12. Trial of Submission #3
“Easy enough, just a gesture to reassure a Kiboan audience.” She held out the last glass to Imalroc.
It wasn’t as if he could snub her. He stalked forward.
Let his shadow hang like a blade across her face.
For all Nolbrathe’s oblivious cheer, some ignored instinct in her must have recognized him for what he was, because her smile flickered uncertainly.
Imalroc plucked the glass from her grip without touching her and backed off.
“A toast—” Rerdas began hastily, and the booker rallied.
“Of course! A toast to a great fight.” She shifted forward, catching herself with one hand on Rerdas’s knee so she could clink their glasses together before swallowing the drink in one go.
Damar took his as if it were water, but Rerdas winced midway through forcing it down.
There wasn’t much taste to it, only a blazing heat that cut a widening swathe down Imalroc’s throat into his chest as he drained it. Nothing mellow about that. He’d take an egg fizz over this metallic searing any day.
“Now,” Nolbrathe said, while Damar collected the cups and whisked them away. “In Kibo, battleboxers who are deemed safe and well-mannered are marked. It’s a great honor for them.”
“The tattoos,” Rerdas murmured.
“Precisely. And in Widran, a necessary reassurance to our patrons.”
Imalroc held his breath. So she wanted to mark him. Make his skin walking signage that he was defanged and thoroughly broken.
“An intriguing practice, but we are not Kiboan,” Rerdas said. “My cousin would not favor it.”
Lady Nolbrathe pursed her lips, but nodded. “I thought you might have reservations, and I respect them, of course, but I can’t allow an unmarked battlebox to fight in Widran.” She glanced at Imalroc. “If you will permit a compromise, I trust it will be satisfactory to us both.”
“What compromise?” Rerdas asked.
Damar brought them another, broader tray. Rerdas took it gingerly, and Imalroc scanned the contents. A shallow bowl, three black jars, and a row of brushes of varying sizes lay beside them.
“This is only temporary, long enough to last through a fight. If you’re able to apply even a basic design, it would put everyone’s mind at ease.
And it’s a testament to your extraordinary command of a fighter we all thought was entirely unbiddable.
” She smiled at Rerdas and unfolded a large sheet of parchment to display the design.
Imalroc hooked his fingers tightly behind his back. Lines of ink choked the throat and spilled down the chest of a faceless figure, looped over and over the wrists, branched over ribs and collarbones. Lines slashed across pulse points and between bones.
“You… want me to paint him like this?”
“He must be marked. From what they say of the Kirinoll champion, he’d never sit still for such a design. But he wouldn’t walk freely at a handler’s back in a market either. You’ve conquered a formidable battleboxer, Master Toriem. You should celebrate it.”
Rerdas’s gaze skittered over the guide image.
“You needn’t do it perfectly. No one will judge your skill with a brush.
” Nolbrathe laughed, but then it petered out into strained silence.
Her smile became a fixed curl at the corners of her mouth, like she’d tasted something unpleasant.
“Unless your hesitations are with the task itself. He would tolerate it, wouldn’t he? At your command?”
Rerdas stiffened, sitting straighter. “Of course he would.”
Imalroc squeezed his own fingers tight and repressed a sigh. Rerdas was clearly struggling to just command him to sit down so he could dribble ink all over him. It wouldn’t really mean anything. Plenty of battleboxes painted him in blood; it didn’t matter that this one wanted ink as well.
Fuck it. He strode to Rerdas’s chaise, nudged the tray to one side with his foot, and sank down to sit back on his knees, his back to the huntmaster. He didn’t like anyone hovering at his back. Best to get that part over with first.
Nolbrathe beamed. “I don’t know how you’ve made him so pliable, Master Toriem.”
If she kept shitting out of her mouth with her breathy flattery of Rerdas’s dominance and control, he might actually pop his fist right into her gleaming teeth. They needed to get on with it before he lost patience entirely.
Rerdas didn’t respond to her. “Let’s get your hair out of the way,” he mumbled.
Imalroc couldn’t answer him with the stupid booker right there. He kept his eyes lowered, his hands limp in his lap.
Gentle fingers sank into his hair, combing, carefully twisting it at his nape. Rerdas was doing something to pin the coil up, but all Imalroc could feel was the sweet pressure of the huntmaster’s hand along the back of his neck.
She was right; he never would have allowed another handler to do this.
“Alright. I’ll… I’ll just get started.” Rerdas said.
With downcast eyes, Imalroc glanced at the waiting tray. Ink or paint or whatever it was pooled in the bowl, and the huntmaster coated a mid-sized brush in the stuff.
The brush pulled from the cap of Imalroc’s shoulder in a steady diagonal down to the middle of his spine. Then back up to connect the opposite shoulder. It left a soft chill on his skin, a welcome respite from the room, which seemed to have grown hotter.
Nolbrathe stood and circled to bend over Rerdas’s shoulder. “You see, Master Toriem? They’ll believe you now. You’ve got him.”
The brush stopped abruptly for a moment against the tense muscles of Imalroc’s back.
He heard Rerdas swallow. The huntmaster laid his free hand against Imalroc’s back, and it was as if he spoke without words.
Silent apology and protest and reassurance pressed into Imalroc’s skin before Rerdas continued mapping sweeping lines over the scars.
It wasn’t exactly unpleasant. Nolbrathe was satisfied with the design’s progress and started prancing further away in the room, calling Damar and a legion of servants to spread the word and prepare the battlebox. Imalroc listened to the flurry of planning. He’d secured the fight. One step closer.
“I’ll be back in a moment, Master Toriem,” she said. “I must send off a note to Master Chesleyan to tell him we’ve secured a worthy fighter to set against Siglor. He’ll be thrilled!”
As soon as she’d gone, Rerdas spoke. “It’ll be easier to do your wrists if you turn around.”
He turned, and the ease disappeared.
He was half-naked and maybe just slightly drunk, and the stroke of the brush over his wrist trailed like a cool touch. Being alone with Rerdas made him feel as though the rest of the world and all its dangers had fallen off some distant edge. Only the two of them remained.
Swaying a little closer, he studied the huntmaster’s lashes shadowing his soft, fine skin, the wink of gold stubble along his jawline, the gleaming bow of his lower lip when his tongue wet it.
His stomach slipped into weightless freefall.
Rerdas, head still lowered to his work, took his other hand. Imalroc resisted the urge to lean in and crush the huntmaster back on the chaise. He wanted to cut open the tunic that hid his huntmaster away from him and trace his own design onto Rerdas’s bare skin with his mouth.
He must have betrayed himself with some faint sound, or maybe with the way he swayed forward, because Rerdas looked up.
The huntmaster’s breath caught, his blush darkening.
Nothing could have compelled Imalroc to lower his gaze just then.
Rerdas stared at him. The brush dripped ink steadily onto the floor.
Imalroc rose fully onto his knees and pushed slowly between Rerdas’s parting thighs.
The shining black of Rerdas’s pupils expanded, devouring the sea-green of his irises.
Imalroc arched a little, watching this man he wanted so badly watching him.
He tried to etch Rerdas’s expression into his memory.
Ink wet Imalroc’s ribs in thin lines, and it was all he could do not to shudder.
Rerdas’s breath spilled across his skin and Imalroc had to close his eyes, which was a mistake, because then all he could see was Rerdas under him in a bed, the valley of his back, his kiss-bruised mouth, the heated silk of his bare skin. This wasn’t fucking bearable.
He looked at Rerdas with hooded eyes. “Almost there?” he whispered.
A shadow of a smile crossed Rerdas’s lips. “Close,” he murmured. “Just a little more.” His gaze slid down Imalroc’s chest, and his fingertips trailed over the places he intended to lay the lines.
Fuck the booker and the entire battlebox.
Imalroc was going to climb on top of him and let Nolbrathe see which of them was really the obliging one.
Except that it was glorious to know that she couldn’t see Rerdas undone that way.
She’d never have him, while Imalroc had him already and would have him again.
Rerdas cleared his throat, took far too long to consult the design, and swamped the brush with fresh ink. His hand wobbled a little as he drew the first angle across Imalroc’s pectoral.
Sensation swam across his over-sensitized nerves with every fresh line. The brush carved rivers of too-brief cold through the molten heat that pulsed in his skin. How was he supposed to fight this? How was he supposed to make himself want to?
“Your neck,” Rerdas murmured. “Last part.” He set his free hand against Imalroc’s neck again, guiding his head back to bare his throat.
Imalroc’s pulse ticked faster. A delicate line of ink trembled into the hollow of his throat. He should be unwilling.
He let Rerdas tilt him further back for another line. He should be terrified.
The huntmaster smoothed a thumb lightly behind Imalroc’s jaw, just below his ear. He might have meant it to be a reassuring touch, but it was like steel striking pyrite, and Imalroc only barely strangled his own gasp. He gripped Rerdas’s legs, too hard.
“Huntmaster,” he growled. “Finish. This is—You’re fucking killing me.”
Rerdas’s chest hitched, but he only nodded. He completed the last few strokes with frantic speed and dropped the brush back onto its tray. “There. It’s done.”