Checkmate, p.16
Checkmate, page 16
Theodori only laughed more as Luka became pointedly absorbed in his shoes. “Come now, Evland,” he said. “You were the one who asked the question.”
Luka resisted pointing out that Theodori hadn’t needed to answer so thoroughly. After all, the man had given Luka exactly what he had wanted, which was more information. And there was no need to look this… gift horse in the mouth.
But the information Luka learned of Theodori is painfully finite. Luka has yet to discover if this is the full extent of the Kiteran forces or what they will do if this invasion takes too long. Already, he has heard Octavian stress the actions the Elders might take if Theodori should spend too long on his siege, and Luka dreads what might come next should the Kiteran leadership decide if Theodori has failed.
Luka needs more information to satisfy his mother – his mother who has yet to reply to his messages, though he has dutifully and dangerously returned to the spot often, leaving ciphers in the form of sticks and stones, the same as he would on a Cesse board. He did consider if Linne Lockehart had been the one to orchestrate his attack, and it was only after a day and a half of playing out what her strategy might be to remove him from the board that he decided she would never do such a thing to her own son.
Perhaps his mother had yet to discover the cipher, but when he checked each day, he found the pile of stones and sticks disturbed. And as Luka is still alive, he can only assume the destruction was not done by Kiterans.
“Your move,” Theodori says, and Luka blinks. He takes in the board with a quick scan and places the piece without too much thought – a stupid mistake, he realizes when Theodori is unable to hide his triumphant grin.
The game concludes shortly thereafter. Pleased with himself, Theodori scoops pieces of his breakfast bread and cream into his mouth before asking his question around the food, “What do you know of the hopiar?”
“That’s a broad question,” Luka says, biding his time while he considers his answer.
“Don’t think.” Theodori shakes his head. “Just tell me.”
Luka glares at him. “Hopiar – they’re similar to our impyassi, correct? People who can turn into animals?”
“Into the blessed beast, the wolf, yes.”
“Well, into the blessed beasts – there was more than just the wolf who left the sacred kingdom, according to the lore.” Luka pauses, afraid he has spoken too much. Such texts that explained Siacchi’s old religion are not public knowledge, and it took much of his childhood to even discover as much as he has shared.
Theodori gestures for him to continue.
“Well, I don’t know much beyond that. You change when you lose control of your emotions and turn into a creature much larger than what is considered natural. You hunger for flesh – should I go on?”
Theodori’s eyes crinkle. “Please. I enjoy hearing what terrible tales the Siacchians are told of us and their own people to keep their children in line.”
Luka shakes his head. “That’s really all I know.”
Theodori’s amusement fades and he withdraws into himself, suddenly looking almost bashful. “So you do not know of the… of the mates?”
“I believe that’s a second question,” Luka replies quickly. He manages to control his expression as he holds Theodori’s intent gaze, only just hiding the flash of alarm that makes his heartbeat race.
Mates?
Why would he ask about such a thing?
Luka knows that’s a stupid question. He’s just not bothering to uncover the reason, like having found a rock in his path and leaving it unturned because he doesn’t want to see the worms beneath.
Theodori grumbles and resets the board. They are both eager to escape from their thoughts and return to the play. Both are eager to ask their next questions.
Theodori’s openings are familiar to Luka now; an attack with a soldier on the queen’s side, or a rapid onslaught of offense meant to put Luka on his heels. At first, the initial aggression stunned him, leaving him reeling in his defensive reply, but now Luka responds to the ferocity in turn. If Luka used such plays in a Cesse tournament, his moves would have been read as so violent, everyone would have seen him as foolish at best – stupid at worst.
But now? They win him the game.
It is perhaps because of his eagerness to overtake Theodori that leads to Luka repeating a move he showed Theodori in the past. A move that means he wants to kiss the man.
Luka realizes it the instant he releases his piece, and embarrassment shoots through him. But days have passed since Luka explained the move’s meaning – surely Theodori can’t still remember it now.
His stomach clenches as he gazes at Theodori through shuttered eyes. Beneath his shame, something akin to hysterical laughter shakes him. Never before has Luka been embarrassed by signaling something so chaste in a Cesse game.
That’s not to say he hasn’t made crude gestures to Theodori prior; plenty of times now he’s signaled how much he would love to choke on the man’s cock or ride him till they both lost themselves in each other’s flesh, but those were messages Theodori was incapable of understanding.
Theodori takes in the move with a smooth face, not even blinking as he scans the board. Relief cools Luka’s warm cheeks. He doesn’t know.
But then Theodori gazes at Luka with a slight quirk to his lips, his brown gaze deepening to honey amber in the early morning light, and Luka’s stomach tightens in a very different way.
Anticipation warms him. Luka wets his lips, and Theodori’s eyes trace the movement.
Just as quickly as the spell has been spun, Theodori shakes himself and Luka snaps back to reality. The reality where this is his captor and his enemy. The reality where Luka will need to use and betray this man to escape and help his mother win her position – help his city and country.
Theodori places his next piece. Anticipating the other man’s strategy, Luka ends the game in another dozen moves.
Theodori sighs as he tips his king. “Mate.”
Luka struggles to gather his thoughts as Theodori stares at him, unblinking. “Sevell Hunter Wolf-Born. What does Sevell mean?”
Theodori raises a brow. “That’s your question?”
“Yes. Answer it.”
Theodori chuckles. “So impatient,” he says darkly, and the coiled tension in Luka’s stomach tightens. “Vell, Sevell, Tesevell. They’re the different rankings for the hopiar leaders in the Kiteran military. Vell is reserved for our most honored leaders. Tesevell are for those who have only begun their careers.”
“Do you only allow hopiar to lead?”
Theodori, shockingly, shakes his head. Luka hides a smile as the man unknowingly answers Luka’s second question. “Humans are allowed to rise as well, but they are only commanders or lieutenants. They do not receive the names of honor.”
Clearly, Luka does not hide his grin well, for Theodori adds, “I only answer that because I thought it was a terrible question. I felt sorry for you. Poor Childes and his poor critical thinking skills.”
Luka scowls. “I don’t need that sort of edge. Mine was a perfectly reasonable question.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ll give you one free answer in return.”
Theodori leans toward him. He holds Luka’s gaze like he would a fragile thing. “Foxes.”
Luka blinks. “That’s – that’s not a question.”
“What are they?”
Having been fully prepared to answer more questions about mates, Luka finds himself annoyingly disappointed. “They’re mammals. Like a wolf but smaller and red.” His answer feels lacking, so he adds, “Siacchians are known for their annual fox hunts. They started after we began to celebrate Cesse and Thought, leaving behind our beastly ways.”
“How can you hunt when you can’t handle a weapon?”
Luka resists the urge to shudder when he thinks of the tools his father uses. “These are used only for hunting, not violence against others.”
“Certainly violence against foxes.”
“They have no higher intelligence. Some argue they can’t feel pain.”
“That’s surely not the case. Everything feels pain.” Theodori runs an absentminded finger over the scars roping his hands. He stares at something in the distance, eyes softening.
Luka resets the board, eager to escape not the pain glowing on Theodori’s face, but the bizarre pull he feels to comfort the man. Perhaps it is his lack of focus that causes him to lose the next match, because it certainly isn’t Theodori’s annoying skill.
Luka swears and grumbles, “Mate.” Theodori chuckles.
“I have never lost this much in my entire life,” Luka says.
“Neither have I.”
I’ve met my match, some distant thought whispers, but Luka shoves it away.
As if hearing the words, Theodori says, “What do you know of hopiar – impyassus – mates?”
“I… not much,” Luka begins. He struggles to recall the answer he dedicated a quarter of his thinking power to during the last game, but comes up with rambling threads of thought that lead to no real conclusion. “In Siacchi culture, an impyassus can have a… soul mate. One with whom their fate is eternally bound. The Toula, a figure of great mystical power, can determine who your mate is by reading the lines on your palms.”
He pauses, thoughts of Xyla as familiar as his mental Cesse board. Oddly, though he has braced himself for the usual ache that arises at her memory, all he feels is a distant sadness, like he has pressed on a nearly healed wound.
“Do you have one such mate?”
Luka jerks his head side to side. “N-no. I don’t have one.” He adds, the lies sour on his tongue and difficult to speak, “I’m not – I’m not a… an impyassus. Humans don’t have them.”
“Right.”
Theodori crosses his arms over his chest, biceps bulging. Lines gather on his forehead and bracket his scowl.
“Have I said something to displease you?” Luka asks.
Ignoring the question, Theodori says, “Do you think they’re real? These mates?”
Luka contemplates telling his captor he’ll have to win another game to earn that answer, but Theodori’s unhappiness is clear and Luka wants to fix it. “I did think that.”
“What happened?”
Luka draws his knees to his chest. “I had a… a friend,” he begins. “He thought he and this girl were meant to be. But they went to the Toula and learned that their fates were to be intertwined with another. She left him. They were both… heartbroken by the whole process.” He adds a hasty, “I think,” when he finds Theodori staring at him too intently.
“This… friend of yours,” Theodori says. “Does he still believe in mates?”
Luka closes his eyes. He thinks back to that moment, to the Toula telling him there was another who would hold his heart like Xyla once had. It was unimaginable then. He forces his lips to say, “I don’t know.”
When Theodori falls silent, Luka opens his eyes. The other man gazes at his own palms, as if trying to read his fate there. Luka asks hesitantly, “Do you believe in them? Er, mates, that is.”
Theodori looks everywhere but Luka’s face. “I learned a long time ago that such relationships would bring nothing but pain and weakness.”
Luka remains silent. He knows the quiet will draw the words out of Theodori.
Theodori continues, “The Elders use mates against us hopiar. They keep us split when we are at war; one at the capitol in Akull, another in the field, so we cannot rebel or ignore orders. Creating such a bond would open myself up to such weakness.” Theodori’s jaw flexes. “It doesn’t matter those who are mated are allowed to rise through the ranks faster. I could never do something like that to myself.
“Mates and friendships. Family.” Theodori shakes his head. “All are impossible for me if I want to accomplish my goal.”
“That’s…” Luka pauses when Theodori’s eyes flicker open, his tongue tripping against his teeth when he finds himself staring face to face with Theodori’s wolf. It peers from the man’s face, eyes gone from human to animal. Luka forces himself to continue, “That’s horrible.”
Theodori nods his assent, but Luka is not finished: “And foolish.”
When Theodori’s lips part to likely snap a reply, Luka rushes to say, “You can’t go through life without creating bonds. What happened with Xyla – what happened between my friend and his old lover, that happens when you open yourself up. But to go through life with no love, no friends, no family? You would be so alone – so – so empty. How can that be what you want?”
The veins in Theodori’s neck pulse. “I know what I want. I want power.”
“Power should give you the ability to love safely and protect those important to you.”
“Those very relationships drain that which I desire. They expose my weaknesses to my enemies.”
“Weaknesses? Enemies? Maybe you shouldn’t go around invading foreign countries. Then you wouldn’t have so many enemies to worry about.”
Theodori’s lips curl in a snarl. “That’s easy for a pacifist fool like you to say. You’re intelligent. You know the situation you’re in right now: you are my prisoner because you decided to never learn to protect yourself. Even with all the power my family had they were still lost to the demon princes of Balivartia because I wasn’t strong enough.”
Luka forces down the image of his own family dead. Would he mourn his own parents so much like Theodori has? Cassian’s death would ruin him, but Linne –
Luka rose to his knees, his finger whipping to point at the other man accusingly. “I never needed to learn to protect myself. In fact, no one would need to learn to protect themselves if people like you weren’t so eager to attack.”
“People like me?” Theodori laughs, the noise cold and dark. “Oh, Evland Childes. I have been nothing but kind to you. I have protected you from those who would harm you. Had it not been for people like me, you would be dead.”
“You’re the one who put me in danger in the first place.” Luka’s angry finger draws closer to Theodori’s face, each jabbing motion imbued with rage.
“Don’t you gesture at me like that.” Theodori rises to his feet, face looming close to Luka’s.
“Or what? Will you show me what people like you would do to people like me? Should I be scared of you, Theodori?”
Something flickers across Theodori’s face that looks akin to anguish, but Luka is too far gone to notice. The terrible monster housed within him scrambles against its walls, eager to climb to the surface. His arms itch as fur sprouts, and he quickly drops his accusatory finger, sliding his sleeves down to cover his loss of control.
Fear makes Luka’s words fall quicker. “Do you want me to grovel? Or are you looking to trick me? You’re trying to befriend me and use that relationship against me, I understand that, but do you not see the cruel irony of you preaching how close ties have damaged you when you’re trying to use them to damage me? You’re not protecting me – you’re actively seeking to hurt me!”
The hypocrisy of his words sting, but Luka is on a warpath.
“That’s –”
Luka presses even closer. He bares his teeth like the animal he is and always was. But instead of recoiling, Theodori only leans in.
“What is it you want from me, Theodori?” Luka hisses, so close his breath brushes Theodori’s blond locks. “My country’s secrets? My treachery? Or do you want something more?”
“Theo.”
Luka pauses. “What?”
Theodori is so close now, their noses brush. There is a tiny scar tugging on the upper corner of his lip, impossible to see from far away. Lips, which look so soft, so pink.
“Call me Theo.”
Luka scrambles for a response, but before he can reply, his mouth is busy with something other than words.
Theo presses those perfect lips against Luka’s in a kiss that stops time. Just as the Cesse board grounds him, Luka suddenly finds himself at peace like he’s never felt before.
This is what it means to have absolute control.
But just as he thinks that, something new lights within him. Something warm and sweet, something like that glowing feeling he gets in his chest on those early fall mornings, when he sits in his family’s garden and watches the sunrise’s weak light touch his Cesse board. Something that makes him both grateful and hopeful that he is there to witness it.
To feel it.
Theo’s lips are even softer than they appeared. They are gentle, like he’s afraid if he presses any harder, Luka might break.
But gentle has never been what Luka wanted.
He wants more.
Luka’s hands scramble, knocking Ravage pieces akimbo as he reaches for Theo. His fingers search exposed skin – skimming the round surface of a bicep, the hardened planes of the man’s chest – until they meet the scratchy surface of Theo’s face. He pulls the other man closer and moves beneath him, his hips rocking against Theo’s.
Theo hisses, and his tongue brushes Luka’s lips. Upon feeling the Kiteran’s hard cock through his thin robes, Luka groans.
Once before, Luka awoke before Theo had, and stared at the bulge large enough to make out even from beneath the blankets. Thereafter, for so many times now, he has envisioned taking it in his hands, his fingers – his mouth – sucking, touching, licking – and now he cradles that very cock with his own hips.
“Evland,” Theo groans into Luka’s wild lips.
And just like that, the world jerks back to horrible, screeching normal.
Luka yanks away. Panting breaths rake in and out of his heated lips, and he realizes his body is on fire. Never before has something as simple as a kiss made him want to rip off his clothes, made him want to –
No.
Luka shakes himself. This man is his captor. This man is his enemy.
Somehow, Luka manages to reign in his breathing and ignore the painful throb from his hardened cock.
He forces himself to look at Theo. Forces himself to take in the man’s flushed cheeks, dilated pupils – swollen pink lips. Luka raises his chin. “Well played.”
