The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

Kors spent most of the day preparing for the departure. Without changing his habit of doing everything carefully, he spent a lot of time personally checking the carts with trophies, knowing full well that he was unlikely to need all this goodness, and by and large he didn’t need it, because he was a Demon. He was with Nik and Arel, and there was no point in decorating his mansion with luxurious furniture and gold utensils. Kors won’t return there and won’t live there. The past head of the King’s Security Service is gone forever. But Kors, with some inexplicable stubbornness, continued to count and double-check everything, tormenting and tiring Parky and Adrian with endless orders.

When in the evening Kors finally returned to the room, he saw that Verniy had already laid the table for dinner. Nik hadn’t been there yet, but Arel obviously didn’t bother himself too much, and, judging by the pile of gnawed bones on his plate, he was the first to arrive long ago and had already managed to satisfy his hunger. Wearing black leather pants and a white unbuttoned shirt, he sat on the bed, holding a cigarette in his hand. Seeing Kors entering, Arel lowered his cigarette-free hand, raised above the head of Valentine, who was huddled at his feet. Kors realized that alone, the prince amused himself, as usually, by beating his younger brother. But Arel, for some reason, didn’t continue his execution before the eyes of Kors, and despite the fact that Valentine couldn’t see anything in front of him because of the restrictive strip on his eyes, he realized with some inner instinct that his owner was no longer going to beat him. Having relaxed a little, he immediately got on all fours next to the bed as usual.

Kors, without saying a word to the prince, took off his gloves and went into the bathroom, carefully washed his hands, fingers studded with rings, and only then sat down at the table. He was hungry and ate fried quail with pleasure, only from time to time glancing skeptically at Arel lying on the bed, who poured himself some wine, and at his unfortunate slave, diligently depicting furniture.

There were no clothes on Valentine. The skin on his arms, legs and protruding ribs was black and green from numerous hematomas, leather belts crashed into his thin body. They were connected to each other with metal rings and numerous fasteners. The belts were richly decorated with shiny spikes and padlocks.

“Prince Arel, are you making a horse out of Valentine?” Kors grimaced, finally finishing his dinner. “Why did you decorate the boy with a harness? To make him look like your Beauty?

Arel laughed shortly and, as usual, imposingly stretched out:

“Yeees…”

“Royal blood flows in him,” Kors remarked accusingly, “you can’t treat him like that — turn him into a table, into a horse! You constantly beat him for no reason, there is no living place on him, look! He is very thin, with ribs sticking out, stomach sunken. Do you feed him at least a little?”

“I do,” said Arel.

“How? With leftovers from our table? Prince, you can’t do it! Valentine is half true black. He looks more like your father than you do. Or rather, you don’t look like Chester at all. And his mother, this girl, although she was a slave, was a pure-blooded black, and probably still virgin and innocent. If you compare all the facts of his birth, damn it, he is more noble than my Nik!”

“He is a slave,” Arel snapped harshly.

“That’s not how it’s done, prince! You had to either get rid of him right away, or, if it turned out so that you left him, act within the rules. And according to the law on the purity of blood, Valentine is supposed to have a better attitude. You have no right to humiliate a true black like that!”

“I do what I want,” said Arel.

To this, Kors merely shook his head and, flashing his cigarette case, lit a cigarette.

“Kors, you yourself suggested cutting off his nose and rubbing it with black paint, do you think this is the best attitude within the rules?” Arel asked slyly, and Kors choked on the smoke from his cigarette.

“Damn, I was just joking! You don’t understand jokes at all, you stupid handsome prince!”

“Ahhh, well, yeah,” Arel agreed.

Kors decided to change the subject.

“Arel, tell me what it’s like to be the last descendant of a royal family! I know that after the death of his eldest sons, Chester, with maniacal persistence, tried to leave an heir to the last.”

To Kors’ dismay, Arel only yawned in boredom, not experiencing any emotional outburst at the mention of his father:

“By the time I was born, my father didn’t give a shit about anything for a long time,” he replied indifferently, continuing to lie relaxed on the blanket of northern fox fur.

Arel was well aware that Kors was asking him about his family simply because he had nothing to do and wanted to entertain himself with one of his favorite activities — “interrogation”.

“You were born in the second ten heirs, I think so, right, prince?”