Hallowed Bond (Chronicles of Ylandre Book 2) (6 page)

Sipping Ithan’s idea of a good wine, he concluded his acquiescence was due to lingering guilt over his general indifference to his friend’s attempts to distract him from his melancholy. Riodan grimaced. The wine was insipid and had an unpleasant aftertaste.

It appeared that Ithan was singularly lacking in discernment when it came to food and drink.

The other student dropped down beside him on the floor rugs. It was a balmy evening, and there was no need for a fire. But the stone floor of Ithan’s ground level rooms was too cool for comfortable sitting without the protective skins.

“I think I’ve drank too much already,” Riodan said, eyeing his cup with little enthusiasm.

“It’s only wine,” Ithan pointed out. “The ale was much stronger.”

Riodan shrugged and took another sip. He shook his head and set the cup down. “I’m sorry, I can’t take any more.”

He felt Ithan’s hand on his shoulder, massaging it soothingly. Or was it a caress?

Riodan shivered and eased his shoulder out from under his companion’s hand.

“I think I’d better go,” he muttered. He attempted to rise, but then his head seemed to spin, and he sat down again. “I feel strange. Dizzy…” he complained.

Ithan looked puzzled. “You do? Hmm, it shouldn’t have that effect.”

Riodan stared at him. “What shouldn’t have what effect?”

“Oh, I gave you something for your nerves,” Ithan said with a grin.

“For my nerves?” Riodan frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Just to help you relax. You’re much too tense, Rio.”

Suddenly alarmed, Riodan eased away from Ithan. To his dismay, Ithan closed the distance between them and ran his knuckles down his flushed cheek. It was an intimate gesture that Riodan had never allowed anyone save for his parents. He tried to jerk his face away, but the sudden movement only made him giddier.

Before he could get his bearings, he found himself down on his back with Ithan half atop him. Frightened now, he pushed the other Deir off him. But Ithan only chuckled and, reaching for Riodan’s collar, began to unfasten his tunic.

Riodan tried to stop him, but he found his every movement slowed by the drug.

Though his mind was in the here and now, it felt as if his limbs were not a part of him,

and he could scarcely make them obey his will.

“Wait, I don’t—” His protest was cut off by an open-mouthed kiss. Riodan thought he would retch. He shoved Ithan away. “Nay, I never said…”

He caught his breath when he felt his tunic open up. Ithan swiftly undid his shirt as well, easily evading Riodan’s aimlessly flailing hands.

“Stop it, Ithan,” Riodan begged, his words slurring as the drug relentlessly overtook his senses. “Please, stop.”

Ithan snickered as he worked on the buttons of Riodan’s breeches. “So shy even now. Just let go, Rio. Enjoy yourself.”

“Nay!” Riodan gasped. He felt a downward tug on his breeches. “Leave me alone!”

He tried to pull away but only succeeded in aiding Ithan to lower his trousers farther.

He twisted about and landed on his belly. A mistake he realized to his horror when Ithan laughed and yanked his drawers down, exposing his buttocks.

“For someone who doesn’t want this, you’re quite cooperative!” he heard the other Deir say through the looming shadows over his consciousness. There was a popping sound—as of a stopper eased out of the mouth of a bottle.

As he teetered on the edge of darkness, Riodan vaguely felt something slip between the cheeks of his arse. He vainly struggled against it. Then there was the pressure of entry and the burn of intrusion. With his last ounce of strength, Riodan cried out in despair.

The darkness overcame him at last, and everything faded to black.

Dylen swore as he hurried down to the front door. Who in
heyas
was all but hanging onto the doorbell chain? And why did whomever it was choose to visit at this unholy hour?

He unlocked the door and yanked it open, ready to bawl out his insistent guest. The choice words died on his lips as soon as he saw Riodan. Eyes red and cheeks raw, he stood forlornly before Dylen, shivering quite violently despite the warmth of the night.

About to speak, Dylen noticed the state of Riodan’s clothing. His rumpled tunic and wrinkled shirt were both undone, revealing half-buttoned breeches. As if stricken by Dylen’s examination, Riodan tremblingly pulled his tunic close around him. A terrible suspicion struck Dylen. He quickly ushered Riodan into the house and shut the door behind him.

Dylen turned and gazed intently at Riodan. “What happened?” he tersely asked.

Riodan’s eyes moistened with held-back tears, and he lowered them in abject misery and obvious shame. His mouth quivered tellingly before he mastered himself and mumbled the answer. Dylen swore again. He caught Riodan by the shoulders and forced him to look at him.

“Who did this to you, Rio?”

Chapter Five

Reprisal

A sense of foreboding hounded Ithan Soleri as he made his way down the corridor to his room after a barely eaten lunch. The feeling had been there all morning, almost from the moment he awakened, still affected by his encounter with Riodan the previous eve. It had been a lamentable lapse of judgment on his part, and he doubted his relationship with the other Deir was salvageable. He shook his head in self-reproach.

That had been his mistake in the first place. He should have known better than to presume that he
had
a relationship with Riodan. Or that the handsome Sidonan would easily get over his first heartbreak and take a lover soonest to salve his frustration. Well, the opposite had become painfully clear last night but only after—

Ithan blew his breath out shakily. His meal felt like a leaden weight in his belly.

There was no excusing his actions no matter how much he justified them to himself. Hard as he tried, he could not banish the memory of a horror-stricken, tear-streaked face and dark eyes glaring at him with distrust and abhorrence.

What will come of it
, he wondered uneasily. Riodan was no mere student of ample means but the only son of a distinguished diplomat. Worse, the senior Leyhar was a stiff-necked Deir who would be beyond infuriated by any transgression against his family’s name or honor. At least, that was the impression he’d gotten from Riodan’s descriptions of his sire.

Wracked by guilt and anxiety, Ithan fumblingly opened his door and stepped into his quarters. So caught up was he in his thoughts that his response proved slow when the door inexplicably closed on its own behind him. He whirled around in belated alarm.

A sharp blow to the jaw greeted him followed by the savage wrap of fingers around his throat. He could not even draw enough breath to cry out. Nigh choking in an unforgiving grip, he struggled for a glimpse of his assailant. He found himself staring into a pair of icy, grey-green eyes.

As Dylen Teris’ grip tightened around his throat, Ithan frantically clutched and clawed at the
hethar’s
hands and arms. But instead of loosening his hold, Dylen slammed him against the wall hard enough to set his teeth chattering.

He moaned as pain exploded in his head, back and shoulders. Dylen abruptly released him, and he nearly slid to the floor in a heap. He managed to regain his footing but only precariously, his balance compromised by the knock his head had taken.

Ithan drew a ragged breath, his abused windpipe constricted and aching abominably.

He stared at Dylen in confusion and fear.

“What-what do you want?” he shakily asked.

“
Retribution
.”

Ithan’s eyes widened. Preferring ignominious escape to a potentially lethal confrontation with the irate
hethar
, he darted for the door. But Dylen was faster. He barred the way, grabbing Ithan by the wrist when the latter tried to strike him. He flipped Ithan over on his stomach. Ithan landed hard, his nose and chin connecting agonizingly

with the floor.

Dylen quickly straddled Ithan’s back and, grabbing his arms, twisted them behind Ithan at a brutal angle.

“
Heyas
spawn!” he snarled. “What part of
stop
didn’t you comprehend?”

“Wait, you don’t understand—!” Ithan yelped, spitting out the blood that trickled into his mouth from his bleeding nose.

“What don’t I understand?” Dylen seethed. “That he said
don’t
and you still forced yourself on him?”

“Nay, that isn’t—Aaahh!” Ithan looked over his shoulder pleadingly. “You’ll break my arm!”

“I’ll break more than your arm, dog,” Dylen told him venomously. “I’m going to snap your spine and cripple you!”

“Nay! Saints above, don’t!” Ithan screamed. “I didn’t do it! I swear I didn’t!”

“Didn’t do
what
?”

“I didn’t rape him!”

“Bollocks!”

“I didn’t! I swear to Veres, I didn’t!” Ithan practically blubbered. “You have to listen. Let me explain. Please!”

Dylen glared down at him. He suddenly rose, hauling Ithan to his feet. He dragged Ithan to the couch and roughly threw him onto it. Dylen sat down on the low table before him.

“Talk,” he growled.

Ithan launched into his explanation without further ado, stuttering and stumbling through it as fast as he could, acutely conscious of the murderous gleam in Dylen’s eyes.

When he was done, he was sobbing uncontrollably. Dylen’s icy glare had not changed one whit, and he was convinced that life as he knew it was about to end.

“You had better be telling the truth,” Dylen coldly said.

“I am!” Ithan yelled desperately. “You have to believe me. I swear I’m not a rapist.

I’m not!”

Dylen continued to eye him malevolently.

Ithan whimpered as a strange sensation came over him. His vision narrowed until he thought he was going blind. A weight settled in his chest—he found it hard to breathe, and his heart was virtually galloping. He clutched at his throat, gasping, choking, terrified beyond belief.

*

Dylen did not relent. He had learned long ago to use his gifts to help him tell truth from lie. To know who was upfront and who was operating from behind a wall of deceit.

After all, his well-being sometimes depended on his ability to distinguish the normal and harmless from the sick of mind who gained pleasure from inflicting pain or worse on others.

Not that he made it a habit to force himself into another’s consciousness. He neither enjoyed the experience nor sought to exploit his ability. Indeed, if he could avoid inflicting such an intrusion on anyone, he did and rarely regretted it. But this time, he did not care. Riodan’s shame and anguish remained in the forefront of his thoughts, and he would make the Deir who had done this to the youth pay.

It did not take long for him to summon Ithan’s memories of that night. The Deir

could not resist his command to yield his thoughts any more than he could stop breathing though it felt as if he would any moment. Dylen focused on the images and sounds that played out in Ithan’s mind.

He saw Riodan as Ithan had—lying partly on his side on the skins before the hearth, tunic and shirt undone, Ithan’s fingers unbuttoning his breeches. Riodan pleaded with Ithan to stop as he struggled against the hands that yanked his breeches to his knees.

Obviously slipping into a narcotic-induced haze, Riodan rolled onto his belly in a desperate attempt to crawl away. But Ithan caught him by the hips and pulled his drawers down.

The bile rose in Dylen’s throat as the unseen Ithan prepared Riodan for his taking.

The urge to tear the Deir apart strengthened until Ithan was writhing on the couch in agony, clawing at the invisible hand around his throat that seemed to tighten as Dylen’s rage grew.

Before he lost full awareness, Riodan cried out, his voice laden with such grief and despair that Ithan’s hands stilled. His words were very slurred but still quite comprehensible.

Help me, Dylen! Help me!
Please help me!
Forgive me, Dy. Forgive me… Dy…

Dy… ariad…
forgive me…

Dylen swallowed hard.
Ariad
. Riodan had called him beloved. He was startled when Ithan snatched back his hands as if scalded. He watched the Deir shakily try to pull Riodan’s breeches back up. And he heard Ithan’s disembodied voice.

All right, it’s all right. I won’t… Oh heyas… What am I doing? I’m sorry, Riodan.

I’m so sorry!

Next Dylen saw was a wild-eyed Riodan sitting up and looking down at his disheveled state in horror. The youth stumbled to his feet, yanking up his breeches and fumbling with the buttons.

A hand landed on his arm, and he jerked away and spun around. His features contorted with rage, fear and loathing.

Don’t touch me!

Wait, I didn’t—

Get away from me!

Riodan, naught hap—

Face streaked with tears and heartbreaking sobs spilling from him, Riodan shoved Ithan away and lurched toward the door. He opened it frantically and fled the apartment, ignoring Ithan’s pleas for him to listen.

Dylen abruptly withdrew from Ithan’s mind and released him from thrall. The student slumped into a heap on the couch, gulping in air greedily. He looked at Dylen with streaming eyes, wiping blood and mucus from his nose with a shaking hand.

“Do you believe me now?” he managed to croak.

Dylen glowered at him. “You’re very fortunate that you were telling the truth.” He ignored Ithan’s blanched countenance and rose to his feet. “Stay away from him.”

The student forced himself into an upright position. He dared to meet Dylen’s eyes.

“He wouldn’t have been with me in the first place if you’d given him what he desired,”

he mumbled.

Dylen looked at Ithan incredulously. “What?”

Ithan gulped but pressed on. “I tried to deny it to myself, but I knew I was just a

substitute. And not even for anything more than company. It’s you he really wants. But if you don’t give in to him, this could happen again. He’s fortunate it was I who was with him.”

Dylen took a threatening step forward, prompting Ithan to back into the corner of the couch in fright.