he grasped at his bloody cheek. The boy
looked feral, wild.

"My Lord!" he heard Geoff yell, but Damien
felt like he was in a daze, as the captain ordered one of his
guards to subdue the boy with one word. "Nash!"

"Get him," Roman roared, and Damien couldn't
do anything more than gape as the large guard rushed in, wrapping
his thick arms around the chest of the small boy, pinning his arms.
"He attacked his Grace!"

For a brief moment, he met Kayden's eyes
before the boy struggled against the strong grasp of Nash dragging
him quickly from the room.

"Take him to a cell. I'll be there shortly,"
Captain Brenner snapped to his guard.

Damien couldn't move on his own, but felt
Captain Brenner pulling him by the arm out of the room, out of
harm's way. He was still in shock that his loving neko had attacked
him so ruthlessly and publicly. Screams and panic ensued around
him, but he couldn't focus past the fact that Kayden had
deliberately attacked him.

"I think we all can agree that maybe we
adjourn for the evening," Harrison stated loudly over the chaos as
the captain guided the duke easily away from the panicked
crowd.

"Don't worry," Roman patted Damien on the
back, "I'll see the boy is taken care of."

Damien just nodded numbly as Roman followed
the guard that had taken the boy from the room, and Captain Brenner
guided him in a daze towards his study. He gazed at his bloody hand
in shock, vaguely aware that the servants were efficiently ushering
his guests towards the parlor to retrieve their coats.

"Here, sit down," his youngest brother
urged.

Damien dropped into his large wing-backed
chair. "What the hell happened?" he snapped suddenly as John
appeared with a wet rag. Geoff slammed the door shut behind them,
angry at himself for letting his lord get hurt.

He absently wiped at his cheek, hissing at
the sting of the scratch marks, then cleaned his hands.

Had Kayden been that upset and angry from
this afternoon's fight that he'd finally snapped? Roman had warned
him from the beginning that the boy was dangerous, but he would
never have believed that Kayden would turn on him so viciously.

"I don't know," Harrison sighed, eyeing the
scratch marks.

Suddenly, Damien shot back out of the seat,
heading to the door. "I'm going to talk to him," he said abruptly.
"None of this makes sense."

But Geoff grabbed his arm, stopping his
progress to the door. "Sir, I don't think that is a good idea right
now."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because he just tried to attack you. Let me
make sure he's... well, calmer--"

"Shit," Damien cursed, flopping back in his
seat. He tried to remember what had happened, what could have
caused his little neko to snap like that.

"I've got Nash taking him to a cell," Geoff
stated. "We'll go in a bit, after the boy has calmed down."

Even with the argument earlier, Damien
thought he'd seen forgiveness and softness in the boy's eyes as
he'd sat beside him at dinner. Then suddenly the boy was on the
table, thin limbs swiping angrily at his dishes and then his face.
The look he'd seen was wild, maybe even a little fearful.

He felt tears prick at the corners of his
eyes and hastily wiped them away. No, he couldn't be weak. As much
as he wanted to forgive the boy, it didn't matter why he'd done it.
Half the nobles in the regency had seen the boy attack him; if he
ignored the boy's attack, he would be seen as weak.

But his heart still ached at the loss. He
loved the boy, and it hurt to know that his love could attack him
so.

Harrison handed him a glass of bourbon to
calm his nerves.

"It'll be okay, Damien," Harrison began.

Damien suddenly slung the glass across the
room, shattering it on the wall. "The fuck it will be okay!"

John and Harrison froze in shock. Geoff
narrowed his eyes at his lord, shifting his stance.

"Jesus Christ, Harrison," Damien ranted. "I
fucking love that kid. And he just attacked me! What the hell
happened? It doesn't make any sense!"

Harrison exchanged a worried glance with
Geoff. He'd never seen his brother so emotional before. He'd known
his brother cared for the little neko, but hadn't realized just how
much.

"Sir?" came a hesitant voice from the door,
interrupting the thick silence.

Damien glanced up to see the large
brown-haired neko that worked in the house standing at the door.
The hybrid looked anxious, nervous. Damien noticed that his arm was
wrapped thickly in a linen bandage.
Shit, had Kayden hurt him
too?

"Ellis," Damien acknowledged the slave's
presence, then nodded towards his arm. "What happened to your
arm?"

The neko glanced at his arm in surprise,
seeming to have forgotten the injury. "Oh, nothing, sir. Master
Roman's horse bit me yesterday while I was training it."

"What?" Damien snapped his gaze back to the
hybrid, before turning a quick frown at Geoff who also looked
startled.

The neko seemed surprised by their sudden
interest in his injury.

"When did that happen?" Captain Brenner
asked.

"Um, after lunch, sir. I spent several hours
with the horse working--"

"Was Roman with you?" Damien demanded.

"N-no, sir. He left me to do the training
shortly after we got to the pasture. Told me to leave the horse
grazing after I was done, that he'd tell the stable master. W-why,
sir? Should I not have done so?"

"Fuck," Damien cursed under his breath as
Harrison rose to his feet, pacing.

"Roman lied," Harrison stated what both the
duke and captain were thinking.

"And Kayden was probably telling the
truth."

Harrison froze. "Why would Roman want to hurt
Kayden like that?"

"Because he fucking
can
," Damien
growled, angry at himself. "Because even if he did it, there's no
proof except Kayden's word against his," Damien sighed. "And Kayden
is just a slave."

Harrison glared at his brother. "You really
feel that way?"

"No," Damien admitted, "but that's how the
law would see it."

Harrison nodded in agreement, knowing there
wasn't anything Damien could do officially to his brother, even if
he had hit Kayden.

"But that still doesn't excuse the kit's
behavior at dinner," the captain stated. "I don't care how upset
Kayden was with you for not believing him, he can't possibly think
attacking you would be acceptable--"

"Sir," Ellis interrupted.

"What?" Damien turned to the servant.

"I don't believe the boy meant to hurt you,"
Ellis said cautiously.

Captain Brenner narrowed his eyes. "Why?
Everyone there saw the boy attack the Duke, scratched his
face."

"But, sir, I think maybe he was swiping at
the fork in your hand, to keep you from eating. And he accidently
scratched you in his fervor."

"What? Why the hell would he want to keep me
from eating?"

"Your food was poisoned, sir. As I was
cleaning it up, I smelled the scent of the poison that some masters
use to put down sick slaves."

"What?!" Damien and Geoff exclaimed together.
Harrison stared in stunned silence at the words.

"I suspect the little kit smelled it when the
cover was removed and acted to keep you from partaking of the
tainted food," Ellis explained. "It's a subtle smell, I'm sure only
a neko would have picked it out."

"The boy saved your life," Harrison gaped in
awe.

"Shit," Damien cursed in sudden
understanding. Kayden hadn't been angry with Damien; he'd been
protecting him.

Geoff was already heading to the door.

"Where is he?"

"Nash should have taken him to the holding
cells," the captain stated.

Damien shot to his feet, striding to the door
behind the captain, Harrison falling in behind him. "Let's go."

****

Kayden hissed again, showing his fangs
angrily, as he was easily carried through the kitchen, to the shock
and surprise of Garin, Ysmenia, and the other servants. He was
taken out the back door into the cool evening air. The Marquis
pushed past the guard holding him.

"Follow me," Roman ordered the young guard
who was carrying the boy.

"But sir," Nash hesitated, "Captain Brenner
told me to take him to the cells."

"And I'm telling you to come with me," Roman
snapped. "I'm taking care of this brat's punishment myself!"

Kayden felt the man hesitate only a second
longer before the man followed the marquis toward the slave yard.
Kayden felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest at the thought
of Roman doing something to him again. The man would probably kill
him this time.

Kayden's only thought as he had caught the
surprised eye of his master before he was yanked out of the dining
room was that at least Damien was safe. He hadn't eaten any of the
poison. Even if it cost Kayden his life, he knew it was worth the
accidental scratch he'd caused his master to keep Damien alive.